Is the writing intuitive? Are any concepts difficult to grasp?
The presentation of your website looks basically alright, but it seems your format is to start with the problem, go through a bit of a story, explain concepts of voting methods, and then wind up with the solution at the end. That works for some contexts but in a more academic or technical flavored setting, and what I find easier to work with, is to start with the thesis upfront and then unpack it with details lower down. The blogging/rhetorical style is understandable for the front page of the website, but when I click the link to the chapter Persistent Democracy, there at least I expect to immediately jump into a snappy description of what you are proposing. Something like:
“In Persistent Democracy, scheduled elections will be replaced by ______ where voters can _____. This will solve the problems of ______, _______, and ______, by ______ and _____. ” Hope you get the idea.
As it stands, I’m a little unsure what you’re proposing because on one hand you say it will enable direct democracy but on the other hand you talk about how politicians such as mayors might be elected with your system.
Does the concept seem robust and useful enough that it’s worth experimenting with? Are there any serious problems I haven’t addressed? Does the book make a compelling and persuasive argument?
You also should probably address the question of whether your voting system would be secure when it seems to require electronic voting. I gather that many informed people are very skeptical about the security of electronic voting. I see that you say something about the need to make safe software, but that aspiration won’t be enough to convince election experts that such software actually will exist. And by the way, if you can describe the way to make provably correct, hacker-proof voting software, that alone is very impressive and should be presented somewhere else as a big idea in its own right, not just included as a component of this voting reform project. But, cards on the table, I am by default very skeptical of any claim that someone can make such foolproof software. In general, if your idea requires simultaneous breakthroughs or reforms at the same time, it all gets that much harder. Maybe there’s a 30% chance of persuading people that your voting idea is theoretically desirable, and a 30% chance of the right software being available, well then the chance of success is only 9%. If you can sketch out governance reforms which don’t simultaneously require a breakthrough in software development, they will be more plausible.
I have extremely detailed responses to all these points, and some are explored in the book, but you’ve helped me realize I need to surface and address the common objections much more quickly.
I also completely agree that the “problem oriented” framing is too clunky. I’ll put together a more efficient overview post and get back to you!
The presentation of your website looks basically alright, but it seems your format is to start with the problem, go through a bit of a story, explain concepts of voting methods, and then wind up with the solution at the end. That works for some contexts but in a more academic or technical flavored setting, and what I find easier to work with, is to start with the thesis upfront and then unpack it with details lower down. The blogging/rhetorical style is understandable for the front page of the website, but when I click the link to the chapter Persistent Democracy, there at least I expect to immediately jump into a snappy description of what you are proposing. Something like:
“In Persistent Democracy, scheduled elections will be replaced by ______ where voters can _____. This will solve the problems of ______, _______, and ______, by ______ and _____. ” Hope you get the idea.
As it stands, I’m a little unsure what you’re proposing because on one hand you say it will enable direct democracy but on the other hand you talk about how politicians such as mayors might be elected with your system.
I’ve only looked at a few parts of your website so far, so don’t take this as an attack, but a description of my current views so that you can know the challenge of what you’d have to do to overcome my skepticism. I support representative democracy over direct democracy. I think that in some cases, bureaucratic experts should have a bit more power. I think America currently has on average too much public scrutiny of government projects. I am wary of political systems which too heavily reward participatory effort, because it can give too much power to a vocal and well-resourced minority, as we see with NIMBY groups opposing upzoning. I think that people who are very informed and engaged in politics are not necessarily better voters because their knowledge and passion usually comes alongside heightened bias and radicalism. I think that Congress works better when the public doesn’t pay close attention to it. I think that recall elections, such as those I observe in my state of California, are a bad system. And at least some EAs who are plugged into politics largely agree with these points (indeed, several of the above citations come from EAs). Putting it all together, this is a less populist point of view which makes me skeptical about your approach.
You also should probably address the question of whether your voting system would be secure when it seems to require electronic voting. I gather that many informed people are very skeptical about the security of electronic voting. I see that you say something about the need to make safe software, but that aspiration won’t be enough to convince election experts that such software actually will exist. And by the way, if you can describe the way to make provably correct, hacker-proof voting software, that alone is very impressive and should be presented somewhere else as a big idea in its own right, not just included as a component of this voting reform project. But, cards on the table, I am by default very skeptical of any claim that someone can make such foolproof software. In general, if your idea requires simultaneous breakthroughs or reforms at the same time, it all gets that much harder. Maybe there’s a 30% chance of persuading people that your voting idea is theoretically desirable, and a 30% chance of the right software being available, well then the chance of success is only 9%. If you can sketch out governance reforms which don’t simultaneously require a breakthrough in software development, they will be more plausible.
Hello! Just making sure you see the edit with this talk: https://youtu.be/wOW6_DwA87c
I wrote up some brief notes with the time I had today, the response post will be here when it’s complete: https://persistentdemocracy.org/persistent-democracy-for-the-skeptical
Thank you for your feedback!
I have extremely detailed responses to all these points, and some are explored in the book, but you’ve helped me realize I need to surface and address the common objections much more quickly.
I also completely agree that the “problem oriented” framing is too clunky. I’ll put together a more efficient overview post and get back to you!