5 ms·

Interesting article and I agree with most of it. But the argument that "Democratic freedom is incompatible with an oligarchic authority" is untenable. Ideally,

by caaqil 5y ago

Interesting article and I agree with most of it. But the argument that "Democratic freedom is incompatible with an oligarchic authority" is untenable. Ideally, they are incompatible, but in the real world, most so-called democracies today are effectively oligarchies. It's also amusing that the author chose Wikipedia as the example for this utopia. Wikipedia is awesome (mostly) but the idea that it's something where everyone participates and has the same access is simply absurd. The fact that Wikipedia editing still obeys the 1% rule is a sign. Not to mention the edit restrictions articles have where certain threshold of editing history must be met to circumvent them, the complex rules, tools and culture, the editing wars, etc. If Wikipedia is known for anything, it's that it's hostile to newcomers and that the elite dominates it (just look at the demographics of the editors). Not sure how grandma is supposed to have 500 edits for the privilege to edit an article about some politician. If our utopia is that, then we're back to square one.

zozbot234 5y ago
The thing about Wikipedia is that users have the right to fork it, per its license, and have historically used it (see Encyclopedia-Libre). It's at least potentially a federated system, in a way that other comparable sites are not. Interestingly, the same is true of Stack Exchange/Stack Overflow: its content is openly licensed, so in principle you could use it to seed your own Q&A site if you objected to how the original was being run.
- quiet_cool 5y ago
  > its content is openly licensed Interesting, I know SE/SO itself is not open source: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/313483/is-stack-overflow-open-source https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/313483/is-stack-ove... Wikipedia is apparently fully open source however: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download
specialist 5y ago
> ...most so-called democracies today are effectively oligarchies. I'd like a taxonomy of democracy. Or perhaps even a catalog of traits. Might help limit crosstalk. Like other nebulous ideas -- love, truth, self -- we're all using the same word to talk about different ideas. Twenty years ago, I reflexively rejected the very notion of sortition as ridiculous. I had spent a decade as an election integrity activist, deep diving into voting rights, election administration, and other arcana. I was utterly committed to the obvious virtue of the Australian Ballot. To the necessity of transitioning to Proportional Representation and Approval Voting. The hills I would happily die on. Now? Not so much. After reading David Graeber and rereading Chomsky and Jill Lepore's early history of polling (eg Gallup), I'm newly open to considering alternatives. Thoughtful deliberation sounds pretty fucking great about now. Stuff like citizen's assemblies to tackle thorny policy debates. And maybe polling is superior to voting, at least for some use cases. -- Any way. Current me agrees with both you and OC wrt democracy vs oligarchies. Restated, our current group decision making institutions and strategies are prone to capture, which then transmute democratic arrangements into oligarchies. We see this over and over again, big and small. Just witness all the coops (like farmers cooperatives) which are vulnerable to hostile takeovers, thereby disempowering the actual members. -- We need better technology. Something that is both more democratic and less resistant to capture. Is that even possible? Ever play Nomic? It's game which simulates the Paradox of Self-Amendment. Basically the game version of what we call a constitutional government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic Or, we can just emulate our ancestors. According to Graeber and Wengrow (Dawn of Everything), many societies used culture and tradition (vs rulesets) to contain would be tyrants. Often thru violence.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
coop_solution 5y ago
Untenable? You kind of resolved it yourself by saying that “democracies” of today are just “so-called” but are effectively oligarchies. So it’s not an untenable statement.

by caaqil 5y ago

zozbot234 5y ago

The thing about Wikipedia is that users have the right to fork it, per its license, and have historically used it (see Encyclopedia-Libre). It's at least potentially a federated system, in a way that other comparable sites are not. Interestingly, the same is true of Stack Exchange/Stack Overflow: its content is openly licensed, so in principle you could use it to seed your own Q&A site if you objected to how the original was being run.

quiet_cool 5y ago
> its content is openly licensed Interesting, I know SE/SO itself is not open source: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/313483/is-stack-overflow-open-source https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/313483/is-stack-ove... Wikipedia is apparently fully open source however: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download

specialist 5y ago

> ...most so-called democracies today are effectively oligarchies. I'd like a taxonomy of democracy. Or perhaps even a catalog of traits. Might help limit crosstalk. Like other nebulous ideas -- love, truth, self -- we're all using the same word to talk about different ideas. Twenty years ago, I reflexively rejected the very notion of sortition as ridiculous. I had spent a decade as an election integrity activist, deep diving into voting rights, election administration, and other arcana. I was utterly committed to the obvious virtue of the Australian Ballot. To the necessity of transitioning to Proportional Representation and Approval Voting. The hills I would happily die on. Now? Not so much. After reading David Graeber and rereading Chomsky and Jill Lepore's early history of polling (eg Gallup), I'm newly open to considering alternatives. Thoughtful deliberation sounds pretty fucking great about now. Stuff like citizen's assemblies to tackle thorny policy debates. And maybe polling is superior to voting, at least for some use cases. -- Any way. Current me agrees with both you and OC wrt democracy vs oligarchies. Restated, our current group decision making institutions and strategies are prone to capture, which then transmute democratic arrangements into oligarchies. We see this over and over again, big and small. Just witness all the coops (like farmers cooperatives) which are vulnerable to hostile takeovers, thereby disempowering the actual members. -- We need better technology. Something that is both more democratic and less resistant to capture. Is that even possible? Ever play Nomic? It's game which simulates the Paradox of Self-Amendment. Basically the game version of what we call a constitutional government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic Or, we can just emulate our ancestors. According to Graeber and Wengrow (Dawn of Everything), many societies used culture and tradition (vs rulesets) to contain would be tyrants. Often thru violence.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

coop_solution 5y ago

Untenable? You kind of resolved it yourself by saying that “democracies” of today are just “so-called” but are effectively oligarchies. So it’s not an untenable statement.