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One person deciding where all that money is invested is a sort of economic dictator. Trying to live on Mars is polluting our planet. If you don't agree with tha

One person deciding where all that money is invested is a sort of economic dictator. Trying to live on Mars is polluting our planet. If you don't agree with that use of resources, it's not a benevolent dictatorship.

Natsu 4y ago
It's far more democratic than that, at least insofar as people voluntarily gave the person money vs. it being collected in non-voluntary ways. And yes, that may be non-binary in that some of Elon's money has likely come from the government where we have less choice about spending it, other money may come from voluntarily purchased Teslas and whatnot.
mola 4y ago
This. The problem is a dstribution of power most of all. If power is concentrated in government, it's as bad if it's concentrated with an individual with his own private police force. Private espionage force etc. All this strawman about the failures of absolute equality are just slight of hand to ignore the very obvious problem with a world where a single person have the power of a state. The state legitimacy should come from the people participation in govering themselves. Not from some psuedo meritocracy. Concentrated power without checks and balances is the problem, not specifically "the state". I wish all libertarians would wake up and see that very obvious threat to freedom.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
  What if the people want slavery? Or is this vaunted flat democracy only allowed when the result aligns with your morals? It's called tyranny of the majority
  - mola 4y ago
    Huh? Never talked about "flat democracy" I consider a representative democracy to be a form of self governing. You really missed the whole point of my post
  - tchaffee 4y ago
    Can you quote where they suggested a flat democracy? Looks like you are putting words in their mouth, also known as creating a strawman.
    - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
      implication and conclusions don't need to be explicitly stated. In this case if power isn't in the government it's in the hands of the people. That's a flat democracy.
      - tchaffee 4y ago
        > implication and conclusions don't need to be explicitly stated. But you would do well to ask, because you got it totally wrong. The commenter said that they are against this type of libertarian idealism. Because the result is that it isn't a flat democracy. Instead folks like Musk end up with huge amounts of power. Specifically you need to understand what they said here: "If power is concentrated in government, it's as bad if it's concentrated with an individual with his own private police force." The implication is that the commentator wants power evenly distributed. The opposite of your wrong accusation of the commenter wanting power concentrated in a majority. Nowhere was flat democracy mentioned. You invented that line of thinking.
        P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
        flat democracy in this case means no power concentration and everyone votes on everything. as opposed to what the US currently has, which is a representational democracy where power is concentrated at the government level with people electing others to represent them (and to wield more power than they, themselves, do). ---- If someone tells you power concentrated in the government is bad and power should be evenly distributed, they're talking about a flat democracy (aka direct democracy). Which goes back to what I said initially. What if the people want slaves? What if they want segregated schools? Because at one point the majority actually did want these things. People who argue for things like this imagine that only good will come from it. Not only is that not true, we have precedent that it's not true.

Natsu 4y ago

It's far more democratic than that, at least insofar as people voluntarily gave the person money vs. it being collected in non-voluntary ways. And yes, that may be non-binary in that some of Elon's money has likely come from the government where we have less choice about spending it, other money may come from voluntarily purchased Teslas and whatnot.

mola 4y ago

This. The problem is a dstribution of power most of all. If power is concentrated in government, it's as bad if it's concentrated with an individual with his own private police force. Private espionage force etc. All this strawman about the failures of absolute equality are just slight of hand to ignore the very obvious problem with a world where a single person have the power of a state. The state legitimacy should come from the people participation in govering themselves. Not from some psuedo meritocracy. Concentrated power without checks and balances is the problem, not specifically "the state". I wish all libertarians would wake up and see that very obvious threat to freedom.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
What if the people want slavery? Or is this vaunted flat democracy only allowed when the result aligns with your morals? It's called tyranny of the majority
- mola 4y ago
  Huh? Never talked about "flat democracy" I consider a representative democracy to be a form of self governing. You really missed the whole point of my post
- tchaffee 4y ago
  Can you quote where they suggested a flat democracy? Looks like you are putting words in their mouth, also known as creating a strawman.
  - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
    implication and conclusions don't need to be explicitly stated. In this case if power isn't in the government it's in the hands of the people. That's a flat democracy.
    - tchaffee 4y ago
      > implication and conclusions don't need to be explicitly stated. But you would do well to ask, because you got it totally wrong. The commenter said that they are against this type of libertarian idealism. Because the result is that it isn't a flat democracy. Instead folks like Musk end up with huge amounts of power. Specifically you need to understand what they said here: "If power is concentrated in government, it's as bad if it's concentrated with an individual with his own private police force." The implication is that the commentator wants power evenly distributed. The opposite of your wrong accusation of the commenter wanting power concentrated in a majority. Nowhere was flat democracy mentioned. You invented that line of thinking.
      - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
        flat democracy in this case means no power concentration and everyone votes on everything. as opposed to what the US currently has, which is a representational democracy where power is concentrated at the government level with people electing others to represent them (and to wield more power than they, themselves, do). ---- If someone tells you power concentrated in the government is bad and power should be evenly distributed, they're talking about a flat democracy (aka direct democracy). Which goes back to what I said initially. What if the people want slaves? What if they want segregated schools? Because at one point the majority actually did want these things. People who argue for things like this imagine that only good will come from it. Not only is that not true, we have precedent that it's not true.