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I see a lot of people predicting the decline of democracy. The US is the pole that is crucial to the world order as I cannot imagine how the world will be if Ch

I see a lot of people predicting the decline of democracy. The US is the pole that is crucial to the world order as I cannot imagine how the world will be if China is the sole power. The last few years as shown how flimsy our systems and safeguards are and that most of them work on honor system rather and someone can definitely do a lot of damage if they wanted to. It feels like the next 2-3 yrs are going to be very critical. I don’t have a very good feeling about the 2024 elections and that might bring by about chaos. What do people think here?

heresie-dabord 5y ago
> how flimsy our systems and safeguards are Democracy is the best of a set of troubled types of social order. Elected politicians, for better or for worse, are indeed a representation of the people. Democracy is as flimsy as the citizenry's understanding of and commitment to education, civic duty, and justice.
narag 5y ago
I see a lot of people predicting the decline of democracy. It's funny. A few years ago, when the Arab Spring, the sentiment was the opposite.
- sedan_baklazhan 5y ago
  That was before results of the Arab Spring became obvious, perhaps.
  - Breazy 5y ago
    [dead]
sedan_baklazhan 5y ago
I certainly think that model of democracy - as it was applied (or attempted to) to Libya and Syria, is not going to win a lot of support in a lot of countries which don't have the democracy "yet".
syki 5y ago
The precedent has been set in the U.S. If you can whip up an army of fanatics to assault the Capitol then you may do so with impunity. The system set up 230 years ago has too many imbalances. We don’t have proportional representation in either chamber of Congress and the way things are set up a minority of the electorate can prevent even the fiscal policies of the majority. Eventually such an imbalance will need to change. It can not last for long. There is also great social change. Women are a large majority of incoming college students and are a majority in graduating with college degrees right now. Demographic changes are occurring. There are severe inefficiencies in the basic functioning of our society. For instance we spend far more on healthcare and education than other countries with worse outcomes. Defeat in Afghanistan, divided population at home, crumbling infrastructure, etc. all point to a state of long term imperial decline.
- tomjen3 5y ago
  >The precedent has been set in the U.S. If you can whip up an army of fanatics to assault the Capitol then you may do so with impunity. No it has not. The people involved are being prosecuted and criminal punishments are being handed down. Trump is not being prosecuted, because disagreeing with the official election results are not a crime, nor is it illegal to hold campaigns arguing your case. If Trump had actually done something illegal, he would be prosecuted.
q1w2 5y ago
The advantage of democracy is that it usually obviates the need violent political civil wars as the people are able to express their will as to who is the leader. This is an inherent disadvantage of dictatorships, as political factions can back different leaders and cause prolonged and recurrent civil wars. Looking at the history of empires, these dynastic conflicts are incredibly common. The disadvantage of democracies is that frequent elections prevent leadership from executing multi-decade long objectives. Democratic leadership changes often countermand the direction of prior administrations. Further, these decisions are subject to popular fashions and often represent the interests of vast swaths of the population who are uneducated and/or young. Democracies are often slaves to circumstance and societal evolution - and this is exacerbated with social media. The advantage of dictatorships is their ability to create generational goals and execute methodical plans that can show value to the nation decades later. Dictatorships have the ability to shape societal evolution (for better or worse). Oversimplifying this, you could say that a democracy acts according the average intelligence of the society, whereas a dictatorship acts according to the intelligence of the leader (and thus the process to select a dictator makes it far more critical to be meritocratic). I honestly wonder if there's a better way.
- ModernMech 5y ago
  > Oversimplifying this, you could say that a democracy acts according the average intelligence of the society, whereas a dictatorship acts according to the intelligence of the leader The problem with dictatorships is the dictator. Dictators are typically Cluster B personalities: narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths. Dictatorships don’t revolve around the intelligence of the dictator, but around their ego. Dictators aren’t interested in doing what’s right for society, they are interested in doing what’s right for themselves. This is why they are so dangerous, because those two goals are often at odds. For this reason, the dictator surrounds himself with toadies, lickspittles, sycophants, and generally other cluster B personalities who want to be a proxy for the dictator. This results in rampant government corruption and incompetence, as people end up in jobs for which they are not qualified, but which they earned through loyalty to the dictator. So if you want to map a dictatorship’s intelligence I would say they converge to the intelligence of the worst, most power-hungry, morally and ethically bankrupt people in society.
curiousllama 5y ago
Keep in mind that, when an empire falls, it doesn't disappear. It just atrophies. How important has London been in the past century?
skohan 5y ago
I'm an American expat who's been living in Germany for the better part of a decade. I've often confronted an unfairly pessimistic, doom and gloom attitude from German people regarding the US, and I've always pushed back on this, as I did not feel it represented the reality that the US was as prosperous, mostly well functioning country with a few loud eccentricities which are not always understood from the outside. However my perception was shook a bit in my most recent trip back to the states over this past holidays. Cream cheese was unavailable as an ingredient for the Christmas meal due to supply chain issues. People complained about inflation and high gas prices. Flights were totally unreliable, and COVID tests were almost impossible to come by. On top of all those real-world issues, it was surprising to see how compliance has become a political issue in the US. My liberal family members treated mask wearing as an issue of character, and seemed to treat catching covid as almost a moral failing, while my conservative family members viewed it almost as a scam. I have seen the politicization of every issue before. I've been aware that the US government has been in a state for a long time where it seems to be structurally unable of getting things done. But this is the first time I have seen material conditions degraded to such an extent in my home country that it is impacting the day to day lives of even middle class and upper middle class people. This was especially surprising since the same issues have not presented themselves in Germany. I hope what I witnessed was just the short-term effect of an unprecedented wave of the virus, but it was enough to give me doubts.
- ModernMech 5y ago
  The problem in America isn't a lack of cream cheese, I'm sorry. The problem is that there was a free and fair election last year that one party's leader refers to as a coup, which then lead to an actual coup attempt. They refer to that as a patriotic uprising. This happens because people are being lied to on purpose. Republican leadership wants this to happen. They are doing it on purpose. This does not happen because there's no cream cheese at the store. This is something that takes decades to foster.
  - syspec 5y ago
    A lot of people are afraid to say this for fear of alienating the other side
RickJWagner 5y ago
I don't see any signs of democracy 'crumbling'. That's a political talking point. When I get out and talk to people (not interact with strangers online) I find that people feel the political pendulum swings back and forth, gradually bringing better conditions for all. The right wasn't really treated badly under Obama, the nation wasn't too badly off under Trump, and things aren't really all that bad under Biden. Let me know if you really know of any threats to democracy. (No political hyperbole, please.) I know of none that are real.

heresie-dabord 5y ago

> how flimsy our systems and safeguards are Democracy is the best of a set of troubled types of social order. Elected politicians, for better or for worse, are indeed a representation of the people. Democracy is as flimsy as the citizenry's understanding of and commitment to education, civic duty, and justice.

narag 5y ago

I see a lot of people predicting the decline of democracy. It's funny. A few years ago, when the Arab Spring, the sentiment was the opposite.

sedan_baklazhan 5y ago
That was before results of the Arab Spring became obvious, perhaps.
- Breazy 5y ago
  [dead]

sedan_baklazhan 5y ago

I certainly think that model of democracy - as it was applied (or attempted to) to Libya and Syria, is not going to win a lot of support in a lot of countries which don't have the democracy "yet".

syki 5y ago

The precedent has been set in the U.S. If you can whip up an army of fanatics to assault the Capitol then you may do so with impunity. The system set up 230 years ago has too many imbalances. We don’t have proportional representation in either chamber of Congress and the way things are set up a minority of the electorate can prevent even the fiscal policies of the majority. Eventually such an imbalance will need to change. It can not last for long. There is also great social change. Women are a large majority of incoming college students and are a majority in graduating with college degrees right now. Demographic changes are occurring. There are severe inefficiencies in the basic functioning of our society. For instance we spend far more on healthcare and education than other countries with worse outcomes. Defeat in Afghanistan, divided population at home, crumbling infrastructure, etc. all point to a state of long term imperial decline.

tomjen3 5y ago
>The precedent has been set in the U.S. If you can whip up an army of fanatics to assault the Capitol then you may do so with impunity. No it has not. The people involved are being prosecuted and criminal punishments are being handed down. Trump is not being prosecuted, because disagreeing with the official election results are not a crime, nor is it illegal to hold campaigns arguing your case. If Trump had actually done something illegal, he would be prosecuted.

q1w2 5y ago

The advantage of democracy is that it usually obviates the need violent political civil wars as the people are able to express their will as to who is the leader. This is an inherent disadvantage of dictatorships, as political factions can back different leaders and cause prolonged and recurrent civil wars. Looking at the history of empires, these dynastic conflicts are incredibly common. The disadvantage of democracies is that frequent elections prevent leadership from executing multi-decade long objectives. Democratic leadership changes often countermand the direction of prior administrations. Further, these decisions are subject to popular fashions and often represent the interests of vast swaths of the population who are uneducated and/or young. Democracies are often slaves to circumstance and societal evolution - and this is exacerbated with social media. The advantage of dictatorships is their ability to create generational goals and execute methodical plans that can show value to the nation decades later. Dictatorships have the ability to shape societal evolution (for better or worse). Oversimplifying this, you could say that a democracy acts according the average intelligence of the society, whereas a dictatorship acts according to the intelligence of the leader (and thus the process to select a dictator makes it far more critical to be meritocratic). I honestly wonder if there's a better way.

ModernMech 5y ago
> Oversimplifying this, you could say that a democracy acts according the average intelligence of the society, whereas a dictatorship acts according to the intelligence of the leader The problem with dictatorships is the dictator. Dictators are typically Cluster B personalities: narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths. Dictatorships don’t revolve around the intelligence of the dictator, but around their ego. Dictators aren’t interested in doing what’s right for society, they are interested in doing what’s right for themselves. This is why they are so dangerous, because those two goals are often at odds. For this reason, the dictator surrounds himself with toadies, lickspittles, sycophants, and generally other cluster B personalities who want to be a proxy for the dictator. This results in rampant government corruption and incompetence, as people end up in jobs for which they are not qualified, but which they earned through loyalty to the dictator. So if you want to map a dictatorship’s intelligence I would say they converge to the intelligence of the worst, most power-hungry, morally and ethically bankrupt people in society.

curiousllama 5y ago

Keep in mind that, when an empire falls, it doesn't disappear. It just atrophies. How important has London been in the past century?

skohan 5y ago

I'm an American expat who's been living in Germany for the better part of a decade. I've often confronted an unfairly pessimistic, doom and gloom attitude from German people regarding the US, and I've always pushed back on this, as I did not feel it represented the reality that the US was as prosperous, mostly well functioning country with a few loud eccentricities which are not always understood from the outside. However my perception was shook a bit in my most recent trip back to the states over this past holidays. Cream cheese was unavailable as an ingredient for the Christmas meal due to supply chain issues. People complained about inflation and high gas prices. Flights were totally unreliable, and COVID tests were almost impossible to come by. On top of all those real-world issues, it was surprising to see how compliance has become a political issue in the US. My liberal family members treated mask wearing as an issue of character, and seemed to treat catching covid as almost a moral failing, while my conservative family members viewed it almost as a scam. I have seen the politicization of every issue before. I've been aware that the US government has been in a state for a long time where it seems to be structurally unable of getting things done. But this is the first time I have seen material conditions degraded to such an extent in my home country that it is impacting the day to day lives of even middle class and upper middle class people. This was especially surprising since the same issues have not presented themselves in Germany. I hope what I witnessed was just the short-term effect of an unprecedented wave of the virus, but it was enough to give me doubts.

ModernMech 5y ago
The problem in America isn't a lack of cream cheese, I'm sorry. The problem is that there was a free and fair election last year that one party's leader refers to as a coup, which then lead to an actual coup attempt. They refer to that as a patriotic uprising. This happens because people are being lied to on purpose. Republican leadership wants this to happen. They are doing it on purpose. This does not happen because there's no cream cheese at the store. This is something that takes decades to foster.
- syspec 5y ago
  A lot of people are afraid to say this for fear of alienating the other side

RickJWagner 5y ago

I don't see any signs of democracy 'crumbling'. That's a political talking point. When I get out and talk to people (not interact with strangers online) I find that people feel the political pendulum swings back and forth, gradually bringing better conditions for all. The right wasn't really treated badly under Obama, the nation wasn't too badly off under Trump, and things aren't really all that bad under Biden. Let me know if you really know of any threats to democracy. (No political hyperbole, please.) I know of none that are real.