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In addition to the above the paper has a whole section entitled "Vote buying" that completely omits the discussion of buying the voting smartcards.
It does, it clearly states that such risk is irrelevant. Buying individual votes like this is much less efficient than buying politicians today. Plus, the keys could expire once each 5 years or something.
Also, selling your vote is not much different than blindly delegating it, or blindly voting. Do you really expect somebody that easily sells his vote rights like that to even mind about voting at all? What you seem to be criticizing is democracy per se, not his particular instance.
OBS: I'm not sure I support his idea, although I'm inclined to think it might be a good improvement on status quo. A more direct democracy might considerably decrease the effect of
"dispersed costs, concentrated benefits", which are pretty much the
norm in democracies. But it's still far away from full decentralization of power, which is the "nirvana", let's say.
In summary: the whole paper meets the definition of ultra-naivette. May God bless the heart of its author.
Do you honestly believe that the current widely adopted representative democracy models are so superior? Buying politicians is pretty much the norm on them. I guess you're the naive one there if you think otherwise.
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I made a full quote to protect against further editing.
Buying politicians became an expensive requirement when the previous strategy of buying votes (one vote -> one sausage and/or beer) became hard to enforce by combination of voting in public but casting the actual vote in secret.
Now we are dscussing a supposed improvement where for the cost of one sausage buyer gets all future votes cast with particular token.
I'm just going to quote some select parts from the Wikipedia's article on idiots:
An idiot in Athenian democracy was someone who was characterized by self-centeredness and concerned almost exclusively with privateas opposed to publicaffairs. [...] Declining to take part in public life, such as democratic government of the polis (city state), was considered dishonorable. "Idiots" were seen as having bad judgment in public and political matters. Over time, the term "idiot" shifted away from its original connotation of selfishness and came to refer to individuals with overall bad judgmentindividuals who are "stupid".
I can muse a little about how IQ is not an one-dimensional quantity. An individual can be a competent software (Mike Hearn) or hardware (allten) designer; and yet completely fail the basic civic class material where grade-school children are taught why everyone is asked to vote in public, but the actual vote marking process is obscured and why nobody is allowed to accompany the voter while marking the vote; not even a husband can assist his voting wife (or wives).
This central-bank-killing-liquid-democracy device may become the killer gadget for Occupiers world-wide.
Again: may God bless your little hearts. The brown-shirted functionaries of our party will allow you your continuous use of your knees just for the cost of letting them watch while you press the buttons on your trezor in the privacy of your house. If you drop your trezor in our party headquarters you will be paid one sausage for your kindness and cooperation in furthering the efficient democracy.
