Philosophical Questions: Democracy
Jan. 17th, 2026 01:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithPeople have expressed interest in deep topics, so this list focuses on philosophical questions.
Considering that the technology exists to enable a real democracy, would a true democracy (every single person can vote on every single legislation) be advantageous or detrimental?
I don't think it would work. In theory, it seems great. In practice, legislation is a slog, with proposals running hundreds of pages of dense legalese. Let's be honest, most politicians don't read the whole thing, and that's their job. There's just too much verbiage to wade through. Most voters wouldn't be able to read all of it, even if they wanted to. That's just reading, not researching whether the damn thing is any good.
In order to make something like this work, we'd need to streamline the laws themselves to make them more legible.
Finally, consider that people often don't vote even for things they're already entitled to vote on. Sometimes that's because chicanery prevents them. Other times it's because they know the game is rigged and don't see a reason to go out of their way for a miniscule, statistically insignificant effect on laws. This is also unlikely to change unless, again, the whole system was changed.
Considering that the technology exists to enable a real democracy, would a true democracy (every single person can vote on every single legislation) be advantageous or detrimental?
I don't think it would work. In theory, it seems great. In practice, legislation is a slog, with proposals running hundreds of pages of dense legalese. Let's be honest, most politicians don't read the whole thing, and that's their job. There's just too much verbiage to wade through. Most voters wouldn't be able to read all of it, even if they wanted to. That's just reading, not researching whether the damn thing is any good.
In order to make something like this work, we'd need to streamline the laws themselves to make them more legible.
Finally, consider that people often don't vote even for things they're already entitled to vote on. Sometimes that's because chicanery prevents them. Other times it's because they know the game is rigged and don't see a reason to go out of their way for a miniscule, statistically insignificant effect on laws. This is also unlikely to change unless, again, the whole system was changed.
