Democracy

[Beorning]

Okay, here's something I'm struggling with and need to discuss:

Democracy. Is it still a workable system in the modern world?

Don't take me the wrong way, it's not that I don't like democracy as principle. But, having observed how democracy works in the recent years, I'm starting to see some problems with it.

In theory, democracy works like this: politicians propose ideas on what should be done. The citizens consider these ideas, make an informed decision and vote for the politicians with the ideas they consider good. That way, a government is formed. The government rules for a few years, then the citizens have the opportunity to review the effects of their ideas. If they don't like, another government is chosen.

This genuinely looks like a nice and just system. There are three problems, though.

Firstly: with the modern world being so complex and the issues to consider being so wide-reaching, can the citizens really make an informed decision? For example, let's say the politicians debate on the country's economic policy. How can an average citizen even begin to consider which solution is the best? It's not like all citizens are educated in economy... And without specialist knowledge, the decision is made based on what "sounds right". Or even purely on which politician we trust.

Secondly: for democracy to work, politicians should discuss their ideas in good faith. In other words: they shouldn't lie. Meanwhile, it's quite often not the case. We have politicians who blatantly and knowingly lie. We also have politicians who are outright stupid or delusional. And it's not easy for citizens to spot it. The fact-checking seems to lose to lies and nonsense, especially nowadays, with social media, propaganda bots etc.

Thirdly: the election cycle, while allowing the citizens to change the government, can also be a deterrent to truly wise governing. Basically, once the government is voted in, they don't like the idea of being voted out. So, they start being "careful". They pay attention to what the society wants... and, sometimes, the popular opinion is wrong. Sometimes, the government needs to do things that will be unpopular now, but will result in some good in the future. But, with the threat of the elections, the government avoids making such tough decisions... and some needed decisions end up not being made.

And the election cycle is a bigger problem than it might look. One might say: the elections happen once in 4 years (or so). So, a government still has some space to do unpopular stuff, then convince the citizens that it was needed. And show them the long-term results. Right? Wrong. Because, in a modern state, there are multiple levels of government. And, in result, you have multiple elections. Here in Poland, we have 4 cyclical elections: presidential elections, parliamentary elections, local government elections and European Parliament elections. And they don't happen at the same time. In result... there is no "safe space" for a government. We live in a near-constant campaign mode and the government needs to be always mindful that some decision might cause them to lose this or that election. And, in effect, some things never get done. Because it's never "the right time" to do it.

To summarize: in a modern democracy (at least, looking at things from Polish perspective), you have politicians that keeps BSing the citizens, the citizens who cannot sort truth from BS (as well as a good idea from a bad idea) and the constant campaigning that makes the politicians focus mostly on what easily appeals to the public. In result, everything devolves into the spectacle of populism, and fear- and hate-mongering.

This doesn't look like a workable system. Not that I have any idea what could be better. Ugh.

Thoughts?

[Missy]

Well, you kind of identify one of the major issues at play, that being education/ignorance. No democracy will ever achieve functionality if it's populace are irrational, uneducated, simple minded folk, plain and simple, you can't expect an apology for that fact.

The problem is modernly we expend less and less effort on assuring people are exercising their intellectual capacity to it's fullest, even to a point where the average person has no actual concept of what that even means.

Most persons would take a statement like that one and suppose you're referring to academia, and while I have a lot of respect for academics (some of the sexiest women alive are mainly sexy in their grey matter), not all education and intelligence is drawn from academia.

Real effective intelligence is drawn from qualities like introspection, humility and empathy; which humans practice less and less.

That's kind of the general gist of the core problem; of course there's plenty to commentate on regarding different societies as well. I could go on for days about the failings of the American Dominant Party System and i don't doubt there's plenty of other more specific examples or well reasoned criticisms out there, but ultimately the truly foundational aspect of effective stable democracy lies in the character and rational capacities of it's citizens.

[TheGlyphstone]

‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’

-Winston Churchill

[Ollumhammersong]

The cynic in me has believed for a long time now that no, Democracy isn't all that great of a system. Neither in the modern world or the old one. As you say, it's a great system on paper. On principle everything about democracy sounds great but the big problem with democracy is it's own source of authority, relying on the everyday people to make good, sensible decisions is more often than not, a bad idea. 

Take you're three personally identified problems. 

1). as you point out the world is fucking complicated. Expecting regular people to follow and research all of this shit, from geo politics to macro economics and every other important topic that could possible affect your country/region/hometown to even the smallest degree before each election is ludicrious. That's kind of the point of having the elected representative in the first place, 'Congrats, it's your job to untangle all this shit so I don't have to think about it.' that's how I feel most people treat their representatives. 'I don't want to worry or be affected by this big complicated scary stuff, but you seem like you might be able to figure it out.' People just want to live their lives, I personally feel like this is why voter turnout in most democracies is so low, and ever shrinking. Not so much disillusionment with the idea of the government or the nation, Most people who don't vote, at least here in Canada, admit to doing so simply because they can't be fucked to care enough. Not because they're protesting democracy itself, They're fine letting other people sort out the hard stuff while they go about their lives.

2). ya politicians lie, but I would also argue that is our fault as citizens more than theirs. For all we might talk about the high ideals of what a proper politician should be noble and fight for the truth even at the cost of their own job come next election cycle. We also love to gravitate towards people that offer easy solutions. Even if it's total bullshit, if one person can promise a simple quick fix to a terrifyingly complex problem, and the other candidate's explanation/solution takes more than 90 seconds to unpack and uses words and language no one understands, us humans consistently rally around that first person. The more complicated the problem, the stronger we crave a simple explanation and solution. Just look at Trump, it doesn't matter that his promise to lower egg and fuel prices didn't make any actual sense. Or that the Office of the President doesn't control any of these things. It was a clear simple promise that people could understand and relate too and by god it worked. 

3). your third point about election cycles and politicians making safe decisions leans back on the second problem. Everyday people are low-key lazy and more greedy than we all care to admit to ourselves. Actually getting people to cast a ballot against their own immediate self interest is hard, even if that immediate sacrifice is small, like a 1% tax increase to boost the healthcare system. People are more concerned about their 'hear and now problems' and rarely consider the 10 year consequences of their votes, and politicians are just good and understanding this and riding the wave of 'keep the status quo' which is what a lot of voters really wany at the end of the day. 



TLDR - To me the problem isn't with the institutions themselves or even the politicians. Putting the power to set the course for an entire nation in the hands of people who largely don't understand the major issues of the world, don't necessarily care to learn and largely don't want to get involved isn't a recipe for disaster. 

A lot of people are happy letting someone else deal with the big problems as long as they are left alone to do their thing and their standard of living doesn't fluctuate too much. We'd rather vote for someone that can pitch a simple to understand solution, even if that solution crumbles under scrutiny. And finally the average joe cares more about how much money is in their bank account today and securing a tax cut for next year, than whether or not there's now sufficient funding to keep the school district running in ten years. 

[Krayz]

Yeah, I was thinking of the Churchill quote as well.

It's also worth mentioning that there are reasons to think that a lot of the problems we are seeing in democratic societies are being caused by the undemocratic elements of those societies:

The fact that wealthy individuals can buy control over large portions of the media contributes considerably to the prevalence of misinformation, because they will manipulate public discourse in order to protect their own interests.

The particular form of representative democracy that most modern nation-states have adopted also have the issue that those representatives frequently end up very entangled with those wealthy individuals, either due to fundraising, or just because the financial security required to focus on a political career tends to lead to those representatives coming from the upper class.

The U.S. is a really good example of this. So much of what is going wrong with democracy there ties in to members of the government abusing their powers in defiance of democratic norms and the will of the people. And much of the effective resistance is coming from groups like scientists and lawyers, who are held accountable collectively by their peers more than any kind of top-down executive authority.

[Ollumhammersong]

Probably the biggest argument against democracy is people like this. A lady who saw a male duck trying to mate with a female (and if anyone knows anything about ducks they're actually pretty aggressive animals and their mating practices are as well. It often looks like, and sometimes is non-consenusal sex on the female's part but it's also perfectly natural and this is how many duck species reproduce, not all but many.)  So she tries to save a female duck from rape by diving into a pond and trying to catch the male ducks with nets. Which is all kinds of stupid and illegal. The fact that this lady get to vote *and* have that vote count equal to mine or yours is painful to think about. 

[Ollumhammersong]

I don't think the video was attached to the post 

[Oniya]

She probably wants people to feed their cats vegan diets.  Because think of the poor mousies!

(Pro-tip:  Do not attempt to feed your cat a vegan diet.  It is actively bad for them.)

[Ollumhammersong]

I'm not the kind of person who thinks that o ly 'educated' people should be allowed to vote. God knows there are just as many stupid people in the world with degrees as there are stupid people without them.

But I would whole heartedly back the 'Florida man' test. If you do something stupid and brain dead enough that it could make for a believable 'Florida man' headline. You probably shouldn't be allowed to cast a ballot.

'Florida lady jumps into pond to prevent duck rape!'

[Krayz]

So, first of all, this video is pretty out-of-context. We don't know anything about this woman's history. She might have trauma around sexual assault that contributes to an extreme reaction. Unlikely, sure, but probably should be considered before deciding that it might be cause for taking away her right to vote.

To put the point a bit more bluntly, do we think that not having an understanding of the sexual anatomy and behaviour of ducks justifies depriving people of their ability to participate in a democratic society?

Do we think that trying to feed cats a vegan diet warrants denying them participation in democracy?

To bring it back to reality a bit more, do we believe in criminal disenfranchisement?

All of the points I'm bringing up here are meant to illustrate that one of the fundamental aspects of democracy is the idea that having a say in who has the power to dictate the terms you are forced to live by is supposed to be a fundamental and intrinsic right baked into the concept, not a privilege that gets taken away when people who think they know better decide you are unworthy of it. 

The notion that democracy is a privilege that belongs to the few worthy ones, while everyone else is forced to live under the dictates of their "wisdom" has been one of the tensions that has haunted the concept since it first emerged. It's where criticisms of the problems of "mob rule" come from. And they're not entirely wrong; simply letting an uninformed majority make decisions has serious issues. But the idea that some people are entitled to a say while others are unworthy is the sort of thinking that led to "democracies" only permitting land-owning white men to vote, while POC were counted as 3/5th's of a person.

If you reject that premise, that people deserve a say in the way that the world around them is run, then you are accepting authoritarianism. I don't even mean that as a criticism, but simply a statement of fact. You believe that some people are worthy of power, and other folks only deserve to live under their rule. In my opinion, Authoritarianism only makes sense under only (at least) a couple of premises:

1) That some people are intrinsically worthy of having power over others. That they are sufficiently better in some capacity or another that it justifies giving them power over others against their will.

2) That whatever method you employ to determine who is worthy and bestow that power upon them is sufficiently foolproof and incorruptible.

I would argue that both of those premises can reasonably be argued against, but others might disagree.

Going back to the Churchill quote, one of the reasons that democracy is the least-worst option is because no one human's perspective is sufficiently better than another's to justify giving them unilateral authority over the rest. Giving everyone a collective say means you get a wider range of perspectives on any given issues. There's a certain extent to which some people's say should matter more than others, when they have legitimate and measurable expertise on the subject in question. But there are also certain questions where, at least arguably, there is no definable expertise that merits depriving other people of their say in the matter; there are certain questions that "experts" haven't been able to settle over millennia, so there isn't any particular reason to think that said experts have a lock on the best answer.

~

Putting my cards on the table for a moment, I am at least anarchist-sympathetic. I say "sympathetic" because while I believe that people deserve the freedom to make their own choices, I also think there's clear evidence that people in the world as we know it would make quite a mess if you just let them loose. At best, I think that most folks aren't quite ready for an anarchist world, and there needs to be time and education before it can really work out. But I also think that people cannot legitimately be coerced into submitting to any form of authority. 

Hence, democracy.

[Oniya]

At no time did I conflate the idea that 'feeding cats vegan' equated to 'should not vote.'  However, a well-educated population is key to a successful democracy.  Not realizing that an animal is not a human and therefore holding it to the same standards is a thought pattern that should be corrected by education.

Does it have anything to do with voting?  Only in the sense that improving people's critical thinking makes them better at sorting through other issues.  Look at how many people bought into the whole tariff idea when it was a campaign issue.  Most of them didn't think about how raising the costs of importing foreign goods would affect prices at the register - whether it was because the goods they were buying were imported, or the bits to manufacture them were imported, even if they were assembled in the US.

Most forms of government (including anarchy) don't scale well, simply because once you get over a certain number of people, it's harder to conceptualize them as individuals.  There's literally an upper limit to the number of individuals any person can perceive, and it's in the hundreds.

[TheGlyphstone]

Dunbar's Number,  aka the Monkeysphere. One of the factors in making a representative democracy, at least theoretically, more stable than a direct democracy.

Im very much aligned with Oniya in this case. Education is the fundamental cornerstone of a successful democracy, and anyone undermining access to that is ultimately un-democratic.

[Callie Del Noire]

Dunbar's Number,  aka the Monkeysphere. One of the factors in making a representative democracy, at least theoretically, more stable than a direct democracy.

Im very much aligned with Oniya in this case. Education is the fundamental cornerstone of a successful democracy, and anyone undermining access to that is ultimately un-democratic.

I absolutely agree. Education is a vital key point.

[Ollumhammersong]

So, first of all, this video is pretty out-of-context. We don't know anything about this woman's history. She might have trauma around sexual assault that contributes to an extreme reaction. Unlikely, sure, but probably should be considered before deciding that it might be cause for taking away her right to vote.

To put the point a bit more bluntly, do we think that not having an understanding of the sexual anatomy and behaviour of ducks justifies depriving people of their ability to participate in a democratic society?

Do we think that trying to feed cats a vegan diet warrants denying them participation in democracy?

To bring it back to reality a bit more, do we believe in criminal disenfranchisement?

All of the points I'm bringing up here are meant to illustrate that one of the fundamental aspects of democracy is the idea that having a say in who has the power to dictate the terms you are forced to live by is supposed to be a fundamental and intrinsic right baked into the concept, not a privilege that gets taken away when people who think they know better decide you are unworthy of it.

The notion that democracy is a privilege that belongs to the few worthy ones, while everyone else is forced to live under the dictates of their "wisdom" has been one of the tensions that has haunted the concept since it first emerged. It's where criticisms of the problems of "mob rule" come from. And they're not entirely wrong; simply letting an uninformed majority make decisions has serious issues. But the idea that some people are entitled to a say while others are unworthy is the sort of thinking that led to "democracies" only permitting land-owning white men to vote, while POC were counted as 3/5th's of a person.

If you reject that premise, that people deserve a say in the way that the world around them is run, then you are accepting authoritarianism. I don't even mean that as a criticism, but simply a statement of fact. You believe that some people are worthy of power, and other folks only deserve to live under their rule. In my opinion, Authoritarianism only makes sense under only (at least) a couple of premises:

1) That some people are intrinsically worthy of having power over others. That they are sufficiently better in some capacity or another that it justifies giving them power over others against their will.

2) That whatever method you employ to determine who is worthy and bestow that power upon them is sufficiently foolproof and incorruptible.

I would argue that both of those premises can reasonably be argued against, but others might disagree.

Going back to the Churchill quote, one of the reasons that democracy is the least-worst option is because no one human's perspective is sufficiently better than another's to justify giving them unilateral authority over the rest. Giving everyone a collective say means you get a wider range of perspectives on any given issues. There's a certain extent to which some people's say should matter more than others, when they have legitimate and measurable expertise on the subject in question. But there are also certain questions where, at least arguably, there is no definable expertise that merits depriving other people of their say in the matter; there are certain questions that "experts" haven't been able to settle over millennia, so there isn't any particular reason to think that said experts have a lock on the best answer.

~

Putting my cards on the table for a moment, I am at least anarchist-sympathetic. I say "sympathetic" because while I believe that people deserve the freedom to make their own choices, I also think there's clear evidence that people in the world as we know it would make quite a mess if you just let them loose. At best, I think that most folks aren't quite ready for an anarchist world, and there needs to be time and education before it can really work out. But I also think that people cannot legitimately be coerced into submitting to any form of authority.

Hence, democracy.

There is a lot to unpack here. Particularly the implication of a lot of things I never actually said and you make it sound as if I'm supporting authoritarian fascism or some shit. 

1) yes you're right that we don't know anything about that woman's history. There could have been something tragic in her past that triggered this outburst and if true, that really fucking sucks for her and I hope she gets whatever help she needs, truly. But on the flip side, if that's all it takes to set her off in such a public way (watching ducks mating as per their natural instincts) and that instantly erodes any sense of public restraint and self awareness she has, Then I question her ability to criticize anything or anyone rationally and fairly.

2) Yes voting being a privilege of the few has it's many concerns and problems. I would argue no more of a concern than voting of the masses which can and has fallen victim to demagoguery more than once in world history. And while yes in an idealistic world the idea that everyone gets to vote means that everyone shares their perspectives and society becomes a more unified understanding place. This isn't actually playing out in real life, is it? 

My big problem with wide open democracy is that as pointed out above, education is a huge part of it but I also don't think the main pillar. Formal education is a wonderful thing but i'm personally fond of the saying 'Only someone to went to college can say something that stupid'. There's a mixture of intelligence and wisdom needed to be a good voter and I personally feel like voting is in and of itself almost a skill. One that can be trained and sharpened and taught, but a skill. Formal education may bestow intelligence but not common sense or experience or wisdom and understanding of the wider world. It just makes them smarter at a specific topic/skill/trade. I would actually argue that possessing intelligence without wisdom is just as dangerous as a lack of intelligence as it can lead to arrogance. This is why I said that I disagree with the idea that only formally educated people should have the right to vote. Formal education is critically important in the modern world and must be accessible to all, but not the be-all-end-all we like to think it is. 

People also need to be willing to take the time to inform themselves, which a lot of people don't bother doing as it requires a sacrifice of time that people don't want to or are too busy to invest. Many people vote on single issues and don't think about the second or third order consequences of that vote until it starts to affect them. Like how many American's googled 'what are tarrifs' or 'how do tariffs work' only after the US election was called. Voter short sighted-ness in democracies is a big problem and like I said in an earlier post. Many people are willing to vote for a 1% tax cut today, not thinking about how it affects something like the education budget and teacher salaries for tomorrow. I don't put that down to a lack of intellect and education as many people in the west are formally educated with post-secondary degrees. But a lack of critical thinking and dare i say it, a lack of wisdom contributes to poor decision making. 

Democracy also relies on people exercising their right to vote, which is in and of itself a huge problem across the west right now. Getting more than 70% of the eligible population to actually vote on their future is a surprisingly hard challenge in some countries. And while I do agree that some barriers like not making election day a public holiday are an impediment to some. Most countries have polls open for twelve or more hours, and in places like Canada you're employer legally has to allow you up to three hours of leave to cast your ballot on election day. Hell if you're old or injured someone will bring the ballot box to your home/hospital bed. There really isn't a lot of excuse in my country not to vote. Add in weeks of advance polling and overall We make it incredibly accessible. Many non voters simply don't vote because they can't be fucked enough to care.

A system that relies on the general public to be educated, critically thinking, give enough of a shit to take a couple hours to stand in line, be carefully considerate and not prone to panic fueled and knee-jerk short-sighted decisions, is a system prone to making a lot of mistakes. Because the general public is rarely all or any of these things. And I think we need to reconcile somehow with the ideal version of a perfect democractic electorate we all imagine to exist in our heads, and the realistic one we are saddled with and likely will continue to have forever. This isn't a dig against the US specifically, pretty much every democracy has experienced these issues to varying degrees. 

But in the interests of transparency, I will admit that I am not an anarchist (shocking I know). I believe that voting is a right to be earned and exercised, not a simple entitlement of citizenship, and I feel that's how many people in the west treat their vote right now, as an entitlement rather than a hard-won right and thus they don't treat it as reverently as they should. 

How to go about establishing how one earns this right.... I don't know. I freely admit that. I have no idea what a proper civic exam might look like. 

[Beorning]

Some quick thoughts:

Re: voting and turnout. Yeah, it's another problem: a lot of people can't be bothered to vote. And yes, I'd say that here in Poland, it's often a matter of not bothering instead of anything else. In the cities, at least. I don't know how it is in small town, but here in the capital? It actually takes under 30 minutes for me take a stroll to the polling point, cast a vote and come back home. It's not something you need to waste a lot of time at. And the voting always does take place on Sundays.

Still, some people just do not bother. I have a friend who's just like that. He could easily vote, but he doesn't. Just because. I suspect it's because of him disliking politics very much and being somewhat of an anarchist-libertarian...

Anyway, we tend to get 50% - 60% voter turnout during elections. Even during the highly emotional time of 2023 elections, we got somewhat over 70%. Ugh.

Re: wisdom. It's true, democracy demands wisdom. Without wisdom on the part of voters and politicians, things get bad. Unfortunately, wisdom seems to be not that common a trait... 

A side note: wisdom does seem to be a necessary component for all political systems. I mean... even an absolute monarchy could work well, if the monarch is really wise and ethical. The problem is, that's a big "if". In theory, democracy should protect us from the consequences of the stupidity of an absolutist ruler... but without wisdom, it seems to fail, too.

Overall, it seems to me that every political system is destined to work badly. There's no hope... :\

[SaintSicaire]

Some quick thoughts:

Re: voting and turnout. Yeah, it's another problem: a lot of people can't be bothered to vote. And yes, I'd say that here in Poland, it's often a matter of not bothering instead of anything else. In the cities, at least. I don't know how it is in small town, but here in the capital? It actually takes under 30 minutes for me take a stroll to the polling point, cast a vote and come back home. It's not something you need to waste a lot of time at. And the voting always does take place on Sundays.

Still, some people just do not bother. I have a friend who's just like that. He could easily vote, but he doesn't. Just because. I suspect it's because of him disliking politics very much and being somewhat of an anarchist-libertarian...

Anyway, we tend to get 50% - 60% voter turnout during elections. Even during the highly emotional time of 2023 elections, we got somewhat over 70%. Ugh.

Re: wisdom. It's true, democracy demands wisdom. Without wisdom on the part of voters and politicians, things get bad. Unfortunately, wisdom seems to be not that common a trait...

A side note: wisdom does seem to be a necessary component for all political systems. I mean... even an absolute monarchy could work well, if the monarch is really wise and ethical. The problem is, that's a big "if". In theory, democracy should protect us from the consequences of the stupidity of an absolutist ruler... but without wisdom, it seems to fail, too.

Overall, it seems to me that every political system is destined to work badly. There's no hope... :\

So, originally I wrote a very long, very ramble-y and at some points very emotional post here. I decided to delete that one and try it a bit more concisely.

It's not as bad as it seems, and democracy is not just the marginally better of a lot of bad choices.

If you look at it from some distance: Democracy is the only system that can improve without massive trouble. There were no mass-executions, barricades and civil wars necessary to give women the right to vote, de-criminalize homosexuality, etc. Democracy can aknowledge it's flaws, improve and a well-organized one can protect it's foundational values by way of checks and balances, instead of oppression. 

I do get the sense of despair, because if democracy has one fundamental flaw, it's that it's not great and giving people a sense of security in difficult times. 
But, you know who is great at that? Authoritarians. Do you know why? Because they don't care if they have to lie to you.

There is a reason, that the russian propaganda has been gleefully pointing at every dodgy election, failed government coalition and corrupt official in the west. They point, smile and say "See? Democracy doesn't work either. So stop demanding it, because it isn't better than what we have here." Which, I hope we all can agree, is a blatant lie.

So, the only thing I can say is: Don't loose hope, because that's how they win. Times are challenging, scary and difficult, but I do not believe that's because democracy is fundamentally not working. It's because a few groups of people are working really really hard to dismantle it. People who, for the most part, are very happy to get very bloody hands, as long as they get the world they want in the end. Trust me, I'm german. We learned to recognize the type the hard way. (Well, many of us did...)

If nothing else, maybe it helps to imagine, that Putin is extremely happy, that you feel that way. Don't let him have this.
(Which is not meant as an accusation, just a hopefully mildly humourous word of encouragement)

Well, that was marginally less rambling. 

[Krayz]

At no time did I conflate the idea that 'feeding cats vegan' equated to 'should not vote.'  However, a well-educated population is key to a successful democracy.  Not realizing that an animal is not a human and therefore holding it to the same standards is a thought pattern that should be corrected by education.

Does it have anything to do with voting?  Only in the sense that improving people's critical thinking makes them better at sorting through other issues.  Look at how many people bought into the whole tariff idea when it was a campaign issue.  Most of them didn't think about how raising the costs of importing foreign goods would affect prices at the register - whether it was because the goods they were buying were imported, or the bits to manufacture them were imported, even if they were assembled in the US.

Most forms of government (including anarchy) don't scale well, simply because once you get over a certain number of people, it's harder to conceptualize them as individuals.  There's literally an upper limit to the number of individuals any person can perceive, and it's in the hundreds.

I was never trying to say that either of you had directly argued for taking away people's votes because they are ignorant, stupid, or uneducated. But your comment did follow someone providing an example of what they considered to be stupid behaviour, calling it "the biggest argument against democracy," and describing the idea of that person having an equal vote as "painful to think about." From where I was looking, the implication seemed pretty strong.

I framed that part of my argument as rhetorical questions because I wanted to highlight what seemed like the direction those kinds of arguments were leading. I wasn't trying to put words into anyone's mouth, and I apologize for coming across that way.

I absolutely agree that being informed and educated is an important part of a functioning democracy. I also agree with the idea that government or maintaining a functional society becomes increasingly difficult at larger scales. It's why I've come to believe that we'd be better off with a world split into a larger number of smaller, more local, political entities.

There is a lot to unpack here. Particularly the implication of a lot of things I never actually said and you make it sound as if I'm supporting authoritarian fascism or some shit.

1) yes you're right that we don't know anything about that woman's history. There could have been something tragic in her past that triggered this outburst and if true, that really fucking sucks for her and I hope she gets whatever help she needs, truly. But on the flip side, if that's all it takes to set her off in such a public way (watching ducks mating as per their natural instincts) and that instantly erodes any sense of public restraint and self awareness she has, Then I question her ability to criticize anything or anyone rationally and fairly.

2) Yes voting being a privilege of the few has it's many concerns and problems. I would argue no more of a concern than voting of the masses which can and has fallen victim to demagoguery more than once in world history. And while yes in an idealistic world the idea that everyone gets to vote means that everyone shares their perspectives and society becomes a more unified understanding place. This isn't actually playing out in real life, is it?

My big problem with wide open democracy is that as pointed out above, education is a huge part of it but I also don't think the main pillar. Formal education is a wonderful thing but i'm personally fond of the saying 'Only someone to went to college can say something that stupid'. There's a mixture of intelligence and wisdom needed to be a good voter and I personally feel like voting is in and of itself almost a skill. One that can be trained and sharpened and taught, but a skill. Formal education may bestow intelligence but not common sense or experience or wisdom and understanding of the wider world. It just makes them smarter at a specific topic/skill/trade. I would actually argue that possessing intelligence without wisdom is just as dangerous as a lack of intelligence as it can lead to arrogance. This is why I said that I disagree with the idea that only formally educated people should have the right to vote. Formal education is critically important in the modern world and must be accessible to all, but not the be-all-end-all we like to think it is.

People also need to be willing to take the time to inform themselves, which a lot of people don't bother doing as it requires a sacrifice of time that people don't want to or are too busy to invest. Many people vote on single issues and don't think about the second or third order consequences of that vote until it starts to affect them. Like how many American's googled 'what are tarrifs' or 'how do tariffs work' only after the US election was called. Voter short sighted-ness in democracies is a big problem and like I said in an earlier post. Many people are willing to vote for a 1% tax cut today, not thinking about how it affects something like the education budget and teacher salaries for tomorrow. I don't put that down to a lack of intellect and education as many people in the west are formally educated with post-secondary degrees. But a lack of critical thinking and dare i say it, a lack of wisdom contributes to poor decision making.

Democracy also relies on people exercising their right to vote, which is in and of itself a huge problem across the west right now. Getting more than 70% of the eligible population to actually vote on their future is a surprisingly hard challenge in some countries. And while I do agree that some barriers like not making election day a public holiday are an impediment to some. Most countries have polls open for twelve or more hours, and in places like Canada you're employer legally has to allow you up to three hours of leave to cast your ballot on election day. Hell if you're old or injured someone will bring the ballot box to your home/hospital bed. There really isn't a lot of excuse in my country not to vote. Add in weeks of advance polling and overall We make it incredibly accessible. Many non voters simply don't vote because they can't be fucked enough to care.

A system that relies on the general public to be educated, critically thinking, give enough of a shit to take a couple hours to stand in line, be carefully considerate and not prone to panic fueled and knee-jerk short-sighted decisions, is a system prone to making a lot of mistakes. Because the general public is rarely all or any of these things. And I think we need to reconcile somehow with the ideal version of a perfect democractic electorate we all imagine to exist in our heads, and the realistic one we are saddled with and likely will continue to have forever. This isn't a dig against the US specifically, pretty much every democracy has experienced these issues to varying degrees.

But in the interests of transparency, I will admit that I am not an anarchist (shocking I know). I believe that voting is a right to be earned and exercised, not a simple entitlement of citizenship, and I feel that's how many people in the west treat their vote right now, as an entitlement rather than a hard-won right and thus they don't treat it as reverently as they should.

How to go about establishing how one earns this right.... I don't know. I freely admit that. I have no idea what a proper civic exam might look like.

Just to be clear, I never said anything about 'fascist.' My most generous interpretation of you accusing me of it is that a lot of the examples I used referenced racism and such, but that was just based on the fact that they are some of the most popular and well-known examples. 'Authoritarian' is a much broader label than that, more than just military dictatorships and gulags. I'm using it in the sense of a spectrum, with 'authoritarian' at one end and 'egalitarian' at the other end. In left-libertarian circles, the use of police to enforce the laws of nation-states is 'authoritarian.'

That was what I was trying to say when I claimed to be trying to use the term in a neutral manner, not as an insult. Plato's notion of the 'philosopher-king' is an authoritarian concept, because it ultimately depends on the idea that not everyone deserves a say in how society is run. It is nonegalitarian. Same for the folks who talk about wanting government to be "run like a business." And some people would consider those to be good things without necessarily supporting the violent and racist nationalism that is fascism.

You're not arguing for philosopher-kings, but you do seem to be arguing for philosopher-voters, that only a certain class of people who prove themselves worthy deserve to have a say in how society is run.
_{(And to be clear, I don't know why you went on the whole sidebar about the limits of formal education, because I don't think anyone in this thread has argued to the contrary. So just to avoid any possible misunderstandings, I'm not saying that you think every voter should have a philosophy degree, merely making a reference.)}

Regarding people who choose not to exercise their vote, I think they are entitled to do so, even if I think it is unwise. Not making a choice is making a choice. Their making the choice to abstain is different from denying them the ability to choose. I would also argue there are plenty of understandable reasons for voter apathy. Politicians and parties too often seem to end up in bed with the interests of the wealthy rather than representing the interests of the people who elected them. Even you mentioned how some people are just too busy to get involved, a product of a decades-long trajectory where working-class people have to work harder just to keep their heads above water while the rich get even richer.

This thread was started on the premise of discussing whether or not democracy is effective. I think that the point I'm trying to make is that effectiveness isn't really the point. It's about legitimacy. On what grounds can people be compelled to follow a social contract they were never given the choice to opt into, without having any say regarding its contents? If you don't give people a say in the rules, why should they be forced to follow them when it is no longer in their self-interest?

Democracy as we know it is still clearly flawed in that regard, but that kind of problem is hardwired into any form of governance where people are completely excluded from the political process. I think figuring out how to make democracy work is a better option than throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[Oniya]

Democracy as we know it is still clearly flawed in that regard, but that kind of problem is hardwired into any form of governance where people are completely excluded from the political process. I think figuring out how to make democracy work is a better option than throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I think this is probably what Churchill was getting at in his famous quote. 

A question for you:  what if there was a way to make voting easy and compulsory, but with an option to actively decline?  I know that sounds contradictory, but I'm thinking along the lines of a ballot with a signature box that says 'I have opted not to select any candidate or stance on this ballot.'

Context:  I'm apparently what's known as a 'super-voter', according to the canvassers that come to my door, so I've seen a lot of ballots.  Every few years, in addition to the 'which of these total strangers do you think would be good in these exceedingly local positions', there's a question or two that has had little/no appearance in the mounds of electoral spam.  If someone never sees the ballots, they simply won't know that this issue is being decided on.

The 'positive refusal' would allow for someone to 'choose not to decide' between equally unpalatable candidates, but would make sure that they at least know about the plans to re-route R.R. 666 through the 150-year-old graveyard.

[Ollumhammersong]

I think this is probably what Churchill was getting at in his famous quote. 

A question for you:  what if there was a way to make voting easy and compulsory, but with an option to actively decline?  I know that sounds contradictory, but I'm thinking along the lines of a ballot with a signature box that says 'I have opted not to select any candidate or stance on this ballot.'

Context:  I'm apparently what's known as a 'super-voter', according to the canvassers that come to my door, so I've seen a lot of ballots.  Every few years, in addition to the 'which of these total strangers do you think would be good in these exceedingly local positions', there's a question or two that has had little/no appearance in the mounds of electoral spam.  If someone never sees the ballots, they simply won't know that this issue is being decided on.

The 'positive refusal' would allow for someone to 'choose not to decide' between equally unpalatable candidates, but would make sure that they at least know about the plans to re-route R.R. 666 through the 150-year-old graveyard.

I wholeheartedly agree with the idea that there should be a 'none of the above' option on ballots. I personally believe that if we are going to allow everyone the right to vote than we should treat and enforce it as a civil responsibility. Voting should be compulsory but also that people should have the right to vote 'I have all my options' and actually a lot of countries have this. Canada actually did until they recently removed/stop counting these ballots which annoys the shit out of me. But many countries actually do have a 'none of the above' option on their ballots.

In Canada what you used to be able to do was hand your ballot back to the elections officer when it was given to you and it would be counted in it's own pile. You can still hand the ballot back but it's no longer counted in that special 'protest vote' pile, it's just treated as a spoiled ballot and ignored.

I feel like it sends a much stronger message to vote none of the above than to simply not vote. Because while people might think they're just sticking to the system or whatever by staying home. In reality politicians are just interpreting that as 'I don't need to care about appealing him, he's too lazy to vote anyway' and But candidate that cares enough to show up to a pole and vote none of the above is a candidate that politicians can try to reach out and appeal to.

[TheGlyphstone]

You can still use the write-in candidate box to put pretty much whatever you want at least. IIRC, Bush Jr reportedly wrote in None of The Above in the 2016 election.

[Ollumhammersong]

Just to be clear, I never said anything about 'fascist.' My most generous interpretation of you accusing me of it is that a lot of the examples I used referenced racism and such, but that was just based on the fact that they are some of the most popular and well-known examples. 'Authoritarian' is a much broader label than that, more than just military dictatorships and gulags. I'm using it in the sense of a spectrum, with 'authoritarian' at one end and 'egalitarian' at the other end. In left-libertarian circles, the use of police to enforce the laws of nation-states is 'authoritarian.'

That was what I was trying to say when I claimed to be trying to use the term in a neutral manner, not as an insult. Plato's notion of the 'philosopher-king' is an authoritarian concept, because it ultimately depends on the idea that not everyone deserves a say in how society is run. It is nonegalitarian. Same for the folks who talk about wanting government to be "run like a business." And some people would consider those to be good things without necessarily supporting the violent and racist nationalism that is fascism.

You're not arguing for philosopher-kings, but you do seem to be arguing for philosopher-voters, that only a certain class of people who prove themselves worthy deserve to have a say in how society is run.
_{(And to be clear, I don't know why you went on the whole sidebar about the limits of formal education, because I don't think anyone in this thread has argued to the contrary. So just to avoid any possible misunderstandings, I'm not saying that you think every voter should have a philosophy degree, merely making a reference.)}

Philosopher voter isn't a bad way of phrasing it I suppose. I am more partial to Socrates's interpretation of democracy and the ship of state rather than Plato's own theories.

As for my rant about education. I was more going off about the idea that education is the most fundemental part of a democracy and that is something I disagree with. There are other equally important considerations. Relying on an educated population alone, or god forbid the idea that people are willing to take the time to educate themselves simply isn't going to work because some educated people are just as stupid and lazy as some non educated people.

[Ollumhammersong]

This thread was started on the premise of discussing whether or not democracy is effective. I think that the point I'm trying to make is that effectiveness isn't really the point. It's about legitimacy. On what grounds can people be compelled to follow a social contract they were never given the choice to opt into, without having any say regarding its contents? If you don't give people a say in the rules, why should they be forced to follow them when it is no longer in their self-interest?

Democracy as we know it is still clearly flawed in that regard, but that kind of problem is hardwired into any form of governance where people are completely excluded from the political process. I think figuring out how to make democracy work is a better option than throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Fuck sakes, this part of my post got deleted for some reason so I have to retype it out. 

Where you and I disagree here is that I believe that legitimacy is not more important than effectiveness. Lets put aside idealism  for a moment, the mental image of what we want from democracy and what we feel democracy should be and deal with the reality of the world and the electorates that we have. A short sighted, paniky, electorate that fails to think things through critically is actively dangerous. I fear the rise of demagogues that can easily sway such an electorate with the promise of free things or cheaper utilities, as we are seeing play out in real time in the west. 

I feel democracy is less effective as we march into the digital age as even supposedly tech savvy young people are falling prey to misinformation, lies and propoganda. And even though it seems like the world is hyper fixated on politics lately, that isn't really reflected in voter turnout. The rise of the internet gives people just enough information and confidence to be dangerous, but not so much as to actually be responsible. People are less able and less willing to think carefully, more tribal in their affiliations and thus more close minded. That is the reality of the electorates we are saddles with right now. And as long as that continues to be true we need to adjust accordingly. 

As for the idea that people should be compelled to follow laws that they didn't get to vote on. Well.....ya.... that's how it's worked for most of human history? Society isn't just about the right to vote. It's about enjoying the benefits of security, education, resources, etc that it provides. As long as you use and benefits from those things you are compelled to follow societies laws. Does a foreign tourist to say the Netherlands, who has never voted nor payed taxes in that country still have to follow dutch law? Obviously yes they do. But they never opted into those laws, never had a say in the contents of those laws. 

But let's play this out in another scenario. in the last five years there was a sweeping gun ban in Canada that banned nearly all semi automatic rifles through a series of waves. These bans were never voted on by the public, they weren't even voted on by parliament, they were rammed through by the PM and his cabinet via order-in-council (basically an executive order). And the method in which they are enforcing it is legally questionable to the point where even the Supreme court of Canada has had to step in and slap them on the wrist a couple times. 

I am a firearm owner, a sport shooter and a hunter, as are many of my friends. We fundementally disagree with this law and how it's being enforced. We never got to vote on it, we never had a say in what the extent of the ban is or what it does and doesn't cover. It certainly isn't in our self interest and it renders thousands of dollars of personal property effectively worthless with ZERO compensation from Ottawa to date. 

All of us comply with this law because it is the law, even if we don't respect it or like it. We respect the idea of the law itself. But.... No one ever gave us a say in the making of this rule, should we be compelled to follow and respect it? Why shouldn't I import a couple AR-15's and a few hundred round drum mags. By this logic, why should I be forced to follow this law when it is against my self interest and forced upon me unwillingly?

[Krayz]

I think this is probably what Churchill was getting at in his famous quote. 

A question for you:  what if there was a way to make voting easy and compulsory, but with an option to actively decline?  I know that sounds contradictory, but I'm thinking along the lines of a ballot with a signature box that says 'I have opted not to select any candidate or stance on this ballot.'

Context:  I'm apparently what's known as a 'super-voter', according to the canvassers that come to my door, so I've seen a lot of ballots.  Every few years, in addition to the 'which of these total strangers do you think would be good in these exceedingly local positions', there's a question or two that has had little/no appearance in the mounds of electoral spam.  If someone never sees the ballots, they simply won't know that this issue is being decided on.

The 'positive refusal' would allow for someone to 'choose not to decide' between equally unpalatable candidates, but would make sure that they at least know about the plans to re-route R.R. 666 through the 150-year-old graveyard.

There's an extent to which, as a matter of principle, I oppose the idea of making that kind of participation compulsory. But on a more pragmatic level, I think there's at least one important consideration that would need to be addressed before I'd at least consider it to be reasonably acceptable. Many anarchists choose not to vote because they believe that it bestows legitimacy upon a system that they consider to be illegitimate. And there's some evidence to support this, inasmuch as many pundits and politicians who are not anarchists talk about how concerning low voter turnout is for the legitimacy of elections. I think if you are going to make voting compulsory, then you need to provide an option to distinguish between "conscientious objectors" who are opposed to the entire system and those who are just indifferent or apathetic. Or you need to think that whatever penalties you would presumably be imposing on those who refuse their compulsory vote are a reasonable imposition on their freedom of expression; I'm assuming there would be some kind of penalty, or else how will you actually compel people to do it if they don't want to?

(I do vote, personally. I don't think the legitimacy that I might be denying the nation-state by opting out is worth the potential consequences that could come out of not participating. Maybe in a different time, if it was just Neoliberal Capitalists A vs. Neoliberal Capitalists B, but if it's Neoliberal Capitalists A vs. Actual Fascists and their Enablers, the stakes are a bit too big to ignore.)

As for my rant about education. I was more going off about the idea that education is the most fundemental part of a democracy and that is something I disagree with. There are other equally important considerations. Relying on an educated population alone, or god forbid the idea that people are willing to take the time to educate themselves simply isn't going to work because some educated people are just as stupid and lazy as some non educated people.

Fair enough, I see where you were coming from now. Since people seemed to be focusing on 'education' as a broad concept rather than post-secondary academia specifically, I didn't catch the connection.

Fuck sakes, this part of my post got deleted for some reason so I have to retype it out.

Where you and I disagree here is that I believe that legitimacy is not more important than effectiveness. Lets put aside idealism  for a moment, the mental image of what we want from democracy and what we feel democracy should be and deal with the reality of the world and the electorates that we have. A short sighted, paniky, electorate that fails to think things through critically is actively dangerous. I fear the rise of demagogues that can easily sway such an electorate with the promise of free things or cheaper utilities, as we are seeing play out in real time in the west.

I feel democracy is less effective as we march into the digital age as even supposedly tech savvy young people are falling prey to misinformation, lies and propoganda. And even though it seems like the world is hyper fixated on politics lately, that isn't really reflected in voter turnout. The rise of the internet gives people just enough information and confidence to be dangerous, but not so much as to actually be responsible. People are less able and less willing to think carefully, more tribal in their affiliations and thus more close minded. That is the reality of the electorates we are saddles with right now. And as long as that continues to be true we need to adjust accordingly.

As for the idea that people should be compelled to follow laws that they didn't get to vote on. Well.....ya.... that's how it's worked for most of human history? Society isn't just about the right to vote. It's about enjoying the benefits of security, education, resources, etc that it provides. As long as you use and benefits from those things you are compelled to follow societies laws. Does a foreign tourist to say the Netherlands, who has never voted nor payed taxes in that country still have to follow dutch law? Obviously yes they do. But they never opted into those laws, never had a say in the contents of those laws.

But let's play this out in another scenario. in the last five years there was a sweeping gun ban in Canada that banned nearly all semi automatic rifles through a series of waves. These bans were never voted on by the public, they weren't even voted on by parliament, they were rammed through by the PM and his cabinet via order-in-council (basically an executive order). And the method in which they are enforcing it is legally questionable to the point where even the Supreme court of Canada has had to step in and slap them on the wrist a couple times.

I am a firearm owner, a sport shooter and a hunter, as are many of my friends. We fundementally disagree with this law and how it's being enforced. We never got to vote on it, we never had a say in what the extent of the ban is or what it does and doesn't cover. It certainly isn't in our self interest and it renders thousands of dollars of personal property effectively worthless with ZERO compensation from Ottawa to date.

All of us comply with this law because it is the law, even if we don't respect it or like it. We respect the idea of the law itself. But.... No one ever gave us a say in the making of this rule, should we be compelled to follow and respect it? Why shouldn't I import a couple AR-15's and a few hundred round drum mags. By this logic, why should I be forced to follow this law when it is against my self interest and forced upon me unwillingly?

First of all, I do understand the need for dealing with reality as it exists, not living purely in an imaginary world of political ideals. It's why I described myself more as anarchist-sympathetic than just an anarchist, because I do understand that just blowing up the system we currently have and letting people try to figure everything out from there would almost certainly lead to some really bad outcomes. And I don't think that I have all the answers right now, much like you when you acknowledged that you don't know what your hypothetical civic test would look like.

This is why my first post focused more on stuff I figured would be common ground with more moderate positions, by the way. I didn't come into this thread looking to push an anarchist manifesto. It was only when the conversation started shifting towards "maybe some people aren't good enough to have democratic rights" that I decided to push back a little harder. But while I'm fine with discussing moderate and pragmatic reforms, to the extent that this thread is just a theoretical exercise anyways, I don't see any reason not to discuss more idealistic solutions as well.

I do think that the status quo is fundamentally flawed, and needs to be replaced by something radically different, not just reformed. As I noted before, I believe that the nation-states that currently exist are way too large, and our political groupings should be centred on the local level. It makes more room for direct democracy, which leaves less room for demagogues to claim high-ranking positions granting them massive power over wide swathes of people and territory.

I think the argument that laws are "the way things have always been done" is a pretty bad argument. "The way things have always been done" is a historical contingency, not a necessity. And to the extent that it's the path which has led us to this current moment, I don't think it should be given any kind of special regard. But to the extent that it is "the way things are," I do accept that it can't simply be thrown out overnight with no regard for the consequences.

So, to take your example of the new gun laws in Canada (I'm Canadian, by the way, so I know what you're talking about, though I haven't followed it as closely since I'm not a gun owner), the answer would be that you cannot legitimately be bound by those laws if you do not personally accept them. More to the point, people aren't bound by laws that they do not accept as legitimate. I would say the people who consistently follow the law out of respect for the principle of law are few and far between. Most folks ignore or break the law when they disagree with it if they are not sufficiently afraid of the punishment, whether because they don't think they will be caught or they are willing to accept the punishment. That's where the argument that laws with fines as the penalty aren't really laws for the rich, because they can afford to ignore them whenever they feel like it. The law is basically a magic spell; it only really works if you believe in it.

Moreover, the enforcement of the law leads to a (pun intended) arms race. You make laws around gun control, and gun nuts try to find workarounds, loopholes, or they simply ignore it. You end up with things like bump stocks being developed (I remember hearing they were originally developed for disabled gun users, but I can't source that right now, so I'd consider it up in the air). You end up with 3D printers being used to print parts of guns while other parts are ordered individually to circumvent laws around purchasing the whole package together. At the most extreme end, people simply buy them on the black market. And dealing with all of this leads to more laws and more enforcement, and the cycle continues to escalate.

Now, in a short-term, pragmatic, compromise with the status quo, I accept the need for gun control laws, and broadly prefer that they be followed. But a more long-term, idealistic solution might involve things like getting rid of powerful firearm industries driven to sell guns for profit, pushing marketing and propaganda intended to convince people that they need to own a personal arsenal of weapons designed for the purpose of killing other people (the same goes for fear-mongering politicians). To the extent that producing military-grade weapons at an industrial scale is necessary for security, it's a resource that should be managed collectively by the community. If someone wants more than what the community is willing to dole out for collective security, they can learn how to produce it themselves with the resources available to them. And they can accept that the rest of the community is probably going to watch them like a hawk if they choose to go down that route.

So to bring it back around a bit, I think the thing about legitimacy is that it's a necessary foundation for effectiveness. You can't build a functioning and effective social order on top of an illegitimate system. If people do not accept the system's legitimacy then they will resist it, undermining its effectiveness. So you have to start with a legitimate social order, then figure out how to make something effective out of it.

[Beorning]

*thinks*

All right, then. With everything that was said... what can be done to make democracy work better? How do we fix it?

[Ollumhammersong]

*thinks*

All right, then. With everything that was said... what can be done to make democracy work better? How do we fix it?

That depends on who's idea you're agreeing with. There isn't really a clear concensus here of what the exact root cause.

Krayz's opinion of the root problem and how to fix is very different from my own, which is different from others shared here.

One opinion is to embrace more anarchist leaning direct democracy and put more power and say in the hands of everyday people. (Which I argue makes things even more prone to demagoguery, not less so as it gives rise to plethora even smaller, pettier demagogues.)

 My idea is the exact opposite because I believe that relying on the masses to act reasonably and responsibly is a bad idea which can and will continue to fail spectacularly. 

Krayz may disagree with me on this point but ya, some people shouldn't have democratic rights. Sorry to say it out loud but some people are just fucking dumb or incapable of making rational decisions. Voting is a right to be earned for those that prove they are capable of wielding that power sensibly and responsibly. As otherwise it can cause alot of harm. It is not treated as an entilement, at least that's the way I view it.

Who's idea is correct and who's solution is thenone to implement?  Dunno