So, What is Democracy Anyway? | Peter Emerson | TEDxVienna
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ธ.ค. 2017
- In many instances, a majority vote identifies not the will of the people, not even the will of the majority of them, but the will of those who wrote the question. Most political problems are complex; to reduce them to a win-or-lose binary vote, or even a series of such dichotomies, often turns what should be a discussion into an argument. Preferential voting in contrast can be win-win: indeed, a points system can identify that option which, if not the most popular, is at least the most generally acceptable. Peter Emerson is the director of the de Borda Institute. He has written ten books on voting systems and published several articles on democracy in peer reviewed journals. A vocal critic of the Majority Rule, he has helped design an app for multi-option voting. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx
i have never seen an audience so attentive
And I've never seen one so uniform in age. No children or teenagers, but also, few old or even middle-aged!
A love a lot of the spirit of this talk. We can do better than majoritarianism.
But, there are a lot of different voting methods. Some still have notions of majoritarianism embedded within them but still work for elections with many options, most notably Condorcet methods. Unfortunately, the method discussed here, where you rank options and the ranks equate the points, also known as The Borda Count, has a couple major issues:
1. Clones. A sort of reverse-spoiler effect where fielding a lot of similar candidates ("clones") gives that "party" an unfair advantage.
2. Strategic voting. No method is completely immune to strategic voting, but Borda is particularly vulnerable, to the point that it can become an "anti-method" that elects candidates everyone agrees is terrible.
A better method that preserves the ideas behind this talk is Score Voting. Every voter gives every candidate a score from within some pre-defined range. The winner is the candidate with the highest total/average. This is the basic version, but it has a lot of variants, some of which try to address some of its perceived weaknesses (though I would argue many of its criticisms are dubious). Other variants adapt it to be multi-winner or even proportional.
What an amazing speaker! I love his energy and his tone of voice. I was engaged and laughing the whole time.
Just look at the Swiss Democracy, there is no other that's so good! Research and learn about the Democracy that I adore so much, we the Swiss Democracy are not just contained out of Left or Right, Democrat - Repuplican and so on, we have parties and diversity which is in my opinion a very strong component of an wotking democracy. People, I know that our Democracy in Switzerland will not work in every other country because of diffrent culture and history, but I just want to say: dont lose the hope in Democracy, dont forget what our whole last generations wanted for us - freedom, therefor have the motivation to influence yourself of working democracies in the world and discuss - learn with other people, the Swiss is one of a kind to learn from. And yes indeed every working democracy is hard to understand and not easy to comprehend in the first try, especially when you didn't lived with it, but this is just any comprisemise that we have to do for understanding the potential of a modern - working democracy, which does not only stand on majority yes/no or democrats/republicans, but also the intrest of a society in the first place, also known as the freedom of a democratic society to not only decide, but also to creat.
but plenty of other countries have a multi party system as well. I think the main difference is that Switzerland has high level of local control. in smaller populations in the thousands it's easier to reach consensus and have nuanced conversations than in populations of millions.
congratulations, an extraordinary reflection about democracy, I just started to follow in twitter
Despite everything, despite its imperfection. I like democracy, why? Because it lets me express my voice, gives me the right to be who I am. Democracy should be representative, not oppressive. Majority isn't right, minority isn't wrong. We must practice democracy in totally tolerant and respectful actions because in the end, all the opinions matter, all the ideas are worthy.
el-mehdi Benchaib all ideas are worthy? Wow that idea has lead to the death of millions
You should write quotes
Twitter let's you express your voice too, much to the same effect
Great!! Thanks.
Brilliant !
preferential points voting vs majority voting
conflict vs consensus
On shore of the lake tepee stood
Beautiful Princess gathered wood
In buckskin living in brotherhood
Survived a thousand years Good
A democracy they had withstood
Democracy is when those who make decisions on your behalf have the duty to ask for your consent first. Today's republics are actually modern oligarchies where the interest groups of the rich are arbitrated by the people, that is, you can choose from which table of the rich you will receive crumbs.
The "fatigue" of democracy occurs when there is a big difference between the interests of the elected and the voters, thus people lose confidence in the way society functions. As a result, poor and desperate citizens will vote with whoever promises them a lifeline, i.e. populists or demagogues.
The democratic aspect is a collateral effect in societies where the economy has a strong competitive aspect, that is, the interests of those who hold the economic power in society are divergent. Thus those whealty, and implicitly with political power in society, supervise each other so that none of them have undeserved advantages due to politics. For this reason, countries where mineral resources have an important weight in GDP are not democratic (Russia, Venezuela, etc.), because a small group of people can exploit these resources in their own interest. In poor countries (Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, etc.) the main exploited resource may even be the state budget, as they have convergent interests in benefiting, in their own interest, from this resource. It is easy to see if it is an oligarchy because in a true democracy laws would not be passed that would not be in the interest of the many.
The first modern oligarchy appeared in England at the end of the 17th century. After the bourgeois revolution led by Cromwell succeeded, the interest groups of the rich were unable to agree on how to divide their political power in order not to reach the dictatorship of one. The solution was to appoint a king to be the arbiter. In republics, the people are the arbiter, but let's not confuse the possibility of choosing which group will govern you with democracy, that is, with the possibility of citizens deciding which laws to pass and which not to.
The solution is modern direct democracy in which every citizen can vote, whenever he wants, over the head of the parliamentarian who represents him. He can even dismiss him if the majority of his voters consider that he does not correctly represent their interests.
It's like when you have to build a house and you choose the site manager and the architect, but they don't have the duty to consult with you. The house will certainly not look the way you want it, but the way they want it, and it is more certain that you will be left with the money given and without the house. It is strange that outside of the political sphere, nowhere, in any economic or sports activity, will you find someone elected to a leadership position and who has failure after failure and is not fired after 4 years. We, the voters, must be consulted about the decisions and if they have negative effects we can dismiss them at any time, let's not wait for the soroco to be fulfilled, because we pay, not them. In any company, the management team comes up with a plan approved by the shareholders. Any change in this plan must be re-approved by the shareholders and it is normal because the shareholders pay.
Genius.
Good comment
How do you put this into practice in a large country voting for a leader?
Google STAR voting
evenbetter thisis something always happening...the fact that you have it up on you youre will to do is something you must...
thank yozuz!
"A political creed claiming to defend freedom of choice, democracy ascended not because of universal popularity, but through overwhelming economic and military force." - Richard Tedor, "Hitler's Revolution" (2013), pg. 5
does anyone have any tips, I'm interested in learning about politics but I don't know where to start?
Mays Kha I’m not a specialist nor a politics student, but I would say you should start with ancient philosophy like Plato and then move on to the modern days. And learning politics requires learning history because many political situations and circumstances reoccur circularly. Looking at previous experiences may help you avoid mistakes and also foresee possible results of decisions.
Good luck!
While often categorized as a democracy, the United States is more accurately defined as a constitutional federal republic. What does this mean? “Constitutional” refers to the fact that government in the United States is based on a Constitution which is the supreme law of the United States.
Very good, but I am not sure you're Russian is quite right; большая (and hence bolshevik) is as much greater or larger or major, as it is majority, so in the case of 49%, 44% and 8%, bolshevik and menshevik (from меньшая, lesser) are justified.
Yes, but in the majority democratic system, the majority must be 50% + 1. They should have taken the 2 more voted and got another round of voting.
It's got to do with young men killing each other, I believe.
I wonder if that would work for forming a government in Belgium... :D
Ooopglllllutoo
This is a real life living Wiseman! Please watch and share.
Democracy doesn't have to be about simple majority voting - there are number of other electoral systems that produce more nuanced answers that get closer to what the populace really wants. The question is whether it is good to do what even an informed populace wants, or whether the decision taken should be simply the right one. But I do see the beauty in the former.
Good question and nice discussion, but due to the average humans' selfish, short-sighted, chaotic nature, any system designed by human will not last, not even a dynamic, flow with the change system will last. Eventually there will be one man that owns it all and the rest billions of humans have to pay rent for air and sunshine, under the law that "we" all agreed on and voted for.
On September 4, 1888, Mohandas left Bombay to set sail for England
What's that? He is responsible for one or 1.5 million deaths of Undivided Indian citizens along with the britts.
Give the guy a breathe tablet. It has to do with Daniel denet in some way
Two important parts that seemed to be left out of this talk.
The manipulation of the voters. If the voters were given the truth by politicians and the media they could make better decisions.
The protection of the rights of the individual. If the voters were taught to respect the rights of the individual, there should be less desire to steal from others.
Like the examples shown here, a Republican primary election in the USA had so many conservatives competing that the majority of the conservative vote was distributed across these candidates. This meant a non-conservative candidate won.
thats what ive been thinking abt the manipulation of voters
So it is back to the basic point of democratic's problems
How can the American voting systems be fixed?
by introducing REAL democracy and replace that fake "representative democracy" scam.
@@mariomueller9692
Yes, but how?
@@thephoenix756 America is a plutocracy not a democracy.
@@deanbowness5163
I would argue that it's mostly plutocratic but that it has some democratic features.
@@thephoenix756 Democracy is simply the illusion of choice.
Taking the human factor in consideration, this would never work. Humans change their minds. Preferences are tied to emotion (Your daily mood can change your preferences)
Great insight.
I think a voting system that requires thinking can work. If your mood is too bad then you wouldn't want to think to vote anyway, the voters can wait until they feel better.
But anyway, the idea of multiple choices instead of binary yes/no is a great improvement.
Also, part of the reason why we have periodic voting is because we know that time changes and humans change, isn't it?
No one said democracy was perfect - that certainly is not the case. It just happens to be the best system we have. That's why people try to migrate from non-democratic nations to democratic ones. Highly suspicious of anyone who does not believe in democracy, they are always free to migrate the other way.
This is of low quality. He did not get into any of the systems. There are bad multi option systems and good multi option systems. This is at way to high of a level and I am not sure he can go deeper
and tbh democracy is something sonsumed for a slamm community not for billionst, its out of date ...
Ranked Choice Voting=Analog Voting. Majority Voting=Binary Voting. 🤔😉😏
Not the United states...
This guy looks a lot like the famous psycologist Freud
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.
hi
The pandering of governments is endless.
what he suggested is just a tier list comparison, lmao
What? This is still majority voting just in a different way, is it not? If you have multiple options to choose from and the most popular option gets choosen, it is still ignoring all the people who voted for different options. It's just that the stances of people are more nuanced. It might be even worse because it can result in the minority of total population deciding on a final decision.
The difference is that, with the voter assigning ranks to all the options in order of which they like the best, the average of all voters' decisions will be chosen. Hope this helps. If you could still only choose one out of the many options, you would be correct.
If communist is alternative to capitalist, is socialist alternative to fascist.