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Modern Malaise

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Re: Modern Malaise

#81

Post by seydor »

darccio wrote: post #73
seydor wrote: post #64

>How can the world get better if no one is steering? Did it get better when somebody was steering? hitler was a strong and popular leader. Democracy is about people being self-governmed, not about having a strong leader Individualism is the ultimate goal of this Enlightenment era that we are still part of. The goal was to take away the power from the monarch and the collective, and empower the individual, and our civ…

There is no proof of social democracy being unpopular in Europe. The only relevant political movements that advocate against social democracy are mainly extreme right wing. Even those are not growing - and usually collapsing afterwards - because of their individualistic approach to society but because of their appeal to people that feel migration is not good, that climate change doesn’t exist, etc. Also, every time I…

social democrat parties are in major decline all over europe, even in sweden.

Well, social democracy is also the welfare system, and it also requires high social trust, and it also incurs debt for future generations.

I may be wrong, but i think social democracy was only possible during the (not so brief) moment of the boomers.

Re: Modern Malaise

#82

Post by euroderf »

I don't really see a gap between the value placed on labor by the traditional left and the new ethic of anti-work. The difference lies in alienation. The old style predated Fordism and valued the manual trades, and those were/are the "jobs" where you still find individual workers largely in control of their own economic fate. When that kind of autonomy is taken away (or surrendered), what remains is anti-work and bullsh*t work and quiet quitting.

Re: Modern Malaise

#83

Post by DeWilde »

seydor wrote: post #80
DeWilde wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are our societies ready for a real democracy, that is a direct vote on all issues type of self-governing rule where anything can be put up to a vote including votes for execution of members of the society? Or did you mean something else?

I think we are; unless you can point out politicians/representatives whose individual contribution is so much better than what the average citizen would do. There are no strong politicians in europe (barring autocrats) or in the US (which was until recently led by a cartoonish bully and now by someone who is in obvious cognitive decline), and for decades, it is pollsters that run the show. One issue is that current s…

The second issue is why I think we won't see our societies self led until we have technology that can prevent tirany of the majority. This has been an issue with democracy as long as it has existed, Socrates is one of the victims of this system. Because what is to prevent 66% of the population voting that you be publicly dismembered? This would be perfectly democratic.

And if you think this is some unreasonable edge case you must remember that humans are beings guided by emotion as much as reason, the whole COVID panic and hysteria that happened just two years ago has enough examples that emotion will trump reason even in situations that aren't even that dire.

Re: Modern Malaise

#84

Post by sph »

DeWilde wrote: post #76
sph wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is that technology will get us there eventually (direct democracy), and we'll get closer to a better, more functional and more inclusive society than the modern representative democracies which are starting to show their massive shortcomings. It was a stroke of genius to call what we have now in most of the world "democracy", as in "government by the people", when it's anything but that.

My hopes for the future are the same. However, until we get there, the current system is quite good at maintaining a stable society with increasing gains in technological development and social welfare. It is far from perfect or ideal, and it is full of lies, but until we have something better that is tangible and real, and not just theoretical, I wouldn't touch it.

We share the same hope for the future, but I do not think our current "democracies" are quite good, as you say. I think they're terrible, and the alternatives are even worse.

Sadly we don't have anything to replace them with at the moment, and we're just a hair away from some societal and political event to convince people that this very charismatic leader has all the answers and we should vote for them.

Re: Modern Malaise

#85

Post by indigoabstract »

wanderingmind wrote: post #51
jamesgreenleaf wrote: post #49

> All meritocratic platforms are winner-take-all, with the top 1% of performers collecting a vastly disproportionate share of rewards. Even if you simulate an economy where every participant starts out with the same amount of money, and all trades are completely random, over enough trades the participants' wealth will still end up in a power-law distribution.

This is also my intrinsic gut feel but can you point to any academic research work that supports this claim?

Not exactly academic research, but this has been known since biblical times..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_rich_get_richer_and_the_po...

It seems to be built into the world.

Re: Modern Malaise

#86

Post by excuses_ »

sph wrote: post #75
DeWilde wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are our societies ready for a real democracy, that is a direct vote on all issues type of self-governing rule where anything can be put up to a vote including votes for execution of members of the society? Or did you mean something else?

My theory is that technology will get us there eventually (direct democracy), and we'll get closer to a better, more functional and more inclusive society than the modern representative democracies which are starting to show their massive shortcomings. It was a stroke of genius to call what we have now in most of the world "democracy", as in "government by the people", when it's anything but that.

I am not sure that’s going to happen. Most of the people does not care about choices. They just want to have comfortable life without worries.

Another thing is that people must feel that their participation does have an effect.

One more aspect is that most of the decisions is not a popularity vote but must be based on knowledge and science. Average people can’t make that choices unless you have extremely well educated population.

Overall, a simple introduction of a technology which will enable more direct democracy is not enough. We need more ground work which will promote individuals with certain values and behaviors.

However, I also do believe that introducing such technology might accelerate that ground work.

Re: Modern Malaise

#87

Post by excuses_ »

seydor wrote: post #81
darccio wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no proof of social democracy being unpopular in Europe. The only relevant political movements that advocate against social democracy are mainly extreme right wing. Even those are not growing - and usually collapsing afterwards - because of their individualistic approach to society but because of their appeal to people that feel migration is not good, that climate change doesn’t exist, etc. Also, every time I…

social democrat parties are in major decline all over europe, even in sweden. Well, social democracy is also the welfare system, and it also requires high social trust, and it also incurs debt for future generations. I may be wrong, but i think social democracy was only possible during the (not so brief) moment of the boomers.

It does not incur debt. Sweden or Denmark has been having debt to GDB ratio constantly declining.

I think social democracy can work but it’s hard and requires huge discipline from government and people. Also, it seems much easier to introduce in smaller countries.

Re: Modern Malaise

#88

Post by roenxi »

I think this is under-calling both how miserable people were before the modern era and the remarkable impact good birth control has had on modern society. Suddenly there is lots of free time and a lot more choices to make than there were even 50 years ago and all the choices have unsatisfying outcomes. We live in a world that is too complex to understand, and people keep screaming that everything is about to collapse (which, in fairness, may be correct).

People have identified that both the traditional roles - child rearing and working very hard all day - are not much fun. Human society and morale doesn't cope well with hedonism. There aren't obvious alternatives. I don't see how a specific social theory could overcome these practical realities. Unusually, I don't really see economics as a factor here - everyone is, by historic standards, absurdly wealthy. Even most poor people.

Re: Modern Malaise

#89

Post by roenxi »

seydor wrote: post #68
jamesgreenleaf wrote: post #49

> All meritocratic platforms are winner-take-all, with the top 1% of performers collecting a vastly disproportionate share of rewards. Even if you simulate an economy where every participant starts out with the same amount of money, and all trades are completely random, over enough trades the participants' wealth will still end up in a power-law distribution.

This seems to be a basic principle of biology which fractally translates to entire societies. Piketty's data shows that historically, the curve was flattened only when the economy itself was upended, i.e. after wars. We need to engineer peaceful ways that violently rearrange the economy. A parallel money system like cryptos might have been used for that, but so far it has done the opposite

> We need to engineer peaceful ways that violently rearrange the economy.

Why not simply make sure that life is comfortable on the tail end of the of the curve and call it a day? The simple fact that so far only war makes the curve flatten suggests that this is not a curve we want to flatten. Nobody comes through a war feeling good.

Re: Modern Malaise

#90

Post by roenxi »

epgui wrote: post #23
cercatrova wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the difference not be so stark? That's how the power law works, most people follow only a few accounts.

Because inequality beyond a certain excess makes a system unstable, and given the chance, even wealthy people would rather be wealthy in a stable world than an unstable world. There is not only one power distribution, there is a whole set of them.

Can you refer to any evidence that inequality makes systems unstable? There is no reason that I can think of for that. OnlyFans looks pretty stable, in fact. And It doesn't make sense that a political system gets unstable when some people get wealthy. Political systems fall apart when large numbers of people can't afford food (an issue which has nothing to do with equality).
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