[javajosh]

>If we had a system where a mass of people decided via some sort of upvoting/downvoting, it would be a "tyranny of the majority", where minorities would be oppressed...

Maybe. But isn't it an experiment worth trying? Does anyone really know what would happen in a modern, secular, money-driven society if you gave people more authority to enforce the law?

[a_c_s]

This happens in cyberspace all the time (just look at any HN discussion about airport security): what reason do we have to believe that in meatspace people would behave differently?

[TeMPOraL]

Moreover, why do we think that this process would happen in meatspace? Distinction between on-line and off-line is getting increasingly meaningless anyway. People now mostly communicate on-line, mostly get their news on-line, so it stands to reason they'd behave exactly as they do now, only with worse consequences.

[gertef]

People behave very differently online and offline

[pixl97]

No, not exactly. People behave differently when they believe there will be consequences for their actions. I may troll because there is almost zero repercussions to the action online. You see the same action in large crowds. A few people in a large crowd can easily start a riot by realizing their individual actions are not likely to be punished.

[Maultasche]

I do think it's an experiment worth trying. My hypothesis would be that it wouldn't work, but it would be indeed interesting to see what happens. I think that we'd learn a lot even from failure.

I suspect it would have a greater chance of being successful on a small scale and then break down on a large scale. Like corruption, I think it's somewhat dependent on the culture shared by the people who are involved, much like with successful companies vs disfunctional companies.