Political systems should protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. I worry that Democracy OS's idea fails to address this issue. If the politicians always vote with the majority, what if the majority wants to violate the rights of the minority?
Constitutional democracies exist for this reason. But typically when people talk about "majority violating rights of minority", people generally mean "mass of people taking away everything from the rich".
Look, even America, as a constitutional republic, took the rights away from millions of blacks for a long time. The Constitution at its inception did not save them.
I really believe the rich have scared people about democracy, because really democracy scares them. Don't let it scare you.
> mass of people taking away everything from the rich
Honestly, I don't think they do. Moreso than anything, I think they're hearkening back to when slavery was legal, women couldn't vote, and it was perfectly acceptable to assault gays in nightclubs.
It's only as those minority groups gain acceptance that they start generating sympathy, really, but while gays are more and more getting acceptance in their fight for marriage equality, polygamists are still a lesser known, smaller minority, and their rights are routinely trampled, despite that all the arguments applying to same sex marriage are equally applicable to them.
As it sits, 51% of the democratic party approves of some form of censorship, so it's not too hard to imagine being in a gerrymandered district in which DemocracyOS is prevalent, and losing the ability to freely exercise your first amendment rights.
That said, this problem isn't unique to DemocracyOS, as we've always had people who hate the rights of others, and even managed to pass the 18th amendment as a result.
The biggest problem with direct democracy is in educating people about the Constitution. We have long, embattled conflicts between Constitutional scholars on whether X aligns with the Constitution, and the "will of the people", absent that knowledge, may serve to exacerbate the issue.
It's a super valid point. We are not claiming all decisions should be taken this way. But we can imagine a system where a large chunk of decisions can be devolved to the citizens. The constitution and the bill or rights provide a framework in the same way congress today can't legislate (or shouldn't I would say) agains our rights.
The remedy is to require more than a majority threshold for decisions to be made. For example, a decision could require 80% agreement before it becomes law.
In the USA we handle these issues with a representation by region (states) rather than by population. Solutions feel more like post-processing, then data gathering.
That doesn't defend against tyranny of the majority; it just requires a larger majority.
In the USA we defend against tyranny of the majority with the constitution. The constitution places strict limits on what the majority can do to the minority through governmental force.
A political system should be a strong constitution that defines the rights of individuals. Something like DemocracyOS should be used to engage the population into ensuring that political actions are in fact constitutional and just.
I think what we really need is ConstitutionalRepublicOS which would be a bit more complicated. But by defining strong constitutional invariants with regard to individual rights perhaps we could pre-strikedown unconstitutional laws before they are enacted. That would require a more precise legal language that let's you run some kind of static analysis against against the laws however.
maybe we could think about a two-tier system were we delegate only decisions that should be taken our of the hands of majority and to the citizens the huge number of decisions that we can make that affect our every-day lives. I think the only way for citizens to be responsible for the decisions we make is by start making them. We've outsourced decision-making for a far too long time.
I do think some of the divisive issues that are taken up often end up cloaking other matters that should be focused upon. Perhaps with strong enough invariants and a pre enactment filter it would much harder to use divisive social issues politically. Maybe we could replace polls with votes on some things and have better recall mechanics too. I think a lot of the dysfunction is due to the fact we can and have passed radically unconstitutional laws in the past to great detriment to the entire population.
If you think about how much carnage has been caused by the fact that we can in fact pass unconstitutional laws and then it takes decades of work to strike them down due to the bottleneck we have in our court system (supreme court). Would be much better to not pass the obviously unconstitutional laws and let the courts handle complicated exceptions that were not caught.
I really don't understand why people like you insist on this completely useless semantic argument. It's almost as pointless as debating the merits of parliamentarianism versus presidentalism.
At the federal level we can change the constitution if we get enough votes. But its hard to achieve such a consensus, as it requires more than a simple super-majority. So it always comes down to thresholds.
Democracy does exactly that - it gives everyone the same vote, regardless what minority they come from. Therefore, it protects any minority for maximum possible extent. You don't need any formal rules on top of that; in other words, the solution to "tyranny of the majority" should not be "tyranny of the minority". (I really hate the phrase "tyranny of the majority", by the way, because it simply isn't a good way to describe democratic voting, where the majority is emergent and not determined ex ante.)
But let's say, indeed, majority wants to violate the rights of minority. Stripping other people from voting rights isn't democratic (even if it's voted by everybody), because it violates the basic democratic rule, "every person should get the same power in politics". Democracy is defined by the end result (same access to power), not the procedure (voting). (In fact, democracy allows for tradeoffs where a person gets little more power in exchange for more accountability.)
It's true that even without stripping other voter's rights, minorities can still be persecuted. But it is a cultural issue, which won't be resolved by formal constitutional framework. In fact, historically, it very often were elites (that you may think are the solution) who participated or even organized these persecutions.
For example, in the U.S., there is a large minority of people in prison who are not protected by democracy, because they don't have voting rights. I would appreciate proof of any claim as to how any sort of republican institutions in the U.S. helps these people be protected. I don't see that.
Someone wrote below that the solution could be super-majority vote, like 80% of citizens to agree to change the constitution. I think that's a wrong idea, which doesn't give enough credit to people. This can possibly protect a minority, but it can also delay progress in helping minority. The minority that needs to be overruled in super-majority voting can keep the status quo longer than desired by most, and that's unfair too. We don't know what the future morality will be; it may be different in positive, not negative, fashion compared to today's morality. We could perhaps say, though, that the future society will be more happy with their own morality than ours (because they can compare the two, we cannot); therefore, it should be possible for them not be too conservative and implement it.
Anyway, this debate is always rather academic, because politicians only rarely vote with the majority. (And no, pre-war Germany is not a good example, as I already explained above.)
> (I really hate the phrase "tyranny of the majority", by the way, because it simply isn't a good way to describe democratic voting, where the majority is emergent and not determined ex ante.)
Nothing about the phrase actually requires the tyranny be remotely permanent, and nothing about the concept of tyranny requires it either. Indeed, it's actually more poignant that the tyranny is both ephemeral and, more importantly, inevitable. This is the real issue. It's easy to comprehend the issue by looking at semi-permanent states [1], like Marxist class divisions or political polarization, but those are consequences.
When you place something to a vote and fail to achieve consensus, you have a majority whose will is being enacted upon a minority. This is commonly celebrated by moronic catchphrases such as, "the right side of history," but you still have a winner and a loser. And when the ephemeral majority seems to crystallize from the aether into an unmistakable demographic of some kind, you really have to wonder about this "emergent majority" concept.
The fundamental American problem is that it is incapable of trusting its government. (I can't speak to other governments; I don't live under those.) This lack of trust is well-founded, but that doesn't make it any less crippling. I said below that the appropriate counter to the tyrannical majority is a strong executive. The executive is capable of saying, "No," to a popular opinion in a way that the legislature cannot. (Indeed, this is a role Americans have shoved onto the judiciary, which means we can't actually say no until someone files a lawsuit.) The interplay between the legislature and the executive (the vote, the veto, the super-majority overrule, the refusal to enforce, the impeachment) is exactly the solution being proposed.
None of it works without an executive willing to exercise its options. See Obama's refusal to enforce immigration laws, for instance. (For the sake of this "academic debate", let's presume that he could enforce them to the letter if he wanted to.) That is a check against tyranny of the majority. So naturally, well... see for yourself [2]. This isn't meant as an anti-Republican statement; it's just the most recent example I could bring to mind off the top of my head.
The trust part comes back when you ask, "Why doesn't a minority group tyrannized by a majority group just leave?" You know, secede. This comes back to the emergent majority you spoke of: if you trust the majority to, you know, not be dicks about it [3]. To not always be the majority, then secession isn't necessary. You can expect that the issues will change and you'll be in the majority. Of course, what's happened with the polarized political class in America is that you stick around because you figure you can win next time.
This is a problem. It is the exact opposite of what you need to make sure that a majority is an emergent majority. Instead of melting back into an indeterminate goo and forming new majority/minority groups in each vote, you have battle lines being drawn for a budding civil war. And that's as far as I've figured out.
[1] "State" as in "state of being", not as in "nation-state". My thesaurus powers have failed me.
> Indeed, it's actually more poignant that the tyranny is both ephemeral and, more importantly, inevitable. This is the real issue. It's easy to comprehend the issue by looking at semi-permanent states [1], like Marxist class divisions or political polarization, but those are consequences.
I disagree; if the oppression is ephemeral, then it's nowhere as bad as when it is (semi)permanent. (Maybe an example would help - all the oppressions that come to my mind from history, that were formalized in law, are attempts to permanently subjugate or even eradicate the minority.)
(In fact, I can come up with an example of "ephemeral" oppression - unemployment. It's irony that people who argue that democracy leads to tyranny of majority often fail to see the tyranny of the markets.)
People do have empathy and memory; if you being in the minority is ephemeral, then you will remember it and vote differently. Oppression can only work if people are afraid; if they are not, they can change things and work toward consensus.
And if you look at direct democracy in Switzerland, for instance, you will find that direct democracy (I don't consider representative democracy only one or the best possibility) actually leads to more consensual result - people vote differently on different issues, sometimes they have minority view, mostly they have majority view (as it happens statistically), and because of that, the party or class tribalism you describe from American politics is greatly reduced. So empirically, exact opposite happens than what "tyranny of the majority" crowd tends to think that happens. (Another counterfactual claim is that direct democracy will lead to some torrent of crazy changes - in fact common voters are more conservative and less decisive than politicians.)
> This is a problem. It is the exact opposite of what you need to make sure that a majority is an emergent majority.
I don't understand what is your point here. In direct democracy, the majority is always emergent; it depends on your actual views, not on which party you decide to vote for.
> I disagree; if the oppression is ephemeral, then it's nowhere as bad as when it is (semi)permanent. (Maybe an example would help - all the oppressions that come to my mind from history, that were formalized in law, are attempts to permanently subjugate or even eradicate the minority.)
Except that these oppressive acts are law-making: the oppressive act under discussion is the vote. The vote enshrines the law into the most permanent state we have, really. The fact that the emergent majority that enshrines this law is no longer extant is irrelevant: their actions are permanent.
> if you being in the minority is ephemeral, then you will remember it and vote differently.
How is this a good thing? This is the worst reason to change your vote and invalidates the entire point of voting to begin with. "Oh no, I've been oppressed. Clearly I must change myself and conform to the popular opinion next time around." How is this anything but tyranny by majority?
> And if you look at direct democracy in Switzerland, ... because of that, the party or class tribalism you describe from American politics is greatly reduced.
I'm not familiar with the details of Swiss politics, but at a glance at the Wikipedia page, the first thing it says is that it's "half-direct". I cannot make any claims about the consequences of the Swiss system, but my guess is that the effects you describe have nothing to do with direct democracy. They are instead the effect of the lower population (4% of the US; 0.6% of India) and higher homogeneity.
In America, the tribalism has historically been along fairly clear lines visible outside of the polling booth: income, education, race, and so on. This has blurred, but not by much. You can still take a bunch of demographics, pick an issue, and reliably predict the position a given citizen will take.
Your claim is essentially that this isn't the case in Switzerland. That someone with a higher degree of education does not have a higher probability of voting on the progressive side of a given issue, for instance, but rather that demographics fail to predict voting patterns. I cannot dispute this claim because I don't have Swiss voting records at my disposal. But I would suspect that the demographical divisions in Switzerland are much less visible than those in America.
Personally, my conclusion is that, for the United States to more likely attain a "consensual result", it needs a higher degree of homogeneity, not direct democracy.
> In direct democracy, the majority is always emergent; it depends on your actual views, not on which party you decide to vote for.
First, you never used the term "direct democracy" in your initial comment. Second, I said nothing about political parties. It's probably very difficult to understand my point when you aren't really reading what I wrote in good faith.
As far as I can tell, our actual difference of opinion can be demonstrated with this thought experiment. Let's say that you have a population governed by democratic procedure in which a law is proposed 4 times throughout a year. It is the same law, the same text, and no relevant or notable events occur over this period to change opinions. Let's further assume 100% turnout. We'll posit that 70% vote yes and 30% vote no.
My position is that, for any given person in this population, their vote will not change throughout this year: it will remain 70%, 70%, 70%. Your position, if I interpret you correctly, is that the voting pattern will change to 80% yes, 90% yes, and then 100% yes, because the minority will vote differently.
The thought experiment is not intended to be realistic; it's merely intended to make our difference in basic assumptions clear.
> Except that these oppressive acts are law-making: the oppressive act under discussion is the vote.
I don't understand how is voting oppressive. Bad laws can be changed; what cannot be changed are things like loss of human lives, that's irreversible. You are arguing very abstractly; perhaps more specific example of oppression (ideally from the real world) would help? I would like to see a historic example of law promoted by majority (and if possible, opposed by elites) that had extremely negative consequences for some minority.
> How is this anything but tyranny by majority?
No, you're misunderstanding. It's that majority will change their vote to conform the minority view (if the idea is good, of course), not other way around. Just look at my example - unemployment. Even though unemployed people are in ephemeral minority, unemployment is a big topic for everybody, the majority. Because many people have been unemployed in the past or know someone, who was. So if someone is proposing to help the minority of unemployed, majority will probably vote for it. Neither they are probably going to support harming unemployed people.
> the first thing it says is that it's "half-direct"
The half-direct is more precise term, direct democracy is not quite practical, but it has important advantages to representative democracy. Half-direct democracy is a good compromise between those features.
> Personally, my conclusion is that, for the United States to more likely attain a "consensual result", it needs a higher degree of homogeneity, not direct democracy.
Well, the causality is the other way around - Swiss are homogenous because they have decades of experience in building consensus. But think whatever you want.
> It's probably very difficult to understand my point when you aren't really reading what I wrote in good faith.
The point is, in a real democracy, you don't have to pick from (as little as) two packages of issues that some clever marketers designed. That really means that there is no clear minority and majority - in some issues you may be minority and in some majority. In other words, being in minority is an artifact of the representative political system (and the majority voting or two party system makes it worse).
> As far as I can tell, our actual difference of opinion can be demonstrated with this thought experiment.
You don't have to do thought experiments. There have been quite a lot of cases where Swiss people changed the majority view from conservative to more progressive one. It's a little slower process (may take several years), but it happens. There have been also some regresses (I think some anti-mosque laws and such), but these happen at the same glacial pace, and are no worse than anywhere else.
You know, Switzerland and U.S. (not on federal level, and in all states, unfortunately) both have half-direct democracy, and they have some highest living standards in the world. Is that just a coincidence? (I certainly don't see much oppression going on there, and that's why this "tyranny of the majority" argument always seemed to me as some ivory tower bullshit.)
I'm interested in having this discussion, but you keep changing your position completely with every post. Now I'm at the point where I'm imagining we actually agree with each other, but neither of us seem capable of actually communicating anything useful.
Assuming that we are in agreement, there isn't really any point to our discussion. If we aren't, then we can't get anywhere because I can't even comprehend your position.
>Democracy does exactly that - it gives everyone the same vote, regardless what minority they come from. Therefore, it protects any minority for maximum possible extent.
From my reading, doesn't this say nothing? "democracy protects minorities as much as democracies could ever protect minorities."
>the majority is emergent
How does "emergence" affect the possibility of tyranny?
>it violates the basic democratic rule, "every person should get the same power in politics"
So maybe the takeaway here is that pure democracy is insufficient? The original point was that "Political systems should protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority."
>Democracy is defined by the end result (same access to power), not the procedure (voting).
Isn't this just semantics?
>It's true that even without stripping other voter's rights, minorities can still be persecuted. But it is a cultural issue, which won't be resolved by formal constitutional framework.
Isn't "stripping other voter's rights" a loaded way to put it? Freedom to vote doesn't necessarily have to mean freedom to persecute--freedoms generally end at the boundary where they begin trampling other freedoms. Also, in which situations "It is a cultural issue"? What does that imply? Does DemocracyOS fix cultural issues?
>In fact, historically, it very often were elites (that you may think are the solution) who participated or even organized these persecutions.
Did the parent suggest a return to oligarchy? Do current elites participate in persecutions?
>For example, in the U.S., there is a large minority of people in prison who are not protected by democracy, because they don't have voting rights.
How will people in prison obtain fair representation under DemocracyOS?
>This can possibly protect a minority, but it can also delay progress in helping minority. The minority that needs to be overruled in super-majority voting can keep the status quo longer than desired by most, and that's unfair too.
So the solution is to never protect minorities in the first place?
>We don't know what the future morality will be; it may be different in positive, not negative, fashion compared to today's morality. We could perhaps say, though, that the future society will be more happy with their own morality than ours (because they can compare the two, we cannot); therefore, it should be possible for them not be too conservative and implement it.
Yes, political systems should enable the implementation of policies. This says nothing about the merits of different political systems.
No, it's similar to pareto optimality. Democracy protects every possible minority equally. It won't give any minority an inch more rights so they could tyrannize the majority.
> How does "emergence" affect the possibility of tyranny?
A lot, because of human empathy. Why would you vote for a tyranny of relatively small group of people? Most people can see that one step ahead and know that they are the next. Also, in more direct democracies, people vote more often and have different views on issues, so they are minority and majority at the same time. This influences their willingness to compromise.
> So maybe the takeaway here is that pure democracy is insufficient?
It is insufficient, but not in the general sense "because of tyranny of the majority". Democracy doesn't try to solve specific cultural issues, it's a decision making mechanism. If your objection is just a general "tyranny of the majority", then I doubt there is anything better (because you have to start somewhere, and democracy gives everyone the same power).
> Isn't this just semantics?
No. There are different methods how to have same access to power. All of them can be considered democratic, although each has advantages and disadvantages. Also, to prevent Russell-style paradoxes, you cannot decide democratically whether or not you want to abandon (or establish) democracy. You can however decide that with a vote.
> Freedom to vote doesn't necessarily have to mean freedom to persecute--freedoms generally end at the boundary where they begin trampling other freedoms.
I think you misunderstand the sentence - I meant that people that are being persecuted can still have voting rights. Although historically, I would say any group with voting rights was being persecuted much less than without.
> Also, in which situations "It is a cultural issue"?
What I mean is that it's not just legal framework that causes oppression, people's beliefs cause oppression. The laws are, and always will be, reflection of those beliefs. If you don't like that someone is being persecuted, you can't just change the law, you have to change the culture.
> Do current elites participate in persecutions?
Depends on who you ask, what your specific persecution you have in mind. But in most cases it's just sitting by idly, whether or not it's participation again depends on your view.
> How will people in prison obtain fair representation under DemocracyOS?
I wasn't addressing DemocracyOS specifically, but in my country (Czech Republic), we have provisions for prisoners to vote if they want to. So in our country they have fairer representation than in the U.S. (at least some states).
> So the solution is to never protect minorities in the first place?
I am not sure what "protections" you have in mind. As I already explained, it's hard to conceive that e.g. Saudi Arabian elites would decide to protect women minority. It's a matter of culture and you cannot rely on any elite (even appointed one) to do that. Society as a whole has to believe that's a good value.
And as far as general protections go, I can't imagine anything better than democracy, which just gives everyone same rights. Any other solution will by definition have to give someone more say, and this person or group will be more fallible and can cause more oppression themselves.
The man who is possessed of wealth, who lolls on his sofa or rolls in his carriage, cannot judge the wants or feelings of the day-laborer. The government we mean to erect is intended to last for ages. The landed interest, at present, is prevalent; but in process of time, when we approximate to the states and kingdoms of Europe, — when the number of landholders shall be comparatively small, through the various means of trade and manufactures, will not the landed interest be overbalanced in future elections, and unless wisely provided against, what will become of your government? In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability.
We want to figure out the right combination of rules so we can get the best out of the collective intelligence of society.
Like Wikipedia: we believe this is an idea that works better in practice than in theory.
Democracy is always a "Work in progress", its never a complete idea because otherwise it would be an absolutist totalitarian ideology. It's the exception to all ideologies.
And adapting it to software is our biggest mission.
A Saudi (go figure) once wisely told me: "The greatest thing about American democracy isn't the vote - many democracies have that. The greatest thing about American democracy is the Bill of Rights, which states what the majority is not allowed to do the minority".
I think the Saudi only saw the end result and failed to appreciate the process that led to it. Many European countries have even better things, like social rights, and allowing prisoners to vote.
Democracy cannot change the culture in the country. It's just a tool for decision making in politics, better than fists. It can lead to culture change, though. Democracy causes people who didn't have power previously to be involved, and different moral view is dispersed in society.
If you would give Saudis the U.S. constitution, it would still take time before citizens would change the culture to consider women peers. The constitution itself doesn't guarantee the outcome either.
A great challenge we face is precisely this. Today DemocracyOS is strong at a local city-level. We don't believe we are ready for Federal level yet as we must understand how checks and balances work at this scale.
> Ironically, the solution to tyranny of the majority is a strong executive.
That isn't sufficient in and of itself, to be ironic. If the strong executive lacks stringent limits on its power and domain of influence, then it is ironic. But, a strong executive is likely necessary in even a libertarian-styled government, to protect rights by enforcing "legitimate" laws (where "legitimate" is open to interpretation and opinion). But the distinction is that the strong executive in a libertarian-style government has a strictly limited domain over which it exercises power.
Strength and scope are different things, despite their frequent conflation in [American] politics.
