Jobs that either don’t contribute in any meaningful way or jobs where one would be better off if they were paid to be on call.
Jobs that either don’t contribute in any meaningful way or jobs where one would be better off if they were paid to be on call.
Politicians
We could very easily vote on most issues ourselves using the wide array of technology at our fingertips, with a similar or possible better sense of security than what politicians currently provide.
But the only way for that to happen is for politicians to make it happen, and who would vote to eliminate their own job? No one.
Well, the second problem would be figuring out who curates the system. If you’ve ever voted on a referendum you’ll probably know what I’m talking about. You can make any proposal sound awesome/horrible if you leave out the right details.
If you’ve ever organized to resist a referendum you’ve probably also experienced the “we’ll just rephrase this and try again later” effect, wherein special interests just need to stubbornly keep pushing until the opposition voters get sick of participating in the polls.
I don’t think these are unsolvable problems, but they do inherently require setting up a representative beaurocracy of unelected technocrats – an apparent oxymoron. It’s gotta be someone’s job to run the machine and ideally you want them to be looking out for the people above all else.
So, how to play kingmaker? Well, if we take literal kings & elected representatives off the table, what remains is a model akin to academia, wherein credentials & seniority are prioritized above most else. It’s not a bulletproof system (none are), but if you squint hard enough the EU sort of exemplifies what this model could look like – just replace the delegates with smartphones, essentially.
Who would draft new legislation? I know it’s not just politicians that do this but their staff helps a ton. I just don’t see a good system of John Everyman drafting a bill that makes sense. That said I would like to see politicians get fixed cause the system is clearly broken.
Hmm… I’m not sure I agree with this completely despite politicians obviously being problematic. At least at its core, the rationale is that the significant majority of people aren’t aware enough of all the contentious (or even mundane) issues in society, so we elect people we trust to make our decisions for us. I just checked Canada’s recent bills in Parliament, and the voter turnout for something like this would be almost nothing:
Obviously our current system is very easily corruptible and that needs to be addressed, but getting rid of politicians altogether wouldn’t necessarily fix our society, despite how terrible they’re making it right now.