View Single Post
Old 04-15-2010, 10:36 PM   #8
silvarilon
Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 144
silvarilon is on a distinguished road
Re: 2nd Great (greatest? worldwide?) Depression

Oh yes. IQ of the population as a whole has an overall impact. Just not necessarily the average IQ of rich people.

But really, it's less about IQ and more about willingness to become educated. It doesn't matter how smart you are, if you have no concept of economic theory, and if you don't know the economic history of the various parties, you can't make an educated choice.

It's more a matter of care. It's not hard for someone to "lay out" the options. Party A is better at long term economic planning, but in the short term there will be higher unemployment and interest rates. Party B tends to hurt the country's economy, but they will keep the interest rates down, pay more unemployment benefits, and build hospitals. Or something. It doesn't take a genius to understand the broad strokes once someone who *is* an educated genius has understood and explained it in simple terms.

But people just don't care. For the most part. Even if they understand what's happening, if they have a mortgage they will vote for the person that will keep interest rates down. For the most part, they will vote selfishly. Democracy encourages self-interest. And that's assuming they know what they're voting for.

I'm not trashing democracy as a system, though. There are some problems, but there are other things that can be done to help.
For example, computers are very widespread. Even in poor areas public libraries often have computers. It'd be quite possible to increase access to computers for poor areas.
And then it'd be quite possible to have a website where each political party lays out their various proposed policies. A forum where people can debate the policies, explain what the policy means, explain the outcomes, discuss the moral issues. And a simple handy-dandy vote button where users can say "I'm in favor of this" or "I'm against this"
It doesn't have to be an official referendum. If 90% of internet users vote for legalized pot that doesn't necessarily mean that they should legalize it. But it does show that it's a topic that there *is* some question over, and perhaps they should do social studies, etc. on the effect *IF* they legalize it.

Heck, you even could make it an official referendum. It's quite possible to assign every voter a username and password. You could get the password assigned when you go vote. And then have a referendum for all the big policies. There could be a weighting "90% of voters want more hospitals, but 85% of voters want more parks. Since a park costs a fraction of the cost of a hospital, we'll prioritize that. But we'll de-prioritize the road upgrade, since only 30% of voters want it." etc.

And, more importantly, that would provide visible stats to show how well a government performs. When I go to look, it can tell me that party A only upheld 30% of their promises, while party B upheld 45% of their promises. But it could also tell me that party A upheld 100% of their policies that had over 80% support in the referendum.

Essentially, this would allow us to be closer to a true democracy, rather than a representative democracy. And it would mean voters could focus more on the issues they care about. A non-economist might not have a say on fiscal policy, but may vote to spend money on roads rather than military.

Right now, the voter picks an issue (say, roads rather than military) and their vote applies to *all* policies from that party. So they are unintentionally also voting for that parties fiscal policies, social policies, etc.

But really, to me, the largest gain would be that all the debate is available in one place. When I read that there is a tax increase, I can easily read about *why* there is a tax increase, and I can read the comments from the rest of the community as a jumping-off point if I want to educate myself further.

All this doesn't mean we'd have better economic policies, of course. I still don't necessarily think that "the voting public" will make the best decisions. But at least it would mean that "the voting public" is better able to make decisions, and to become educated about the decisions they are making.

(Random note: I'm Australian. But we also have a representative democracy here. Although we've had better economic planning. )
silvarilon is offline   Reply With Quote