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Perhaps. Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. I'm a firm believer in continuing to innovate and improve governance. I don't th

Perhaps. Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. I'm a firm believer in continuing to innovate and improve governance. I don't think it's just an abstract philosophical argument. These things can be modeled with game theory (cite: The Dictator's Handbook). There are opinions and philosophies about evolution, vaccines, and lots of other things, but at the end of the day, those can be resolved through rational discourse. I'd like my government to look out for my interests. I'd like it to be competent and not corrupt. There are lots of ideas for how to get there, and I'm really not comfortable with the imperialism of democracy. China had good ideas with civil service exams, which select for competence. Aristotle and Confucius had good ideas around moral philosophy of rulers. Marx had some nice ideas too. They didn't play out as well in practice as capitalist democracy, but that doesn't mean we should toss up our hands, give up, and quit trying. Especially now that we have tools for corrupting democracy like never before, and conversely, ways to model governance like never before.

burkaman 6y ago
A discussion about vaccines can be resolved through rational discourse only if everyone agrees that diseases are bad for you. If I think disease is good, you can't convince me that vaccines are good for society, even if we agree on their effects. That's a contrived example, but this kind of disagreement is very common in discussions about government and society. If you believe that individual choice is important and all humans are born with equal rights, and I believe that individual choice is unimportant and some humans are born superior to others, we are never going to agree on an ideal form of government. We can have full agreement on the facts and full disagreement on what we consider to be a "good" outcome. You mentioned game theory, but you can't design one model that will satisfy one person who wants to maximize outputs for all players, one person who wants to weight players in different castes differently, and one person who wants to set a hard cap on all players because too much material comfort leads us away from God.
- gher-shyu3i 6y ago
  The solution is to look at systems that have been proven to work. I brought up the Islamic Golden Age in this thread. It doesn't have the nonsense of putting a hard cap on anyone's wealth. It actually encourages people to work and gather wealth morally, and spend it correctly. The best of both worlds so to speak.
  - woofie11 6y ago
    ... and it comes with a built in wealth tax (zakat), which is just about the best economic idea EVER. And it prevents loans with interest. And there are versions which embody economic free trade (the whole debate about political borderds). And... ... it's almost as if Mohammed was an economist who foresaw all the economic problems of the 21st century, and built protections around them.
    - gher-shyu3i 6y ago
      > ... it's almost as if Mohammed was an economist who foresaw all the economic problems of the 21st century, and built protections around them. Peace be upon him. It's simply more evidence of his prophethood :)
- woofie11 6y ago
  That's not really my experience. (1) Right now, virtually everyone agrees that individual choice is important and all humans are born with equal rights (2) If they don't, it's often possible to come up with solutions which work for everyone. The problem is when people jump to solutions ("democracy") rather than problem-statements and first principles. The early US is a good examples of -- actually quite exactly -- your contrived example. The South had slavery. The North didn't. There was an overarching federal government which dealt with military and foreign diplomacy. It worked for a bit over a half-century until it didn't, mostly for reasons unrelated to why it worked as long as it did (the expansion of northern culture west upset the design, as it had an upper hand in congress). My claim is that there are systems of government which do a better job of protecting individual choice and equal rights than capitalist democracy. My claim is that if you articulated your value system completely (probably not on a web forum but over an hour-long coffee), we could probably design a better one around your values, which also did better for most people's values. My claim is also that if you've signed an NDA, you probably don't have all that much individual liberty.

burkaman 6y ago

A discussion about vaccines can be resolved through rational discourse only if everyone agrees that diseases are bad for you. If I think disease is good, you can't convince me that vaccines are good for society, even if we agree on their effects. That's a contrived example, but this kind of disagreement is very common in discussions about government and society. If you believe that individual choice is important and all humans are born with equal rights, and I believe that individual choice is unimportant and some humans are born superior to others, we are never going to agree on an ideal form of government. We can have full agreement on the facts and full disagreement on what we consider to be a "good" outcome. You mentioned game theory, but you can't design one model that will satisfy one person who wants to maximize outputs for all players, one person who wants to weight players in different castes differently, and one person who wants to set a hard cap on all players because too much material comfort leads us away from God.

gher-shyu3i 6y ago
The solution is to look at systems that have been proven to work. I brought up the Islamic Golden Age in this thread. It doesn't have the nonsense of putting a hard cap on anyone's wealth. It actually encourages people to work and gather wealth morally, and spend it correctly. The best of both worlds so to speak.
- woofie11 6y ago
  ... and it comes with a built in wealth tax (zakat), which is just about the best economic idea EVER. And it prevents loans with interest. And there are versions which embody economic free trade (the whole debate about political borderds). And... ... it's almost as if Mohammed was an economist who foresaw all the economic problems of the 21st century, and built protections around them.
  - gher-shyu3i 6y ago
    > ... it's almost as if Mohammed was an economist who foresaw all the economic problems of the 21st century, and built protections around them. Peace be upon him. It's simply more evidence of his prophethood :)
woofie11 6y ago
That's not really my experience. (1) Right now, virtually everyone agrees that individual choice is important and all humans are born with equal rights (2) If they don't, it's often possible to come up with solutions which work for everyone. The problem is when people jump to solutions ("democracy") rather than problem-statements and first principles. The early US is a good examples of -- actually quite exactly -- your contrived example. The South had slavery. The North didn't. There was an overarching federal government which dealt with military and foreign diplomacy. It worked for a bit over a half-century until it didn't, mostly for reasons unrelated to why it worked as long as it did (the expansion of northern culture west upset the design, as it had an upper hand in congress). My claim is that there are systems of government which do a better job of protecting individual choice and equal rights than capitalist democracy. My claim is that if you articulated your value system completely (probably not on a web forum but over an hour-long coffee), we could probably design a better one around your values, which also did better for most people's values. My claim is also that if you've signed an NDA, you probably don't have all that much individual liberty.