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It looks to me that you are expressing a preference for democracy relative to autocracy. I assume this preference is based on a historical evaluation of the pe

by par1970 5y ago

It looks to me that you are expressing a preference for democracy relative to autocracy. I assume this preference is based on a historical evaluation of the performance of democratic and autocratic governments? For example, Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union were autocratic regimes that killed millions of non-combatants in the 20th century, while America and the UK, both democratic regimes, did nothing of the kind in the 20th century? But then if you saw enough autocratic regimes not doing these things, (Singapore?), could you be brought around to preferring autocracy?

ouid 5y ago
>I assume this preference is based on a historical evaluation of the performance of democratic and autocratic governments? What the fuck are you smoking? Are you arguing that there is no a priori reason to prefer democracy?
- burrows 5y ago
  > Are you arguing that there is no a priori reason to prefer democracy? I suggest these definitions, but am open to revisions. def: a government is the smallest set of people with a (almost) monopoly of force in a particular geographic region. def: democracy is a government where the set size is at least 10% of the total number of people occupying the geographic region. def: autocracy is government where the set size is one. Presently, it is not clear to me how to make a persuasive and coherent a priori argument in favor of democracy. I believe you have a nomination for such an argument, please share.
  - ouid 5y ago
    A government only needs to be able to exert as much force as is needed to incentivize its citizens, and who actually wields that force is very distributed, even in an autocracy. If you are absolutely insistent upon this definition and sole function of government (which is empirically dubious) then you must at least recognize that there are other properties of this "monopoly" which are not captured by the number of "shareholders". There is no such thing as a true monopoly on force, since I require other people to fight for me. They could instead choose to do nothing, so I must always operate in this context. I won't speak to the full set of ways to accomplish it, but it seems clear that there are at least two. In order to meaningfully be an autocrat, it must be possible for you to wield this force in a manner inconsistent with its own majority interests. If you do not maintain that power, you are de facto operating in a democracy. This is a real downside to running an autocracy. The autocrat now forever engaged in a game of don't-let-the-balloon-touch-the-floor, and the cost is that for every gun you want pointed at your personal objective, you have to point a gun at the person holding the gun you want pointed and so on. As you can imagine, this is expensive and fragile, since there are, by an absolute law of mathematics, fewer guns at the top than the bottom, and you have to possess a lot more guns than if you didn't need to point guns at the people actually executing the force. Technology can lower the number of guns you need to point in between layers in order to reach pseudo-stability, but never to zero, and there is always a risk that the force will figure out how to organize in its own interests and depose you. There is another way, of course, in which the organizational structure of the military is designed around ensuring that its aggregate interests are met, including the meta interest of maintaining that property. This is roughly identifiable as democracy, and it should be clear that the difference between this case and the previous one is qualitative, which makes it a much more sensible way of drawing a line between the two governments. I still claim that this is a bad definition of government.
stickfigure 5y ago
Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union killed millions of their own citizens. That's something democracy tends to prevent.

ouid 5y ago

>I assume this preference is based on a historical evaluation of the performance of democratic and autocratic governments? What the fuck are you smoking? Are you arguing that there is no a priori reason to prefer democracy?

burrows 5y ago
> Are you arguing that there is no a priori reason to prefer democracy? I suggest these definitions, but am open to revisions. def: a government is the smallest set of people with a (almost) monopoly of force in a particular geographic region. def: democracy is a government where the set size is at least 10% of the total number of people occupying the geographic region. def: autocracy is government where the set size is one. Presently, it is not clear to me how to make a persuasive and coherent a priori argument in favor of democracy. I believe you have a nomination for such an argument, please share.
- ouid 5y ago
  A government only needs to be able to exert as much force as is needed to incentivize its citizens, and who actually wields that force is very distributed, even in an autocracy. If you are absolutely insistent upon this definition and sole function of government (which is empirically dubious) then you must at least recognize that there are other properties of this "monopoly" which are not captured by the number of "shareholders". There is no such thing as a true monopoly on force, since I require other people to fight for me. They could instead choose to do nothing, so I must always operate in this context. I won't speak to the full set of ways to accomplish it, but it seems clear that there are at least two. In order to meaningfully be an autocrat, it must be possible for you to wield this force in a manner inconsistent with its own majority interests. If you do not maintain that power, you are de facto operating in a democracy. This is a real downside to running an autocracy. The autocrat now forever engaged in a game of don't-let-the-balloon-touch-the-floor, and the cost is that for every gun you want pointed at your personal objective, you have to point a gun at the person holding the gun you want pointed and so on. As you can imagine, this is expensive and fragile, since there are, by an absolute law of mathematics, fewer guns at the top than the bottom, and you have to possess a lot more guns than if you didn't need to point guns at the people actually executing the force. Technology can lower the number of guns you need to point in between layers in order to reach pseudo-stability, but never to zero, and there is always a risk that the force will figure out how to organize in its own interests and depose you. There is another way, of course, in which the organizational structure of the military is designed around ensuring that its aggregate interests are met, including the meta interest of maintaining that property. This is roughly identifiable as democracy, and it should be clear that the difference between this case and the previous one is qualitative, which makes it a much more sensible way of drawing a line between the two governments. I still claim that this is a bad definition of government.

stickfigure 5y ago

Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union killed millions of their own citizens. That's something democracy tends to prevent.