Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

The story is more complex than the article says. A Spanish forum (one of the top-40 more visited sites in Spain) voted massively the name "Blas de Lezo" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blas_de_Lezo ) a Spanish admiral who in 1741 defeated a British Army far bigger than his own one.

After gaining the #1 position the organization decided to withdraw the name from the polling, causing more controversy about this digital process.

> “The key point is that representatives’ voting behavior was not strongly constrained by their constituents’ views,” Achen and Bartels write. “Elections do not force successful candidates to reflect the policy preferences of the median voter.” The authors claim there’s no hard evidence to suggest that these dynamics would vary in countries with political systems of proportional representation and more parties than in the U.S.

I'm not a fan of grover norquist but I think it is unfair to say our representatives should be free to disregard the pledge they so publicly made when they were campaigning. Yes, we expect our representatives to go against their platform in extreme cases for the greater good but I'd say if that happens, the representative must turn right around and resign immediately from office and not run for office again.

No, it doesn't matter if the cause was an "obstructionist" Congress. It didn't matter with George HW Bush and it won't matter now.

Can you imagine if we had a referendum for independence of Scotland and had Cameron said "nah jk" after the results came in favor of Independence? Or if he started attaching new conditions to the promised he made Scots to vote no? "Oh we will get right to the issue of devolution but we must make sure Scots can't vote in England only legislation" but then who didn't they say that when campaigning?

Imagine a system where there was a yearly pie eating contest to determine the king for a year. Would it be OK for the current winner to abolish the contest and make the position hereditary? Of course not!

I'm sure that the crew and people who do research on it, if they have any sense of humor, would get an enormous kick out of it too. How'd it be to tell your mates that you'll be out for 6 weeks at sea on RRS Boaty McBoatface ? I'd personally bust out laughing every time I talked about it.

It's not to say that the work isn't serious or important, just that sometimes it's OK to have a laugh, even in an omgsrsbzns environment. It's not really at the expense of anyone (aside from perhaps the pride of a few) and it's not really disrespectful or non-kid-friendly (actually I'm sure kids would love it) like e.g. RRS Naff Minger or something else that the internet at large might dream up. My point is that it's actually a viable family-friendly name, and I mean...just look at it. Totally looks like a Boat McBoatface to me. It has that Pixar anthropomorphic look to it. It also looks like a big toy version of a real boat. Very cartoony, especially in bright red

Boaty McBoatface it is, then.

This is a gross simplification. Internet trolling and mockery doesn't really represent the will of the people.