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> And most certainly, these assistants ("leaders" as you call them) should not be picking their successors without our consent. Whether they pick them or you p

> And most certainly, these assistants ("leaders" as you call them) should not be picking their successors without our consent. Whether they pick them or you pick them, you still have the same problem. Bad people often get into office. Politicians lie, major parties both run bad candidates, sometimes voters are of the inclination to just elect whoever they think will mount the strongest assault on the status quo. Expecting that never to happen is a lot less pragmatic than setting things up ahead of time to mitigate the damage when it does.

martin-t 1y ago
> sometimes voters are of the inclination to just elect whoever they think will mount the strongest assault on the status quo This is absolutely a thing and it's a thing because at some point, people notice how little power they actually have. Every person's opinion is a point in N-dimensional space. Representative democracy is describing that point (expressing their political opinion) by picking 1 point out of a handful of pre-determined options (parties/representatives). Some countries only have 2 real choices. That's absolutely insane, no wonder people feel like their vote doesn't matter, they often can't even find a choice remotely close to their real preferences.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  First past the post is bad. Score voting is good. Guess which one we currently use.
potato3732842 1y ago
>Bad people often get into office. The constraints of the office ought to account for that.
- armchairhacker 1y ago
  But the people in office need some power, enough to cause problems if they're bad. Otherwise you have the failures of no government: "might makes right", no coordinated projects, no defense, etc.; or another group (e.g. corporation) becomes the de-facto government. Hence the root problem, that we haven't discovered a way to consistently have "good" government, whether it's a dictatorship or democracy. Perhaps with technology, we can invent a better form of government, e.g. a "super-democracy" where people vote on individual decisions (though even today I can imagine issues that would cause). Until then, the key point I make is that you can have a government where some people ("leaders") do have more power than others, but not enough power for total control. The hopefully-realistic ideal is that the government has enough power to defend itself against an external threat always, and coordinate large projects when functioning well; but not too much so that, when functioning badly, essential internal systems are preserved, and when it's replaced (because as mentioned it will eventually collapse) the transition is minimally disruptive.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    >Otherwise you have the failures of no government: "might makes right", no coordinated projects, no defense, etc.; or another group (e.g. corporation) becomes the de-facto government. We're pretty f-ing far from even having to think about those problems.
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    > But the people in office need some power, enough to cause problems if they're bad. Otherwise you have the failures of no government: "might makes right", no coordinated projects, no defense, etc.; or another group (e.g. corporation) becomes the de-facto government. You can prohibit the government from doing things it should never do (e.g. mass surveillance) without prohibiting it from doing things it ought to be doing (e.g. enforcing antitrust laws). The problem is we currently do the opposite: The government is doing mass surveillance but not antitrust enforcement.
    - 20after4 1y ago
      Obviously some very powerful and motivated people disagree with you about what the government ought to be doing. Sadly I think there are more highly motivated, extremely selfish and destructive people than there are people who are capable and altruistic.

martin-t 1y ago

> sometimes voters are of the inclination to just elect whoever they think will mount the strongest assault on the status quo This is absolutely a thing and it's a thing because at some point, people notice how little power they actually have. Every person's opinion is a point in N-dimensional space. Representative democracy is describing that point (expressing their political opinion) by picking 1 point out of a handful of pre-determined options (parties/representatives). Some countries only have 2 real choices. That's absolutely insane, no wonder people feel like their vote doesn't matter, they often can't even find a choice remotely close to their real preferences.

AnthonyMouse 1y ago
First past the post is bad. Score voting is good. Guess which one we currently use.

potato3732842 1y ago

>Bad people often get into office. The constraints of the office ought to account for that.

armchairhacker 1y ago
But the people in office need some power, enough to cause problems if they're bad. Otherwise you have the failures of no government: "might makes right", no coordinated projects, no defense, etc.; or another group (e.g. corporation) becomes the de-facto government. Hence the root problem, that we haven't discovered a way to consistently have "good" government, whether it's a dictatorship or democracy. Perhaps with technology, we can invent a better form of government, e.g. a "super-democracy" where people vote on individual decisions (though even today I can imagine issues that would cause). Until then, the key point I make is that you can have a government where some people ("leaders") do have more power than others, but not enough power for total control. The hopefully-realistic ideal is that the government has enough power to defend itself against an external threat always, and coordinate large projects when functioning well; but not too much so that, when functioning badly, essential internal systems are preserved, and when it's replaced (because as mentioned it will eventually collapse) the transition is minimally disruptive.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >Otherwise you have the failures of no government: "might makes right", no coordinated projects, no defense, etc.; or another group (e.g. corporation) becomes the de-facto government. We're pretty f-ing far from even having to think about those problems.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  > But the people in office need some power, enough to cause problems if they're bad. Otherwise you have the failures of no government: "might makes right", no coordinated projects, no defense, etc.; or another group (e.g. corporation) becomes the de-facto government. You can prohibit the government from doing things it should never do (e.g. mass surveillance) without prohibiting it from doing things it ought to be doing (e.g. enforcing antitrust laws). The problem is we currently do the opposite: The government is doing mass surveillance but not antitrust enforcement.
  - 20after4 1y ago
    Obviously some very powerful and motivated people disagree with you about what the government ought to be doing. Sadly I think there are more highly motivated, extremely selfish and destructive people than there are people who are capable and altruistic.