Reddit reviews The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

We need tp throw out our assumptions of what a Direct Democracy is, because I'm not advocating for a pure Direct Democratic system. A pure Democracy isn't even possible for good governance, let alone arguing for a pure Direct Democracy. Calling it Direct Democracy highlights only an ideal, and not a total implementation, like democracy.

If people are smart enough to know what they don't know, and give power to those that do know, then direct democracy can work, and our assumption of their illiteracy hindering their ability to choose proper governance is found on poor grounds. Furthermore while those illiterate people aren't capable of making policy they are capable of know how the world should look as a result of that policy.

All Direct Democracy means is that every individual has the ability to freely allocate their power however they wish to allocate it, to whoever they want, for whatever purpose they want, and towards whatever cause they want. In general having the ability to freely utilize power. So that means that I can allocate my power however I want, and that will have a positive effect towards that cause.

Here's another idea, what if people can introduce a proposition to the the Parliament, and houses vote on them. Thereby increasing the ability for a people to participate while retaining the government's power. Things like this would be great, but if you want to talk about specifics there's a lot to talk about, and I'm not claiming to have answers.

It is also my view that a central government needs to have decreased power, especially under a direct democracy type of government. So that majoritarianism is an isolated incident, and that different societies are able to self govern without the imposition of external authorities.

All I'm saying is that people, every common person, needs to have a greater say in their government. An ability to directly stay in touch with the government. I really don't think I have to give an argument for that statement. If you're going to argue that the people are incapable of governing themselves then it's a critique more of democracy itself than direct democracy. I don't pretend to have the answers, else I would be implementing them right now, but I do know that democracies today need to really think hard about the future of governance.

>Would a parent allow the child to run the house? No. The child assumes that the parent has his best interest at heart. Similarly, the less educated and less fortunate people vote in people who they deem educated enough to represent them and their interests. MPs/MLAs may be shrewd and cunning but they are way more capable than millions of Indians who barely know how to read and write.

Would censorship laws, and various other laws that prevent freedom of speech, and debate fall under that same argument. That people are not responsible enough to think freely. To communicate freely, as that will result in civil unrest, or hinder the ability of the government to govern. I'm not going to into why that logic is wrong, but it would also be used to defend monarchy, authoritarian regimes, etc.

But who am I kidding perhaps we can believe what Shekhar Gupta says in saying " It includes checks and balances, stability and credibility, institutions that protect you from majoritarian excess, that give the rulers the strength and confidence to make the best decision for their people and nations in their best wisdom, even if it happens to be unpopular on that day.", however my question is that why doesn't the same hold true for majorities, why are we assuming that the leader do make the best decisions.

>Assuming that direct democracy is good, which it is not, how do you plan on executing it in a country which is infrastructure starved? Do you plan to use strawpoll.com to run India?

Here's something cool, and this is not the only one, nor an ideal implementation, there are many many people working on this, and the exact form is yet to crystallize. But that's the beauty of it, we can create any type of government, at any time, addressing current events fluidly, through computation, but that's a different subject.

Here's a book. that talks about the projection of concentrate power.

Here's another book that focuses on leadership, and business management.

A bunch of people have been writing about this idea of power becoming more decentralized for a while now.

> The gradual development of the equality of conditions is therefore a providential fact, and it possesses all the characteristics of a divine decree: it is universal, it is durable, it constantly eludes all human interference, and all events as well as all men contribute to its progress.

And this guy just recently wrote a book about it, and here's a kind of stupid video that sums it up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9AXhmYaob0

And you know how people say that technology develops faster than we learn how to use it responsibly? Let's hope we can do that with information. You're absolutely right that we have more potential now than ever to create an almost utopian democracy where everyone is informed. But so far people seem to be slow on learning how to properly use the internet and TV channels.. lots of bullshit out there you know?

I just hope that we can learn to be more responsible democratic citizens before the people get all the power and we really do ourselves in.