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Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

theatlantic.com

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Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

#51

Post by noir_lord »

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…

If spun right the PR benefits of calling the thing Boaty McBoatface are huge.

You could do merchandise, books, characters, You could have Boaty McBoatface sale up to the ice caps to look at why they are melting.

It's not like this is unusual we had a Childrens TV series here that was massively popular about talking trains and talking helicopters.

I think they squandered a massive opportunity because they don't understand how the internet works.

Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

#52

Post by BBlarat »

chrischen wrote: post #41
kuschku wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no law against other parties, it just turns out that with direct voting in a large country, over enough time, we arrive here with two parties. Wrong. It turns out that with First-Past-The-Post, we arrive with two parties. In many other countries, over centuries, even more parties develop, and fail again.

At best a handful of parties, and it only works in small elections. You get to bigger and bigger elections the system always reduces the choice, which means that the bigger the system is, the less effective democracy becomes. Of course democracy was never meant to be the most efficient or effective system of government. It's simply the most compromising one.

Tell that to india, which has 6 National parties[0]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_I...

Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

#53

Post by takno »

chrischen wrote: post #41
kuschku wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no law against other parties, it just turns out that with direct voting in a large country, over enough time, we arrive here with two parties. Wrong. It turns out that with First-Past-The-Post, we arrive with two parties. In many other countries, over centuries, even more parties develop, and fail again.

At best a handful of parties, and it only works in small elections. You get to bigger and bigger elections the system always reduces the choice, which means that the bigger the system is, the less effective democracy becomes. Of course democracy was never meant to be the most efficient or effective system of government. It's simply the most compromising one.

You say "at best a handful" like there isn't a meaningful difference between "2" and "3 or 4". The US is deeply unusual in their persistent two party system. Germany probably has nearly as many voters (given higher registration and turnout rates) as the US, and certainly doesn't operate as a two party system

Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

#54

Post by notahacker »

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.

And of course Athenian democracy would be oligarchy to modern democrats, who think that more than 10% of the population should be enfranchised...

Agree with your point that it doesn't really help the discussion to treat obscure and easily manipulated online polls on trivia as actual mass expressions of public will. I mean, it's about as valid as the poll Redditors brigaded to try to prove that nearly every American would vote for Sanders.

Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

#55

Post by takno »

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.

The vote was well covered in the British press, and the people I know who voted were neither kids not anything other than completely serious about the name.

Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

#56

Post by terryf »

pidg wrote: post #43
seanp2k2 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 envir…

I dunno, how would you feel about putting it on your CV? Like calling a business Smelly Bottom Industries would be funny and populist, but people who actually worked there would struggle to take pride in the fact.

I'd feel pretty good. In fact the official name for my company is CodeMonkey :)

Really, people take this stuff waaay too seriously.

I understand that calling it "CuntBrick 5000" would be offensive and we shouldn't do that, but "Boaty McBoatface" is just whimsical...

Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

#57

Post by aharju »

s_kilk wrote: post #47
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…

> My other objection is that Boaty McBoatface, somehow represents the will of the people. No it doesn't. Realistically it's the will of 4chan and Reddit, which is nowhere near as noble-sounding as "the will of the people".

I plead guilty, as that particular name was so hilariously funny, that I voted while I was still laughing. And I'm a Finn, not a Brit, so I wouldn't even expect that my vote would be taken seriously.

Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

#59

Post by baddox »

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…

I don't see much fun in that. The funny thing about getting the ship named Boaty McBoatface is that it would be painted on the ship and would be named as such in official documentation. The ability to casually refer to the ship by that name does exist, obviously, but how often do people refer to specific government ships by name anyway?

Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy

#60

Post by icebraining »

BBlarat wrote: post #52
chrischen wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At best a handful of parties, and it only works in small elections. You get to bigger and bigger elections the system always reduces the choice, which means that the bigger the system is, the less effective democracy becomes. Of course democracy was never meant to be the most efficient or effective system of government. It's simply the most compromising one.

Tell that to india, which has 6 National parties[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_I...

Brazil has 25 national parties in parliament. Though nowadays their system might not sound like something to emulate :|
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