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Our consent is cloaked because even when we democratically elect a ruler, they then say see we have the consent of the people to do xyz, even though they were e

Our consent is cloaked because even when we democratically elect a ruler, they then say see we have the consent of the people to do xyz, even though they were elected saying they would do abc. Most people just say well next time I’ll elect my other side and they’ll do abc that I would consent to. And the process repeats. Still in some sense if there is true consent by an individual then it isn’t necessarily coercive though it could be manipulative. Also the consent of two saying I don’t mind if you take/abuse from the one can be totalitarian. If we think Trump was bad, I think people might be horrified at how hard the pendulum swings back the other way. Many people hate much of the policies going on under Biden (even if just out of partisan reasons and not principles), and one party acting like they can do whatever they want because they have the presidency and a tie in a senate doesn’t change there are like 50 million people who feel like they’re being “oppressed”. Just as dubya seemed less bad once we had Trump, the next guy might make Trump look the same in comparison. All done with “consent of the ruled”

mistermann 5y ago
> Our consent is cloaked because even when we democratically elect a ruler, they then say see we have the consent of the people to do xyz, even though they were elected saying they would do abc. > Most people just say well next time I’ll elect my other side and they’ll do abc that I would consent to. And the process repeats. An interesting aspect of this is: full blown direct democracy is one thing, but simple finer grained continuous high quality polling of public sentiment (however imperfect) is rarely discussed, and isn't particularly technically challenging.
- mostertoaster 5y ago
  That would probably be an improvement over how things go now. The issue is even if public sentiment across a nation is a strong majority like 60%, 40% is still a huge number of people, and different people have somewhat different values depending on where they are. I feel like local communities this would work well, since a majority overriding a minority might not be as egregious as say a majority of rural folk having their will done over city folk and vice versa. What I wish we could do is let’s say the federal government says in accordance with majority sentiment, masks are required for children in school. The state of Texas though has the ability to override it or leave it in place, but then the city of Austin could then override what Texas overruled and so on. I don’t know something where the will of more people is being followed.
  - mistermann 5y ago
    > That would probably be an improvement over how things go now. The issue is even if public sentiment across a nation is a strong majority like 60%, 40% is still a huge number of people, and different people have somewhat different values depending on where they are. Oh I agree...but I'm not even making a claim that this will affect change, I am simply suggesting that broad increased awareness of ~true public sentiment (as opposed to largely baseless *claim of public sentiment that we are fed on TV) would be interesting, and maybe even useful. I believe it would decrease the level of delusion in society. > What I wish we could do is let’s say the federal government says in accordance with majority sentiment, masks are required for children in school. The state of Texas though has the ability to override it or leave it in place, but then the city of Austin could then override what Texas overruled and so on. I don’t know something where the will of more people is being followed. I'm not opposed to this in principle, but I am leery of claims of "in accordance with majority sentiment" under the current mode of measurement, and information distribution that precedes polling. I believe the whole system is rotten.
    - mostertoaster 5y ago
      Yeah that’s a great point.
    - vdqtp3 5y ago
      That's really the whole reason federalism was implemented as it was in the United States. They didn't believe laws could be created that would logically apply to the entire nation, so the Federal government was very very restricted and almost all normal "government" was delegated to the states. This almost immediately began being eroded and now feels almost pointless.
- freddybobs 5y ago
  "Continuous democracy" was something attempted by Tony Blair in the UK (apparently originating in the US) - the terms meaning there is somewhat different to your description. In this scenario continuous democracy was achieved using focus groups of members of the public. This is different from what you describe - as it is using a 'proxy' for actually asking the public. That an underlying idea here was that all the government needs to do is act upon the feedback of these groups. The government didn't have to lead. That didn't work out very well in practice though. I don't believe the issue was around the statistical methods, or some kind of bias, although they could add extra issues. More that the problem is just asking a random collection of members of the public what to do is not in general what the public wants, or not when it comes to be enacted. As the general public does not have the time or the inclination to dig deep on issues and possible results. It's in effect government by 'hot take'. I bring this up - because whilst not the same, the continuous democracy you describe may also have some of these issues. This is touched on in an Adam Curtis documentary - probly All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace https://thoughtmaybe.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-loving-grace/ https://thoughtmaybe.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-lov...

mistermann 5y ago

> Our consent is cloaked because even when we democratically elect a ruler, they then say see we have the consent of the people to do xyz, even though they were elected saying they would do abc. > Most people just say well next time I’ll elect my other side and they’ll do abc that I would consent to. And the process repeats. An interesting aspect of this is: full blown direct democracy is one thing, but simple finer grained continuous high quality polling of public sentiment (however imperfect) is rarely discussed, and isn't particularly technically challenging.

mostertoaster 5y ago
That would probably be an improvement over how things go now. The issue is even if public sentiment across a nation is a strong majority like 60%, 40% is still a huge number of people, and different people have somewhat different values depending on where they are. I feel like local communities this would work well, since a majority overriding a minority might not be as egregious as say a majority of rural folk having their will done over city folk and vice versa. What I wish we could do is let’s say the federal government says in accordance with majority sentiment, masks are required for children in school. The state of Texas though has the ability to override it or leave it in place, but then the city of Austin could then override what Texas overruled and so on. I don’t know something where the will of more people is being followed.
- mistermann 5y ago
  > That would probably be an improvement over how things go now. The issue is even if public sentiment across a nation is a strong majority like 60%, 40% is still a huge number of people, and different people have somewhat different values depending on where they are. Oh I agree...but I'm not even making a claim that this will affect change, I am simply suggesting that broad increased awareness of ~true public sentiment (as opposed to largely baseless *claim of public sentiment that we are fed on TV) would be interesting, and maybe even useful. I believe it would decrease the level of delusion in society. > What I wish we could do is let’s say the federal government says in accordance with majority sentiment, masks are required for children in school. The state of Texas though has the ability to override it or leave it in place, but then the city of Austin could then override what Texas overruled and so on. I don’t know something where the will of more people is being followed. I'm not opposed to this in principle, but I am leery of claims of "in accordance with majority sentiment" under the current mode of measurement, and information distribution that precedes polling. I believe the whole system is rotten.
  - mostertoaster 5y ago
    Yeah that’s a great point.
  - vdqtp3 5y ago
    That's really the whole reason federalism was implemented as it was in the United States. They didn't believe laws could be created that would logically apply to the entire nation, so the Federal government was very very restricted and almost all normal "government" was delegated to the states. This almost immediately began being eroded and now feels almost pointless.
freddybobs 5y ago
"Continuous democracy" was something attempted by Tony Blair in the UK (apparently originating in the US) - the terms meaning there is somewhat different to your description. In this scenario continuous democracy was achieved using focus groups of members of the public. This is different from what you describe - as it is using a 'proxy' for actually asking the public. That an underlying idea here was that all the government needs to do is act upon the feedback of these groups. The government didn't have to lead. That didn't work out very well in practice though. I don't believe the issue was around the statistical methods, or some kind of bias, although they could add extra issues. More that the problem is just asking a random collection of members of the public what to do is not in general what the public wants, or not when it comes to be enacted. As the general public does not have the time or the inclination to dig deep on issues and possible results. It's in effect government by 'hot take'. I bring this up - because whilst not the same, the continuous democracy you describe may also have some of these issues. This is touched on in an Adam Curtis documentary - probly All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace https://thoughtmaybe.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-loving-grace/ https://thoughtmaybe.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-lov...