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The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#131

Post by harimau777 »

richk449 wrote: post #44
erichocean wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me of a truism I heard about protesting: The purpose of protesting is to demonstrate the need for violence to the fence-sitters. If protesting results in change non-violently, so much the better. But the purpose is to demonstrate that violence is absolutely necessary.

That seems like an odd thing to believe is a truism. Sure, it’s occasionally correct, but always? You believe that MLK and Gandhi were really in it for the violence?

MLK's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" basically says that one reason that the non-violent movement should be supported is because the alternative is violent Black Nationalism.

As an aside, if you haven't read it I highly recommend it. I think it's an excellent example of arguing that a position is consistent with people's existing worldview instead of trying to force them to adopt a different worldview.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#132

Post by harimau777 »

buzzkillington wrote: post #101
eklavya wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not pretend British Empire was any bit less evil than the other ones. This seems to be a common theme everywhere including in India. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/india-35-milli...

If the British empire was as evil as the Nazis there would be no Indians left.

I don't think that's necessarily accurate. The Nazi's conquered many countries without exterminating their population. As I understand it they only attempted to exterminate Jewish people, homosexuals, and the disabled.

Granted even that is deeply evil, but it doesn't mean that they would wipe out any given people group that they conquered.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#133

Post by amelius »

wayneftw wrote: post #123
zxcmx wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have thought about this a bit. Moving towards DD used to seem like an obvious evolution to me, particularly with modern technology. Following recent political developments I see a lot more risks now. First of all is how do we choose what to vote on; a lot of power is rests on whoever drafts and sets the "framing" of votes. If we also do this "directly" in some manner then the filtering mechanism is vulnerable, and if…

What if we had a very serious law that says that if you get caught lying to people about the issues being voted on, you'd be thrown in jail? Regarding the budget question - could we still vote on important issues and leave the rest up to the bureaucracy? i.e. The people have spoken. Make it so... If there is a major budgetary issue with a given decision, we vote on where to get the money... Even if direct democracy w…

> What if we had a very serious law that says that if you get caught lying to people about the issues being voted on, you'd be thrown in jail?

You don't have to lie in order to make people vote in a certain direction. For example, you could give more coverage of one side of the argument than the other. E.g. in the case of the topic of terrorism you can choose to ignore it, or you can frame the issue in such a way that it seems that the viewer is at a high risk of being attacked, e.g. by showing old footage in every news bulletin. As another example, take euthanasia; you can explain the humanitarian side of it, or you can zoom in on the mistakes that have been made by doctors in other countries in this context, and make them look horrific. You can apply these kinds of tricks to almost any topic, I'm sure you get the point.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#134

Post by mistermann »

sovietcattle wrote: post #125
mistermann wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A third scenario (if cooperative globalism doesn't work out) is currently democratic countries gradually converting into totalitarian states in order to compete with China, who seem to be clearly demonstrating that Totalitarianism Done Right >> Democracy (and yes, with this approach comes greater systemic risk, but such risks can and are routinely ignored). A fourth (ideal) way is a true New Enlightenment - true as o…

That again disregards the fact that those regimes have to be sustained economically. See, no matter what people believe, which gods they pray for, what ideologies they follow and how they manage their lives, they inevitably increase the means of production. Even if a given person is dumb and useless, that person would still prefer cheaper goods to more expensive ones, therefore generating economic signals for investm…

> That again disregards the fact that those regimes have to be sustained economically.

I don't really see how I'm disregarding that. I mean, sure, I didn't explicitly include a list of necessary pre-requisistes, of which this is just one, but I don't see why either of my scenarios are not possible because of economic constraints. I'm totally open to hearing any reasoning behind this belief though.

> See, no matter what people believe, which gods they pray for, what ideologies they follow and how they manage their lives, they inevitably increase the means of production.

Unless I'm misunderstanding (am I?), this suggests no examples can be found in history of ideologies being adopted that result in decreased production.

> Increased means of production mean lower transaction costs. Lower transaction costs generate decentralization. Decentralization progressively make centralized regimes not viable.

Sometimes, maybe. Many things are possible, this theory is just one of them.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#135

Post by 0x445442 »

nl wrote: post #100
Digit-Al wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The end justifies the means? The problem is that 'everyone is the hero in their own story'. Everyone who spreads falsehoods in service to some cause is convinced that they are doing the right thing and are trying to "bring about a good thing". Is there any advantage in winning the war if by doing so you lose your soul?

The end justifies the means? This is - of course - a very rough synopsis of Machiavelli's treatise - even if he never actually said that. But the other way of looking at his work was that he was the first person to develop a code of ethics that led to the idea of "doing the greatest good to the greatest number of people" I highly recommend the series from the blog of the this Renaicance scholar and specialist in Mach…

> "doing the greatest good to the greatest number of people"

Determining this, even with the information available today, seems like folly; like a never ending circle of statistical manipulations and justifications to support preconceived notions.

Action on just about any social issue of note can be argued one way or another to be satisfying this guideline.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#136

Post by matheusmoreira »

incompatible wrote: post #94
matheusmoreira wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright was pretty much imposed on the entire world via trade agreements. Adopting US-style intellectual property laws is pretty much a requirement for trading with the US. They even put countries with lax enforcement on a watch list. It's sacred because the multibillion dollar copyright industry spends a lot of its money lobbying governments. This doesn't change the fact that copyright infringement is so trivial c…

The EU is pretty enthusiastic about copyright too, I don't blame solely the US. > Humanity should sacrifice the entire copyright industry instead so that computers can remain free. I agree, but I don't think it's likely to happen. Free computing would sooner be sacrificed to save copyright, and the other restrictions on information. At best, the current uneasy coexistence will continue.

> Free computing would sooner be sacrificed to save copyright, and the other restrictions on information.

True. It's not just copyright though. Free computing is a direct threat to the power of governments. Encryption is powerful enough to defeat entire militaries. They don't want mere citizens to have this power. They want a future where computers only run software signed by the government.

This is likely to happen because electronics manufacturing is extremely expensive and centralized. We can write our own software but we can't make our own processors. Due to Intel ME, we already know how dangerous trusting these manufacturers can be.

Perhaps FPGAs will change this one day. What if people could design and implement their own CPUs? Someone just posted this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21898061

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21891056

> At best, the current uneasy coexistence will continue.

It's not an uneasy coexistence. It's a politico-technological arms race. Governments make laws, people make technology that circumvents those laws. The government must always increase its reach just to maintain the same level of control over the governed. We'll end up with either a tyrant government that considers programmers a threat to national security or an ungovernable population that has access to ubiquitous subversive technology.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#137

Post by anoncake »

germinalphrase wrote: post #37
Iv wrote: post #5

I'll restate something that's often misunderstood about democracy. The use of elections is not to find the "best" leader (for any definition of "best" that you have) but to prevent civil unrest. It offers an alternative to pushing for opinions violently in order to be heard. For this it needs to offer a credible and legitimate path towards political changes.

Similarly, police do not exist to prevent - or even punish - crime. They exist to prevent vigilante justice because vigilantism is unreliable and destabilizing.

Then why do politicians push for giving police more powers or funding it better even when there is no vigilantism problem?

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#138

Post by [deleted] »

buzzkillington wrote: post #101
eklavya wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not pretend British Empire was any bit less evil than the other ones. This seems to be a common theme everywhere including in India. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/india-35-milli...

If the British empire was as evil as the Nazis there would be no Indians left.

[deleted]

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#139

Post by TheCoelacanth »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #97
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but put that in perspective. The middle class in the US today is significantly larger and better off than in most dictatorships in the world, and there are structural reasons for that.

Most of the middle class in the US is one serious health issue away from bankruptcy - and doing far less well than in many European countries. The real trick is keeping the middle class in the US convinced that its situation and prospects are much better than they really are. When that trick stops working, so will democracy.

Those European countries are also democracies, though. In many cases, they are more democratic, because they don't have undemocratic features like the Senate.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#140

Post by api »

0x445442 wrote: post #135
nl wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The end justifies the means? This is - of course - a very rough synopsis of Machiavelli's treatise - even if he never actually said that. But the other way of looking at his work was that he was the first person to develop a code of ethics that led to the idea of "doing the greatest good to the greatest number of people" I highly recommend the series from the blog of the this Renaicance scholar and specialist in Mach…

> "doing the greatest good to the greatest number of people" Determining this, even with the information available today, seems like folly; like a never ending circle of statistical manipulations and justifications to support preconceived notions. Action on just about any social issue of note can be argued one way or another to be satisfying this guideline.

I recall a rather amazing paper a while back arguing that markets cannot be perfectly efficient unless P=NP. There are too many brutal NP-hard optimizations involved. I suspect the same would hold for any attempt at central planning. If these things were possible we would live in a utopia.
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