I looked up Sweden and the only result I got was the Direct Democrats party, which never got any seats. Not finding anything at all about Iceland. The wiki page (I only skimmed it) suggests it works like any other democracy where you elect representatives to make decisions for you.
Living in Britain at the time, if there was one thing Brexit did for me was cast doubt on the wisdom of direct democracy, which until then I believed was a good idea.
Britain also has First Past The Post, with all the ills listed above, and yet the first time the populos got a direct vote on something trully important, most made the most ridiculous, ill informed choice based on the kind of “I know best” strong belief that only the most pig-headed ignorant have and on serious delusions of national greatness (and hence expectations on the response of both the rest of the EU and skilled would-be immigrants) that most people there have due to the thick, long-running, nationalist propaganda that pervades the media and politics in that country at all levels.
At this point I think we really do need representatives whose job is to dig down and understand the things they’re making decisions on in representation of their voters: even if such representatives often (more often than not, even) are bad at their work or simply corrupt, on anything in the least complex they’re still better than the average citizen.
Maybe in countries were the local culture includes a widespread “if I feel I don’t know enough about something then I’ll abstain” trait direct democracy might work best, but at least in countries like Britain such votes just end up swamped by the votes of the ignorant deciding for everybody else based on the (easilly manipulated) “feelings” they have about something.
At this point I believe the kind of representative democracy structure were there is constant need for consensus and a lot of change (i.e. no party or small group of parties has power for long), such as one with PV, is the best kind to achieve positive results for people as a whole.
Are you proposing a direct democracy? It’s an interesting idea. Are there any existing examples?
I am…Iceland and Sweden come to mind…
I looked up Sweden and the only result I got was the Direct Democrats party, which never got any seats. Not finding anything at all about Iceland. The wiki page (I only skimmed it) suggests it works like any other democracy where you elect representatives to make decisions for you.
Living in Britain at the time, if there was one thing Brexit did for me was cast doubt on the wisdom of direct democracy, which until then I believed was a good idea.
Britain also has First Past The Post, with all the ills listed above, and yet the first time the populos got a direct vote on something trully important, most made the most ridiculous, ill informed choice based on the kind of “I know best” strong belief that only the most pig-headed ignorant have and on serious delusions of national greatness (and hence expectations on the response of both the rest of the EU and skilled would-be immigrants) that most people there have due to the thick, long-running, nationalist propaganda that pervades the media and politics in that country at all levels.
At this point I think we really do need representatives whose job is to dig down and understand the things they’re making decisions on in representation of their voters: even if such representatives often (more often than not, even) are bad at their work or simply corrupt, on anything in the least complex they’re still better than the average citizen.
Maybe in countries were the local culture includes a widespread “if I feel I don’t know enough about something then I’ll abstain” trait direct democracy might work best, but at least in countries like Britain such votes just end up swamped by the votes of the ignorant deciding for everybody else based on the (easilly manipulated) “feelings” they have about something.
At this point I believe the kind of representative democracy structure were there is constant need for consensus and a lot of change (i.e. no party or small group of parties has power for long), such as one with PV, is the best kind to achieve positive results for people as a whole.
Excellent points.