[HN Gopher] The app that lets you pay to control another person'...
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The app that lets you pay to control another person's life
Author : akbarnama
Score : 85 points
Date : 2021-05-17 07:52 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| This is just like Instagram's story polls (a subset of basically)
| but requiring payment to vote. I'm impressed they could actually
| monetize that.
| greggman3 wrote:
| Before I read the article I assumed this was the plot of the
| movie "Gamer" except for real. In that movie (ruined mostly by a
| horrible ending), players control their in game avatar but those
| in game avatars are real people.
| ktpsns wrote:
| For anybody looking for the link to the app: https://newnew.co/
|
| Unfortunately, there is no website/web frontend/web app. I think
| I am too old to understand why people try to force you to install
| their app instead of providing at least some fallback website.
| jonas21 wrote:
| 1. Push notifications. Unless you were constantly checking the
| website, how would you know whether someone is running a poll?
| If it's something like "what sort of food should I eat?" I
| doubt the poll is open for very long.
|
| 2. Payments. Being integrated into the in-app purchase system
| is a much faster and smoother experience than asking for a
| credit card number. And some people are not going to want to
| enter their credit card number into a random website to vote in
| a poll.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Branding and taking control of your terminal to get more data
| about you. With a browser you click on the same icon then reach
| the desired page, and if the browser employs some form of ad
| blocking or malware filtering, a webpage can't do much to scan
| your device for interesting personal data. An app is quite
| different for being an executable you installed on your device
| after it requested access to everything, so they manage to get
| both their icon on your start screen and also run their code on
| your phone, which is of course a huge security and privacy
| hole.
| dreen wrote:
| Probably the target demographics dont really use non-mobile
| computers
| thinkingemote wrote:
| Websites can and do have adblocks and tracking protection.
| samirillian wrote:
| The title literally describes all Uber-for-X apps.
| daedalus2027 wrote:
| Am I the only one thinking about black mirror right now?
| patrickwalton wrote:
| This ranks highly on the Black Mirror scale (how many Black
| Mirror episodes could be written about it).
| Hitton wrote:
| Putting aside the getting paid part, it reminds me of cult
| classic novel "The Dice man", which I read about here few years
| ago, except instead of chance, people choose.
| akomtu wrote:
| "It is aimed at what it calls "creators" - writers, painters,
| musicians"
|
| The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Very soon the
| app's investors will realize that there's no money in musicians,
| but appeal to lowest animalistic desires - power, greed, lust -
| is where all the money are. The app will morph to cater to that:
| it'll become more addictive and more extortive, i.e. more
| "engaging" in the corp double speak. Investors will get massive
| returns, the crowd will get another amplifier of their lowest
| desires.
| magicroot75 wrote:
| Only fans but for power instead of sex.
| qntty wrote:
| Which is actually far creepier, since power is really about sex
| and sex is really about power.
| [deleted]
| bsenftner wrote:
| This will be huge in porn: what panties should I wear? and so on.
| For celebrities whose product is sex appeal, this is their killer
| app.
| stinos wrote:
| This _is_ already a thing, see my other comment. Not sure if it
| is _huge_ though.
| giantandroids wrote:
| So I pay someone to have a chance at influencing what type of
| sandwich they might have for lunch?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| RE headline, isn't this what the gig economy already is? Apps
| like Uber, Deliveroo, etc. are apps to issue API call against a
| pool of human workers.
|
| (And the rating part is where you get to have pretty
| disproportionate impact on another person's life.)
| dmos62 wrote:
| Work sets goals, while pooled decision making sets decisions.
| Decisions are how you achieve goals.
| williamdclt wrote:
| I think that's drawing a parallel between too distant lines.
| You can also argue that this is what employment is: your
| employer pays you wages to control what you do with your life,
| it's not wrong but it's not particularly helpful to the
| discussion I think
| GuB-42 wrote:
| It is not distant at all. You pay someone to do stuff, that's
| what a job is. The "control another person's life" aspect is
| pure marketing talk.
|
| From the look of it, it is not unlike patreon, intended for
| artists, they can make polls and have paying users vote.
| Users can also pay for special requests.
|
| It looks like some people are using it reality TV style
| "where should I eat next?", why not, after all, reality TV
| actor is some kind of work too. Just like the 18+ version
| that is already all over the web.
| mhb wrote:
| You can also argue that that's what politicians and lobbyists
| are.
| kiliantics wrote:
| I mean, employment in general is paying to control someone's
| life
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It is indeed, but only in recent years there was _an app for
| that_.
| alphabet9000 wrote:
| Uhhhh i was gonna say what i really think about this app but...
| if u want me to say something nice first send $1 (venmo
| @johnromero44) but if u want me to really go off on it cough up
| $5 i will be waiting for 5 minutes thanks
| alphabet9000 wrote:
| wow a success, $5 received via NewNew HN Comment Plugin by
| Venmo, thanks to D.K. for paying to control me.
|
| i started to wonder about the app after reading reviews for it
| and the reviews not matching up with the description of
| 'NewNew'. it seems like people have had it on their phone for
| years when it went by the name 'Suprize!'. it used to be some
| kind of free giveaway game app, promoted by musical artists on
| their instagram, but switched late last year to NewNew. as
| other commenters (who downloaded it to see what it was about)
| have said, people that already have a following are the only
| ones that can be 'controlled'.
|
| there's a contrast between the way the app is exemplified in
| the article, vs the landing page in the iOS store. the BBC
| article uses contrived controlling behaviors example such as
| 'voting for an artist to paint a painting in a certain color'
| while the iOS app store shows a more realistic example of
| voting whether a girl should 'leave him' or 'msg him' - this
| fits in nicely with present day culture. but it immediately
| makes you wonder whats next; there's no reason for the antics
| to just stop there... cranking up unethical behavior is where
| something like this will really shine and become wildly
| successful. it even hints at what's to come in the form of
| voting on 'pranks' in a screenshot of users on the app, one of
| which is asking whether 'he should fill vinnies room with
| packing peanuts?' [0].
|
| i can see an even more successful path forward for newnew if
| they eventually remove the limitation of only allowing
| beautiful or popular people from being controlled, to literally
| anyone who is willing to live stream something extreme and
| immoral (yet legal!!!) for a fee. bid on a random person with
| nothing to lose willing to go up to someone else and perform a
| 'prank' (use your imagination) -- stuff that people with a
| reputation on the line might not be willing to do. as other
| commenters have also pointed out, that seems like where this
| kind of thing is headed inevitably.
|
| these thoughts were paid for by D.K. sorry there isnt more i
| spent too long enjoying reading the very entertaining reviews
| [1] for when the app was still called Surprize
|
| [0] https://i.imgur.com/eoXSZ7v.jpeg
|
| [1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/newnew/id1327683895#see-
| all/re...
| munificent wrote:
| Elevator pitch: It's not the principle-agent _problem_ , it's the
| principle-agent _solution_!
| system16 wrote:
| Curious, I downloaded the app. The feed I was presented with was
| 90% girls in low cut tops, and everything is paywalled until you
| pay for votes.
|
| If you want to become a "creator" (so you can run your own polls
| and make money), you need to join a waiting list where they will
| analyze the follower count of your other social media accounts to
| ensure you are worthy.
|
| The (iOS) app itself was annoying to navigate without a native
| swipe back gesture. Amazing that it has so many 5 star reviews.
|
| Ultimately, the BBC article and amount of 5 star reviews this app
| has screams to me PR company media blitz to generate buzz, and
| nothing about this seems organic.
| jendefig wrote:
| Ugh. Just as I suspected. The pure idea of it has merit. It
| could be very helpful to true creators to get feedback and
| develop community. But there's a lot of risk of base instincts
| and abuse of others for one's own anonymous entertainment. It
| could turn sick fast.
| stinos wrote:
| So basically like chaturbate [1] and similar, but applied to
| daily life and without the nudity/sex aspect? I wonder how they
| plan on keeping that out since their terms [2] (seem to) mention
| they don't allow that.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaturbate [2]
| https://newnew.co/terms
| 45ure wrote:
| > _NewNew is the brainchild of Los Angeles-based entrepreneur
| Courtne Smith. The app, which is still in its "beta" or pre-
| full release stage, describes itself as "a human stock market
| where you buy shares in the lives of real people, in order to
| control their decisions and watch the outcome"_
|
| The 'mission statement' seems to suggest that the platform is
| adding an extra layer to commoditise the celebrity/personality
| and their lifestyle, by solidifying ephemeral contact built via
| other channels, into a direct-to-consumer approach, who then
| become investors and/or stockholders? There is also an overlap
| on features of other established networks, so it will be not be
| easy to carve out a niche.
|
| Nonetheless, it seems like a warped enough concept to achieve
| some success, despite contributing further towards the erosion
| of society and burning or reviving the careers of some
| wannabe/z-list celebs, amongst others.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| > I wonder how they plan on keeping that out
|
| It wouldn't surprise me if an established NSFW platform adopted
| this feature as well, drawing away the people with those
| interests. And as the app developers have this rule from the
| beginning at least they're spared the backlash that Tumblr
| experienced when they banned nude content out of nowhere,
| paired with a content filter biased towards false positives.
| rntksi wrote:
| That feature you are speaking of, is already found on live
| cams websites
|
| I kind of agree with your sentiment on this and I believe it
| will end up, sooner or later, into what you described.
| elric wrote:
| Hopefully without the annoyance of people "directing"
| performers without being willing to pay them ... which is
| something that often happens on websites like chaturbate. It's
| bizarre how manners go out the window as soon as someone's
| naked.
| stinos wrote:
| Would be interesting to figure out how large the role of the
| being naked part really is though. I can imagine the same
| 'directing' would take place on NewNew: when I first learned
| about the existence of chaturbate I went to have a look and I
| have to admit I was quite baffled by what went on there. Not
| really a pleasant experience actually. Even though I had the
| impression some performers really enjoyed it and were into it
| not just for the money, I couldn't shake off the uneasy
| feeling for the rest it was just poorer people being
| exploited. And the 'directing' was like vultures circling
| around reasoning 'well, the rest pays already, so I'm just
| going to ask anything I want without paying myself'. I would
| be surprised if that mindset would also not pop up when
| clothes stay on.
| bserge wrote:
| "Visit my Onlyfans for extra control" :D
| contravariant wrote:
| >For many of us that sounds a bit ominous, but the reality is
| actually far less alarming.
|
| >"NewNew feels a bit like if TikTok met reality TV hit Big
| Brother and they had a baby"
|
| There's no chance this isn't exactly as alarming as it sounds is
| there?
| adventured wrote:
| It's not alarming, it's merely despicable. It shouldn't alarm
| (which requires surprise) anybody given the condition of the
| rapidly collapsing culture in the US, it should be entirely
| expected at this point. It's pop culture narcissistic sleeze
| taken to the next level. It'll keep going, keep getting worse,
| until society has had enough and begins to reject it. Take this
| thing and make it worse, take it up a notch, someone will
| eventually find success with that, and so on it will spiral.
|
| Until then, the US will continue to plumb the depths of how far
| a culture can erode before a bottom is discovered.
| system16 wrote:
| Why single out the US? TikTok wasn't even made here and it -
| along with Facebook, Instagram, etc. - are popular worldwide.
| ww520 wrote:
| This is basically outsourcing decision making to others.
| mikro2nd wrote:
| Indeed. Decision Making As A Service.
| kuu wrote:
| > "It may not take long for a creator to go to more and more
| extreme lengths to attract votes from their followers, ending in
| potentially self-damaging or humiliating scenarios"
|
| We've seen this on Twitch with streamers doing "marathons" for
| getting more subs and therefore money...
|
| The model for this app clearly will force the creators to do more
| "interesting" or "risky" questions to grab attention. If it gets
| enough traction , it's not going to end well.
| brbsix wrote:
| Livestreamers have it bad enough already when they allow
| viewers who donate to play audio or TTS over their speakers.
|
| Here is one hilariously tragic example with a Seattle
| livestreamer who went by the name "Arab Andy" while in a UW
| classroom. Hint: it landed him in jail.
|
| https://www.bitchute.com/video/VOI9sw3MmDM/
| Moosdijk wrote:
| Him filming the people running away and laughing might have
| contributed to him going to jail.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Is that really much different than what employers ask of us?
| interlocutor2 wrote:
| Yes because there are myriad laws preventing sexual
| harassment, physically dangerous practices, minimum wage, etc
| RGamma wrote:
| This seems even more idiotic than TikTok, so it is bound to be
| very successful.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Let's call it "Social Media Successful" where lots of people
| pile on (platform profits) with a subsequent avalanche of
| unintended fucked up consequences (public bears the cost).
| durnygbur wrote:
| Ok the internet and mobile ecosystem are irrevokably broken,
| rewind to 2009 and start again.
| tomcooks wrote:
| Web is a lost cause, go to inconveniently placed platforms if
| you want to find peace, freedom and lack of commercial drones
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| 7373737373 wrote:
| Relevant: K. Mike Merrill, "the first publicly traded person":
|
| https://kmikeym.com/
|
| https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/meet-the-man-selling-infl...
| faeriechangling wrote:
| So like a SFW camgirl app?
| contingencies wrote:
| If that's not how they pitch to VCs, it should be.
| moshmosh wrote:
| I only know of Twitch from reading about it, but it was my
| impression that's exactly what Twitch is. (well, _one of_ the
| things it is, and a major one, anyway)
| bserge wrote:
| Funny, I was thinking of a very similar idea. I don't care much
| about most things, and I have a huge problem choosing or making
| up my mind. Why not crowdsource it?
|
| I'm surprised people would _pay you_ for it, but maybe not that
| surprised if you give them more control over yourself.
|
| Like doing something they say, wearing a dumb T-Shirt they send
| or recording yourself shouting something in a crowd (actually,
| there were people on Fiverr doing this already, just not in an
| embarrassing way).
| hermannj314 wrote:
| I am anxiously awaiting the day we do this for politicians.
|
| A new political party whose beliefs, policy platform, speeches,
| and votes are tied to constantly evolving real-time demands of
| its app users (err...constituents)
|
| I would vote for any candidate that committed to letting its
| registered users decide every vote he or she made.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| That sounds like it would be a great target for all the
| emotional manipulators of our world.
| ioseph wrote:
| That's several direct democracy parties where I live but to
| date none have won a seat. It's an interesting concept but I
| can think of many ways it could go horribly wrong (think Reddit
| with the marathon bombing). Also wouldn't such a system still
| be beholden to lobbying groups (possibly more so)?
| avereveard wrote:
| We have had one direct democracy party reach majority and
| form a government with hilarious results. The moment they had
| power direct democracy ideas died. In a single term they
| found themselves at government with the left, the alt right,
| then a large coalition, then a technical government. They
| should have self financed the direct democracy platform using
| their salary, and basically stopped doing that most
| immediately. The platform holder dragged them to tribunal,
| and party ownership is currently undecided.
| mstipetic wrote:
| Which country/party is that? When did that happen?
| wolfpack_mick wrote:
| The FiveStar party in Italy did this. They had an online
| platform for their members, and apparently the way it
| went was that they'd first massage everyones opinion in
| the forums, and then let them vote.
|
| I read it in a great long read from Wired called 'What
| Happens When Techno-Utopians Actually Run a Country'.
| Vinnl wrote:
| You mean something like "Twitch plays politics"?
| dokem wrote:
| You don't want everyone voting on every issue, and I don't want
| you voting on every issue. This is why we have a representative
| democracy, it's also why we have separate specializations for
| doctors and mechanics.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Without the payment aspect though.
| chr1 wrote:
| One issue preventing such parties, is that people do not have
| time and interest to think about all the issues and there needs
| to be a way to delegate and trade votes.
|
| In Australia there is https://voteflux.org which solves the
| first issue.
|
| But another issue is lack of an easy way to onboard new people,
| because now a party needs to gather a large support to become
| useful. Maybe if they partner with a petition site like
| change.org that would both try to influence existing
| politicians and serve as a way for new people to get involved
| with the real thing, they would get the necessary viral growth.
| hyko wrote:
| Sounds like a fucking nightmare to be honest.
|
| We've had the technology to do this for many decades, but we
| don't do it because of the insane overheads at modern scale,
| and because the permanent campaigning and rabble-rousing
| required would make governance for even the medium term very
| difficult.
|
| The general public are unlikely to produce a coherent set of
| policies one bill at a time, and trying to manage the
| contradictions they produce will suck any government into the
| quagmire. For example, the U.K. electorate were happy to vote
| for Brexit paradoxes like the NI border, which parliament and
| the government are still unable to square after years of
| trying.
| pelorat wrote:
| Direct democracy is a terrible idea. Voters have shown again
| and again they that they don't understand what they are voting
| for. Most voters only understand "pretty words" and have no
| intention or will to understand issues at a deeper level.
| goodpoint wrote:
| That's a big generalization. Ideas like
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy show a lot of
| promise.
| rapind wrote:
| Totally. We're so much better off with an elite, preferably
| rich, class that constantly tweaks policy for their own
| profit.
|
| Shit show either way IMO until (if) we get our heads out of
| our collective ass.
| argvargc wrote:
| Politicians have also shown again and again they don't
| understand what they are voting for, and/or don't care.
| Caring about the outcome is at least an improvement.
| eat_veggies wrote:
| "we must above all rid ourselves of the very Western, very
| bourgeois and therefore contemptuous attitude that the masses
| are incapable of governing themselves. In fact, experience
| proves that the masses understand perfectly the most
| complicated problems. [...] the masses are quick to seize
| every shade of meaning and to learn all the tricks of the
| trade. If recourse is had to technical language, this
| signifies that it has been decided to consider the masses as
| uninitiated. [...] Everything can be explained to the people,
| on the single condition that you really want them to
| understand."
|
| Frantz Fanon, _The Wretched of the Earth_ , 1961, pp. 188-189
| triceratops wrote:
| > Everything can be explained to the people, on the single
| condition that you really want them to understand.
|
| Who's doing the explaining? What viewpoints do they offer?
| How much time and mental energy do the people have to
| educate themselves on the issues?
| staticman2 wrote:
| "It's been 60 years since I died and given 60 years of new
| data I was wrong about everything."
|
| Frantz Fanon, from heaven, hypothetically.
| [deleted]
| andreilys wrote:
| _Everything can be explained to the people, on the single
| condition that you really want them to understand."_
|
| Counterpoint quote
|
| _"It is difficult to get a man to understand something
| when his salary depends on his not understanding it."_
| staticautomatic wrote:
| Really the counterpoint is Walter Lippmann's book The
| Phantom Public.
| pessimizer wrote:
| "Everything can be explained to the people, on the single
| condition that you really want them to understand."
|
| Nobody wants the public to _understand_ , they want the
| public to _support their position._ So the information that
| the public receives will always be completely distorted,
| and people who work will not have the time to untwist it.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| Per the "is-ought gap":
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
|
| Maybe the public needn't understand, or vote on what "is" -
| but they _can_ vote on what "ought" to be.
|
| They cannot vote that every bus be on time - this isn't
| guaranteed to be possible, nor should politicians imply it
| could be. But they _can_ set the priority, and % of the
| budget, allocated to improving bus times.
|
| You cannot vote _that_ the sky is green, or that 2 + 2 =5;
| but you can dictate that society be governed as if these
| things are true. You can 't dictate results: that all
| endeavours are successful, all wars won; but you can say
| what endeavours are budgeted, wars are fought - and what
| resources are allocated to them.
|
| The problem is that informed framing is so hard that this
| isn't always possible without truth being held hostage by
| motivated gatekeepers.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| > motivated gatekeepers
|
| Let's just say it: lobbyists.
| FractalHQ wrote:
| And they are too easy to easy brainwash. i.e. Fox News. But
| it isn't hard to beat our current system of selling votes to
| the highest bidding lobbyist.
| ajuc wrote:
| > But it isn't hard to beat our current system of selling
| votes to the highest bidding lobbyist.
|
| There's 20 different ways to fix it already implemented in
| the rest of the world. Starting with a sane vote-counting
| system and low threshold on financing political parties
| from anywhere except the state budget.
| mikem170 wrote:
| I think that direct democracy can work for local issues.
| People need to be engaged with what they are voting on,
| things that effect their lives, things they have a real stake
| in. An example might be a few hundred people in a room
| seeking consensus on local government taxes and services.
|
| This has been successfully implemented in places.
| chr1 wrote:
| People can also decide for themselves if something is an
| issue important to them enough to vote personally, or not
| important enough that can be delegated to someone they
| trust. This is usually called liquid democracy, as it
| allows to change the amount of directness vs delegation.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy
| throwanident wrote:
| To deter intimidation, ordinary voters should have secret
| ballots. But to provide accountability, powerful voters
| should not have secret ballots.
|
| Unfortunately, it's rather difficult to draw a dividing
| line between ordinary voters and powerful ones in a
| liquid democracy method to satisfy both of these
| criteria.
| chr1 wrote:
| No one should have a secret ballot. A vote is a dry run
| for a civil war, and if one can't even publicly say that
| he supports a law how will he be able to help to enact
| that law when it is passed?
|
| There is a curious historical fact, that in ancient Rome
| secret ballot was introduced in 137 BC only 14 years
| before Gaius Gracchus, when people being able to vote for
| reforms but not being able to support that reforms
| greatly contributed to the downfall of the republic.
|
| Moreover the main reason that we need secret ballot now,
| is that elections are rare, reward for intimidating
| someone is huge (4 years of power), and reward for voting
| differently is tiny and uncertain (one or the other
| politician not keeping promises). But with issue based
| voting reward for intimidating is very small as the law
| can be repealed when people understand that they were
| forced to do something harmful to themselves, and reward
| for not being intimidated is much more certain.
|
| Another source of intimidation is the opinion of friends
| and peers, but if you support a law for which your
| friends do not want to talk with you, either they are not
| real friends or you should not support that law. In
| either case being open is better than lying.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| That is some of the reasoning behind the US Constitution.
| Federalist 9 and 10 address the effectiveness of direct
| democracy at a small scale and the utter failure that
| direct democracy is at a large scale. Once you get past a
| tribe size, opposing factions come into play. Factions are
| not bad but direct democracy at scale leads to the largest
| faction ruling over all. Ideally, all factions come to a
| consensus on what is best for all instead of fighting for
| total control.
| gregoriol wrote:
| Local issues are simple compared to national or
| international issues: they affect less people, mostly a
| community that may already form a group of likewise
| thinking people or similar categories of people. Larger
| issues affect much different people, with impacts that may
| be harder to understand.
| clarge1120 wrote:
| This app would make sense as an instant polling tool to give
| politicians instant, and evolving, feedback. So, this isn't
| direct democracy. In the current system, the representative
| is expected to vote on behalf of their constituents, using
| some level of personal judgment. This app would allow
| decisions to be made more quickly and better represent the
| view of the constituency.
|
| Imagine being able to go back and see what the constituents
| demanded, and what the representative decided. One could then
| look at outcomes and determine how reliable a politician's
| judgment is.
| drummer wrote:
| >Voters have shown again and again they that they don't
| understand what they are voting for.
|
| This includes politicians, senators and every other kind of
| 'representative'. Often they don't even read what they vote
| on, and you can duckduckgo that.
| mistermann wrote:
| The general public is surely flawed in a variety of ways (as
| are politicians, in the same ways and others), but a well
| written system could highlight these shortcomings, and we
| could work on addressing them over time.
|
| It wasn't all that long ago that basic reading and arithmetic
| were beyond the majority of people, but we recognized that
| and took steps to remedy it, with some decent success.
|
| Deploying such a system into production would be a long,
| careful process, running it in parallel (with no power) to
| simply measure public sentiment would be extremely
| informative, and it would also get the public thinking
| seriously about things...simply using a well designed system
| would make them smarter.
| throwanident wrote:
| You don't need people to understand perfectly. You just need
| them to be right more often than they are wrong, and have
| enough of them.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet%27s_jury_theorem
| wavesounds wrote:
| What if the app made you take a test to understand what
| you're voting for? (Yes I'm aware poll tests have been abused
| in the past to disenfranchise people, let's assume we can
| create an app with fair tests)
| inawarminister wrote:
| Eh ballot-based democracy like the Swiss has seems to work
| quite well for centuries now.
| weswpg wrote:
| > Eh ballot-based democracy like the Swiss has seems to
| work quite well for centuries now.
|
| OP was proposing replacing the current system with direct
| democracy whereas the swiss simply hold referenda on
| specific issues while they still have representatives to
| govern them.
|
| Meanwhile, on the issues that they do vote on through
| referenda, it can result in popular support for
| discriminatory laws like the ban on .... _Muslim temples
| with pointy roofs_ :
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Swiss_minaret_referend
| u...
|
| > The Swiss government recommended that the proposed
| amendment be rejected as inconsistent with the basic
| principles of the constitution.[3] However, after the
| results were tabulated, the government immediately
| announced that the ban was in effect.[4]
|
| The problem is that people tend to believe that the outcome
| of an election or a referendum should be allowed to
| overrule basic human rights and national constitutions.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The OP was proposing ensuring that politicians answer to
| their electors.
|
| The jump from there to direct democracy was already an
| straw-man. The jump from that to "no representatives on
| the middle" is completely baseless.
| vinay427 wrote:
| This is widely-cited and has become a bit of a trope among
| many people here in Switzerland, but one famous example
| that isn't usually looked upon with pride today is the
| extremely delayed granting of suffrage to women in
| Switzerland (1971 nationally, 1991 in the last canton), or
| the current same-sex marriage referendum considered long-
| overdue by some. There are a few other human/civil rights
| along this vein that, at least to me, point to the
| possibility of a better system that can balance direct
| democracy (at least in the sense of modern Switzerland,
| California on a state level, etc.) with some longstanding
| sense of inherent rights.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| The other side of that is that Hacker News and Reddit and
| other upvote/downvote cultured sites often have shown that
| the first upvotes and downvotes on a topic often are the ones
| that win out because people just bandwagon them
| throwanident wrote:
| I think I saw someone suggest using a multi-armed bandit
| algorithm with upvotes as the objective. I'd like to see
| that!
|
| An algorithm like that would balance the exploitation of
| showing current highly upvoted posts first with the
| exploration of showing posts with few votes first, so that
| every post gets its chance while still penalizing spam
| posts once they're conclusively known to be bad.
| rPlayer6554 wrote:
| The year is 2040: The USA now has exactly 69 states and the
| official currency is doge coin. Elon Musk is the Supreme
| Overlord for life and was the first leader of the United
| States to have a Department of Memes.
| ww520 wrote:
| Shouldn't it be AI Arnold 2.0 or Skynet something?
| jvalencia wrote:
| The AI through a convoluted deep net, decided that
| maximizing the AI efficiency was best setup based on this
| reality.
| vageli wrote:
| So people are unable to vote on issues but somehow
| intelligent enough to identify the candidate who best
| represents their interests? If most voters only understand
| pretty words, what difference does it make if those words are
| in a campaign for a piece of legislation put to direct vote
| or in the mouth of a political candidate?
| [deleted]
| Aunche wrote:
| >So people are unable to vote on issues but somehow
| intelligent enough to identify the candidate who best
| represents their interests?
|
| No, but those politicians are at least able appoint
| reasonably competent unelected government officials.
| jonshariat wrote:
| I think the idea is that you _can_ spend the time once
| every few years to research a candidate, review key policy
| positions, etc.
|
| Not saying its the best system but just want to point out
| that there is a time element. People can't spend time
| understanding each piece of legislation in general.
| phaemon wrote:
| So management are unable to code but somehow intelligent
| enough to identify the developers who can best create their
| product?
|
| (I'm actually not sure if this argues for or against the
| point. I guess it depends on your management!)
| lucideer wrote:
| > Voters have shown again and again
|
| [citation needed]
|
| Seriously. I would love to see these so-called "again and
| again" examples.
|
| Anecdote: I'm involved in local politics and one of the
| biggest problems I see resulting from "direct"
| citizen/constituent involvement initiatives is that they are
| fundamentally predicated on attracting people who want to
| oppose & object to things (sometimes to bad things, but very
| often to positive, progressive initiatives). Because of the
| effort barrier to involvement, those who are actively engaged
| tend to be people who have a problem with something, which
| means the "I agree with this ongoing initiative" voice is
| lost.
| sideshowb wrote:
| I don't think you need examples of poor decisions to see
| the problems with direct democracy.
|
| Take Brexit, and let's lay aside the question of whether or
| not it was a good idea, for the sake of argument let's just
| acknowledge there were strong feelings on both sides.
|
| The fact that it was a referendum meant that for the sake
| of a very small margin, an enormous number of people are
| very unhappy with the result.
|
| And if the government had backtracked on the referendum
| result, the same issue would apply - in terms of being a
| united nation we were screwed either way.
|
| In representative democracy, by way of comparison, such a
| small margin would mean the winner had to tread a very
| careful line with any legislation they tried to pass, thus
| in general leading to more reasonable compromise solutions.
| rrdharan wrote:
| Prop 13 in California?
| thcwhuzzle wrote:
| Politicians don't even read the laws they vote on. In many
| circumstances they literally aren't even given the time to
| read the text.
| maccard wrote:
| That seems reasonable to me. I'm in the UK, and I don't
| expect all 650 MPs to have a detailed understanding of 4
| different pieces of legislation per day [0]. I _do_ expect
| them to have a brief pack from their staffers explaining
| what they're voting for though.
|
| [0] https://votes.parliament.uk/Votes/Commons there was 12
| votes in 3 days last week in the House of Commons
| 45ure wrote:
| >I'm in the UK, and I don't expect all 650 MPs to have a
| detailed understanding of 4 different pieces of
| legislation per day
|
| I respectfully disagree. The MPs (Members of Parliament)
| receive substantial remuneration to represent their
| constituents - including business expenses related to
| equipment, premises, staff, maintaining a second home
| etc. The main remit of their job is to be knowledgeable
| and informed of the bills they are voting upon. Most of
| these bills go through a lengthy process of debates,
| stages, readings and 'ping-pong' between HoC and HoL,
| before gaining the Royal Assent. There are absolutely no
| excuses for having a 'brief pack' and then vote based on
| a toss of a coin. Your reasonable expectation breeds
| complacency and apathy, absolving public servants of
| responsibility. As a taxpayer and a citizen, it is
| especially important to demand more at this crucial
| juncture, where they are stripping away any laws, which
| can be used to hold themselves accountable, whilst
| introducing Draconian measures.
|
| https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/laws/
|
| https://www.theyworkforyou.com/
| netrus wrote:
| I have strong opinions on a lot of laws I have not actually
| read. I will rely on experts, and so do politicians (that
| might be experts within their party, staff, lobbyists ...).
| The main skill is to decide whom to trust. I do not really
| see any alternative - I do not think a parliament with
| hundreds of delegates spending most of their day reading
| complex legal texts would be any better than what we see
| today. Still, I am sure most politicians spend much more
| time and resources to inform their vote than the average
| citizen.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| What happens when those expert staff are deliberately
| pushing an agenda? Perfect example of politicians not
| knowing anything about what they're voting for is the
| absurd Article 13 in EU. Something that was impossible
| for anyone not called Alphabet or Facebook.
|
| If they did know what they were voting for, that is far
| worse...
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| An alternative is having bills that are for a single
| issue that a layperson can understand. It is not just the
| politicians that need to understand what they are voting
| on. The people need to understand them too so they are
| aware when their representation is voting against their
| interests.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| If professional full-time legislators cannot understand
| the legislation they're voting on, they should not write
| it to be that unwieldy.
| gregoriol wrote:
| The major problem with politics nowadays is that it has
| become a "job", so people need to be re-elected to keep
| their life running; if they don't, they don't have anything
| else to do.
|
| It shouldn't be like that: people should be elected for a
| duty, and after their duty is done, they should go back to
| their normal job, not seek infinite re-election.
| triceratops wrote:
| Unless their job is held for them while they serve (like
| maternity or military leave), they're going to spend the
| final year of their term job-hunting. Do you want your
| elected representative handing out resumes to powerful
| people hoping to curry their favor?
| moshmosh wrote:
| The counter-argument to these sorts of notions (including
| things like legislative term limits) is that, in a
| sufficiently advanced political environment, this will
| make your representatives even more dependent on
| entrenched power-brokers to be effective--chiefly,
| bureaucrats and lobbyists.
| zepto wrote:
| Why should society be based around people having a
| 'normal job'?
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| It shouldn't necessarily but it is, so until that changes
| the political system has to account for it.
| zepto wrote:
| If you build a political system around that assumption,
| it's not going to chance.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| True, but what I meant was, in the context of the
| conversation, that the system must not be ignorant of the
| fact that regular people need to earn a living, and
| provide opportunities for regular people to participate
| without sacrificing a significant amount of time to
| fundraising.
|
| I don't know what the best solution is but if the system
| is only practically open to those that don't need to work
| for a living then things surely will stay the same.
| zepto wrote:
| This, I agree with, but is a very different idea.
| aqme28 wrote:
| > Voters have shown again and again
|
| When, exactly?
|
| There are also plenty of cases where voters have chosen
| admirably, but lobbying and politics have chosen otherwise.
| codingdave wrote:
| How would you represent the will of people who cannot afford
| the devices needed to run the app? Or whose lives are too busy
| working multiple jobs to keep up with the app?
| hermannj314 wrote:
| I tried to answer this a few times but I am reserved to the
| fact that I am not able to solve this problem in a comment
| section.
|
| America's 200+ year old democracy still has around 56%
| turnout for national and 27% turnout for local elections
| (quick Google 2020). This does not even address how poorly
| the current system still fails the 56% of people that manage
| to vote. It is not perfect.
|
| If any alternative or improvement proposed to that system is
| held to a standard of 'must be perfect', I think they will
| fall short no matter how good the intention may be or how
| good it improves on the current way.
| codingdave wrote:
| If poor people cannot vote, it is voter suppression and not
| acceptable. This is not about reaching perfection, it is
| about not backsliding to exclude a major demographic.
| chr1 wrote:
| When people will be able to vote on individual issues,
| and will be able to introduce new law projects, the whole
| dynamics of voting will change. Because people will be
| able to trade votes.
|
| Buying a phone for someone so that your law gets one more
| vote will be very natural, so all the poor people will
| get new phones very soon. And that will not be a bad
| thing, because politician will not be able to buy votes
| then pass a law to take the same money back from people.
| In effect this will morph into a sort of UBI, where some
| people pay others to keep society running with laws that
| they think are beneficial for everyone. And people who
| think they know better will be able to gather in separate
| cities and try out the laws they think will be better.
| hermannj314 wrote:
| Agreed, I am sorry that my idea was presented that way.
|
| I was proposing modifying how we interact with elected
| officials, not modifying how we elect them.
|
| I realize there are bad actors actively working to
| suppress voters rights in many places in many ways. and I
| dont want to even be accidently hitched to that
| bandwagon.
| WA wrote:
| We have this already. App is called lobbyism and is pay-to-win.
| spiotrek wrote:
| + for the payment part and it's not direct democracy - only a
| guided one
| chki wrote:
| There is some interesting research into this, also known as
| liquid democracy, if somebody wants to Google that. I'm
| personally not a big fan, because it's very difficult to
| organize it in such a way that there is not some form of mob
| mentality. Representative democracy has some downsides but it
| also has a lot of advantages that we simply take for granted.
| teachingassist wrote:
| I like the advantages of representative democracy, and would
| keep it, but modify it so that you have a continuous vote.
|
| Your decision-making representative can change each day as
| people move their vote around; rather than only on election
| day.
|
| I think a lot of disillusionment in democracy comes when you
| expect to see political corruption the day after the election,
| and can't do anything about it for N years.
| pbronez wrote:
| Maybe you could get those advantages in a practical and safe
| way with a recall mechanism. You'd have the standard
| representative, multi-year-term for most stuff, but a
| continuous recall poll (with a fairly high bar). This would
| essentially establish an approval floor.
|
| It would be tricky to implement this. It's hard enough to get
| people to vote one a year. If you go digital you have
| security and equity issues. You'd need some kind of rolling
| window to count votes.
|
| Probably not practical.
| teachingassist wrote:
| Re-call polls don't appear to work in practice.
|
| Either the bar for re-call is too low, such that evidently
| popular candidates face an energy-, cash-, and time-wasting
| re-election campaign, or the bar is too high, because a
| signature-collecting campaign can never match the energy of
| election day.
|
| Continuous voting is (more) practical.
|
| Elected candidates would face a constant risk of being out-
| voted, but it's generally a very low risk, because the
| balance of the votes is unlikely to switch overnight - it
| was either foreseeable or there was some democratically-
| relevant scandal.
| everdrive wrote:
| It would be a populist hellhole. Huge masses of people who
| believe that some crazy thing happened (which didn't really
| happen) and demand the government do something about it.
| mistermann wrote:
| Is "it would be a populist hellhole" reasonable, _and real_?
| istjohn wrote:
| Hmmm, that sounds familiar...
| intricatedetail wrote:
| This already works for big corporations. If you are big enough
| you have direct line to key people in govs.
| rahoulb wrote:
| I was talking to a guy who's planning to launch a series of
| hyper-local political parties in the UK (starting in
| Harrogate).
|
| He told me about how things work in Taiwan - using a bit of
| software called Polis - designed to find consensus amongst
| differing opinions, and using that as the basis for policy
| decisions.
|
| This guy was going to use Polis to poll party members so the
| representatives would be governed directly by feedback from
| members - with Polis ensuring that it didn't break down into
| factionalism.
|
| Information about how Polis is used in Taiwan is here:
| https://www.wired.co.uk/article/taiwan-democracy-social-medi...
| Cyril_HN wrote:
| Who?
| rahoulb wrote:
| Andrew Gray. I've not spoken to him for a long time; I'm
| guessing his plans got put on hold by the pandemic.
| teachingassist wrote:
| This reminds me of "1000 True Fans"
| https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/
|
| Many creators have super-fans but fail to monetize them. The
| expected model (the only model?) for doing so is that you sell
| out to advertising.
|
| You have fans who are willing to pay for what they are getting,
| but your fans don't have any way or any nudge to pay for it.
|
| This business reduces the friction by directly inviting super-
| fans to pay for what they're consuming.
|
| I don't like it for myself, but I expect it's a good and
| potentially transformative business model.
| ORioN63 wrote:
| zyper.com which was adquired by Discord, tried the same
| approach, but I think there was always the issue of the
| advertising platform.
|
| The biggest public forums now-a-days are org-owned online
| platforms. Even if you have amazing content creators, you still
| have to find a way to co-exist with the platform, controlled by
| giants.
|
| I too, see value a potentially transformative business model,
| but it still seems a hard place to start in until you've
| achieved a good enough network effect.
|
| Disclaimer: Worked for Zyper.
| clarge1120 wrote:
| Fascinating how much attention this simple app is getting. What
| is driving the attention, the app, or the entrepreneur behind it?
| weeblewobble wrote:
| I downloaded this app to see what it was all about and I found it
| completely incomprehensible.
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