Thanks for the cogent and concise summary of the copious options for reshaping politics. We need more talk like this. Down with dystopian nihilism. A better world is possible!
The entire party system is what needs to go. A parliamentary style system with tons of competing factions would be more appropriate. The voters don't decide who the candidates are, unelected party officials do. Voting is a civic duty and should be mandatory, but the candidates must also be decent and non corrupt which is impossible currently as the party system self selects for the most morally bankrupt people it can find. You cannot be the president of America without becoming a war criminal and abetting genocide. The only people who sign up for that are narcissists who think their power is more important than other people's lives.
> Liquid democracy is a meritocratic mechanism that lets delegation flow freely across the population instead of being represented by career politicians. On trade policy, I might delegate to my friend who studied macroeconomics, who passes it on to his professor, who hands it to a published expert on the long term effects of tariffs.
Is that not how things are done currently? Don't you discuss policies with your macro friends and let that inform your voting decisions? Expert knowledge should already be flowing downwards through a wild mix of formal and informal institutions. Is liquid democracy really much more than trying to formalize (or even gamify) an organic system of immense complexity?
That's not a defense of the way things are, I agree with you on the vision of more ambitious, more vital, and in turn much more powerful democracy. But bespoke voting mechanisms won't change much I assume. Still, it might be worth trying, I'd really like to see it implemented as a test in some cities, regions, cantons, states or whatever. Not because I have high expectations in the experiments, but for the sake of experimentation itself.
Palaeolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology.
Thanks for the cogent and concise summary of the copious options for reshaping politics. We need more talk like this. Down with dystopian nihilism. A better world is possible!
Wow, I may have to actually read this post carefully to the end!
related to the NGO stack, do you follow @escapekey here on Substack?
The entire party system is what needs to go. A parliamentary style system with tons of competing factions would be more appropriate. The voters don't decide who the candidates are, unelected party officials do. Voting is a civic duty and should be mandatory, but the candidates must also be decent and non corrupt which is impossible currently as the party system self selects for the most morally bankrupt people it can find. You cannot be the president of America without becoming a war criminal and abetting genocide. The only people who sign up for that are narcissists who think their power is more important than other people's lives.
> Liquid democracy is a meritocratic mechanism that lets delegation flow freely across the population instead of being represented by career politicians. On trade policy, I might delegate to my friend who studied macroeconomics, who passes it on to his professor, who hands it to a published expert on the long term effects of tariffs.
Is that not how things are done currently? Don't you discuss policies with your macro friends and let that inform your voting decisions? Expert knowledge should already be flowing downwards through a wild mix of formal and informal institutions. Is liquid democracy really much more than trying to formalize (or even gamify) an organic system of immense complexity?
That's not a defense of the way things are, I agree with you on the vision of more ambitious, more vital, and in turn much more powerful democracy. But bespoke voting mechanisms won't change much I assume. Still, it might be worth trying, I'd really like to see it implemented as a test in some cities, regions, cantons, states or whatever. Not because I have high expectations in the experiments, but for the sake of experimentation itself.
Would be better off with kings and queens
There still are some around, have you compared these ways of life for yourself yet?
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cfRAqzadyG2JDN4Co/llms-may-enable-direct-democracy-at-scale