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Oh come on. We already have a working system: direct democracy. An entire well-developed country works like this: Switzerland (and quite successfully). I absolu

Oh come on. We already have a working system: direct democracy. An entire well-developed country works like this: Switzerland (and quite successfully). I absolutely do not understand why it is not adopted elsewhere (except politicians egos, of course, and this is quite a strong force to overcome).

ramraj07 4y ago
Switzerland is never a good example. A homogenous small nation that’s immensely gifted resource wise, is rich by any measure of that word, and is immune and protected from damn near anything, can make any system work. Most nations are not like that.
- julienreszka 4y ago
  >Switzerland >Homogenous There are four language regions, how is it homogenous.
  - ramraj07 4y ago
    There are more languages spoken in individual provinces in india. Language is not a source of heterogeneity. Pretty much all heterogeneity in the world was invented and entrenched due to colonial rule, so you can hopefully understand what I mean by not heterogenous.
- atemerev 4y ago
  “Immensely gifted resource-wise”? In what world? Also, it speaks four languages, and more than a quarter of its population are immigrants — not what I’d call “homogeneous”. Switzerland is an exception (and a rich one) _because_ it is a direct democracy, I’d argue.
somenameforme 4y ago
Switzerland's been exceptional for many decades. They managed to remain genuinely neutral during both World Wars even as the world melted down right outside their borders, remain one of the few governments not dominated by the copyright cartel (for instance personal use copyright infringement is legal in Switzerland), and of course their direct democracy system. They do their own system, and they do it in a very social and capable fashion. But how long will this last? By contrast over there was an interesting recent poll: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33454449 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33454449 The majority of Americans now support new stimulus checks to combat inflation. I'm increasingly persuaded by Plato's 5 Regime's view. In a nutshell, each system has its own virtue which taken to extremes becomes its vice and leads to its downfall and transition into the next system. The 5 regimes being Aristocracy, Timocracy (an implicitly anti-materialist government driven by systems of honor - think Spartans or Klingons - the Wiki page on this topic is simply wrong), Oligarchy, Democracy, and Tyranny.
timbit42 4y ago
Having an Electoral College is not direct democracy.

ramraj07 4y ago

Switzerland is never a good example. A homogenous small nation that’s immensely gifted resource wise, is rich by any measure of that word, and is immune and protected from damn near anything, can make any system work. Most nations are not like that.

julienreszka 4y ago
>Switzerland >Homogenous There are four language regions, how is it homogenous.
- ramraj07 4y ago
  There are more languages spoken in individual provinces in india. Language is not a source of heterogeneity. Pretty much all heterogeneity in the world was invented and entrenched due to colonial rule, so you can hopefully understand what I mean by not heterogenous.
atemerev 4y ago
“Immensely gifted resource-wise”? In what world? Also, it speaks four languages, and more than a quarter of its population are immigrants — not what I’d call “homogeneous”. Switzerland is an exception (and a rich one) _because_ it is a direct democracy, I’d argue.

somenameforme 4y ago

Switzerland's been exceptional for many decades. They managed to remain genuinely neutral during both World Wars even as the world melted down right outside their borders, remain one of the few governments not dominated by the copyright cartel (for instance personal use copyright infringement is legal in Switzerland), and of course their direct democracy system. They do their own system, and they do it in a very social and capable fashion. But how long will this last? By contrast over there was an interesting recent poll: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33454449 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33454449 The majority of Americans now support new stimulus checks to combat inflation. I'm increasingly persuaded by Plato's 5 Regime's view. In a nutshell, each system has its own virtue which taken to extremes becomes its vice and leads to its downfall and transition into the next system. The 5 regimes being Aristocracy, Timocracy (an implicitly anti-materialist government driven by systems of honor - think Spartans or Klingons - the Wiki page on this topic is simply wrong), Oligarchy, Democracy, and Tyranny.

timbit42 4y ago

Having an Electoral College is not direct democracy.