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> but practically Joe Biden isn't going to ask regular citizens if he should allow export of Natural Gas to European nations. No, that isn't practical. Which i

> but practically Joe Biden isn't going to ask regular citizens if he should allow export of Natural Gas to European nations. No, that isn't practical. Which is why government is set up in reverse: The citizens tell Biden what they want. The citizens are the boss, after all. It stands to reason that the message comes down from the boss. Except that isn't practical either, so middlemen are employed to combine and distill the information they receive from the boss into a more digestible form that can be presented in a practical manner to the worker. Those middlemen are chosen by the citizens through a long and arduous process to ensure that they are trustworthy enough to accurately convey the desired message to the worker on the ground. Yes, theoretically an unscrupulous middleman could spread false information, but through hundreds of years of using this system the citizens have shown to have a strong degree of confidence in the effectiveness of the selection process. Not only do they have confidence, but they also find utility. It would be downright silly to go to all of the trouble of selecting the most trustworthy middleman and hire him, at a decent rate of pay I might add, only to never use his services. The citizens recognize the value they get by hiring these people to pass their orders to the workers. You personally may have no use for said middlemen as you management style sees you sit back and forever wait for Biden to knock on your door, but citizens (plural) is inherently about more than you.

Alupis 4y ago
> Which is why government is set up in reverse: The citizens tell Biden what they want. The citizens are the boss, after all Again, that's some great theory, and it's how it's supposed to work, but it doesn't. If it did, the government wouldn't be busy misdirecting reasons why the prices are ludicrous - ie, they have to sell a fake narrative to the general population, and most of the population won't question authority. This is, in principal, why things like the electoral college exist - the framers knew the general population was busy living their own lives and either wouldn't pay enough attention or would deliberately be misled for political gain. So while yes the government eventually answers to the people, and in theory election outcomes will be based on what people want - the problem is when the people are deliberately misled and then vote based off half-truths and lies, which is what's going on here. High natural and petroleum gas prices are the Administration's own doing - the result of explicit domestic and foreign policy decisions the executive and team have made... but they've done a great job convincing casual voters they had nothing to do with it. That's where the way government is supposed to work starts to fall apart.
- randomdata 4y ago
  > High natural and petroleum gas prices are the Administration's own doing The citizens may have made a mistake in their direction for government, I can accept that. To squarely blame to workers on the ground following orders for those mistakes is strange, though. That's like blaming the developers at Google who work on chat code for the constant churn in chat applications. Maybe those developers at Google really did tell management, rightly or wrongly, that the codebases were terrible and that Yet Another Rewrite™ was the only way out. But even if that's the case the bosses should have the wherewithal to see through what is reality and what is not, and if the claim is valid to ensure that it didn't happen in the first place. Bosses are going to screw up, of course. No human is infallible. But they are to blame when they do. They're the boss exactly because they are in charge and responsible for seeing through the good and the bad. The worker merely serves the boss.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  Governance is hard because most people don’t really have any idea about what’s going on, and listen to proxies who may or may not know anything at all. A rational person might say “A global pandemic and lockdown turned the supply and demand curves upside down.” and “A tyrant is holding a continent hostage by turning off fuel supplies to a major market.”, and perhaps conclude that instability, uncertainty and risk affect prices. Or… you can listen to a windbag rant about the closure of a pipeline that doesn’t exist, and meanwhile see gasoline prices fall 30% as production imbalances improve, and still conclude that a politician chose to commit political suicide for lolz.

Alupis 4y ago

> Which is why government is set up in reverse: The citizens tell Biden what they want. The citizens are the boss, after all Again, that's some great theory, and it's how it's supposed to work, but it doesn't. If it did, the government wouldn't be busy misdirecting reasons why the prices are ludicrous - ie, they have to sell a fake narrative to the general population, and most of the population won't question authority. This is, in principal, why things like the electoral college exist - the framers knew the general population was busy living their own lives and either wouldn't pay enough attention or would deliberately be misled for political gain. So while yes the government eventually answers to the people, and in theory election outcomes will be based on what people want - the problem is when the people are deliberately misled and then vote based off half-truths and lies, which is what's going on here. High natural and petroleum gas prices are the Administration's own doing - the result of explicit domestic and foreign policy decisions the executive and team have made... but they've done a great job convincing casual voters they had nothing to do with it. That's where the way government is supposed to work starts to fall apart.

randomdata 4y ago
> High natural and petroleum gas prices are the Administration's own doing The citizens may have made a mistake in their direction for government, I can accept that. To squarely blame to workers on the ground following orders for those mistakes is strange, though. That's like blaming the developers at Google who work on chat code for the constant churn in chat applications. Maybe those developers at Google really did tell management, rightly or wrongly, that the codebases were terrible and that Yet Another Rewrite™ was the only way out. But even if that's the case the bosses should have the wherewithal to see through what is reality and what is not, and if the claim is valid to ensure that it didn't happen in the first place. Bosses are going to screw up, of course. No human is infallible. But they are to blame when they do. They're the boss exactly because they are in charge and responsible for seeing through the good and the bad. The worker merely serves the boss.
Spooky23 4y ago
Governance is hard because most people don’t really have any idea about what’s going on, and listen to proxies who may or may not know anything at all. A rational person might say “A global pandemic and lockdown turned the supply and demand curves upside down.” and “A tyrant is holding a continent hostage by turning off fuel supplies to a major market.”, and perhaps conclude that instability, uncertainty and risk affect prices. Or… you can listen to a windbag rant about the closure of a pipeline that doesn’t exist, and meanwhile see gasoline prices fall 30% as production imbalances improve, and still conclude that a politician chose to commit political suicide for lolz.