4 ms·

- i do not believe that there is any country in the world today that has a functioning democracy. Because we are not living in ideal word. Truly functioning de

- i do not believe that there is any country in the world today that has a functioning democracy. Because we are not living in ideal word. Truly functioning democracy require freedom of knowledge to have free and conscious decision in voting. Our decisions are shaped mostly by media. Which is, again, centralized. Also, if you want to be elected by people, you need to be a populist. So democratic system tend to shape peoples mind either on left or right and gather them about specific ideas. For me, it makes unnatural dividing of people to categories and instead of solving problems together, we fight each other. - basically i believe that decisions or rules should be made at the lowest level needed for that rule to be useful. Absolutely agree. - that means, things like traffic rules should be made at a national or better even global level because it is not helpful to have different rules for that in every city. same goes for issues like polution. those are global problems. I don't agree with global level. Nations has different wealth, different technologies, etc. You cannot apply same rules for US or India. Same for pollution. For example US made huge capital on pollution in 20th century. Would you ban developing country to obtain their capital from pollution today and made similar wealth as US previously? - there should be zero taxes or zero mandated contributions of any form. There should be absolute minimal taxes and no mandates. Consequences forces communities naturally to finance what is important. - how would a political or electoral system look like that enables those things? I'm not sure how it should look like, but I would like to free ourselves from the idea of needed rulers above our lives. We willing to put our responsibilities to authority, which dispatch our decisions from consequences.

em-bee 3y ago
Because we are not living in ideal word. i agree with every point in that paragraph. I don't agree with global level. Nations has different wealth, different technologies, etc. You cannot apply same rules for US or India with traffic rules i meant the general stuff, like on which side to drive on, the colors of traffic lights, the design of street signs. those are pretty much already a global standard, and rightly so. because it does not make sense to have those work differently in different countries. of course there should always be carveouts for regional specifics. we don't need kangaroo warning signs in austria. other examples are things that are for the most part already global standards. like the metric system. yes, the US should literally be forced to change here. it's become the laughing stock of the world on that issue. also copyright law. etc. money should be global. we don't need different currencies. maybe punishment for serious crimes. human rights. but on the other side there are many things that are global or almost global now, that should not, or need not be. Same for pollution. For example US made huge capital on pollution in 20th century. Would you ban developing country to obtain their capital from pollution today and made similar wealth as US previously? well, yes and no. i agree with you that it is not fair to just stop everyone from polluting when their economy depends upon it. but as pollution is destroying our climate, we have to do something about it. we can't just allow some areas to pollute the world while other areas don't. it would not work. what would, and does happen is that that those countries that decided to limit their pollution just export their production to pollute elsewhere. what we do need to do however is to then enable other ways for these countries to prosper. we need to invest into those countries and build them up much like we built up some countries in asia and europe after world war 2. see more discussion on that in the thread on chocolate here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38073378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38073378 in particular this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38079451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38079451 I would like to free ourselves from the idea of needed rulers above our lives agreed. partly i see this as a historical problem. we started out with rulers being absolute, like kings, etc. eventually some started to elect their kings. etc. you know the history. that history is the reason we look at elected leaders as rulers above us. so we need to change the understanding. that those elected representatives are there to serve us. not we serve them. their responsibility is to take care of our problems, and find and propose just solutions and rules for us to be able to live together. there are a few things we can change to make the election system fairer: first of the whole party system is designed for conflict and not cooperation. get rid of it. each representative should be independent. no more toeing the party line. make decisions only based on your conscience. next point is a bit harder: get rid of the concept of candidates. don't allow election campaigns. don't allow media to promote certain people. let people get elected only based on their reputation as good citizens. this prevents influence of the elections by those who have more funding. but that only works in small communities, where people have a chance to know each other. for big cities that practically means elections per neighborhood. elect multiple people per neighborhood. also give each person multiple votes. maybe as many votes as the number of people to be elected. multiple votes avoids that a majority of votes concentrate on a single person. because everyone has to still assign the other votes they have. these are then the community/neighborhood representatives, and they make decisions for their neighborhood. elections on a higher level are made from those elected at a lower level. all the way to the top. this levels the playing field and it allows good people to become elected without financial resources. i don't think a perfect system is possible. but this system would remove a lot of friction, combined with favoring decisions at a local level, it would be a lot better than anything we have currently.
- t0bia_s 3y ago
  ...we need to invest into those countries and build them up much like we built up some countries I find investment like this quite a problematic. It makes places, that would be naturally inhabited, artificially alive with huge cost. It's not sustainable approach. Generally all kinds of grants makes inequalities in society. Either, you have free market that naturally shape possibilities. Or you brake it by investments and grants. Learning process how to obtain a capital and manage it is more valuable than giving sources to dilettantes. Sure, we have mechanisms that control, how well is grant spent but then you invest time to control, instead of developing. we started out with rulers being absolute, like kings, etc. Kings, in history, has much less impact to personal life than politics nowadays. Due to globalization, technology and overall amount of laws, restrictions and regulations spread in it. 2020 is great example how fear that has been spread in mass media, lockdown almost whole world. so we need to change the understanding. that those elected representatives are there to serve us. not we serve them. their responsibility is to take care of our problems, and find and propose just solutions and rules for us to be able to live together. They will serve to power. Because being elected in democracy means being a populist. It's not about serving to people at first place. You cannot win elections with this in democratic system. no more toeing the party line. make decisions only based on your conscience. While I agree, I'm not sure if individualism is a way to go. Conscience is shaped, mostly in childhood by your parents. If you grow up in pathological environment, later you spread same behavior. Notice that normalization of being a victim, unstable and a deviant is strong nowadays. I prefer dialogue, going out from comfort zone and cultivation of mind by active socialization. Note that this is not rhetoric we can observe today with amount of time spent affront of screen. Alone in our safe bubbles. also give each person multiple votes. There are some methods, that could improve voting system, like D21 (1.) Basically it operate with possibilities of voting with two plus votes and one negative vote. That negative vote could eliminate populism in political campaigns. I'm not saying its perfect, but idea of giving one vote to someone, who is chosen by party or promoted by public opinion polls is just an illusion of free vote. i don't think a perfect system is possible. It never will be. But more dangerous is a thinking, that we have perfect democratic system and there are no other options. Usually those who are afraid of changes comes up with communism. Well... I live in post-communistic country and we still face communistic rhetoric in democratic state, usually from those, who name themselves as anti-communists. So again, we came back to circle, where political system tend to put individuals to categories and let them fight each other. (1.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D21_%E2%80%93_Jane%C4%8Dek_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D21_%E2%80%93_Jane%C4%8Dek_met...

em-bee 3y ago

Because we are not living in ideal word. i agree with every point in that paragraph. I don't agree with global level. Nations has different wealth, different technologies, etc. You cannot apply same rules for US or India with traffic rules i meant the general stuff, like on which side to drive on, the colors of traffic lights, the design of street signs. those are pretty much already a global standard, and rightly so. because it does not make sense to have those work differently in different countries. of course there should always be carveouts for regional specifics. we don't need kangaroo warning signs in austria. other examples are things that are for the most part already global standards. like the metric system. yes, the US should literally be forced to change here. it's become the laughing stock of the world on that issue. also copyright law. etc. money should be global. we don't need different currencies. maybe punishment for serious crimes. human rights. but on the other side there are many things that are global or almost global now, that should not, or need not be. Same for pollution. For example US made huge capital on pollution in 20th century. Would you ban developing country to obtain their capital from pollution today and made similar wealth as US previously? well, yes and no. i agree with you that it is not fair to just stop everyone from polluting when their economy depends upon it. but as pollution is destroying our climate, we have to do something about it. we can't just allow some areas to pollute the world while other areas don't. it would not work. what would, and does happen is that that those countries that decided to limit their pollution just export their production to pollute elsewhere. what we do need to do however is to then enable other ways for these countries to prosper. we need to invest into those countries and build them up much like we built up some countries in asia and europe after world war 2. see more discussion on that in the thread on chocolate here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38073378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38073378 in particular this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38079451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38079451 I would like to free ourselves from the idea of needed rulers above our lives agreed. partly i see this as a historical problem. we started out with rulers being absolute, like kings, etc. eventually some started to elect their kings. etc. you know the history. that history is the reason we look at elected leaders as rulers above us. so we need to change the understanding. that those elected representatives are there to serve us. not we serve them. their responsibility is to take care of our problems, and find and propose just solutions and rules for us to be able to live together. there are a few things we can change to make the election system fairer: first of the whole party system is designed for conflict and not cooperation. get rid of it. each representative should be independent. no more toeing the party line. make decisions only based on your conscience. next point is a bit harder: get rid of the concept of candidates. don't allow election campaigns. don't allow media to promote certain people. let people get elected only based on their reputation as good citizens. this prevents influence of the elections by those who have more funding. but that only works in small communities, where people have a chance to know each other. for big cities that practically means elections per neighborhood. elect multiple people per neighborhood. also give each person multiple votes. maybe as many votes as the number of people to be elected. multiple votes avoids that a majority of votes concentrate on a single person. because everyone has to still assign the other votes they have. these are then the community/neighborhood representatives, and they make decisions for their neighborhood. elections on a higher level are made from those elected at a lower level. all the way to the top. this levels the playing field and it allows good people to become elected without financial resources. i don't think a perfect system is possible. but this system would remove a lot of friction, combined with favoring decisions at a local level, it would be a lot better than anything we have currently.

t0bia_s 3y ago
...we need to invest into those countries and build them up much like we built up some countries I find investment like this quite a problematic. It makes places, that would be naturally inhabited, artificially alive with huge cost. It's not sustainable approach. Generally all kinds of grants makes inequalities in society. Either, you have free market that naturally shape possibilities. Or you brake it by investments and grants. Learning process how to obtain a capital and manage it is more valuable than giving sources to dilettantes. Sure, we have mechanisms that control, how well is grant spent but then you invest time to control, instead of developing. we started out with rulers being absolute, like kings, etc. Kings, in history, has much less impact to personal life than politics nowadays. Due to globalization, technology and overall amount of laws, restrictions and regulations spread in it. 2020 is great example how fear that has been spread in mass media, lockdown almost whole world. so we need to change the understanding. that those elected representatives are there to serve us. not we serve them. their responsibility is to take care of our problems, and find and propose just solutions and rules for us to be able to live together. They will serve to power. Because being elected in democracy means being a populist. It's not about serving to people at first place. You cannot win elections with this in democratic system. no more toeing the party line. make decisions only based on your conscience. While I agree, I'm not sure if individualism is a way to go. Conscience is shaped, mostly in childhood by your parents. If you grow up in pathological environment, later you spread same behavior. Notice that normalization of being a victim, unstable and a deviant is strong nowadays. I prefer dialogue, going out from comfort zone and cultivation of mind by active socialization. Note that this is not rhetoric we can observe today with amount of time spent affront of screen. Alone in our safe bubbles. also give each person multiple votes. There are some methods, that could improve voting system, like D21 (1.) Basically it operate with possibilities of voting with two plus votes and one negative vote. That negative vote could eliminate populism in political campaigns. I'm not saying its perfect, but idea of giving one vote to someone, who is chosen by party or promoted by public opinion polls is just an illusion of free vote. i don't think a perfect system is possible. It never will be. But more dangerous is a thinking, that we have perfect democratic system and there are no other options. Usually those who are afraid of changes comes up with communism. Well... I live in post-communistic country and we still face communistic rhetoric in democratic state, usually from those, who name themselves as anti-communists. So again, we came back to circle, where political system tend to put individuals to categories and let them fight each other. (1.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D21_%E2%80%93_Jane%C4%8Dek_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D21_%E2%80%93_Jane%C4%8Dek_met...