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

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

#51

Post by paganel »

jplayer01 wrote: post #20
smoll wrote: post #12

If most people are hard-wired to be duped, why does it feel like only recently people are getting even more conspicuously duped by their political leaders (a la Trump and Johnson)? Presumably this effect should have had a more uniformly distributed effect throughout history. Is it solely due to the weaponization of technology for this means? Or are there other reasons for “why now”?

1) Accessibility 2) There's always been some measure of manipulation by political leaders in order to achieve certain goals. Obvious examples are the US in drumming up support for WW2 or the Vietnam war or ... well, any war, really. I don't think anything has really fundamentally changed since the "good old days", except people have realized that they can subvert democracy by just telling people what they want to hea…

>1) Accessibility

This doesn't get mentioned as often as it should. I have read almost no critical analysis of the fact that cheap smartphones coupled with relatively cheap mobile Internet have brought the political discourse to lots and lots of more people, who otherwise most certainly would have switched the TV channel when the politics were on or who didn't read the politics section in the newspapers (if they used to read newspapers at all).

In other words, Facebook and Twitter by themselves would have meant nothing without the cheap Android phones.

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

#52

Post by mtgx »

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…

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

#53

Post by nickthemagicman »

huffmsa wrote: post #15
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's exactly what the US system is supposed to to. Continuous, rapid cycling between small improvements and slightly smaller regressions. As the Federal bureaucracy grows and as elected politicians stay in office longer the regressions become more severe though. If it gets bad enough you end up with a massive centralized apparatus which inevitably implodes and takes out the nation it governed with it. As seen in Ch…

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

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

#54

Post by RealStickman »

FrankyHollywood wrote: post #49
sputr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 only two benefits of democracy..." In my opinion the one major benefit of democracy over all other forms is that a terrible leader can be voted away within 4 years. It's a political system with garbage collection :)

If terrible leaders could be voted away there would be no politicians in power.

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

#55

Post by repomies691 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #29
sputr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. If the alternative is swords and bullets, I would think most people prefer democracy. It’s the worst system, except for all the others attempted so far.

It's not the alternative, democratic countries also rule by force in the end. The governments wouldn't work if they didn't have guns, prisons and nice interrogation methods in their toolset.

With democratic country everyone has some minimal effect on how those tools of violence are used, unlike in dictatorships or monarchies. So I think also it is a better system.

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

#56

Post by calmlynarczyk »

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.

I've always seen it as a matter of risk. You could have an absolute monarchy and end up with the smartest, most empathetic person in the world as your leader who would be a net-benefit to your society for years to come. You could also end up with a total asshole that you're stuck with until death do you part.

Democracy (or perhaps bureaucracy) just de-risks the chance that your government fails you through diversification of parties involved, similar to diversifying your investment portfolio. Given that human nature tends to lead people into the "asshole" column, I can understand why democracy would be the preferable of the two approaches.

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

#57

Post by brazzy »

FrankyHollywood wrote: post #49
sputr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 only two benefits of democracy..." In my opinion the one major benefit of democracy over all other forms is that a terrible leader can be voted away within 4 years. It's a political system with garbage collection :)

Potentially even more important: a leader (terrible or otherwise) who loses power does not have to fear being murdered by his successor, and can hope to regain power. Thus, they have a much smaller incentive to use desparate (i.e. violent) methods to stay in power.

That's why the true test of a country's switch to democracy are not the first democratic elections, but the first democratic change of power.

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

#58

Post by repomies691 »

igorkraw wrote: post #37
sputr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Democracy is nothing more than a system that replaces swords/bullets with votes. That's it. > (...) >Democracy is more tolerable because no people die (in the open) when the landscape of power changes. Leaving rebuttal of your other points aside, can you see how that is not the same thing at all ? It's like claiming "a plane is nothing more than a system which can move through the air the same way a boat can move t…

> Compared to ruling by force, yes, democracy is inherently good for the people

I don't understand why people here see democratic system as a replacement for ruling by a force. Democratic countries also rule by force in the end. Democratic countries also need polices, guns, armies, prisons, tax inspectors, prosecutors etc. Those same institutions are also the tools for dictatorships, they are just governed in a different way.

(I also think democracy is good, but however in the end both democracies and dictatorships rely on violence to be effective. I think that's quite basic lesson on how society works.)

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

#59

Post by Retric »

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…

Historically, monarchy’s seem to be more stable and result in less open warfare (civil wars). The US did not even last 90 years before the first civil war. A rather large number of democracies have fallen and been replaced with dictatorship.

Democracies have other benefits, but stability does not seem to be one of them.

PS: I am ignoring assassinations and power struggles as we have lost 4 sitting US presidents without it being considered a civil war.

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