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by huetius
1416 days ago
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That sounds like 4chan :) I’m sympathetic; I believe in the ideals of democracy, but it seems to me that those ideals come from outside of democracy itself, and that democracy cannot function without them. An example is the belief that everyone participates in a common rationality, such that there is benefit to be had by allowing different perspectives to be heard. This belief has been undermined in a very deep way in the US, to the point we can fairly clearly say that it is gone. I am deeply worried about what this means in the future, and am skeptical that there are procedural or technical solutions. (As an aside, I think that the traditional left vs right hermeneutic is beyond useless to explain how this belief disappeared, but that’s maybe a different discussion). |
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well, not really, because technically, hackernews works that way too. the difference between 4chan and HN is, who the people are that participate. and what topics they are discussing. even 4chan has different topics and each topic is moderated. it's not a free-for-all. the difference is that on 4chan almost any topic and tone is welcome, whereas on HN it is not. the same would be true for any democratic discourse where we want to address the problems of our community.
any person should have an equal voice, as long as that voice contributes to the discussion of the problem at hand. moderation of off-topic or inappropriate contributions still needs to happen.
This belief has been undermined in a very deep way in the US, to the point we can fairly clearly say that it is gone.
not just in the US but pretty much world wide.
I am deeply worried about what this means in the future, and am skeptical that there are procedural or technical solutions
there are a few things that i believe are clearly a problem, and by changing those, democracy could be improved.
the strongest one is partisan politics, which causes groups to fight with each other instead of letting those interested in solving a problem work on it together.
another is the personality cult that is created by candidates around elections. if instead we have write-in nominations only, without allowing any kind of promotion of particular individuals, we would be able to elect those people that the majority feels, actually represent them.
that of course doesn't scale, so these elections would only happen at a local level. at regional and national levels the elections would be done by electorates from amongst themselves. so, in order to become president, someone would have to be elected locally into the regional electorate, and then be chosen by the regional electorate and later the national electorate all the way to the top.
and while we are at it, let's not have a single president but a committee of elected leaders who can only enact decisions if the majority of them agree. like the supreme court.