News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Cicada: A Distributed Direct Democracy and Decentralized ... by losteric on Friday July 28, 2017 @11:26AM (#14874922)
Direct democracy works IF we have an educated electorate. Which America does not have, and will not have for at least a generation... all the same, it can work.

An educated electorate does not imply subject matter expertise, it means ubiquitous critical thinking abilities... the ability to debate, ask good questions, analyze the credibility and argument of a subject matter expert, and having the humbleness to be persuaded.

Re:Cicada: A Distributed Direct Democracy and Decentralized ... by skummetmaelk on Friday July 28, 2017 @11:31AM (#14874954)
Which will never ever happen. Who has time to critically evaluate every single decision that needs to be made by an effective government?

That is assuming of course you could make everyone rational.

Re:Cicada: A Distributed Direct Democracy and Decentralized ... by losteric on Friday July 28, 2017 @02:10PM (#14876270)
Who says they would have to? Direct democracy = direct voting, not intimate involvement with every stage of policy.

Representatives would still exist as subject matter experts that develop policy within their domain and act to convince the public. Ubiquitous critical thinking is sufficient to protect the public from demagogues and conmen - and that is an achievable goal (albeit politically challenging today)