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Democracy as implemented is stupid. I want to vote on policy I care about and understand, not a person I've never met who I can't necessarily trust that's mean

Democracy as implemented is stupid. I want to vote on policy I care about and understand, not a person I've never met who I can't necessarily trust that's meant to represent me. The system has failed. I was horrified to see how far we'd fallen. When COVID hit, I thought they'd at least have some basic model on the shelf to extrapolate a response from. Nope. All that kind of forward thinking seems to have gone along with the brain drain of the CSIRO and everything that followed. All the smart people have already left. We're now governed by passive-reactive puppets. At least you can understand tyranny. Possibly intentional incompetence not so much. Welcome to the misinformation age. Who knew it would start so soon after the information age.

eightails 5y ago
> Democracy as implemented is stupid. > I want to vote on policy I care about and understand, not a person I've never met who I can't necessarily trust that's meant to represent me. Representative democracy is designed as a compromise between giving power to the people and giving (what's perceived as) too much power to the people. In the case of a true direct democracy, many fear the ignorance and apathy of the average voter, and wonder if the majority rule would lead to tribalism and repression of minorities. That said, the few actual examples of direct democracy don't really seem to have borne these fears out. In a way it comes down to how much (or little) confidence you have in your fellow citizen; "the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter," and all that. I veer towards misanthropy, so from that perspective direct democracy doesn't do a lot for me... seems like there's no perfect system.
- partomniscient 5y ago
  >In the case of a true direct democracy, many fear the ignorance and apathy of the average voter, and wonder if the majority rule would lead to tribalism and repression of minorities. I'm more concerned about power vacuums created by value extraction. We were swindled without realising it, in fact some of us enjoyed it - but only because we don't know what we lost. There can be very weird dynamics at play. Unfortunately the descendants of those are eventually left holding the bag and find out what they lost. I would amend things such that if the Peasants were happy and everyone else was busy then Confucius is happy (because he's not being disturbed). I actually hope for more happy than that, but I'll take what I can get. The main part of the problem with achieving the perfect system is that it has to also resolve all of the already imperfect systems in play. And you need to work out 'who' gets to define perfection.
monkeycantype 5y ago
> All the smart people have already left. I don't believe this, but I empathise with your fury. There has just been a small Covid outbreak in my town. The organisation of the response (all local - not federal) has been phenomenal, straight up inspiring. But we are also the inheritors of a long legacy of stupid and brutal, and it can be hard to look around and believe that now is better than it was. How could this possibly be better? The gutting of CSIRO is a tragedy, but it's short term gain for tragedies all the way down. I think Australia today is different better society than the country a century ago, we are iterating of a base of absolute monarchy and entrenched power, and it seems as we have got comfortable, and many of us are comfortable, many of us have stopped pushing. There's a book on historical protest movements in Australia by Jeff Sparrow. It was an eye opener for me to see that actually things were even worse a century ago, the way fear of communist infiltration was used to control society, was even more clumsy, and more successful than the garbage we encounter today. The story of the Hilton Hotel bombing in the 70s is so clumsy it would be hilarious if lives weren't ruined. ASIO planted a fake bomb (which they intended to find and they use to justify further funding), which actually blew up, and then the Indian representative (was it the ambassador or the Prime Minister?) declared it was a terrorist attack against him, so ASIO had to find a hippy to arrest, so they did and they got away with it.

eightails 5y ago

> Democracy as implemented is stupid. > I want to vote on policy I care about and understand, not a person I've never met who I can't necessarily trust that's meant to represent me. Representative democracy is designed as a compromise between giving power to the people and giving (what's perceived as) too much power to the people. In the case of a true direct democracy, many fear the ignorance and apathy of the average voter, and wonder if the majority rule would lead to tribalism and repression of minorities. That said, the few actual examples of direct democracy don't really seem to have borne these fears out. In a way it comes down to how much (or little) confidence you have in your fellow citizen; "the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter," and all that. I veer towards misanthropy, so from that perspective direct democracy doesn't do a lot for me... seems like there's no perfect system.

partomniscient 5y ago
>In the case of a true direct democracy, many fear the ignorance and apathy of the average voter, and wonder if the majority rule would lead to tribalism and repression of minorities. I'm more concerned about power vacuums created by value extraction. We were swindled without realising it, in fact some of us enjoyed it - but only because we don't know what we lost. There can be very weird dynamics at play. Unfortunately the descendants of those are eventually left holding the bag and find out what they lost. I would amend things such that if the Peasants were happy and everyone else was busy then Confucius is happy (because he's not being disturbed). I actually hope for more happy than that, but I'll take what I can get. The main part of the problem with achieving the perfect system is that it has to also resolve all of the already imperfect systems in play. And you need to work out 'who' gets to define perfection.

monkeycantype 5y ago

> All the smart people have already left. I don't believe this, but I empathise with your fury. There has just been a small Covid outbreak in my town. The organisation of the response (all local - not federal) has been phenomenal, straight up inspiring. But we are also the inheritors of a long legacy of stupid and brutal, and it can be hard to look around and believe that now is better than it was. How could this possibly be better? The gutting of CSIRO is a tragedy, but it's short term gain for tragedies all the way down. I think Australia today is different better society than the country a century ago, we are iterating of a base of absolute monarchy and entrenched power, and it seems as we have got comfortable, and many of us are comfortable, many of us have stopped pushing. There's a book on historical protest movements in Australia by Jeff Sparrow. It was an eye opener for me to see that actually things were even worse a century ago, the way fear of communist infiltration was used to control society, was even more clumsy, and more successful than the garbage we encounter today. The story of the Hilton Hotel bombing in the 70s is so clumsy it would be hilarious if lives weren't ruined. ASIO planted a fake bomb (which they intended to find and they use to justify further funding), which actually blew up, and then the Indian representative (was it the ambassador or the Prime Minister?) declared it was a terrorist attack against him, so ASIO had to find a hippy to arrest, so they did and they got away with it.