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> Public consciousness seems to lack the ability to prioritize issues. Things that everybody is going to notice first-hand have an outsized impact on public co

> Public consciousness seems to lack the ability to prioritize issues. Things that everybody is going to notice first-hand have an outsized impact on public consciousness. When combined with democracy, this has nasty consequences. For politicians banning plastic straws is a no-brainer: easy to ban, no real impact on anything, and everyone is going to notice it and feel like something is happening. Same for plastic grocery bags and cutlery. Do it and maybe you'll grab some of those Green votes, same play as the Energiewende. Meanwhile if you make industry even just .1% more efficient the impact is larger by orders of magnitude but nobody is going to notice, first-hand, right now. So it's pointless when you only care about votes. Which is sadly a main feature of democracy.

galangalalgol 5y ago
Do you have any better alternatives to a democracy?
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  There doesn't seem to be any good one. GP described what's a clear systemic failure inherent in the current implementation of the system. This doesn't mean we have to throw the system away - figuring out how to mitigate this problem would work too. On this, I don't have any solid ideas. In a way, it's a marketing problem: maybe there's a way to make people more receptive to reality than to feel-good but ultimately meaningless actions? I sometimes wonder if governments shouldn't have an official propaganda department, with an official website, explaining in layman's terms the reasoning behind various laws being introduced. You'd go to a page for plastic straws ban, and see the government's official word on why it was drafted, what problem it's meant to solve, how it attempts that, and how they track the results. Of course, everyone would have a field day debunking every single article from a million different angles, but at least it would serve to anchor the discussion. And it would be a place for a smarter politicians/parties to explain why increasing efficiency of some industry by 0.01% is a huge win by the current administration - hopefully leading to more such actions in the future. There's a thin line between giving clear explanations and patronizing the citizens, but I think governments need to start walking it - as it is, politics is way too complicated for regular people to follow in any meaningful sense, other than repeating soundbites.
- read_if_gay_ 5y ago
  Nope, I'm just noting a failure mode.
- willcipriano 5y ago
  Republicanism, lots of little democracies competing against one another for citizens, yet united when it comes to things like national defense. The US was originally designed to be a constitutional republic but a growing federal government has degraded it to more of a simple representative democracy.
  - throwaway2037 5y ago
    I never heard the term "Republicanism". Are there any (real) countries that practice this? Australia's states have lots of divested powers. How do you feel about that balance?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - willcipriano 5y ago
      Im not familiar enough with government in Oz to say but the closest example in modern times would be the EU, although they have a heavier hand than I'd recommend. If people in say France were unhappy with their government they can more easily move to Germany then if they were separate nations not in the EU. The key is giving the states enough control that they are distinct from one another while allowing people to move between them. If the federal government takes too much power the states become homogeneous and you lose the ability to vote with your feet like that.
      - galangalalgol 5y ago
        How does the EU handle cases where one member wants to treat something as contraband and other do not? With open borsers for people and trade can one meber state have different laws for banned items or substances?
        willcipriano 5y ago
        > With open borsers for people and trade can one meber state have different laws for banned items or substances? The Netherlands have fairly lax laws on substances and are a EU member. If you take something from the Netherlands into a country that doesn't want that item within their borders you are subject to the local laws. Same thing that would happen if you brought contraband from South America to the US really.
prirun 5y ago
IMO, if you try to make industry .1% more efficient, they will lobby the hell out of everyone to make sure that doesn't happen, because it affects their profit, and they threaten to withhold their campaign contributions. So instead, politicians do unimportant things like limit plastic straws. Bottom line is, voters may elect politicians, but companies fund their campaigns.

galangalalgol 5y ago

Do you have any better alternatives to a democracy?

TeMPOraL 5y ago
There doesn't seem to be any good one. GP described what's a clear systemic failure inherent in the current implementation of the system. This doesn't mean we have to throw the system away - figuring out how to mitigate this problem would work too. On this, I don't have any solid ideas. In a way, it's a marketing problem: maybe there's a way to make people more receptive to reality than to feel-good but ultimately meaningless actions? I sometimes wonder if governments shouldn't have an official propaganda department, with an official website, explaining in layman's terms the reasoning behind various laws being introduced. You'd go to a page for plastic straws ban, and see the government's official word on why it was drafted, what problem it's meant to solve, how it attempts that, and how they track the results. Of course, everyone would have a field day debunking every single article from a million different angles, but at least it would serve to anchor the discussion. And it would be a place for a smarter politicians/parties to explain why increasing efficiency of some industry by 0.01% is a huge win by the current administration - hopefully leading to more such actions in the future. There's a thin line between giving clear explanations and patronizing the citizens, but I think governments need to start walking it - as it is, politics is way too complicated for regular people to follow in any meaningful sense, other than repeating soundbites.
read_if_gay_ 5y ago
Nope, I'm just noting a failure mode.
willcipriano 5y ago
Republicanism, lots of little democracies competing against one another for citizens, yet united when it comes to things like national defense. The US was originally designed to be a constitutional republic but a growing federal government has degraded it to more of a simple representative democracy.
- throwaway2037 5y ago
  I never heard the term "Republicanism". Are there any (real) countries that practice this? Australia's states have lots of divested powers. How do you feel about that balance?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    Im not familiar enough with government in Oz to say but the closest example in modern times would be the EU, although they have a heavier hand than I'd recommend. If people in say France were unhappy with their government they can more easily move to Germany then if they were separate nations not in the EU. The key is giving the states enough control that they are distinct from one another while allowing people to move between them. If the federal government takes too much power the states become homogeneous and you lose the ability to vote with your feet like that.
    - galangalalgol 5y ago
      How does the EU handle cases where one member wants to treat something as contraband and other do not? With open borsers for people and trade can one meber state have different laws for banned items or substances?
      - willcipriano 5y ago
        > With open borsers for people and trade can one meber state have different laws for banned items or substances? The Netherlands have fairly lax laws on substances and are a EU member. If you take something from the Netherlands into a country that doesn't want that item within their borders you are subject to the local laws. Same thing that would happen if you brought contraband from South America to the US really.

prirun 5y ago

IMO, if you try to make industry .1% more efficient, they will lobby the hell out of everyone to make sure that doesn't happen, because it affects their profit, and they threaten to withhold their campaign contributions. So instead, politicians do unimportant things like limit plastic straws. Bottom line is, voters may elect politicians, but companies fund their campaigns.