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You forgot about protecting minorities. What do you do when the majority of the people in a jurisdiction like (eg.) Mississippi consistently vote down land use
by madgar 10y ago
You forgot about protecting minorities. What do you do when the majority of the people in a jurisdiction like (eg.) Mississippi consistently vote down land use by black people? Just accept that the people have spoken and that black people are unwelcome in that jurisdiction?
This is not a theoretical exercise. This happens everyday in America in co-op boards, HOAs, etc and it doesn't require anybody saying out loud why an individual is being rejected. The current US president got caught doing this in the 1960s. If you want to redesign land use rights wholesale I would hope you wouldn't make this kind of discrimination more common... maybe that's just me.
- Arizhel 10y ago>You forgot about protecting minorities. What do you do when the majority of the people in a jurisdiction like (eg.) Mississippi consistently vote down land use by black people? Just accept that the people have spoken and that black people are unwelcome in that jurisdiction? Well, yes. That's how democracy works: there's a vote and the majority wins. Are you opposed to democracy? Yeah, it sucks if you're a minority, but what can you do? This is a fundamental flaw in democracy. We attempt to mitigate it by having constitutions and laws and representatives who are voted on in multi-year cycles, which in engineering terms has the effect of creating a long feedback loop so that the populace's short term emotions don't create too much instability and chaos, but it only works to a point. The alternative is a non-democratic system like what they do in China. And they don't seem to be too keen on protecting the rights of minorities either.
- RUG3Y 10y agoThe alternative is a republic, which is supposed to protect the inalienable rights of the minority from the whims of the majority.
- Arizhel 10y agoAre you one of those people who thinks a modern democratic republic somehow isn't democratic? Did you miss my whole line about constitutions and laws? Those are fundamentals of a modern democratic republic. Why is it that every time someone mentions a democracy, someone like you pops up and claims that a modern democracy isn't a democracy? Read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_republic Line 1: "A democratic republic is both a republic and a democracy." Furthermore, not all republics are democratic. North Korea and China are both republics, as is Iran. I already mentioned China in my previous post. Do you really think North Korea protects anyone's inalienable rights? Or Iran?
- RUG3Y 10y agoMaybe if someone always pops up to correct your vision of democracy, you're not communicating very well.
- Arizhel 10y agoI'm communicating just fine, you just seem to have no education. I suggest going back to school.
- madgar 10y agoYour first comment in this thread - in which you mention representatives in passing - suggests that you assume all "democracy" to come in the form of democratic republics. This might be true in a discussion of practical implementations of a scalable democratic governing system. The thread you responded to, however, was about a theoretical directly democratic system of managing land use rights, without any grounding in a realized system with elements of republicanism. The disconnect between the discussion at hand and the assumptions you brought to it (IMHO) caused the confusion between yourself and Arizhel. A more constructive comment from yourself might have instead politely pointed out that the scenario I described is a classic "tyranny of the majority" issue, a well understood failure mode of direct democracy that is indeed typically resolved practically through the features of republicanism you listed.
- sctb 10y agoPlease no personal attacks like this on Hacker News.