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Who needs democracy when you have data?

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Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#101

Post by [deleted] »

gknoy wrote: post #53
bopbop wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A rational need for democracy for you would be so that I don't govern you according to my wishes. A rational need for democracy for me would be that you don't govern me according to your wishes. A rational need for democracy for the uyghurs would be that Xi Jumping doesn't govern them according to his wishes. I've always understood this to be what is meant by democracy is the worst form of governance, apart from all…

But ... we currently (in the US) have a direct example of the rulers in power governing the populace in a way which is "not according to the wishes" of roughly half the population. (I think this is a direct result of our 2 party system, as compared to Britain's multiple parties, but I've no idea how to fix it.) Any time you vote on the losing side of an election (whether it's for who to elect, or approve a tax, or le…

[deleted]

Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#102

Post by King-Aaron »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #91
_bxg1 wrote: post #56

There is nothing in the world right now that I fear more than the creep of Chinese surveillance/authoritarian practices into the rest of the world's society. They are a rapidly growing superpower, and while I hold no fantasies of U.S. supremacy, this specific trend in the use of digital technology terrifies me. There won't be a war, by the way. I honestly think we're past the point as a species where superpowers duke…

What if climate change cause a massive movement of people? Can this scenario bring old school war for resources?

Without a shadow of a doubt.

Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#103

Post by coldtea »

close04 wrote: post #71
coldtea wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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: th…

I think you completely missed the point. Which was that while democracy is the best system we have, most implementations are crap. Remember that on paper even communism sounds good. Although while hotly debating the Brexit topic with whataboutism you just made my point without realizing. Not only are most people easily manipulated into believing they want something when they actually need something else or their vote…

>Remember that on paper even communism sounds good. Although while hotly debating the Brexit topic with whataboutism you just made my point without realizing.

Sorry, but I consider accusations of whataboutism an easy cop-out from the duty to put things in perspective. It's predominantly one-sided too, those accusing people of bringing up Y in a critique of X seldom or never critique Y. But even if they did, both critiques would be bogus without whataboutism anyway. Things can only make sense and can be understood in comparison, not in some abstract pure critique that ignores what happens in parallel and what the alternatives were.

But I digress. Let's get back to the comment.

>You're focusing too much on Brexit, it was just an example. Politicians fooled people into thinking they vote for (among others) more money to the NHS only to turn around right after the vote and say "that's not happening". The vote was heavily based on misdirection and manipulation. All perfectly democratic but without actually giving any power to the people. What happens after a promise is broken? Nothing.

Sure. But that's neither here not there -- that's a common with politics.

I'm focusing on Brexit because it's the perfect example of this contempt for democracy (and the "unwashed masses") when it involves a choice the 10% doesn't like.

As if one choice or the other was objectively good and the other objectively bad -- which misunderstands and diminishes the role of democracy to always choosing the objectively good. Instead, democracy is about balancing opposing interests, as individuals see them.

Saying that those that voted opposite to what one would want are "voting against their interests" etc, is putting one's position above politics, and into the realm of inherently good. That's not democracy, that's TINA.

>Democracy as it stands now is actually the business of selling promises. If you vote for a promise that's never fulfilled what exactly is your power other than to try again?

Mass protests? Mass participation to party meetings and conferences? Grassroots emergence of new candidates? All of those have been tried with various degrees of success (including toppling governments). Not all of them are guaranteed to work all the time of course, but that's life. It's all up to the vigilance of the citizenry (or lack thereof).

Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#104

Post by mooreds »

_bxg1 wrote: post #63
wilsonnb3 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I honestly think we're past the point as a species where superpowers duke it out in such a literal fashion. It's just bad for business. It's bad for business until it's not. Isolationist economic policies will over time make war more likely. > Between the spread of the companies it effectively owns, and the deals being made with the rest of the world's most powerful tech companies, China will soon wield more influe…

"I'm not sure about China wielding more influence than the U.S. That sort of thing is really hard to predict accurately, especially from the perspective of someone who isn't a world leader privy to all available information." I think at the end of the day it just comes down to the numbers. With four times the population, they have four times the market of consumers and four times the workforce to create value. The U.…

China is facing a huge demographic problem, as well as a geographic problem. This book changed how I thought about this topic: https://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Superpower-Generation-Amer...

Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#105

Post by zabana »

wilsonnb3 wrote: post #60
_bxg1 wrote: post #56

There is nothing in the world right now that I fear more than the creep of Chinese surveillance/authoritarian practices into the rest of the world's society. They are a rapidly growing superpower, and while I hold no fantasies of U.S. supremacy, this specific trend in the use of digital technology terrifies me. There won't be a war, by the way. I honestly think we're past the point as a species where superpowers duke…

> I honestly think we're past the point as a species where superpowers duke it out in such a literal fashion. It's just bad for business. It's bad for business until it's not. Isolationist economic policies will over time make war more likely. > Between the spread of the companies it effectively owns, and the deals being made with the rest of the world's most powerful tech companies, China will soon wield more influe…

> I do agree that surveillance states will be the norm, though, at least everywhere that doesn't currently have a democracy functioning well enough to prevent it.

What's ironic is that the very thing that will bring about surveillance states in the western world is democracy. Of course it will be framed as anti-terrorism measures. But surveillance is suveillance.

Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#106

Post by close04 »

coldtea wrote: post #103
close04 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you completely missed the point. Which was that while democracy is the best system we have, most implementations are crap. Remember that on paper even communism sounds good. Although while hotly debating the Brexit topic with whataboutism you just made my point without realizing. Not only are most people easily manipulated into believing they want something when they actually need something else or their vote…

> Remember that on paper even communism sounds good. Although while hotly debating the Brexit topic with whataboutism you just made my point without realizing. Sorry, but I consider accusations of whataboutism an easy cop-out from the duty to put things in perspective. It's predominantly one-sided too, those accusing people of bringing up Y in a critique of X seldom or never critique Y. But even if they did, both cri…

> Sorry, but I consider accusations of whataboutism an easy cop-out from the duty to put things in perspective

Well, that may be your duty, to be "the defender" regardless of the topic. But from my perspective not only is it one of the most useless techniques if you want to contradict someone, it's also irrelevant to the discussion. Which was about democracy in general, with a particular example of Brexit. Telling me others (FR, IT, DE) do the same presumably to make the UK (or the people) look... less bad is a pathetic way to provide an excuse for Brexit. An excuse that nobody asked for. I don't care whether it'll turn out well as long as I could prove "democracy" meant people getting tricked with false promises. A point you don't really want to address I see.

You also just manage to strengthen my point with it: democracy may be the best thing we have but it's still so fragile and screaming to be manipulated that in real life most implementations only give the impression that you as "the people" have any power.

Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#107

Post by InfiniteBeing »

fcarraldo wrote: post #30
goatlover wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> clearly not a better alternative. To what, though? What's the choice here? Give a few people even more power without having to be voted in? Who decides which people get all the power? What if they're worse? How do we get rid of them? Is a bloody revolution or decades of dictatorship really the same as having elections where the votes don't always make the best choices?

I don't know. I didn't offer an alternative, and I'm not sure that there is one. I only pointed out that from the GP's viewpoint, these examples of democracy reflecting the will of the people (Trump, Duterte, Brexit) are not having positive impacts on society. I don't believe they should be held up as examples of democracy at work, but rather as unfortunate failures of democratic systems.

Failure only because you disagree with the outcomes. Many of us supported Brexit and Trump. Democracy does not guarantee the outcome you want, and to believe that democracy has failed when it does not go your way means that you have a wrong idea of what democracy is and perhaps are anti-democratic.

Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#108

Post by InfiniteBeing »

coldtea wrote: post #45
TruthSHIFT wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Whereas "manipulated" = some emails nobody cared about and fewer read were leaked at a time that everybody had made up their mind already? Or maybe some FB groups they pointed at? What was the "manipulation" exactly?

The biggest manipulation scheme is what's going on with the establishment and their media getting 50% of the American populace, which typically believes that it is enlightened and beyond conspiracy, to believe in some some massive Russian influence and collusion conspiracy.

Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#109

Post by beat »

bopbop wrote: post #99
beat wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government, democracy or not, generally means I am being governed according to some, but not all of my wishes. It's not an on-off switch, it's a continuum of compromise. Treating it like an on-off switch, my way or the highway on everything, led to much of the weirdness of the 2016 elections in the US.

> Government, democracy or not, generally means I am being governed according to some, but not all of my wishes. The fact that Government is being governed according to some of your wishes is coincidental. It's only in a democracy (or an autocracy where you are the ruling party) where the fact that some of your wishes are the laws is built in to the fabric of the system. The word compromise is an interesting choice -…

Nah. All sorts of things are done right by governments that I find distasteful and wouldn't vote for. For a coarse example, they're not abolishing laws against murder. That's good, because I want murder to be illegal. The area of agreement between the two parties in the US is much broader than the areas of disagreement.

But I was talking about compromise. And an unwillingness to tolerate compromise in our leaders was characteristic of the 2016 election - that's how Trump won the GOP nomination, and how Bernie put up a hard fight against Hillary Clinton. Bernie doesn't compromise on anything (he's not even a Democrat!), and most of his supporters find that admirable. Hillary compromises on everything, and those same supporters find it shameful, even though she's the one with an actual record of getting actual things done.

As a Democrat, I liked both the Democratic candidates (for different reasons), but can imagine a candidate I would have liked much better - one closer to my personal values. By voting for one, I compromised. I find Trump to be a disturbing human being who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near actual power. Nonetheless, his presidency is not the end of my world, and I sometimes even admire him (the same way I'd admire a child who killed their parents and then begged for mercy as an orphan, but admiration nonetheless).

Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?

#110

Post by bopbop »

beat wrote: post #109
bopbop wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Government, democracy or not, generally means I am being governed according to some, but not all of my wishes. The fact that Government is being governed according to some of your wishes is coincidental. It's only in a democracy (or an autocracy where you are the ruling party) where the fact that some of your wishes are the laws is built in to the fabric of the system. The word compromise is an interesting choice -…

Nah. All sorts of things are done right by governments that I find distasteful and wouldn't vote for. For a coarse example, they're not abolishing laws against murder. That's good, because I want murder to be illegal. The area of agreement between the two parties in the US is much broader than the areas of disagreement. But I was talking about compromise. And an unwillingness to tolerate compromise in our leaders was…

Right, I get your previous comment now. I would agree with it if it where:

"Democracy generally means I am being governed according to some, but not all of my wishes."

The fact that you are/are not being governed according to some of your wishes in a non-democratic society is coincidental. Why it may or may not be true for any given government, it is not inherent to the structure of any non-democratic government.

For all of the subsequent points in this comment about compromise, that's desirability in a democratic (small d) candidate - that doesn't have anything to do with the system itself.

But yes, I appreciate all the points you are making about the candidates - I would say Bernie does compromise, but his stubbornness is part of his desirability, certainly.

Hilarys ability to compromise becomes extremely clear when you look at what she stood for in the 70s/80s and the policies she pushed while running for presidency.

Thanks for clarifying, that was interesting.

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