Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

news.yahoo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 162 posts

Re: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

#41

Post by angersock »

shingen wrote: post #19
3pt14159 wrote: post #12

Democracy is also the only way to effectively stop armed revolutions. From Ron Paul to Che, the entire spectrum says "no" to armed resistance until all democratic means are exhausted.

Che? He was a genocidal psychopath that hated gays and people that were religious. He personally oversaw the execution - murder - of thousands of innocent people that he regarded as undesirable or conflicting with his beliefs. Bloodthirsty, is the description he gave himself. He didn't start with democratic means, he started with sheer extreme violence. Che is one of the greatest villains of the last century.

It's a lot easier to have a united democracy when you start with a unified populace culled of undesirables, yeah?

Sure, stacking the deck, but it can be made to work.

Re: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

#42

Post by Sthorpe »

d4nt wrote: post #7

"Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Churchill, 1947 http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1947/nov/11/parli...

I honestly think this is the best piece of rhetoric to keep our old system in place.

The system is awful, but its the best we got. I'd prefer if we brought back our philosophers and started to have large debates on the writing of new law.

We are to afraid to change our old old system. Depressing.

Re: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

#43

Post by benmmurphy »

as long as stupidness causes people to vote randomly instead of being biased towards bad policies then it isn't harmful to democracy. the stupid peoples votes will cancel each other out and just leave the smart peoples votes. you need research which shows that people are systematically biased towards bad policies.

Re: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

#44

Post by cjoh »

This is 15 year old research, sensationalized in a headline to sell advertising on Yahoo. Which, I mean, if you think about it, is kind of ironic.

Here's some good info on the Dunning-Kruger effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Re: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

#45

Post by gaius »

rmc wrote: post #37
gaius wrote: post #5

The elephant in the corner of the room of course is that the ancient Athenians quite deliberately didn't have a universal franchise. Property-owning tax-paying full citizens who fulfilled their military obligations voted, because they were the ones that would pay for, implement and generally be responsible for whatever was voted for.

This was the dominant form of voting in most democracies until about 100 years ago. E.g. in the UK, only men who owned property could vote (can't let the common man vote!). This didn't always produce a good democracy.

Alexis de Tocqueville: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."

This is the one crucial defence of a restricted franchise - if the only people voting are the ones paying, they are much more resistant to this kind of corruption.

Re: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

#47

Post by javert »

shingen wrote: post #11

Constitutional Republic yes, Democracy no. Democracy isn't desirable. Mob rule is a terrible system of government. Democracy != voting; Democracy != freedom. America and many other systems have long since proven that freedom through constitutional protections with representative government does flourish. Those systems specifically flourish by protecting the weak from the powerful, the minority from the majority. The…

I came here to say almost precisely this.

However, I do think it's true that people aren't smart enough for democracy, and that's a part of why we need a constitutional republic instead. Is there something wrong with that line of argumentation?

Re: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

#48

Post by orbitingpluto »

Critiques of this sort are incredibly daft.

Just like you or I can't possibly read every EULA and privacy policy that pertains to us, an individual in a democracy can't even begin to have sufficient knowledge to make the correct choices. Most politicians never even read the bills they vote for!

That imperfect knowledge will exist in every possible form of government. So, um, what's the argument? Are we arguing against scaling ignorance from small select groups to the population?

The conclusion is, "Their advantage over dictatorships or other forms of government is merely that they "effectively prevent lower-than-average candidates from becoming leaders?" Aggregating responsibility to narrow (and possibly wilfully ignorant) self-interests is not a solution.

Edited: removed references to a certain political candidate.

Re: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

#49

Post by laic »

Democracy is not about choosing one "Great Leader" and everyone else just follow. If that was the case, we don't need the congress, the high court and free press. Democracy is about "putting power into cage" and splitting cake in a way that everybody has a say.

In a democratic system, "Great leader" or not, it really doesn't matter that much in the long run, we will always get there. What important is the system makes sure that "Great leader" won't have the power to destroy our civilization.

On the other hand, "smart" leader may not always yield better outcome than an "average" leader. Complex policy from "expert" may bring more disaster than "no policy".

Re: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

#50

Post by javert »

rmc wrote: post #37
gaius wrote: post #5

The elephant in the corner of the room of course is that the ancient Athenians quite deliberately didn't have a universal franchise. Property-owning tax-paying full citizens who fulfilled their military obligations voted, because they were the ones that would pay for, implement and generally be responsible for whatever was voted for.

This was the dominant form of voting in most democracies until about 100 years ago. E.g. in the UK, only men who owned property could vote (can't let the common man vote!). This didn't always produce a good democracy.

This didn't always produce a good democracy.

Really? I think the British Empire was a high point in world history (for both the British and their colonies). So I don't see how your point is supported.

That said, I think a constitutional republic is the right solution, not democracy.

Post reply on HN