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Gantolandon posted:It's easy to forget that not all of people writing on somethingawful.com come from the US or even speak English as their first language. The Surgeon General is a politician with a medical background. (Similarly, SecDef is a politician with - usually - military background, Attorney General is a politician with a legal background, etc.) "Politicians" is a group that's bigger than just the elected ones. (And seriously, working in politics was more than enough to convince me that direct democracy would be far worse. Most people don't care, and most people who do care are idiots.)
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Aug 1, 2014 20:38
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Gantolandon posted:I'm not sure how not knowing what exactly is a Surgeon General (a US-specific office) disqualifies me from voicing my opinion in the thread about democracy. I'm pretty sure it disqualifies you from voicing your opinion on someone else's use of the Surgeon General as am example. Also senators have an entire staff dedicated to reading and summarizing legislation and the issues around them because being an expert on, or even reading every piece of proposed legislation is impossible in the course of their daily duties. Of course much of their daily duties is necessarily dealing with the circus that is getting elected and reelected, a process that has absolutely nothing to do being an expert on the issues precisely because of the stupidity of the public.
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Aug 1, 2014 20:48
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Jarmak posted:Also senators have an entire staff dedicated to reading and summarizing legislation and the issues around them because being an expert on, or even reading every piece of proposed legislation is impossible in the course of their daily duties. Of course much of their daily duties is necessarily dealing with the circus that is getting elected and reelected, a process that has absolutely nothing to do being an expert on the issues precisely because of the stupidity of the public. This is not an answer for my question. My question was: how do you ensure that only the senators who understand the topic get to vote on related laws? In other words, how do you disqualify incompetent politicians from voting? You can provide the staff for anyone, including the randomly-drawn senator who was a farmer in Arkansas but this still doesn't mean he understands the issue. If you can't ensure a politician is competent enough to vote on the issue, your argument that the public shouldn't get to make important decisions because they aren't competent enough doesn't make sense. Kalman posted:The Surgeon General is a politician with a medical background. (Similarly, SecDef is a politician with - usually - military background, Attorney General is a politician with a legal background, etc.) Which of them could possibly be meant by the OP or the guy who actually proposed drawing decision-makers at random? This issue has already been discussed in this thread. For example, here: rudatron posted:For me, it's an issue of conflation: people conflate governing with the technical details of governing. The truth is that politicians aren't informed decision makers, but that's not what their power is. Their power was in setting objectives and goals, for the bureaucracy blew them to fulfill. That's not as dependent upon expertise as actually solving the problem, moving the people, etc. When you conflate the two, you would of course end up at this kind of system where experts rule everything or whatever: but it's not actually possible to be an expert in the 'right thing to do': ethics is not and has never been a techne.
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Aug 1, 2014 20:57
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Gantolandon posted:If you can't ensure a politician is competent enough to vote on the issue, your argument that the public shouldn't get to make important decisions because they aren't competent enough doesn't make sense. If a politician is significantly more competent than an average person then they're the better option.
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Aug 1, 2014 21:01
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computer parts posted:If a politician is significantly more competent than an average person then they're the better option. You still haven't proven they are significantly more competent.
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Aug 1, 2014 21:01
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Gantolandon posted:You still haven't proven they are significantly more competent. By and large they come from wealthier, more stable backgrounds than the public at large. Wealth is correlated to education.
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Aug 1, 2014 21:02
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Gantolandon posted:You still haven't proven they are significantly more competent. It might be worthwhile to consider that, in the case of career politicians, the competence of the individual in terms of deciding on votes doesn't really matter. For a lot of issues, the party organization has a line that the individual is expected to follow. The politician also has an organization beneath him, the people mostly in charge of getting him re-elected, that will advise him on whether he should stand with his party or not. The only real competency a politician needs is to take the right advice to get re-elected, cause his vote is more a representation of his loyalties and ambitions than any actual individual expertise. In other words, it doesn't really matter if the politician is a genius virtuoso. If he wants to continue getting elected, he's going to vote in the way that gets him the most support from his party and constituency. Anybody can potentially reach this point, but a direct democracy won't necessarily have the stability that more organized structures provide. bobtheconqueror fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Aug 1, 2014 |
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Aug 1, 2014 21:13
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computer parts posted:By and large they come from wealthier, more stable backgrounds than the public at large. Wealth is correlated to education. Education doesn't imply competence. It doesn't even imply knowledge about the issues that come up during making decisions. Having a degree in law doesn't matter when trying to decide whether to prioritize economic growth or the environment.
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Aug 1, 2014 21:14
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Gantolandon posted:Education doesn't imply competence. It doesn't even imply knowledge about the issues that come up during making decisions. Having a degree in law doesn't matter when trying to decide whether to prioritize economic growth or the environment. You seem to be defining competence as "votes the way I want to vote".
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Aug 1, 2014 21:15
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Gantolandon posted:This is not an answer for my question. My question was: how do you ensure that only the senators who understand the topic get to vote on related laws? In other words, how do you disqualify incompetent politicians from voting? You can provide the staff for anyone, including the randomly-drawn senator who was a farmer in Arkansas but this still doesn't mean he understands the issue. Ya man, because if people whose entire profession and supporting infrastructure is based on understanding and voting on these issues can't be experts on the issues the implication is that tWisTy69 who spends 20 minutes a day posting on the CNN comments section must be equally competent. I apologize for not taking a paragraph to hold your hand and walk you through the obvious implications of that argument.
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Aug 1, 2014 21:21
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computer parts posted:You seem to be defining competence as "votes the way I want to vote". You seem not to be responding to arguments and instead trying to come up with a witty  .bobtheconqueror posted:It might be worthwhile to consider that, in the case of career politicians, the competence of the individual in terms of deciding on votes doesn't really matter. For a lot of issues, the party organization has a line that the individual is expected to follow. The politician also has an organization beneath him, the people mostly in charge of getting him re-elected, that will advise him on whether he should stand with his party or not. The only real competency a politician needs is to take the right advice to get re-elected, cause his vote is more a representation of his loyalties and ambitions than any actual individual expertise. I don't necessarily disagree - but the entire argument happened because a lot of people in this thread were against more democratic institutions because the public is not competent enough to make major decisions. Whether something close to the perfect direct democracy is actually possible to implement is an another issue. Jarmak posted:Ya man, because if people whose entire profession and supporting infrastructure is based on understanding and voting on these issues can't be experts on the issues the implication is that tWisTy69 who spends 20 minutes a day posting on the CNN comments section must be equally competent. We discussed this "they are experts so of course they know what they are doing" poo poo about 1 page ago, when several people tried to explain why relying on expert knowledge to decide what issue is actually worth pursuing is a terrible idea. Also, good point - it's a stupid idea to actually debate on forums called "Debate & Discussion". Gantolandon fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Aug 1, 2014 |
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Aug 1, 2014 21:25
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Gantolandon posted:You seem not to be responding to arguments and instead trying to come up with a witty No like literally your definition of competency is "coincidentally, everything I agree with".
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Aug 1, 2014 21:27
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computer parts posted:No like literally your definition of competency is "coincidentally, everything I agree with". [citation needed]
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Aug 1, 2014 21:31
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Gantolandon posted:I'm not sure how not knowing what exactly is a Surgeon General (a US-specific office) disqualifies me from voicing my opinion in the thread about democracy. It shows you are an idiot who doesn't know when to shut the gently caress up. Like right now.
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Aug 1, 2014 21:33
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Gantolandon posted:We discussed this "they are experts so of course they know what they are doing" poo poo about 1 page ago, when several people tried to explain why relying on expert knowledge to decide what issue is actually worth pursuing is a terrible idea. Not really, saying experts are dumb because people can lie about being experts to a uninformed public doesn't really score competency points for the uninformed public.
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Aug 1, 2014 21:41
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Gantolandon posted:I don't necessarily disagree - but the entire argument happened because a lot of people in this thread were against more democratic institutions because the public is not competent enough to make major decisions. Whether something close to the perfect direct democracy is actually possible to implement is an another issue. Dude, the public isn't competent enough to make major political decisions, and shouldn't be put in charge of doing so when we can put a smaller representative sample of the same people into organizations that make sure they're informed by experts, whether current representative democracies function like that or not. That isn't to say the general population can't be competent. Competence isn't an inherent trait, and could be taught as a part of general education. That ultimately becomes an issue of implementation, though. Can we make sure that every person of voting age has the competence to evaluate important issues without an organizational structure to coach them via expertise as individual topics come up for vote? Alternatively, can we make an effective organization to coach every voting individual on complex issues as they come up for vote? Can we have a direct democracy that does that while not getting bogged down in ideological differences in the same way that modern representative democracies have?
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Aug 1, 2014 21:42
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Jarmak posted:Not really, saying experts are dumb because people can lie about being experts to a uninformed public doesn't really score competency points for the uninformed public. It's not "experts are dumb", it's "having experts making important decisions doesn't guarantee those decisions will be beneficial to the society at large". bobtheconqueror posted:Dude, the public isn't competent enough to make major political decisions, and shouldn't be put in charge of doing so when we can put a smaller representative sample of the same people into organizations that make sure they're informed by experts, whether current representative democracies function like that or not. I'm trying to argue that competence is a non-issue in general politics. You can't ensure your elected representative is actually competent, or that their knowledge and skills are actually used for the benefit of their voters, instead of just bullshitting their way through the term. Instead of pretending we get the best of the best at the top, we should concentrate on the issue that actually can be improved - accountability of decision-makers to the public. Sure, you need someone competent in medicine and administration to run the Department of Health. I didn't see anyone in this thread disagreeing with this. But this still doesn't solve another problem - who should make decisions how to prioritize the issues the Department of Health is trying to solve? Who gets to decide if public health is currently more important than defense or economy? Who can prevent the guy running the Department of Health, for example, from deeming racial purity an important part of public health? These are important decisions which can't be made by appointed experts, otherwise you end up with a completely unaccountable group of people running the show.
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Aug 1, 2014 22:14
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Gantolandon posted:Sure, you need someone competent in medicine and administration to run the Department of Health. I didn't see anyone in this thread disagreeing with this. But this still doesn't solve another problem - who should make decisions how to prioritize the issues the Department of Health is trying to solve? Who gets to decide if public health is currently more important than defense or economy? Who can prevent the guy running the Department of Health, for example, from deeming racial purity an important part of public health? These are important decisions which can't be made by appointed experts, otherwise you end up with a completely unaccountable group of people running the show. The general public would be more likely to deem racial purity as an important part of public health (especially in Europe).
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Aug 1, 2014 22:19
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computer parts posted:The general public would be more likely to deem racial purity as an important part of public health (especially in Europe). [citation needed]
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Aug 1, 2014 22:20
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Gantolandon posted:[citation needed] A majority of people did not approve of interracial marriages in the US until 1995 despite being legalized in the 50s. As for Europe, there are currently several Neo-Nazi parties winning seats in their parliaments and an anti-immigration party in the UK won a third of their seats in the European Parliament.
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Aug 1, 2014 22:26
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Eh, you just pick the head of the Health Department by lot. Yeah maybe 10% of the time you get some Deepak Chopra clone who spends all his time pushing Crystal Healing or whatever, and maybe another 20% of the time you get a racist freeper-type, and maybe 30% of the time you get someone who regulates every abortion clinic out of existence, but at least we're not at the mercy of the American Medical Association's terrifying technocracy.
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Aug 1, 2014 22:26
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Gantolandon posted:It's not "experts are dumb", it's "having experts making important decisions doesn't guarantee those decisions will be beneficial to the society at large". Competence and virtuosity are two entirely different concerns, preventing self interested behavior on the part of leaders is an actual theoretical benefit of democratization. Though observation seems to call into question the public having the competency to do even that.
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Aug 1, 2014 22:33
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Gantolandon posted:I'm trying to argue that competence is a non-issue in general politics. You can't ensure your elected representative is actually competent, or that their knowledge and skills are actually used for the benefit of their voters, instead of just bullshitting their way through the term. Instead of pretending we get the best of the best at the top, we should concentrate on the issue that actually can be improved - accountability of decision-makers to the public. Well, I mostly agree with you. Individual competence of a politician is mostly a non-issue, although I will say that proposing legislation and actually trying to change things usually comes from individual efforts and ideologies, which then get cultivated or shot down in committees. A literal idiot can vote based on party line or expert advice, but that guy isn't likely to propose useful legislation unless it's pushed to them by experts or lobbies. Actually, in a not completely corrupt system, political competence would involve resisting corrupting elements like corporate lobbies and poo poo, and would be quite important. Unfortunately, in the US, saying no to money for re-election is probably more of a mistake than a competency. Hey! There you go. Political competence matters because, if a legislator's job is to represent their constituency, they need to be able to tell whether or not a proposal will actually benefit their constituency, or whether it's a pile of bullshit gussied up to look like something beneficial, which I would say the general populace isn't equipped to do without a significant investment in education. bobtheconqueror fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Aug 1, 2014 |
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Aug 1, 2014 22:56
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computer parts posted:A majority of people did not approve of interracial marriages in the US until 1995 despite being legalized in the 50s. quote:The poll surveyed 4,373 Americans, including 1,010 non-Hispanic blacks. That's slightly more than 0.00001% of the entire population of the US. This is a very small sample. quote:
The issue is a bit more complicated. Far-right nationalist parties in Europe (especially Eastern Europe) frequently remained the only ones who don't support further dismantling of social safety net after social democrats drifted right. They also tend to run on strict anti-corruption platform, which appeals to those disappointed with politics at large. Last but not least, there is the growing disappointment with the EU with its current shape and backslash against further integration, which mentioned parties staunchly oppose. Of course, racism still plays its part. Jarmak posted:Competence and virtuosity are two entirely different concerns, preventing self interested behavior on the part of leaders is an actual theoretical benefit of democratization. Though observation seems to call into question the public having the competency to do even that. Not sure what observation do you mean - in most countries, the public can't do much about a corrupt politician who doesn't ostensibly break the law, except voting for someone else in the next elections.
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Aug 1, 2014 23:02
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Gantolandon posted:That's slightly more than 0.00001% of the entire population of the US. This is a very small sample. Good job, you have no idea how polling works.
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Aug 1, 2014 23:07
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Gantolandon posted:Not sure what observation do you mean - in most countries, the public can't do much about a corrupt politician who doesn't ostensibly break the law, except voting for someone else in the next elections. Well, mass media has pretty well demonstrated that you can get away with a lot of poo poo if you can control the messaging. This is the biggest problem I can see with direct democracy. Information control would be even more of a big market in gaining political control. Being not from the US, you probably don't get to witness the year and a half of stupid media bullshit that covers our televisions leading up to the Presidential election every four years. The 2012 election had this ridiculous Republican meme about polls being lies and everything being wrong and "Just you wait, despite everybody else reporting that we're losing, FOX News says we're winning, and we trust them more!" It was a really weird way of trying to cultivate support by undermining the other guy's obvious lead in polling. bobtheconqueror fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Aug 1, 2014 |
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Aug 1, 2014 23:11
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computer parts posted:Good job, you have no idea how polling works. Haha, Gantolandon is doing more to discredit his own argument than the people he is arguing against!
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Aug 1, 2014 23:12
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The primary advantage of going directly to the populace is that a political class (using the US as an example) benefits from the constant revolving door between the private and public sector. Secondly, direct democracy would obviously be more responsive and not have the "campaigning politician" vs "actual politician" dichotomy that frequently occurs. It would also be impossible to buy politicians if they didn't exist, of course... bobtheconqueror posted:Well, mass media has pretty well demonstrated that you can get away with a lot of poo poo if you can control the messaging. This is the biggest problem I can see with direct democracy. Information control would be even more of a big market in gaining political control. Being not from the US, you probably don't get to witness the year and a half of stupid media bullshit that covers our televisions leading up to the Presidential election every four years. The 2012 election had this ridiculous Republican meme about polls being lies and everything being wrong and "Just you wait, despite everybody else reporting that we're losing, FOX News says we're winning, and we trust them more!" It was a really weird way of trying to cultivate support by undermining the other guy's obvious lead in polling. ..instead lobbyists will now fill media with arguments tailored for individual voters instead of politicians. Aaand that's probably as specific as I can get without writing my own constitution. EDIT: spelling
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Aug 1, 2014 23:27
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bobtheconqueror posted:Well, I mostly agree with you. Individual competence of a politician is mostly a non-issue, although I will say that proposing legislation and actually trying to change things usually comes from individual efforts and ideologies, which then get cultivated or shot down in committees. A literal idiot can vote based on party line or expert advice, but that guy isn't likely to propose useful legislation unless it's pushed to them by experts or lobbies. Actually, in a not completely corrupt system, political competence would involve resisting corrupting elements like corporate lobbies and poo poo, and would be quite important. Unfortunately, in the US, saying no to money for re-election is probably more of a mistake than a competency. No democracy currently have a functional mechanism of encouraging politicians to resist corruption. The US is not unique here, the two-party system only exacerbates the problem of decision-makers being completely unaccountable. quote:Well, mass media has pretty well demonstrated that you can get away with a lot of poo poo if you can control the messaging. This is the biggest problem I can see with direct democracy. Information control would be even more of a big market in gaining political control. Being not from the US, you probably don't get to witness the year and a half of stupid media bullshit that covers our televisions leading up to the Presidential election every four years. The 2012 election had this ridiculous Republican meme about polls being lies and everything being wrong and "Just you wait, despite everybody else reporting that we're losing, FOX News says we're winning, and we trust them more!" It was a really weird way of trying to cultivate support by undermining the other guy's obvious lead in polling. I come from a country where two parties managed to dominate the political landscape, in large part thanks to the information control and media groups taking political stances. It mostly works by telling the population that the second option is terrible and they have to vote for the lesser evil if they don't want those fuckers to win. I'm not really sure if the mass media could be even more problematic in direct democracy - lobbying for actual policies is harder than just scaring the people into accepting their current favorite politician. computer parts posted:Good job, you have no idea how polling works. My bad - found the actual survey method at the end of the page.
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Aug 1, 2014 23:59
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Kalman posted:(And seriously, working in politics was more than enough to convince me that direct democracy would be far worse. Most people don't care, and most people who do care are idiots.) This is truest statement I've seen in this thread. Politicians, especially on the state level, are often dumb. I recall once being asked by a respected state legislature if science suggested lead paint made people gay, which was apparently a serious concern of his. Average people who contact state officials are far worse though. I'm talking angry phone calls about how Obama is implementing socialism for his Muslim allies or demands that the state shoot illegal immigrants. When I was working there was widespread public support for a law that let people kill government workers, including postal workers, on their property. Democracy is a far better system of government than many but people aren't always rational actors. Recall the worldwide only 46 percent of people think Al Qaeda caused 9/11 while 77 percent of Americans believe in angels. If you look at American history just the mere existence of slavery for so long in democratic system should make clear that democracies don't always behave morally either.
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Aug 2, 2014 00:08
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Glenn Zimmerman posted:The primary advantage of going directly to the populace is that a political class (using the US as an example) benefits from the constant revolving door between the private and public sector. Secondly, direct democracy would obviously be more responsive and not have the "campaigning politician" vs "actual politician" dichotomy that frequently occurs. Whether more responsiveness is a good thing is actually half the debate here. And there are always going to be people in power so you can never prevent them from being bought off entirely.
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Aug 2, 2014 00:13
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Gantolandon posted:My bad - found the actual survey method at the end of the page. It's not a special survey method though, it's basic statistics principles. As long as effort is taken to secure a non-biased sample (i.e. don't go taking your survey for if christianity is good at the church choir), a few thousand people being polled easily accounts for hundreds of millions of people.
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Aug 2, 2014 00:24
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Barlow posted:This is truest statement I've seen in this thread. Politicians, especially on the state level, are often dumb. I recall once being asked by a respected state legislature if science suggested lead paint made people gay, which was apparently a serious concern of his. You just haven't met enough terrible politicians - the guy fearing lead paint turning people gay has nothing on the moron who outright stated that Ebola could solve the problem of illegal immigration to his country or the perfect reactionary who thinks disabled people shouldn't be shown on TV. I'm not sure if they really are less terrible than your average voter. Nintendo Kid posted:It's not a special survey method though, it's basic statistics principles. As long as effort is taken to secure a non-biased sample (i.e. don't go taking your survey for if christianity is good at the church choir), a few thousand people being polled easily accounts for hundreds of millions of people. As I said - my bad.
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Aug 2, 2014 00:30
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rudatron posted:But my point wasn't just about mistakes of judgement or whatever, it was about what they want. The general public and the ruling class want very different things from society. They desire different outcomes because they are their own group, separate from society as a whole. When you give them power, you give them the opportunity to deny the outcomes the public wants, in favor of the ones they want. A rule-by-experts is not an objective system, because there is no such thing as an objective governing system. It's an oligarchy, and it inherits the same kind of problems you see in oligarchies everywhere. How is it elitist to say that certain people aren't qualified for certain positions? It's more than a question of intellect. Good representatives should have a desire to perform their duties and listen to the needs of their constituents. This will not happen when random people are selected as representatives. You'll end up representatives who hate their job and have no desire to execute the will of the people. Yes, this happens already in our current system, but tu quoque is a childish way of approaching problems. I think a fundamental problem with society is that politics is driven by vague intuitions of human desires and motivations in the form of ideologies. Total democracy ignores the fact that individuals are prone to self-delusion, bandwagonning, and all other sorts of psychological problems that prevent them from making rational or even self-beneficial choices. The process of creating a better society must first be based in scientific understanding of human psychology and not vague intuitions or assumptions about humans. The ideal society would therefore be one run by psychologists, cyberneticists, and neuroscientists, obviously. America Inc. fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Aug 2, 2014 |
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Aug 2, 2014 00:40
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Barlow posted:This is truest statement I've seen in this thread. Politicians, especially on the state level, are often dumb. I recall once being asked by a respected state legislature if science suggested lead paint made people gay, which was apparently a serious concern of his. The question isn't whether democracy is some platonic good, though. Its whether some intermediary of representatives/senators/parties are necessary. Unrelatedly, how are there more American Christians than there are people who believe in angels? That's weird. asdf32 posted:Whether more responsiveness is a good thing is actually half the debate here. Well yes, I would agree the primary point is responsiveness. I would say 'yes' as there seems little to lose*. As for preventing buy-offs, banning government officials from working for corporation they were meant to be regulating is pretty standard, even in modern nations. *The obvious problem of changing the entire government being set aside Negative Entropy posted:How is it elitist to say that certain people aren't qualified for certain positions? It's more than a question of intellect. Good representatives should have a desire to perform their duties and listen to the needs of their constituents. This will not happen when random people are selected as representatives. You'll end up representatives who hate their job and have no desire to execute the will of the people. Yes, this happens already in our current system, but tu quoque is a childish way of approaching problems. I'm not rudatron but I'm pretty sure technical specialists would be appointed/elected by the ~1,000 citizens randomly selected for legislative duty.
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Aug 2, 2014 00:58
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Glenn Zimmerman posted:Unrelatedly, how are there more American Christians than there are people who believe in angels? That's weird. A ton of people will answer that they're Christians who haven't gone to church in decades or really actively believed in a similar amount of time.
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Aug 2, 2014 00:59
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Negative Entropy posted:How is it elitist to say that certain people aren't qualified for certain positions? It's more than a question of intellect. Good representatives should have a desire to perform their duties and listen to the needs of their constituents. This will not happen when random people are selected as representatives. You'll end up representatives who hate their job and have no desire to execute the will of the people. Yes, this happens already in our current system, but tu quoque is a childish way of approaching problems. Knowledge of psychology or neuroscience doesn't make you a logical machine resistant to self-delusion. Quite the opposite.
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Aug 2, 2014 01:16
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Negative Entropy posted:How is it elitist to say that certain people aren't qualified for certain positions? It's more than a question of intellect. Good representatives should have a desire to perform their duties and listen to the needs of their constituents. This will not happen when random people are selected as representatives. You'll end up representatives who hate their job and have no desire to execute the will of the people. Yes, this happens already in our current system, but tu quoque is a childish way of approaching problems. So it's not even a question of too much democracy. You'd prefer a technocracy then?
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Aug 2, 2014 01:27
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What don't you like about Technocracy?
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Aug 2, 2014 01:31
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Gantolandon posted:Knowledge of psychology or neuroscience doesn't make you a logical machine resistant to self-delusion. Quite the opposite. I think you took me a little too literally. Individuals of any field obviously have flaws but the purpose of the scientific method is to root out these flaws and separate bias from empirical statements. The purpose of society is to serve human needs, accomodating the nuances of being a living breathing feeling thinking human being. Ultimately we can better refine our understanding of these needs and nuance through better.understanding of the human brain and how it interacts with the world around it.
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Aug 2, 2014 01:40
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