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How a social network could save democracy from deadlock

bbc.com

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Re: How a social network could save democracy from deadlock

#21

Post by johnisgood »

chmod775 wrote: post #20
johnisgood wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can the majority of people decide to end democracy if they, the majority, wanted or not? If not, why not, and how is it a democracy then? If yes, then I do not understand the relevance of your comment. > Just because you can't decide that the sun should drop out of the sky, does not mean you are not a democracy. I think this one is pretty obvious and I am not sure of its significance here. You cannot decide to do a l…

> Can the majority of people decide to end democracy if they, the majority, wanted or not? If not, why not, and how is it a democracy then? If yes, then I do not understand the relevance of your comment. You just simply restated what the article's author said and to which I responded at length already. But I'll rephrase from a different angle further below for your benefit. > This makes no sense within the context. I…

> You just simply restated what the article's author said and to which I responded at length already. But I'll rephrase from a different angle further below for your benefit.

Only some parts (there were more objections besides this), yes, to emphasize the word "wanted" because your comment seemed to have omitted that crucial part and operated under the assumption that people do not want to do that, which misses the point. You said: "because the majority of voters did not the surrender the power to make that decision to anyone", which means that the majority of voters did not want to do that to begin with. If it is democracy (direct democracy, in this case), and they wanted to, they should have been able to.

> And on company grounds? What if just worker's of said company decided it's okay to murder each other there?

No, because the company is within the scope of the country and its legal framework, and "there" is within the borders of a country. If the company (read: group of individuals) is large enough to make up the majority of the country, then they should be able to decide so democratically if there indeed is democracy.

> If you believe that spheres of influence (both physically and in the abstract sense) should have no bearing on what decisions your democracy can make, then there can't ever have a democracy because something will always be out of your influence (unless maybe you're the only country on earth).

I am not sure I understand your point. How is there direct democracy if the majority cannot decide to do X or Y (and here I am not talking about the majority of people wishing the sun to drop out of the sky or anything similar, of course)? You cannot just add exceptions and then call it democratic (or direct democracy), which is what is happening here. Are you sure that this is not a redefinition of democracy?

Re: How a social network could save democracy from deadlock

#22

Post by chmod775 »

johnisgood wrote: post #21
chmod775 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can the majority of people decide to end democracy if they, the majority, wanted or not? If not, why not, and how is it a democracy then? If yes, then I do not understand the relevance of your comment. You just simply restated what the article's author said and to which I responded at length already. But I'll rephrase from a different angle further below for your benefit. > This makes no sense within the context. I…

> You just simply restated what the article's author said and to which I responded at length already. But I'll rephrase from a different angle further below for your benefit. Only some parts (there were more objections besides this), yes, to emphasize the word "wanted" because your comment seemed to have omitted that crucial part and operated under the assumption that people do not want to do that, which misses the p…

> How is there democracy if the majority cannot decide to do X or Y.

The majority can't decide that gravity should cease to exist or the sun shouldn't shine within their borders. Some limitations on democracy are natural, others are imposed by those who established it. That doesn't mean it's not a democracy.

You could do the same thought experiment with dictatorships or any form of government really. If a dictator can decide that he'd rather have a democracy, then he can end his own existence (fine?), unless he operates in some constitutional framework that enshrines him as the one and only power within the country. If that's the case, is he still a dictator? Short answer: clearly. Long answer: We can have a long debate about this and essentially come to the conclusion that either whatever definition of democracy/dictatorships you're using needs to be revised, or you need to come up with new names for most political systems on earth, because we need to names for things at the end of the day.

In any case don't use the article author's definition:

> Democracy is a system of majority rule in which each citizen has one vote either in deciding the policies of the government or in electing the rulers, who will in turn decide policy.

According to his definition the majority is allowed to just decide policy. I don't think he realizes there's actually no contradiction if you define it like that, because ending democracy would be a matter of polity and probably politics in general, but not really a matter of just policy.

Edit: Fair warning, I edited quite a bit above roughly 10 minutes after posting.

Re: How a social network could save democracy from deadlock

#23

Post by Johnwbh »

humanrebar wrote: post #2

> And rather than showing the messages that divided each of the four groups, Pol.is simply made them invisible. This seems like a good way to find some initiatives through consensus. The main mechanism seems to be giving a "conversational veto" to everyone in the discussion. A "let's move on" button, basically. I find that very interesting. It would certainly help with concerns that "my legislature does nothing ". It…

It reminds me a bit of the old dinner party rules of not talking politics, sex or religion. You keep things harmonious but at the cost of more interesting conversation. And doesn't help when you're forced to tackle controversial issues

Re: How a social network could save democracy from deadlock

#24

Post by lonelappde »

anoncake wrote: post #16
johnday wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opportunity to reply is only invoked after an increasing amount of time, which I think is dependent on the depth of the conversation. In other words, the further into a conversation you are, the more time you are forced to take to think on the other person's response.

Can you draft a reply before that times has passed? I wonder how that would influence the conversation.

You can draft whatever you want on your own machine.

Re: How a social network could save democracy from deadlock

#25

Post by emsign »

It's funny I just thought about this yesterday. "What if my smartphone loses network connectivity. How many apps on it will stop working? 95%? I miss the old days when storing and processing my personal data was done 100% on my own devices. Sharing that data with others wasn't really a problem and people had websites as always accessible billboards where they presented themselves as well." Sure the social media "network" aspect wasn't there, but it wouldn't be impossible to achieve that today while the bulk of the data resides on people's own devices.

Ever since the shift of storing the user's data not on their devices but in the cloud and ever since rendering ad blockers useless by tailoring not just the ads but the actual content towards the user's behavior and biases, the internet has gone down the drain. And more and more people are fed up with it.

Societies can be "hacked" via social media, that technology is out there and it is being used not only by superpowers like the US or Russia, but also by political actors in smaller countries like Myanmar or Ethiopia. People die. Mobs incited by fake news campaigns on Facebook kill people. Elections get hacked, not by manipulating voting machines but by manipulating people's minds using the same technology advertisers use. That's some scary stuff. Social Media manipulation is the nuclear bomb of the early 21st century, it's that hot new weapon every sleazy political actor wants to get their hands on. And so we are in a new Cold War, actually it's many cold wars. Unlike the one in the 50s-80s these new ones are invisible and don't feel as scary, which makes them... more scary?! Weapons of mass propaganda... we have to take action to render them useless by abonding social networks and cloud services as we know them today. But that can only happen with a better replacement that's harder to manipulate and that has a higher incentive to be used by the masses.

Without an internet connection your smartphones and even your PC becomes either almost completely or at least partially useless. That is not scary because we have to fear network issues or censorship but it's scary because it means so much of the information acquisitioning and processing is out of our control. Modern devices are perfectly capable of handling all the user's data and then some, they have the storage capacity and they have the processing power, the only reason the cloud still exists for end user's is because analyzing everyone's data makes them money.

And you can't even blame developers and companies jumping on this bandwaggon. Everyone else does it, the tools are out there, ready to be used, and that sweet ad money pays the bills or the investor's demand it because they think that sweet ad money will reimburse their investment.

But is it ethical? Hell no!

It seems like nobody is thinking about putting that processing power and that storage capacity that people own in their pockets to use. I welcome the initiatives that do exist, but I feel like that only something massive, something disruptive can change that.

Re: How a social network could save democracy from deadlock

#26

Post by UncleEntity »

chmod775 wrote: post #22
johnisgood wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You just simply restated what the article's author said and to which I responded at length already. But I'll rephrase from a different angle further below for your benefit. Only some parts (there were more objections besides this), yes, to emphasize the word "wanted" because your comment seemed to have omitted that crucial part and operated under the assumption that people do not want to do that, which misses the p…

> How is there democracy if the majority cannot decide to do X or Y. The majority can't decide that gravity should cease to exist or the sun shouldn't shine within their borders. Some limitations on democracy are natural, others are imposed by those who established it. That doesn't mean it's not a democracy. You could do the same thought experiment with dictatorships or any form of government really. If a dictator ca…

> The majority can't decide that gravity should cease to exist or the sun shouldn't shine within their borders. Some limitations on democracy are natural, others are imposed by those who established it. That doesn't mean it's not a democracy.

I don't think anyone is arguing that not being able to impose the voters' will over the laws of nature is any indication of whether a system is democratic. Nor should not being able to vote away natural rights (like the right not to be murdered) have any bearing because they're basically the same thing. Red herring, really.

If someone who is long gone (and no longer has voting rights) imposed limitations on a democratic system then how is it even a democracy? More like a dictatorship ruled over by dead people with the illusion that people have "self rule".

Re: How a social network could save democracy from deadlock

#28

Post by K0SM0S »

arethuza wrote: post #8
Retric wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sometimes 90% vote benefits for themselves at the expense of 10%. Most unbalanced budgets fall in this category. In isolation you can find many examples of this. But, political alliances mean that group may be trading financial support for support of another issue. Farm subsidies and net neutrality could be traded with people voting for both even if they only care for one or the other. It smells like corruption, bu…

A lot of political compromise always seems to me of the form: we have a cake to share, I want the whole cake and you, being reasonable, want the 'fair' portion of half a cake. So we compromise and I get three quarters of the cake and you get a quarter.

This is as painfully true as it is down to earth.

Zooming out a bit, a less cynical take (merely observation) is that we seek what we think are the right means for our goals (and these too diverge a lot).

Maybe I want money, maybe you'd rather have love of the people; maybe we just both wanna make this world better, maybe we're mostly in it for ourselves.

The point is, industrious types seek the means to industry, romantic ones seek an emotional path to/of success, technical minds seek the knowledge or practice of their puzzle, etc.; and in the end everything is just as it should/cloud/would have been. There's a reason you asked 100%, got 75 and I let you walk away with it. However I'd want to spin it, it just had not mattered to me as much as it had to you.

Re: How a social network could save democracy from deadlock

#29

Post by anoncake »

lonelappde wrote: post #24
anoncake wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you draft a reply before that times has passed? I wonder how that would influence the conversation.

You can draft whatever you want on your own machine.

Yes, obviously. That's not what I'm asking.

Re: How a social network could save democracy from deadlock

#30

Post by K0SM0S »

I am very much convinced —have been for about a decade— that this is the general way to go. To fundamentally give democracy to people in a much more direct fashion, a peer-to-peer design true to what democracy actually is. Starting with the local / small issues (if resistance is met at the top, unlike the Taiwainese example it seems).
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