[classicsnoot]

I know this may seem like a silly response, but i mean it in all earnestness: Democracy may not be a basically "good thing." I know this flies in the face of a ton of social programming, but at some point we have to take the evidence as it comes to us, and if it is consistently pointing to something we did not expect or like, we can only re-jigger the pretext so many times before we have to confront the fact that maybe our assumptions were wrong. Maybe the internet is the perfect vehicle for democracy, and mob rule isn't such a great thing.

[lolc]

Given how widely the definitions for "Democracy" diverge, it must be taken as given that some of those definitions will not be "good" for some people.

As a frequent point of contention: Is vote-by-majority democratic?

[classicsnoot]

I would argue Yes. It is definitely one type of democracy.

[ssaew333]

Or, democracy and mob rule are not the same thing. And the internet (in it's current form) is better at promoting mob rule.

[classicsnoot]

That is an interesting delineation. Disregarding Platonic definition, how would you argue they are different, or at least distinguished from each other?