[extropy-chat] Voter over-confidence (was: Examining Risks)

[Mike Linksvayer]

On Sun, Feb 26, 2006 at 04:00:50PM -0500, Robin Hanson wrote:
> The key problem with these proposals is not so much voter familiarity
> but voter self-confidence.   Over-confident voters are not likely to
> approve proposals whose major rationale is to mitigate voter
> over-confidence.  Voters do not believe they are over-confident.

This doesn't seem to fit support (not overwhelming, but enough to
win sometimes) for term limits or campaign finance limits or the
lack of a movement to explicitly remove constitutional restraints
on democracy (perhaps calls to eliminate the electoral college in
the US count, barely, but they are forgotten seconds after the
losing side stops fantasizing) or the complete lack of a movement
for direct democracy (though maybe use of propositions count).

I imagine that voters lack imagination for anything other than the
status quo and that people are wildly overconfident in
politically-determined outcomes (democratic or otherwise) and
underconfident in voluntary outcomes though I'm not sure how any
of these apart from the first map to voter opposition to proposals
to correct overconfidence.

(Voter confidence and similar are heavily overloaded terms.  I can't
find anything relevant.)

In any case I wouldn't imagine selling such a reform as a restraint
on voters but as a means to ensure politicians, with whom voters
have a love-hate relationship, actually produce outcomes voters
demand.

But assuming voter overconfidence is insuperable, are there useful
reforms that flatter voters?  Reigning in executive power may be
one.

-- 
  Mike Linksvayer
  http://gondwanaland.com/ml/