4 ms·

You can read all about the actual stories of minorities rising up to fight majorities in history books. This isn’t some hypothetical we have to approach from a

by dpark 10mo ago

You can read all about the actual stories of minorities rising up to fight majorities in history books. This isn’t some hypothetical we have to approach from a purely philosophical standpoint. All modern functioning democracies I’m aware of have a set of rights they have agreed everyone has a right to. This has largely been achieved through bloodshed. Your idea that we’re should devolve into feudal tribes seems quite obviously destined to result in a great deal of bloodshed. We have the term warlord to describe those who frequently end up in charge in this sort of arrangement. > a dictatorship is a minority rule yet you imply they can't exist because the majority would destroy the minority in power. Nowhere did I say or imply that. Those in power usually stay in power because they have power. Numbers are only one sort of power.

mothballed 10mo ago
Taiwan is considered by the Chinese to be part of China. Their strongest hypothetical allies, USA, when added to their population doesn't even come close to reaching the population of China. By all counts, they lose the popular vote of China (which again, considers Taiwan part of it). And China does not recognized their 'minority' government. Yet Taiwan still exists, all while having less military power than China. How is that? Seems to throw a bone in your whole idea that a rogue minority government in the envelope of a majority that considers them encompassing part of their country, is destined to fail or devolve into some pre-civilization caveman situation. >>> Keep going. What happens when the majority refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of the minority government? >> a dictatorship is a minority rule yet you imply they can't exist because the majority would destroy the minority in power. >Nowhere did I say or imply that. Those in power usually stay in power because they have power. Numbers are only one sort of power. And here we get to the truth of what you're saying. We can just handwave away 'numbers are only one sort of power' to mean literally anything could happen if the majority refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of the minority government. Including, most common on the world stage, simply carrying on with trade while maintaining a tenuous balance and the occasional wars that happen even on inter or intra democracy lines. Because most often, it's not worth a violent fight. So basically, nothing of interest beyond the status quo to note here. "Go down the hole deep enough" and you’ll figure out why my assertions are true -- the world is a collection of minorities in various alliances that manage to by those means still exist.
- dpark 10mo ago
  How’s Tibet doing? How’s it going in Georgia? Ukraine? How about the southern United States? Remember when they formed a confederacy and how well that worked out? Taiwan is largely protected by the US. I expect that absent some other interesting developments, Taiwan will indeed eventually be absorbed into China. And I already addressed the population comment. Population alone is not the only factor to power consolidation. I do wonder where you imagine all these disenfranchised minorities are expected to flee to in order to establish their independent nations or whatever. There’s literally no unclaimed land on the Earth aside from Antarctica. Are they going to flee to extremely undesirable areas of their existing country and hope the originating country just doesn’t care enough to stop them? Are they going to break away and take valuable land with them? It’s pretty rare for part of a nation to successfully cleave itself away. Even more rare without a massive war.
  - mothballed 10mo ago
    So your argument is what, Ukraine should be absorbed because the majority of the Ukraine-Russia say so since the majority of the people in that land mass say they're the same country and the majority also agree that country is Russia? I don't want to live in your dystopia. Your thesis is that if you just submit to the mob, violence could be less. I don't find life to be an optimization for the least amount of confrontation. I have never asserted my view of the world guarantees no violence. What you have to offer is basically well the same thing could happen to you as happened to a fraction of these other people unless of course you just submit to the mob. >I do wonder where you imagine all these disenfranchised minorities are expected to flee to in order to establish their independent nations or whatever. There’s literally no unclaimed land on the Earth aside from Antarctica. Are they going to flee to extremely undesirable areas of their existing country and hope the originating country just doesn’t care enough to stop them? Are they going to break away and take valuable land with them? It’s pretty rare for part of a nation to successfully cleave itself away. Even more rare without a massive war. This applies to any form of human organization. If every country were feudal you could argue democracy was broken because there is no place where it could be practiced. It's not an argument that's able to contrast the two. No matter what form of governance or organization people lived under, their option is either to wait for a vacuum to emerge, to engage in war, to negotiate, or to simply ignore those in power and wait to see what happens -- the same would apply in forming monopolistic democracy where it doesn't exist.

by dpark 10mo ago

mothballed 10mo ago

Taiwan is considered by the Chinese to be part of China. Their strongest hypothetical allies, USA, when added to their population doesn't even come close to reaching the population of China. By all counts, they lose the popular vote of China (which again, considers Taiwan part of it). And China does not recognized their 'minority' government. Yet Taiwan still exists, all while having less military power than China. How is that? Seems to throw a bone in your whole idea that a rogue minority government in the envelope of a majority that considers them encompassing part of their country, is destined to fail or devolve into some pre-civilization caveman situation. >>> Keep going. What happens when the majority refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of the minority government? >> a dictatorship is a minority rule yet you imply they can't exist because the majority would destroy the minority in power. >Nowhere did I say or imply that. Those in power usually stay in power because they have power. Numbers are only one sort of power. And here we get to the truth of what you're saying. We can just handwave away 'numbers are only one sort of power' to mean literally anything could happen if the majority refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of the minority government. Including, most common on the world stage, simply carrying on with trade while maintaining a tenuous balance and the occasional wars that happen even on inter or intra democracy lines. Because most often, it's not worth a violent fight. So basically, nothing of interest beyond the status quo to note here. "Go down the hole deep enough" and you’ll figure out why my assertions are true -- the world is a collection of minorities in various alliances that manage to by those means still exist.

dpark 10mo ago
How’s Tibet doing? How’s it going in Georgia? Ukraine? How about the southern United States? Remember when they formed a confederacy and how well that worked out? Taiwan is largely protected by the US. I expect that absent some other interesting developments, Taiwan will indeed eventually be absorbed into China. And I already addressed the population comment. Population alone is not the only factor to power consolidation. I do wonder where you imagine all these disenfranchised minorities are expected to flee to in order to establish their independent nations or whatever. There’s literally no unclaimed land on the Earth aside from Antarctica. Are they going to flee to extremely undesirable areas of their existing country and hope the originating country just doesn’t care enough to stop them? Are they going to break away and take valuable land with them? It’s pretty rare for part of a nation to successfully cleave itself away. Even more rare without a massive war.
- mothballed 10mo ago
  So your argument is what, Ukraine should be absorbed because the majority of the Ukraine-Russia say so since the majority of the people in that land mass say they're the same country and the majority also agree that country is Russia? I don't want to live in your dystopia. Your thesis is that if you just submit to the mob, violence could be less. I don't find life to be an optimization for the least amount of confrontation. I have never asserted my view of the world guarantees no violence. What you have to offer is basically well the same thing could happen to you as happened to a fraction of these other people unless of course you just submit to the mob. >I do wonder where you imagine all these disenfranchised minorities are expected to flee to in order to establish their independent nations or whatever. There’s literally no unclaimed land on the Earth aside from Antarctica. Are they going to flee to extremely undesirable areas of their existing country and hope the originating country just doesn’t care enough to stop them? Are they going to break away and take valuable land with them? It’s pretty rare for part of a nation to successfully cleave itself away. Even more rare without a massive war. This applies to any form of human organization. If every country were feudal you could argue democracy was broken because there is no place where it could be practiced. It's not an argument that's able to contrast the two. No matter what form of governance or organization people lived under, their option is either to wait for a vacuum to emerge, to engage in war, to negotiate, or to simply ignore those in power and wait to see what happens -- the same would apply in forming monopolistic democracy where it doesn't exist.