61–70 of 162 posts
One thing that I am reminded of in the current zeitgeist with respect to capitalism and democracy is the 1930s and its condemnation of democracy as outdated and how fascism was the progressive way forward.
This is what happens when one person writes an article, and another writes a link bait title. Here is the concise version. The well-known Dunning-Kruger effect says that the less competent people are, the less they are able to recognize competence. Someone named Mato Nagel used this as the basis of a toy computer model of democracy. The result of his simulations is that the leaders selected by democracy are only slig…
A few years ago when I was a young teenager who believed in the good of the world and the wisdom of people I would have thought the next government would naturally be more democratic than the last, taking more power away from individuals (who's human flaw is greed and control) and giving it to the masses (who's human flaw is stupidity and not knowing what to do with power in the first place). But after a few years of studying history, voting, reading, I've changed my mind. Democracy will never work because it can only work if EVERYONE is educated enough and by default humans are notoriously stupid and unaware of their own stupidity. We are also delusional greedy and evil by nature so dictatorships also do not work out for us.
I can't help but feel that the problem is us. Our human way of thinking is just too primitive. We have to constantly look for ways to prevent "us" from fucking everything up. This is why I await the zombie apocalypse with a smile. At least the zombies can work together to reach a common goal and the world will be a much more peaceful place after their rise to power.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about Peter Thiel wanting to make a sea-based libertarian country that doesn't have a democracy because people arn't smart enough to keep it libertarian? (Granted, they could leave by relocating somewhere else, but that is true of most countries anyways.)
Anytime someone lays out an argument by stating that some other group of people isn't intelligent enough to self govern, you should be suspicious of the character and intentions of the person making that argument. Whether that applies to Thiel or not I have no clue, I haven't seen all his statement on the libertarian colony proposal (I've just seen brief discussions on it).
Then the entire purpose is to try and live in the absence of government through voluntary cooperation and nonaggression. It's unfortunate that an experiment like this cannot take place on land - no government will ever voluntarily cede control of land & people that it does not own.
In general the theory is that current government functions can be better handled by the market. That is, police and justice can be better served when they are enforced through voluntary contracts. For instance, the war on drugs, abusive police, the TSA, and all sorts of other detrimental policies will be more difficult to maintain when the people are your customers.
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…
Really? And who said democracy == mob rule?
Mob is a weasel term, to imply "people when take decisions as a group are inherently bad".
Well, people taking decisions as a whole has been quite nice when it happened and while it lasted (or was allowed to last). I'm thinking the Athenian Democracy, various communes, etc.
And it's not like any other system of government is better. Besides true democracy, everything else is tyranny, including representational democracy. Democracy means "the people should be governed exactly how the majority of them likes to". No bait and switch representation, no BS.
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?
Smart / dumb are relative scales, so there will always be smarter, and dumber, no matter what you do. If you filled a society with what we currently define as genius level intellects, there would be the equivalent to dumb people amongst them - the dumb people would have 145 IQ's and the smart people would have 180 IQ's --- you get the idea.
Majority rules will always allow one group to optionally eat the other, and violate the rights of the minority. Whether that minority is the dumber 49% or the smarter 49%, either scenario is equally morally reprehensible.
Peikoff would say: think in extrapolated principles. Look up the first serious conversations Peikoff had with Rand (she couldn't get him to think in principles). Whether you're dealing with smart people with 250 IQ's, and 'dumb' people with 160 IQ's, the smart people might decide they know what's best for the 'dumb' people (and proceed to violate their liberty). The principle remains whether you're dealing with 70 IQ's and 160 IQ's or much higher scales of intellect.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hitler was elected democratically. That's not really the case. He got a fair amount of votes organically, but at some point he was just using violence and force to take power. Despite what I see as a flawed example, I agree with your point.
True, but I'm sure that using violence to gain the trust of the voters was substantially easier and less costly than using it to overthrow the German government would have been.
More like, to intimidate them.
But yeah... the Nazis definitely did leverage the democratic process until they had sufficient power to take the rest.
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?
What does that even mean?
The majority of the people are not to be trusted with judging how to run their country, so we have to put intermediaries and dilute the majority's will?
This is what happens when one person writes an article, and another writes a link bait title. Here is the concise version. The well-known Dunning-Kruger effect says that the less competent people are, the less they are able to recognize competence. Someone named Mato Nagel used this as the basis of a toy computer model of democracy. The result of his simulations is that the leaders selected by democracy are only slig…
Original article is less Yahoo! http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/2191-people-smart-democr...
Here are some other headlines we could run.
> Neurons Aren't Smart Enough for Brains to Flourish
The system as a whole either works or doesn't; the burden is not on each part. This is just an empty way to blame the parts for the functioning of the whole.
> Investors Aren't Smart Enough for Good Companies to Flourish
Maybe it feels that way sometimes (ha), but what is a "good" company or a "smart" investor? There are many kinds of investors, and they can make up their own mind how to spend their money. This is just an empty way to blame whoever is making the decisions for the outcomes; yet we could just as easily assume the decision-makers are doing the best they can, or even could do, depending on what we assume the goal (i.e. definition of "best") to be.
> Movie Critics Aren't Smart Enough for Good Movies to Flourish
Again, what makes a movie critic or a movie "smart" or "good"? Not that we don't each have our opinions about this, but it's not anything so objective as skill at tax accounting. More importantly, do movie critics even have that much influence in shaping what movies are made? We may be looking in the wrong place.