8 ms·

> 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 th

> 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 through water. That's it". The two lead to very different consequences! >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. It also opened up the field for consent on all sides. There is not way to wage a war in such a way that all sides win, a way to fight in a way where noone gets hurt. Democracies with minority protections (aka one of the ways we differentiate democracy from mob rule) make true win-wins possible. > 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. > The amount of people who believe that democracy is somehow inherently good for the people is beyond my belief. The first sentence describes the removal of democracy. The second claims that this is evidence for democracy not always being good for the people. Compared to ruling by force, yes, democracy is inherently good for the people

repomies691 7y ago
> 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 different way. (I also think democracy is good, but however in the end both democracies and dictatorships rely on violence to be effective. I think that's quite basic lesson on how society works.)
- merpnderp 7y ago
  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.
  - jiveturkey 7y ago
    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.
    - disintegore 7y ago
      There might just be enough police and military to quell any feasible rebellion, seeing as pretty much every country is divided along ideological lines. MAGA types would, for instance, would never participate in a syndicalist general strike.
  - V-2 7y ago
    > Dictatorships rely solely on force. Not necessarily. Some dictatorships do enjoy genuine support. (Obviously they make it easier for themselves it by controlling the media etc.) > There’s not nearly enough police in the US to quell a rebellion of the people if they lost faith in Democracy. By the same token it's also possible to topple a dictatorship. At some point even your security forces will say "no". A good example would be the failure of "Plan X" in East Germany, when Stasi agents boycotted the orders, since they realized the cause was lost anyway.
    - malandrew 7y ago
      If you've never seen it, this is a good watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
- CPLX 7y ago
  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.
  - cheschire 7y ago
    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.
    - disintegore 7y ago
      Also much of the consent is, as Chomsky would put it, manufactured.
      - PavlovsCat 7y ago
        Don't invoke Chomsky for this nonsense. > What has been created by this half century of massive corporate propaganda is what's called "anti-politics". So that anything that goes wrong, you blame the government. Well okay, there's plenty to blame the government about, but the government is the one institution that people can change... the one institution that you can affect without institutional change. That's exactly why all the anger and fear has been directed at the government. The government has a defect - it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect - they're pure tyrannies. So therefore you want to keep corporations invisible, and focus all anger on the government. So if you don't like something, you know, your wages are going down, you blame the government. Not blame the guys in the Fortune 500, because you don't read the Fortune 500. You just read what they tell you in the newspapers... so you don't read about the dazzling profits and the stupendous dizz, and the wages going down and so on, all you know is that the bad government is doing something, so let's get mad at the government. -- Noam Chomsky
        disintegore 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- sputr 7y ago
  > I don't understand why people here see democratic system as a replacement for ruling by a force. I would hazard a guess that a lot of us, that see it this way, are from culture backgrounds that still have historical recollection of "not democracy". The definition of state is it's monopolisation of violence. But the difference is if it uses violence to keep the specific section of the ruling elite in power ... or just to keep the state (i.e. the entirety of the ruling elite) in power.
hntddt1 7y ago
Dr. stone here
1_person 7y ago
I'll preface this with my bias. I'm a bit of an anti-authoritarian moral reductionist, an anarchist of the unhyphenated sort. I believe that you can express all moral statements that convey meaning solely in terms of the imposition of will, that the imposition of will for any reason other than to resist a greater imposition is the only immoral act, and that any framework which attempts to ascribe moral meaning to reality must either reduce to this or invalidates itself by contradiction. I find the post you're responding to be an amusingly phrased and more reasonable interpretation of democracy than most, and will with the remainder of my post attempt a proportionate defense from the imposition of will you intend in representing your self-interest as moral truth. > can you see how that is not the same thing at all? I believe this phrasing is unnecessarily dismissive of the viewpoint you are responding to. A micro-imposition, if you will. > [Democracy] also opened up the field for consent on all sides Democracy does not transform or create consent, consent existed in the same form prior to democracy. If you do not resist an imposition of will, you consent. There is one point of the original post I will disagree with: the vote does not impose on the governed in democracy, the people with "swords/bullets" who find that vote to be an agreeable imposition and resistance to be a disagreeable imposition do. Voting may often be an adequate proxy for the use of violence to coerce, but it is nothing other than a statement of one's willingness to use violence or see violence be used for coercion towards a specific end. > Democracies with minority protections (aka one of the ways we differentiate democracy from mob rule) make true win-wins possible I disagree. Democracy enables aspects of reality to be classified by criteria which do not convey moral meaning, and for those classifications to become parameters in the function that allocates violence for the purpose of coercion. The closest approximation of a "true win-win" within the constraints dictated by reality is when all parties minimize their imposition. Voting in regards to which arbitrary classification of reality shall be imposed on in the interest of some other arbitrary classification is a statement of violent intent which is so far detached from moral meaning it amounts to a random walk in that metric space. > There is not way to wage a war in such a way that all sides win, a way to fight in a way where noone gets hurt. It is not possible to exist in such a way that all things which do exist or could possibly exist win. Physical reality is inherently adversarial: conservation of energy suggests that a quanta of energy released by one process can only and will only be consumed by exactly one process. One may strive to maximize the entropy of reality, to allow the largest number of contending states to be occupied, and this is moral. Democracy, again, moves with no discernible direction in relation to moral meaning. > The first sentence describes the removal of democracy. The second claims that this is evidence for democracy not always being good for the people. Compared to ruling by force, yes, democracy is inherently good for the people Democracy is exactly ruling by force. Resist the imposition of the will of the majority, or something which is fraudulently misrepresented as the will of the majority unopposed, and you will be coerced by violence. The only thing that is inherently good for the people is for every individual person to minimize their imposition to that which is necessary to survive and seek truth, and only then if that does not require a greater imposition than they would resist. Anything more is an immoral act of self-service.
sputr 7y ago
I'm sorry, I'm really trying to understand your critique, but to me most of it just seems like a strawman, which leads me to believe I've not communicated my point all that well. I've been in politics for close to 10 years - didn't get far, but far enough to accrued a lot of cynicism about humans and our organisational system. >an you see how that is not the same thing at all? My position is that a democratic system simply provides a proxy platform for the normal political struggle and it's only real effect is that less(no) people die when powers shift. Most of everything else is propaganda as a weapon within this proxy war. As a result, my opinion is, that the only reason democracies do better economically is because it provides a safer, more stable, more reliable environment for more people to take risks and acquire extra resources they would otherwise be unable to. > It also opened up the field for consent on all sides. There is not way to wage a war in such a way that all sides win, a way to fight in a way where noone gets hurt. Democracies with minority protections (aka one of the ways we differentiate democracy from mob rule) make true win-wins possible. You will probably not be surprised if I state that in my opinion no one in power gives a sit about consent. Or about win-wins. Everyone within a democratic system is trying to win at the expanse of everyone else. But because participating in the struggle is safer and easier more groups do .. which leads to somewhat better results ... but only as long as there ARE more groups active. My critique is that we've become complaisant and are participating in the struggle less and less ... with predictable results. > The first sentence describes the removal of democracy. Only if you define democracy as anything more than I do. If that sentence is the removal of democracy ... than just about every democratic system is experiencing "removal". > Compared to ruling by force, yes, democracy is inherently good for the people. I agree and have said so myself. But my point is that democracy is good for people because people don't die AND nothing more. The problem is that people somehow believe that democracy will also, by it's very nature, provide social services, healthcare etc.

repomies691 7y ago

> 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 different way. (I also think democracy is good, but however in the end both democracies and dictatorships rely on violence to be effective. I think that's quite basic lesson on how society works.)

merpnderp 7y ago
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.
- jiveturkey 7y ago
  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.
  - disintegore 7y ago
    There might just be enough police and military to quell any feasible rebellion, seeing as pretty much every country is divided along ideological lines. MAGA types would, for instance, would never participate in a syndicalist general strike.
- V-2 7y ago
  > Dictatorships rely solely on force. Not necessarily. Some dictatorships do enjoy genuine support. (Obviously they make it easier for themselves it by controlling the media etc.) > There’s not nearly enough police in the US to quell a rebellion of the people if they lost faith in Democracy. By the same token it's also possible to topple a dictatorship. At some point even your security forces will say "no". A good example would be the failure of "Plan X" in East Germany, when Stasi agents boycotted the orders, since they realized the cause was lost anyway.
  - malandrew 7y ago
    If you've never seen it, this is a good watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
CPLX 7y ago
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.
- cheschire 7y ago
  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.
  - disintegore 7y ago
    Also much of the consent is, as Chomsky would put it, manufactured.
    - PavlovsCat 7y ago
      Don't invoke Chomsky for this nonsense. > What has been created by this half century of massive corporate propaganda is what's called "anti-politics". So that anything that goes wrong, you blame the government. Well okay, there's plenty to blame the government about, but the government is the one institution that people can change... the one institution that you can affect without institutional change. That's exactly why all the anger and fear has been directed at the government. The government has a defect - it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect - they're pure tyrannies. So therefore you want to keep corporations invisible, and focus all anger on the government. So if you don't like something, you know, your wages are going down, you blame the government. Not blame the guys in the Fortune 500, because you don't read the Fortune 500. You just read what they tell you in the newspapers... so you don't read about the dazzling profits and the stupendous dizz, and the wages going down and so on, all you know is that the bad government is doing something, so let's get mad at the government. -- Noam Chomsky
      - disintegore 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
sputr 7y ago
> I don't understand why people here see democratic system as a replacement for ruling by a force. I would hazard a guess that a lot of us, that see it this way, are from culture backgrounds that still have historical recollection of "not democracy". The definition of state is it's monopolisation of violence. But the difference is if it uses violence to keep the specific section of the ruling elite in power ... or just to keep the state (i.e. the entirety of the ruling elite) in power.

hntddt1 7y ago

Dr. stone here

1_person 7y ago

I'll preface this with my bias. I'm a bit of an anti-authoritarian moral reductionist, an anarchist of the unhyphenated sort. I believe that you can express all moral statements that convey meaning solely in terms of the imposition of will, that the imposition of will for any reason other than to resist a greater imposition is the only immoral act, and that any framework which attempts to ascribe moral meaning to reality must either reduce to this or invalidates itself by contradiction. I find the post you're responding to be an amusingly phrased and more reasonable interpretation of democracy than most, and will with the remainder of my post attempt a proportionate defense from the imposition of will you intend in representing your self-interest as moral truth. > can you see how that is not the same thing at all? I believe this phrasing is unnecessarily dismissive of the viewpoint you are responding to. A micro-imposition, if you will. > [Democracy] also opened up the field for consent on all sides Democracy does not transform or create consent, consent existed in the same form prior to democracy. If you do not resist an imposition of will, you consent. There is one point of the original post I will disagree with: the vote does not impose on the governed in democracy, the people with "swords/bullets" who find that vote to be an agreeable imposition and resistance to be a disagreeable imposition do. Voting may often be an adequate proxy for the use of violence to coerce, but it is nothing other than a statement of one's willingness to use violence or see violence be used for coercion towards a specific end. > Democracies with minority protections (aka one of the ways we differentiate democracy from mob rule) make true win-wins possible I disagree. Democracy enables aspects of reality to be classified by criteria which do not convey moral meaning, and for those classifications to become parameters in the function that allocates violence for the purpose of coercion. The closest approximation of a "true win-win" within the constraints dictated by reality is when all parties minimize their imposition. Voting in regards to which arbitrary classification of reality shall be imposed on in the interest of some other arbitrary classification is a statement of violent intent which is so far detached from moral meaning it amounts to a random walk in that metric space. > There is not way to wage a war in such a way that all sides win, a way to fight in a way where noone gets hurt. It is not possible to exist in such a way that all things which do exist or could possibly exist win. Physical reality is inherently adversarial: conservation of energy suggests that a quanta of energy released by one process can only and will only be consumed by exactly one process. One may strive to maximize the entropy of reality, to allow the largest number of contending states to be occupied, and this is moral. Democracy, again, moves with no discernible direction in relation to moral meaning. > The first sentence describes the removal of democracy. The second claims that this is evidence for democracy not always being good for the people. Compared to ruling by force, yes, democracy is inherently good for the people Democracy is exactly ruling by force. Resist the imposition of the will of the majority, or something which is fraudulently misrepresented as the will of the majority unopposed, and you will be coerced by violence. The only thing that is inherently good for the people is for every individual person to minimize their imposition to that which is necessary to survive and seek truth, and only then if that does not require a greater imposition than they would resist. Anything more is an immoral act of self-service.

sputr 7y ago

I'm sorry, I'm really trying to understand your critique, but to me most of it just seems like a strawman, which leads me to believe I've not communicated my point all that well. I've been in politics for close to 10 years - didn't get far, but far enough to accrued a lot of cynicism about humans and our organisational system. >an you see how that is not the same thing at all? My position is that a democratic system simply provides a proxy platform for the normal political struggle and it's only real effect is that less(no) people die when powers shift. Most of everything else is propaganda as a weapon within this proxy war. As a result, my opinion is, that the only reason democracies do better economically is because it provides a safer, more stable, more reliable environment for more people to take risks and acquire extra resources they would otherwise be unable to. > It also opened up the field for consent on all sides. There is not way to wage a war in such a way that all sides win, a way to fight in a way where noone gets hurt. Democracies with minority protections (aka one of the ways we differentiate democracy from mob rule) make true win-wins possible. You will probably not be surprised if I state that in my opinion no one in power gives a sit about consent. Or about win-wins. Everyone within a democratic system is trying to win at the expanse of everyone else. But because participating in the struggle is safer and easier more groups do .. which leads to somewhat better results ... but only as long as there ARE more groups active. My critique is that we've become complaisant and are participating in the struggle less and less ... with predictable results. > The first sentence describes the removal of democracy. Only if you define democracy as anything more than I do. If that sentence is the removal of democracy ... than just about every democratic system is experiencing "removal". > Compared to ruling by force, yes, democracy is inherently good for the people. I agree and have said so myself. But my point is that democracy is good for people because people don't die AND nothing more. The problem is that people somehow believe that democracy will also, by it's very nature, provide social services, healthcare etc.