tell me MS isn't evil

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 11:44 pm

If you can make that ID biometric & definitively tie it to a person, i.e. he can't give it away if he wants to, then I'll say ID would go a long way (the other shit that implies notwithstanding). If we're talking a plastic card w\ a magnetic strip or a chip, I'm less optimistic.

Cards get passed around or counterfeited, chips/strips get read & decoded, hell, even thumbprint scanners can't be trusted unless there's a human operator to make sure they aren't getting cheated.

Privacy doesn't come free. System verification of private user actions isn't free. Hell, this is distributed system verification of private user actions.

Centralized, public actions are easy to verify. If the front porch vote was still around in 2000, that hanging chad shyte wouldn't even be in play. As you said, though, we decided to make a trade.

Post by **GORDON** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 12:04 am

All right, fuck it.

One dollar, one vote.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 12:33 am

That's kind of what we have now.

Post by **TPRJones** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 10:39 am

Malcolm wrote:Unless you'd like to turn it into "Election Week" instead of "Day" that's not a-happenin'.

Here in Texas it mostly is already. We've got two weeks of Early Voting, and well over half of voters go before Election Day to avoid all the crowds.

Post by **TPRJones** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 10:47 am

Malcolm wrote:
TheCatt wrote: We're a republic for a reason. Democracy would be worse than what we've got.

The only historical examples I've seen of working direct democracies involved relatively small numbers of people. There's too many fucking people.

...

1) There's certain folk in the world that are not to be trusted in certain matters. They are destructive creatures that contribute less than they leech when left to their own devices in that area.

Too many people is mostly a technical and design issue. A majority is still a majority. As to debate, it would take some careful design to come up with a way for everyone to feel they've had their say and still make the output at least reasonably sensible. But I bet there are ways to get that done, and even if not perfect it would still be more effective than the current system of telling your representative, who mostly ignores the clamoring masses in favor for a handful of key "voters" (read as "contributors").

And as to 1), for me that describes a fair number of politicians. At least with everyone who wants to be involved able to be involved, you could make a push to get your friends and family that are sane to go and vote and thus dilute the influence of those idiots/psychopaths.

Finally one additional advantage a direct system would have: more gridlock. It would be damn near impossible to strike deals with the opposition. No more "I'll give you an army base in your district if you vote for my bill you hate" bullshit. And we need more gridlock, because the more Congress gets done the more they spend on bullshit.

Edited By TPRJones on 1248533282

Post by **GORDON** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 10:54 am

What about voters who don't have time, or don't care, to educate themselves about the shit they are voting on? That's one of my concerns. At least with a representative they supposedly debate and learn about the legislation for on which they are voting. Yes, I realize a lot don't, but that still doesn't mean any significant percentage of 280 million people in this country are going to learn about every issue before they vote on it. This doesn't even touch on the obfuscation of the language on most local laws I vote for, so you can't really figure out if a "yes" vote on an issue is actually for, or against that law.

I think the great majority of regular folks, intelligent or not, don't have the time to educate themselves on the issues.

Maybe make a bylaw... if 50% of people don't vote at all on an issue, then it cannot pass? This would keep the busy/confused people from voting at all, and they can either sell the bill harder or educate peeps better. Also would keep 10 laws a day from getting passed.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 12:14 pm

TPRJones wrote:And as to 1), for me that describes a fair number of politicians. At least with everyone who wants to be involved able to be involved, you could make a push to get your friends and family that are sane to go and vote and thus dilute the influence of those idiots/psychopaths.

We've got the means to dilute their influence already. As a society, we appear to have rejected using it. If 90% of the eligible voters would go march on D.C. or their local state capital, they'd get brought to their knees.

Post by **GORDON** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 12:20 pm

Malcolm wrote:
TPRJones wrote:And as to 1), for me that describes a fair number of politicians. At least with everyone who wants to be involved able to be involved, you could make a push to get your friends and family that are sane to go and vote and thus dilute the influence of those idiots/psychopaths.
We've got the means to dilute their influence already. As a society, we appear to have rejected using it. If 90% of the eligible voters would go march on D.C. or their local state capital, they'd get brought to their knees.

I don't think even 25% of eligible voters could fit into DC without spilling into the burbs.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 12:21 pm

GORDON wrote:What about voters who don't have time, or don't care, to educate themselves about the shit they are voting on? That's one of my concerns. At least with a representative they supposedly debate and learn about the legislation for on which they are voting. Yes, I realize a lot don't, but that still doesn't mean any significant percentage of 280 million people in this country are going to learn about every issue before they vote on it. This doesn't even touch on the obfuscation of the language on most local laws I vote for, so you can't really figure out if a "yes" vote on an issue is actually for, or against that law.

I think the great majority of regular folks, intelligent or not, don't have the time to educate themselves on the issues.

Jackpot. There aren't enough hours in the day to familiarize yourself w\ the inherent complexity of being part of a gov't in charge of hundreds of millions of people. Even if you break shit up into committees like Congress, it's still difficult. Our senses can't process that amount of info that quick.

Either reduce the amount of info or increase info uptake.

Edited By Malcolm on 1248538908

Post by **TPRJones** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 2:46 pm

GORDON wrote:At least with a representative they supposedly debate and learn about the legislation for on which they are voting.

I can't imagine you posted that sentence with a straight face.

Post by **TPRJones** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 2:51 pm

GORDON wrote:What about voters who don't have time, or don't care, to educate themselves about the shit they are voting on? That's one of my concerns.

No problem. I can solve that with two items: 1) a link is available right there on the voting page to go to information resources, including links to the most vocal critics & supporters of whatever the item is, and 2) before voting on a topic a short quiz is given on the topic - say five questions, not difficult but you'd have to be at least passingly familiar with the issue to get the answers - and if you don't get at least 80% of those questions right you don't vote yet and are shunted to the information page to learn about the topic (plus a little "please vote responsibly!" pop-up window gently calls you out on your stupidity).

Does that mean fewer people will bother to participate? Yes. But I don't see that as a bad thing.

There aren't enough hours in the day to familiarize yourself w\ the inherent complexity of being part of a gov't in charge of hundreds of millions of people. Even if you break shit up into committees like Congress, it's still difficult. Our senses can't process that amount of info that quick.

Good. Not everyone should be voting on every topic anyway. Many items will only effect certain groups of people, and only those with a stake in the issue are likely to care enough to go to the trouble.

Edited By TPRJones on 1248548091

Post by **TheCatt** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 3:05 pm

The problems there are:
1) The people who "care" are the people who want the government to do something. So we'll end up with more government.
2) People will vote on everything. Hell, I have no idea what the difference between my soil and water conservation representative choices were, but I chose one.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 9:18 pm

The day we can all get petabyte bandwidth jacked directly into our brains, this might change.

"Oops, need to prepare for the elections ... download complete. Yep, all the candidates still suck & they're still trying to take my money legally."

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 9:25 pm

TPRJones wrote:2) before voting on a topic a short quiz is given on the topic - say five questions, not difficult but you'd have to be at least passingly familiar with the issue to get the answers - and if you don't get at least 80% of those questions right you don't vote yet and are shunted to the information page to learn about the topic (plus a little "please vote responsibly!" pop-up window gently calls you out on your stupidity).

One man's "passingly" is another's "indepth." People get bitchy if you suggest literacy tests for voting. & that's one more thing to verify now to make sure the "disenfranchised" voters aren't getting shitty quizzes.

Post by **TPRJones** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 2:07 am

Still, I can dream.