Aggregate Public Opinion Matters
Whether we like it or not the mob ultimately runs society. Individual property rights mean nothing in a riot. If public opinion turns against something nothing can resist it for long, not even the most oppressive governments. A libertarian utopia is the result of changing public opinion and maintaining public support for universal application of the Golden Principle without exception.
Unfortunately most people do not form their opinion based upon facts and reason, but instead defer to the opinions of others. Each and every day people make decisions based upon what they think other people think. Style, language, morals, religion, politics, and just about everything are heavily influenced by other peoples opinions. When in doubt most people defer to public opinion over their own opinion and this is the heart of democracy.
Billions of dollars are spent every single year in an effort to shape and then measure the aggregate opinion of the entire population on politics alone. There is an entire field of study dedicated to the manipulation of pubic opinion for profit.
Some of the more sophisticated techniques of manipulating opinion is by corrupting the measuring and reporting process. If you can control the major media outlets and continuously show support of a minority opinion over a majority opinion then people will come to believe that the minority opinion is the majority opinion. This can either be subtle or overt.
Perhaps one of the most overt attempts to manipulate public opinion is the corruption of “scientific polling” prior to elections or the elections themselves. As a result of publishing these scientific polls people conclude that some candidates are unelectable while others are extremely popular even if they are not. If you can manipulate an election then you can change the very constitution of a society while facing limited opposition.
No one likes to be a minority that stands out against the majority. They will often publicly support the majority opinion even if they privately object. This creates a self reinforcing cycle that results in the quiet suffering and repression of the majority.
If we are to achieve a libertarian utopia it becomes critical that the market produce an actuate and fully trustworthy measurement of the aggregate opinion. A private, incorruptible, continuous polling of the population would provide a means for people to feel safe communicating their desire to change the way society operates.
Fortunately with the combination of the internet and modern cryptography we now have the tools necessary to produce a nearly incorruptible anonymous polling solution.
Well, I wrote something nice on another thread you just started. On this one, I suppose that if I have nothing nice to say, then maybe I shouldn't say it. But this voting thing lends itself to so many angles of critique. Someday, it may replace elections. That would be an improvement over the current situation, but I think it will take many years. And before then, in order to replace public opinion polling, it will need to offer results that are broken down by demographics and geographic location; without that, it won't be "scientific" in their world, and won't be credible enough to trust or use. I hope this solution includes those features.
Public opinion polls are not evil. If they were manipulated to the point where they were inaccurate (much beyond the margin of error), then those pollsters would be out of jobs. They need to be accurate and scientific. There are some that "push poll" people or frame their questions in marginally dishonest ways, but no one in the political world puts those "polls" on the same level as the truly predictive ones. There are also partisan pollsters, but everyone knows who they are and their stuff is taken with a grain of salt. Surprisingly, once you add that grain of salt, they come out pretty accurate.
Sorry, but I have to knock your argument on one other point. If you think present polls are keeping people from actually voting (if they know the real election won't matter, because the result is clear in advance), then won't this DAC voting solution have the same (dampening the real vote) effect?
Here's how I see it. What sucks about polls is what they DON'T ask, and how they don't follow up or lead to actual solutions. Of course, not, since they are owned and run by the companies who have a vested interest in electing certain politicians who support the policies those companies like. And THAT, I think, is where a better solution could be transformative. It can be broader in terms of reaching people that don't vote. But it also could be much DEEPER than the simple questions asked on these current polls. It could help re-invigorate democracy in a new way.
But I think all of this will take time. In the meantime, can we please get a functioning BTS 1.0 client? Thank you.