No. Taste preference has a genetic component. Music preference depends in part on the shape of the ear canal. Those who are colorblind will have different color preferences, and perhaps more importantly different color tolerances.
More on point: intelligence, cooperativeness, authoritarianism, and many other politically relevant traits are influenced by genetics.
Finally, the same person in different circumstances will feel differently. Even if two people hat not only the exact-exact same education, but also genetics and shape and appearance and etc. etc., if the stood beside a mountain and a falling rock tore off one’s arm and not the other’s, that would generate some political disagreements.
Brennan’s a libertarian, so I’m sure he would disagree.
Why do you say that?
Also, what’s the distinction you mentioned before between plurality voting and independent/dependent voting?
I don’t think this idea is very useful, because you are assuming that the one best suited to win a popularity contest would be the one best suited to operate the governance of a nation. It assumes that the population at large understands governance and would prefer the individual best suited for that, rather than just voting for the one that made promises on the state’s behalf in turn for votes… which is identical to what is done already.
If the entire population is divided into small groups and each group nominates one to proceed to the next cycle of elimination, then all you have achieved is to produce a selective method based on popularity, or more likely, compromise between conflicting individuals. Again, identical.
I understand the appeal of fairness, and the endorphin rush provided by empowering the voiceless in this manner, but it strikes me as naive and generally ignorant.
Apaosha, your criticism targets all democratic systems, right? If so, we needn’t appeal to fairness in support, we just need to point to empirical outcomes: democracies do better, their people are happier, healthier, wealthier, the economies are more dynamic, innovation is greater, and they are the global powers. Democracy works.
As for this system in particular, I would bet that elected officials are on average more intelligent and better informed (even before getting into office) than the average non-elected citizen. If that’s true, then a series of elections would effectively choose more and more qualified voters.
Are we talking about voting on which picture to hang in the bedroom or what do have for dessert? Or are we talking about governing a nation? You seem to think they are on the same level (typical liberal presumption).
Governing a nation has nothing to do with one’s feelings else you have already lost.
If those traits are not being governed by one’s education, he is not qualified to be anyone’s governor.
Regardless of his claims or intent, if he is promoting the idea of having the few elite dictate to the masses, he is a socialist.
Because by that pyramid, iterated scheme, hidden manipulation is allowed to be the fundamental decision making influence (aka “serpent”). Once a serpent/manipulator has acquired power, there is no means to remove her or prevent her from dictating every subsequent vote in the future. Much like USA voting system, it all becomes merely veiled fascism.
What I meant by dependent voting is any series/cascaded scheme wherein elimination of options is progressively ensured until there is only one person/option left (whether strictly pluralistic or not). Each stage is dependent upon the prior stage, thus the probability of error is gradually increased with each stage.
Independent voting doesn’t eliminate options until the final vote (such as making only a single vote). An independent voting scheme can have many voting sessions wherein progress is made toward a larger majority until a win is declared by whatever percentage majority is chosen. It is much like listening to a series of debates and taking a vote after each debate until a clear majority has been recognized. The debating series is the means for distribution of information both to and from the candidates and voters. After seeing a large preference, a candidate can openly alter their promises to comply with popular choices (rather than simply lie and hope for positive results).
The best candidate will be able to inform the people as to why he stands for what he stands and thus cognitive understanding of the issues becomes far more distributed for sake of democratic voting.
No, my criticism is that your suggestion is not substantively different enough to have a different outcome, or to be worth considering alternatively. It’s based on idealism of all-inclusion and the assumption that every person’s opinion is of equal merit, which it is not, and the consequent assumption that the contribution of every opinion will reach the ideal outcome… rather than forcing all down to the level of the lowest common denominator, a popularity contest. The fairness of the largest number is how you manufacture your ideal system.
With regard to the larger point, Democracy is declining as it did in the past with the equivalent of the Roman Republic, for much the same reasons. Idealism gives way to factionalism and factionalism in turn gives way to simply taking turns when the ideological conflicts resolve or congeal. It has a lifespan and that is not indefinite. The transition to Caesarism might happen in our lifetimes, it might not, but there won’t be much of a difference living in a high-tech monarchy/empire/autocracy/etc.
This can be seen in today’s USA.
Democracy is not an impediment to will to power, it just defines the environment and the manner in which power is practiced and the people exploited. In the modern context, media is used to manufacture public opinion which is then applied to a simple binary choice of candidates which are both safe in terms of their relation to the system. In effect, democracy is an efficient form of human domestication. The happiness of the greatest number, yes.
Modern improvements in terms of medicine, economics, innovation etc are not the result of democracy, but mostly the result of the European people, a lot of whom were living in monarchies. I’m not sure how cynical you are being here, but I am not advocating an ideal or preferred system of government, just criticizing your suggestion.
Don’t be so all-or-nothing. I’m saying subjective values influence the notion of the ideal state, and that those subjective ideals are influenced by innate, a-rational factors. No amount of education or knowledge will produce agreement on them, because they aren’t governed by education or knowledge, they’re governed by taste.
Ah, I see, you meant “socialist” not as a political position on the means of production, but as a meaningless epithet that a crotchety old veteran might shout at someone passing on the sidewalk whose shirt wasn’t tucked in. In that case, sure, have at it, Brennan’s a socialist and a pinko hippie slacker.
Again, this is only true if you say there’s one right answer and every other answer is wrong. If there are multiple acceptable answers and degrees of rightness, then the probability of error can be decreased with each stage.
This seems backwards. Take a system similar to that in the US, and then suppose the “best” candidate is fairly moderate. If we have a left party and a right party, and those parties vote in separate primaries and then in the general election, the odds are very good that the candidate elected will be quite far from the best. A moderate voter won’t be voted as the nominee for either party, because each party will vote for a candidate representative of the party, so farther left or right than the population as a whole. Then in the general election, the best candidate is excluded, and the voters are forced to choose between two candidates who are poorly representative. Requiring a candidate to be preferred by both the majority of certain partisans and a majority of the whole electorate seems to guarantee that one or the other will be let down.
Perhaps, though, this is again our disagreement about the meaning of “best”.
Ah, then perhaps you would like epistocracy, which disenfranchises those who aren’t intelligent enough or well-enough informed to add constructively to a democratic vote.
I’d argue that democracy is on the wax, and that it’s a problem. Trump’s post-truth politics is exemplary of a trend towards democratization beyond what makes sense to democratize. Most voters have very little idea what policies will advance their interests, but their votes are weighted just the same. But that is an empirical question, it’s not a matter of popular opinion.
That isn’t anti-democratic to say, I think values should be chosen democratically (see my disagreement with James about the possibility of a “best” candidate), but democracy has us voting on a combination of values and means, which is counterproductive to both.
^ Yes, to these points Carleas raised, these seem correct to me as well.
The society of pure direct democracy in all issues and practical matters would collapse almost overnight. Democracy works precisely because it distance “the people” from the decision making processes yet also abstractly ties them to it, through the mechanism of voting. Other than voting there are other ways to get politically involved, but those require more effort and time commitment, hence only people with that passion and higher interest will pursue them. It is more or less a continuum.
Politicians make stupid decisions because people can be stupid sometimes. Also because politics tempts one to personal gain by corrupt and immoral means, or politics skews one’s values due to warped incentives like fear or anxiety about being voted out of office or disliked, publically blamed for something, etc.
We do not democratize any other decision making process in society, certainly no important ones. Should this drug be approved for public use? Should this road be built here rather than there? Should these funds be used on X research rather than on Y research? Should we teach creationism or not in school? Should we still have slaves? Well why not just hold a public vote on these things? No, it doesn’t work that way, so why would matters of political importance be any different? Should we have invaded Iraq? Would putting that question to the people have generated a solid answer either way, or even more so, a true rationale and understanding of the situation? No.
You need a team of dedicated experts who can invest serious time and interest in a subject, in order to get to understand that subject. Every layperson thinks they can sit around on their couch with their smartphone and know how to conduct foreign policy better than the president, for example, but that is mostly just empty vanity. This sort of mentality is part of the basis of the false populism of Trump and other idiotic nationalists today. We all like to think we are some kind of super genius pretty much all of the time, but also pretty much all of the time that just isn’t the case. True understanding takes serious commitment and investment of time and energy, which in practicality equates to heavy sacrifice in other areas. Most people don’t want to sacrifice like that, so they just read the headlines and become “headline thinkers” or “headline philosophers”.
In general I’m criticizing your suggestion because it creates more problems than it solves and does not solve the problems it attempts to address.
If Iterated Voting was implemented, then the path to power for people with ambition would be through forming the culture into a 2-party system and to force each voter in each voting group to vote along party lines. So instead of deciding on a candidate towards the beginning of the election, you would instead have to draw from a more broad collection of individuals of a certain type, to ensure the desired outcome.
This would necessitate an increase of control of the thoughts and opinions of the average voter in order to produce as many of this desired type as possible and to minimize the chances that undesirables are selected. So my problem with this is that the more you try to empower the voter, the more you try to give power to an individual citizen, the less freedoms they will experience in their everyday lives and the more attempts at ideological control they will be subject to from an elite who properly see them as a resource to be exploited, as cattle.
A king’s relationship to a peasant is distant; as long as the one pays his taxes to the other, they have almost no relationship. If, however the peasant has a vote which can determine the king’s position in society, then the king will immerse himself in the peasant’s life every minute of every hour of every day.
Good points. However, realistically people are already divided into ideological camps that are mostly polarized – Left and Right. If we had iterated voting, hypothetically speaking, people would already be arguing their respective party ideological positions even if they were just doing this implicitly based on how they already think.
I also see an opposite pressure as the one you point out, namely that people would as individuals focus more on the issues that are more immediate and important to them. The ideological sway of aligning to a party might fall away, because the individual person isnt voting for a final candidate but just for the fellow members of his or her group in the moment. For example, in a group of 12 people, each person gets to speak their mind and then all of them vote, the voting consists of the fact that each person in the group ranks each other person (and themselves) from least to most desirable to advance, so each person gets a scorecard with 12 blank spaces and writes the names of the others and themselves somewhere in those lines.
I think this setup is just too immediate and “down to earth” to lend itself to the kind of ideological party affiliation pressure that youre talking about. The 2 party system might try to increase its ideological mind-control over everyone, but once you get down to brass tacks at the level of actual human beings sitting around a table together, in small groups, the real issues are going to take priority. Plus, have you ever actually tried to have a conversation with someone in person about politics? It rarely stays at the (empty) ideological level of the Left or Right slogans and rhetoric, it inevitably moves into more concrete, real terrain.
The whole idea of education is to include into cognitive resolve, all that makes any difference. If any two entities have exactly the same education, they each believe the exact same things concerning what needs doing, assuming they are not insane.
Yes, most probably.
Exactly incorrect. No matter how many correct answers there are, the more decision making steps, the more error is introduced. I thought you understood more math than that.
You missed the point. In a series debate election method, the moderate is not eliminated in the first round or any round, as he is in common plurality voting. You are arguing against yourself.
So you also believe in a “best”, yet argue that all is relative.