If you goal is to create a society where someone can't be bought, at least without everyone knowing about it, how could it be done?
By any methods, at any cost, at every level of society. No backroom deals, no secret alliances, no being enticed with money to act against someone else's best interests..
How?
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Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
The Logan Act (1 Stat. 613, 18 U.S.C. § 953, enacted January 30, 1799) is a United States federal law that criminalizes negotiation by unauthorized persons with foreign governments having a dispute with the United States.
Hows this for corruption and backroom deals, John Kerry has just violated the Logan Act and working to undermine the US Government.
Barring some sort of genetic engineering or a perfect lie detector, a lot of modern democracies do this pretty well through a variety of mechanisms like good living standards, a strong sense of duty, high vetting processes, a free press, strict scrutiny, a rigorous system of checks and balances, an independent judiciary, etc.
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1. Free press.
2. Free speech.
3. Protections for whistleblowers. Very strong and harsh financial penalties for actions against whistleblowers. Very strong and harsh financial penalties for false malicious whistleblowers. This can include blacklisting from certain fields of work (such as government contracts).
4. Background checks and security clearances.
5. Anticorruption regulations that prevent things like lobbyists, giving jobs to family members, etc. (well, and that's pretty much all of it in this one single point, really).
6. A system of checks and balances.
Well, if we're looking for extreme hypotheticals and just brainstorming/spitballing, maybe if we were to get rid of representation and give everyone a vote on every issue? With enough progression on technology, that might eventually be possible.
Everyone could get their own customizable e-politics software that would break down major issues to a level they can understand. They can code in their preferences and positions on the software and the AI could analyze each bill/budget and warn them of specific language on a law to watch out for, etc. proposals for laws can be submitted by private citizens/enterprises/AI. Things like budgets can be handled by the AI using the above saved preference settings on where citizens stands on prioritizing certain projects.
Not possible to do atm (of course) and has a lot of kinks in the logic to work out obviously. But it's an idea.
If every vote is given to the individual (rather than politicians), there would need to be a majority from the population that would want or benefit from said law to be voted in. If a majority is needed, how do they even know whose votes to buy? Half the population? Wouldn't that become rather obvious and expensive? At best, lobbying/influencing thru mass media campaigns might be the most effective. But, again, if a majority gets convinced that law A (even when screened by a preference AI/algorithm for certain language) is something they want, isn't that more or less how voting works?
The assumption in that premise is that there has to be a malevolent will that would influence the masses in order to strip freedom/free will from the population thru deception.
Without representatives, however, the votes will be done in terms of individual issues, not personalities or parties and with (like I said) an AI that a person can set to clarify implication of each bill/law as well as to look for specific language that would run counter to the individual's interests/preferences, then the masses would be properly informed (hypothetical). It would then come down to individual votes that add up to represent what the masses want. Meaning, if it is what the people (given the people are properly informed) want, then isn't that what a democracy is about?
Essentially, it is as close as you can get to a hive mind feasibly with tech that will feasibly become available.
Yeah, like I said the flaw would be if wide-scale influencing of the majority voters would occur under some kind of malevolent will to defraud/decieve. Fortunately, outside a representative system, political parties (and thus, hopefully, ideologies) would no longer be as relevant. With no politicians, the need to polarize individuals between political parties would no longer exist. There could still be polarization via issues but those would stand as issues, not identities. The important part is always going to be the AI being unbiased and clear about the implications of each law passed.
I admit that my idea is flawed and still needs a LOT of tweaking to be made even remotely feasible. But we are just spitballing, and if the question is how we can avoid corruption, then perhaps first eliminating the most corruptible (politicians) would be the first step.
Then we need to work on the biases in media and the entertainment industry (like you said).
Seems like a good idea. It's much easier to commit voting fraud, in person, that it is electronically if even a little bit of effort is put into security.
I think your idea should be tried at the municipal level, first. Then assessed or viability to expand to higher levels of government.
Revoking voting privileges would be much easier if they were electronically granted. You would want to do this if they have been convicted of a felony, for instance. The problem is, of course, the millions of voters who do not or cannot use electronics.
But, also, I would like to remove people's right to vote if they are ignorant for what or whom they are voting. I do not like the fact that someone can vote for a politician that is against all core things they stand for but they just do not know any better because they have been brainwashed and propagandized into supporting that candidate.