[jhnmtgcz] One death, one vote

Consider extremely difficult policy decisions being decided by lining up fervent supporters on one side, fervent opponents on the other, then executing all them.  The decision goes in the direction of greater numbers.

Do you care about a cause enough to die for it?  This attempts to fairly quantify amount of "care", so that a majority, only lukewarm in favor of something, does not defeat a slightly smaller number vehemently extremely against it.  Ultimately, it seems, the only way to compare "care" between two people is by life and death (or perhaps dollars?).  Everyone is equal: you have but one life you can give to your country.

When your life is on the line, you may be inspired to deeply think about the issue, perhaps to cut through the bullshit.  How can we be sure all participants are "competent", having adequate access to arguments on both sides? Perhaps an exam?

(One sleazy issue might be repealing the estate tax.  Those near death might not care about being executed.  However, those near death without sizable estates might oppose them.)

Perhaps a slight modification: equal numbers are executed on both sides: the entirety of the losing side and a randomly chosen subset of the winning side.  This allows a further sophistication: you may contribute not your full life to the question, but only a portion of it, yielding a smaller "weight" in the lottery for execution.  But if your slice is randomly chosen (even if you had contributed a small slice), then your life is up.

We execute both sides instead of just the victors.  If it were just the victors, then the surviving losers could bring up the issue over and over, each time seeing fewer opposition.  Alternatively, old deaths could continue to count, perhaps with some discounting over time.

However, executing both sides seems an all-pay auction, which is a problem.  All the other potential problems of strategic voting also persist.

Inspired by the great many acts of violence by suicide bombers, campus shooters, etc., who feel unhappy at the state of society but frustrated at being unable to make a change to it, even though they are willing to give their lives for it.