I've been on enough condo co-ownership associations to understand that people vote for their own interests, rarely for the greater good. Do you think that bias might be overcome in your hypothetical proposal?
In a sense, I almost hope everyone *would* go with their self interest. After all, recall how Adam Smith felt that a healthy free market is driven by self interest (as long as we all remember that decent civic behavior and respect for property is also in our self interest).
But I think the key would be in providing solid, fair, and objective context in a format that's likely to be consumed before votes are cast.
From my perspective, anything that impedes the growth and reach of leviathan is positive. Democracies all have a shelf life due to the effects of Alexander Tytler's thesis, essentially that two wolves and a sheep get to vote on what's for dinner. Unconstrained by our intentionally mercurial Constitution, Canadian statism is continually in ascendance regardless of which group of Jacobins and Bolsheviks or those that compromise with them is in power. Direct democracy tools such as recall, referenda, and initiatives all currently have overly high thresholds of signatures required to be put on ballots. Whether or not an online version as described by you might be positive would likely depend on the state of the culture and their interest in participation. Again, the most I could hope for is a slowing down of the journey to neo-feudalism thanks to the west being culturally and institutionally captured, and therefore politically in pursuit of.
I've been on enough condo co-ownership associations to understand that people vote for their own interests, rarely for the greater good. Do you think that bias might be overcome in your hypothetical proposal?
In a sense, I almost hope everyone *would* go with their self interest. After all, recall how Adam Smith felt that a healthy free market is driven by self interest (as long as we all remember that decent civic behavior and respect for property is also in our self interest).
But I think the key would be in providing solid, fair, and objective context in a format that's likely to be consumed before votes are cast.
From my perspective, anything that impedes the growth and reach of leviathan is positive. Democracies all have a shelf life due to the effects of Alexander Tytler's thesis, essentially that two wolves and a sheep get to vote on what's for dinner. Unconstrained by our intentionally mercurial Constitution, Canadian statism is continually in ascendance regardless of which group of Jacobins and Bolsheviks or those that compromise with them is in power. Direct democracy tools such as recall, referenda, and initiatives all currently have overly high thresholds of signatures required to be put on ballots. Whether or not an online version as described by you might be positive would likely depend on the state of the culture and their interest in participation. Again, the most I could hope for is a slowing down of the journey to neo-feudalism thanks to the west being culturally and institutionally captured, and therefore politically in pursuit of.