Direct democracy? We have the technology!

[scryer]

Well your idea needs some refining but I really love the big picture that you are painting here . I'm late to the party and I'm not reading the entire thread as I am going to just plainly respond to the original idea; so I apologize if some of my points have already been discussed.

Originally Posted by Acajack

What if we as citizens were allowed to debate most things and vote on them directly? Perhaps a certain amount of reading and participation in debates would be required, and then all of the citizens who went to the trouble of getting involved (meeting minimum criteria) would get to vote?

Great idea! However the implementation of this idea would be completely contingent upon the technology used to convey each individual's opinion. Meaning that it would have to be super secure technology that gets regularly audited and monitored for any cyber attacks, and yet be super accessible by the public. I do have to wonder if Blockchain voting would answer some of these security concerns?

[Komatiite]

I've been playing around with this idea for a few years now to the extent that it may be the next novel I write, it being a sci-fi.

My conception includes a few features which may or may not have been raised earlier in the thread:

• Merit weighting based on education/experience
• Iterative voting to let the debate/issue emerge probabilistically
• Exclusionary conditions to prevent/mitigate identarian movements

[scryer]

Originally Posted by Komatiite

I've been playing around with this idea for a few years now to the extent that it may be the next novel I write, it being a sci-fi.

My conception includes a few features which may or may not have been raised earlier in the thread:
[LIST][*]Merit weighting based on education/experience

Is that a specific point of conflict in your novel? Because having a system reward merits based on education and experience is a little classist.

[Komatiite]

Originally Posted by scryer

Is that a specific point of conflict in your novel? Because having a system reward merits based on education and experience is a little classist.

Are you asking for the novel itself or using that as a frame to challenge the notion of merit being applied to the democratic process?

[scryer]

Originally Posted by Komatiite

Are you asking for the novel itself or using that as a frame to challenge the notion of merit being applied to the democratic process?

The latter .

[Komatiite]

Originally Posted by scryer

The latter .

I was going to rudely invite you to be direct next time, but the friendliness of your smile emoji has disarmed me.

Nonetheless, adhering too blindly to the liberal notion of equality is naïve and problematic. Not only is a bad reading of history – in Canada, federally all women received suffrage before all men, aboriginals only received the right to vote in the 1960s; and in the US, completely ignoring slavery, states may not allow felons to vote – it’s also unscientific and destructive.

We are not ‘equal’ in our capacities or abilities, nor do we inherently deserve ‘equal’ participation on matters of material policy that affect the common good, especially when 35% of Canadian adults don’t care enough about their enfranchisement to exercise it. Moreover, imagine being the person who legitimately believes that the uneducated Boomer promoting climate denialism on Facebook should have an equal say on climate policy as would an active climate researcher with a doctorate. Completely baffling, that’s a policy rooted so outside of reason as to be seditious.

You mention class as though you might be a Marxist - very admirable - but if we accept liberalism as a suitable option for the future Canadian state then we would continue to accept merit in all aspects of our lives from our entertainment and educations options, to how we are employed, to who is selected for cabinet. Voting is a logical, reasonable extension of this paradigm. After all, what do public education and citizenship exams represent but a nod toward enfranchisement merit?

Ah, but surely in our post-modern world where the great, modern, ideological project of Liberalism has been consigned to the dustbin of history we alone should hamfist principle into a hypothetical direct democracy like a toddler who cannot align a square block with a round hole. Buddy, even the social justice identarians - those weak-kneed Ressentiments - have abandoned ‘equality’ in favour of equity.