7 ms·

"People would rather stay marooned in the middle of an endless desert of houses with essentials being a 30-45m drive away." Not my preference but also not out

by rsync 8mo ago

"People would rather stay marooned in the middle of an endless desert of houses with essentials being a 30-45m drive away." Not my preference but also not out of bounds as a democratic outcome. If we want our respect for democracy to be taken seriously we need to respect democratic outcomes ... even when they are not the ones we prefer.

cosmic_cheese 8mo ago
Is it still a democratic outcome when NIMBYs are doing things like abusing environmental regulations to choke out developments that citizens had approved of with their votes?
hash872 8mo ago
How about if your neighborhood wanted to keep out people of a certain ethnicity instead? Is that a democratic outcome that we need to respect? The definition of democracy is that we hold regular elections for political office. It does not mean that every single decision in society is up for a vote at the local level. 51% of my neighbors cannot decide that they'd like expropriate my house or checking account. The point of YIMBYism is that these kinds of decisions have negative externalities and a larger group of voters- at the state or national level- are removing that decision-making power from a smaller group at the local level. This is a democratically legitimate outcome!
- palmotea 8mo ago
  > How about if your neighborhood wanted to keep out people of a certain ethnicity instead? Is that a democratic outcome that we need to respect? Come on, you know that's not analogous. > It does not mean that every single decision in society is up for a vote at the local level. It also doesn't mean "any policy the voters want, as long as long as it's the one I want." Nowadays, when people bring up examples like you did above, it's usually part of an attempt to shut down democratic decision making, by making false comparisons.
  - alsetmusic 8mo ago
    > Come on, you know that's not analogous. Not who you responded to, but I thought it was completely fair. We were a nation filled with Sundown Towns[0,1] very recently. Some probably still exist but are more discrete about it to avoid unwanted attention from those of us who would (loudly) call bullshit on the practice. > Nowadays, when people bring up examples like you did above, it's usually part of an attempt to shut down democratic decision making, by making false comparisons. I think you're trying to shutdown someone who has a different opinion from yours by delegitimizing their position. It's not reading the way you thought it would. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town 1. https://thenewpress.org/books/sundown-towns/ https://thenewpress.org/books/sundown-towns/
    - palmotea 8mo ago
      > I think you're trying to shutdown someone who has a different opinion from yours by delegitimizing their position. I'm trying to delegimimize the delegitimization that was being directed at me.
      - alsetmusic 8mo ago
        > I'm trying to delegimimize the delegitimization that was being directed at me. And yet you did it again.
    - Lammy 8mo ago
      I wish we could say “were” :/ http://radicalcartography.net/bayarea.html http://radicalcartography.net/bayarea.html
      - bombcar 8mo ago
        Discrimination based on money is so much more elegant than silly old race.
  - mmooss 8mo ago
    > Come on, you know that's not analogous. Maybe not analogous, but closely related: Many of those suburbs were built for people who wanted to segregate themselves from minorities, and took steps to keep them out. > when people bring up examples like you did above, it's usually part of an attempt to shut down democratic decision making, by making false comparisons. You seem to be shutting down the conversation. IME that is what happens overhwhelmingly when attempting to discuss issues of racism - far more than the few times people address the issue seriously. It's as if they think racism doesn't exist.
mlyle 8mo ago
The question is, -- is it a deliberate democratic outcome, or is it an accidental consequence of local zoning codes and city planning? If governments are involved in planning, it's legitimate to use laws and the planning process to try and push these processes out of local minima towards more globally optimal outcome.
- palmotea 8mo ago
  > If we want our respect for democracy to be taken seriously we need to respect democratic outcomes ... even when they are not the ones we prefer. >> The question is, -- is it a deliberate democratic outcome, or is it an accidental consequence of local zoning codes and city planning? >> If governments are involved in planning, it's legitimate to use laws and the planning process to try and push these processes out of local minima towards more globally optimal outcome. In a democracy, government planning is supposed to push the process towards local preferences. It's not supposed to "push these processes...towards more globally optimal outcome," which when decoded means "what you or what some distant technocrat prefers."
  - withinboredom 8mo ago
    Governments should be working on multi-generational scales. Not "fads" of what people want because they saw it in a movie or they grew up with it.
    - palmotea 8mo ago
      > Governments should be working on multi-generational scales. Not "fads" of what people want because they saw it in a movie or they grew up with it. If the people disagree with you, then you're not talking about democracy, you're talking about "benevolent" authoritarianism ("we know what's good for you, and that's what you're going to get, like it or not"). Just be clear what you're really advocating for.
      - withinboredom 8mo ago
        Since when is government a democracy? Roman times or something like that? Most? Some? Or at least a few government officials are elected. Pretty sure most are hired.
Retric 8mo ago
It’s not democracy when you exclude people impacted by the decision making process from the decision. Preselecting the outcome before the vote destroys any legitimacy the outcome has.
- dh2022 8mo ago
  Anybody who is eligible to vote can vote. How is this not democracy?
  - Retric 8mo ago
    Selecting who is eligible to vote is one of the most obvious ways to manipulate the outcome. At the extreme, you can have large scale slavery in a system with voting, but it’s not a Democracy. Who gets to decide on expanding an interstate or zoning has a huge impact when the votes are counted, so drawing lines on a map is suddenly where the power lies not with the people.
    - bombcar 8mo ago
      Democracy falls apart when the vast majority of people just don't give a care. And with representative democracy, it's impossible to give a care about more than one or two things.
      - Retric 8mo ago
        Democracy needs to exist before it can fail, but there’s a wide range of systems possible that will give more or less power to the general public. Representative democracy tends to large numbers of parties with proportional representation give far more power to the voters than a two party first past the post voting system. On the other hand having zero input on who specifically ends up being a representative is problematic in a different way. It’s interesting just how many different reasonable systems you can come up with and how few of them have ever actually been tried.
doctorpangloss 8mo ago
I support upzoning. It is a bad idea to come after people’s comfy, expensive cars. People like cars.
burnte 8mo ago
> If we want our respect for democracy to be taken seriously we need to respect democratic outcomes ... even when they are not the ones we prefer. The flaw in this argument here is that the opposition is trying to prevent these folks from even having a voice, which is fundamentally undemocratic. So this isn't a relevant statement here because this isn't a complaint about a democratic outcome. It's a complaint about people trying to eliminate voices who want to solve a problem. It's an attempt to silence discussion, which has the effect of preventing action.
Nevermark 8mo ago
What an odd viewpoint. Effectively, we are all living in a shrinking prison of all decisions made before us. A "democratic" dystopia. Respecting an outcome doesn't mean you have to (1) give up on differing views, or (2) stop working respectfully for another outcome.
hackeraccount 8mo ago
NIMBYism is frequently driven by a small number of people who feel very strongly and use rules designed to protect minority rights to get their way. Is it democratic? I don't know... much of what's going on if put to a vote would be split 3 ways. A minority in favor, a large number who don't really care and another minority against (but they either don't get a vote or the default result is to go against their wishes).
enaaem 8mo ago
The whole issue with NIMBYism are: contradictory democratic wishes and disproportional power of home owners. This points to issues with the democratic process, and not democracy itself. Most people agree that more homes need to be built, but no home owner wants it in their backyard. So you end up with a deadlock where nothing is done.

by rsync 8mo ago

cosmic_cheese 8mo ago

Is it still a democratic outcome when NIMBYs are doing things like abusing environmental regulations to choke out developments that citizens had approved of with their votes?

hash872 8mo ago

How about if your neighborhood wanted to keep out people of a certain ethnicity instead? Is that a democratic outcome that we need to respect? The definition of democracy is that we hold regular elections for political office. It does not mean that every single decision in society is up for a vote at the local level. 51% of my neighbors cannot decide that they'd like expropriate my house or checking account. The point of YIMBYism is that these kinds of decisions have negative externalities and a larger group of voters- at the state or national level- are removing that decision-making power from a smaller group at the local level. This is a democratically legitimate outcome!

palmotea 8mo ago
> How about if your neighborhood wanted to keep out people of a certain ethnicity instead? Is that a democratic outcome that we need to respect? Come on, you know that's not analogous. > It does not mean that every single decision in society is up for a vote at the local level. It also doesn't mean "any policy the voters want, as long as long as it's the one I want." Nowadays, when people bring up examples like you did above, it's usually part of an attempt to shut down democratic decision making, by making false comparisons.
- alsetmusic 8mo ago
  > Come on, you know that's not analogous. Not who you responded to, but I thought it was completely fair. We were a nation filled with Sundown Towns[0,1] very recently. Some probably still exist but are more discrete about it to avoid unwanted attention from those of us who would (loudly) call bullshit on the practice. > Nowadays, when people bring up examples like you did above, it's usually part of an attempt to shut down democratic decision making, by making false comparisons. I think you're trying to shutdown someone who has a different opinion from yours by delegitimizing their position. It's not reading the way you thought it would. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town 1. https://thenewpress.org/books/sundown-towns/ https://thenewpress.org/books/sundown-towns/
  - palmotea 8mo ago
    > I think you're trying to shutdown someone who has a different opinion from yours by delegitimizing their position. I'm trying to delegimimize the delegitimization that was being directed at me.
    - alsetmusic 8mo ago
      > I'm trying to delegimimize the delegitimization that was being directed at me. And yet you did it again.
  - Lammy 8mo ago
    I wish we could say “were” :/ http://radicalcartography.net/bayarea.html http://radicalcartography.net/bayarea.html
    - bombcar 8mo ago
      Discrimination based on money is so much more elegant than silly old race.
- mmooss 8mo ago
  > Come on, you know that's not analogous. Maybe not analogous, but closely related: Many of those suburbs were built for people who wanted to segregate themselves from minorities, and took steps to keep them out. > when people bring up examples like you did above, it's usually part of an attempt to shut down democratic decision making, by making false comparisons. You seem to be shutting down the conversation. IME that is what happens overhwhelmingly when attempting to discuss issues of racism - far more than the few times people address the issue seriously. It's as if they think racism doesn't exist.

mlyle 8mo ago

The question is, -- is it a deliberate democratic outcome, or is it an accidental consequence of local zoning codes and city planning? If governments are involved in planning, it's legitimate to use laws and the planning process to try and push these processes out of local minima towards more globally optimal outcome.

palmotea 8mo ago
> If we want our respect for democracy to be taken seriously we need to respect democratic outcomes ... even when they are not the ones we prefer. >> The question is, -- is it a deliberate democratic outcome, or is it an accidental consequence of local zoning codes and city planning? >> If governments are involved in planning, it's legitimate to use laws and the planning process to try and push these processes out of local minima towards more globally optimal outcome. In a democracy, government planning is supposed to push the process towards local preferences. It's not supposed to "push these processes...towards more globally optimal outcome," which when decoded means "what you or what some distant technocrat prefers."
- withinboredom 8mo ago
  Governments should be working on multi-generational scales. Not "fads" of what people want because they saw it in a movie or they grew up with it.
  - palmotea 8mo ago
    > Governments should be working on multi-generational scales. Not "fads" of what people want because they saw it in a movie or they grew up with it. If the people disagree with you, then you're not talking about democracy, you're talking about "benevolent" authoritarianism ("we know what's good for you, and that's what you're going to get, like it or not"). Just be clear what you're really advocating for.
    - withinboredom 8mo ago
      Since when is government a democracy? Roman times or something like that? Most? Some? Or at least a few government officials are elected. Pretty sure most are hired.

Retric 8mo ago

It’s not democracy when you exclude people impacted by the decision making process from the decision. Preselecting the outcome before the vote destroys any legitimacy the outcome has.

dh2022 8mo ago
Anybody who is eligible to vote can vote. How is this not democracy?
- Retric 8mo ago
  Selecting who is eligible to vote is one of the most obvious ways to manipulate the outcome. At the extreme, you can have large scale slavery in a system with voting, but it’s not a Democracy. Who gets to decide on expanding an interstate or zoning has a huge impact when the votes are counted, so drawing lines on a map is suddenly where the power lies not with the people.
  - bombcar 8mo ago
    Democracy falls apart when the vast majority of people just don't give a care. And with representative democracy, it's impossible to give a care about more than one or two things.
    - Retric 8mo ago
      Democracy needs to exist before it can fail, but there’s a wide range of systems possible that will give more or less power to the general public. Representative democracy tends to large numbers of parties with proportional representation give far more power to the voters than a two party first past the post voting system. On the other hand having zero input on who specifically ends up being a representative is problematic in a different way. It’s interesting just how many different reasonable systems you can come up with and how few of them have ever actually been tried.

doctorpangloss 8mo ago

I support upzoning. It is a bad idea to come after people’s comfy, expensive cars. People like cars.

burnte 8mo ago

> If we want our respect for democracy to be taken seriously we need to respect democratic outcomes ... even when they are not the ones we prefer. The flaw in this argument here is that the opposition is trying to prevent these folks from even having a voice, which is fundamentally undemocratic. So this isn't a relevant statement here because this isn't a complaint about a democratic outcome. It's a complaint about people trying to eliminate voices who want to solve a problem. It's an attempt to silence discussion, which has the effect of preventing action.

Nevermark 8mo ago

What an odd viewpoint. Effectively, we are all living in a shrinking prison of all decisions made before us. A "democratic" dystopia. Respecting an outcome doesn't mean you have to (1) give up on differing views, or (2) stop working respectfully for another outcome.

hackeraccount 8mo ago

NIMBYism is frequently driven by a small number of people who feel very strongly and use rules designed to protect minority rights to get their way. Is it democratic? I don't know... much of what's going on if put to a vote would be split 3 ways. A minority in favor, a large number who don't really care and another minority against (but they either don't get a vote or the default result is to go against their wishes).

enaaem 8mo ago

The whole issue with NIMBYism are: contradictory democratic wishes and disproportional power of home owners. This points to issues with the democratic process, and not democracy itself. Most people agree that more homes need to be built, but no home owner wants it in their backyard. So you end up with a deadlock where nothing is done.