Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

Re:Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy by yummyfajitas on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @09:26AM (#11901853)

Suppose you vote wrong for some national socialist who will destroy the economy and kill the muslims. How much will you, personally, lose? I.e., multiply your actual losses by the probability of your vote affecting the outcome.

Now compare that number to the 1 Euro worth of tribal satisfaction/self righteousness/other positive feels you get from voting for that national socialist.

In contrast, consider a true "wisdom of crowds" situation. When I hold irrational views about share prices, the stock market immediately takes my money and gives it to people with rational views. Bad decisions result in immediate losses in direct proportion to how bad the decisions are.

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Re:Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy by vlehto on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @10:22AM (#11902168)

You need some goal to correctly target that "wisdom of crowds". So first we need democracy to set the goal: Gini-index vs. Pareto efficiency. Freedom vs. security. Protection of personal rights vs. right of group self determination.

Then throw into the equation some very polarizing stuff like abortion, drugs, animal welfare, inheritance tax, immigration and whatnot. Then watch as some political entity loots government budget while people are arguing. This happens in Finland too now that Russia is weak.

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