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To be honest, I think you are exactly on the right track. We _do_ have reduced faith in democratic structures. Allow me to steelman this position a bit for you

To be honest, I think you are exactly on the right track. We _do_ have reduced faith in democratic structures. Allow me to steelman this position a bit for you though. I think the root, gut feel that many Americans have is that they are sick of being pushed around and mismanaged by ineffective, small-minded, out-of-touch bureaucrats. This affliction seems to affect every aspect of our lives. If you have a problem with Comcast, you have to go through a robo call center that makes it physically impossible to actually talk to the people that are authoring your pain. You can't get mad at the person on the phone, because they can rightly say that it's not their fault your bill doubled. And yet, what's left unsaid is that things are specifically arranged this way on purpose. The social architecture of our society is so "democratic" that there is no responsibility, no human spirit, no .. humanity in the way we deal with things. You can bet that Twitters internals follow this rule, and I'm sure when they talk about the failings they've had as a company, the blame is blandly smeared around. As a democracy fades into a bureaucracy, politics and corporate culture just descends into tee-totalling, cover-your-ass box checking that you're doing everything "by the book". It is the soulless HR department in place of actual values and kinship. So you might see this newfound lack of faith in democratic structures less as a vote against democracy and more like a vote _for_ humanity. If you put Musk in charge, one thing you know is that there is a dude - a fully human dude, foibles and negative qualities included - who is running things. Looked at from this perspective, you can almost even get your head around what it would be like voting for trump. Okay, maybe not, but maybe you can get a few steps closer.

jimkleiber 4y ago
Ah, just seeing this now. I appreciate you taking it further and I think I can relate. The frustration with things being too ineffective and the drive to have a human responsible for something. I believe monarchies can be highly efficient, as many other top-down hierarchies. I think the challenge lies in that while one can efficiently help, one can also efficiently harm. So, yeah, a part of me loves that a human could come in and make it more structured, more "the buck stops here" (ironically from the US President, the leader of a democratic republic), and I also worry about what happens when that person goes in a direction we don't like or a direction that harms or kills us. May seem like an exaggeration for a social media company, however, many genocides have been fueled by language through mass media. > The social architecture of our society is so "democratic" that there is no responsibility, no human spirit, no .. humanity in the way we deal with things. This is why I actually believe more in the idea of representative democracy than direct democracy. Yes, not as much responsibility as a single owner, but allocated responsibility to a few while being owned by many.

jimkleiber 4y ago

Ah, just seeing this now. I appreciate you taking it further and I think I can relate. The frustration with things being too ineffective and the drive to have a human responsible for something. I believe monarchies can be highly efficient, as many other top-down hierarchies. I think the challenge lies in that while one can efficiently help, one can also efficiently harm. So, yeah, a part of me loves that a human could come in and make it more structured, more "the buck stops here" (ironically from the US President, the leader of a democratic republic), and I also worry about what happens when that person goes in a direction we don't like or a direction that harms or kills us. May seem like an exaggeration for a social media company, however, many genocides have been fueled by language through mass media. > The social architecture of our society is so "democratic" that there is no responsibility, no human spirit, no .. humanity in the way we deal with things. This is why I actually believe more in the idea of representative democracy than direct democracy. Yes, not as much responsibility as a single owner, but allocated responsibility to a few while being owned by many.