[threeseed]

Countries like Australia, South Korea and New Zealand have had exemplary COVID-19 responses. It has nothing to do with whether you are a democracy or not and everything to do with the competence of the government.

And the people of the US will have an opportunity to vote in a few months on whether the response was adequate or not. I don't see the people of China having a similar opportunity for example.

[bllguo]

I mentioned that I believe problems manifest as scale increases. Do you think there is a difference between implementations of democracy in a large country vs a small one? I do.

To clarify after some further thought - I think the bureaucratic burden scales much more drastically in a democratic system. In a large democracy all decisionmaking becomes mired in a swamp. Of course all governments will require more and more delegation and bureaucracy as the population grows, but IMO to a lesser degree in an authoritarian system, because there is no need to come to a broad consensus before making choices.

[leafboi]

Good point.

Additionally, complexity also scales. A dictatorship relies more on the common sense of the dictator while a democracy relies on a set of written laws that grows with complexity over time. A single party does not need a contract while at least two parties must engage in a contract called a written body of law in order to come to an agreement. This "contract" is edited and amended over time with no limit to how complex it gets.

In fact, that complexity balloons to a point where only experts can understand the law (lawyers). It also grows to the point where the law is so complex that it can become internally inconsistent and develop loop holes that do not serve the original intended purpose of the law.

This allows for entities to exploit these loop holes. Of course only entities with enough money to afford the "experts" to find the loop holes and exploit them will be able bend the laws to their advantage thereby causing only the rich and elite to become more powerful.

The above is the basic theory about the anthropological progression of your typical democracy. Growth in complexity of a body of law to the point where only the elite can afford to hire specialists to take advantage of said law.

That is the main danger of democracy. Excess Complexity to the point where only people who can afford specialists to change the law can exploit it to their advantage. Complexity of law also leads to all kinds of other phenomena that niche experts and common people can take advantage of as well. For example constructors that take advantage of property law.

The scary thing about the theory above is that there is a TON evidence of this. Almost every modern democracy in the world suffers from ALL of the problems above. Literally find me one that doesn't.

[nradov]

Did you consider it an exemplary response when Australian police arrested a pregnant woman for attempting to protest lockdown measures?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54007824

[threeseed]

I live in Melbourne and her arrest is widely supported. Our city is in a severe lockdown and at a tipping point between New Zealand style suppression and US style chaos.

Just because she is a white, pregnant woman does not mean that she has the right to break the law and compromise the safety of the community.

[stagehn]

What does her being white have to do with anything and why would you even bring up her race?

[rbg246]

Because the reaction to her arrest is a good example of white lady in distress.

Whether you agree or disagree with her arrest and release like two hours after this sort of stuff happens all the time with police but it's a big deal if it's a white lady.

Just for the record im not sure I agree with her arrest but you know... Bigger things to worry about

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_white_woman_syndrome

[stagehn]

Is "wide support" of her arrest (as framed by the person I was replying to) an example of white lady in distress? That seems like the exact opposite of white lady in distress. Or is the single person who thought the arrest was unjust (further up) an example of white lady in distress?

None of this fits the white lady in distress definition. It just seems like a way to smuggle in anti-white racism for no particular reason. Nothing about this situation has to do with race in any way whatsoever.

[rbg246]

The fact that he was replying to a comment that used it as an example of Australia's 'authoritarian' response to covid and the fact that it received widespread news coverage and we all got to see her distress Vs the other guy who got arrested and received zero coverage for the same crime seems to suggest that this it is relevant and on the balance of probabilities a good example of white lady in distress.

[sumedh]

Did she break the law?