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Democracy on Mars can change the way it operates on Earth

It’s hard to argue with some of these meaningless criticism of British politics produced this week by Dominic Cummings. The democracy that forces voters to choose between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister is “deeply disturbed”, a former Downing Street supporter said. Such a bad choice is tantamount to cookie policy on the website, giving voters the illusion of acceptance but not giving them a chance but accepting what they cannot discuss.

Can we imagine a better democracy on Mars? The great power of experimentation is that it magnifies the role of conflict. For this reason, Hélène Landemore, a professor of political science at Yale University, recently challenged his students to write laws on Mars (which they were previously given to consider US law sometimes leads to mixed conflicts). Not only will Mars’ spacecraft as Elon Musk’s SpaceX founder be fascinated by these events, but politicians should. Instead of presenting a list of parliament-appointed parliamentary representations, the students formed a number of political parties.

Not surprisingly, with a strong focus on international ethics, the Martian model law represented US law and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But the 31-page student law also reflects the concerns of today, including the right to physical and mental health, privacy and non-interference with the state and its privacy. In addition, it clearly stated the protection of wildlife and the environment.

But what made the difference was that it completely rejected democratic political elections, and established six “civilians” of the 250 randomly selected Martian citizens to make laws on economic, social and environmental, human rights, governance and interstellar relations. Seventy representatives from the group can sit in a large room, which can approve the state budget and have the power to vote on legislation.

The students have been staying in class because Landemore is one of the best students promoters incentives as a result of this kind of “open democracy”. He also said that traditional politics in elections is often taken over by the rich and the social network and is dominated by a few people who fail to deliver. “Sometimes you have to be honest and say that there is not much that can be saved from this election model,” he said.

The idea is to build on the long-term concept of a Citizen meetings this includes examples of people to ensure that different perspectives can be respected in establishing politics. “The best way is to differentiate your team rather than trying to do better. This may seem contradictory but when you have to deal with a problem you are better off with people with different ideas than with very intelligent people, who think the same way, ”he said.

A good picture of the failure of traditional politics, as well as the promises and challenges of international conventions, came to France after the yellow dress demonstrations of 2018. Poor, car-dependent voters have protested that a non-working political party in Paris ran out of fuel prices, ignoring their concerns. In response, President Emmanuel Macron instituted a global conflict which led to seasonal citizen meeting.

The French example illustrates the difficulty of translating clear ideas into practical ones. Other meeting members I felt unfaithful because the legislature did not approve of all their views, although Landemore insists that they moved the cover for public debates. He says the problem of democracy remains high but donations have been severely curtailed.

Such a dispute would have been possible between the participants in the a political conference in Moscow this week to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Andrei Sakharov, a human rights activist of the Soviet Union. Their fear was that Vladimir Putin’s Russia was a “messenger from the future”, pointing out how it was possible for dictators to reject international standards and international norms and to build a “democratically run” behind electoral system.

This danger is a reality in many other lands. We should not wait until astronomers arrive on Mars before we engage in collaborative politics to promote democracy.

john.thornhill@ft.com


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