When you get down to it, all politics is about conflict resolution. That’s not particular to democracy.
Democracy can be viewed as a government in which policy decisions are intended to reflect the will of the people, as opposed to, for example, the will of the nobility, or a single ruler. When people say that a set of decisions should be made democratically, they mean that the conflict resolution mechanism should be such that the decisions made are reflective of the will of the people.
I think the speaker advocating for a democratic, multinational push for AGI was saying A. that we need to push for AGI and B. that if we do so, our decisions about it should reflect the will of the people. This leaves the particular conflict resolution mechanism an open question but constrains it to the set of mechanisms that are intended to reflect the will of the people.
It’s not particularly surprising that this speaker wouldn’t have an opinion on which democratic conflict resolution mechanism to use. I imagine that sort of thing is usually left to political scientists.
The speaker’s statement is also non-obvious. It may be clear that such a push should be democratic, but it’s not at all clear that it would be. The speaker is advocating for making sure that the push happens, and that it’s democratic, as opposed to pushing for the AGI movement whilst leaving the conflict resolution entirely up to others who may not have the interests of the people at heart.
There are many different implementations of democracy, but they are all very different from oligarchies. It is meaningful to say that a set of decisions should be made democratically. Your criticism of this speaker is analogous to someone saying, “We should believe true things, not things that make us feel good,” and you responding, “You’d better know how to find true beliefs or you’re just virtue signaling.” It is both poor manners and invalid criticism.
That is not to say that I disagree with your overall point; I just don’t think this person’s statement was an example of it. Perhaps, if I’d been there, there would have been some noncommunicable social cues that would lead me to your conclusion, but the text alone does not.
When you get down to it, all politics is about conflict resolution. That’s not particular to democracy.
Democracy can be viewed as a government in which policy decisions are intended to reflect the will of the people, as opposed to, for example, the will of the nobility, or a single ruler. When people say that a set of decisions should be made democratically, they mean that the conflict resolution mechanism should be such that the decisions made are reflective of the will of the people.
I think the speaker advocating for a democratic, multinational push for AGI was saying A. that we need to push for AGI and B. that if we do so, our decisions about it should reflect the will of the people. This leaves the particular conflict resolution mechanism an open question but constrains it to the set of mechanisms that are intended to reflect the will of the people.
It’s not particularly surprising that this speaker wouldn’t have an opinion on which democratic conflict resolution mechanism to use. I imagine that sort of thing is usually left to political scientists.
The speaker’s statement is also non-obvious. It may be clear that such a push should be democratic, but it’s not at all clear that it would be. The speaker is advocating for making sure that the push happens, and that it’s democratic, as opposed to pushing for the AGI movement whilst leaving the conflict resolution entirely up to others who may not have the interests of the people at heart.
There are many different implementations of democracy, but they are all very different from oligarchies. It is meaningful to say that a set of decisions should be made democratically. Your criticism of this speaker is analogous to someone saying, “We should believe true things, not things that make us feel good,” and you responding, “You’d better know how to find true beliefs or you’re just virtue signaling.” It is both poor manners and invalid criticism.
That is not to say that I disagree with your overall point; I just don’t think this person’s statement was an example of it. Perhaps, if I’d been there, there would have been some noncommunicable social cues that would lead me to your conclusion, but the text alone does not.