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People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

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Re: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

#81

Post by GFischer »

laic wrote: post #49

Democracy is not about choosing one "Great Leader" and everyone else just follow. If that was the case, we don't need the congress, the high court and free press. Democracy is about "putting power into cage" and splitting cake in a way that everybody has a say. In a democratic system, "Great leader" or not, it really doesn't matter that much in the long run, we will always get there. What important is the system make…

"Democracy is about "putting power into cage" and splitting cake "

Well, no. What you're describing is a Republic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic

It's often confused because most democracies are also republics.

Re: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

#82

Post by larrydag »

rmc wrote: post #37
gaius wrote: post #5

The elephant in the corner of the room of course is that the ancient Athenians quite deliberately didn't have a universal franchise. Property-owning tax-paying full citizens who fulfilled their military obligations voted, because they were the ones that would pay for, implement and generally be responsible for whatever was voted for.

This was the dominant form of voting in most democracies until about 100 years ago. E.g. in the UK, only men who owned property could vote (can't let the common man vote!). This didn't always produce a good democracy.

Most U.S. states adopted this form of voting power near when the U.S. was founded. Some states even allowed freed slaves that were property owners to vote.

Re: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

#83

Post by MetaMan »

batista wrote: post #71

Democracy isn't about putting the BEST people in power, or taking the BEST decisions. It's about WHO choses what it's "the best". The majority should choose, period. Everything else is "I know better than other people what they SHOULD want". Even if you "know better" by some objective criterium, it should not be up to you to decide. Because government is about choosing what people WANT not what is BEST for them.

well said !

Re: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

#84

Post by rbarooah »

danmaz74 wrote: post #76
rbarooah wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is democracy not about selecting leaders?

Democracy means "rule of the people (demos)", and it was opposed to traditional Aristocracy , the "rule of the best (aristos)". Even if modern democracies are mostly representative, and not direct like the original Athenian democracy, they are still based not on the idea that we should elect "the best" leaders to make "the right" choices (as if there was an objective metric for any of the two), but on the idea that e…

My point is simply that whatever the intentions, democracy has devolved to selecting leaders, and for the most part they aren't even representative.

I'd say measuring the ideal instead of the reality isn't all that useful.

Re: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

#85

Post by rbarooah »

batista wrote: post #71

Democracy isn't about putting the BEST people in power, or taking the BEST decisions. It's about WHO choses what it's "the best". The majority should choose, period. Everything else is "I know better than other people what they SHOULD want". Even if you "know better" by some objective criterium, it should not be up to you to decide. Because government is about choosing what people WANT not what is BEST for them.

Why should the majority always have power over minorities?

Re: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

#86

Post by toyg »

batista wrote: post #64
shingen wrote: post #11

Constitutional Republic yes, Democracy no. Democracy isn't desirable. Mob rule is a terrible system of government. Democracy != voting; Democracy != freedom. America and many other systems have long since proven that freedom through constitutional protections with representative government does flourish. Those systems specifically flourish by protecting the weak from the powerful, the minority from the majority. The…

Democracy isn't desirable. Mob rule is a terrible system of government. Democracy != voting; Democracy != freedom. Really? And who said democracy == mob rule? Mob is a weasel term, to imply "people when take decisions as a group are inherently bad". Well, people taking decisions as a whole has been quite nice when it happened and while it lasted (or was allowed to last). I'm thinking the Athenian Democracy, various c…

Careful: democracy is not about majority, but rather (literally) "government by the people"; there is quite a difference. There are various types of "majority", and all of them fail at fully representing "the people" as a whole, unless it's a 100% majority where nobody abstains (and even then, one would have to argue about who was allowed to vote and how).

This is why any robust democratic system will have, on some subjects, "qualified" majorities (where the threshold is set much higher than 51%, or abstained votes are counted against, etc etc) or "relative" majorities (where the most popular option wins, even when it doesn't represent at least 50% of the votes) as well as the "simple" majority (usually 50% + 1 or 51% of the expressed votes). They're different ways of really interpreting "the will of the people" on different subjects. A proper democratic system recognises the importance of respecting minorities and the volatility (and gullibility) of popular sentiment, and safeguards itself against wrong decisions. Many fascist governments were democratically elected and survived re-election, but they were not democratic in nature.

If the majority of synapses in your brain should decide tomorrow that shooting yourself in the foot is a good idea, despite "a small but vocal minority opposed to the plan" (i.e. your foot), that doesn't mean that it'd be in your real interest to do so.

Re: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

#87

Post by throughnothing »

This is just funny and ironic on so many levels. What exactly does it mean for Democracy to 'Flourish'? Does that mean that the 51% get to do whatever they want, and the 49% have to go along with it? The whole premise of the article seems to assume by default that Democracy is, somehow, a good form of government, and that if only people weren't so dumb, everyone would be happy under this tyrannical form of government.

Democracy is, by definition, a system wherein the minority suffers at the whims of the majority -- mob rule, if you will. Most people seem to think the United States is a democracy, but it is actually (supposed to be) a Republic. Our elected officials are not (supposed to be) able to do whatever the majority wants at the expense of the minority, but rather their actions are strictly limited and restricted by the constitution so as to prevent the majority from violating the rights of the minority -- which is virtually always what results from a true democracy.

Re: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

#88

Post by toyg »

dantheman wrote: post #63
shingen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anytime someone lays out an argument by stating that some other group of people isn't intelligent enough to self govern, you should be suspicious of the character and intentions of the person making that argument. Whether that applies to Thiel or not I have no clue, I haven't seen all his statement on the libertarian colony proposal (I've just seen brief discussions on it).

If, the 3pt14159 was referring to seasteading http://www.seasteading.org Then the entire purpose is to try and live in the absence of government through voluntary cooperation and nonaggression. It's unfortunate that an experiment like this cannot take place on land - no government will ever voluntarily cede control of land & people that it does not own. In general the theory is that current government functions can b…

In reality, "a customer" is whoever pays the most money for something you are selling. In the modern world, this would be corporations and rich individuals, not "the people".

The rest is left as an exercise to the reader.

Re: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

#89

Post by artsrc »

rbarooah wrote: post #84
danmaz74 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy means "rule of the people (demos)", and it was opposed to traditional Aristocracy , the "rule of the best (aristos)". Even if modern democracies are mostly representative, and not direct like the original Athenian democracy, they are still based not on the idea that we should elect "the best" leaders to make "the right" choices (as if there was an objective metric for any of the two), but on the idea that e…

My point is simply that whatever the intentions, democracy has devolved to selecting leaders, and for the most part they aren't even representative. I'd say measuring the ideal instead of the reality isn't all that useful.

Democracy is significantly about an expression of preference, rather than identification of quality.

Think about it as voting for the dinner choices. It is not about finding the best chef, it is about getting Spaghetti Bolognese, because that is what you feel like tonight.

Re: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

#90

Post by javert »

batista wrote: post #68
javert wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to say almost precisely this. However, I do think it's true that people aren't smart enough for democracy, and that's a part of why we need a constitutional republic instead. Is there something wrong with that line of argumentation?

However, I do think it's true that people aren't smart enough for democracy What does that even mean? The majority of the people are not to be trusted with judging how to run their country, so we have to put intermediaries and dilute the majority's will?

batista, I think you have a penchant for arguing with me :-)

I think the right way to go is a constitutional republic, in which the "way the country is run" is strictly defined ahead of time. Then, the elected representatives have to act within those strict parameters. You could call the constitution an "intermediary that dilutes the majority's will" if you want.

I certainly belive that individual rights have to be protected from the will of the majority. Or, the minorities have to be protected from the will of the majority.

Keep in mind that everyone is part of a minority sometimes, and everyone is part of a majority sometimes. Depends on the issue.

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