
People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say - pwg
http://news.yahoo.com/people-arent-smart-enough-democracy-flourish-scientists-185601411.html
======
btilly
This is what happens when one person writes an article, and another writes a
link bait title.

Here is the concise version. The well-known Dunning-Kruger effect says that
the less competent people are, the less they are able to recognize competence.
Someone named Mato Nagel used this as the basis of a toy computer model of
democracy. The result of his simulations is that the leaders selected by
democracy are only slightly above average.

Of course there has been no testing of how accurate this model is. It is just
a toy, and appropriate skepticism should be shown.

However I wouldn't say that evidence is against particularly against his
conclusion. For instance 3 of the 4 remaining Republican candidates for
President actively disbelieve the scientific consensus on topics such as
evolution and global warming. (The exception is Mitt Romney, and even he is
not convinced enough about global warming to say that we should spend any
money on the issue.) Conversely surveys of Democrats find that most fail to
accept basic economic theory on a number of subjects. For instance economists
broadly agree that rent control decreases the supply of rental housing, but in
surveys the majority of Democrats think that this is wrong.

I could start a debate by multiplying examples of widespread misconception on
both sides, but these two are enough to support my point. My point is that it
is easy to demonstrate that someone who actually understands and supports the
best view of the world that experts from different fields have come to would
be totally unelectable. That person might run the country very well, but will
never, ever be selected by a democratic process.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
And so we have come to realize that soon, very soon, we will have to pioneer
another form of government. We humans have had kings and queens,
dictatorships, anarchy, communism, socialism, republics, democracies, and now
it's time to move on to the next one.

A few years ago when I was a young teenager who believed in the good of the
world and the wisdom of people I would have thought the next government would
naturally be more democratic than the last, taking more power away from
individuals (who's human flaw is greed and control) and giving it to the
masses (who's human flaw is stupidity and not knowing what to do with power in
the first place). But after a few years of studying history, voting, reading,
I've changed my mind. Democracy will never work because it can only work if
EVERYONE is educated enough and by default humans are notoriously stupid and
unaware of their own stupidity. We are also delusional greedy and evil by
nature so dictatorships also do not work out for us.

I can't help but feel that the problem is us. Our human way of thinking is
just too primitive. We have to constantly look for ways to prevent "us" from
fucking everything up. This is why I await the zombie apocalypse with a smile.
At least the zombies can work together to reach a common goal and the world
will be a much more peaceful place after their rise to power.

~~~
saraid216
_Democracy will never work because it can only work if EVERYONE is educated
enough and by default humans are notoriously stupid and unaware of their own
stupidity. We are also delusional greedy and evil by nature so dictatorships
also do not work out for us._

See, for most people, this is a surrender. "Give up!" they say, "The world can
never get better!"

To me, though, it's a challenge. I'm a hacker and an entrepreneur and
"impossible" means "interesting".

~~~
joejohnson
_I'm a hacker and an entrepreneur..._

Exactly. Our inability to accurately evaluate people extends to ourselves.

------
d4nt

        "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 all those other forms that have been tried from 
        time to time."
    

Churchill, 1947

[http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1947/nov/11/parli...](http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1947/nov/11/parliament-
bill#column_206)

~~~
Sthorpe
I honestly think this is the best piece of rhetoric to keep our old system in
place.

The system is awful, but its the best we got. I'd prefer if we brought back
our philosophers and started to have large debates on the writing of new law.

We are to afraid to change our old old system. Depressing.

~~~
recoiledsnake
The bigger problem is that the only folks who can improve the system(the
people in charge), have an active self-interest not to do that since they are
likely to lose power and influence with the changes.

That's why the US Congress has an approval rating worse than herpes [1] and
still most people will keep their jobs thanks to lack of reform, redistricting
and gerrymandering by the only people who can fix it.

[1] [http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/21/opinion/obeidallah-congress-
fa...](http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/21/opinion/obeidallah-congress-
failure/index.html)

~~~
toyg
One of the best Italian artists of all time, Giorgio Gaber, said once that
"Democracy is Participation", or "taking part". Check the number of active
voters in the US at most levels: it's depressingly low. Low participation
means less democracy, it's as simple as that.

Most people thought it would have been impossible for a black man to be
President of the United States of America, but for once "the people" thought
differently, you got the highest turnout ever for a presidential race, and lo
and behold, change happened (at least for that particular thing).

Try to imagine how things would change if you could add another 10 or 20% to
that 63% who elected a black President. Now repeat that at any level:
Congress, State, City, even school board. All of a sudden you have a decisive
element that can change majorities and express real power.

The problem, of course, is that "taking part takes time". Politics is a very
slow game, and most people have a life outside of politics, so they drop out
(me included). Even voting every few years is a problem, if you can't afford
to take a day off; most European countries recognize that, and vote over the
weekend. I find the US stance on this incredibly maddening, and clearly a
legacy from the dark times of slavery and "gentlemen" landowners who didn't
have to work for a living.

The problem, going forward, is how to give people the opportunity to take part
more and more, while minimizing the time they have to spend in order to do so.
One of them is having a good set of impartial media who can summarize honest
arguments in a faithful way, providing different levels of analysis that don't
contradict themselves. Another one might be some sort of collaborative service
where people can contribute to the work of their representatives. Another
might be a way of making representatives more accountable and in tune to the
wishes of their electorate. And so on and so on... but nothing of this can
happen unless we _take part_ and move our ass, so to speak.

------
gaius
The elephant in the corner of the room of course is that the ancient Athenians
quite deliberately didn't have a universal franchise. Property-owning tax-
paying full citizens who fulfilled their military obligations voted, because
they were the ones that would pay for, implement and generally be responsible
for whatever was voted for.

~~~
rmc
This was the dominant form of voting in most democracies until about 100 years
ago. E.g. in the UK, only men who owned property could vote (can't let the
common man vote!). This didn't always produce a good democracy.

~~~
gaius
Alexis de Tocqueville: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of
government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself
largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for
the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy
collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by
a dictatorship, then a monarchy."

This is the one crucial defence of a restricted franchise - if the only people
voting are the ones paying, they are much more resistant to this kind of
corruption.

~~~
swalsh
His book is free on Amazon Prime by the way! [http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-
America-1-ebook/dp/B000JQUY7...](http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-
America-1-ebook/dp/B000JQUY7E/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1330972523&sr=8-3)

------
noonespecial
Democracy isn't about putting the best people in power. Its about being able
to get rid of the worst ones.

~~~
praxeologist
That sounds nice, but put into practice is, at best, marginally effective.

Democracy is actually quite good on a small scale without the element of
compulsion, like your chess club or picking the most able-bodied man to lead
the local volunteer fire co.

People are both more familiar with the people being voted for and can see a
payoff for voting. There's more chance of dying in a car accident on the way
to the polls in the US than of your individual vote mattering though.

Democracy such as in US politics, in comparison, creates a perverse incentive
structure where it is more often the most suave liars rising to the top. The
millions spent on Super PACs or stroking the media is chump change compared
such things as awarding gov't contracts or the power of politicians and
unelected bureaucrats to shape industry-changing regulation.

Can we vote out the worst ones? I guess, as long as we are talking about a
more legitimate democracy than Russia or Venezuela. Still, even in the US
people are going to elect pretty much the same thing every time they switch.
There's very little difference between a Romney (or clones) and Obama.

What needs "voted out" is democracy as a whole. I realize that this cuts to
the core of most Americans' religious worship of democracy, but hopefully
people can at least consider the options—I suggest libertarian anarchy—and
educate themselves about some serious criticisms of the system we have. I
suspect I am going to get more downvotes than coherent objections, but oh
well. See Hans Herman Hoppe's Democracy: The God that Failed or Bryan Caplan's
The Myth of the Rational Voter

~~~
TheAmazingIdiot
Marx and Engels are a good place to start if you look for a comprehensive
debate against capitalism.

Of course, I would expect Adam Smith and his disertation to say something akin
to "we've not seen 'real capitalism'".

------
pnathan
One thing that I am reminded of in the current zeitgeist with respect to
capitalism and democracy is the 1930s and its condemnation of democracy as
outdated and how fascism was the progressive way forward.

~~~
synor
Also, that time gave rise to the Technocracy Movement, which proposed an
allegedly new way to run society other than by dictatorship or democracy.

~~~
swalsh
From this:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy#Technocracy_movemen...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy#Technocracy_movement)

The idea of currency based on energy units is quite intriguing. It makes me
wonder how our world would change.

------
dgreensp
I see fallacy upon fallacy here. In reality, political systems are complex;
there often is no objectively "right" or "best" answer; it's not about smart
vs. dumb.

Here are some other headlines we could run.

> Neurons Aren't Smart Enough for Brains to Flourish

The system as a whole either works or doesn't; the burden is not on each part.
This is just an empty way to blame the parts for the functioning of the whole.

> Investors Aren't Smart Enough for Good Companies to Flourish

Maybe it feels that way sometimes (ha), but what is a "good" company or a
"smart" investor? There are many kinds of investors, and they can make up
their own mind how to spend their money. This is just an empty way to blame
whoever is making the decisions for the outcomes; yet we could just as easily
assume the decision-makers are doing the best they can, or even could do,
depending on what we assume the goal (i.e. definition of "best") to be.

> Movie Critics Aren't Smart Enough for Good Movies to Flourish

Again, what makes a movie critic or a movie "smart" or "good"? Not that we
don't each have our opinions about this, but it's not anything so objective as
skill at tax accounting. More importantly, do movie critics even have that
much influence in shaping what movies are made? We may be looking in the wrong
place.

------
DirtyCalvinist
"Strangely though, in these experiments, people tend to readily and accurately
agree on who the worst performers are, while failing to recognize the best
performers."

So we know incompetence even if we don't recognize competence. This appears to
be good enough for government work.

------
gersh
If 90% of the population randomly picks between two candidates and 10% makes
an informed decision, the better candidate will win. If the most informed are
also the most engaged via volunteering, donating, etc. their influence will be
amplified.

------
darengb
This is not a new idea, it's why almost nobody took Democracy seriously before
the U.S. I like Jefferson's answer to this problem:

"if we think [the people] not enlightened enough to exercise their control
with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to
inform their discretion by education." --Thomas Jefferson

Democracy is really the only reason that we have universal education in the
first place. If the elite are forced to allow the people to make decisions,
then they're going to make sure the people are educated enough not to do
anything too dumb.

~~~
artsrc
Indeed, the whole theory falls down on this point. In areas where people are
generally competent, they can judge to skill of others and can select the best
leaders.

------
popplebop
>Nagel concluded that democracies rarely or never elect the best leaders.
Their advantage over dictatorships or other forms of government is merely that
they "effectively prevent lower-than-average candidates from becoming
leaders."

No. Democracy is the best form of government discovered so far because it
allows voters to _remove_ incompetent leaders and bad policies without
violence.

However competent a king or dictator is, most of his competence will be
directed towards remaining in power through military force, rather than
addressing his country's real problems. He cannot be removed without risking
civil war, which is the worst kind.

However incompetent a prime minister or president turns out to be, and however
dull voters are, incompetence is easier to recognise than competence.

Besides, one doesn't necessarily need to personally recognise it: one can be
persuaded by other people. It's easier to reach agreement about things that
_aren't_ working.

------
motters
This is a very old argument against democracy. It's also divisive in the sense
that you have the "competent" folks on one side and the "incompetent" ones on
the other. Who decides who is "competent" to vote? About a century ago it was
believed that women were not competent to vote. Before then it was thought
that people who didn't own land couldn't possibly be responsible enough to
vote. Also, there is no such thing as an objectively "best leader". That way
lies tyranny and ruin.

Democracy isn't about voting for candidates anyway. In general it's about
having some say in decisions which affect your life, and as such I think it's
still more of an aspiration than a reality.

------
maratd

      The democratic process relies on the assumption that
      citizens (the majority of them, at least) can recognize
      the best political candidate, or best policy idea, when
      they see it. But a growing body of research has revealed
      an unfortunate aspect of the human psyche that would seem
      to disprove this notion, and imply instead that democratic
      elections produce mediocre leadership and policies.
    

Unfortunately, the researchers in question aren't intelligent enough to
realize the best form of government is a mediocre one.

A government that is competent enough to survive and incompetent enough to be
unable to interfere in the lives of its citizens.

------
laic
Democracy is not about choosing one "Great Leader" and everyone else just
follow. If that was the case, we don't need the congress, the high court and
free press. Democracy is about "putting power into cage" and splitting cake in
a way that everybody has a say.

In a democratic system, "Great leader" or not, it really doesn't matter that
much in the long run, we will always get there. What important is the system
makes sure that "Great leader" won't have the power to destroy our
civilization.

On the other hand, "smart" leader may not always yield better outcome than an
"average" leader. Complex policy from "expert" may bring more disaster than
"no policy".

~~~
GFischer
"Democracy is about "putting power into cage" and splitting cake "

Well, no. What you're describing is a Republic.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic>

It's often confused because most democracies are also republics.

~~~
artsrc
A constitutional monarchy does all those things.

And they are not republics, but can be democracies.

~~~
GFischer
True, I stand corrected :) .

What I wanted to say is that the OP was describing a divison of powers as
commonly seen in a Republic, it was not something inherent in a democracy.

------
dimitar
Democracy is flourishing when free elections occur. Hitler was democratically
elected.

Democracy is not everything that is good about a state. Modern liberal
democracies in Europe and North America also have traditions of rule of law,
divisions of power, individual rights, collective rights, property protection,
public education and welfare, etc., etc.

Fareed Zakaria has written very interesting things about illiberal democracies
and why democracies sometimes produce populists or repressive governments.

------
joejohnson
This is definitely true. Representative Democracy systems (and bodies like the
Electoral College in the US) try to ameliorate the stupidity of the average
voter, but ultimately add complexity and beauracracy to a simple idea
(democracy).

Let's say I spend a lot of time prior to an election trying to understand the
ballot measures and issues and candidates. Come going day, my decision is
weighed just as highly as someone who watched Fox News the morning of the
election, heard one of the candidates was the next Hitler and made an
uninformed, fear-based decision. Ours votes are worth the same; why should I
even do research then? (That's a different rant though).

I'm unfairly picking on Fox News. The vast majority of "news" is bullshit that
is a distraction from the issues that an intelligent, informed electorate
should care about. By turning news into entertainment, the purpose is no
longer to inform and thus little of any substance is discussed by most news
outlets.

So why not have a meritocracy, where only those deemed informed/an
expert/smart enough get a vote? Or what if it was not one person = one vote,
but rather a system where people's relative intelligences are reflected in
their say in the process.

Perhaps finishing HS could earn people a second vote. Finish college, you get
a third vote. If you serve in the military, you get an extra vote. Experts in
a particular field could get extra votes, etc.

This seems like the rational successor to democracy. Of course this system I'm
describing would need to be carefully crafted to remain fair, but I believe we
can't do much worse at picking leaders and making policy decisions than we
currently do in the US.

~~~
joejohnson
I wish people would respond to this. Why did someone downvote me?

------
throughnothing
This is just funny and ironic on so many levels. What exactly does it mean for
Democracy to 'Flourish'? Does that mean that the 51% get to do whatever they
want, and the 49% have to go along with it? The whole premise of the article
seems to assume by default that Democracy is, somehow, a good form of
government, and that if only people weren't so dumb, everyone would be happy
under this tyrannical form of government.

Democracy is, by definition, a system wherein the minority suffers at the
whims of the majority -- mob rule, if you will. Most people seem to think the
United States is a democracy, but it is actually (supposed to be) a Republic.
Our elected officials are not (supposed to be) able to do whatever the
majority wants at the expense of the minority, but rather their actions are
strictly limited and restricted by the constitution so as to prevent the
majority from violating the rights of the minority -- which is virtually
_always_ what results from a true democracy.

------
chernevik
The point of electoral government is people's right to govern themselves, not
the superiority of their decisions.

In the U.S. we mediate "democracy" through a republican government of divided
and checked powers to guard against the dangers of any unified and unchecked
political power. But the point of all that is to secure that right to self-
government, not thwart it.

~~~
newman314
That may have been the intent but the reality is that the poor stay poor and
the rich now dominate resulting in a government that is increasingly dominant
and intrusive.

Consequently, you lose unless you happen to be one of the few in charge.

~~~
chernevik
Consider the course of governments dedicated to "the poor" and you may see the
problem.

I'd also point out that the intrusions of our current government aren't
motivated by their advantages for the rich.

~~~
newman314
Do you think people that fly on private jets go through the same process that
most people do while flying commercial?

------
random_ind_dude
David Dunning and Justin Kruger - aren't these the guys who proposed the idea
now known as the Dunning-Kruger effect?

~~~
jcarreiro
Yes. The new research builds on that work.

------
rayiner
"Democracy" is a fairly amorphous term. We don't have anything like a
democracy in the United States. We have elements of democracy mixed with
elements of republicanism mixed with elements of rule by a technocracy.
Mediating all of these elements is a system of referees (the legal system)
that is anything but democratic.

If you look at how hard governance is, and how badly most countries do it,
it's actually a pretty great system. Baroque, complex, inefficient, sure, but
there is little to suggest that any system of governance for 300 million
people would be anything other than those things.

------
yaix
>> Their advantage over dictatorships or other forms of government is merely
that they "effectively prevent lower-than-average candidates from becoming
leaders."

Of course they don't elect the "best" leader. What is that, anyway?

Democracies exist only to have an obviously legitimate system to replace the
current leaders by new ones every few years, and thus avoid corruption from
growing too large and damage the society/economy.

The difference between the "best" or an "average" leader is much less than the
difference between "little" and "a lot of" corruption.

------
praptak
_"The research, led by David Dunning, a psychologist at Cornell University,
shows that incompetent people are inherently unable to judge the competence of
other people, or the quality of those people's ideas."_

This seems to overstate the actual results of the experiments. More here:
[http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-
dunning-k...](http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-dunning-
kruger-effect-is-and-isnt/)

------
rickmb
Is this new? To offset this somewhat, many democracies have few to no directly
elected officials, just elected representatives. Officials are then appointed
by those representatives, to ensure a better process of vetting and appointing
public officials.

It's by far not a perfect solution (in fact, it sometimes leads to a serious
democratic deficit), but it prevents ridiculous popularity contests like the
US presidential elections.

------
mhd
_"In his mathematical model of the election, he assumed that voters' own
leadership skills were distributed on a bell curve — some were really good
leaders, some, really bad, but most were mediocre — and that each voter was
incapable of recognizing the leadership skills of a political candidate as
being better than his or her own."_

That seems like an utterly simplistic model. "Leadership"?

------
cjoh
This is 15 year old research, sensationalized in a headline to sell
advertising on Yahoo. Which, I mean, if you think about it, is kind of ironic.

Here's some good info on the Dunning-Kruger effect:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect>

------
benmmurphy
as long as stupidness causes people to vote randomly instead of being biased
towards bad policies then it isn't harmful to democracy. the stupid peoples
votes will cancel each other out and just leave the smart peoples votes. you
need research which shows that people are systematically biased towards bad
policies.

------
atakan_gurkan
I am surprised that a normal distribution was used for the distribution of
"leadership skills". I imagine this could be similar to income distribution
which has fat tails. I wonder if the result would change if such a
distribution was used.

~~~
btilly
As long as you maintain the assumption that you cannot recognize relative
abilities of better leaders than yourself, the result will remain the same.

If you relax that assumption even slightly (thus you do not reliably recognize
relative abilities, but you tend to prefer the better leader), then the
conclusion will change dramatically.

That is why this is a toy model. And people should not give it much weight.

------
orbitingpluto
Critiques of this sort are incredibly daft.

Just like you or I can't possibly read every EULA and privacy policy that
pertains to us, an individual in a democracy can't even begin to have
sufficient knowledge to make the correct choices. Most politicians never even
read the bills they vote for!

That imperfect knowledge will exist in every possible form of government. So,
um, what's the argument? Are we arguing against scaling ignorance from small
select groups to the population?

The conclusion is, "Their advantage over dictatorships or other forms of
government is merely that they "effectively prevent lower-than-average
candidates from becoming leaders?" Aggregating responsibility to narrow (and
possibly wilfully ignorant) self-interests is not a solution.

Edited: removed references to a certain political candidate.

------
robomartin
Maybe it is becoming clear that the age of the generalist government is over.
In science and industry the age of the generalist ended a long time ago. While
it was, at one time, possible for someone to know almost literally all that
there was to be known, that didn't last too long. Specialization in various
fields led to significant improvements and progress within those fields.

Could it be that a new form of government needs to emerge in this model? One
where policy on a specific subject area is handled by those better equipped to
understand it and, more importantly, with a good degree of isolation from
others?

Wouldn't it be better if, say, education policy was crafted in total isolation
from the political goals of any party, special interest group or unions? Or
how about energy policy?

I firmly believe the basic premise of the article to be true: Most voters
don't understand what the hell they are voting on. They are easily swayed by a
barrage of numbers and pretend-facts and probably vote on what sounds good or
believable far more so than what might have merit based on facts.

Take the arguments on manufacturing, for example. Everyone from the President
on down to Congress and GOP candidates are talking about bringing
manufacturing back. Both parties at all level do it. Now, there are two
possibilities here: One, they know the truth and realize that the masses might
not be able to handle the truth. Or, they actually don't understand what's
going on.

Manufacturing, folks, isn't coming back to the US or Europe in massive numbers
any time soon, if ever. The standard of living of the average manufacturing
worker would have to be reduced to revolution-inspiring levels for this to
happen. Environmental and worker safety laws would have to trashed by the
thousands. Virtually all labor unions would have to be dissolved. And more.
The loss of manufacturing jobs has taken place over sixty years of making the
wrong decisions. This did not happen overnight. And this cannot be fixed
overnight, if ever. Just try to manufacture a consumer good in the US and see
how far you get. Sure, there are outliers that might buck the trend, but, for
the most part, its a done deal: Mass manufacturing of consumer goods in the US
is dead.

Anyhow, I believe that voters do tend to vote people into office for entirely
the wrong reasons. From religious groups to unions and special interest
sectors. All seek to place puppets in office that will protect and further
their interests. Virtually none --due to the nature of their egocentric
focus-- act with the long term interest of the country in mind.

Not an easy problem to solve as it would require a nearly complete change in
the form of government we have known for so long. The problem is that the US
Constitution does not provide for a mechanism through which these kinds of
changes could be made. The only way is for a massive and very disruptive
revolution to take place. This is unlikely to happen unless things get so bad
that people are compelled to "take up arms against their oppressor". And, this
is highly undesirable as well because it would probably result in half a
century of uncertainty and turmoil before reaching a new stable state.

And this takes us full circle to an inevitable conclusion: As much as we might
hate the fact that the lunatics are running the asylum, it is probably the
best option we have. The job, then, is to try to be as creative as possible in
bringing issues to the masses in order to make it easy to understand what can
sometimes be very complex.

The day we elect politicians that, for example, laugh at the idea of rejecting
something like the theory of evolution will be the day that we'll know that we
are on the right path. That's because you'll have people in office that will
be smart enough to consider evidence rather than indoctrinated ideological
drones.

This is a big topic.

~~~
jfoutz
I think, of all the manufacturing jobs available in the world in 20 years, a
large fraction of them will be in the U.S. I'm talking like 5 or maybe even 6
of the 30 jobs will be here.

------
jshowa
I've never consistently rated myself as "above average" on anything but a few
things. Does that make my ignorance and knowing it half the battle?

------
danmaz74
Democracy isn't about selecting the "best leaders" - democracy is about self-
determination and freedom.

~~~
rbarooah
How is democracy not about selecting leaders?

~~~
danmaz74
_Democracy_ means "rule of the people (demos)", and it was opposed to
traditional _Aristocracy_ , the "rule of the best (aristos)". Even if modern
democracies are mostly representative, and not direct like the original
Athenian democracy, they are still based not on the idea that we should elect
"the best" leaders to make "the right" choices (as if there was an objective
metric for any of the two), but on the idea that each citizen has the right of
self determination even in collective matters - and that democracy (one head,
one vote) is the best approximation of that.

So, my point is that measuring democracy ("power to the people") against the
purposes of aristocracy ("power to the best ones") is pretty misguided...

~~~
rbarooah
My point is simply that whatever the intentions, democracy has devolved to
selecting leaders, and for the most part they aren't even representative.

I'd say measuring the ideal instead of the reality isn't all that useful.

~~~
artsrc
Democracy is significantly about an expression of preference, rather than
identification of quality.

Think about it as voting for the dinner choices. It is not about finding the
best chef, it is about getting Spaghetti Bolognese, because that is what you
feel like tonight.

------
shingen
Constitutional Republic yes, Democracy no.

Democracy isn't desirable. Mob rule is a terrible system of government.
Democracy != voting; Democracy != freedom.

America and many other systems have long since proven that freedom through
constitutional protections with representative government does flourish. Those
systems specifically flourish by protecting the weak from the powerful, the
minority from the majority. The 'people aren't smart enough' is a fascist,
asinine argument. The only time I see that used, is when someone has a complex
to dominate others.

~~~
3pt14159
What about Peter Thiel wanting to make a sea-based libertarian country that
doesn't have a democracy because people arn't smart enough to keep it
libertarian? (Granted, they could leave by relocating somewhere else, but that
is true of most countries anyways.)

~~~
jpadkins
the seasteading institute is not only for libertarian countries. The point is
to enable experimentation and competition in governments. One group of
seasteadders can create a commune, one a voluntary society, one can create a
dictatorship...

~~~
WiseWeasel
Come visit Weaselia for the climate, stay because we didn't say you could
leave[1].

[1]Weaselia is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Weasel Brand sweatshops.

------
batista
Democracy isn't about putting the BEST people in power, or taking the BEST
decisions.

It's about WHO choses what it's "the best".

The majority should choose, period.

Everything else is "I know better than other people what they SHOULD want".

Even if you "know better" by some objective criterium, it should not be up to
you to decide.

Because government is about choosing what people WANT not what is BEST for
them.

~~~
rbarooah
Why should the majority always have power over minorities?

~~~
batista
Only in cases where you can't have it both ways.

If the majority wants to build a bridge, and a minority doesn't, well, the
majority gets their say.

For one, this makes the most people (the "majority", nudge nudge) get what
they want.

For another, if it all comes down to raw power struggle, i.e hitting each
other, the majority will win anyway. Voting is a way to ensure you get the
above effect without the blood.

Consider also that for different courses of action, what is a majority and
what is a minority changes. You can be pro "more taxes" and a majority, and
also pro "legalize marijuana" (and a minority at that --just an example,
doesn't mean the maj/min it talks about is accurate).

~~~
rbarooah
You originally said 'the majority should choose period', not 'the majority
should choose only in cases where you can't have it both ways'.

If democracy somehow limited itself to cases where you can't have it both
ways, that would be great.

It doesn't.

------
ez77
It is anarchy that requires real smarts, not democracy.

------
3pt14159
Democracy is also the only way to effectively stop armed revolutions. From Ron
Paul to Che, the entire spectrum says "no" to armed resistance until all
democratic means are exhausted.

~~~
eurleif
>Democracy is also the only way to effectively stop armed revolutions.

You phrase that as a positive, but it could also be phrased as a negative:
Democracy allows evil people to rise to power without having to fight anyone
to do it. Hitler was elected democratically.

~~~
javert
_Hitler was elected democratically._

That's not really the case. He got a fair amount of votes organically, but at
some point he was just using violence and force to take power.

Despite what I see as a flawed example, I agree with your point.

~~~
eurleif
True, but I'm sure that using violence to gain the trust of the voters was
substantially easier and less costly than using it to overthrow the German
government would have been.

~~~
javert
_to gain the trust of the voters_

More like, to intimidate them.

But yeah... the Nazis definitely did leverage the democratic process until
they had sufficient power to take the rest.

