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> And now I have no hope for American democracy. It is dead. I know HN has a natural tendency towards wailing and gnashing of teeth, but I don't understand thi

by hsod 13y ago

> And now I have no hope for American democracy. It is dead. I know HN has a natural tendency towards wailing and gnashing of teeth, but I don't understand this reaction at all. Why would watching a debate from a virtual auditorium be any worse for democracy than watching it on TV? Sometimes it feels like comment threads on here are secret competitions to see who can have the most extreme negative reaction.

saraid216 13y ago
> I know HN has a natural tendency towards wailing and gnashing of teeth, but I don't understand this reaction at all. That's fair. I didn't bother explaining it since the details of implementing a democracy is a hobby horse of mine and dropping a couple paragraphs seemed... beside the point. But, > Why would watching a debate from a virtual auditorium be any worse for democracy than watching it on TV? It's not the act of watching that I'm criticizing here. It's the fact that it's being venerated as remotely important. The mere suggestion that seeing a sweat drop on a presidential candidate's forehead is even passingly relevant to anyone is profoundly disturbing to me.
- parasubvert 13y ago
  Presidential elections have been a "looks good on TV" contest since the first televised debate in 1960, when Nixon lost. 54 years later, there is no sign of that changing. Humans are humans - the soap opera is more important than the policies.
  - saraid216 13y ago
    Why would you expect it to change? No one is trying to change it.
cryoshon 13y ago
The real joke here is equating watching the debates with American democracy. Almost nobody watches the debates, and if they do, it really doesn't matter, because they're constructed to be a mere smokescreen designed to sound good while committing to less than a gust of wind in the autumn. Remember the last however many SOTU addresses where we were promised change and reform to our ever-crumbling empire? Remember all the things that have changed for the better?

by hsod 13y ago

saraid216 13y ago

> I know HN has a natural tendency towards wailing and gnashing of teeth, but I don't understand this reaction at all. That's fair. I didn't bother explaining it since the details of implementing a democracy is a hobby horse of mine and dropping a couple paragraphs seemed... beside the point. But, > Why would watching a debate from a virtual auditorium be any worse for democracy than watching it on TV? It's not the act of watching that I'm criticizing here. It's the fact that it's being venerated as remotely important. The mere suggestion that seeing a sweat drop on a presidential candidate's forehead is even passingly relevant to anyone is profoundly disturbing to me.

parasubvert 13y ago
Presidential elections have been a "looks good on TV" contest since the first televised debate in 1960, when Nixon lost. 54 years later, there is no sign of that changing. Humans are humans - the soap opera is more important than the policies.
- saraid216 13y ago
  Why would you expect it to change? No one is trying to change it.

cryoshon 13y ago

The real joke here is equating watching the debates with American democracy. Almost nobody watches the debates, and if they do, it really doesn't matter, because they're constructed to be a mere smokescreen designed to sound good while committing to less than a gust of wind in the autumn. Remember the last however many SOTU addresses where we were promised change and reform to our ever-crumbling empire? Remember all the things that have changed for the better?