Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 229 posts

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

#71

Post by hntddt1 »

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…

Dr. stone here

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

#72

Post by patentatt »

Xelbair wrote: post #65
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 problem is that the warring factions know this and will do everything they can to conceal the reality of the situation so that the people do not exercise the power that they have. And they have been very successful at it. The amount of people who believe that democracy is somehow inherently good for the people is beyond my belief. Democracy is neither evil nor good. It is just a popularity contest. Merit…

Surely you can see some causal relationship between the two though? On a “whole society” scale, how is merit defined? If you come up with some rigid concrete definition, someone else may disagree. So democracy stands for the proposition that the most reliable way to define merit is to trust the majority of people’s consensus. How else would you propose that merit be defined and evaluated, long term, on the scale of an entire society?

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

#73

Post by huffmsa »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #53
huffmsa wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?

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 survive catastrophes.

Or, in VC speak:

single investment in single start-up => fund will not survive a failure.

Many small investments in many start-ups => 75% fail, 10% break even, 10% make 2-3x, 5% return 10x

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

#74

Post by patentatt »

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 :)

But we all know what happens with over-aggressive garbage collection: lost data, errors, cache misses, and lots of wasted cycles.

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

#75

Post by cheschire »

CPLX wrote: post #69
repomies691 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 diffe…

The relevant word isn’t “force” it’s “consent”. All forms of government to some extent or another have to maintain a monopoly on legal violence and use force. The distinction with democracy is that the government secures and maintains the consent of those being governed.

There are plenty of people who don't consent on a daily basis. The actions range from peaceful protests to traitorous acts. How does a democracy deal with them? Force.

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

#76

Post by jiveturkey »

merpnderp wrote: post #66
repomies691 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 diffe…

Dictatorships rely solely on force. Democracies mostly rely on a common agreement to follow a social contract. There’s not nearly enough police in the US to quell a rebellion of the people if they lost faith in Democracy.

Isn't it true though, there's not nearly enough police in any country to quell a rebellion of the people? This is how dictators get overthrown.

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

#77

Post by patentatt »

nfg wrote: post #70
Retric wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 witho…

> Historically, monarchy’s seem to be more stable and result in less open warfare. How did you come to that conclusion? It seems like ahistorical nonsense to me.

Well the history of democracy is very short compared to monarchy. Let’s check back in on this in a few thousand years to see how both fare.

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

#78

Post by patentatt »

claudeganon wrote: post #44
chadcmulligan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a similar theory, the right and the left each get to alternate so we stay sort of in the middle.

At least in the US, I think you’re mistaking controlled opposition in the form of a pseudo-left Democratic Party for things alternating. Post 1970s, the ideological continuity between the two parties (austerity for the people, largesse for the military, corporations, and ruling class) is quite obvious, but obfuscated in public discourse through various culture wars.

Yeah, the US’ Democratic Party would be the conservative right wing party in many other countries.

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

#79

Post by ryandrake »

CPLX wrote: post #69
repomies691 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 diffe…

The relevant word isn’t “force” it’s “consent”. All forms of government to some extent or another have to maintain a monopoly on legal violence and use force. The distinction with democracy is that the government secures and maintains the consent of those being governed.

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 vote to 49.5%, or 2. find a different place to live.

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

#80

Post by disintegore »

cheschire wrote: post #75
CPLX wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relevant word isn’t “force” it’s “consent”. All forms of government to some extent or another have to maintain a monopoly on legal violence and use force. The distinction with democracy is that the government secures and maintains the consent of those being governed.

There are plenty of people who don't consent on a daily basis. The actions range from peaceful protests to traitorous acts. How does a democracy deal with them? Force.

Also much of the consent is, as Chomsky would put it, manufactured.
Post reply on HN