I think you're mixing up a lot of things here.
1) Not getting responses: I'm very surprised by this. Here in the UK, politicians do tend to answer letters, although often with a fairly formulaic response
2) Not being able to make a difference: mainstream views will inevitably be more important in a democracy than minority ones. But change does happen: what you need to do is try to persuade others to agree with your views. Or to join a group that's in the mainstream but also close enough to you.
3) Whether a democracy is beneficial over other systems: democrats don't have to just avoid rebellion. Plenty of dictatorial governments exist against the will of most of their people by having the army etc. in their control. Assuming for a moment that they don't express the 'will of the people' in a strong sense (which is debatable), democratic governments are better for the people because 1) they can be replaced while still powerful in the country by an understood constitution, so they don't hang on until physically forced out. 2) they have to live in constant fear of being kicked out by the people, which means they have to avoid very unpopular policies 3) under universal suffrage they have to worry at least a bit about all significantly sized minorities
Direct democracy is interesting, but has the attached risk of a lack of systematic policy. I'm no expert, but I believe that California has suffered because of its system of popular plebiscites/referendums: in essence, people vote for more public services and lower taxes. Any body/organisation benefits from long term direction of policy. Not to mention that not everyone can be an expert in national policy. You might be interested in this, though. It's an online system where people can vote, but can also give someone else the ability to vote for them on individual issues. So you could nominate an environmental expert who agreed with your Green policies to vote on those, but a free market person to vote on other economic issues if that was your economic position, for instance. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8046270/Jolitics-the-political-network-that-plans-to-empower-voters.html
As for rule by randomers, I think this could be quite interesting to form a second chamber to check legislation passed by the elected parliament. But it's a big ask and risks living up to the cliche about jury service: we'd be ruled by a senate of 360 (say) people who weren't clever, important or busy enough to get out of it. Or, worse, who started salivating with power-lust when they won the lottery. Not to mention that it makes fixing who's in charge much easier than elections, where people notice if unpopular people win.
I believe that California has suffered because of its system of popular plebiscites/referendums: in essence, people vote for more public services and lower taxes.
That's at least half right, maybe more. California spends a lot on public services at every level. There was a ballot initiative in 1978 that permanently limited property tax rates. However, in America, property tax revenue usually goes to local governments -- meaning, cities and counties. On the other hand, current California state income and sales tax rates are the highest in the Union. ...
I have been mostly lurking on lesswrong for over a year, but never posted because I can generally dismiss whatever questions or theories I come up with faster than I can explain them on a forum. Essentially, I was waiting for a situation where I actually needed input from a larger group, thought my own conclusions were wrong, or had something which I thought was worth planting in other peoples minds. This post covers all of these, so without further ado, I would like to discuss a few questions about democratic government which have been on my mind recently.
I am not old enough to vote, but have tried working on petitions, and sending letters and emails to my MP or other politicians about issues when I thought I had something interesting to say. I have done this several times over the last year in an attempt to make changes from within the system. None of them have ever been answered, even with form letters, so as far as I can tell my attempts at politely making changes have been futile.
As I am already a partial anarchist, this did not do much to make me resent Canada's government and the rest of the political world less. I still try once in a while to get through to leaders, but have almost given up on this course of action. My country at least is a democracy exclusively for people who are willing to fight for attention, and who support views that are already popular enough that they are probably being implemented by our leaders anyway.
Elected officials are most likely not maliciously ignoring every opinion they are sent, but it seems obvious that they do not have the time to actually address everyone's concerns, learn about every issue they vote on, and are being expected to do a job which is simply impossible for a small group of humans. So I would like to know why we have representatives at all, would an aristocracy be much worse? Decisions are being made by an elite group who's only direct incentive to keep everyone happy is avoiding rebellion and their own ethics anyway. If I want to have a say in national policy when I know something which makes a difference, it looks like I either have to run for parliament (which would fail drastically, I am not charismatic), lead a rebellion, or start my own country. (in order of how horrible these ideas are)
I would like to know what the general opinion of our governments is right now, so how do you expect each of the following systems would compare to the way democracy functions as it is in Canada, the USA, or other countries?
Direct democracy: Now that the internet is so common, we do not need to be face to face in the same room to reach a consensus anymore. Instead of having any representatives at all, anyone in the country could make a proposal online, promote it, and let the votes and comments of everyone else decide its fate. Like any other site, it could be hacked, DDOS'd, trolled, spammed, people could make duplicate accounts, etc. There are a nearly infinite number of ways this could go wrong, so a secure implementation is obviously essential.
Randomized Democracy: Our current system could be left exactly the same but voting and appointment completely replaced with random selection of individuals from the population.