10 ms·

You can make a case that democracy is a grand application of “wisdom of large crowd”. But if that can easily and consistently outperformed then do we have bette

You can make a case that democracy is a grand application of “wisdom of large crowd”. But if that can easily and consistently outperformed then do we have better political system than democracy? What are the consequences of this?

fsloth 8y ago
Democracy is not a vehicle for correctness or efficiency. It's entire point is to distribute political power to a wide powerbase with a constant churn. This is to disable known pathologies of entrenched power bases and to discourage social stratification. Since modern states don't have an entrenched hereditary aristocracy we don't really have a concept of what democracy shields us from, since we've not had to suffer from it - except when we do, we recognize it and shun it. The social idea was that aristocracy had to be in power since they were the ones with the education. After public schooling became a things, suddenly just being able to read and write is not a distinguishing feature, and having an explicit hereditary elite became a socially untenable construct. That's not to say that a human society is a fair playing field - but it's not as unjust as in past centuries. Similarly to vacciness, when democracy works as intended you see only the "bad parts".
- agsdfgsd 8y ago
  >Since modern states don't have an entrenched hereditary aristocracy We absolutely do, but because we are bombarded with propaganda telling us they "earned it" by "working hard" and "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps" we pretend it is just a co-incidence that the people born into the top 1% almost always remain there, and people born in the bottom 99% almost always remain there. >After public schooling became a things, suddenly just being able to read and write is not a distinguishing feature It never was. The aristocracy were educated specifically on economics, justice, etc. It wasn't simply a matter of being able to read.
  - fsloth 8y ago
    Sure, I simplified a lot. The current western world order is still much more fair to the common folk than feudalism. The education aspect was not as much about how much more educated the aristocracy was rather that the unwashed masses rose to their level, and it was not anymore sufficient to say that god has decreed duke X a distinguished gentleman and commoner Y a filthy peasant. It is not easy to rise social ladders, but it's way easier with our figment of a fair society, rather than if we believed social status was a fixed quantity given by the creator of the universe. The pithy armchair psychologist in me would claim modern society is much more facilitating towards a growth mindset than a feodal one.
    - agsdfgsd 8y ago
      >The current western world order is still much more fair to the common folk than feudalism. That's the common perception, but there's little evidence that it is true. Modern peons have no more ability to control their governments than medieval peons did, we just have the illusion presented to us to keep us complacent. We work longer hours, have less nutritious and safe food, and have an epidemic of "mental illness" stemming from our lack of social bonds and community. But because we have medicine and electronic gadgets we declare ourselves to be much better off. >The education aspect was not as much about how much more educated the aristocracy was Well really that is exactly what aristocracy was, as originally conceived. Some places ended up with a corrupt form where it was rule by birth rather than rule by excellence (the literal definition of aristocracy), but mostly people just mistakenly refer to monarchies as aristocracies. >but it's way easier with our figment of a fair society, rather than if we believed social status was a fixed quantity given by the creator of the universe. Why? The modern myth that nobility was defined purely by birth is just that, a myth. If you believe that excellence is given by god, it does not also follow that you must believe god only gives excellence to the offspring of others he gave excellence. In reality it was seen as no different than with livestock. If a good specimen is born you make it part of your breeding stock, even if its parents were not.
      - naasking 8y ago
        > We work longer hours, have less nutritious and safe food, and have an epidemic of "mental illness" stemming from our lack of social bonds and community. But because we have medicine and electronic gadgets we declare ourselves to be much better off. This smacks of rosy retrospective bias. Even if we have less nutritious food, which is debatable, we have an abundance of it, sufficient to feed us all and we don't suffer famines and shortages, or nutritional deficiencies. We have an "epidemic" of mental illness because most of our day is no longer solely focused on scrounging for survival. Also, the mentally ill are no longer shunned as harshly and so they don't die of starvation. Perhaps community bonds have something to do with it, but that's also debatable.
  - kortilla 8y ago
    >that the people born into the top 1% almost always remain there, and people born in the bottom 99% almost always remain there. The former isn’t true for income and doesn’t remain true for wealth for more than a couple generations. The latter is of course true because... math. 99% of the people are always going to be in the bottom 99%. When you talk about the 1 percent for income, you are capturing doctors, lawyers, professors, and small business owners with your angst. Many of those people absolutely earned their position by busting their ass. You don’t become a successful spinal surgeon by having daddy grease the wheels. You do it by taking on $400k in debt and spending most of your 20s in school.
    - agsdfgsd 8y ago
      >The former isn’t true for income Wealth inequality is not about income is it? >doesn’t remain true for wealth for more than a couple generations So, it only remains true for as long as it has existed? >The latter is of course true because... math. 99% of the people are always going to be in the bottom 99%. The statement isn't that 99% of people are in the bottom 99%, it is that it is the same people staying there. >When you talk about the 1 percent for income, you are capturing doctors, lawyers, professors, and small business owners with your angst. What part of "wealth inequality" would make you think repeating a deliberately misleading corporate propaganda piece about income would be productive?
      - kortilla 8y ago
        >only remains true for as long as it has existed? You are woefully misinformed if you think wealth inequality has only been around for 100-150 years. >statement isn't that 99% of people are in the bottom 99%, it is that it is the same people staying there. That’s not true though. A non-negligible portion of the richest people are first generation. And again, of course most of the 99% will stay in the 99% because math. Even with a complete turnover in one year, 98% didn’t move. >deliberately misleading corporate propaganda piece about income would be productive? It’s not propaganda when it comes mostly from the people on the left using it to argue for higher income taxes. Higher income taxes are an attack on income inequality, not wealth inequality. You might think it’s propaganda, but it would behoove you to listen to people on the left to hear what they are proposing.
NhanH 8y ago
Democracy isn't the best system at making decisions, nor was it ever supposed to be so. Its strong point was the capability of preventing certain kind of decisions from being made. The main thing is that in most cases where large scale democracy applied, there doesn't likely exist the "best" objective outcome, so to speak. So it is not really about making the best choice.
buboard 8y ago
Democracy (as in, majoritocracy) is mainly a way to keep people from fighting each other (because they know they ll be outnumbered). Wisdom was not the primary goal (Aristotle and Plato considered it a terrible system - even most public offices were appointed by lot).
- yesenadam 8y ago
  Something we don't do any more, for some reason, although it might be a good thing, is ostracism. There was a regular vote in ancient Athens on who should be ostracised - expelled from the city for 10 years. Ostracism, Plutarch says[0], "was not usually inflicted on the poorer citizens, but on those of great houses, whose station exposed them to envy...every one was liable to it, whom his reputation, birth, or eloquence raised above the common level...ostracism was not the punishment of any criminal act, but was speciously said to be the mere depression and humiliation of excessive greatness and power; and was in fact a gentle relief and mitigation of envious feeling, which was thus allowed to vent itself in inflicting no intolerable injury, only a ten years' banishment. But after it came to be exercised upon base and villainous fellows, they desisted from it..." [0] in his life of Aristides. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism
mtgx 8y ago
That would be direct democracy. No "democracy" on Earth is actually a direct democracy, but a representative democracy, which seems more in line to what this study proposes, no? A small group of elected officials to "debate" issues.
- Askolein 8y ago
  Switzerland is close to a direct democracy with a model based on: representative democracy by default but direct as soon and anytime the people feels the subject should be handled so. That system has proven very stable.
  - hobofan 8y ago
    > That system has proven very stable. Caveat: with a small, well-educated population. Try and apply the same system elsewhere and your mileage may vary.
    - GarvielLoken 8y ago
      Then the obvious solution is to divide nation states down to small, well-educated populations no?
      - arethuza 8y ago
        Say about 6 million people? On average? [I'm a Scot - though that's not where I got the number from]
  - vidarh 8y ago
    It has proven stable in the sense that it's still there, sure. It has also proven prepared to continue oppressing substantial parts of the population for much longer than most of the rest of Europe (e.g. only giving suffrage to women on a federal level in the early 70's). To me the Swiss system is a demonstration of the fundamental flaw of straight majority decisions. Democracy is ultimately defined best not in terms of the expression of the wishes of a majority of the franchised, but how well protected the wishes of the minority and the disenfranchised are. Most other places this has taken the form of e.g. bicameral systems and strong forms of legal oversight (to be fair the Swiss system was reformed substantially in constitutional reforms in the 90's), and other forms of expressly diluting the power of the majority to impose change.
dan_mctree 8y ago
Possibly the main benefit of democracy isn't that the crowd make wise voting decisions, it's that it makes politicians feel compelled to make wise decisions to save their careers.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
We don't have direct democracy - we're only voting among a small number of propositions, which have already been narrowed down by very select groups. Of course the plebes get their info through narrow, distorted filters, but I don't think it's the same here. We don't ask the public to set policy, we ask them to pick a team that will set policy, which is very different.
chiefalchemist 8y ago
Yes and no. The (new) knock on crowds is they are quickly and easily compromised by debate. That is, have to get everyone's opinion __before__ there's discussion. I'm sure there are plenty of sources. I read about it in The Influential Mind.
talltimtom 8y ago
Democracy is not just an application of “wisdom of large crowd” it’s also about giving the power to effect back to those who are affected. A dictatorship is not preferably even if the specific dictator can be shown to make better decisions than a democracy.
tremon 8y ago
I think that's a very dim view of democracy. Instead, I would argue that a democracy thrives on small debates between citizens. Democracy isn't established with a voting ballot, the ballot is the end result of a democratic process.
api 8y ago
Democracy is more about limiting the negative than determining truth or wisdom or even executing on positive programs. It's a way of making sure ruling oligarchies can't completely ignore the condition or will of large numbers of people, or at least not for very long and not without some kind of consequence. It also offers a peaceful mechanism to replace ruling oligarchies that are corrupt or incompetent. For example efficient government was absolutely not a goal of the founders of the United States. They wanted government to be slow, deliberative, and to have many interlocking systems of balanced power to prevent the rise of unchecked autocracy. It was designed to be intentionally inefficient and frustrating to those attempting to wield power within it. I still think this was probably a good idea. Efficient government was a significant cause of death in the 20th century.

fsloth 8y ago

Democracy is not a vehicle for correctness or efficiency. It's entire point is to distribute political power to a wide powerbase with a constant churn. This is to disable known pathologies of entrenched power bases and to discourage social stratification. Since modern states don't have an entrenched hereditary aristocracy we don't really have a concept of what democracy shields us from, since we've not had to suffer from it - except when we do, we recognize it and shun it. The social idea was that aristocracy had to be in power since they were the ones with the education. After public schooling became a things, suddenly just being able to read and write is not a distinguishing feature, and having an explicit hereditary elite became a socially untenable construct. That's not to say that a human society is a fair playing field - but it's not as unjust as in past centuries. Similarly to vacciness, when democracy works as intended you see only the "bad parts".

agsdfgsd 8y ago
>Since modern states don't have an entrenched hereditary aristocracy We absolutely do, but because we are bombarded with propaganda telling us they "earned it" by "working hard" and "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps" we pretend it is just a co-incidence that the people born into the top 1% almost always remain there, and people born in the bottom 99% almost always remain there. >After public schooling became a things, suddenly just being able to read and write is not a distinguishing feature It never was. The aristocracy were educated specifically on economics, justice, etc. It wasn't simply a matter of being able to read.
- fsloth 8y ago
  Sure, I simplified a lot. The current western world order is still much more fair to the common folk than feudalism. The education aspect was not as much about how much more educated the aristocracy was rather that the unwashed masses rose to their level, and it was not anymore sufficient to say that god has decreed duke X a distinguished gentleman and commoner Y a filthy peasant. It is not easy to rise social ladders, but it's way easier with our figment of a fair society, rather than if we believed social status was a fixed quantity given by the creator of the universe. The pithy armchair psychologist in me would claim modern society is much more facilitating towards a growth mindset than a feodal one.
  - agsdfgsd 8y ago
    >The current western world order is still much more fair to the common folk than feudalism. That's the common perception, but there's little evidence that it is true. Modern peons have no more ability to control their governments than medieval peons did, we just have the illusion presented to us to keep us complacent. We work longer hours, have less nutritious and safe food, and have an epidemic of "mental illness" stemming from our lack of social bonds and community. But because we have medicine and electronic gadgets we declare ourselves to be much better off. >The education aspect was not as much about how much more educated the aristocracy was Well really that is exactly what aristocracy was, as originally conceived. Some places ended up with a corrupt form where it was rule by birth rather than rule by excellence (the literal definition of aristocracy), but mostly people just mistakenly refer to monarchies as aristocracies. >but it's way easier with our figment of a fair society, rather than if we believed social status was a fixed quantity given by the creator of the universe. Why? The modern myth that nobility was defined purely by birth is just that, a myth. If you believe that excellence is given by god, it does not also follow that you must believe god only gives excellence to the offspring of others he gave excellence. In reality it was seen as no different than with livestock. If a good specimen is born you make it part of your breeding stock, even if its parents were not.
    - naasking 8y ago
      > We work longer hours, have less nutritious and safe food, and have an epidemic of "mental illness" stemming from our lack of social bonds and community. But because we have medicine and electronic gadgets we declare ourselves to be much better off. This smacks of rosy retrospective bias. Even if we have less nutritious food, which is debatable, we have an abundance of it, sufficient to feed us all and we don't suffer famines and shortages, or nutritional deficiencies. We have an "epidemic" of mental illness because most of our day is no longer solely focused on scrounging for survival. Also, the mentally ill are no longer shunned as harshly and so they don't die of starvation. Perhaps community bonds have something to do with it, but that's also debatable.
- kortilla 8y ago
  >that the people born into the top 1% almost always remain there, and people born in the bottom 99% almost always remain there. The former isn’t true for income and doesn’t remain true for wealth for more than a couple generations. The latter is of course true because... math. 99% of the people are always going to be in the bottom 99%. When you talk about the 1 percent for income, you are capturing doctors, lawyers, professors, and small business owners with your angst. Many of those people absolutely earned their position by busting their ass. You don’t become a successful spinal surgeon by having daddy grease the wheels. You do it by taking on $400k in debt and spending most of your 20s in school.
  - agsdfgsd 8y ago
    >The former isn’t true for income Wealth inequality is not about income is it? >doesn’t remain true for wealth for more than a couple generations So, it only remains true for as long as it has existed? >The latter is of course true because... math. 99% of the people are always going to be in the bottom 99%. The statement isn't that 99% of people are in the bottom 99%, it is that it is the same people staying there. >When you talk about the 1 percent for income, you are capturing doctors, lawyers, professors, and small business owners with your angst. What part of "wealth inequality" would make you think repeating a deliberately misleading corporate propaganda piece about income would be productive?
    - kortilla 8y ago
      >only remains true for as long as it has existed? You are woefully misinformed if you think wealth inequality has only been around for 100-150 years. >statement isn't that 99% of people are in the bottom 99%, it is that it is the same people staying there. That’s not true though. A non-negligible portion of the richest people are first generation. And again, of course most of the 99% will stay in the 99% because math. Even with a complete turnover in one year, 98% didn’t move. >deliberately misleading corporate propaganda piece about income would be productive? It’s not propaganda when it comes mostly from the people on the left using it to argue for higher income taxes. Higher income taxes are an attack on income inequality, not wealth inequality. You might think it’s propaganda, but it would behoove you to listen to people on the left to hear what they are proposing.

NhanH 8y ago

Democracy isn't the best system at making decisions, nor was it ever supposed to be so. Its strong point was the capability of preventing certain kind of decisions from being made. The main thing is that in most cases where large scale democracy applied, there doesn't likely exist the "best" objective outcome, so to speak. So it is not really about making the best choice.

buboard 8y ago

Democracy (as in, majoritocracy) is mainly a way to keep people from fighting each other (because they know they ll be outnumbered). Wisdom was not the primary goal (Aristotle and Plato considered it a terrible system - even most public offices were appointed by lot).

yesenadam 8y ago
Something we don't do any more, for some reason, although it might be a good thing, is ostracism. There was a regular vote in ancient Athens on who should be ostracised - expelled from the city for 10 years. Ostracism, Plutarch says[0], "was not usually inflicted on the poorer citizens, but on those of great houses, whose station exposed them to envy...every one was liable to it, whom his reputation, birth, or eloquence raised above the common level...ostracism was not the punishment of any criminal act, but was speciously said to be the mere depression and humiliation of excessive greatness and power; and was in fact a gentle relief and mitigation of envious feeling, which was thus allowed to vent itself in inflicting no intolerable injury, only a ten years' banishment. But after it came to be exercised upon base and villainous fellows, they desisted from it..." [0] in his life of Aristides. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism

mtgx 8y ago

That would be direct democracy. No "democracy" on Earth is actually a direct democracy, but a representative democracy, which seems more in line to what this study proposes, no? A small group of elected officials to "debate" issues.

Askolein 8y ago
Switzerland is close to a direct democracy with a model based on: representative democracy by default but direct as soon and anytime the people feels the subject should be handled so. That system has proven very stable.
- hobofan 8y ago
  > That system has proven very stable. Caveat: with a small, well-educated population. Try and apply the same system elsewhere and your mileage may vary.
  - GarvielLoken 8y ago
    Then the obvious solution is to divide nation states down to small, well-educated populations no?
    - arethuza 8y ago
      Say about 6 million people? On average? [I'm a Scot - though that's not where I got the number from]
- vidarh 8y ago
  It has proven stable in the sense that it's still there, sure. It has also proven prepared to continue oppressing substantial parts of the population for much longer than most of the rest of Europe (e.g. only giving suffrage to women on a federal level in the early 70's). To me the Swiss system is a demonstration of the fundamental flaw of straight majority decisions. Democracy is ultimately defined best not in terms of the expression of the wishes of a majority of the franchised, but how well protected the wishes of the minority and the disenfranchised are. Most other places this has taken the form of e.g. bicameral systems and strong forms of legal oversight (to be fair the Swiss system was reformed substantially in constitutional reforms in the 90's), and other forms of expressly diluting the power of the majority to impose change.

dan_mctree 8y ago

Possibly the main benefit of democracy isn't that the crowd make wise voting decisions, it's that it makes politicians feel compelled to make wise decisions to save their careers.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

We don't have direct democracy - we're only voting among a small number of propositions, which have already been narrowed down by very select groups. Of course the plebes get their info through narrow, distorted filters, but I don't think it's the same here. We don't ask the public to set policy, we ask them to pick a team that will set policy, which is very different.

chiefalchemist 8y ago

Yes and no. The (new) knock on crowds is they are quickly and easily compromised by debate. That is, have to get everyone's opinion __before__ there's discussion. I'm sure there are plenty of sources. I read about it in The Influential Mind.

talltimtom 8y ago

Democracy is not just an application of “wisdom of large crowd” it’s also about giving the power to effect back to those who are affected. A dictatorship is not preferably even if the specific dictator can be shown to make better decisions than a democracy.

tremon 8y ago

I think that's a very dim view of democracy. Instead, I would argue that a democracy thrives on small debates between citizens. Democracy isn't established with a voting ballot, the ballot is the end result of a democratic process.

api 8y ago

Democracy is more about limiting the negative than determining truth or wisdom or even executing on positive programs. It's a way of making sure ruling oligarchies can't completely ignore the condition or will of large numbers of people, or at least not for very long and not without some kind of consequence. It also offers a peaceful mechanism to replace ruling oligarchies that are corrupt or incompetent. For example efficient government was absolutely not a goal of the founders of the United States. They wanted government to be slow, deliberative, and to have many interlocking systems of balanced power to prevent the rise of unchecked autocracy. It was designed to be intentionally inefficient and frustrating to those attempting to wield power within it. I still think this was probably a good idea. Efficient government was a significant cause of death in the 20th century.