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The most dangerous entity in a democratic country is a widespread belief that voting doesn't work.
by spaceribs 2y ago
The most dangerous entity in a democratic country is a widespread belief that voting doesn't work.
- int_19h 2y agoVoting works in a sense that when society is in a "somebody ought to do something about it!" panic mode over some issue, it can make "something" happen. It is very rare for that to actually translate to good policy, though. If you're lucky, best case, you get a crutch that treats some of the symptoms. Worst case, you get a knee-jerk reaction that makes everything worse.
- robertlagrant 2y ago> The most dangerous entity in a democratic country is a widespread belief that voting doesn't work. I don't know that that's true. Voting is so low resolution a signal, between two options, on 10000 issues, that it is pretty meaningless in terms of policy. You could say it works in the sense that your team gets in, though.
- spaceribs 2y agoThat's certainly a critique of voting systems, but there are plenty of ways to increase the resolution of that signal.
- robertlagrant 2y agoPerhaps, but equally populations are growing, so each person's signal gets less and less valuable over time. Democracies birthed in places with a high sense of buy-in and relatively few people voting would've felt very different to how things feel today, and I don't know how many ways there are to rectify that.