eID is the obvious answer here in Europe. Right now it's kinda scattered with different providers, but I believe EU is working on a more universal protocol. Unfortnately there are rumors it will require official Google/Apple play stores, unrooted devices, and all that it does today already.
But it should be treated as a relatively safe ID, it's even used for voting. If you feel uncomfortable, just have one device for eID, and one for everything else.
I think it's a great tool if we want to implement some sort of liquid democracy feature.
I really want this to be as simple as forwarding the user through a gov website and receiving a hash on a webhook. All I really want to know is that it is a citizen and the same hash as last time
If it requires me to leave the house, that increase in friction will mean I will vote maybe on 1/100th what I would otherwise vote on. I suspect pretty much everyone is the same
This is true of methods that don't require you to leave the house as well. Internet forums of all types are dominated by frequent users (by definition). People who are doing other things (working, raising families, living with disabilities that make participation difficult) are under-represented. Most of us just want someone with culturally normal values and competency to take care business. Many democratic systems do not select for people with culturally normal values and competency, unfortunately.
"Culturally normal values" is such a crazily loaded phrase. I personally don't have a strong desire to see people with culturally normal values be in charge, since, as far as I can tell, the "normal" person is neither very smart nor very thoughtful.
I believe moral opposition to child labor is a widely held view, and that most politicians, if pressed, would be in favor of writing laws to eliminate it. There are many reasons that pressure isn't applied, but it being a culturally abnormal view isn't one of them.
In my experience, neighborhood and municipal governance often works unreasonably well with life-long public servants who, even if not be the most brilliant of us, diligently work every day like the rest of us.
Technology must assist local, bottom-up governance, rather than being supplanted.
And this is different from current town halls how? If you have an important issue to you, there are ways to be heard, and they aren't always convenient.
This is how representative democracy is meant to work... you work/talk with your local representatives who work as part of a larger body on your behalf. Part of the problem in the US is we stopped growing the House of Representatives, which should be about 4-5x the size that it currently is, so you have much closer local representatives.
My experience with my local town hall is that they are realestate developers looking to green light their nepo-projects, they don't even know the basic nomenclature of a committee. And when they want to borrow $90,000,000 to make a survailance center at a bad interest rate for a population of ~100,000 and the locals lose their shit over it, the first thing they try to do is ditch the process that allowed the people to petition to say no to the project. The last city manager and then the CFO -> inturm manager have been fired for inapproprate use of city funds (or being a different skin color in one case, I can't tell from the news reports.) And town hall meetings are held adjacent to a rough homeless hangout and an elevator or two deep for those with mobility issues. So I have hope that things like polis can help, my local system needs a flush out. Bots are a scourage for stuff like this as well, so deffinetly a complex problem space!
And this is why it's important to actually be involved in local politics... And probably a prime example of why libertarian values and limitations are probably better.
We've lost our sense of culture, purpose, pride and nationality with each generation. And while a lot of it may have been mostly propaganda, there's something to be said for civic cohesion.
But it should be treated as a relatively safe ID, it's even used for voting. If you feel uncomfortable, just have one device for eID, and one for everything else.
I think it's a great tool if we want to implement some sort of liquid democracy feature.