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by return0 3627 days ago
> are a way of saying "let's watch the elite's world and system collapse on itself"

I don't think people want to replace the elites with void. Maybe that's the case for nihilistic, fringe far-right or far-left parties. But when majorities or near majorities are voting for Trump or Brexit, they want to replace the elites with something else`.

It's funny to watch the elites suddenly renouncing democracy because she stopped serving their purposes (It was quite a relevation to watch reddit go full-on military-dictatorship this past week, but hey reddit is not reality).

Democracy is a very adaptive concept and there is a saying that there are no dead ends with it.

2 comments

That's a depressing pattern in general. A lot of people like democracy... up until something or someone they don't like gets the majority of the vote.

It's especially interesting to see all the political figures against brexit talk about more referendums and reconsidering whether to leave the EU. Think it's time the Labour Party and the likes accepted the results and started thinking about how to make the best of it rather than trying to ignore the results of a major vote like this.

Replacing the "elite" with an underspecified, possibly unachievable "something else" is begging for a void.

Come on, we're software engineers; we know how crazy it is to turn off a working system without having a viable plan for its replacement.

> underspecified, possibly unachievable "something else"

I think it's pretty well outlined what is that "something else". The implementation is not there (obviously), but the API exists, for example anti-immigration, [edit]pro-protectionism etc. Most people dismiss it as non-existent though, due to liberal reflexes.

Being anti-immigration is protectionism, though. Especially for the services sector. The two things are in direct contradiction to one another. The specific motivation for objecting to immigration (other than straight racism) is "protecting jobs".
yep. sorry typo
Software != Politics.

Revolutions and other acts that tear things down do often result in worse outcomes, yet sometimes the tearing down is necessary, regardless.

We also know that management will never approve a replacement until the working system burns down.