5 ms·

Yeah, there's a lot of mental divergence going on. Try to talk with someone about directly democratic elements in a state's administration, and many will happil

by _0ffh 6y ago

Yeah, there's a lot of mental divergence going on. Try to talk with someone about directly democratic elements in a state's administration, and many will happily tell you that the same people who are a) perfectly capable of choosing good administrators are also somehow b) absolutely incapable of choosing good policies. Obviously everything you would need to get from a) to b) is choosing someone who is capable of making good policy decisions and then vote for whatever policy that person is arguing for. That's practically a logical proof.

marcosdumay 6y ago
Not to say that, for choosing a good administrator you must also be sure that the person isn't lying and will stay honest for the next X years; has enough competence to manage to get the proposal ahead; won't change his mind; has enough of a selection of good proposals that is worth voting more than the competitors. Choosing a policy is easier by orders of magnitude, and yet people can only be trusted to solve the hard problem, never the easy one.
- notahacker 6y ago
  The argument isn't that the public is particularly good at choosing administrators, but that they have some ability to weed out bad administrators, and administrators have some pressure to perform. Unlike the public, they accept blame for the negative consequences of popular decisions like tax cuts or spending increases. The ability to take unpopular decisions is a feature not a bug. One can make a similar theoretical argument that it is harder, possibly 'orders of magnitude' so for a CEO to determine the reliability of prospective hires to be accountable for decision making, and yet they invariably do despite greater ability to take executive decisions than the public
  - marcosdumay 6y ago
    > but that they have some ability to weed out bad administrators Hum... How would that work on the real world? It would carry some merit if people could have a vote of non-confidence and put politicians out of their positions, but it is very rare to see anything like this around the world. The fact that delegating things right is way harder than doing it oneself is well accept on management. People still delegate because doing does not scale. There is no argument against direct democracy there.
    - notahacker 6y ago
      Many countries have recall mechanisms, and most of the real world has term limits, and most candidates represent parties who expect to outlast individuals who retire. Most large firms have management teams staffed by people whose job is deciding (and owning a budget, and knowing rather than doing). And that's in businesses whose scope isn't on the scale of 'basically everything'. Their existence isn't an argument against direct democracy so much as a comprehensive refutation of the argument that informing oneself about decision makers is far more difficult than making every decision

by _0ffh 6y ago

marcosdumay 6y ago

Not to say that, for choosing a good administrator you must also be sure that the person isn't lying and will stay honest for the next X years; has enough competence to manage to get the proposal ahead; won't change his mind; has enough of a selection of good proposals that is worth voting more than the competitors. Choosing a policy is easier by orders of magnitude, and yet people can only be trusted to solve the hard problem, never the easy one.

notahacker 6y ago
The argument isn't that the public is particularly good at choosing administrators, but that they have some ability to weed out bad administrators, and administrators have some pressure to perform. Unlike the public, they accept blame for the negative consequences of popular decisions like tax cuts or spending increases. The ability to take unpopular decisions is a feature not a bug. One can make a similar theoretical argument that it is harder, possibly 'orders of magnitude' so for a CEO to determine the reliability of prospective hires to be accountable for decision making, and yet they invariably do despite greater ability to take executive decisions than the public
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  > but that they have some ability to weed out bad administrators Hum... How would that work on the real world? It would carry some merit if people could have a vote of non-confidence and put politicians out of their positions, but it is very rare to see anything like this around the world. The fact that delegating things right is way harder than doing it oneself is well accept on management. People still delegate because doing does not scale. There is no argument against direct democracy there.
  - notahacker 6y ago
    Many countries have recall mechanisms, and most of the real world has term limits, and most candidates represent parties who expect to outlast individuals who retire. Most large firms have management teams staffed by people whose job is deciding (and owning a budget, and knowing rather than doing). And that's in businesses whose scope isn't on the scale of 'basically everything'. Their existence isn't an argument against direct democracy so much as a comprehensive refutation of the argument that informing oneself about decision makers is far more difficult than making every decision