Is Democracy the worst system apart from all the others??

DeVore

Democracy has at its heart that every person's opinion should be given the same weight.

However, when I get sick, I give my doctors opinion a lot more weight then my taxi drivers.

Boards has survived well despite not being a democracy (it is in fact, a benevolent dictatorship). In reality I am not happy with dictatorships of any kind because the people who live there have no choice but to live there. Online you can simply go to a different site if you dont like our policies.

But this all skips the question: Should we consider everyone's "vote" as equal? Why? Clearly some people are smarter then others.

What would Boards look like if we used Democracy as a system to elect mods, admins etc... I dont think it would be half as good as it is now... but is there a better system of self governance?

DeV.

MrMicra

If you are talking about the society as a whole I believe that a society in which only a subset of people have a vote will come to favour the interests of those people and not the subset of people who cannot vote (typically larger).

If you are talking about boards.ie the question is one of emotional investment in the boards.ie project however that's conceived. There are different levels of investment.

Should votes therefore be limited to subscribers? Perhaps however this leaves open the risk of a corporate element subverting the ethos of boards.ie (I don't claim to know what that is but I am sure that you have a clear idea).

Also some non financial method of demonstrating contribution should be devised because there may be a useful subset of boards.ie users who will be reluctant to pay financially but happy to make some other payment. Whether this is 'monkey money' or an extraordinarily valuable contribution depends on the person.

I think that boards.ie is good. I only use part of it, I haven't used it for long and I am currently banned from after hours so perhaps I am not the ideal person to answer your question.

Ostrom

You could opt for a Seanad-style system of disproportionate mandate and nepotism?

Kama

DeVore wrote:

Democracy has at its heart that every person's opinion should be given the same weight.

Firstly, democracy is what is called a contested concept. DIfferent people have quite different views on what 'democracy' desciptively means, or normatively/should mean.

Take Ireland. In theory, every persons opinion or vote is counted. In practice, you vote if you own a house, which is why we have been referred to as a 'property-owning democracy'. There's a long tradition of this in democratic thought, the idea of a explicit or implicit qualification: so child, the 'criminal', or the 'mad', should not be allowed to vote, or those with more of a stake in the society (the owners) should have a bigger say (the English liberal model). Similarly, the Romans had the vote for all citizens, but only those with enough income to make the journey to cast it mattered, and in the US significant quantities of African-Americans are disenfranchised, and making Voting Day a national holiday is consistently shot down, which affects the outcome by skewing the draw.

However, when I get sick, I give my doctors opinion a lot more weight then my taxi drivers.

If we have a choice of doctors, then aggregating information from large numbers of people as to which doctor provides a better service. Choice of doctor, rather than doctor V taxidriver seems a better analogy.

A democratic answer is not 'right' in say, maths. Agreeing 1+1 to equal 3 does not make it so. But when we are talking about direction and social choice by a community, who wants what becomes more of an issue.

Online you can simply go to a different site if you dont like our policies.

Hirschman referred to this ability as Exit and Voice; the ability to complain and create redress internally, and the ability to gtfo.

Since boards has an easy right of Exit, it is arguably less necessary to include all views as to decisionmaking, as if you don't like it, you're but a click away from not coming back.

There is a 3rd part to Hirschman, Loyalty. In the case of boards, someone could be bitterly unhappy, but because they are habituated to boards (or just enjoy whining about it ) they will stick here regardless.

But this all skips the question: Should we consider everyone's "vote" as equal? Why? Clearly some people are smarter then others.

Smarter /= better, and its arguable that 'smarts' aren't one thing, but different types of intelligence. Take a highly-Aspie tech-head, who is unlikely to be able to manage himself, let alone persuade others. Compare to a highly socially-intelligent individual, who can barely add let alone code. Who is 'smarter', and which vote should carry more weight?

You can take this contextually, say that the nerd should have the votepower in nerd-based stuff, and the social in socialstuff. But this begs the question of who decides what areas whose qualifications should or should not apply in. In our current political system, we have issues like this with, say, economics: should people have a say (and the 'Mob' destroy good practices due to their 'ignorance'), or should those areas require people to have a qualification (which could be viewed by dissenters as a ideological brainwashing or kowtowing at the altar)?

What would Boards look like if we used Democracy as a system to elect mods, admins etc... I dont think it would be half as good as it is now... but is there a better system of self governance?

I don't know exactly on what basis mods etc are bestowed, so I can't really comment.

One interesting approach in political theory comes to mind is called Selectorate Theory, which can be applied to anything from a democracy to an autocracy. The selectorate are those who can affect outcomes.

I presume (?) that not-all appointing decisions are made purely by you, but that the responsibility is 'farmed down'. Complete micro requires too much time, so any partial devolution could be seen as a broadening of the 'franchise' to include more views, aggregate more info, and gain the 'private goods' of sweet delicious power for the included elite

ChesterCoperpot

A democratic system would see me absolved ghost - not from my latest problem, but IT grew from my previous problems.

But since I had disagreement with moderator, i'm site banned.

it's not mistake, when the neighbours awake Gordon from his rest under the apartment staircase, he will ..or someone in spite will successfully ban me.

however, the operation may be severe, proceed with caution.

Gordon, I love you and you cannot deny we are lovers...i always remember that kilt.

ChocolateSauce

Democracy is only needed when you haven't got a choice; for example a country should be democratic because its citizens can't help living there. Boards is a place we all choose to come to and are not obliged to stay, so I vote to continue with the dictatorship. Furthermore, it is a private company, and last time I checked customers can only vote with their feet.

Some people's opinions are worth more than others; some opinions are stupid, ignorant and factually incorrect, but when it comes to a vote we must never give any person or group of people the right and power to decide this, because an opinion cannot be objectively assessed for its value.

nesf

DeVore wrote: »

Democracy has at its heart that every person's opinion should be given the same weight.

No, not really.

Democracy or more accurately parliamentary democracy is about having those in power being elected by those their decisions will affect. The value in this is that it limits (but does not eliminate) leaders screwing over the people to enrich themselves, compared to dictatorships, monarchies and what have you.

Benevolent dictatorship would probably be better for a country in some ways but how exactly do you guarantee you get a benevolent dictator and not a selfish one? That's what makes democracy better than the alternatives, it's a terrible system really but human nature makes other forms less palatable. The average person is woefully ill-equipped to answer the questions that dominate how to run a country but c'est la vie.

Brigantes

nesf wrote: »

The average person is woefully ill-equipped to answer the questions that dominate how to run a country but c'est la vie.

I agree. But instead of bemoaning 'democracy' (or rather our representative democracy) we should focus on equipping the average person with the information needed so they can make informed decisions on matters that affect us all.

Democracy is the best of a bad bunch because at it's heart lies compromise. If we refuse to engage with it, then our opinions don't get a hearing.

nesf

Brigantes wrote: »

I agree. But instead of bemoaning 'democracy' (or rather our representative democracy) we should focus on equipping the average person with the information needed so they can make informed decisions on matters that affect us all.

See, that's pretty much impossible and not a good idea. It requires a lot of knowledge and training for a person to have a good solid grasp of economics beyond the basics. To be able to fully comprehend budgets etc you need this and even then unless you specialise in the area you won't understand it fully. Ditto with law, health policy and almost every other major question.

It's utterly unreasonable to expect the average person to be highly informed on all these issues. They would have to dedicate an enormous amount of their time just to have a high level of knowledge on a handful.

potlatch

If selection of mods is the issue here, then you've discussing processes of candidate selection and, distinctly different, candidate election. How to select mod candidates, and how to put them in 'office'.

It's an interesting question: how would boards.ie fare if selection of the 'executive' were democratically selected. Well, perhaps think of it like this: the power-mods like DeVore are the Ministers of the Executive, mods like myself are the Secretary Generals and Principal Secretaries. Until recent years, Ministers selected their SGs and PSs.

An issue with boards.ie would be lack of knowledge among the 'voters'. In a system where mod candidates would put themselves up for election, they could have to fill in a questionnaire to demonstrate their suitability for the post in question. In theory, this is one of the organisational roles political parties perform, though this is never the reality. Candidates would then be voted for on the basis of objective factors. But how could this information be verified? Either boards.ie citizens would vote in spite of ignorance, risking degeneration of the board.is-politic, or not vote, delegitimising the whole process. Otherwise, you'd need to put in place a massive boards.ie bureaucracy to process, vet and approve candidates so voters would have a relative degree of confidence in the candidates.

Alternatively, you could keep things as they are and instead focus more on the transparency of the process (more prominent mod advertising, why people are selected, on what basis/criteria) than the democracy of it. There's a perception that it's who you know, not what you know that gets you into Mod-dom.

SkepticOne

As Kama points out with the likes of a privately owned message board you may not have formal vote but you can always vote your feet.

However if you want boards to be self-running then some form of voting for mods would be appropriate. Does not strictly have to be 1 boards user (who signed up yesterday) per vote.

simplistic

Democracy can be compared to what happens in the playground a school when two bullies steal your candy and toss it back and forth over your head and throw you a few crumbs after crying and begging for it back.

This guy delivers an amazing speech on politics , warning this may offend voters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igbBItLemsM

Red Hand

DeVore wrote: »

But this all skips the question: Should we consider everyone's "vote" as equal? Why? Clearly some people are smarter then others.

In what way "smarter" though? And is such inteelligence beneficial to society if that intelligence is marred by a dubious moral code?

Lockstep

I know Belgium used to have a system where the more educated/richer you were, the more votes you got.

Everyone got one vote with rich, third level educated person got 3 votes, less so people getting 2.

Kama

However if you want boards to be self-running then some form of voting for mods would be appropriate. Does not strictly have to be 1 boards user (who signed up yesterday) per vote.

Arguably this already happens to some extent; I presume there to be some form of 'reputation economy', which though it may not be formalized (adhocracy+dictator-nodes) allocates value to certain posters on criteria that their 'rep' is higher, they are seen as knowledgable in the area, and their behavior are contextually-approproiate for the context (eg AH vs PolTheory), and hence are seen as 'good hands'. But as said, ignorant as to the actual process here.

Reputation economies are one way to deal with the 'confidence' problem, and the new entrants problem. Individuals who have accumulated more 'rep' by contributions that are deemed valuable by others. Formally, we have a rep-economy of 'thanks', but I doubt this translates in a direct way in terms of decision-making, although it's probably indicative to some extent.

Boards (and again I'm guessing beyond my grounded knowledge) is probably highly 'self-running', in that you have autonomous unpaid behavior by a multitude of actors performing governance of a community. If you build it, they will come

DeVore

Kama you are quite close to the money really... we request names, canvas for suggestions from the existing and previous mods and also from admins, and then review the posting history of the person looking for someone with a calm head in a sh*tstorm and a positive attitude.

The problem is that most/all self-perpetuating systems deal only with today and dont really consider tomorrow. To vest that amount of trust in a single person or group is a bigger task.

My main problem is that all roads seemingly lead to Democracy, but I think if we had elections for mods and admins, this place would collapse or at the very least function considerably worse for it.

I like democracy in the real world, because people cant move easily, but I dont like it as a system per se, I think its just lazy thinking and the easiest solution to say "yeah, everyone is equal and we'll all vote".

DeV.

Eliot Rosewater

Democracy is the least worst, indeed. However there are ways to improve it which can be effective. For example one of the key problems with democracy is that it often boils down to the majority of the electorate enforcing their views on the rest of the country, even when its absolutely none of their business. That is why in the past condoms and homosexuality have been outlawed, and its why nowadays gay marriage and prostitution are not allowed.

A proper state should have limits imposed on its democracy. The people should not be allowed dictate moral values where those values have no impact on them. In the same vein no one should be forced to be a member of 'society' more than is necessary, just because the majority believe in a tight society.

Internet forums could never work on democracy. Im sure you would get some candidates running on a platform of allowing personal abuse and if you have PR-STV your bound to get one of them elected. In the end the best system is those on top who are willing to listen to those on bottom, for fear of losing them as members.

The reason this system doesnt work in real life is because, unlike message boards, there is a lot of financial gain to be made from abusing your power.

SkepticOne

DeVore wrote: »

The problem is that most/all self-perpetuating systems deal only with today and dont really consider tomorrow. To vest that amount of trust in a single person or group is a bigger task.

That's where a constitution comes in to limit that power. It prevents or at least hinders drift from the central ideals.

SkepticOne

DeVore wrote: »

I like democracy in the real world, because people cant move easily, but I dont like it as a system per se, I think its just lazy thinking and the easiest solution to say "yeah, everyone is equal and we'll all vote".

That's a criticism of people putting forward the idea rather than the idea itself.

DeVore

Two very good points SkepticOne. I'm actually mooting the idea of a constitution in Feedback at the moment.

As for the second point, thats why I guess I'm asking the question.... is Democracy the best we can come up with?


DeV.

SkepticOne

I think the key thing is that in a country we have voting because of shared ownership of the country. Ownership is a form of control and shared ownership implies shared control. It is as of right rather than because it is best for one purpose or another. It just so happens to work well in practice when compared to the various other forms (dictatorships, one party states etc) that have existed but we don't have it because it is best but because of right.

We can see straight away that we are looking at something very different with boards.ie. Users can of course vote with their feet if they are not happy, something that may be difficult with living in a country but, since they don't own boards.ie, they have no right to say how it is run and therefore no right to vote.

The purpose of a constitution in this case of boards.ie would be to ensure continuation of a particular set of ideals rather than specify rights and responsibilities and voting would be a matter of practicality rather than right. As pointed out, it would not need to be one user per vote since there are no rights to begin with. It would be some sort of weighted system.

I'm not sure voting is a good idea for the likes of boards.ie but I don't see an alternative if a person is going to be replaced by some sort of system.

FionnMatthew

I think there's an argument to be made for the notion that democracy is the 'least worst' system in the real world. That needs some qualifications though.

It's probably the least worst system from the point of view of fairness. This isn't to say that a particular benevolent dictatorship might not be, in practice, a more fair place to live for everyone. It's to say that the structural features of democratic systems ensure a greater likelihood of distributed fairness, whereas there are no such structural features of dictatorship, so that a dictatorship can range arbitrarily between vastly different cultures of fairness, whereas a democracy, at least as we know it, tends to be like another one.

I'm not at all sure, though, that a democracy is the least worst system from the point of view of good governance. I don't think the structural features of democracy ensure a greater likelihood of level-headed, credible, informed, intelligent decision-making for the best interests of a country and a citizenry taken as a whole. There may be other systems of governance that produce better such systematic likelihoods from their structural features.

The benevolent (and shrewd, efficient) dictatorship is a model that works for boards.ie, and for good reason. Fairness isn't as much of an issue when lives are not at stake - when the price of stamping dissent is an infraction and not a public execution. I think your intuitions are right: if boards were democratically governed, it would be far less well run a site. And it's not as life or death important to be fair on boards.

But as for countries, well, we have to weigh the importance of (capital) fairness against the desire to run things as well as possible. At a certain point (the 21st century promises to be a century during which good governance might turn out to be crucial to survival) I'm sure it's better to have a surviving, unfair society than a desert upon which a just and fair society once self-annihilated out of bad governance.

SkepticOne

FionnMatthew wrote: »

I'm not at all sure, though, that a democracy is the least worst system from the point of view of good governance.

Though on the other hand systems that inspire sureness often end in disaster.

recedite

SkepticOne wrote: »

As pointed out, it would not need to be one user per vote since there are no rights to begin with. It would be some sort of weighted system.

What you are advocating there is meritocracy, not democracy. A system similar to the original system, but this time with you included in the selectorate.

Kama

Eliot Rosewater wrote:

A proper state should have limits imposed on its democracy. The people should not be allowed dictate moral values where those values have no impact on them. In the same vein no one should be forced to be a member of 'society' more than is necessary, just because the majority believe in a tight society.

Tangent for this thread, but not allowing moral values to be imposed is quite arguably a moral value in itself, while on the second point the critical variable of 'more than is necessary' is highly reflexively dependent on what the majority believe. There isnt really a difference beyond personal philosophical-ideological flavour between dictating personal-libertarian communal values, and dictating social-communitarian values, especially with the move that the democracy should be limited in accord with those values.

Democracy is the least worst, indeed/is Democracy the best we can come up with?

Nonsense! We can crowdsource the future-perfect boardsie state from among the elite ranks of the PolTheory heads. Its about time we got to be the Philosopher-King Overlords, I look forward to being welcomed...

I've never been much of a fan of the 'least worst' quote, its always seemed like pure conservative self-legitimation, making improvement or change seem unnecessary.

As to what is best, my feeling on this is always keep tinkering. Implement things, see if they work, if they work scale 'em. Draft in the whole 'rights and responsibilities' rhetoric, offer people votes for some arbitrary idiotic task, or put people who have more than X posts or age in a 'Senate'. Especially on the internets, people respond to egoboo and status. Its always nice to be able to pay someone with something that costs nothing, however they are likely to consider that they possess some kind of moral 'sweat equity', and demand an appropriate share of wimmin/territory/cut of the ad revenue

Going the opposite route: if people are not demanding a democracy, they probably don't want it, and wouldn't know what to do with it, not much point forcing one on them. Bread, circuses, and the thank button are more than enough. So carry on regardless. Those who are sufficiently interested/boards means enough to will get involved enough that their voice is heard while those who ain't and cba won't. Which is kinda like the Iron Law of Oligarchies, I guess.

A vote itself shouldn't be a shibboleth, what is important is that people (feel) they have a say. This is the true genius of the democratic move: you had your chance, better luck next time, its not like we ignored you, btw enjoy the next 4 years mwahaha! Involvement increases legitimation, even when you lose.

FionnMatthews wrote:

I'm sure it's better to have a surviving, unfair society than a desert upon which a just and fair society once self-annihilated out of bad governance.

Almost anyone would be forced to agree with the statement. The question is knowing ahead of time which structural features are causative of good governance emerging from the democratic 'mix', which requires trial and error, comparison and failure. This was why I found Olstroms 'Nobel' interesting, since her previous work wa on governance regimes for commons systems, what works and what doesn't.

I don't think the structural features of democracy ensure a greater likelihood of level-headed, credible, informed, intelligent decision-making for the best interests of a country and a citizenry taken as a whole. There may be other systems of governance that produce better such systematic likelihoods from their structural features.

The problematique is determining what those best interests are, and who the selectorate is who makes this call. The situation here differs significantly from that of a state, since we can have competing regime types, and if crowdsourced MyFootballClub approaches work, they work, and if they fail, no biggy. In state or global terms, the cost is higher. Nevertheless, my wager (and I don't think we can get to any better position than a informed bet) tends to be on the side of democracy, at least partially because historically narrow-selectorate approaches don't seem to do significantly better. Although I do believe that when history looks back the most important and significant man of the last century in terms of governance was Lee Kuan Yew, so scratch my last point maybe?

The question then becomes what mechanisms or structural features most fairly represent or aggregate the distributed information and values of the demos. I'm a fan of range voting and multiple tiers of representation myself, hopefully I'll be in the Winning Coalition and force it on the rest of ya! More seriously, what form of democracy and what features it operates on has a strong effect on result. The 'aul pencils' of a vote every X years was a product of the most efficient means of communication at the time and the cost of asking. Our current means has negligable costs (server farm electricity bills notwithstanding) and near-instanteneity. I'd argue this will move us to a more transparent Whuffle-style reputation economy. Transparency means you can't get away with being a troll or a-hole, and I again have a philosophical bet that decent people outnumber tards, and that the assumption that you are being watched and behavior matters decreases tardism (cites relevant psych experiments). Which does seem, to me, an extension of the democratic principle beyond the purely formal-political. Ubiquitous voting to go with ubiquitous computing?

So in classic style, rather than go we need/don't need democracy, what systems of Voice and selection seem best, and why? Democracy imho needs a prefix at least, some form of clarification of what structures work in what context

monellia

In a democracy you are forced to comply with the preference of the majority, which may not be at all virtuous. Democracy is simply having the majority choose your slave masters. And even the "power" of those who comprise the majority is illusory because they rely on the trustworthiness of office candidates to fulfil their policy promises. I'd sooner be ruled by a monarch than live in democracy. At least monarchy isn't built on the illusion that the people are in control, so it's far easier to overthrow corrupt rulers.

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” (Thomas Jefferson)

recedite

In the original democracy of Athens, citizens voted on individual issues rather like our referenda. Subsequent larger societies were too complex for that, hence the "bread and circuses" democracy of the elected Public Representative. But electing a representative is an act of personal disempowerment.
Soon, when all security issues are resolved, we will be able to free ourselves of the politician parasites by using internet voting for individual issues. The selectorate can be self selecting; only those interested stakeholders with an awareness of the particular issue will bother to vote.
In Germany the wrong approach is taken to voting; citizens are obliged to vote. A better approach is not to encourage it too much; let the right people emerge by themselves to vote.
The same can apply to boards.ie

Executive Steve

Potentially, rather than actually, there are better solutions, but problems facing us as a species will probably have to be overcome first before they show themselves to be practical.

I'm a huge fan of benevolent dictatorships myself, there's an awful lot to be said for being able to plan further ahead than the next election.

silverharp

[cm]tyranny wrote: »

I'm a huge fan of benevolent dictatorships myself, there's an awful lot to be said for being able to plan further ahead than the next election.

Its called my wife:D but seriously power corrupts and all that. minimal gov and self reliance is the only system that would meet your requirement of longer term planning while perserving personal freedom. Personally I dont like the idea of being a chess piece in a game supposidly for my benefit.

pagancornflake

monellia wrote: »

In a democracy you are forced to comply with the preference of the majority, which may not be at all virtuous. Democracy is simply having the majority choose your slave masters. And even the "power" of those who comprise the majority is illusory because they rely on the trustworthiness of office candidates to fulfil their policy promises. I'd sooner be ruled by a monarch than live in democracy. At least monarchy isn't built on the illusion that the people are in control, so it's far easier to overthrow corrupt rulers.

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” (Thomas Jefferson)

Trivialize and generalize more plz.

hatrickpatrick

I favour democracy but with one absolute exception.

Absolutely everything which affects no one but the person engaging in it (and / or other people who actively agree to be affected by it) should be legal. The government has no right to invade people's personal lives and make moral decisions for them.

Everything else which involves the running of the country should be decided by all citizens. I favour transferring power to county councils instead of central government and giving all citizens of those councils the right to vote on them.

This country has lived for far too long in the shadow of an endless political elite (note the similarity of the government / bank / developer relationship we've seen to the government / church relationship which is now being brought out into the open). The opinions of the citizens should absolutely always come before the opinions of any organization or entity. So for example, I would support the Shell 2 Sea campaign simply because the people objecting own the land through which the pipe is planned to pass, and therefore they should have the absolute final say on anything which goes through their property. I supported Save Our Seafront in Dun Laoghaire because no matter what the council's opinion was, the vast majority of the people did not want the development to go ahead and therefore the council had no democratic mandate to allow it. If government was genuinely accountable to its citizens they would have no choice but to put the will of the people before their own agenda.