The old adage "The Voter Is Always Right" is no longer true, or Why Democracy is in Trouble ...7/20/2019 In the past, it was said that "the voter is always right". Indeed, until fairly recently, even when elections produced surprising results, a logical explanation could always be found. Indeed, there did appear to be a deeper wisdom in the collective vote.
That is no longer the case and as a result, democracies all around the world are in trouble. Why is that? We think of democracy as dating back to the ancient Greeks but modern democracy where everyone has a vote is barely 100 years old. Over that 100 years, the number and type of "Influencers" who determine how people decide to vote has changed dramatically. "Influencers" are people, organizations, or information sources that impact your voting decisions. In 1900, the large majority of the population lived in rural communities and their literacy rates were significantly lower than today so their "influencers" were local and limited. This did not change much until after WWII when there was a prolonged economic boom. Increasing access to education (primary and secondary), newspapers, radio, TV, plus work and social groups in urban communities broadened the "influencers". With all this increased access to information and opinions, one might expect that voter decision making would become less of an emotional response it had typically been in the past, to a somewhat more reasoned response. Until the end of the 20th century, there did indeed appear to be a deeper wisdom in the collective vote, however, evidence suggests that voting was still largely an emotional affair. By the beginning of the 21st century, things started to change dramatically. In the year 2000, less than 50% of households in many advanced democracies had access to computers and the Internet. Facebook was not founded until 2004, the year that Google went public. Today with widespread access to computers, smartphones, the Internet and social media, things have changed dramatically. The number of "Influencers" on your voting decision making has gone up exponentially, "Influencers" are no longer local and limited, they are now global and extensive. Interestingly, at a time when we need voters to use more reason and intellect, there is little evidence they are doing so. In fact, voter decisions are even more "emotionally based" than ever before. And as we have also seen, an Influencer can now be someone from another country, even a non-democratic country. There are many reasons democracy is faltering, "emotionally based" voting being just one, albeit a very important reason. Another issue is that many voters, perhaps the majority of voters, do not really understand how democracy works. Democratic governments have a Legislative Branch which makes the laws, an Executive Branch which implements the laws, and an independent Judiciary Branch which is tasked with judging people based on the laws written by the Legislative branch, and the Constitution. Behind all this is a bureaucratic machinery which does the work. Individual elected representatives as part of the Legislative Branch sit on various working committees and communicate with their constituents. This is a much simplified description but provides the essence of a modern democracy. Running a country with a budget of hundreds of billions of dollars, even trillions of dollars, is a very complex endeavor. To make changes to current laws or introduce new laws takes an enormous amount of work, including, in many cases, mandatory consultations with the public and outside experts. Also new or changed laws have to comply with a whole host of existing regulatory requirements (environmental, etc) and of course the constitution. Then things can get challenged in the courts, as we saw recently with the Trans Mountain Pipeline where the Supreme Court ruled that the consultation process with Native Canadians was not sufficiently rigorous. The net result is that things do not get done quickly. Many voters are expressing frustration at how long it takes to get things done, in part because they do not understand how democracy works. Also, the bipartisan nature of politics today does not help in getting things done in a timely manner. Democracy has worked in the past because parties have found effective ways of achieving sort of consensus. Perhaps one can understand the appeal of a strong charismatic "populist" leader who promises to cut through all the crap and get things done. For many, the more radical, the better. Of course, a dictator has much greater ability to cut through the crap and get things done. But that is not a democracy where individual freedoms are protected and individuals have some say in what gets done and how it gets done. Here in Ontario, Canada, we currently see the result of a government determined to ram through it's agenda with little or no outside consultation, and it seems that the voter does not like being left out of the democratic process after all. For sure, governments need to find ways of becoming much more efficient in running a democracy. But the voter also has a huge responsibility to become better educated on how government works and, perhaps even more importantly, to learn how to make rational sense of all the Influencers they are exposed to. A starting point would be a required educational course for prospective politicians ie: you cannot run for office without taking this course. Also required would be "civics" courses for the public, not just students in the educational systems but everyone. Educate both the voter and the politician. If we find that such education still does not work, then even more dramatic solutions will have to be considered. One possibility is that before every election, all voters have to take an exam on their understanding of the political system and current issues. This would include an assessment of where they get their information and the reliability of that information. Then the score they get on this exam would determine the weight of their vote in an election. If you score 20% on the exam, then your vote only accounts for 20%. How one would implement such a system in a fair and secure way is not at all clear, but something has to be considered if we want democracy to survive. What ideas do you have?
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Trump's fight with Huawei is illogical and may end up being disastrous for the western world in the long run.
Currently, there is more US technology in Huawei smartphones than Chinese technology. In a world where we cross-license technologies on a global basis, everyone can win. In a world where we force China to develop its own technology to replace US technology, there are many losers, especially in the western world. China can and will, if forced to, develop its own version of Google, Facebook, Intel CPU chips, Windows & Android operating systems, communications technologies, etc, etc, etc. In a world split between totally incompatible systems, the biggest player will win - guess what USA, you will no longer be the biggest player - by a wide margin. You will lose. The USA is "afraid" that the Chinese will use Huawei's 5G technology to spy on them. Like the USA does not already use the almost weekly security breaches in Windows, Intel chips, etc to spy on China. There is no such thing as perfect "zero risk" software or hardware. All systems are subject to hacking. Is it not better to be working together to combat cybercrime, than starting a "cyber" cold war? For sure China has flagrantly flaunted copyright laws in the past but this is rapidly changing as they develop more and more of their own technologies for which they too have a vested interest in a rigorous global copyright system. The fact that the USA cannot possibly win a "cyber" cold war, or even outright cyber warfare, was quietly but forcefully demonstrated at a recent international conference on Artificial Intelligence. The USA was arrogantly stating that they will win the AI race since they had over 2000 PhD's working in this field. The Chinese delegate quietly pointed out to the audience that the Chinese had 20,000 PhD's working in this field. And this huge intellectual advantage is true for virtually every major technological field. A robust global technology-based economy where everyone is contributing and benefiting is the "only" winning strategy for the USA and the western world. Canada, stand up for this reality and allow Huawei to compete for the 5G market. Perhaps that will be the wakeup call that the USA so desperately needs. |
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