What’s wrong with voting?
Although voting seems like an intuitive concept, there are a few major flaws that seem to be getting worse over time.
Voting is never truly representative
We assume voting is fair because it vaguely reflects some total population that we are trying to represent. It’s impossible to exactly pin down what “representative” means. (Similar demographics, interests, incomes, ideologies? All of the above?)
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Voting is a competitive game
Voting is a zero-sum game, meaning that whomever wins does so at the expense of someone else. As a result, voting promotes competition, not cooperation. Players might coordinate as a means of gaining an edge (“if you vote for X this time, I’ll give you Y next time”), but ultimately, “winning” the vote means beating someone else.
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So. We have our current system, and we’ve identified some emerging problems that we need to solve for. What does that look like?
Designing for cooperation, not competition
If you’re an avid board gamer, you’ve probably come across a cooperative game or two, like Pandemic or Forbidden Island. In a cooperative game, you work with, rather than compete against, your fellow players to achieve a shared outcome…
Nadia Eghbal – The problem with voting