[davekinkead]

Direct democracy will never work in a complex system. Having a 300 million person committee is about as close to decision making disaster as you can get.

But direct democracy is still the answer IMO. What needs to change first however, is for decision making to become more decentralised - as low as a given problem will allow it.

You can't expect everyone to be informed about all issues (govt has consistently demonstrated that even they can't stay on top of the laws they create). But you can expect people to be informed about the immediate issues that affect them. Most issues are local or regional ones & very few need to be national or international.

Even without direct democracy, decentralising political power whenever possible is a very good thing.