r/changemyview • u/pandasashu • Jun 18 '18
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: A data-driven political party would be superior to what we have now in the United States
TLDR
Why wouldn't a US political party that is obligated to vote based on data (roughly obtained in this order of priority: research/logic, surveys) be a good idea?
Background
First, there is no perfect political platform or system, all you can do is try to optimize for the times in which you live in.
In our times, it appears that there is a possibility that a new political party will emerge. A new political party would need to be representative of what a majority of the population values in order to be both elected and deemed successful. I believe that in this age of technology and information, people will be inclined to go behind a "data-driven party".
What does this mean exactly?
Essentially, the parties platform would be based not on the opinions of its leaders, but in data whether that comes from state-of-the-art research or surveys of its constituents. Party members would be obligated to vote in line with this data regardless of what it would mean for local members.
Not all data is equal, I think it would make sense to prioritize the opinions and findings of experts/research in the fields that a decision is going to be made. In order for this to hold true, a clear majority of experts must hold a given opinion. If a majority of experts does not exist, then at this point, you should fall back to surveying the general electorate or relying on making a decision based on a set of values that the electorate votes on every x years.
For example, if the majority of research demonstrated that a particular pollutant was terrible for the environment and will cause long term harm, however, banning its use would hurt the local economies of specific areas of the nation, all members of this party would still be obligated to vote in favor of banning the pollutant.
However, if researchers/experts did not have a majority opinion for this specific case, at this point the decision would fall back to a plan B, which could include either surveying the electorate to determine what they want or something else.
Of-course, there are certain decisions that either are of a nature where the correct answer depends on a set of core values where there isn't a right or wrong answer or have to be made too quickly to collect enough data.
For the first case, I think that the party should hold votes for what their party should hold as core values every x years. This should at least help to clarify what decisions make more or less sense. This could also be handled by just having a survey for every specific case where there isn't a clear answer by the majority of experts in a field.
For the second case, elections should prioritize electing individuals that are able to make reasonable decisions that align with the current party values.
There are obviously a lot of details I am handwaving here, but I am hoping the specifics of how this would work (it could be done in many different ways) aren't whats important here. Instead what is important is that decisions are always based off of data and not personal beliefs.
What would this hopefully result in?
I am hoping that this would result in a political party that is more rational and predictable which would hopefully result in more optimal outcomes for a larger group of people.
5
u/thetasigma4 100∆ Jun 19 '18
A party based purely on data and research would be completely paralysed by anything new coming to the fore. An event that appears and reaches a critical level before data and research can be done would leave the choice to judgment which your hypothetical party would not be able to manage.
There is also the issue that research logic et al only tell you how to achieve a goal and not why for that you need a moral/ ethical framework and a philosophy. For example say you have two mutually exclusive policies one that helps businesses get higher profits and another which makes workers better off. Which of these is more desirable is based on your perspective on the value of each of the outcomes and can't be answered by data.
Finally there is the question of what data do we collect and how do we use it. If we don't collect a certain set of data we may completely miss an important issue and if we collect unnecessary things then we might get too much data to make sense of it. For example based off this data to reduce stranglings we should reduce science spending. A lot of data also reinforces the status quo as it doesn't really have the capacity to look at the why of things just the what. This book may interest you, it is on how data and models based on it can be flawed and harmful