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I'm with you. It is really hard. First big wake up call was Brexit and the election of DJT. Are my countrymen really willing to shit on dedicated public servant

by n8cpdx 5y ago

I'm with you. It is really hard. First big wake up call was Brexit and the election of DJT. Are my countrymen really willing to shit on dedicated public servants and throw away the foundation of our remarkably safe and prosperous world? Sadly, yes, and the europeans are just as eager; madness everywhere. I stepped out of public engagement for a while, then moved to Portland when I was ready to get back in. That was a whole new lesson: the lefty/progressive types are just as bad at governing. And the leftist/progressive voters are just as likely as the right to treat politics like a team sport. Portland is more dangerous for black people than Chicago now #BlackLivesMatter. Developers keep pulling out of affordable housing developments because of planning bullshit, and the city thinks its a good idea to mandate that contractors be women owned. Meanwhile, thousands are sleeping rough. The politicians are awful, but in a democracy, the fault for that lies 100% with the people. Elected office, like next-door, doesn't make people bad; it simply reflects the rotten core of 21st century civil society. Absolutely maddening is the lack of interest in concrete policy or actually using data to analyze changes and measure success. I think I'm about ready to stop caring and have a nice life while my species hurtles towards the great filter. Life and the universe are meaningless anyway.

what_is_orcas 5y ago
> The politicians are awful, but in a democracy, the fault for that lies 100% with the people. Yes and no. Yes in that the politicians are selected from people they represent (in theory), but also no in that once a person becomes a politician, their incentives change and they are no longer representing the people that elected them. Further, once in power, the systems can be "rigged" into maintaining that power (gerrymandering is an example of this). DJT couldn't become King of America without first becoming president. Once he became president, though, he definitely tried to rig the system to make him, effectively, King of America.
mullingitover 5y ago
> The politicians are awful, but in a democracy, the fault for that lies 100% with the people. Democracy is a convenient way for the ruling class to hand-pick the people who are allowed to run for office and blame the voters for any bad results. There's research showing that there's very little correlation between the policy goals of the voting public and policy outcomes, but there's a strong correlation between policy goals of the ruling class and policy outcomes.
- jameshart 5y ago
  seems tautological. If you accept that there is such a thing as a 'ruling class', then presumably the only way to define them is 'the people who get their policy goals accomplished'. Because that's what 'ruling' means.
  - mullingitover 5y ago
    It seems awfully naive to pretend there isn't a class that generally is catered to by government. They're typically some or all of these: - in the top .1% of net worth - in executive leadership positions - attend elite universities - frequently possessing generational wealth I hope this helps.

by n8cpdx 5y ago

what_is_orcas 5y ago

> The politicians are awful, but in a democracy, the fault for that lies 100% with the people. Yes and no. Yes in that the politicians are selected from people they represent (in theory), but also no in that once a person becomes a politician, their incentives change and they are no longer representing the people that elected them. Further, once in power, the systems can be "rigged" into maintaining that power (gerrymandering is an example of this). DJT couldn't become King of America without first becoming president. Once he became president, though, he definitely tried to rig the system to make him, effectively, King of America.

mullingitover 5y ago

> The politicians are awful, but in a democracy, the fault for that lies 100% with the people. Democracy is a convenient way for the ruling class to hand-pick the people who are allowed to run for office and blame the voters for any bad results. There's research showing that there's very little correlation between the policy goals of the voting public and policy outcomes, but there's a strong correlation between policy goals of the ruling class and policy outcomes.

jameshart 5y ago
seems tautological. If you accept that there is such a thing as a 'ruling class', then presumably the only way to define them is 'the people who get their policy goals accomplished'. Because that's what 'ruling' means.
- mullingitover 5y ago
  It seems awfully naive to pretend there isn't a class that generally is catered to by government. They're typically some or all of these: - in the top .1% of net worth - in executive leadership positions - attend elite universities - frequently possessing generational wealth I hope this helps.