[kortilla]

I don’t want direct democracy deciding specific environmental regulations. Some things need to be done by appointed experts.

Yes it’s “elitist”, but it’s the equivalent of expecting someone qualified to perform a heart surgery rather than a rando off the street.

[vintermann]

A "direct" democracy should be perfectly capable of calling in expert opinion, if they decide that a question isn't really political. But which questions are political, is itself a political question.

(You do need the random lottery version of DD, sortition, rather than the everyone gets to vote on everything type).