Ambrosia Software Web Board: democracy and other misconceptions... - Ambrosia Software Web Board

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You used the words "anybody" and "somebody." Does that mean it only takes one person to complain to change a policy/council member?

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In the denominator part, you noted "crimes" without any specifications. Does that mean a murder will be equated with a theft? Doesn't that result in a burglar who committed theft twice seeing his voting power reduced further than someone who committed murder once?

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That's fine, but you still haven't answered my questions. Allow me to post them again:

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I see, you're thinking about inflation control as well. But I don't believe your statement of "Otherwise, all jobs would increase in pay over time" is true. After all, events like recessions take care of these problems. Furthermore, is it truly fair to tell someone that his salary will have to be decreased to go to some other people that he never knew?

Once we're finished with these questions, we can go back and look at what your system looks like after the revisions.

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Lol!
I can see that we're WAY very much not suited to make a government.

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Ne Cede Malis Sed Contra Audientor Ito

[quote]Originally posted by htjyang:
You used the words "anybody" and "somebody." Does that mean it only takes one person to complain to change a policy/council member?
[/quote]

It means it only takes one person for the council to make plans on something. Each topic may only be brought up to the council once each year, though. And I'm redoing the council: 25,000 members should be better. Each plan would be made by 25 of them, randomly picked.

[quote]Originally posted by htjyang:
In the denominator part, you noted "crimes" without any specifications. Does that mean a murder will be equated with a theft? Doesn't that result in a burglar who committed theft twice seeing his voting power reduced further than someone who committed murder once?
[/quote]

Good point. New plan. Change "crimes" to "crime points." When a judge makes a sentence, they give them a certain number of crime points.

[quote]Originally posted by htjyang:
D) I hope you realize how problematic the concept of an IQ test is. That is why colleges and universities don't require IQ tests as an admission requirement. The kind of IQ test you have in mind ("These wouldn't test you on knowledge, but your actual ability to reason") sounds even more complex than the ones available. I don't believe it's realistic to expect such accurate tests to be designed in the first place.

How do you plan to address complaints about the test? Surely it'll bring up civil rights memories of literacy tests. Before you know it, the NAACP will accuse you of being a racist. Don't think this is an excaggeration. I've seen tons of well-intentioned people who got burned this way and their reputations virtually destroyed.

Finally, some colleges are even thinking about abolishing the requirement of an SAT. Their
reasoning is that tests are inherently unfair and that admissions should be based on years of a person's work (such as GPA, involvement in extracurricular activities,...etc.) rather than a test that can be completed in a few hours. How do you address complaints such as these?
[/quote]

They'd be different than that. Some trained people sit with you in a room and talk with you and observe you, then estimate your approximate IQ from that.

I think our police would get a bit of work whenever somebody complains... Nah. I really have no clue.

I think that has some merit to it. I guess that, if they're really selfless, they won't mind not getting a bonus for their work, though.

[quote]Originally posted by htjyang:
I see, you're thinking about inflation control as well. But I don't believe your statement of "Otherwise, all jobs would increase in pay over time" is true. After all, events like recessions take care of these problems. Furthermore, is it truly fair to tell someone that his salary will have to be decreased to go to some other people that he never knew?
[/quote]

Well, if I took out the lowering of the others, there'd be no way for it to go down. And there are so many different kinds of jobs that the decreases wouldn't be very noticeable. I think the pays would be constantly fluctuating, rather than continuing in one direction.
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[quote]Originally posted by htjyang:
Once we're finished with these questions, we can go back and look at what your system looks like after the revisions.
[/quote]

Sounds good.

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"Oi, oi, oi, me got a hurt n here
Oi, oi, oi, me smell a ting is near
Me gonna bosh and me gonna nosh
An da hurt'll dissapear"

To Mag Steelglass: Thank you very much for your patience. Personally, if I were you, I'd consider myself to be terribly annoying.

I don't know if you noticed or not, but we are making progress and hopefully, the questions will come to an end soon. If you go back and examine the questions, you'll realize that I did terminate certain lines of questions. I did so because I was satisfied by your answers.

I hope you won't think of my as nitpicking. The fact is that I never asked detailed questions. I only asked structural ones. It is necessary to nail down the structural questions before we proceed.

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But if it only takes 1 person to complain, doesn't that mean policy will be changing constantly? After all, it is probably unrealistic to expect a plan that is acceptable to all the voters in this country. Under this system, if just one of them complains, that policy will have to be changed. If policies are changedyear after year, it can result in serious managerial chaos and confusion.

A question about the revised council: From what I can see, this council takes up both legislative and executive responsibilities. I was assuming that council members will be supported by staff. Since the previous council was of a rather small size, I didn't think twice about it. In this new council with 25,000 people, how will government function. For example, say for the department of defense. Previously, it had only 25 people heading it. Does that mean it will now have 25,000 people heading it, each and every single one of them having equal authority over the department?

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It won't be changing constantly. Each issue can only be worked on once a year, and 20% of the population has to vote in order for it to go through. And in each set of plans, the council can make one option be "do nothing about it".

Well, say a citizen says "We're being attacked." Then 25 people from the council get randomly picked to come up with some ideas which get voted on. Of course, if it's something completely imminent, and more than 2/3rds of the 25 randomly picked council members think so, then they make a descision on it. It falls under the category of stuff that the people never know.

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"Oi, oi, oi, me got a hurt n here
Oi, oi, oi, me smell a ting is near
Me gonna bosh and me gonna nosh
An da hurt'll dissapear"

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Yes, but the problem being that if all it takes is for one person to complain, then every issue will come up year after year because as I said, it is highly unlikely you'll get every voter in the country to agree to a plan/policy. If just one of the dissenters register a complaint, the policy/plan will have to be voted on again.

You also have to recognize how many policies/plans a government passes annually. Take US for example, each year, Congress pass approximately 500 bills and presidents sign thousands of executive orders. By combining executive and legislative powers into a single council and by making your system far more democratic than it is now, what you have done is you are allowing disputes to arise over tens of thousands of policies each year! Can you imagine even 20% of people studying up on the obscure details of social security policy each year? Can you imagine even 20% of the people caring about foreign policy? However, there will always be some people whp care about both and they'll keep challenging these plans year after year. How do you deal with this?

Take the November elections, for example, voters have to vote on president and vice president, Congressmen, maybe Senator, maybe governor, maybe mayor, maybe a dozen ballot initiatives. The bottomline remains that the items to be voted on seldom exceeds 30. Under your system, if any policy must be voted on if just challenged by a single person, then it is conceivable that each year, there will be tens of thousands of policies that people need to vote on.

I think you have to realize that udner our current system, for states that allow referendum on issues, you need to put together a petition and you need to fulfill the requirements for signatures on that petition within a certain time period. Under your system, all you need is a single person.

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Are you suggesting that each and every single issue will be dealt on some sort of ad hoc basis? What I mean is that for each and every single issue under a certain department, a different group of 25 people will be dealing with it?

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No big deal will be made about anything that the government doesn't think is too important. Sure, they can complain, the 25 randomly picked council members will check on it, make a couple ideas, and the vast majority of the population can ignore it. It needs 20% of the people to care in order for it to go through.

And I realize that lots of work will need to be done, which is why there would be 25,000 council members, and there'd be 1000 groups of 25 of them working on things at the same time, allowing for a lot more descisions to be made.

Nobody needs to vote on anything. It'd be like the newspaper: you wake up, fire up your computer, go to the voting site, and see if there's anything you want to vote on currently being voted on. If nothing seems like it needs your vote, you can simply ignore it.

Again, just because one person complains doesn't mean that the topic will be heard by most people. Only big important topics that people really care a lot about would actually get anywhere.

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On most issues, yes. In the case I stated, there would be a military that the council would tell to defend the country, although any major operations would require two thirds of a set of 25 council members to agree with it.

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"Oi, oi, oi, me got a hurt n here
Oi, oi, oi, me smell a ting is near
Me gonna bosh and me gonna nosh
An da hurt'll dissapear"