Who needs democracy when you have data? • Hacker News Board

Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#31

Post by gnode » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 4:35 PM UTC

close04 wrote: post #14

coldtea wrote: post #3

> It helps that a tumultuous couple of years in the world’s democracies have made the Chinese political elite feel increasingly justified in shutting out voters. Developments such as Donald Trump’s election, Brexit, the rise of far-right parties across Europe, and Rodrigo Duterte’s reign of terror in the Philippines underscore what many critics see as the problems inherent in democracy, especially populism, instabili…

> what people want If they gave the people what they wanted then everybody (and nobody?) would be elites, right? Or maybe the majority of people just want those 10% to be rich. And since Brexit was brought up, can you think of any huge promise that was made in order to get the vote but won't be kept? Must be that what people really want is to be lied to. [1] Today's democracy functions as a 2 step process: the campai…

> If they gave the people what they wanted then everybody (and nobody?) would be elites, right? Or maybe the majority of people just want those 10% to be rich.

I think the majority of people are actually comfortable with the existence of even extreme (billionaire-scale) inequality. Although people want to feel that the inequality is just -- based on wealth-creation, rather than rent-seeking.

Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#32

Post by ttflee » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 4:37 PM UTC

The gov't has already been so difficult to get with. With algorithms, doubly so.

Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#33

Post by SamuelAdams » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 4:39 PM UTC

The northern city of Rongcheng, for example, assigns a score to each of its 740,000 residents, Foreign Policy reported. Everyone begins with 1,000 points. If you donate to a charity or win a government award, you gain points; if you violate a traffic law, such as by driving drunk or speeding through a crosswalk, you lose points. People with good scores can earn discounts on winter heating supplies or get better terms on mortgages; those with bad scores may lose access to bank loans or promotions in government jobs.

Some parts of this seem analogous to USA's Credit Score system. A total surveillance state isn't a great idea but this small part of it seems reasonable, no?

Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#34

Post by waterphone » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 4:41 PM UTC

remarkEon wrote: post #16

TruthSHIFT wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having an election manipulated by the Russian government does not count as "self-governance."

How long is this going to be the go to excuse? Some ad buys and an email phishing scheme is “manipulated”?

Russian interference and manipulation went far beyond that. They've been buying election machine companies, sending spies to funnel money and influence to U.S. politicians, hacking and offering stolen information on opponents (which they've done for decades, but this is the first known time someone accepted rather than reporting it to the FBI immediately, and in fact ignored the FBI's warnings that it might happen), not to mention the years of deliberate manipulation and radicalization of people online through advertising and sockpuppet accounts.

Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#35

Post by cocacola1 » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 4:43 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #26

efields wrote: post #2

The people inside the democracy. They need democracy.

Do they? Can you really establish a rational need for democracy, or are you just running on cultural reflex? If you take this question as me saying we shouldn't have democracy, maybe it's reflex. It's an interesting question. Democracy isn't an end in itself, but rather a means to an end. What is that end (or those ends)? How else can those ends be achieved?

Does there even need to be an end at all? I prefer the notion that there's never an end and it's just all one long journey. Death may be the end of a person, but the journey continues for everyone & everything else.

Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#36

Post by nathell » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 4:44 PM UTC

SamuelAdams wrote: post #33

The northern city of Rongcheng, for example, assigns a score to each of its 740,000 residents, Foreign Policy reported. Everyone begins with 1,000 points. If you donate to a charity or win a government award, you gain points; if you violate a traffic law, such as by driving drunk or speeding through a crosswalk, you lose points. People with good scores can earn discounts on winter heating supplies or get better terms…

$deity forbid, no.

The problem with this is that once you get beneath a certain threshold, you find yourself on a self-reinforcing spiral which it's hard to get yourself out of; a spiral not unlike that of homelessness.

Watch Black Mirror's S03E01 for a glimpse of where this can take us.

Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#37

Post by Tade0 » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 4:45 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #26

efields wrote: post #2

The people inside the democracy. They need democracy.

Do they? Can you really establish a rational need for democracy, or are you just running on cultural reflex? If you take this question as me saying we shouldn't have democracy, maybe it's reflex. It's an interesting question. Democracy isn't an end in itself, but rather a means to an end. What is that end (or those ends)? How else can those ends be achieved?

The end is a robust system that minimises corruption and this can only be achieved when the people in power can be held accountable and are easy to replace.

Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#38

Post by geofft » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

hkai wrote: post #12

efields wrote: post #2

The people inside the democracy. They need democracy.

Well, they believe they don't. My compatriots from my two home nations, Russia and China, usually defend the authoritarian policy thanks to years of soft propaganda and opinion guiding. "Western countries have problems too, and did you see America, this is what democracy leads to." You can see that on HN, too.

The fact that these people believe that their current system of government is better - i.e., that the result of a democratic election would be to avoid democracy - should cause us to worry if the same effect is at play when people who have lived their whole life under a democratic regime say that their current system of government is better, too.

Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#39

Post by PakG1 » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

Democracy is good because it basically allows for a peaceful revolution if a populace is dissatisfied with its government. Democracy is bad because the government risks enduring endless bickering and nothing getting done.

Etc, etc. I don't know what the right answer is anymore.

Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#40

Post by coldtea » Tue, Aug 21, 2018, 4:50 PM UTC

close04 wrote: post #14

coldtea wrote: post #3

> It helps that a tumultuous couple of years in the world’s democracies have made the Chinese political elite feel increasingly justified in shutting out voters. Developments such as Donald Trump’s election, Brexit, the rise of far-right parties across Europe, and Rodrigo Duterte’s reign of terror in the Philippines underscore what many critics see as the problems inherent in democracy, especially populism, instabili…

> what people want If they gave the people what they wanted then everybody (and nobody?) would be elites, right? Or maybe the majority of people just want those 10% to be rich. And since Brexit was brought up, can you think of any huge promise that was made in order to get the vote but won't be kept? Must be that what people really want is to be lied to. [1] Today's democracy functions as a 2 step process: the campai…

>If they gave the people what they wanted then everybody (and nobody?) would be elites, right?

You can have an elite (in wealth/earnings) and still have a voting system that reflects the majority's wishes.

In fact, unless you can balance those two you don't have a democracy -- at best you have a bastard system where elites buy influence (and not outright, that would still be up to the people "selling" their vote: they buy it though political favors, gerrymandering, mass media influence, etc).

>And since Brexit was brought up, can you think of any huge promise that was made in order to get the vote but won't be kept?

Many. EU's history is full of people voting against EU policies, even directly and overwhelmingly in referendums, (France, Ireland, Italy, etc) and then getting ignored by their representatives.

Even with Brexit the whole concern from day one after the shock that despite the whole "you're ignorant/you're doomed/this is the end/the sky will fall/TINA to the EU" campaign people still voted for it, the first concern openly expressed was how to annul it or make it so that it's followed in letter but in practice everything remains the same.