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>And a dictatorship. Democracy does not fit very well with long term plans Say again? If we're talking strictly about the United States as per the article that

>And a dictatorship. Democracy does not fit very well with long term plans Say again? If we're talking strictly about the United States as per the article that inspired this post, the U.S. is a case study of a prosperous, remarkably stable democracy steadily increasing its prosperity, wealth, influence and power while also for the vast majority of its history investing for the long term and in vital infrastructure. This process hasn't been constant or evenly incremental but it has been there for (now) literally centuries. The same could be said of Britain and many other developed countries on shorter but still reasonably long scales. On the other hand when you look at dictatorships in the wider scope of the modern era, the vast majority of them either invest explosively only to fail catastrophically at some point before reverting to some other variant of government, or countries that see their biggest failures happen during periods of dictatorship, and their major socioeconomic successes happen during periods of something at least approaching democracy and openness. There are exceptions to the above tendencies in favor of democracy, but China can't yet be called such. It has had only 80 years under its present dictatorship (preceded by decades of warlord rule, weakness and chaos) and of those only the last 40 have been ones of relatively stable growth, investment in major projects AND concurrent increases in prosperity. Under Mao it invested in certain major projects, but at nearly cataclysmic social, economic and human cost. Hardly a model, in those days, of dictatorship being applied to patient, wise planning. >Concerning the USA, the divide between the extra rich and the general poor is nowadays too large to have a functioning country. Really? Feel like sharing the mechanism by which these claims of overly severe wealth inequality will make the US collapse any time soon? Note also that as another comment above this mentions, the U.S has had more or less similar levels of said inequality for the last 100 years.... in which it functioned as a stable, relatively peaceful, democratic, increasingly prosperous society in which overall standards of living in absolute terms have gone up enormously.

flyinglizard 2y ago
In the US of 50 years ago, democracy was protected by codes of conduct, honor, and most importantly, strong content moderation in the form of monopolistic legacy media. All of this went out the door with the rise of social networks and the demise of legacy media. I don't see how democracy has the tools to survive populists with direct connection to the voting public. Even if elections happen in 2028, there's a good chance the pendulum will swing the other way and instead of thinking about moving forward we'll be locked in left/right destructive cycles, with the resulting purging of institutions, dramatic shifts in policies and just chaos all around.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  this is EXACTLY it. the rise of social media and demise of legacy media weaponized politicians to create flamewars over issues which are great for winning elections but have no real meaning for our day-to-day lives. wokeness, transgender athletes, how many genders we have on the web forms to choose from, how many "immigrants" are we going to deport... are entirely meaningless for 99.98% of the population. instead of talking about how to move the country forward the public discourse is now filled with meaningless "social wars." I do not see a way out of this and I am about as optimistic of a person as you'll find... I mentioned to my colleague few weeks back when we had to change the gender dropdown from tens of options to just two to just stash the changes till 2028 when we'll get 983 options for that same dropdown :)
  - nuancebydefault 2y ago
    Personally I don't see a use or benefit of large gender dropdowns. Either keep any existing m/f or simply remove it if you don't need to adress them as her or him. Imo making lists increases chances for stigmatization.
    - aisenik 2y ago
      "Large gender drop downs" is a canard, three is a large number for the purposes of their argument. It's not about gender dropdowns of any size other than exactly two as it's about strict enforcement of a rigid, patriarchal class hierarchy. Accepting "the purpose of a thing is what it does" is important for these times. So is avoiding the epistemic traps of disingenuous actors.
    - feoren 2y ago
      Most internet forms that ask for gender have absolutely no reason to care about that information. Basically, biological sex should matter to healthcare professionals, and gender should matter to virtually nobody. So yes, "simply remove it" should be the answer to this most of the time.
      - 2y ago
yakz 2y ago
> Note also that as another comment above this mentions, the U.S has had more or less similar levels of said inequality for the last 100 years This is not what it said. It said it was about the same 100 years ago. It improved for a long time before going back up.

flyinglizard 2y ago

In the US of 50 years ago, democracy was protected by codes of conduct, honor, and most importantly, strong content moderation in the form of monopolistic legacy media. All of this went out the door with the rise of social networks and the demise of legacy media. I don't see how democracy has the tools to survive populists with direct connection to the voting public. Even if elections happen in 2028, there's a good chance the pendulum will swing the other way and instead of thinking about moving forward we'll be locked in left/right destructive cycles, with the resulting purging of institutions, dramatic shifts in policies and just chaos all around.

bdangubic 2y ago
this is EXACTLY it. the rise of social media and demise of legacy media weaponized politicians to create flamewars over issues which are great for winning elections but have no real meaning for our day-to-day lives. wokeness, transgender athletes, how many genders we have on the web forms to choose from, how many "immigrants" are we going to deport... are entirely meaningless for 99.98% of the population. instead of talking about how to move the country forward the public discourse is now filled with meaningless "social wars." I do not see a way out of this and I am about as optimistic of a person as you'll find... I mentioned to my colleague few weeks back when we had to change the gender dropdown from tens of options to just two to just stash the changes till 2028 when we'll get 983 options for that same dropdown :)
- nuancebydefault 2y ago
  Personally I don't see a use or benefit of large gender dropdowns. Either keep any existing m/f or simply remove it if you don't need to adress them as her or him. Imo making lists increases chances for stigmatization.
  - aisenik 2y ago
    "Large gender drop downs" is a canard, three is a large number for the purposes of their argument. It's not about gender dropdowns of any size other than exactly two as it's about strict enforcement of a rigid, patriarchal class hierarchy. Accepting "the purpose of a thing is what it does" is important for these times. So is avoiding the epistemic traps of disingenuous actors.
  - feoren 2y ago
    Most internet forms that ask for gender have absolutely no reason to care about that information. Basically, biological sex should matter to healthcare professionals, and gender should matter to virtually nobody. So yes, "simply remove it" should be the answer to this most of the time.
    - 2y ago

yakz 2y ago

> Note also that as another comment above this mentions, the U.S has had more or less similar levels of said inequality for the last 100 years This is not what it said. It said it was about the same 100 years ago. It improved for a long time before going back up.