4 ms·

I think people being informed is actually part of the problem - you want democracy to do very little. The more informed people are, the more willing to believe

I think people being informed is actually part of the problem - you want democracy to do very little. The more informed people are, the more willing to believe they can engineer the society that they want. This seems to always fail.

DubiousPusher 7y ago
I see no reason to believe that ignorance decreases the human desire to act politically.
- Supermancho 7y ago
  I see no reason to disbelieve that ignorance decreases the human desire to act politically. If you don't know you've been wronged (or limited) and you don't know what change is effective, or you are supplied with necessarily limited misinformation...you spend your efforts in other pursuits.
  - DubiousPusher 7y ago
    I neither believe or disbelieve in this hypothesis. Given an absence of evidence upon the issue I see no reason to believe either way.
    - corford 7y ago
      Perhaps consider leveraging Occam's razor while you accumulate more evidence to satisfy a firm position. Or do you adopt a similarly ambivalent approach to everything you encounter if it lacks immediately presented evidence?
      - mistermann 7y ago
        A potential problem I see in this approach is that many people seem to mistake Occam's Razor conclusions, aka intuition as far as the common man is concerned, as the truth. I would argue that widespread adoption of explicit acknowledgement that in fact, many (if not most) of the the current Top 100 Disputes in the public sphere actually have an answer of UNKNOWN (as opposed to what 95% of politicians, intellectuals, and thought leaders would have us believe), would go a very long way towards kicking off a process whereby global society could start towards reaching consensus compromise on all issues. I fully realize this belief is amazingly naive if considered within the context of objective reality and history, but I also believe it is absolutely true (if perhaps unachievable given our current state of affairs).
        DubiousPusher 7y ago
        Knowing things for certain is hard. People are uncomfortable when an answer is unknown. They are usually even less happy when told something can't be known. But I agree. My hope is that the frailty of human reason and the limits of human knowledge can become wider spread and that can help people stop holding such confident and unwaivering views.
      - DubiousPusher 7y ago
        Yes. Basically I avoid having a firm opinion on lots of things.
haimez 7y ago
Are the emergent properties of a near random system preferable to live alongside/underneath? I suspect your answer mostly depends on your current socioeconomic status and overall faith in “the system”.

DubiousPusher 7y ago

I see no reason to believe that ignorance decreases the human desire to act politically.

Supermancho 7y ago
I see no reason to disbelieve that ignorance decreases the human desire to act politically. If you don't know you've been wronged (or limited) and you don't know what change is effective, or you are supplied with necessarily limited misinformation...you spend your efforts in other pursuits.
- DubiousPusher 7y ago
  I neither believe or disbelieve in this hypothesis. Given an absence of evidence upon the issue I see no reason to believe either way.
  - corford 7y ago
    Perhaps consider leveraging Occam's razor while you accumulate more evidence to satisfy a firm position. Or do you adopt a similarly ambivalent approach to everything you encounter if it lacks immediately presented evidence?
    - mistermann 7y ago
      A potential problem I see in this approach is that many people seem to mistake Occam's Razor conclusions, aka intuition as far as the common man is concerned, as the truth. I would argue that widespread adoption of explicit acknowledgement that in fact, many (if not most) of the the current Top 100 Disputes in the public sphere actually have an answer of UNKNOWN (as opposed to what 95% of politicians, intellectuals, and thought leaders would have us believe), would go a very long way towards kicking off a process whereby global society could start towards reaching consensus compromise on all issues. I fully realize this belief is amazingly naive if considered within the context of objective reality and history, but I also believe it is absolutely true (if perhaps unachievable given our current state of affairs).
      - DubiousPusher 7y ago
        Knowing things for certain is hard. People are uncomfortable when an answer is unknown. They are usually even less happy when told something can't be known. But I agree. My hope is that the frailty of human reason and the limits of human knowledge can become wider spread and that can help people stop holding such confident and unwaivering views.
    - DubiousPusher 7y ago
      Yes. Basically I avoid having a firm opinion on lots of things.

haimez 7y ago

Are the emergent properties of a near random system preferable to live alongside/underneath? I suspect your answer mostly depends on your current socioeconomic status and overall faith in “the system”.