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The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#171

Post by incompatible »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #136
incompatible wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Governments wouldn't have much trouble shutting down Tor nodes in their own territory, as far as I know, since they can trace the IP addresses back to physical computers. Generally, they don't, which is the "uneasy coexistence" aspect. Perhaps they have legal reasons for not shutting it down, such as the US constitution, or perhaps they find it useful for their own purposes to keep it running, or perhaps they just don't care because it's not used widely enough.

I can imagine an outcome in which the illegal information is driven further underground and no longer accessible at publicly known locations. Like the hidden ftp sites that supposedly exist in the "Warez scene".

The trend that most people no longer keep their own data on their own devices, but use streaming sites and cloud servers, will presumably help keep information under control.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#172

Post by Iv »

nl wrote: post #170
ben_w wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I don't think the Gore camp felt they had legitimately lost at all. My memory may be false or incomplete, but I thought Gore ultimately said he’d lost and that Bush has won?

Yes he conceeded after the court case "for the good of democracy" but his supporters felt the case decision had holes.

Holes?

He lost to a recount overwatched by the GOP in a state where Jeb Bush was governor. He lost by 537 votes in a national election.

Non-official post-election recount show that the counting criterion chosen could easily make one or the other the winner:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidentia...

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#173

Post by Iv »

_0ffh wrote: post #166
Iv wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Democracy is one of the forms of bourgeois capitalist society. [...] As a result, democracy is merely one variety of bourgeois dictatorship, its fictitious political freedoms and democratic guarantees are a smokescreen designed to conceal its true identity. " [1] In his "constructive part" [2] he carefully avoids talking about assemblies or votes. It is clear he does not know really how to solve conflicts and just h…

I'd say it stands to reason that in these quotes the word "democracy" is used as a stand in for "(centralised) representative democracy".

Yes, but he does not explicit that, equaling if with "democracy", something he proposes to reject altogether.

The words "democracy" "vote" "majority" appear nowhere else in his proposal.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#174

Post by Iv »

mistermann wrote: post #110
goatlover wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who prevents the criminal or military leaders from taking over once the governments fail in your scenario? Are you saying there won't be anyone around who attempts to seize power? That isn't how things have played out in areas of the world where central governments have failed. The more likely scenario is that we're headed toward a world state. That's the direction civilization has been heading since nation state…

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…

"China, who seem to be clearly demonstrating that Totalitarianism Done Right >> Democracy"

I wish that was not the main take-away people had. China has a very unique economic system that does not require totalitarianism: free-market capitalism with many public actors especially in finance.

China could be democratic and maintain such a system. I'd like to see it tried somewhere else.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#175

Post by MuffinFlavored »

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.

At the moment though, it leaves 50% of the country happy and the other 50% pissed off given how polarizing red versus blue has become.

Also... I feel like a ton of people shouldn’t be allowed to vote based on lack of intelligence/understanding of political issues.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#176

Post by nl »

Iv wrote: post #172
nl wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes he conceeded after the court case "for the good of democracy" but his supporters felt the case decision had holes.

Holes? He lost to a recount overwatched by the GOP in a state where Jeb Bush was governor. He lost by 537 votes in a national election. Non-official post-election recount show that the counting criterion chosen could easily make one or the other the winner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidentia...

Like I said - his supporters were not convinced he lost...

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#177

Post by nl »

mistermann wrote: post #110
goatlover wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who prevents the criminal or military leaders from taking over once the governments fail in your scenario? Are you saying there won't be anyone around who attempts to seize power? That isn't how things have played out in areas of the world where central governments have failed. The more likely scenario is that we're headed toward a world state. That's the direction civilization has been heading since nation state…

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…

I think China demonstrates that economic growth solves a lot of issues.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#178

Post by nl »

sovietcattle wrote: post #129
Iv wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have. I think they are bollocks. Have you read and understood them and are ready to defend steps and axioms of this thesis or are you just enamored with his conclusions? Specifically, I think this is nonsensical: "Second, it must be noted that argumentation does not consist of free-floating propositions but is a form of action requiring the employment of scarce means; and that the means which a person demonstrates…

"I think this is nonsensical" ... "Actually I have a hard time charitably following his reasoning". Let me help you a bit by over-simplyfing the logic: - If I state an argument to you, it can either be true, false or indeterminate. No matter what argument you make to me in that regard, you'd end up agreeing with that argument, which means that specific argument is "a priori". Moreover, you can only reach a conclusion…

Firstly, the definition of ethics ("the minimal set of rules that we agree upon in order to maintain our voluntarily stable pacific relationships over time and space") is wrong. Firstly, ethics are not-minimal. Secondly, there are numerous codes of ethics which lead to non-peaceful relations (eg many religious ethics).

"> Moreover, you can only reach a conclusion about my argument by being you, which means you need to have control over your own thoughts to achieve that conclusion (self-ownership)"

I don't see this as a given at all. A conclusion can be formed about some "arguments" (eg, X > Y) by mechanical means and others by other non-thought based means (drawing lots, dice etc).

Lemma (2) ("If we define ethics as the minimal set of rules that we agree upon in order to maintain our voluntarily stable pacific relationships over time and space, the only possible way we can achieve those ethics is through an argumentative process") is false in many ways.

For one thing "voluntarily" ignores the numerous cases of involuntary peaceful relations. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) gave Europe its longest period of peace in history and was not voluntary.

Secondly there are numerous protocols that lead to peaceful coexistence without argument. Hereditary rule and collectives are good examples.

Lemma (3) ("Self-ownership can't be maintained (therefore invalidating the time and space requirement) without some means (food, water, shelter, etc). Those means are scarce, and can only be used by a single person at a time.") is incorrect.

There are numerous examples of collectives where people do not own food and just use what they need. Hunter-Gather societies are another example.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#179

Post by aeternum »

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…

Online polls are notoriously inaccurate. If Facebook/Google tried this and it gained traction, it would likely trigger an onslaught of fake and stolen accounts.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#180

Post by shaki-dora »

drjesusphd wrote: post #151
shaki-dora wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand how protests became conflated with violence (mostly in the US, as far as I can tell). Protests are a basic right in every democracy. The vast majority of protests (as in: >99%) is peaceful. Protests are among the basic set of methods and institutions that form the public sphere where democracy actually happens. They are no better or worse than newspapers, public libraries, TED talks, Trump r…

And what protest movement since has had significant success? (I include Vietnam War protests as meeting the threshold).

In the US, very little. That's because there really aren't many meaningful protests these days, because the US has effectively killed the public spaces protests rely on. But the Tea Party movement was arguably influential, and protests were its main tool. Occupy Wall Street was also far more successful than commonly believed: the 1%-vs-99% divide has become a central narrative of US politics, even on the right.

Outside the US? The Arab Spring was nothing but protests, and it did topple something like a dozen governments. Yes, the new ones mostly failed, but that's a different matter.

In Ukraine the protests succeeded. In Hong Kong, they certainly seem to be a major pain for the local government as well as China.

Environmental protests have succeeded almost spectacularly over the last decade or so. Germany's anti-nuclear movement relied on protests as their main method-the Green party was actually founded by a group of people who first met at a protest. Today, Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for Future and similar keep climate change in the news week by week. That's the sort of pressure without which the Paris accord would have never been attempted.

Compare any agenda from a G7/G8/G20 meeting a decade or two ago, and you'll notice that issues such as the environment, labor protection, or fair trade have gone from zero to dominating these meetings.

The US-EU trade agreement basically died on the day that half a million people in Berlin protested against it.

Obviously, it is often impossible to unambiguously assign causality. It's a complex system where everything affects everything.

But purely subjectively, I am actually surprised by how effective protests are. Consider Ukraine, where a single protest at a central square toppled the government. In practical terms. a Tiannanmen-style massacre was entirely possible. But the protesters won. Why? How?

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