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Not a democracy? Oh no! But what does "democracy" even mean? And how does ranked-choice voting prevent a polity from being a "democracy"? Does the author re

Not a democracy? Oh no! But what does "democracy" even mean? And how does ranked-choice voting prevent a polity from being a "democracy"? Does the author realize that the Athenians also voted against people? Every so often, obnoxious politicians were ostracized. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism Ranked-choice voting can be, along similar lines, a way of voting against somebody. For whatever it's worth, the Athenians would be absolutely aghast at "representative democracy" -- feeling, as they did, that every male citizen was inherently a representative of Athens. (Hence Athenian travelers, little more than peddlers, felt capable of speaking on behalf of Athens when they once found themselves in Sparta.) The modern wage-earner, and not only in New York, is already more a Helot than an Athenian.

watwut 1y ago
None of what you wrote is relevant to the topic. Literally no one was talking about history of thousands years ago. It literally does not matter.
- A_D_E_P_T 1y ago
  Did you even read the article? Well, think about it a little bit. It started with a sensationalist, click-bait headline that received no clarification or support in the text. Then it bellyached a little bit over how ranked-choice voting (1) penalizes candidates that are disliked by broad segments of the populace, and (2) enables strategic "coalitions" and endorsements. As if that's somehow undemocratic? It merely enables practices that are somewhat akin to the old practice of voting against somebody, which the ancients would recognize as far more democratic than the alternative. We live in the worst and most limited form of "democracy" possible -- if it is even worthy of the name. Anything that gives the populace more choices, more options, more power is always good.
  - watwut 1y ago
    Your rant about Athens and Sparta is wholy irrelevant to any of that and to the article. Just because Athens is effectively an origin myth for democracy does not mean an incoherent rant about it is relevant to anything today nor to how we define the word.
    - A_D_E_P_T 1y ago
      When somebody says "X is democratic" or "Y is not democratic" I find it's often very helpful to compare it to the original. By that token, we're not a democracy right now, and ranked-choice voting -- far from making things worse -- is a small step in the right direction. (And plebiscites on all important bills would be far better still.) Read the classics. Everything important about politics, and about the classification of political structures, has already been hashed out. > relevant to anything today nor to how we define the word. I take it you have a better definition?
      - watwut 1y ago
        I do not find it useful at all. Athens would not even qualify as democracy by our todays standards. Sparta was oppressive dictatorship, effectively nazi like country.
jfengel 1y ago
It seems a weird argument to make. I don't think that ranked-choice voting will actually help all that much, but it's absurd to say that it's "not democracy". Elections are always ambiguous when there are more than two candidates. Ken Arrow won a Nobel Prize for proving it, but it's pretty intuitive even without the proof. A majority is clear, but with more than two candidates you're not guaranteed a majority. Strategic voting will cause you to vote for somebody other than your favorite. You can handle that a lot of different ways: runoffs, instant-runoffs, alternative votes, approval voting, etc. But there's no such thing as a democratic system that always gives you a binary choice between exactly two candidates -- unless somebody is dictatorially reducing the field to two. Primary elections are inherently multi-way, and ranked choice is as good a way to deal with that as any. It's bizarre to call that non-democratic. That sounds as if they're wishing away the problems facing any democratic choice.

watwut 1y ago

None of what you wrote is relevant to the topic. Literally no one was talking about history of thousands years ago. It literally does not matter.

A_D_E_P_T 1y ago
Did you even read the article? Well, think about it a little bit. It started with a sensationalist, click-bait headline that received no clarification or support in the text. Then it bellyached a little bit over how ranked-choice voting (1) penalizes candidates that are disliked by broad segments of the populace, and (2) enables strategic "coalitions" and endorsements. As if that's somehow undemocratic? It merely enables practices that are somewhat akin to the old practice of voting against somebody, which the ancients would recognize as far more democratic than the alternative. We live in the worst and most limited form of "democracy" possible -- if it is even worthy of the name. Anything that gives the populace more choices, more options, more power is always good.
- watwut 1y ago
  Your rant about Athens and Sparta is wholy irrelevant to any of that and to the article. Just because Athens is effectively an origin myth for democracy does not mean an incoherent rant about it is relevant to anything today nor to how we define the word.
  - A_D_E_P_T 1y ago
    When somebody says "X is democratic" or "Y is not democratic" I find it's often very helpful to compare it to the original. By that token, we're not a democracy right now, and ranked-choice voting -- far from making things worse -- is a small step in the right direction. (And plebiscites on all important bills would be far better still.) Read the classics. Everything important about politics, and about the classification of political structures, has already been hashed out. > relevant to anything today nor to how we define the word. I take it you have a better definition?
    - watwut 1y ago
      I do not find it useful at all. Athens would not even qualify as democracy by our todays standards. Sparta was oppressive dictatorship, effectively nazi like country.

jfengel 1y ago

It seems a weird argument to make. I don't think that ranked-choice voting will actually help all that much, but it's absurd to say that it's "not democracy". Elections are always ambiguous when there are more than two candidates. Ken Arrow won a Nobel Prize for proving it, but it's pretty intuitive even without the proof. A majority is clear, but with more than two candidates you're not guaranteed a majority. Strategic voting will cause you to vote for somebody other than your favorite. You can handle that a lot of different ways: runoffs, instant-runoffs, alternative votes, approval voting, etc. But there's no such thing as a democratic system that always gives you a binary choice between exactly two candidates -- unless somebody is dictatorially reducing the field to two. Primary elections are inherently multi-way, and ranked choice is as good a way to deal with that as any. It's bizarre to call that non-democratic. That sounds as if they're wishing away the problems facing any democratic choice.