3 ms·

> Democracy is a means for empirical truth finding that’s resistant to manipulation. That's wrong in a number of ways. 1. Democracy is not, in any way, a mean

> Democracy is a means for empirical truth finding that’s resistant to manipulation. That's wrong in a number of ways. 1. Democracy is not, in any way, a means of truth finding. That's not simply what it does: propositons of truth are not an output of democracy. 2. Even if you create some mapping of the outputs of democracy to "truths" about anything other than "this is what this particular democracy produced at this particular time", popularity isn't empiricism. 3. Democracy is extremely sensitive, rather than resistant, to manipulation.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
rayiner 2y ago
Democracy is an empirical way of finding policies that work, where of course what “works” reflects what a particular population values. Democracy isn’t sensitive to manipulation. What’s really sensitive to manipulation is administrative systems run by credentialed professionals. Who invariably are captured by their petty interests and personal ideologies.
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  > Democracy is an empirical way of finding policies that work No, its not. At best, it is a source of policy variation which could be the input to an empirical process of discovering what works. > where of course what “works” reflects what a particular population values. Even dropping the improper reference to "empirical" and steel-manning your claim into "Democracy is a manner of progressively optimizing policy for a particular population over time", no, it really isn't, for a large number of reasons, starting with the fact that the "particular population" is in constant flux, and the policy changes produced by the system are an influence on that flux, so it it does as much to shape the population to the policy as vice versa.
- dctoedt 2y ago
  > Democracy isn’t sensitive to manipulation. So I guess Russia, China, Iran, etc., have been wasting their time and money in seeking to manipulate elections. And the thousands of political consultants around the globe have been just scamming the candidates for whom they work.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

rayiner 2y ago

Democracy is an empirical way of finding policies that work, where of course what “works” reflects what a particular population values. Democracy isn’t sensitive to manipulation. What’s really sensitive to manipulation is administrative systems run by credentialed professionals. Who invariably are captured by their petty interests and personal ideologies.

dragonwriter 2y ago
> Democracy is an empirical way of finding policies that work No, its not. At best, it is a source of policy variation which could be the input to an empirical process of discovering what works. > where of course what “works” reflects what a particular population values. Even dropping the improper reference to "empirical" and steel-manning your claim into "Democracy is a manner of progressively optimizing policy for a particular population over time", no, it really isn't, for a large number of reasons, starting with the fact that the "particular population" is in constant flux, and the policy changes produced by the system are an influence on that flux, so it it does as much to shape the population to the policy as vice versa.
dctoedt 2y ago
> Democracy isn’t sensitive to manipulation. So I guess Russia, China, Iran, etc., have been wasting their time and money in seeking to manipulate elections. And the thousands of political consultants around the globe have been just scamming the candidates for whom they work.