by Max Barry

Latest Forum Topics

Advertisement

Post

Region: Ainur

Eldarion Telcontar wrote:Really? I'm pretty sure you could get 67% of Saudi Arabians to agree to kill all homosexuals in that country... Or, less hyperbolically, what happens if 67% of people vote to install a dictator and forever remove the right of voting?

If I'd thought through every possible outcome of this hypothetical system of governance which I'm not advocating for the immediate introduction of, I would probably already be being praised as the Martin Luther of democracy, and about 30 years older.
That said, there's equally nothing preventing a coalition of congressmen and senators totaling 67% of each house from doing either of those things. They don't do it because it's very difficult to get people to agree on things.
Illustrative example; hypothetically say that 70% of US citizens favor a constitutional amendment which renders homosexuality a crime punishable by death, and they are perfectly represented in both state and federal legislature. They can demand a national convention, because they will have hypothetically proportionate representation in each of these legislatures (or, if the 30% live solely within Texas, California, and Florida, basically 100% of the legislature in the other 47 states). This national convention will send this amendment to the states to ratify, which, since they are all 70% controlled by representatives favoring death for homosexuality, they will all ratify. America will become a nation in which homosexuality is punishable by death. Since they are also perfectly represented in Congress and the Senate, these could independently create this legislation, then send it on to the states for ratification, which they will then do.
By assuming literally the same scenario, of 70% of people agreed on something, as well as a guiding principle of the system of governance (that the representatives perfectly represent their people, which we know to be nonsense, but whatever), a system designed for checks and balances has allowed unthinkable legislation to pass.

However. Because you made a good point, here's an alternative.
Everyone has the right to vote, but given certain areas of legislation, they can designate other individuals as their representative. They may designate different individuals for different areas of legislation; someone may designate a...rocket scientist, or a physicist, for legislation about NASA, and a merchant banker for legislation about trade. These individuals may further delegate their voting rights, carrying all the votes delegated to them with them; perhaps the broadly-designated area is 'energy policy', and someone is an expert in oil production, but doesn't understand nuclear power. He may delegate his votes to someone who does understand nuclear power, specifically in that area.
This way, you don't have to spend any of your time looking at legislation; you have a representative (or a thousand representatives) to do that for you. Because you can revoke your designees at any time, this stops them from making votes that they know will harm you.
It removes the negatives of direct democracy (Joe Schmoe having the same role in legislation as Einstein, having to devote a large portion of your time to governance) and representative democracy (you're stuck with your choice until the next voting cycle, not agreeing with someone on every policy area), leaving only the positives.
Unfortunately, it's still only useful with an e-democracy system, because having to have everyone in the same room for a quorum just won't work for some issues, and there's no other easy way to have an accurate tracker of how many votes someone is carrying in what areas at all times without it.

ContextReport