[vezzy-fnord]

do not believe that tyranny of the majority is some ideal to strive for

You know, it's kind of funny that direct democracy is commonly derided as "tyranny of the majority". Is it not the case that all democracy, without separation of powers and a legal civil/common law framework to define boundaries, would be tyranny of the majority? But, those things are not exclusive to any political system in the slightest. In a direct democracy like Switzerland, the cantons operate within limitations set by federal law and any cantonal law which violates boundaries can be struck by the Federal Supreme Court.

This is, of course, not to idealize Switzerland. They have many issues, including ongoing mass surveillance through Onyx and files collected by EJPD, they were among the last to grant women suffrage (federally in 1971, but the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden didn't budge until 1991!), they maintained a system of indentured child labor called the Verdingkinder well into the 1970s, the median adult income is lower than in the U.S., etc.

But if you really examine it, democracy by its very nature entails, to some extent, a tyranny of the majority. However, directness allows for much more flexible and reactive amendments and proposals. It's not too expedient, but unfortunately we can't rely on philosopher kings.

[mindslight]

I actually did not mean that specifically about representative democracy, but all democracy. I think the democratic ideal is essentially rule by the majority, which someone at odds with would call "tyranny". Representative democracy, foundational laws, independentish courts, all move away from the democratic ideal in their own ways. Each mechanism has its own positive aspects and poor failure modes, like democracy itself. When people say "democratic", they're usually assuming some of these also.

With respect to mass surveillance, I don't think representative (vs not) currently has much bearing - I believe that most people are presently not opposed to it, whether by (not understanding the technicals, propaganda, not affecting them, feeling powerless to do anything about it).

The prominence of electronic surveillance is quite new (two generations), so widely-held hard-learned moderating laws (eg "Natural Rights") easily remain unapplied.

Courts themselves are part of the government doing the surveillance. They inherently consider themselves as having jurisdiction over everything (even though historically so much as been non-legible), so they're predisposed to thinking that gathering additional information cannot hurt. So they're no help either.

Which is why I think if mass surveillance is going to be curtailed within the next several generations (eg before societal collapse where expensive lessons get internalized as "sins"), it has to be through technical means. Poor technology design and adoption have gotten us to this point by making it so everybody is doing everything in the clear (TLS encrypting the link to your chosen surveillance broker is not security!). So perhaps with a modicum of people caring about their own privacy, combined with the (seemingly) natural swing of the (de)centralization pendulum, responsibly designed privacy preserving systems can be adopted instead.