Metademocracy
So, I’ve said that we need to turn the US into a metademocracy – that we need to vote on how to vote.
Specifically, I had this conversation with my friend Jeremy, and we came up with one possible model that we think might work really well.
Instead of a representative democracy, you would build a direct democracy. However, instead of having everyone vote on every issue, people would subscribe to issues that they were interested in. Participating in mailing lists and forums, taking tests and quizzes that indicated you understood all sides of a issue, would all earn you points. The more points you had, the more your vote would count.
There would be no minimum voting age. On issues with long term impact, after proving reading comprehension with a basic test, the younger you are, the more weight your vote would carry.
It’s a weighted meritocracy. The concept here is that I don’t really want a plumber flying a 747, or a pilot fixing my sink. People do have interests, and those interests do drive what they know about and should be making decisions about.