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∫ My ideal democracy

Kernel:

  • In the past we have been using voting as a tool to determine the majority's opinion. But I think that voting should only be used on subjective matters. Because when it comes to objective matters, we should not vote on it, we should study and research it.
  • With education we can make people more capable of critical thinking. When majority results align with the truth, there is no need to trust in authority. Voting will be as effective.

The basis of democracy is every person has a voice and society should listen to it. When those choices are conflicting, voting is the means for salvation. "The need of the many outweight the need of the few", this is the golden rule that sactions the majority's decision.

But majority is not equal to being correct. Just as what Gandhi said,

Truth does not become untruth just because nobody believes in it and untruth does not become truth even because of the large quantity of it.

Mahatma Gandhi

Truth is correct not because many people believe in it but because it happened, is happening, and will happen. Truths those we now know are not lackluster. Humanity has developed many tools that help us to verify our theories. It is true that the nature itself is very unforgiving. We do not know whether one day our effort to understand the universe may one day require a complete overhaul. But we have done pretty good so far. Our standard model can make quantitative prediction with accuracy that is verifiable to many decimal placeshttps://home.cern/science/physics/standard-model.

Nevertheless, there are domains closely intertwined with our lives that we have yet to grasp fully. For example, how should we live our life?Frankl, V. E. (1985). Man's search for meaning. Simon and Schuster. What is the best way to raise our children?Erikson, E. H. (1993). Childhood and society. WW Norton & Company. What is the best way to govern our society?Rawls, J. (2020). A theory of justice: Revised edition. Harvard university press. Unlike in physics where we can take effort to control experiments to allow us to make accurate measurements, we cannot control one life to the same rigorious extend without sacrificing our moralityThe Challenges of Asking Questions about Personal Subjectivity.

Then it comes down to voting. But what exactly should we vote? Here is my theory on this matter.
  1. Everything that is proven to be correct or progressive with objective reasoning and supporting statistical evidence. We can immediately act upon it. No need to vote.
  2. We should only vote on subjective matters or cultural related opinions. Since these matters are subjective, there will be no ending in discussion. It is important to respect other's and your own opinion.
  3. When it comes to the grey area, try to break down the ambiguity into parts, and find the objective bases or common ground that we can work upon. Always choose to perform study and research over voting, voting should be reserved as the last resort when no result is conclusive.

If the topic that we are voting is truly subjective, it is not required for all the participants that vote to be knowledgeable about the subject. There is no need to go to the extend where we have to perform "soft voting", where the vote is scored by the amount of study that each individual has done. Because even when the votes are cast randomly, no harm should be inflicted. But to be honest, going to vote without knowing anything is a waste of opportunity.

∂ How to decide which topics worth voting?

This is the weakest link of the entire paradigm. Even though objective reasoning and statistical evidence can be used to determine the truth, but it is still considerably hard to make everyone follow the chain of reasoning that involves a lot of critical thinking effort. When we do not understand something, we often seek for those who well study them, or the experts in the topics. This is where the concept of authority enters.

There are those who question authority. They believe that authority always have their own agenda that benefit themselves, and refuse to trust them all together. This line of reasoning is not wrong, it is not entirely correct either, but it does not lead to any progress for sure. Without trusting authority, we are left with voting, and thus the majority trap.

We are therefore left with one option left: it is to make everyone capable of relying on themselves. With education we can make more people capable of critical thinking, and can decide by themselves what are objectively correct and voting for them is the only way to make progress. Eventually, when majority results align with the truth, there will be no need for authority.

Voting is a chance to let the society hears what you have to say. It is a chance to make a change. Unless you want to risk having your opinion lost as statistical noise or relinquish to authorities, I recommend that all the participants that vote should familiarize themselves with the subjects, and vote with their own conscience. This way, we can make sure that the majority's decision is the best for the society, and everyone has done their parts to move it forward.