[jauntywundrkind]

Mental exercise: what if we then voted on the celebs, voting for and against the causes celebs put up?

In my view, you're gripe is that this system would be super shallow. Kind of agreed! What could give it more depth & substance, what could better direct this available energy? Sure, "don't" is a valid answer! But also, what might we try?

[panarky]

> voting for and against the causes celebs put up

Thereby turning every issue into a cause célèbre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cause_c%C3%A9l%C3%A8bre

[jauntywundrkind]

I feel like you have it backwards. You're saying that democratic involvement would make these issues cause celebres. But celebrities in many cases already have the power to make a cause a cause celebre. That's part of what being a celebrity and using your name & fame is. We already live in the world you describe.

I'm proposing here a thought experiment where, rather than letting the public arena and media suss out how to play the story, let the cause go on indefinitely, the public gets a direct vote.

My actual hope was the opposite of what you say: rather than leaving the media cycle around celebrities rumble on indefinitely, there'd be some discrete feedback events, checkin points where we can decide whether this de-facto cause celebre is - to borrow from a magazine - wired tired or expired. My hope was democracy might take power back from the 4th estate & celebrities.

[mc32]

Maybe a different take is you vote your tax contributions on the issues voted up for consideration.

So by pop vote people vote their favorite causes (schools, roads, homeless shelters, prisons, climate, pensions, etc.) and as a taxpayer you can vote your dollars/currency into any number of causes you can spread your tax contribution among.

[agentgumshoe]

Well that's what Ukraine are doing in voting for Zelenskyy's views... I think we often overestimate the qualifications behind our politicians, they're not much different to the celebrity love-ins or corporate nepotisms running rampant as-is (the obvious ones being Trump and Biden).

[terminous]

How about this: We have celebrities share their political views on a range of topics. The media will cover which celebrities say what positions, perhaps moderate a debate among them. The people then vote on their favorite celebrities, and those who are the most popular get to collectively vote on political decisions. If they make unpopular decisions or go back on what they promised, then the people can vote for someone else during the next regularly scheduled election.

/s (in case you're missing it, politicians are already effectively celebrities)