What the Brexit Voting process can teach Ethereum

What the Brexit Voting process can teach Ethereum

The penny has dropped: the UK will leave the EU, after 51,89% of the voters decided for leaving the EU.

As many experts had already predicted and what we are now seeing unfold, the immediate consequences are bad, and the long term consequences are grim.

What strikes me as more relevant however, is that this referendum (more neutrally named: “United Kingdom European Union membership referendum”) shows just how weird things can get when you start deciding issues with a huge impact by a simple majority vote amongst a large population, some of whom have imperfect access to all the fact, whether by choice or by circumstance.

A few hours after the poll was decided, we started seeing interviews with people who were genuinely shocked that their vote had mattered. Had they’d but known it did, they would have voted remain, but they actually thought their voice would just be a protest cry against whatever they felt was worth protesting against.

What is important to note here is that a poll cannot take into account the lack of knowledge on the part of the voter: it is assumed the voter has had the opportunity to make an informed choice, and decide accordingly.

However, with decision this large, and which have such complex issues, this is all but impossible. As humans will do, issues will become focused around certain themes, which down the line will even become more strongly focused, after which people will just vote for one specific issue,…

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