What? “legitimacy” is a memetic power-device (ie. weapon) to coerce people to psychologically accept the status quo, not a real desirable thing. Democracy only grants legitimacy to government if the relevant powers have been convinced (by use of other memetic tools) that it does.
Democracy is fair and egalitarian—each person has a single vote.
Why is this a good thing? Why do we need to raise power to a sacred status? I have no power over the actions of google, and yet I don’t find myself the least bit inconvenienced by it. Further, I actually appreciate google not being a democracy, because it means other idiots can’t interfere. Why should government be different? Why in the domain of government do I have to trust the 99% of the population that is less intelligent than me to govern my life?
(note that having equal votes is orthogonal to more directly valuable forms on egalitarianism, like having equal opportunity)
Democracy aligns the interests of the rulers with that of the ruled.
Not really. People often don’t know their own interests, and aren’t really capable of steering government coherently (see strategic voting, and the game theory (note that it’s game theory, not human interest) behind most of the outcomes in democracy)
Further, democracy creates incentive by the powerful (ie media, education system) to “align the interests of the ruled with their own interests” ie manufacture consent. Hence psychological mechanisms like “legitimacy”, “rights”, and so on.
Democracy allows the competition of governing ideas.
Yup. Though “allows” is a bit weak. It encourages particular forms of disagreement and factionalism.
Democracy often leads to market economies, which generate large wealth.
Selection effects, correlation, causation, etc. Most rich countries are democracies, but most democracies are third world hellholes. Maybe democracy only works in already wealthy civilized countries and elsewhere leads to political violence? (see africa).
Democracy often lead to welfare states, which increase happiness.
I don’t know much about this, but again, may be good to examine the exact causal linkage.
Democracy doesn’t need to use certain coercive methods, such as restrictions on free speech, that other systems require to remain stable.
Democracy encourages ruling powers to tweak the beliefs of the ruled. Further, only certain forms of free speech are really allowed. You can’t say certain things publicly without losing friends or even having internet vigilantes bring the hammer down on you. There are no explicit laws (except in europe), but the coercion is still there.
Democracy stops a particular group from hanging on to power indefinitely, which can reduce corruption, inefficiency and excessive use of state power for private purposes.
Maybe. This could be seen in other lights. Also, the civil service is more or less permanent.
I don’t strongly believe these criticisms of democracy, but please don’t just take the religion you were raised with and run with it. I little bit of skepticism is appropriate when dealing with such choices (the entire future!). There are other systems that may be easier and more effective, especially with ems thrown in.
The success of democracy is not really based on design, but more luck in that it turned out to work as well as it does in the conditions under which it works. Em’s change enough that it may not be effective at all anymore, and not worth fixing.
Democracy is at best a form of theocracy that prevents violent political conflict (when installed correctly, causes it otherwise). “Theocracy” is not necessarily bad, but let’s be realistic about how it works (everyone more-or-less religiously agrees on it). Once you see it like this, there are other possible theocracies, possibly better ones.
I don’t strongly believe these criticisms of democracy, but please don’t just take the religion you were raised with and run with it.
I am not advocating democracy, I’m listing some of the features claimed for it, in order to start people thinking. For the record, I think most of these claims are somewhat true, but only to a weak extent, but that’s not relevant to this discussion.
Perhaps the OP question is best framed as “how does the political/government situation change as a result of ems, and what could be done in the domain of government to ensure effective and valuable government”, then go a bit more cautiously into “here’s some things that people like about democracy” and “here are some other proposals (like em-dictator modified to be non-power grabbing, em dictator unaware of ability to grab power, etc)”
Many (good) things become possible when you can sandbox, copy, and so on that were inconceivable when the problem was how to get wealthy landowners to agree to pay taxes...
I tend to favor the AI-singleton as fast as possible solution to sidestep these issues, but I’ll try to actually think about it as well.
Corporations are held in check by the government so they don’t actually hurt you. The only thing holding the government in check is democracy. It’s far from perfect, but what other options do we have to keep the government from becoming arbitrarily corrupt?
What? “legitimacy” is a memetic power-device (ie. weapon) to coerce people to psychologically accept the status quo, not a real desirable thing. Democracy only grants legitimacy to government if the relevant powers have been convinced (by use of other memetic tools) that it does.
Why is this a good thing? Why do we need to raise power to a sacred status? I have no power over the actions of google, and yet I don’t find myself the least bit inconvenienced by it. Further, I actually appreciate google not being a democracy, because it means other idiots can’t interfere. Why should government be different? Why in the domain of government do I have to trust the 99% of the population that is less intelligent than me to govern my life?
(note that having equal votes is orthogonal to more directly valuable forms on egalitarianism, like having equal opportunity)
Not really. People often don’t know their own interests, and aren’t really capable of steering government coherently (see strategic voting, and the game theory (note that it’s game theory, not human interest) behind most of the outcomes in democracy)
Further, democracy creates incentive by the powerful (ie media, education system) to “align the interests of the ruled with their own interests” ie manufacture consent. Hence psychological mechanisms like “legitimacy”, “rights”, and so on.
Yup. Though “allows” is a bit weak. It encourages particular forms of disagreement and factionalism.
Selection effects, correlation, causation, etc. Most rich countries are democracies, but most democracies are third world hellholes. Maybe democracy only works in already wealthy civilized countries and elsewhere leads to political violence? (see africa).
I don’t know much about this, but again, may be good to examine the exact causal linkage.
Democracy encourages ruling powers to tweak the beliefs of the ruled. Further, only certain forms of free speech are really allowed. You can’t say certain things publicly without losing friends or even having internet vigilantes bring the hammer down on you. There are no explicit laws (except in europe), but the coercion is still there.
Maybe. This could be seen in other lights. Also, the civil service is more or less permanent.
I don’t strongly believe these criticisms of democracy, but please don’t just take the religion you were raised with and run with it. I little bit of skepticism is appropriate when dealing with such choices (the entire future!). There are other systems that may be easier and more effective, especially with ems thrown in.
The success of democracy is not really based on design, but more luck in that it turned out to work as well as it does in the conditions under which it works. Em’s change enough that it may not be effective at all anymore, and not worth fixing.
Democracy is at best a form of theocracy that prevents violent political conflict (when installed correctly, causes it otherwise). “Theocracy” is not necessarily bad, but let’s be realistic about how it works (everyone more-or-less religiously agrees on it). Once you see it like this, there are other possible theocracies, possibly better ones.
I am not advocating democracy, I’m listing some of the features claimed for it, in order to start people thinking. For the record, I think most of these claims are somewhat true, but only to a weak extent, but that’s not relevant to this discussion.
Ok. Sorry for being non-constructive.
Perhaps the OP question is best framed as “how does the political/government situation change as a result of ems, and what could be done in the domain of government to ensure effective and valuable government”, then go a bit more cautiously into “here’s some things that people like about democracy” and “here are some other proposals (like em-dictator modified to be non-power grabbing, em dictator unaware of ability to grab power, etc)”
Many (good) things become possible when you can sandbox, copy, and so on that were inconceivable when the problem was how to get wealthy landowners to agree to pay taxes...
I tend to favor the AI-singleton as fast as possible solution to sidestep these issues, but I’ll try to actually think about it as well.
Corporations are held in check by the government so they don’t actually hurt you. The only thing holding the government in check is democracy. It’s far from perfect, but what other options do we have to keep the government from becoming arbitrarily corrupt?
Well, there’s the singleton AI approach.
More generally, even at lower technology levels it may be possible to encode much of the functioning of the state in (open-source) software.
How does that help at all? Whoever controls the program is in charge. Do we decide it democratically? Do we have a dictator write it?
It helps for the same reason that encoding rules in books of law does.