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Bruce Schneier’s Plan to Reinvent Democracy

102 pointsby grammersabout 2 years ago

17 comments

maxbooneabout 2 years ago
One of the things about tech bros I really don&#x27;t like is that we generally think we are good in each field. Systems like proposed have been widely discussed &amp; widely debated in the field Political Science (wherein my SO does research).<p>This sounds to me like a simplified or applied version of Brennan&#x27;s &quot;epistocracy&quot;. There&#x27;s a nice podcast about this: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hiphination.org&#x2F;season-3-episodes&#x2F;s3-episode-5-demons-of-democracy&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hiphination.org&#x2F;season-3-episodes&#x2F;s3-episode-5-demon...</a><p>Or, in text, a summary of the book &quot;Against Democracy&quot;: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vox.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;7&#x2F;23&#x2F;17581394&#x2F;against-democracy-book-epistocracy-jason-brennan" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vox.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;7&#x2F;23&#x2F;17581394&#x2F;against-democracy-boo...</a><p>OT: Must-read on this subject and good reference material is Ruling the Void from Peter Mair.
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klyrsabout 2 years ago
Schneier has earned much of my respect over the years, but he lost a little by hosting this. It&#x27;s written by a star-struck fan who is so impressed by Schneier&#x27;s life work that the article is almost entirely focused on how impressed the author is with Schneier, and I was entirely turned off by the time &quot;the Plan&quot; is mentioned. There was a keynote speech, which I&#x27;d be interested in reading a transcript of. Instead, the author swerves to talk about a sci-fi reinvention of democracy which is not &quot;the Plan&quot;. Is there a plan? I don&#x27;t know, the only thing I learned is that Schneier is willing to post lickspittle under a bait headline.
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shagieabout 2 years ago
Of note is that United States has severely fallen off the cube root law ( <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Cube_root_law" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Cube_root_law</a> ) which is more an observation than a law... but tells of how big the house of representatives should be.<p>&gt; The cube root law is an observation in political science that the number of members of a unicameral legislature, or the lower house of a bicameral legislature, is about the cube root of the population being represented.<p>The US population is about 336M which would put the size at 696.<p>This would change it from an average of 754k people &#x2F; representative to 483k people.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;interactive&#x2F;2018&#x2F;11&#x2F;09&#x2F;opinion&#x2F;expanded-house-representatives-size.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;interactive&#x2F;2018&#x2F;11&#x2F;09&#x2F;opinion&#x2F;expan...</a>
barathrabout 2 years ago
For those who are looking for more in-depth material, I&#x27;d recommend looking at Bruce Schneier&#x27;s post about a workshop he organized on this topic a few months ago. The comments include notes on the presentations:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.schneier.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;archives&#x2F;2022&#x2F;12&#x2F;reimagining-democracy.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.schneier.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;archives&#x2F;2022&#x2F;12&#x2F;reimagining-d...</a>
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nvernoabout 2 years ago
“We have this fiction in our minds that voting is perfectly accurate: that even a differential of a few votes is meaningful. In reality, elections have error rates every step of the way, and a very close election is a statistical tie.&quot;<p>I&#x27;m curious about the error rates he mentions. What causes them in practice?<p>This reminded me of another article on hacking voting machines - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.politico.com&#x2F;magazine&#x2F;story&#x2F;2016&#x2F;08&#x2F;2016-elections-russia-hack-how-to-hack-an-election-in-seven-minutes-214144&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.politico.com&#x2F;magazine&#x2F;story&#x2F;2016&#x2F;08&#x2F;2016-electio...</a>
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tremonabout 2 years ago
So, what actually is Schneier&#x27;s plan to &quot;Reinvent Democracy&quot;? Does the article mention or evaluate any of Schneier&#x27;s suggestions, or is the article thinly-veiled clickbait to get us to watch the keynote (registration required) ?
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machina_ex_deusabout 2 years ago
There are two interpretations of democracy.<p>In one interpretation, the purpose of democracy is accountability of the leaders and the government. Representative democracy is a means to an end from that interpretation: you don&#x27;t vote so that the leaders represent you, you vote to keep them in check.<p>The other interpretation, is an intentional misunderstanding that is promoted, which says that the purpose of democracy is to &quot;represent&quot; the people. What does representation means? Whatever the leading polarization line the media is pushing. Most likely, polarization across left&#x2F;right, race, sex, ethnicity, religion. Exactly the non constructive sort of representation, the one that requires minimum accountability.<p>The U.S. media and elite have perfected the art of brainwashing towards the representation interpretation, and against the accountability interpretation (also branded &quot;populism&quot;).<p>The polarization is no accident. It is the strategy producing minimum accountability, which produces maximum power.
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photochemsynabout 2 years ago
This article could benefit from an explicit definition of &quot;democracy&quot; from the author&#x27;s perspective.<p>It&#x27;s one of those concepts that people don&#x27;t really agree on the meaning of, even though it&#x27;s bandied about a lot (rather like &#x27;freedom&#x27;).<p>Are we talking about strictly representative democracy, i.e. the selection of individuals by the voting public to act on their behalf within executive, legislative and judicial branches of government? And if so, how is that pool of candidates itself selected, and by what interests?<p>Or are we talking about direct democracy, perhaps a mixed system in which proposed laws are written by the elected representatives but then voted on by the general public, e.g. state and national referendums?<p>Or are we talking about oligarchy masquerading as democracy, with puppets put up in show elections and with their actions controlled by the hidden hands of billionaires?
yargabout 2 years ago
Also from his blog: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.schneier.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;archives&#x2F;2007&#x2F;11&#x2F;the_strange_sto.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.schneier.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;archives&#x2F;2007&#x2F;11&#x2F;the_strange_s...</a><p>He beat Snowden to the punch, but no-one was listening.
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simneabout 2 years ago
I think, nearly all people who tried to Reinvent Democracy, waste time, because underestimate ONLY TWO things - Dunbar&#x27;s number, and have not tried make really democratic organization (or just lie).<p>What differ really democratic organization - democratic order, mean way of making decisions.<p>To make democratic order really effective (not just imitation), need to follow few simple rules, for simplicity, I could reduce there to only one - rules should work.<p>So, what says us Dunbars number and democratic organization practice?<p>First, real people are not subjects, only organized Group is subject.<p>Second, how large should be Group? - From Dunbar, about 150 people, but exists tricky thing - not all people are subjective, exists 1-10% human-hubs, who affect all others.<p>So if your Dunbar group all human-hubs, you could have community of about 1500-3000 people (really up to approx 5000), behavior of which you could estimate with high precision.<p>And that&#x27;s how Switzerland live just now - more than 80% of their communities have 1000-5000 members.<p>90% of real-life questions answered inside community, on local level, and their federal system is tiny and make very few decisions, most of them with plebiscite.<p>Third, to let rules work, must be enforcement (fines, power to enforce punishment) and must be fine tuned system of punishment grades, from just blame, to fines, up to most for me powerful - exclusion from community.<p>In online communities, enforcement is near impossible, so online Democracy is just hallucination.
AlbertCoryabout 2 years ago
&gt; the example of the king who builds a secret escape tunnel: What happens to the engineers who know about the tunnel? he asks, making the point that there will always be someone who knows your secrets.<p>Not always. When Genghis Khan died, Marco Polo&#x27;s legend (not universally believed) says they got a bunch of slaves to bury him somewhere, then killed them all, and then the people who killed them were themselves killed.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Burial_place_of_Genghis_Khan" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Burial_place_of_Genghis_Khan</a>
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anonymouskimmerabout 2 years ago
&gt; I got pushback from several folks at the show, who all agree that we need a common fact base for any successful democratic system, and misinformation throws that off.<p>No, we don&#x27;t. We just need to each have a decent true understanding of how policy directly impacts us and those we care about. Then we apply our individual ethical weights and decide how to vote based on that.<p>&gt; Maybe his suggestions won’t come to pass<p>Is it just me or are his suggestions never mentioned in this post? I think I read it all (though did not click on any of the links).<p>Personally I&#x27;d like to see the voting power in the house of representatives made proportionate to the number of people who affirmatively voted for each representative. I&#x27;d also like to see multi-representative districts so that everyone who got, say, 5% of the vote, is elected, with their voting power in the House proportionate to the number of people who voted for them. Do that and gerrymandering doesn&#x27;t matter except at the absolute margin.<p>Maybe do the same with the Senate, except possibly keep it single-senator per state to make the minority party happy. I don&#x27;t know. I&#x27;d also like to see three senators per state, one elected every two years. I&#x27;d be in favor of abolishing the Senate entirely, but I know that won&#x27;t fly.
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ameliusabout 2 years ago
Can we simulate that democracy using LLM-based agents to see if it could work?
hedoraabout 2 years ago
Also relevant: “The World Set Free” by H.G. Wells (1913). It continues to stand the test of time, and addresses exactly the same issues as Schneier is discussing, but without the information systems approach (and proposes a different solution).<p>One thing the Schneier seems to be missing vs. Wells is that we’re entering an age of unlimited energy production, and therefore unlimited natural resources. Wells has a blind spot around environmental issues, but I think he’s closer to the mark on resource scarcity than current thinking.<p>Anyway, Schneier actually has some interesting insights not covered by The World Set Free, which is refreshing.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.schneierfacts.com&#x2F;facts&#x2F;537" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.schneierfacts.com&#x2F;facts&#x2F;537</a>
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PrimeMcFlyabout 2 years ago
I agree so much with the observation that we are still using, basically, archaic systems.<p>We have so much more knowledge now, so many more capabilities, but people still argue over socialism or capitalism, for example.<p>There are numerous better possible systems, but instead of people putting their heads together and really coming up with a better system, at least for our modern day needs, people just stick to arguing what they learned, what gets inherited.<p>I think we definitely need something new. Capitalism unchecked and without heavy regulation is unsustainable, if nothing else it will lead to revolts and uprising. Socialism has a naive view of human nature IMO.<p>Hybrid systems like the Nordic countries use are pretty great, but still much room for improvement.<p>On top of all of that, democracy can&#x27;t work when, like in the US, almost half the population is severely uneducated and ends up voting out of spite and&#x2F;or based on belief.
iamnotsureabout 2 years ago
GitHub would help lawmakers a lot.
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lordnachoabout 2 years ago
Might as well write out my democracy fantasy:<p>- Everyone gets to vote if they&#x27;re over the voting age (eg 18).<p>- Your vote counts in proportion to your expected remaining years left in society. So if you&#x27;re 95, you get 1 vote. If you&#x27;re 20 you get around 60 more, depending on the tables. If you&#x27;re an immigrant who arrived as an adult, eg a corporate expat, you get maybe 5 votes. There will be a table of stats about all sorts of things like this. Skin in the game.<p>- If you have kids, you get their votes, split with the other parent. So a 10 year old would give each parent roughly 35 extra votes.<p>- When you vote, it&#x27;s a quiz. The questions will be known questions out of a bank of maybe 10k questions, and the quiz is 100 random questions. If you get 75 correct, your candidate gets 75 x your weight. We want voters who cared to learn the facts to have more say.<p>- Parliament is chosen by proportional representation. Have a few areas represented in proportion, then add overall balancing seats. There&#x27;s several ways to do this.<p>- Term limits. Maybe just a single term of 10 years. Takes time to learn politics, like anything else. But also we want people to make decisions that aren&#x27;t just about getting re-elected. If you know you&#x27;re leaving eventually you can just focus on getting the things done that are important.<p>- Large salary and large pension for the MPs. Independent commission that looks at all your finances in private, during and after tenure. Flags things that it finds flagworthy.<p>- Not sure about geographic seats. Maybe just assign each voter to a virtual MP, at random. Local geographies should have local government to deal with local matters. This also does away with gerrymandering. But if we&#x27;re going to have geographic seats, get a computer to assign random blobs.
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