Better than democracy (multi-level delegated voting)

The brutal truth: Democracy is shit. It is better than communism, but it is still shit. Democracy has proven to be a devastating failure with catastrophic consequences that are worsening over time.

We desperately need a new form of government. Without a functional form of government, the collapse of democratic countries is inevitable. Many people now agree that the question has become “When?” not “If”. After discussing the problem with my friends and colleagues, I have invented a new form of government. I call it joyocracy.

🗳️ Multi-level delegated voting

If you were a member of the board of directors of a company, and the board consisted of eight directors including yourself, and the board was preparing to vote on an important decision, would you participate in the vote?

Yes, you would, because when you are one of a total of eight voters, your vote is very significant. In contrast, in a different situation where you are one of 200 million voters, the insignificance of your vote may well discourage you from voting, because you know that your vote will not make any difference.

For example, the voter turnout (number of adults who voted) in presidential elections in the USA ranged from 50% to 63% in the years from 1932 to 2024. Many people do not vote because they know that it is useless/ineffectual.

Intelligent people are discouraged from voting, because every intelligent and rational person knows that his/her vote will have absolutely no effect on the outcome, because all intelligent well-researched votes are drowned out by millions of idiot-voters who vote without thinking.

For example, imagine you have a good friend John. He is very interested in politics. He researches it regularly, and he stays up-to-date with current affairs. He is smart and well-informed.

John has the time and motivation to be knowledge and well-informed about politics, whereas perhaps you do not, because you have one or more young children, or you are busy trying to pass a difficult educational course, or you are in the middle of an important business project, etc.

You trust John's judgement. You should be able to delegate your vote to John. He will vote on behalf of you and everyone else that nominates him as their delegate. If you later change your opinion about John, this is no problem at all. Simply nominate someone else to be your delegate.

Delegation should support multiple levels. You delegate your vote to John, and he can optionally decide to delegate his vote to someone else that he trusts and respects.

John would not be limited to only one delegate. For example, if 20 people delegate to John, then he might decide to delegate 10 of those votes to one respected person and 11 votes (including his own) to a different respected person, like in the following example.

If many people nominate John as their delegate (over a reasonable threshold), then the government should pay John for his work in the voting process. This will enable John to work either part-time or full-time on the important task of making the right voting decisions, and to improve the quality of his political research and decisions. For example, he may also write a monthly newsletter or summary to give to everyone who nominates him as their delegate.

🤡 Allowing unqualified & unlicensed politicians is madness

In most countries, the law restricts the following occupations to people who have suitable training, qualifications, and/or a license:

• Medical doctors

• Surgeons

• Nurses

• Dentists

• Pharmacists

• Lawyers

• Teachers

• Electricians

• Builders

• Civil engineers

What would you think if someone proposed to change the law to allow anyone to work as a medical doctor or surgeon or dentist without any training or qualifications or examinations?

You would be understandably horrified. Imagine visiting a dentist or a surgeon and having him operate on your body even though he has not passed any examinations to prove his competence!

As you know, permitting unlicensed doctors would be madness. And yet this same madness is already occurring every year. Not for doctors, but for politicians. It is really shockingly bad that politicians are allowed to be random unqualified people.

Incompetent politicians can and do ruin the government and make our lives miserable. Just like with doctors, it is dangerous and reckless to permit unqualified politicians. We must stop this madness.

Considering how important it is to have a functional government, every politician should be required to pass the following tests:

• A test of political skills and knowledge of political principals.

• A test of the understanding of ethics.

• A test of literacy (both reading comprehension and writing skills).

• A test of reasoning and logic skills.

• A psychological health examination to detect sociopaths, psychopaths, etc.

• A physical health examination with a mandatory minimum level of health.

• Medical tests for dementia or neurodegeneration.

• Criminal background checks.

• Screening for conflicts of interest, and other checks to combat corruption.

🧟 Disruption by intellectually disabled voters must be stopped

What would you think if someone proposed to change the law to allow anyone to drive a car without needing a driver’s license?

You would be understandably horrified. The frequency of traffic accidents and fatalities would increase substantially if nobody is required to pass a driving test.

We need to introduce a voter’s license, because currently we have millions of ridiculously incompetent people making extremely stupid votes. Shockingly, many people even vote for things that hurt themselves. Yes, they even vote against their own self-interest! This is madness.

To get a voter’s license, a person would need to pass a simple test of basic intelligence. Even if this test is easy to pass, it will still be very beneficial. Here is a question that should be asked in the test:

“If you are driving a vehicle at a constant speed of 80 km/h (or mph), how far will you have driven after one hour?”

A shockingly large number of people fail to answer 80 kilometers (or miles) even though the answer is right there in the question, and no arithmetic is required.

Thus, even if the test requires only a basic level of intelligence, millions of voters will fail and be ineligible to vote. This is necessary in order to enable and protect the democratic process.

Here is another example of people that cannot be allowed to vote: Whenever there is a shortage of a medication from particular suppliers, some percentage of people fail to understand that they can simply switch to a different brand/manufacturer of the exact same medication. The doctor or pharmacist explains it to these idiots:

“Yes, there is a shortage of Mediproxol and a six-week delay, but you can switch to Proprolox immediately. It contains the exact same medication and the same dosage. It’s just a different brand name.”

Even after receiving such an explanation, these idiots still fail to understand that there is no shortage of the medication that they need. They cannot understand the fact that multiple brands of the exact same medication exist. They cannot understand the difference between a shortage from all manufacturers versus a shortage from one or two manufacturers of specific brands.

It is an obvious fact of life that a democratic system cannot be successful when a large number of people with severe intellectual disability are allowed to vote and disrupt the democratic process and hurt themselves in the process.

🐑 Voting for political parties does not work

The idea of voting for political parties has proven to be a failure. The underlying problem is that political parties activate the ancient and primitive tribal mechanisms in the human brain, and then fighting, sabotage, madness, and violence ensue.

Whenever something in society needs to be fixed or improved, humans reject good proposals for no reason other than the proposal coming from a competing tribe (another political party). This is incredibly stupid behavior, but it happens frequently. It is human nature. It is scientifically known as “in-group favoritism”.

For example, in the USA, many people think, “I am a Republican” or “I am a Democrat”. Whenever one of these parties makes a good proposal, everybody who identifies as a member of the opposing tribe automatically hates the proposal without even reading it!!

It should not matter who proposed it. If it is a good proposal, then it should be supported regardless of which tribe thought of it.

It has been proven many times that humans are clearly incapable of acting reasonably and rationally when tribes are involved (“us versus them”). Two possible solutions exist:

1. Require that all politicians be independent. Abolish political parties.

2. Alternatively, allow political parties, but eliminate the system of voting for these parties and instead arrange for citizens to vote for the proposals that the parties offer.

It is also possible to implement both of the above. For example, look at how direct democracy operates in Switzerland. The Swiss system is not perfect, but overall, it operates much better (or less bad) than the current system in the USA.

🤑 Allowing bribes is madness

Some people think that I am crazy when I say that most democratic countries allow people and corporations to openly bribe politicians and/or political parties.

It makes no difference whether someone calls it a “gift” or a “donation” or a “sponsorship”. Whatever it is called, it is still a bribe when it matches the definition of a bribe.

These bribes are very damaging to the political process. They cause rampant corruption, severe bias, and conflicts of interest. Many of these bribes are huge – millions of dollars from wealthy individuals or large corporations.

Bribes must be banned. This should be obvious! It is dishonest to claim that large “donations” or “sponsorships” are not bribes. A sack of money is still a sack of money regardless of what label is written on the sack.

Alternatively, if bribes are not fully banned, it might be acceptable to allow small bribes up to a small maximum limit per person. Bribes from corporations must be prohibited because they would allow people to circumvent the maximum limit per person.

🤑 Allowing corporate lobbying is madness

Corporations are notorious for interfering in the political process and corrupting it in order to obtain advantages for their own selfish purposes (usually to increase their profit). Lobbying is widely considered to be a form of bribery, influence peddling, and sometimes even extortion.

Lobbying is so bad that it was actually illegal in the USA in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was made legal for illegitimate purposes. If society is to be given a chance of becoming functional, lobbying must be made illegal again.

The first step in stopping lobbying is to make bribery illegal as previously explained. Additional steps are also necessary. Even if no bribes are involved, it is important to require mandatory transparency for all meetings between lobbyists and public officials.

⚠️ Change is mandatory and urgent

The current situation is dire all over the world. Democracy is failing everywhere because it is a bad system.

• The financial/economic system is severely broken.

• Capitalism is running out of control and has become excessive and abusive.

• Machine learning (“AI”) has already started to take many jobs.

• Many employers are abusive/exploitative of employees.

• The cost of living is unaffordable.

• Tertiary education is hardly worthwhile anymore.

• People cannot afford to have children anymore.

• The populace is gradually dying out and being replaced by immigrants (immigration is normally good, but replacing the entire population is far too extreme).

• Multiple countries are preparing for a nuclear war.

• Every single year, global heating is worse than the previous year.

Unfortunately, many people have a built-in resistance to change even when it is change for the better. People must overcome their resistance to change and implement these changes urgently before the world collapses into chaos and another world war.