https://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/why-socrates-hated-democracy-and-what-we-can-do-about-it
Socrates makes the following argument:
Just like we only allow skilled pilots to fly airplanes, licensed doctors to operate on patients or trained firefighters to use fire enignes, similarly we should only allow informed voters to vote in elections.
“The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter”. Half of American adults don’t know that each state gets two senators and two thirds don’t know what the FDA does.
(Whether a voter is informed can be evaluated by a short test on the basics of elections, for example.)
Pros: better quality of candidates elected, would give uninformed voters a strong incentive to learn aout elections.
Cons: would be crazy unpopular, possibility of the small group of informed voters acting acting in self-interest—which would worsen inequality.
(I did a shallow search and couldn’t find something like this on the EA Forum or Center for Election Science.)
What’s the proposed policy change? Making understanding of elections a requirement to vote?
Yep, that’s what comes to my mind atleast :P
Socrates’ case against democracy
https://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/why-socrates-hated-democracy-and-what-we-can-do-about-it
Socrates makes the following argument:
Just like we only allow skilled pilots to fly airplanes, licensed doctors to operate on patients or trained firefighters to use fire enignes, similarly we should only allow informed voters to vote in elections.
“The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter”. Half of American adults don’t know that each state gets two senators and two thirds don’t know what the FDA does.
(Whether a voter is informed can be evaluated by a short test on the basics of elections, for example.)
Pros: better quality of candidates elected, would give uninformed voters a strong incentive to learn aout elections.
Cons: would be crazy unpopular, possibility of the small group of informed voters acting acting in self-interest—which would worsen inequality.
(I did a shallow search and couldn’t find something like this on the EA Forum or Center for Election Science.)
What’s the proposed policy change? Making understanding of elections a requirement to vote?
Yep, that’s what comes to my mind atleast :P