You can fool some of the people, all of the time • Hacker News Board

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#181

Post by malandrew » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

sputr wrote: post #26

buboard wrote: post #10

My pet theory is that democracy is more tolerable because it alternates between incompetent people fast enough to keep people's hopes alive.

Democracy is nothing more than a system that replaces swords/bullets with votes. That's it. The fight for power (aka. resources) it inescapable and the only thing that democracy did, was to change the field that this fight is fought on. Democracy is more tolerable because no people die (in the open) when the landscape of power changes. The only two benefits of democracy to "the people" are: (1) the fact that they hav…

> The amount of people who believe that democracy is somehow inherently good for the people is beyond my belief.

Not just inherently good, but unquestionably good. It has so many flaws, yet it's goodness is assumed as unassailable.

The design of a Republic serves to address some of the most obvious flaws. The biggest issue I see with the way republics currently operate is that there isn't a clear mechanism for handling bandwidth and processing constraints.

When the US was founded for example, congressional apportionment was one representative per 57,169 people. Today it is 747,184. The problem here is that it becomes impossible for a representative to effectively represent the disparate interests of that many people and it's also difficult for the representative to adequate sampling the interests of that many people. There are bandwidth constraints between representatives and constituents and there are processing constraints with handling more constituents.

Having a mechanism to manage apportionment for better outcomes seems like one key overlooked feature. We should have far more representatives and we should have more senators per state. This would also create more processing power for those representatives to spend time refactoring and improving existing laws instead of merely serving as commit generators.

Today we discuss the power of the 1%, but that's nothing in comparison with the power of the 0.00016% (538/327.2 million).

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/31/u-s-populat...

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#182

Post by MKais » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 6:16 PM UTC

"It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth"

Alexis de Tockeville (1805-1859)

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#183

Post by refurb » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 6:17 PM UTC

buboard wrote: post #10

My pet theory is that democracy is more tolerable because it alternates between incompetent people fast enough to keep people's hopes alive.

That actually made me chuckle.

It does seem that the election cycle is comprised of 1) promises, 2) elected based on promises, 3) failure to achieve promises, 4) kicked out of office because the other candidate is promising us stuff we want and we believe he will deliver.

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#184

Post by hqrlk » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 6:18 PM UTC

TrackerFF wrote: post #131

randcraw wrote: post #107

I think the rise of lies has little to do with humans being hardwired to resolve questions using emotions over reason. We prefer lies because we want a complex world to be simple, predictable, and manageable. Obviously it's not, so the only way that powerless people can believe their lives aren't spinning out of control is for authority figures to tell them what they want to hear: 1) every problem is simple and 2) a…

Hate to be political, but as one Trump supporter said, when asked on Trump and his lies: "I think what most liberals are missing is that this isn't about right and wrong, it's about winning and losing. I've attached my entire worldview to this man and I am going down with the ship. Not one of you is going to convince me otherwise." Some people are simply willing to accept lies, if it resonates with their beliefs. A m…

I don't believe that to be an actual quote, but having said that, we live in a post-truth world. We have recognised, at last, that the ends justify the means.

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#185

Post by kbutler » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 6:25 PM UTC

lucian1900 wrote: post #165

kbutler wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to define "poor". If you look at the progress of the poor in the US over the last 200 years, they're doing really, really well.

So well they can't afford homes, health care or even food? Despite working more than full time?

And cable TV and air conditioning?

"For example, in 2005, 63.7% of those living in poverty had cable or satellite television. In some cases the report even said that people currently living in poverty were actually better off than middle class people of the recent past. For example, in 2005, 78.3% of households living in poverty had air conditioning, whereas in 1970, 36.0% of all households had air conditioning." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#O...

So in 35 years, 78% of the poor had something that only 36% of households had previously.

Lacking access to necessary food/shelter/health care is "absolute poverty" (not the usually reported "relative poverty" rate https://www.debt.org/faqs/americans-in-debt/poverty-united-s...). And by that measure, including existing government and other benefits and transfer payments, the US poverty rate is near zero. https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/09/17/americas...

I'm not saying we can't do better, but we should also realize how far we've come.

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#186

Post by chrisco255 » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 6:26 PM UTC

TrackerFF wrote: post #131

randcraw wrote: post #107

I think the rise of lies has little to do with humans being hardwired to resolve questions using emotions over reason. We prefer lies because we want a complex world to be simple, predictable, and manageable. Obviously it's not, so the only way that powerless people can believe their lives aren't spinning out of control is for authority figures to tell them what they want to hear: 1) every problem is simple and 2) a…

Hate to be political, but as one Trump supporter said, when asked on Trump and his lies: "I think what most liberals are missing is that this isn't about right and wrong, it's about winning and losing. I've attached my entire worldview to this man and I am going down with the ship. Not one of you is going to convince me otherwise." Some people are simply willing to accept lies, if it resonates with their beliefs. A m…

That may be one guys opinion, but you understand the other side is lying, correct? What I didn't fully appreciate until Trump was how much of politics is theater.

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#187

Post by vharuck » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 6:34 PM UTC

thinkloop wrote: post #160

Isn't there an implied undercurrent with all this that genpop are idiots? I personally am not saying this, but if people say that "money buys elections", what do they mean exactly? They do not mean that massive election fraud exists, nor that people are being directly paid for their votes - there is no evidence of that. Everyone agrees that people are fairly voting based on their wants. What they are implying though…

Sure, you could appeal to guilt about thinking less of others. But the politicians raising tons of money and spending it on ads seem to think it works, condescension be damned.

I'm not familiar with the research, but I'd rather not write off a theory because it makes me feel bad.

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#188

Post by matheusmoreira » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 6:35 PM UTC

opwieurposiu wrote: post #130

ryandrake wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's less rule by consent and more rule by mob. Just because 50.5% of people vote for something I disagree with, doesn't mean I suddenly consent to it being law. I still don't have a choice and must unconsentually comply, otherwise "men with monopoly on legal violence" come and kill me or take me to prison. The only other choices are 1. convince the 1% (literally millions) of people to change their mind and get that…

You forget the second amendment remedy. The USA was founded by destroying the agents of the state that taxed and oppressed the people.

Those founders would be considered terrorists today.

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#189

Post by chrchang523 » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 6:39 PM UTC

xenyal wrote: post #116

lexandstuff wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting a vote instead of a bullet to the head seems like a pretty significant upgrade to me.

If that's the argument it comes down to for electoral governments, I'd say that's quite sad.

It may be sad, but it's still a very, very important difference.

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#190

Post by nickthemagicman » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

huffmsa wrote: post #73

nickthemagicman wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nassim Taleb believes dictatorships are better than democracies because "Lots of small sadnesses are always better than one or two big ones"?

A dictatorship gives one person the ability to cause a singular big sadness. So they're no good. He touts the extreme federalism of Switzerland. Small, local governments which can only affect and are only responsible for their immediate constituent Concentration of power => concentration of fail points => fragile to catastrophic events. Distribution of power => distribution of fail points => majority of system will s…

Very cool and interesting. I'm sure you could apply to tech as well. I.e. Micro services vs Monolithic services.

Thank you for clearing that up.