Post in I am a citizen not a consumer

Jul 28 08:53 UTC

I don't think it would work, because it misses the fundamental purpose of
government - to decide on issues when there is no consensus.

If instead of the friendly example about changes in the local park, you think
about extending an airport, or introducing congestion charging, it's more
obvious that a broad consensus may never happen. So a system that requires a
broad consensus before taking any action is a recipe for inertia, a licence to
filibuster.

Because governments have to take some decisions that some people disagree with,
they need to aggregate assent over multiple decisions to maintain legitimacy.
They'll obviously want to include some decisions that would command broad
consensus, to gain some degree of assent from everyone, so they won't want to
let go even of those decisions that could be handled by a consensus mechanism.

My view would be falsified if it were demonstrated that by some means
(irrespective of technology) mass consensus can actually be achieved, even on
issues that initially appear deeply divisive, within a useful timescale. I'm
not aware of any such evidence. NB this does have to be mass consensus, not
just consensus within a small select group like a citizens' jury.