1) Get a media figure* that commands the utmost respect of the population to report on corruption.

2) Get 2% of the population participating in a peaceful protest & demonstration to put pressure on congress.

3) ???

4) profit!!

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sohn_Suk-hee

Media figure with utmost respect... in the US... scratches head

We're hooped.

I think this may be why the US has a strange fascination with electing actors to high political offices - they may cross a lot more partisan lines than any other celebrities that are actually professional policy makers or journalists.

I also think the other cultural difference is that education and science is still highly respected as institutions while confidence in these institutions has been attacked and subsequently declined for decades. This makes a lot of national discourse for what should be otherwise simple discussions much, much harder. This, at the moment Obama's commentary as he exited office is about right - emotion has triumphed over reason and facts.

I think the US likes electing actors because actors are better able to appeal to them emotionally, and because their celebrity status makes them appear more trustworthy.

Any successful politician has the traits of a good actor, but actors can claim they're not "really" politicians, even while running for political office, and using the same political tricks as their rivals. It's a weird "Mr. Smith goes to Washington" complex that Americans seem to fall prey to constantly.

Given the nature of the last few Presidential elections in the US, it doesn't seem as if voters want partisan lines crossed, rather, they want those lines maintained and defended with razor wire and snipers.

Things have to get really dystopian before an Edison Carter can appear.

W-w-w-w-who is Edison C-Carter?

Sanjay Gupta? Al Roker? I really have no idea.

John Oliver?

Not really respected by the Right, and a lot of people in the Boomer generation might not be aware of him. Plus he's a comedian, and would probably see taking that role as absurd and self-destructive. I hope.

Educate your electorate.

Since the 80's it's been quite the opposite. Whether by design or happy coincidence (for populists) education has been gutted.

Major flaw with democracy, 50% of electorate has below average IQ.

Actually, 50% of electorate has below median IQ.

I don't like the Mode of your speech. I think you are Mean and this falls well below the Average expected on Hacker News.

Specifically for the IQ, isn't the average designed to be the median? It's a normal distribution after all.

Can't actually have a normal distribution that has a bound on one end...

There's no reason an IQ couldn't be negative. Granted, I don't think the IQ test is properly calibrated for this and I don't think real world data perfectly fits the bell curve as designed, so it's kind of moot point.

So back to only educated people or people owning property again; are we proposing education testing before casting a vote? Besides, it's not like smart people don't have biases.

That does not seem like an alternative most people -even educated or above median IQ would favor.

> are we proposing education testing before casting a vote?

I'm curious, have there been any known attempts to condition the right to vote on passing some kind of IQ, education, or rational thinking test? If so, how did they work out?

Thanks, that's some useful history to know. Any data points from other countries?

Not off the top of my head - IANAH :-P

So? Below average IQ doesn't mean that your opinions are valueless and shouldn't be taken into account.

We all have to live with one another, and to make a system of government work with peaceful transitions of power, everyone must feel as if they have a voice.

High IQ, high education, high wealth, and other social advantages can be leveraged into making side-channels in the political system (e.g. lobbying), or by shaping the discussion the general electorate sees (e.g. overton window) in order to direct it towards ones goals.

Democracies have all been implemented with specific factors to make them viable in today's society, not some idealised society.

I was being a little flip of course, IQ is generally accepted to be a Gaussian distribution which is symmetrical, the mean and average are at 50 percentile so it is a little bit of a math joke that of course then, 50% of the people in a large enough sample will be below the 50 percentile.

If you think certain group of people participating in democracy is a problem, you're advocating for something other than a democracy.

Should children vote?

Crazy thought: would it really be that bad?

If the votes end up being noise, it comes out in the wash. And we already have protections against compelling people to vote one way or another, so carrot-sticking children for votes would (continue to be) a serious crime.

It might even grow our children into a less apathetic public.

I agree, and not a crazy thought. The reasons for voting of the median adult in both parties -- described as charitably as possible -- are suboptimal. The fact that children might be slightly less informed doesn't excuse the disenfranchisement. If anything, children's relative lack of bias might offset their propensity to be less informed.

Our laws and attitude towards "age discrimination" in this country are bizarre and flagrantly hypocritical. The ADEA forbids age discrimination, but only for those 40 or older. This would be analogous to forbidding racial discrimination, but only against some one particular race. Kind of takes away the moral high ground.

Reading the description of the political climate upthread, the majority in parliament in SK is opposition, split between two parties. Here, the R's have a majority in the House which impeaches, so our chances are unfortunately not that great.

Even the two major opposition parties could not have pulled off a supermajority (67% required for the impeachment) on their own. It helped that the ruling party was split into two factions, one of which sided with the opposition at the last minute.

Now we have four major parties, one minor party, and a bunch of independents who all hate one another. It's going to be fun! At least I hope this will bring some much-needed diversity to Korean politics. Two parties are boring and too easily devolve into an ideological staredown.

>Two parties are boring and too easily devolve into an ideological staredown.

Hell, just look at the US[0].

[0] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/purple-america-has-all-...

Try and elect a more impeachable president - like Clinton.

The comment you're replying to was a bad one, but making the thread worse with a personal attack is exactly the wrong way to respond. Please don't do this on HN.

It's too bad Hilary wasn't president. We could have had a double impeachment!

What offenses do you think she would she have committed while president that she would have been impeached for?

literally anything, assuming the congressional votes were the same and we ended up with a Republican house and senate. The would try to impeach her from day 1

I asked what they thought she would do, not what congress would have thrown at her.