[handmodel]

Agree. Especially if you change the wording a bit.

I do think something like Brexit is fine for a referendum. It's a singular issue and clearly very important. In California we have referendums for weird tax issues that become impossible to be informed on and it leads to bad outcomes.

[formerly_proven]

Brexit was decided by like, what, 1 % margin? For that kind of decision? Nevermind the ... "meddling" by foreigners and of course populists...

[kd913]

Brexit was fine for a referendum? Are you kidding me?

This Country hasn't held a fair, informed referendum. Whether that be the AV , Scottish independence or brexit.

The game has changed, you have social media companies, Russia, Palantir and Cambridge Analytica types weaponizing misinformation.

The electorate got pushed to voting against their interests for both Brexit and AV by absolute bullshit lies. (E.g. 350 million to the NHS, AV referendum killing babies...)

At this point in time, we have seen the same thing happen in India, Brazil, the US, UK...

[ALittleLight]

With direct democracy we have people voting on issues they don't understand. With representative democracy we have people voting on politicians, whose positions the voters don't understand, to deal with issues the voters don't understand. Why is the latter better?

Also, I would very much like to see a 5 hour free form interview with major political candidates. I feel like politicians mostly just repeat prepared remarks and don't really have a thorough understanding of issues and/or are not that smart.

[kd913]

Neither are better, but at least corruption and lobbying are somewhat more obvious with politicians. That and at least in theory representative politicians should be more conscious about the consequences of their decisions by hopefully being held accountable to their constituents.

At the moment, the issues surrounding external influences, Cambridge Analytica/PLTR style voter manipulation occur outside the scope of electoral regulators.

In reality, both systems are failing spectacularly given they are being abused by lobbyists, monetary interests, gerrymandering, FPTP, and sheer electoral fraud.

E.g. The Tories openly lying (Brexit empty promises, Scaremongering, AV killing babies). The Tories splitting by campaigning for the left vote to abuse FPTP. The Tories openly ignoring electoral spending restrictions because the fines are ineffective. The electoral college system/voter boundary abuse resulting in people in London/California having far less voting power than those in rural regions.

Neither system will be fair until the above aspects are rectified.

In the future, we are going to need to take unpleasant actions for which the current government models fail absolutely. Take climate change, or even the most recent pandemic. The current government models in the West failed spectacularly compared to places like China or Singapore.