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

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

#121

Post by dimitar »

Democracy is flourishing when free elections occur. Hitler was democratically elected.

Democracy is not everything that is good about a state. Modern liberal democracies in Europe and North America also have traditions of rule of law, divisions of power, individual rights, collective rights, property protection, public education and welfare, etc., etc.

Fareed Zakaria has written very interesting things about illiberal democracies and why democracies sometimes produce populists or repressive governments.

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

#122

Post by MetaMan »

javert wrote: post #50
rmc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"high point in world history"

hahahaha - for who ? Look how many conflicts today have their roots in the decisions and actions of the British Empire.

Seriously, yes, there were some side benefits eventually for the colonies but the cost was great and continues in many parts of the world. I resent that ignorant statement.

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

#123

Post by seanp2k2 »

saraid216 wrote: post #92
ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And so we have come to realize that soon, very soon, we will have to pioneer another form of government. We humans have had kings and queens, dictatorships, anarchy, communism, socialism, republics, democracies, and now it's time to move on to the next one. 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 naturall…

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. See, for most people, this is a surrender. "Give up!" they say, "The world can never get better!" To me, though, it's a challenge. I'm a hacker and an entrepreneu…

I'm confident that we'll implement "brain uploading" in the next 200 years, and this greatly opens up the upper limits of knowledge. Humans are very I/O bound, but a few of my friends have been trying out a thing where we both talk at once, since we can talk and listen at the same time. Other interesting ideas to hacking communication: add "metadata" by using hand signals during verbal communication, combine the most efficient aspects of different languages to "compress" conversation, etc.

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

#124

Post by willyt »

btilly wrote: post #23

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…

Perhaps to would be better to split governments up into areas of expertise. Foreign and Diplomatic. Health and social services. Transport. Justice and policing. Each has it's own remit and representatives from each region. They meet in a forum to discuss overall issues. Representatives are specialised in their field. Combine with continuous voting whereby you could withdraw your support for a representative and tag your decision with an issue. Something like that...

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

#126

Post by joejohnson »

saraid216 wrote: post #92
ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And so we have come to realize that soon, very soon, we will have to pioneer another form of government. We humans have had kings and queens, dictatorships, anarchy, communism, socialism, republics, democracies, and now it's time to move on to the next one. 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 naturall…

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. See, for most people, this is a surrender. "Give up!" they say, "The world can never get better!" To me, though, it's a challenge. I'm a hacker and an entrepreneu…

I'm a hacker and an entrepreneur...

Exactly. Our inability to accurately evaluate people extends to ourselves.

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

#127

Post by jfoutz »

robomartin wrote: post #107

Maybe it is becoming clear that the age of the generalist government is over. In science and industry the age of the generalist ended a long time ago. While it was, at one time, possible for someone to know almost literally all that there was to be known, that didn't last too long. Specialization in various fields led to significant improvements and progress within those fields. Could it be that a new form of governm…

I think, of all the manufacturing jobs available in the world in 20 years, a large fraction of them will be in the U.S. I'm talking like 5 or maybe even 6 of the 30 jobs will be here.

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

#128

Post by rbarooah »

danmaz74 wrote: post #106
rbarooah wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is simply that whatever the intentions, democracy has devolved to selecting leaders, and for the most part they aren't even representative. I'd say measuring the ideal instead of the reality isn't all that useful.

I'm not saying that with our vote we don't select our leaders - I'm saying that the reason why we have democracies isn't to ensure the selection of the best leaders (as the article was implying) but to freely express our self determination in legislative and governmental matters by way of choosing our leaders, using whatever criterium, reason, justification we please, just as we do with our personal matters.

That's fair enough but it doesn't render the whole issue void.

For example, a vast majority of the people might share the wish to select a leader best equipped to improve the countries economic prospects.

If that is what the overwhelming majority wants, but the system doesn't enable that outcome, then I think you can argue that self-determination hasn't been expressed.

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

#129

Post by natep »

paulhauggis wrote: post #103
btilly wrote: post #23

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…

"global warming" You can't just include global warming with something like evolution. Global warming (isn't it Global climate change now ;-)) may be happening, but I'm still not convinced it's as man-made as supports would like us to believe. Especially when there is so much money involved in it (many scientists will lose government funding if they don't support it) and all of those emails that came out that were imm…

I'm curious, can humans have a long-term effect on a stream? On a river? On a watershed? On an ocean? On the planet? Where is the line, and why is that line there?

Which scientists would lose funding if they didn't produce data to support the idea of man-made climate change?

You say that money is corrupting climate scientists. Well, how much more money do you think they would get from oil companies, NewsCorp, etc if they were to manufacture data that supports their side? How come their side still hasn't been able to produce much of any good science?

I'm pretty sure that a climate scientist could get much more famous by disproving climate change (and 'saving the world') than by continuing to support it, so why hasn't anyone done this?

Yes, there are alternate theories on why this particular period of global warming is more rapid and extreme than previous ones (e.g. cosmic rays or solar activity), and climate scientists are still working to quantify how much warming we are getting from each source, but no model that I know of can account for all of the warming we're seeing unless it includes humans.

This playlist provides a good overview of the scientific aspects of the debate: http://www.youtube.com/potholer54#p/c/A4F0994AFB057BB8

And also, if it turns out that this very real global warming effect is not man made, and we can't stop it, then at least we tried, right? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ

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

#130

Post by yzhengyu »

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #62
btilly wrote: post #23

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…

And so we have come to realize that soon, very soon, we will have to pioneer another form of government. We humans have had kings and queens, dictatorships, anarchy, communism, socialism, republics, democracies, and now it's time to move on to the next one. 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 naturall…

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.

In this case, I would not call it stupidity - I would call it inherent, (very human) instinctual biases and tendencies in dealing with contradictory thoughts in your mind.

Or what most of us understand as cognitive dissonance.

I would imagine this tendency probably arose from as a result of natural selection ranking flight or fight instincts very highly. Those who were not able to ignore or rationalize away what made them feel uncomfortable [which cognitive dissonance invokes in us] probably ended up dead very quickly out on the savanna while hunting or gathering.

However, on a personal note, I am actually very optimistic as more and more people become aware of our inherent human limitations, we can grow and become better individuals and create better social constructs to overcome our group tendencies.

Unfortunately, it would probably take a long time. Probably not in our generation.

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