Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy • Hacker News Board

Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

#131

Post by Lawtonfogle » Fri, Apr 22, 2016, 1:15 PM UTC

return0 wrote: post #34

Crowdsourcing of a name is not about democracy. It doesn't appear to me that the public was widely informed that they had to make a democratic decision, instead sounds like a bunch of kids trolling. I think the article is conflating two unrelated entities here. As a sideline, what is democracy even? Democracy via elections would be oligarchy to ancient Athenians, who prefered democracy by lot anyway.

Boaty McBoatface is not internet trolling. Look at Mountain Dew's renaming disaster to see internet trolling.

Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

#132

Post by clarkmoody » Fri, Apr 22, 2016, 1:15 PM UTC

vlehto wrote: post #25

duncan_bayne wrote: post #12

The author has conflated democracy with voting. Sortition - the selection of Government at random from the citizenry - is a far superior mechanism, and results in a Government that is genuinely of the people. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

The reason why nobody has sortition, is because deep down democracy is about being as agreeable as possible to the median citizen. If you have vague feeling that you decided who is prime minister, you are more motivated to pay taxes and fight wars. The country that gets least tax evasion and most volunteers to army is likely to perform better than anybody else. And so survival of the fittest governments has favored d…

> you are more motivated to pay taxes and fight wars

Well, you don't really have a choice in the former, and when there's a draft, you don't in the latter either.

> The country that gets least tax evasion and most volunteers to army is likely to perform better than anybody else

I disagree. You are elevating the state too high. I would counter that the countries with the most economic freedom -- those that have embraced markets and rule of law -- are the ones at the top.

Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

#133

Post by aninhumer » Fri, Apr 22, 2016, 1:18 PM UTC

hartpuff wrote: post #126

aninhumer wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yeah, but that's not the same. And exactly what problem does attaching the name to a real boat cause? I think the objection to the name is far more childish than the name itself. "Oh no no no, we can't call it that . This is a serious boat, for serious grown ups."

Is it just $300 million scientific research vessels that should be given deliberately stupid names (that even the originator disowns), or everything?

What? I said objecting to the name is childish. That doesn't mean I think everything should have whimsical names, and I really don't know how you interpreted that from what I said?

Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

#134

Post by DanBC » Fri, Apr 22, 2016, 1:19 PM UTC

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #106

DanBC wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a choice was demanded of the whole population then Boaty McBoatface would never have won. If you force British people to vote then Boaty McBoatface would probably win, because british people can be surprisingly bloody minded. And boaty mcboatface is the polite version, you'd have a number of people writing Cunty McCuntyCunt on the form.

Exactly. It's the same bloody-mindedness that got 'Killing in the Name' - essentially the phrase "---k you I won't do what you tell me" shouted repeatedly - to No 1 at Christmas as a reaction against the X Factor manufactured idol hype. (And almost got 'Ding dong, the witch is dead' to No 1 after Thatcher's death...)

Or 350,000 people to declare themselves as Jedi Knights in the 2001 census.

Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

#135

Post by gryphonshafer » Fri, Apr 22, 2016, 1:21 PM UTC

chollida1 wrote: post #111

mrob wrote: post #2

The solution is simple. Continue calling the boat Boaty McBoatface. Ignore all references to the government's preferred name. They can choose what's painted on the side, but the name depends only on what people call it. If enough people call it Boaty McBoatface its name really is Boaty McBoatface. If your job depends on calling it the government's preferred name then subtly alter the timing of your speech to make it…

> The solution is simple. Continue calling the boat Boaty McBoatface. Ignore all references to the government's preferred name. This is good advice. In Toronto we have a baseball stadium called the Rogers Center ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Centre ). It was originally called the SkyDome but it was bought by a company called Rogers and renamed. Everyone still refers to it as the Skydome. Corporate branding b…

This happens with airports a lot. Some really wonderful and generous old pilot or aviation engineer dies, so the field gets renamed in honor of the person. But aviators still refer to the field by it's traditional name. It's not a slight against the honored dead; rather, it's just out of habit and the fact that it's tremendously easier to remember "$CITY_NAME Airport" than it is "$GUY_WHO_DIED Field".

Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

#136

Post by theoh » Fri, Apr 22, 2016, 1:21 PM UTC

metafunctor wrote: post #33

jernfrost wrote: post #22

I don't agree with a lot of the conclusions of this article. E.g. they propose that voting "probably" works the same way in all other countries as the US. There are plenty of objections to be made against that. E.g. 1) the US being a two party state means that getting representatives which represents the great variety of voter opinions is exceedingly difficult. 2) US elections are so dominated by advertisement, expen…

Democracy can take many forms indeed. But let's think opportunistically, for a moment. In general, I'm inclined to think that in a democracy, the people should have more direct influence to things “closer” to them (by some measure), and less for bigger, nationwide, issues, of which they presumably have less understanding. This is, in fact, how most democratic nations work in practice. The case of Boaty McBoatface, th…

> It's just a name. Names are almost always boring.

Not everyone feels this way. Names can be important and in the arts are particularly relished/valued and interpreted, to the extent that noms-de-plume and other forms of pseudonym are popular.

A formalist account of names sees them as dumb labels, and in computing you can get away with that. But it's not whole story because it doesn't consider the emotional side.

Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

#137

Post by maxerickson » Fri, Apr 22, 2016, 1:22 PM UTC

jernfrost wrote: post #22

I don't agree with a lot of the conclusions of this article. E.g. they propose that voting "probably" works the same way in all other countries as the US. There are plenty of objections to be made against that. E.g. 1) the US being a two party state means that getting representatives which represents the great variety of voter opinions is exceedingly difficult. 2) US elections are so dominated by advertisement, expen…

States could probably change the 2 party system by eliminating the preferential access that the parties have to the ballot.

Imagine if the national conventions were deciding which of the many already balloted candidates to endorse, rather than a media circus driving national attention to a smaller and smaller number of candidates that are then placed on state ballots by the parties months after an independent would have had to finished submitting ballot petitions.

It would still be a circus, but it wouldn't be a circus where the choices are filtered through a few thousand people. I suppose it would be necessary to again make the first loser the Vice President, but that shouldn't really hurt anything.

Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

#138

Post by golemotron » Fri, Apr 22, 2016, 1:22 PM UTC

chollida1 wrote: post #111

mrob wrote: post #2

The solution is simple. Continue calling the boat Boaty McBoatface. Ignore all references to the government's preferred name. They can choose what's painted on the side, but the name depends only on what people call it. If enough people call it Boaty McBoatface its name really is Boaty McBoatface. If your job depends on calling it the government's preferred name then subtly alter the timing of your speech to make it…

> The solution is simple. Continue calling the boat Boaty McBoatface. Ignore all references to the government's preferred name. This is good advice. In Toronto we have a baseball stadium called the Rogers Center ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Centre ). It was originally called the SkyDome but it was bought by a company called Rogers and renamed. Everyone still refers to it as the Skydome. Corporate branding b…

If I ran a news organization I'd use the old name on principle but I know what would happen. Companies would start to pay me to use the "proper name." It's the next step after product placement.

Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

#139

Post by dbot » Fri, Apr 22, 2016, 1:23 PM UTC

_asummers wrote: post #130

theseatoms wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise in Chicago, the Sears Tower is now technically the Willis Tower.

It got bought again, though I don't know if the newest buyers plan on changing the name again.

They could change it back to Sears Tower.

Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

#140

Post by xenophonf » Fri, Apr 22, 2016, 1:23 PM UTC

This is the country of the author who gave us ship names such as Gunboat Diplomat, You'll Thank Me Later, and (my personal favorite) I Blame Your Mother. You'd think the NERC would understand that it's all in good fun and would have the grace to use the name chosen by us unwashed masses. I mean, it's irreverent, but it isn't obscene, so who cares?