Wanna do something interesting and useful ?
I met 2 separate people in Israel who were talking about a fascinating new political party they want to set up. The party would be called something like the direct internet party. The idea would be to set up a party with no agenda whatsoever. Anyone who votes for this party would then have a vote for each policy the party would put forward in the parliament (of their country) and this is how all decisions would be made. Its true democracy.
This idea is very interesting especially when you speak about it to poklitical animals. just see what they say.
Now in Israel, such a party could get seats because they have proportional representation but they have other hurdles to ensure that democracy is really demockery. Like the thousands of dollars it costs to set up a party. Or like the problem of infiltration of any good idea by the secret services.
I think it would be interesting to start to develop such parties all around the world, even if they dont get into power. It will send shivers down the spines of the elite I think but I maybe wrong (I usually am)
It could be that this is already happening like it is in israel but i couldn't find much action on google. I am suggesting that a few people set something like this up in each country rather than just speak about it.
Comments ?
14 comments:
Love it. I'd be interested in helping make it work.
but there is an agenda even though there isn't and agenda .. politics, democracy, it's all doomed by virtue of it's etymological inheritance and social structure .. but I may well be very wrong
Is participation equivalent to validation? Ought we rather govern ourselves without regard for the puppet show called government? Like Alice we shout 'but your all just a bunch of cards!' and the man is dragged out from behind the curtain and obliged to board his balloon.
Isn't that just direct democracy online? Therefore turns into sort of X Factor style mobocracy where minorities are shunted aside and the most money spent on policy campaign advertising gets the most votes and becomes law? Still favours media elite and populism who can control the masses.
some people say that direct democracy ended the old Greece power... (havent checked it myself though. i'm not surprised if it was caused by the bankers instead)
representational demo is also bad, because it is used right now in everywhere and we all know the results...
so it leaves only the Participatory democracy, which is widely talked about in Estonia, although it's just small-talk, only taken up before the elections...
and with todays system... the independent runners will never get to become ministers, because of the fear-propaganda by the politics-elite currently in power...
hi danny,
My name is Udi and I live in Israel, have been reading and watching your videos for quite some time. I am a researcher and a curator and I would really like to meet up with you and talk if there's any chance you're still in Israel.
please contact me if you're kind enough : udi.ede[at]gmail.
best,
Udi
Australia has a registered political party called Senator Online which works the way you described. I'm not sure in the present environment if such a system would lead to better governance (like someone said in the comments, it didn't work out so well for the greeks), but if we had a better educated less apathetic population who were not so easily influenced by propaganda and popular media then it probably has as good a chance of working as any other party!
PS - love your work, I've spent all day watching everything is ok youtube videos and smiling to myself.
A short note about the Greeks:
No, the idea that Direct Democracy (or just Democracy) finished off Greek greatness is due to the fact that practically ALL Greek history was written by oligarchs, From Thucydides onwards.
True, democratic Athens made some very bad choices during the Peloponnesian war. So did any other state, with any other kind of government, which ever went to war.
The truest reason why the Greek polis - including a great many oligarchic ones - lost their autonomy was that they couldn't unify to defeat Philippos II of Macedonia, let alone his son Alexander. On the other hand - the Persian empire also collapsed before Alexander. Was that also due to a bad form of government, a King losing to a King?
Then again, the Romans came and carried all before them. Polybius would have you think that their moderate republicanism was responsible for this. I'd say - look for the reasons in a brilliant application of "divide and conquer".
Hello Danny,
Thank you for spreading the idea. I have read the concerns of the other commentators. Direct democracy can work well, if the people can give educated choices. In Switzerland, where direct democracy is very succesful, citizens have the culture of dabating the issues before they vote.
Direct democracy movments around the world are well aware of this problem and are trying to find ways to solve it.
There are several solutions, like proxy-democracy, or Holocracy. Here in israel we are now devloping a software that will enable large groups to diccuses effectivly and fairly.
Thanks again,
Tal
It's so nice to see this idea of Direct Democracy spreading. Thanks for the feedback Danny.
fantastic idea, was discussing something similar with charlie other day, definately the way forward x
Great Idea.
I came up with this idea a few years ago. I decided against it on further reflection due to:
1. Majority rule (aka mob rule) neglects minorities.
2. Most people have extreme views. The death penalty would come back if current polls are anything to go by.
The real answer is for the most intelligent and compassionate people to rule. But nice people are to nice to enforce a form of dictatorship and intelligent people are too smart to perform a thankless task with many dangers, such as violent uprisings from the masses.
We are all brainwashed in to thinking democracy is best. It is merely the least worst form of governance, which I believe Churchill stated.
The other issue was also correctly stated by another poster, i.e. that people are too easily controlled by media for democracy to work. e.g
Daily Fail has a headline like "Lesbian unemployed muslim lives in a mansion with her forty kids while doing crack paid for by the NHS", and the next thing we know the democratic machine becomes xenophobic and tightens it's immigration policy, not because that's necessarily what people want but because that's what the media programs them in this way.
good stuff anonymous
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