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Why are you worried? Don't you think it is even possible that some other form of societal organization will upend democratic majoritarianism? Have you actually

Why are you worried? Don't you think it is even possible that some other form of societal organization will upend democratic majoritarianism? Have you actually read any books on the subject like Caplan's The Myth of the Rational Voter or Hoppe's Democracy: The God that Failed? There's real arguments behind being anti-democracy, so rather than just complaining about me like a bother, insta-downvoting, and declaring it "simply wrong", maybe you should tackle the issue in a substantive way. It's very "anti-hacker" to just accept democracy as the pinnacle of perfection and think it will last forever.

williamcotton 13y ago
I'm worried because there is nothing in your voice that speaks to love, art, or beauty. All I'm hearing is hate, distrust, and of failure. If you and your technocratic visionaries really want to build a new future you're going to have to do it with love in your hearts. We need a system that expresses compassion and acceptance of all walks of life. The rhetoric of Thiel and Page if of escapism. Of leaving the system behind. Well, guess what dude, the only system in the known universe capable of supporting life is Earth. Any sort of idealized community in the desert or floating around on a barge is going to need an umbilical chord to the rest of us. You can't leave and start your own brand new world. It is also "anti-hacker" to not engage with the system in place. An important quality of hacking is to learn the system and how to work within its constraints.
- jpadkins 13y ago
  We will start with the oceans.. http://www.seasteading.org/ http://www.seasteading.org/ And we will gladly conduct free trade with the rest of the world. But I don't think that means we have to accept the status quo in governance or social systems.
- praxeologist 13y ago
  >I'm worried because there is nothing in your voice that speaks to love, art, or beauty. Give me a break. Nobody talks about such things during a crime in progress. All political programs promise to be the best way of bringing about what its adherents want. I'm not even talking about A or B or C being better. I'm saying it is undemocratic to be forced to choose option A, "democracy". >Any sort of idealized community in the desert or floating around on a barge is going to need an umbilical chord to the rest of us. You can't leave and start your own brand new world. This could have been said by an 18th century British bureaucrat too. The US was a noble experiment but it has failed, and, no, it's existence today doesn't contradict what I am saying. Tyranny was supposed to be kept at bay by a unique system of checks and balances + democratic representation. History shows that the US political elite has continually aggrandized itself instead. It's like a piece of software that is going to have terrible memory leaks no matter what. If you want a blazing fast app, you can't keep working with this setup. Hacking can certainly be making the best with what you have but totally ignoring the possibility of the best option being to scrap it all and start over. I'd think that the startup world would be comfortable with at least considering such ideas.
  - redblacktree 13y ago
    > undemocratic to be forced to choose option A, "democracy". oh?
    - praxeologist 13y ago
      Yes exactly. I mentioned that true democracy includes the ability to secede down to the level of the individual. What happens at our local knitting club? We take a vote on whatever and if I don't like it I can leave. I don't have to uproot my family and really leave because the knitting club has influence over only a very limited sphere. The "democracy" option besides moving to an authoritarian country is what I actually call "democratic majoritarian rule", so yes this contradicts what I really believe democracy is. There's no options besides this except taking another step backwards to some dictatorship or whatever.
      - notahacker 13y ago
        You can "secede down to the level of the individual" by leaving the country. Irrespective of whether the scope of territorial monopolies tends to go too far, it doesn't seem possible to have a civilized society filled with people who, having "seceded", refuse to accept the existence of any laws restricting their actions.
        praxeologist 13y ago
        There's nowhere to go but the middle of the ocean if I don't want to live in a place that is either authoritarian or democracy-worshiping though. >refuse to accept the existence of any laws restricting their actions. I was trying to focus on our lack of ability to choose, not so much what I advocate, but I do not advocate a lawless society. A corollary to "right to secede down to the level of the individual"—which is a law/rule BTW—would be that other people can't arbitrarily take control of you and not let you secede. But what if there are disagreements? I try to approach this in a way that I feel is scientific. I think that we can discover an eminently "human" law but then still have a lot of variation in politics, maintain peace and prosperity with having a few fundamental rules dominate popular acceptance like democracy does now. I don't have time now to get into all of that but if you are genuinely curious I could help you learn.
- declan 13y ago
  >"You can't leave and start your own brand new world." Of course people can, and will. Humans have endured great hardships and mortal peril many times for political or religious or other reasons. For Americans, the Puritan emigration to a harsh new world is the most familiar. Hundreds of African migrants, almost all reportedly Christians, died last month when their boat sank during an attempt to escape to Europe. An excellent New York Times article last weekend described a harrowing crossing by refugees from Indonesia to Christmas Island; the reporter was told by Australian officials that "if we had left a few days earlier, the boat would have capsized." The moon and Mars and the rest of the solar system can and will be colonized eventually (barring an existential event that Stephen Hawking and others have warned of). Yes, it's rather more difficult when there's no free atmosphere or radiation shielding. But it's a question of economics, not will, and every generation in the west is wealthier than the last. The interesting thing, and this is what apparently alarms folks who would prefer HN to be Status Quo Anti-Innovation Political Curmudgeonly News, is that there's no guarantee that the political systems that emerge in the diaspora will be democratic. Some, I imagine, will be non-democratic and worse than our current system. And some will be far better.
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    What I find depressing here is the notion that rather than actually learn to live with each-other, we should all just isolate from each other as thoroughly as we can, to the point of moving to other planets (and thus eventually covering the galaxy in virally-reproducing humans each claiming Sovereign Rights) just to get away from everyone else. Sounds like a species of massive assholes, and I see some ethical problems with letting them off their home-planet.
    - declan 13y ago
      No, it sounds like a species of killer apes. Which is what we are; Raymond Dart was right. If you're serious about "ethical problems" letting our species of killer apes off of our home planet, how exactly do you propose to stop it? (Remember: Once you try it, you've just made these killer apes very mad at you.) Seems tricky, once the economics line up for space, unless you're talking mass genocide or mandatory doses of soma. Transcending the millions of years of evolution that turned us into killer apes is the task of civilization and culture. But the megadeaths of the last century caused by wars between democratic governments actually dwarfed the prior century's wars between non-democratic governments. Maybe, to go back to the upthread discussion, there are better alternatives that don't involve the straw man of "isolat[ing] from each other as thoroughly as we can."
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
The question is whether the arguments behind "anti-democracy" (bad terminology: not all non-democratic forms of government have anything in common with each-other other than their lack of democracy) are value arguments or effectiveness arguments. There's a huge difference in saying, "We have a system that serves the people's values and interests better than democracy does", and "You proles don't deserve a voice." Unfortunately, the vast majority of anti-democratic rhetoric right now is of the latter kind.
- crassus 13y ago
  If a system works well, how does having a voice add anything? If a system is broken, how does having a voice matter? In the United States, "Voice" is just rhetoric used to make people accept the status quo.
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    >If a system works well, how does having a voice add anything? It's entirely possible for the system to work well at doing something people hate. Hence why the people need a voice.

williamcotton 13y ago

I'm worried because there is nothing in your voice that speaks to love, art, or beauty. All I'm hearing is hate, distrust, and of failure. If you and your technocratic visionaries really want to build a new future you're going to have to do it with love in your hearts. We need a system that expresses compassion and acceptance of all walks of life. The rhetoric of Thiel and Page if of escapism. Of leaving the system behind. Well, guess what dude, the only system in the known universe capable of supporting life is Earth. Any sort of idealized community in the desert or floating around on a barge is going to need an umbilical chord to the rest of us. You can't leave and start your own brand new world. It is also "anti-hacker" to not engage with the system in place. An important quality of hacking is to learn the system and how to work within its constraints.

jpadkins 13y ago
We will start with the oceans.. http://www.seasteading.org/ http://www.seasteading.org/ And we will gladly conduct free trade with the rest of the world. But I don't think that means we have to accept the status quo in governance or social systems.
praxeologist 13y ago
>I'm worried because there is nothing in your voice that speaks to love, art, or beauty. Give me a break. Nobody talks about such things during a crime in progress. All political programs promise to be the best way of bringing about what its adherents want. I'm not even talking about A or B or C being better. I'm saying it is undemocratic to be forced to choose option A, "democracy". >Any sort of idealized community in the desert or floating around on a barge is going to need an umbilical chord to the rest of us. You can't leave and start your own brand new world. This could have been said by an 18th century British bureaucrat too. The US was a noble experiment but it has failed, and, no, it's existence today doesn't contradict what I am saying. Tyranny was supposed to be kept at bay by a unique system of checks and balances + democratic representation. History shows that the US political elite has continually aggrandized itself instead. It's like a piece of software that is going to have terrible memory leaks no matter what. If you want a blazing fast app, you can't keep working with this setup. Hacking can certainly be making the best with what you have but totally ignoring the possibility of the best option being to scrap it all and start over. I'd think that the startup world would be comfortable with at least considering such ideas.
- redblacktree 13y ago
  > undemocratic to be forced to choose option A, "democracy". oh?
  - praxeologist 13y ago
    Yes exactly. I mentioned that true democracy includes the ability to secede down to the level of the individual. What happens at our local knitting club? We take a vote on whatever and if I don't like it I can leave. I don't have to uproot my family and really leave because the knitting club has influence over only a very limited sphere. The "democracy" option besides moving to an authoritarian country is what I actually call "democratic majoritarian rule", so yes this contradicts what I really believe democracy is. There's no options besides this except taking another step backwards to some dictatorship or whatever.
    - notahacker 13y ago
      You can "secede down to the level of the individual" by leaving the country. Irrespective of whether the scope of territorial monopolies tends to go too far, it doesn't seem possible to have a civilized society filled with people who, having "seceded", refuse to accept the existence of any laws restricting their actions.
      - praxeologist 13y ago
        There's nowhere to go but the middle of the ocean if I don't want to live in a place that is either authoritarian or democracy-worshiping though. >refuse to accept the existence of any laws restricting their actions. I was trying to focus on our lack of ability to choose, not so much what I advocate, but I do not advocate a lawless society. A corollary to "right to secede down to the level of the individual"—which is a law/rule BTW—would be that other people can't arbitrarily take control of you and not let you secede. But what if there are disagreements? I try to approach this in a way that I feel is scientific. I think that we can discover an eminently "human" law but then still have a lot of variation in politics, maintain peace and prosperity with having a few fundamental rules dominate popular acceptance like democracy does now. I don't have time now to get into all of that but if you are genuinely curious I could help you learn.
declan 13y ago
>"You can't leave and start your own brand new world." Of course people can, and will. Humans have endured great hardships and mortal peril many times for political or religious or other reasons. For Americans, the Puritan emigration to a harsh new world is the most familiar. Hundreds of African migrants, almost all reportedly Christians, died last month when their boat sank during an attempt to escape to Europe. An excellent New York Times article last weekend described a harrowing crossing by refugees from Indonesia to Christmas Island; the reporter was told by Australian officials that "if we had left a few days earlier, the boat would have capsized." The moon and Mars and the rest of the solar system can and will be colonized eventually (barring an existential event that Stephen Hawking and others have warned of). Yes, it's rather more difficult when there's no free atmosphere or radiation shielding. But it's a question of economics, not will, and every generation in the west is wealthier than the last. The interesting thing, and this is what apparently alarms folks who would prefer HN to be Status Quo Anti-Innovation Political Curmudgeonly News, is that there's no guarantee that the political systems that emerge in the diaspora will be democratic. Some, I imagine, will be non-democratic and worse than our current system. And some will be far better.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  What I find depressing here is the notion that rather than actually learn to live with each-other, we should all just isolate from each other as thoroughly as we can, to the point of moving to other planets (and thus eventually covering the galaxy in virally-reproducing humans each claiming Sovereign Rights) just to get away from everyone else. Sounds like a species of massive assholes, and I see some ethical problems with letting them off their home-planet.
  - declan 13y ago
    No, it sounds like a species of killer apes. Which is what we are; Raymond Dart was right. If you're serious about "ethical problems" letting our species of killer apes off of our home planet, how exactly do you propose to stop it? (Remember: Once you try it, you've just made these killer apes very mad at you.) Seems tricky, once the economics line up for space, unless you're talking mass genocide or mandatory doses of soma. Transcending the millions of years of evolution that turned us into killer apes is the task of civilization and culture. But the megadeaths of the last century caused by wars between democratic governments actually dwarfed the prior century's wars between non-democratic governments. Maybe, to go back to the upthread discussion, there are better alternatives that don't involve the straw man of "isolat[ing] from each other as thoroughly as we can."

eli_gottlieb 13y ago

The question is whether the arguments behind "anti-democracy" (bad terminology: not all non-democratic forms of government have anything in common with each-other other than their lack of democracy) are value arguments or effectiveness arguments. There's a huge difference in saying, "We have a system that serves the people's values and interests better than democracy does", and "You proles don't deserve a voice." Unfortunately, the vast majority of anti-democratic rhetoric right now is of the latter kind.

crassus 13y ago
If a system works well, how does having a voice add anything? If a system is broken, how does having a voice matter? In the United States, "Voice" is just rhetoric used to make people accept the status quo.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  >If a system works well, how does having a voice add anything? It's entirely possible for the system to work well at doing something people hate. Hence why the people need a voice.