That’s actually good feedback. It’s better to think of the barriers to success ahead of time while I am still in the development phase. I agree that convincing people to do anything is always the hardest part. I did consider that it would be difficult to stop a competitor who is better funded and more well connected from just taking my ideas and creating a less benevolent product with them, and it is a concern that have no answer for.
I don’t think $10 a month to subscribe to a local official in exchange for extra influence is a big deal because $10 isn’t a lot of money, but I can see how other people might ignore the scale and think it’s a big deal. I’m not married to the idea though. The main reason I wanted to include that feature is to thwart the control of special interests. I’ve considered that special interests are inevitable to some degree, so if we could decentralize them and make the same influence available to the general public at a nominal cost, that would be an improvement. The other reason I liked the idea is because I don’t think weighting every vote identically creates the smartest system. If someone is willing to participate, pay attention, and pay a small amount of money, that should work like a filter that weeds out apathy, and I don’t see how reducing apathy within the voting system wouldn’t increase the quality of the decision making process rather than decrease it. I agree it would be a hard sell to the public though because it sounds bad described in the abstract, general sense like “paying for representation” when the entire concept isn’t considered with proper detail and context. That said, we already have a system like that except you have to have a lot more than $10 to buy representation, so what the idea actually does in theory is democratize the system we already have.
As far as following through, I plan to try my best even if it fails because I will feel better having tried my best and failed than to have never tried at all and let things spiral down the drain.
Regarding being non-partisan, I have decided the only way to do that is to be explicitly apolitical other than supporting democracy. I could put that right in the charter for both organizations and create incentives for keeping to it and disincentives for abandoning it. If both organizations can’t take sides on any issues, then I don’t see how they can be partisan. Personally, I don’t have strong feelings either way on most issues other than I don’t want an expansive, homogeneous government that is so large that it is very difficult to escape from. We only have such a government because of the advantages of a centralized military power which is rife with abuse.
Regarding moving being bad for children, just a quick skim shows me that those studies aren’t necessarily telling you what you think they are. For instance, one portion cites 3 studies that show “ High rates of residential mobility have been associated with social disadvantage including poverty [1, 2, 4]” yet they didn’t appear to control for these variables in the studies I skimmed. Even for the children in those conditions, moving might actually be beneficial. I would assume it depends on what alternative we are comparing it to. In the many cases, moving may be less harmful than staying such as when they are moving from a bad neighborhood with bad schools to a good neighborhood with good schools. I think the same thing applies to complaints about democracy not protecting minorities well enough which was the trigger for this conversation. Compared to what? I am open to suggestions. Which system of governance protects minorities better than democracy? If the answer is none, then that is an argument for democracy, not against it.
Ultimately, I probably should have waited to post about this on here until I had a very detailed outline to put everything in context with all of the supporting arguments and proper citations. Either way though, even if not a single person here likes the ideas, I would still write the book and attempt to carry the plan out, but I would use the criticisms to modify the plan. Like l’ve said before, I love it when people shoot holes in my arguments. I don’t want to cling to bad arguments or bad ideas and I value both positive and negative feedback as long as it is honest.
That’s actually good feedback. It’s better to think of the barriers to success ahead of time while I am still in the development phase. I agree that convincing people to do anything is always the hardest part. I did consider that it would be difficult to stop a competitor who is better funded and more well connected from just taking my ideas and creating a less benevolent product with them, and it is a concern that have no answer for.
I don’t think $10 a month to subscribe to a local official in exchange for extra influence is a big deal because $10 isn’t a lot of money, but I can see how other people might ignore the scale and think it’s a big deal. I’m not married to the idea though. The main reason I wanted to include that feature is to thwart the control of special interests. I’ve considered that special interests are inevitable to some degree, so if we could decentralize them and make the same influence available to the general public at a nominal cost, that would be an improvement. The other reason I liked the idea is because I don’t think weighting every vote identically creates the smartest system. If someone is willing to participate, pay attention, and pay a small amount of money, that should work like a filter that weeds out apathy, and I don’t see how reducing apathy within the voting system wouldn’t increase the quality of the decision making process rather than decrease it. I agree it would be a hard sell to the public though because it sounds bad described in the abstract, general sense like “paying for representation” when the entire concept isn’t considered with proper detail and context. That said, we already have a system like that except you have to have a lot more than $10 to buy representation, so what the idea actually does in theory is democratize the system we already have.
As far as following through, I plan to try my best even if it fails because I will feel better having tried my best and failed than to have never tried at all and let things spiral down the drain.
Regarding being non-partisan, I have decided the only way to do that is to be explicitly apolitical other than supporting democracy. I could put that right in the charter for both organizations and create incentives for keeping to it and disincentives for abandoning it. If both organizations can’t take sides on any issues, then I don’t see how they can be partisan. Personally, I don’t have strong feelings either way on most issues other than I don’t want an expansive, homogeneous government that is so large that it is very difficult to escape from. We only have such a government because of the advantages of a centralized military power which is rife with abuse.
Regarding moving being bad for children, just a quick skim shows me that those studies aren’t necessarily telling you what you think they are. For instance, one portion cites 3 studies that show “ High rates of residential mobility have been associated with social disadvantage including poverty [1, 2, 4]” yet they didn’t appear to control for these variables in the studies I skimmed. Even for the children in those conditions, moving might actually be beneficial. I would assume it depends on what alternative we are comparing it to. In the many cases, moving may be less harmful than staying such as when they are moving from a bad neighborhood with bad schools to a good neighborhood with good schools. I think the same thing applies to complaints about democracy not protecting minorities well enough which was the trigger for this conversation. Compared to what? I am open to suggestions. Which system of governance protects minorities better than democracy? If the answer is none, then that is an argument for democracy, not against it.
Ultimately, I probably should have waited to post about this on here until I had a very detailed outline to put everything in context with all of the supporting arguments and proper citations. Either way though, even if not a single person here likes the ideas, I would still write the book and attempt to carry the plan out, but I would use the criticisms to modify the plan. Like l’ve said before, I love it when people shoot holes in my arguments. I don’t want to cling to bad arguments or bad ideas and I value both positive and negative feedback as long as it is honest.