This week, the normal voting process for deciding a topic was suspended, and it was decided by tyrannical dictate that we would discuss democracy in speculative fiction. Why is there so little of it? Can it be used to tell good stories? Why are we so obsessed with kings anyway? Join us as we examine those few spec fic stories that actually portray democracy in an interesting light and discuss what new and weird types of democracy our stories could explore.
Show Notes
- The Rules for Rulers by CGP Grey
- The (Secret) City of London by CGP Grey
- House of Cards
- Battlestar Galactica
- Betrayal: Star Wars Legends (Legacy of the, Force Book 1) by Aaron Allston
- Jacen Solo / Darth Caedus from Star Wars Legends
- Creating Factions in Three Steps by Mike Hernandez
- 54 – Creating and Using Factions
- Captain America: Civil War (2016)
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Homefront (episode)
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what about Mistborn? The second book is about Elend trying to establish a democratic state after the fall of Lord Ruler.
I think a cyber direct democracy like you describe could still have a lot of conflicts. Just because everyone can vote on things instantly doesn’t mean they’ll agree any more than now. Imagine the debates when you have the equivalent of everyone writing online comments at once. The problem there might be even getting to the vote, i.e. closing debate. Plus if a majority votes for something, the minority will still disagree. This could get very acrimonious in fact.