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For a democracy to make sense, the people need to be educated enough to understand policy that affects them and they need access to accurate and timely informat

For a democracy to make sense, the people need to be educated enough to understand policy that affects them and they need access to accurate and timely information (a functioning 4th estate). If either of those two are false, then full democracy becomes a force of destruction and harm. Partial democracy where local governance is democratic but provincial and national level governance cannot be directed by the voice of the people is more tenable. Contrary to common sentiment, there is nothing about democracy that makes it inherently correct. democracy isn't a religion and the form of governance a nation chooses should be adjusted and tuned over time. I won't comment on current matters, but I will say that education and press should have been fundamental institutions of the American republic, the same way the supreme court and the house of reps are. It isn't enough that the freedom (and responsibility!) of the press is a right, an organization to manage and protect it should have been established, as should have an organization to maintain and police education.

RhysU 2y ago
> Contrary to common sentiment, there is nothing about democracy that makes it inherently correct. "Least bad" is all anyone claims.
- Swenrekcah 2y ago
  True, but even “least bad” is not correct unless the public is well informed [as in not being fed misinformation] and in a rational state of mind [as in not scared of or trained to despise the jews, immigrants, woke etc.]. The difference in election outcomes around the 1930s, 1990s and 2020s can be mostly explained by these factors.
  - harimau777 2y ago
    Perhaps it would be more useful to consider "least bad" over a reasonable period of time. That is to say, there are probably times when, due to the factors you mention, the people steer democracy to do something bad that a strong dictator or group of elders would not have done. However, over a given period of time, it's likely that a democracy does less bad things then the alternatives.
  - RhysU 2y ago
    > well informed That's a hell of a dangerous phrase. Usually, it means that the speaker is frustrated that the broader public is not curatedly informed in a way that makes them vote how the speaker wants them to vote. The great, and terrifying, thing about democracy is that everyone can be informed however they're informed and usually we don't literally burn everything all the way to the ground.
    - Swenrekcah 1y ago
      You can relax, I specifically mentioned misinformation. That is what is dangerous. People can get their news from different outlets with different priorities and that is all well and good. What has happened at a large scale more recently is that bad actors actively feed people factually wrong stories and those are increasingly the only stories they get. There were always those who sought to do this but the vaccine was that they could never monopolise people’s attentions the way that has become possible lately. It is perfectly fine for people to have different opinions and vote differently, it is just very important that it is based on factual representation of the world.
      - RhysU 1y ago
        > What has happened at a large scale more recently is that bad actors actively feed people factually wrong stories and those are increasingly the only stories they get. Powerful actors spreading incorrect information to serve their own ends is nothing new. Remember when the consensus was that the Earth was the center of the solar system? And when Galileo was prosecuted for spreading misinformation? That was about 400 years ago. "Misinformation" implies "It is inconvenient for someone to hold the perspective because it threatens my power". Otherwise, we just call such notions wrong, incorrect, lies, falsehoods, invalid, etc. "Misinformation" is just as dangerous as "well informed". What we now collectively know as a species was not infrequently once wrong according to some powerful historical consensus.
        Swenrekcah 1y ago
        I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make. I said it is not new but the scale and pervasiveness and especially the personal targeting is new. And yes, that is what misinformation is, lies and falsehoods presented as news. Remember, honest reporting of events can emphasise different aspects. That is well and good. It’s the dishonesty and disregard for truth that makes misinformation. > "Misinformation" is just as dangerous as "well informed". Much of what we now collectively know as a species was once wrong according to some powerful historical consensus. This is just like saying that ignorance is just as good as education because sometimes theories are invalidated when better information comes along. So why bother at all then, kind of mindset.
gradus_ad 2y ago
Democracy is not about policy or institutions. Those are downstream of what democracy is really about, which is the Demos. The community. The people themselves who recognize each other as being like themselves in some fundamental, exclusive way. This is beyond reason or rationality. It is a matter of arbitrary culture, history and identity. Policy in a complex system like society is infinitely debatable and no amount of education will ever find a "right" or optimal answer to the hard questions a society faces. Division and partisanship is guaranteed in a democracy that allows free debate and expression, regardless of the level of education among the people. The most acrimonious debates often take place among the most educated of the citizenry. Therefore something else must sustain the people as a community and bind them together.
- notepad0x90 2y ago
  I wasn't talking about the meaning of democracy but its practical implementation. In practice, all systems of governance are built upon institutions. > Policy in a complex system like society is infinitely debatable and no amount of education will ever find a "right" or optimal answer to the hard questions a society faces. You are right on the first part, which is why voters need to understand policy that affect them and vote for the people they want. I didn't mention anything about the policy or their vote being correct, just that they should understand it when voting. > Division and partisanship is guaranteed in a democracy that allows free debate and expression, regardless of the level of education among the people. The purpose of education is not to avoid those things you mentioned but so that debates and disagreements happen between well informed voters, not deceived voters that vote and disagree based on vibes and manipulation by malicious forces and deceptive demagogues. More debates and disagreements between actual well informed voters is a sign of a very healthy democracy. Hatred, treason and violence are not. > Therefore something else must sustain the people as a community and bind them together. Yeah, actually liking their country and educating themselves enough about the policy and choices being made on their behalf, that's what. Education here doesn't mean a phd in chemistry, it means reading,writing, critical thinking skills and being able to consume news and information and discerning facts from fiction.
teamonkey 2y ago
Democracy is based on citizens making informed decisions about how they are to be run, therefore misinformation is a fundamental assault on democracy.
- criddell 2y ago
  Politicians know that using emotional arguments is much more effective than factual arguments. I don’t really expect that to change anytime soon.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
    One could hope for emotional, factual arguments ...
  - teamonkey 2y ago
    Those elected to power can and should be held to a higher standard than the citizens that they serve, and that could include freedoms of speech. An analogue might be how a CEO and board of directors are limited by law about what they can say publicly, so that they do not mislead shareholders.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
mrangle 2y ago
"Truth" in Education, understanding, and Press easily becomes "propaganda and lies" without the system blinking nor anyone being notified. The only way to ensure the existence of truth is to give people a choice in what to believe. There are no wildflowers (truth) without also permitting weeds (lies). Certainly, no "organization to manage and protect" can be trusted to manage and protect truth. The democratic ideal is that people are permitted to come to their own conclusions, given all arguments. Not that the arguments are institutionally restricted. What happens when your ideological opponents suddenly come into control of the "truth police"? Freedom to choose is the only protection, unless one's goal isn't democratic.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  > The only way to ensure the existence of truth is [...] there is no way to ensure the existence of a thing until there is first some consensus on how the thing is defined. with the conservative right adopting and extending foucault-era post-modern epistemology ("alternative facts", "that's just, like, your opinion"), it isn't even possible to discuss what "the truth" is, because the agreement on what how we would arrive at an answer is has been undermined (intentionally so, IMO). for some period of time, much of the west's population bought into the idea that truth was arrived at using some variety of evidence collection, falsification, logic, experimentation and debate. this consensus has been undermined to the point where questions like "do vaccines cause autism" can be asked without any willingness to engage with the historical definition of how a true answer would be arrived at.
  - mrangle 2y ago
    I'm speaking about an environment that passively allows truth by default, because of truly free speech. Something that works simply, and that people can simply understand. Which is a prerequisite for democracy. You're arguing for active assurance of truth, assumedly forced on people, which isn't possible in principle. While using pseudo-intellectual refences to Foucault and the scientific method in an attempt to slyly imply that, in the end, truth has to be defined by your party interests. I argue for freedom of individual choice, which is the fundamental democratic principle. You're arguing for the need for society wide consensus in belief, which is not a democratic principle. Does a willingness to engage with the historical definition of how a true answer "would be arrived at" include the functional banning of future science and debate? For the record, I wrote a graduate paper on the best evidence for the cause of autism. Not that the then-current best evidence definitely revealed the cause, but only that it was the best evidence at the time. Although the evidence did not point to vaccines, I would hold anyone who wanted to ban such debate as being too academically compromised to be a member of the scientific community. In private, I would be more direct.
globnomulous 2y ago
Classical Athens offers a fascinating example. It was a radical democracy of citizens who certainly understood what they were doing, and it became the most imperially ambitious, expansive, destructive, and exploitative polis of the classical period. They put an entire city to death for refusing to join the 'defensive' alliance that they led and massively enriched themselves at the expense of member states.
- notepad0x90 1y ago
  Sure, but their society prospered and the actions of the state reflected the will of the people. That's a big caveat with democracy, it can only be as good as the majority of people.

RhysU 2y ago

> Contrary to common sentiment, there is nothing about democracy that makes it inherently correct. "Least bad" is all anyone claims.

Swenrekcah 2y ago
True, but even “least bad” is not correct unless the public is well informed [as in not being fed misinformation] and in a rational state of mind [as in not scared of or trained to despise the jews, immigrants, woke etc.]. The difference in election outcomes around the 1930s, 1990s and 2020s can be mostly explained by these factors.
- harimau777 2y ago
  Perhaps it would be more useful to consider "least bad" over a reasonable period of time. That is to say, there are probably times when, due to the factors you mention, the people steer democracy to do something bad that a strong dictator or group of elders would not have done. However, over a given period of time, it's likely that a democracy does less bad things then the alternatives.
- RhysU 2y ago
  > well informed That's a hell of a dangerous phrase. Usually, it means that the speaker is frustrated that the broader public is not curatedly informed in a way that makes them vote how the speaker wants them to vote. The great, and terrifying, thing about democracy is that everyone can be informed however they're informed and usually we don't literally burn everything all the way to the ground.
  - Swenrekcah 1y ago
    You can relax, I specifically mentioned misinformation. That is what is dangerous. People can get their news from different outlets with different priorities and that is all well and good. What has happened at a large scale more recently is that bad actors actively feed people factually wrong stories and those are increasingly the only stories they get. There were always those who sought to do this but the vaccine was that they could never monopolise people’s attentions the way that has become possible lately. It is perfectly fine for people to have different opinions and vote differently, it is just very important that it is based on factual representation of the world.
    - RhysU 1y ago
      > What has happened at a large scale more recently is that bad actors actively feed people factually wrong stories and those are increasingly the only stories they get. Powerful actors spreading incorrect information to serve their own ends is nothing new. Remember when the consensus was that the Earth was the center of the solar system? And when Galileo was prosecuted for spreading misinformation? That was about 400 years ago. "Misinformation" implies "It is inconvenient for someone to hold the perspective because it threatens my power". Otherwise, we just call such notions wrong, incorrect, lies, falsehoods, invalid, etc. "Misinformation" is just as dangerous as "well informed". What we now collectively know as a species was not infrequently once wrong according to some powerful historical consensus.
      - Swenrekcah 1y ago
        I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make. I said it is not new but the scale and pervasiveness and especially the personal targeting is new. And yes, that is what misinformation is, lies and falsehoods presented as news. Remember, honest reporting of events can emphasise different aspects. That is well and good. It’s the dishonesty and disregard for truth that makes misinformation. > "Misinformation" is just as dangerous as "well informed". Much of what we now collectively know as a species was once wrong according to some powerful historical consensus. This is just like saying that ignorance is just as good as education because sometimes theories are invalidated when better information comes along. So why bother at all then, kind of mindset.

gradus_ad 2y ago

Democracy is not about policy or institutions. Those are downstream of what democracy is really about, which is the Demos. The community. The people themselves who recognize each other as being like themselves in some fundamental, exclusive way. This is beyond reason or rationality. It is a matter of arbitrary culture, history and identity. Policy in a complex system like society is infinitely debatable and no amount of education will ever find a "right" or optimal answer to the hard questions a society faces. Division and partisanship is guaranteed in a democracy that allows free debate and expression, regardless of the level of education among the people. The most acrimonious debates often take place among the most educated of the citizenry. Therefore something else must sustain the people as a community and bind them together.

notepad0x90 2y ago
I wasn't talking about the meaning of democracy but its practical implementation. In practice, all systems of governance are built upon institutions. > Policy in a complex system like society is infinitely debatable and no amount of education will ever find a "right" or optimal answer to the hard questions a society faces. You are right on the first part, which is why voters need to understand policy that affect them and vote for the people they want. I didn't mention anything about the policy or their vote being correct, just that they should understand it when voting. > Division and partisanship is guaranteed in a democracy that allows free debate and expression, regardless of the level of education among the people. The purpose of education is not to avoid those things you mentioned but so that debates and disagreements happen between well informed voters, not deceived voters that vote and disagree based on vibes and manipulation by malicious forces and deceptive demagogues. More debates and disagreements between actual well informed voters is a sign of a very healthy democracy. Hatred, treason and violence are not. > Therefore something else must sustain the people as a community and bind them together. Yeah, actually liking their country and educating themselves enough about the policy and choices being made on their behalf, that's what. Education here doesn't mean a phd in chemistry, it means reading,writing, critical thinking skills and being able to consume news and information and discerning facts from fiction.

teamonkey 2y ago

Democracy is based on citizens making informed decisions about how they are to be run, therefore misinformation is a fundamental assault on democracy.

criddell 2y ago
Politicians know that using emotional arguments is much more effective than factual arguments. I don’t really expect that to change anytime soon.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  One could hope for emotional, factual arguments ...
- teamonkey 2y ago
  Those elected to power can and should be held to a higher standard than the citizens that they serve, and that could include freedoms of speech. An analogue might be how a CEO and board of directors are limited by law about what they can say publicly, so that they do not mislead shareholders.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

mrangle 2y ago

"Truth" in Education, understanding, and Press easily becomes "propaganda and lies" without the system blinking nor anyone being notified. The only way to ensure the existence of truth is to give people a choice in what to believe. There are no wildflowers (truth) without also permitting weeds (lies). Certainly, no "organization to manage and protect" can be trusted to manage and protect truth. The democratic ideal is that people are permitted to come to their own conclusions, given all arguments. Not that the arguments are institutionally restricted. What happens when your ideological opponents suddenly come into control of the "truth police"? Freedom to choose is the only protection, unless one's goal isn't democratic.

PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
> The only way to ensure the existence of truth is [...] there is no way to ensure the existence of a thing until there is first some consensus on how the thing is defined. with the conservative right adopting and extending foucault-era post-modern epistemology ("alternative facts", "that's just, like, your opinion"), it isn't even possible to discuss what "the truth" is, because the agreement on what how we would arrive at an answer is has been undermined (intentionally so, IMO). for some period of time, much of the west's population bought into the idea that truth was arrived at using some variety of evidence collection, falsification, logic, experimentation and debate. this consensus has been undermined to the point where questions like "do vaccines cause autism" can be asked without any willingness to engage with the historical definition of how a true answer would be arrived at.
- mrangle 2y ago
  I'm speaking about an environment that passively allows truth by default, because of truly free speech. Something that works simply, and that people can simply understand. Which is a prerequisite for democracy. You're arguing for active assurance of truth, assumedly forced on people, which isn't possible in principle. While using pseudo-intellectual refences to Foucault and the scientific method in an attempt to slyly imply that, in the end, truth has to be defined by your party interests. I argue for freedom of individual choice, which is the fundamental democratic principle. You're arguing for the need for society wide consensus in belief, which is not a democratic principle. Does a willingness to engage with the historical definition of how a true answer "would be arrived at" include the functional banning of future science and debate? For the record, I wrote a graduate paper on the best evidence for the cause of autism. Not that the then-current best evidence definitely revealed the cause, but only that it was the best evidence at the time. Although the evidence did not point to vaccines, I would hold anyone who wanted to ban such debate as being too academically compromised to be a member of the scientific community. In private, I would be more direct.

globnomulous 2y ago

Classical Athens offers a fascinating example. It was a radical democracy of citizens who certainly understood what they were doing, and it became the most imperially ambitious, expansive, destructive, and exploitative polis of the classical period. They put an entire city to death for refusing to join the 'defensive' alliance that they led and massively enriched themselves at the expense of member states.

notepad0x90 1y ago
Sure, but their society prospered and the actions of the state reflected the will of the people. That's a big caveat with democracy, it can only be as good as the majority of people.