Wikigovernment 0001

Spit-balling here.

Is there a nation in the world that has an efficient, evidence-based system of government?

Democracy may be the least-bad form of government, but it should also be the most open to democratic improvement.

Does voting do this, and why not?

Pretty much every political issue lies on one or more continua:

• Left or Right
• Financially frugal or financially bold
• Forward-looking or traditional
• Etc. 

And, as with any multi-faceted question subjected to political scrutiny, the answer is…

… irrelevant.

Because the answer is political and therefore partisan.

And while a partisan solution could satisfy 100% of the population, it rarely does.

In most cases, a right-wing solution will satisfy a right-wing voter, and vice versa. But this will depend on how you understand a ‘right-wing solution’:

• One devised by the right-wing party
• One that is itself right-wing

In the first case, the issue is bundled with overall party principles, and in the second it is stand-alone.

Looking at typical polls on political issues, the answers often look something like this:

• Definitely agree: 17%
• Probably agree: 31%
• Neither agree nor disagree: 14%
• Probably disagree: 22%
• Definitely disagree: 12%
• No Answer: 4%

And the trouble with polls on complex issues is that most pollees have only the most modest of grasps of the question.

So my spit-ball question here is why not use some form of wikigovernment? By this I mean a system where all the data are available online, where the issue at hand is discussed and formulated by people who know their stuff.

This is a massive rabbit warren, so for now I’ll just shut up and ask a tiny question:

Is it even worth pursuing?