Max More, <max@maxmore.com>, writes:
> Funny, this very topic came up in a class last night (a class in which I
> introduced transhumanism). My vote is for replacing the current system with
> a working Foresight Exchange (ideas futures). I suppose you can still have
> one-warm-human-body/one vote, but you'd be voting for representatives who
> would have to take into account the results of the Foresight Exchange.
Idea Futures are good for predictions of future events. They can also
provide conditional predictions (e.g., what will the murder rate be if we
do/don't have gun control?). But by itself this doesn't let you choose
policies or say what is the "right" decision in any particular situation.
Should we raise or lower taxes? What should the criteria be? Greater
income equality? Higher economic growth? Greatest average income for
the poorest 20%? The choice of what values should govern decisions will
remain a political matter.
> Any
> ideas on how, constitutionally, you could force the representatives to use
> the Exchange results in their legislation? If we could get the idea futures
> process widely accepted, it would tend to put pressure on legislators to
> follow it (especially if you could easily go on the web and check a
> representatives voting record against the ideas market's recommendations).
I think this would have to be a change which was voluntarily adopted.
For example, the CBO could be required by the legislature to use IF
predictions as the basis for their forecasts. The voters would have to
elect representatives who would put these policies into place.
> But it would be good if there were a way of compelling reps to follow
> this--and a good democratic argument can be made that this would mean a
> more pure form of democracy in the sense of following the informed will of
> the people. (Given how much Americans love to gamble, I suspect that
> participation rates would be higher than we see in many elections too.)
It sounds like you may be thinking of an IF claim like "Should we raise
taxes?" I'm not sure how this would work, what basis people would have
for valuing the claim. It seems more like traditional voting than IF.
Hal
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