A woman so awful that after meeting her, the queen literally died.

“Gesh”

Or “goose” if I’m being sarcastic.

They’ll never take over from Betamax…

I’m sure this was a plot point in Cory Doctorow’s The Bezzle…

Or jumping ahead 100 years and doing the Next Kelvin Generation

My bank isn’t going to let me replace the credit card authenticator with whatever the Telekom has in mind

And even if they did, I wouldn’t bloody want it to!

The separation and sandboxing of apps is a key security feature, I’m not going to give that up so that my SIM card provider can claim they’ve used AI in an effort to sell more phones…

Seven for me, and I’m in a village. When I lived in the nearest town, I had almost all of them.

Rather than looking at the “I want” list, I’m looking at the “I don’t want” list.

What lunatic DOESN’T want a grocery store, a park or a bus stop within 15 minutes of them?

Yes, and if none of the above wins, it should trigger another election, and another until candidates are fielded that can actually win the popular vote (50% +1 of the constituency). None of this “the winner only has 37% support” nonsense that we get at the moment.

Ok, internet voting is not secure, so let’s ignore that part for now. (There’s an XKCD that deals with it flippantly and a Tom Scott video that goes into a bit more detail, but with things as they are, electronic voting simply cannot be trusted)

That being said. The simplistic reduction to the general idea is that people are too dumb to know what they’re voting for, but, as with reality, it’s a little bit more complicated than that.

There are far too many issues for people to be able to make informed decisions about everything. That’s one of the reasons we have elected officials in the first place.

Let’s take your example - should we end solitary confinement?

Personally, I don’t know what you have to do to end up in there. Do you shank a guy in the shower? Mouth off at a guard? Don’t know.

Then there’s the efficacy of it. Does it increase the chances that the person put there will get rehabilitated? Dos it increase the chances for everyone else in the prison while that person is not around? Don’t know that either.

Is it ethical? Surprise, I’m not even sure about that.

So should we end it? I’ve no idea.

And that’s something reasonably simple. What about the tricky questions, like the death penalty (I’m against that) or euthanasia (for, but not just in a “let’s off granny before the care home eats all our inheritance” way…)?

No, I like your thinking, but I don’t trust the general population (including myself in that, I have no illusions I’m smarter or more ethical than the average bear) enough for it. Knee-jerk policies after high profile events would lead to bad outcomes, I think.

However, I don’t think it’s right to force people to have an opinion about something, of which they know nothing about.

Which is why referendums are not great.

Although politicians make laws on things about which they know nothing, so there’s that…