Your Democracy Sucks - the Borda Count and Liquid Democracy
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- Опубліковано 14 жов 2024
- Democracy is cool, but first-past-the-post voting is not cool. So, let's use better democracy systems like the Borda Count and Liquid Democracy, how about?
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Hey everyone, I"ve had a few people point out that Borda can have some flaws, for instance it might not weed out bad candidates very well.
That's mostly true of "out of the box" Borda count systems, but the Borda count formulas can be customized to suit the situation. For instance, by giving first-rank candidates far more points than last-ranked candidates, or not giving candidates below a certain rank any points at all, etc.
I didn't want to go into too much extraneous detail like that, this was more about showing folks that there are better alternatives to the First Past the Post system. Out-of-the-box Borda counting is not perfect for all situations but it's a step forward.
What's YOUR favorite voting method? :D
Have everyone rank their favorite episodes of GLOW, then based on how correct they are (cross referenced with a master list of the proper ranking of both seasons together), we can give each voter a weighted score, to be applied to the legislation of their choice.
Since GLOW is objectively the best show ever to be created, this system should work in perpetuity, since it's a reasonable measure of a citizen's intelligence for them to be tasked with ranking episodes of what is, essentially, as close to the fount of the Platonic One as we'll ever manage.
Kinda like IQ tests, but THIS time we've found an objective standard against which we can measure brain power!
Hey Emerican you REALLY should read the Dicactors Handbook. It goes in depth on how certain public officials win elections in the US by influencing maybe a few dozen people because thats all who show up or swing vote in local elections. Also Vox did a whole presentation on how Oscars are now given to movies about movie makers because everyone's second favorite option is always the beige of the candidates and good movies like Moonlight are by their very nature divisive. So too with great world leaders, FDR was really loved by some and really hated by others. Same with Hitler. However the meh candidates never don't evoke anything. That was more or less Obama in the later years of his presidency. Quite, smart towing the line and playing the long game. Borda counts would likely favor the meh candidates everyone's second is the nuetral. Additionally we should take note that Trump happened specifically because of the anti democratic measure of the electoral college. And much of US politics look the way they do because of very pointed targeting in ways to dissuade voters from participating and so on. In this respect I would actually go with the rank choice system but do away with electoral college and make voting much easier to make our collective politics less hideous.
Your ice cream example melts pretty fast, you can buy boxes of ice cream with dividers allowing for all four flavors, checkmate comrade.
@Owen Symes: Glow is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution
@Sobit Asadullah: Works great as long as your ballot box isn't stuffed with robots and scammers like on Amazon :D
@Mirza: I will definitely check it out, sounds fascinating!!!
@Echonova21: FOILED AGAIN *deletes UA-cam channel*
My favourite voting system changes depending on the situation, but one that works well for reaching a consensus is the Dot System. Everyone gets the same amount of dot stickers. The options being voted upon are posted on a board. You can put as many dots as you like under your preferred options. For example, if I have five dots I might put 3 under Option 1, 2 under Option 2, and 0 under Option 3.
Obviously, this takes time, and depending on when your turn is, you will be more or less able to manipulate the outcome so that it is closer to the one you would prefer.
Another system is the Will Want Won't List. This one requires a lot of trust (it's designed for intimate relationships, but I think it could work in more social settings as long as there is a high level of trust). Everyone writes down a list of what they are willing to do, what they want to do, and what they won't do. Any item that is universally wanted goes in the Master Want list. Any item that is either universally willed or partly willed/partly wanted goes on the Master Will list. Any item that is on even one individual's Won't list goes on the Master Won't list. The Master list is dynamic, and can change at any time, provided these rules are respected.
The problem with this system is that, if someone really wants something that other people either don't want or are kinda tepid about, that person can manipulate the outcome by putting all of the other options in their Won't List, forcing the more compromising people to concede to their will. This is why this system requires trust between all the people operating within it.
...I hate bannana flavored ice cream.
I legitimately love vanilla, expecially when it's vanilla bean ice cream and not just vanilla extract. It's such a complex and robust flavor.
(I agree, but don't tell that to the Mega Men)
are you ron? lol i agree
I always go for vanilla, I don't understand why Americans refer to anything ordinary as 'vanilla' and vanilla (the flavour) as 'plain'. Plain ice-cream would taste like milk, not vanilla.
How is banana even in the top 4 choices?!? 1. Mint 2. Vanilla 3. Chocolate. Don''t even get me started on Vanilla with cookies or other stuff in it!
Gues, get with the times! Let me tell you about the revolutionary flavour of strawberry! I cast it as my first vote and you should too!
Sorry, Mario.
Your democracy is in another castle!
"As a Neapolitan ice cream coalition supporter, I find your proposal bananas!" - Centrists, probably.
Great video as always though. You really present the concepts in a very easily digestible way.
That side though, what do you think about parliamentary systems? There's a very interesting video that shows how it can help for the basis for a solid participative democracy by "azurescapegoat" using the example of Cuba.. Have you seen it?
I have seen some of azure's videos but not that one! I'll check it out now. I do think parliamentary systems are generally far superior than the shenanigans we have in the US!
I think the fact is there is no one silver-bullet democratic system that will suit all purposes, but the point is to suit the systems to the situations, and step one is obviously learning that we have more options than silly ol' first-past-the-post!
But srsly Neapolitan ice cream is the compromise we deserve when it comes to ice cream
Neopolitan? Hogwash. We must institute the spimoni compromise.
I have been thinking about a hybrid between direct and representative democracy for a while and worked out the basic ideas independently. Bless the algorithm for showing me this video and giving me the proper name of liquid democracy, so that I can stop calling it voting graph and read some papers on the topic.
Please no blockchain democracy. Us programmers have no idea what we're doing when it comes to distributed computing and distributed security, and we really should not be allowed near the voting process.
This! Blockchain is overhyped crap
And thus we are forced to learn. Necessity breeds invention.
To be fair it would be pretty useful for voting, althougth the miners would have to be the government since there would be no incentive to keep the ledger running.
This.
A block chain undermines the anonymity of your vote, which potentially undermines democracy itself. If you can prove your vote was counted, then others can ask that you prove it to them. Ergo, problems.
@@user-op9pu3pu6x monero is anonymous. You just need to work harder
"What's YOUR favorite voting method? :D" - Score voting! Give each option/candidate an independent score (e.g. 0 - 5.) Oh, also include 'None-of-the-above', since it doesn't matter how good the voting system is if all the options are crap.
Score voting (aka range voting) for the win! Strictly superior to Borda count: rangevoting.org/rangeVborda.html
Matthew Dempsky That article was pretty convincing, I just have a few questions about range and score voting. In range and score, there’s still strategic voting, where one could easily run up the score for their own candidate. Also in score voting, the people who honestly vote the score they want to give would be at a huge disadvantage in terms of weightage to people who dishonestly rank their top choices in the 90s, and the rest as 0s. For example if I believed candidate X is the best option but not perfect, I would like to give him a 7/10, but as I previously said I think he’s the best option, so it would be optimal for me to give him a 9/10. Honest voters thus would be at a disadvantage
None of the above is called ranking everyone zero
@@TheRenegade... ah, not quite! Even if I think all the options are bad, perhaps I think they're different levels of bad: I could then rank 'none of the above' first, then the rest of the options in descending levels of badness.
@@pramitvyas3747 Yes, exaggeration is a strategy in score voting. However 1) all voting methods have some strategic ways of voting 2) the strategic voting for score voting seems to be much less bad than in other cases (e.g. voting for the least worst in majority voting, and leaving your favorite) and 3) exaggeration has its limits: if you just vote your favorite 10/10 and all others 0/10, you essentially have no impact on the outcome if your favorite wasn't selected.
as an engineering student, I can't help but notice that the borda count is essentially just a decision matrix for voting
Keep on informing the people, comrade!
Thank you for this video, I wish something like this existed when I was in high school as it could have possibly prevented my monarchist phase.
Oooh I want to hear more about that! I've been wanting to find a modern monarchist to interview for a while, now, haha
the monarchist phase is just a part of growing up.
@@costbart Just like the anarcho capitalist one
Hey, be glad you grew out of it. Character growth is always worth celebrating!
And here I thought for a second you were joking about actually being a monarch. I thought that was a pretty funny joke, just like trying drugs or dying your hair weird colors or nose rings or trying British foods.
Have you heard about the supposedly directly democratic model they have in Cheràn, Mexico? They are a city of 20,000, but they elect 200 representatives to their municipal board, so each representative is chosen to represent a very small and specific community. Still, to me this seems like an extension of representative democracy. A better form of representative democracy, but still representative democracy. I don't understand why people talk about it as though it is directly democratic???
Rojava has a pretty similar model, if I understand it correctly, and is also espoused as directly democratic.
I need to learn a lot more about Cheràn, it sounds fascinating from what I've heard here and there.
Maybe Cheràn and Rojava have more direct democracy on the immediate level and use reps for longer-distance type stuff? Idunno. I do think Liquid is a very elegant compromise, though it would require some tech infrastructure to be workable (which could itself become problematic) since it's not really reasonable to expect everyone to be able to go to council meetings all the time and stuff -- that could actually become classist, since only the very rich could afford to take off a lot of time from work to go and vote on stuff. Maybe I'll go into all this stuff in more detail in a sequel (including a dive into Cheràn!)
Thanks for watching!
If i were a evil politician, i would want to keep democracy for as long as possible
Most people are not smart enough to make an informed judgment of what is best for them, especially when media is as it is; it makes it much harder.
Democracy is really good for people who knows this, and wants to keep their power and at the same time doesnt need to look bad.
Google Bookchin
@Yve Miro ecosia, then
@Yve Miro u r using it now
Don't use Google.
We need direct democracy (voting on laws, not for 'representatives'). We also need all accepts of society to be democratic, including the work place.
The catch with this is that it leads to voter fatigue. A lot of people lose interest rapidly.
Your videos are... awesome. Have you ever made one showing how a worker co-op would be run? Like with little stick people and graphs and things, kind of like here? Specifically how the workers would vote as their own board of directors, making decisions and whatnot. The only thing even close I’ve found was here, and I’d almost resigned myself to making the video by my lonesome, but I’m so busy and not that talented with video production. You’re making pretty much exactly what I wanted to make. Thank you so much for that!
This is a great little explainer video. Love it! Definitely sharing.
What monsters like banana flavoured ice cream?
Banana lovin' commie monsters!!!
You monster!
Me, I love banana ice cream. The cream/milky flavor perfectly compliments the natural sweetness of the banana
Heyo.
I do. Not as good as mint though.
i have a lot of thoughts
this is a good video for a lot of reasons.
this sort of thought is a hugely important spring board for a larger discussion.
Totally agreed, I really barely scratched the surface! I think I might flesh it out into a full series
NonCompete
please do!
My favorite ice cream combination is dark chocolate and banana
I am 100% with you on this
@@NonCompete Genosse
In Ireland we use Single Transferable Vote also called Proportional Representation. This has advantages but we still can't recall them. Watching the count is fascinating.
I genuinely think this may be my favorite video ever produced. It concisely defines and explains an objectively better voting and democratic system than the one we currently have, and the system is something we could actually make happen in just a few years if we really wanted to, without the need for any sort of revolution.
My FPTP system in the UK in local constituencies is the largest party wins, doesn't matter if it's 25% or 99%
A big problem with the Borda count is actually how it still features a spoiler effect, and the more candidates of a similar ideology run, the more the result favours one group of an ideology, just by the number of parties or running participants
Representative democracy was developed during the transformation from agricultural to the industrial society. Liquid democracy is a democracy for post-industrial society.
Single transferible vote! It's pretty cool.
Love the video! I had never heard of liquid democracy and I think it would be a great method for running larger communities, however I am slightly more partial to consensus democracy for lower level decisions. It leads to better compromises and helps combat the whole “tyranny of the majority” thing. Also one problem with Borda count is that if you have a lot of candidates really close to each other it strengthens them. Here’s a great simulation I like that shows different voting methods: ncase.me/ballot/
Personally I like a mix of approval voting, non-partisan liquid and consensus democracy, and a heavy focus on grassroots democracy.
Finally there’s a great video by azurescapegoat explaining the terms republic and democracy. Technically speaking the whole “the us is a republic because we vote for representatives” isn’t accurate. A republic is a country governed by someone who isn’t a king (which is why Iran is technically a republic) The word democracy doesn’t immediately assume its direct so the US is (theoretically) a republic and a representative democracy.
Very interesting stuff! Thanks for all the info/ideas. I'm very interested in consensus democracy and plan to do a video on that in the future (perhaps this can become a series), and I'm also really interested in the idea of sortition - I truly believe randomly selected individuals would do a better job and be more appropriate than elections in many circumstances!
I'll check out azure's video as well, I've been needing to dig into that channel for a long time. Thanks again!
What about those (like me) that strongly hate banana? Not trying to be a douche, I just legitimately hate banana and banana flavoring, and would miss out on ice cream at that place. More importantly, what of those that are truly deeply turned off by say, an absence of leaders, or communal direction?
Good video. I agree that democracy needs serious overhaul.
I find it surprising that there are not many people discussing this sort of thing. We are going deep into the 21st century, and our political system is still in the 18th century.
Thank you so much for making this video, great job :)
I like beige. It works well when wearing colors like dark browns, and yellows.
That’s what I have been thinking. If anything would be revolutionized by blockchain it would voting 🙏🏼
All forms of democracy lead to the most popular candidate winning. IT's not the best system. The best system would incorporate open discussion based on the scientific method and decisions would be arrived at, not dictated.
First off, this country has a government that is a limited republic, not a democracy. Although it has democratic qualities within it.
Just learn that in middle school? 🤣
Personally I really like score voting, but Borda Count is much better than FPTP etc
Honestly a great description of the various systems.
Congrats on getting 2k+ people to stick around and learn thanks to some great puppets!
Thanks so much for sticking around and for the kind words!! Onward to 3k :D
⚙$⚧☾☭!!!
NonCompete now all we need to add is a little 🍞 and we’re perfect
4:56 THANK you for showing THIS EXAMPLE that was OBVIOUS to all us Green Party when we first heard Trump was running for office.
Stein had her issues as well. Turned out she was a multimillionaire, as was the Libertarian.
What about having a better republic? Like creating smaller groups of people to elect representatives. Because now I vote for a president of my entire nation (US) and I don’t really know those people. They are more of an idea than actual person to me. Where as when someone runs for mayor it’s a much more personal and thought decision because maybe we are in club or something and I can ask him how things are going. Smaller districts would make those representatives very trustworthy and loyal to those they represent. And then those representatives would vote for another tier of representatives who have experience in lower levels and would then move up. I feel like this would give voters more power and it would be hard for someone corrupt to get in. Deceiving a nation is easier than deceiving your neighborhood.
...I have nostalgia for beige computers!
For a time I was convinced by the 'one voter one vote' campaign that was running in my country. I'm glad it didn't gain any traction. I like the idea of liquid democracy.
which country
I'd like to throw in another additional suggestion: Negative voting. Being able to pick an option as least favorable, and if a particular option's negative votes outnumber their positive votes, that option gets disqualified even if it has plurality. That way, given let's say ten options, you don't have to worry so much about picking the beige option just to have your disapproval of a dangerous option counted.
And if every option gets more negative than positive votes, it's time to bring in some better options.
I prefer proportional representation if we have to have representative democracy. So say there were 10 containers of ice cream available. If banana got 40% of the vote, there would be 4 banana containers. If Vanilla got 20% of the vote, they'd get 2 containers. That leaves 10% for chocolate, so 1 container, and then Strawberry with 30% of the vote gets 3 containers.
1:09 "western democracies pretty much universaly use what's called first past the post system". So France, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, Iceland, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, Liechtenstein,..." are all not western? No. First Past The Post is pretty much only used in countries that where part of the Brittish Empire. That's not the same as "western".
So my sources may have been wrong. If you have better sources please share them so I can cover those alternative systems in future videos. Thanks for the surly correction!
A lot of these countries have only dropped FPTP in the recent past.
“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.” -Emma Goldman
Quite a few of us still live under monarchies. Some of the largest countries in the world - Australia, Saudi Arabia and Canada, and some with large populations such as Japan.
I've always liked the idea of leaving important decisions up to a popular vote. I'm glad to learn that liquid democracy is a thing!
The best solution is obviously for everyone to get their own ice cream. Or maybe they find out what ice cream other people like, join up with them, and pool a tub.
You shouldn't force people who have conflicting primary interests to make each others' laws.
Meanwhile, in an anarchistic society, everyone gets the exact flavor of ice cream they want.
We've got Borda counting in Australia, but it's still very two party system.
Is there any way to combine liquid democracy with STV?
Sure, why not? Liquid democracy still needs a representative
SVT🇸🇪?
Ranked ballots can also be the input to all kinds of other ways to decide the winner, such as Condorcet and IRV/STV.
It's ironic how "representative democracy" is the least representative. As an anarchist, I am never represented in America.
Not even a tiny bit represented, exactly!
@9:15 you mention the complexity of this system, which I think is completely true! Not in terms of implementation or application, but in that it demands too much knowledge of the electorate. In a presidential election, for example, it would require you to know the proposals of every single candidate in order to properly rank them. Even though I believe that it would be a much MUCH better system than what we currently use, I can definitely see an argument for "difficulty" in using this method.
Presidential elections are currently happening here in Brazil and it's between the 2 candidates with the highest rates of rejection! BOTH WITH OVER 50% (according to some surveys). Under a Borda Count vote those 2 would probably be the least likely to win out of the 13 candidates running, and would easily result in a MUCH more fair election in which the winner wouldn't pit one side of society against the other, where an actual CONSENSUS would be achieved... We really need something like this right now, we already had France, America and now Brazil (and those are only the ones I know of!) going through stuff like this, it's about time people actually do something about it...
In my country, polling places usually have posters that tell you what candidates believe in, you can usually tell something about the candidate from their party name, and you only really need to know who your two favourite and two least favourite candidates are, and it doesn't matter who you rank in between those
"For example, the appointment of magistrates by lot is thought to be democratical, and the election of them oligarchical; democratical again when there is no property qualification, oligarchical when there is. In the aristocratical or constitutional state, one element will be taken from each- from oligarchy the principle of electing to offices, from democracy the disregard of qualification. Such are the various modes of combination"
-- Aristotles, Politics, Book IV, Part IX
You need more views! I love your channel
My only real issue with these appeals to change the system, reform it into something better, is the lack of a 'how' at the end.
It won't be changed by the people who currently benefit from how it is, I think that much is obvious to everyone.
Sure. Agree completely. But there are things we can do immediately with these kinds of "better systems," such as build better and more open leftist projects/organizations, and even just get centrists to think more deeply about the different ways the system is built to advantage some people over the rest
Am I the only person who is low-key in love with American Johnson??? For real, I'd let him seize the means of my production! Lol.
But but but.... I love chocolate ice cream and my name is Kate. Eeep. XD it made me laugh how genuinely uncomfortable having those two coincidences made me.
Single transferable vote and a liquid democracy combination to me sounds like the best option.
Oh my God, the fact that I’ve never realized this on my own makes me feel like a total fraud, what an obvious solution
'beige' is certainly not the worst thing the germans ever did to the world... but is was in fact one of our 'work place security' laws (i'm usually in fond of) and the size of us as a market, that made IBM and others decide 'beige it is', in terms of computer colors.
7:15 How would you organize a large-scale liquid democracy though?
The logistics of being able to switch from representation to direct for each question sounds really complex to me while still being able to ensure double voting does not occur.
Well, for one thing, I personally believe in keeping governance as local and decentralized as possible. You can see part 1 of my How Anarchism Works series for more info on that.
This might be a perfect case for a blockchain, though. I know blockchain tech is often thrown around as a solution for problems in appropriately, but it's literally a technology that keeps a permanent record of transactions over time. In this case perhaps it could keep track of transactions on who has the "vote control" at any given time? Idunno, just an idea. If it proves to be unworkable at large scale even with technolofy then it can just be used at whatever scales it's good for. I think an ideal sociery would use various consensus tools and apply them where most appropriate.
How are these system not in place somewhere? I knew about ranked voting, but that combined with liquid democracy is genius.
Ah, right, because such a system probably wouldn't benefit those with power or those who want power.
I think we could make this work with a form of democracy that's almost entirely direct - if we had a secure voting app that allowed the public to vote on important issues (using Borda count) and representatives only handled things that the general public wouldn't understand or couldn't do (just submitting paperwork and talking to other representatives, ect really) and also these representatives should be paid no more than any other civil servant - which means if they want to increase their own wage bracket then they have to increase that of nurses and fire fighters, ect as well.
in my country (germany) we as citizens cant even elect our head of state, the parliament does that. how is that democratic??
The USA citizens don't elect the President the electoral college does.
@@matthewkopp2391 at least the popular vote factors into it. in germany there aren't even chancellor elections for the public.
neckpeck well it is just the illusion of choice.
The candidates are chosen by the parties and the parties have no legal obligation to go by the primary vote either.
In either case it makes me wonder why the propaganda is that the DDR was a dictatorship and unified Germany or the USA is not?
All very limited democracy.
Short answer money. Second answer conservatives.
I also really like the STAR (Score then Runoff) voting system!
Because it's not a democracy...
The entire world has changed, but our political system remains the same. It is very important to address these problems, but I do not see people thinking about it. The Danes and the Dutch, or maybe some small kingdom of the east, should be trying these things.
Here in Canada the Borda Count would literally end in the Liberal party consistently winning elections since almost all people choose them as their second choice and a minority as their third choice. The centre just would always win here with a ranked system since the left and right prefer the centre over the other side.
Would love to see you do some (more) videos on how to tell the difference between reforms and revolution, how to build parallel power without being sabotaged by capitalists/the state, etc. Also, what are the chances of a video with other anarchists or maybe communists who have alternative ideas about how future better governments might work? Do we really even need government at all? What's government really for? Some of these questions you've probably already addressed elsewhere, but what I'd like to see is more like a round table discussion amongst people who identify as leftists. Just for a laugh, what if you had 4 or 5 leftists outline distinct visions of their best possible system for government or for state-less social order and organization -- then have viewers VOTE in the comments on how much they like each theoretical system -- with the BORDA RANKED VOTING of course!
I mean wouldnt it be even better to have liquid democracy/borde account voting that gave to multiple winners? The inherent flaw of most of these situations is more due to inherent safe choices as a result of high stakes, while a multi winner system would allow you to feel more comfortable picking the less safe options.
Oh so ranked choice voting (RCV).
Well fuck yes ofc it's better than simple FPTP. Anything's better than our FPTP winner-take-all mess.
"Nobody likes beige"
I wonder what LGR thinks of that
I see a problem with liquid democracy, a practical one, the census is taken only every ten years, (and that's a good amount of time between censuses) so this representative would have the voting power of his constituency, but if many members revoke their support for their representative on a decision it could dramatically change the total number of votes cast.
This is one reason voting should be brought to the local level as much as possible, it's very easy to take a census of a neighborhood, difficult but possible to track the population of a major city, but keeping track of hundreds of millions or even billions of votes is an absurd proposition. Really there's no reason to ever have a nation state as large as the USA or China in my opinion!
I hope that was just an example, because I prefer Vanilla.O_o
Great video comrade! Alternative voting systems are important to discuss if we want to broaden political discussion. I would even go further, however, and question democracy. It's existed historically in oppressive societies that still have things like slavery and segregation(along race and class). This makes me not so sold on it as a something worth saving. Crimethinc's(I know it's crimethinc, I know they've had issues) From Democracy To Freedom made a pretty interesting case against democracy and for autonomy,at least in reclaimed protest spaces. GreatWork! I look forward to your next video!
P.S. I'm the sick twisted individual who voted for Strawberry.
Banana ice-cream sucks
Over here in Britain our version of First Past The Post is even worse. With our version, a candidate can get elected with only the biggest minority of the vote, say 40% if three other candidates get 20% each, as we have no run off round in our system.
Very interesting and insightful. Thanks for the video
The people?! We can't trust the people!
I feel like the system we have here in Britain is extremely flawed but still better than many others in the Western World. For example, in our system, if no party gains a majority (as was the case in the last election), then the lead party has to form a coalition with other parties, and can be challenged throughout their term by the opposition, which is good in my opinion.
I'm not an expert on the UK system but from what I've read it beats the pants off of our ridiculous quagmire we have in the US!
Yeah, I think it's certainly effective in some ways. However, there's many undemocratic elements to it resulting from our ties to monarchy and aristocratic traditions. For example, there's a chamber in our political system called "The House of Lords" that consists of hereditary lords, as well as non-hereditary lords put in place by the Prime Minister. They have the power to amend or reject any bill proposed by the House of Commons (the elected chamber), and they do this fairly often. It is true that if the bill is re-proposed by the Commons enough, they will be obligated to allow the bill to be passed, but it complicates the democratic process and, at its core, it's an unelected body with the power to override a democratic decision.
+Kacper Smith
Well, in turn, I've got a couple of criticisms of what you've said. Political constituencies are a feature of most political systems in Western Europe, so despite the fact that the UK has them and that they are a negative feature of our system, I do not think I was wrong in asserting that it was better that most Western countries. Just look at how West Germans continually
Also, to say that we have a one party state is completely incorrect. No one party in the UK has a majority, and the opposition thwarts the conservative party on a daily basis. If you believe that the Conservatives rule with absolute power, I implore you to check out Parliament and also to look at the results of legislators in Britain. On a regular basis, the lead party is blocked in their ambitions by the Labour Party. I agree that the tyranny of the majority is a huge problem (and could be solved by some of the methods in the video), but that does not make Britain a One Party State, nor one worse than other Western Nations, in my opinion.
Anyhow, have a nice day.
But what about the HUGE problem that number of seats is so badly aligned with the actual vote share of parties. In 2017 SNP had 35 seats for 900k votes, Lib Dems 12 seats for 2.3m, DUP 10 seats for 300k. And the DUP (a vile collection of religious bigots as it happens) end up Kingmakers with less than 1% of the national vote. Also an opposition is great in theory, it would be really nice if we had one.
Ugh. I was a libdem voter and had to put up with conservatives in power because of the coalition. I vote labour now. I hate conservatives.
I'm afraid I might be Chris
That sounds kinda like what we have in Switzerland. More or less…
I get what you mean but vanilla is honestly pretty bomb, especially Mexican vanilla where it's kind of burnt and had caramel notes
Yeah vanilla is def legit
Liquid democracy sounds really cool, but I prefer instant runoff elections to borda count. It gives voters the same confidence in voting for less popular candidates, but instead of distributing based off of rankings, it will first just count up the first place votes, then take the person in last and send all the votes that went to that person/option to their second place votes, essitaily simulating what the election would have looked like if that person/option was not running!
What about the D’Hondt method of party list proportional representation?
Still forces you to vote for either everyone or no one on a given list, you can only express the opinion that one list is better than all others (treating all others as equally good) and the method itself is not particularly fair (it's biased against small groups).
Another question worth thinking about: How can we include people who have low or no intellectual capacity in our collective decision making? For example, how do we represent the interests of people in a vegetative state, people with severe intellectual disabilities, or animals? Is there a system we can craft that tests for the consensus from all of these groups and other groups that might be barred from participating directly in a voting system? I have no idea what such a system would look like, but I think if we all put our heads together we could come up with something.
Hum, my initial thoughts would be to give them a voice through their advocates, such as their loved ones, caretakers, etc., but there are probably other more creative ways to get them plugged into our decision making process. Great question and something we do all need to consider more as we try to build better forms of democracy!
This is a great question. A lot of people would say libertarian socialism when done well is much more in line with the interests of the environment (and animals) than capitalism is. There's no reckless pursuit of profit at the expense of the environment. Think of how indigenous tribes live in harmony with the systems around them instead of exploiting them. But of course, our priority should be getting humanity straight, so we can think of how to best live in harmony with the natural world.
As for intellectual disabilities and people in vegetative states, I'd say most of their loved ones would have their best interests at heart. There's also neurodivergent people who are fully capable of parcipating in the voting process who speak out on behalf of those who can't (for example, in the autistic community members who can advocate for themselves are also advocating for all autistic people, some of whom are incapable of advocating for themselves). Doctors, psychologists and therapists would also work with these people often and under a system that breeds community and good-faith, I'm sure would also stick up for these people in decisions.
Combine all of the above with our constituency based system in the UK, which favours larger parties (Con, Lab) and parties with geographically centralised support (SNP) over others (Lib Dem, UKIP, well it's not all bad :)) AND party leader elections that are decided by a few 10s of thousands of members, which is wide open to entryist manipulation (Labour/Momentum) and this is a CLUSTERFUCKKKKKK. Oh, and did I mention a completely unelected second chamber that includes 26 bishops for no apparent reason? Good times.
what kind of monster hates chocolate
cuz u can't have democracy under capitalism. a republic is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie not the proletariat
First past the post doesn't require a plurality of the vote ie more than 50% of the vote, all demands is that the winner of any contest is the one who has the most votes regardless of the percentage that vote takes.
In the UK we have elected Members of Parliament who represent their constituencies with only 40 percent of the vote, I'm sure that the exact thing happens in America all the time.
You're describing plurality. Majority is where one sub-group is larger than the sum of all other sub-groups.
politicians have no souls
Neither do comupters, which is why computers should be politicians!
(half kidding)
Borda count I agree 100 percent
The liquid democracy could end up bad if done poorly but I would say I generally agree with it though like 70 percent
One problem with representative democracy is that it is very (nation)state centricm and not able to solve global problems and challenges.
Because it's not...a democracy. 😄
Feeling very weird about this video popping up in my recommended on Election Day
I think a better system than bores count would be star voting, aka range voting
Looks like we're gonna have to decide s new voting system. How are we gonna do that?
Voting, of course.
ranked choice voting is awesome and we definitely have the technology for it
What technology except paper and people do you need for an election?