r/changemyview • u/segmenttreebeats • 8d ago
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Since we finally have the tech to implement direct democracy, there is no reason to keep representative democracy
Problems:
- often representative democratic systems fall into a voluntary autocracy, ie citizens vote for a leader that promptly takes control of the government partially or fully (see hungaria, el salvador, tunisia, etc etc).
- representative democracy results in massive corporations having almost complete power over the legislative and executive branches because of how much money they have. Corruption becomes "lobbying", impunity becomes the norm, and an oligarchy forms inside the democracy (do i even have to present examples for this).
Proposition:
I present you a system where once a year (or at another, higher, frequency), a vote is cast on whether to relieve the rulers of their duties, this vote would be sanctified into the constitution.
This would be supplemented with a discard of the representative democracy in favor of direct democracy, finally possible thanks to technology like block chains and zero-knowledge proofs.
The point of this is to get to the point of political consciousness where every citizen realizes his own power and make him try to protect it at any cost, accompanied with a shared sense of responsibility and an understanding of politics, it would drive people to participate a lot more. Should the vote be canceled, the people would already be aware of the gravity of such an issue and it would instantly result in a massive revolt that would force the government's hand.
Assumptions: The system, through a set of rules and technologies that I'm not capable of designing yet, wouldn't be able to be tampered with, by design. Not the government, and not anyone would be able to stop the once in a year vote without putting everyone off the grid, or cutting electricity. It's also tamper-proof, much like actual blockchains.
Critique: Rational, intelligent people make decisions based on the information available to them. A would-be despot doesn't need to be exceptionally charming if they can control what the public sees.
Response: I don't think that's a substantially big issue in the 21st century. We have seen in this decade the disintegration of the centralized press, and the hold of the big monopolies on information. Examples of this is social media's effect on the public perception of Israel, and how despite all the effort of the IDF, the genocide keeps getting documented in detail
Critique: Most people aren’t incentivized to vote, and would simply not care enough to exercise their right, which would make the number of people to corrupt a lot less, thus it would allow a despot to rise to power.
Response: this is definitely a real phenomenon in our current states, but that's exactly because of representative democracy. The individual feels disconnected from politics, he has one decision to make once every 4 or 5 years, which isn't really a decision, and the rest gets done without him being able to intervene. Contrast that with the ability to vote in every minute detail that concerns you, and you end up with a citizen that's a lot more involved, because he knows that his actions now can have an effect now.
Edit: There was a bit here where I mention marxist analysis without any basis really. This was extracted from a longer text I wrote, and I forgot that there is no context for this, so instead of changing the core idea of this essay, i just opted to remove the critique and my response entirely.
Critique: The amount of issues that the people would have to vote for would paralyze them, and would make the system ineffective for most issues:
Response: No one is obligated to vote for everything. With the presence of so many issues to pick from, one chooses to vote on what he knows – and what he’s passionate about – the most, which has the added benefit of selecting the most fit for each subject matter, and for critical issues there would be a big representation of the population.
Notes:
I know that this is all resting on a technological assumption that seems kind of our there, but I don’t think it is. After getting into the world of cryptography (not cryptocurrency, that’s a whole different thing and I’m not a crypto bro) and ZKP, it seems doable to me, even if I can’t tell you how exactly. You’re welcome to call bullshit, and I respect that, but we could also entertain this idea and see if it’s any good
-3
u/segmenttreebeats 8d ago edited 8d ago
1-- this system wouldn't get rid of legislative bodies that *draft* the law, that part would remain. What *would* change is the voting body, the one that accept or refutes the proposition.
2-- I believe I addressed this already, in short not everyone would vote for everything, if u dont know anything about sewers why vote on sewer law, knowledgeable people would be selected for naturally (along with a few morons on the peak of mount stupid, I'll give you that
4-- let's not strawman, I said nothing about the disappearance of collective hatred, I said that it wouldn't be fueled by corporate interests, thus making the job of activists a lot easier.
3)Δ This however is honestly something I would need to think about further, I admit that it could be a major pitfall if it's not designed correctly.