[roenxi]

There is a system explicitly designed not to always give the victory to the popular vote winner. If, on occasion, it does what is was explicitly designed to do that isn't really an error.

"Haha, we have 50.5% of the vote now you have to do what we say" is workable but hardly a stronger moral position than securing 49.5% - particularly after looking at the turnout situation in the US. Philosophically if there is less than overwhelming majorities (talking 60%, 70% style figures) there is a lot of room to question whether a democratic consensus has been achieved.

[hacknews6]

Yes, because as we all know, despite winning, 50.5% isn't enough of a margin, so actually, the loser should win instead.

[defrost]

It sounds as if you're in favour of a coalition government in the absence of a significant margin.

[roenxi]

I know how I would set things up. But in the vast majority of cases there are objectively good and bad policies and the fact that people voted doesn't change whether something is a good idea or not. Nobody's voting in China as far as I know and they've seeing unbelievable rates of improvement in their living standards for the last few decades, it isn't that hard.

The issue is that the political class (really any group of people) is inevitably stuffed with corrupt sociopaths, tends towards groupthink, is easily dissociated from reality and insists on using social proof rather than a scientific approach. The system as it stands is just a big complicated stick to wallop them with a Trump every so often if they really muck things up to the point where their incompetence triggers too many problems for enough people. The exact trigger % of people needed to engage the stick should be set sensibly but in practice the US is making do with around 20% of the population according to Wikipedia [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States...

[Lienetic]

Can you explain further how you've come to the conclusion that "in the vast majority of cases there are objectively good and bad policies?"

[roenxi]

I believe it would be straightforward to determine policy if we had an oracle with perfect knowledge that operated under a so-called veil of ignorance [0]. Getting good outcomes with a fair & reasonable minimum standard of lifestyle for the people who are the worst off isn't particularly hard. The problem with implementing that system is the lack of oracles and deficits of intellectual honesty.

The key point is we don't need to vote to determine what works well. Whether a policy gets good results is just a fact regardless of whether or not people vote for it. And there are a large number of policies that were terrible the last time people tried them and will continue to be terrible even if the voting public decides to try them again.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance

[082349872349872]

> Nobody's voting in China as far as I know

They vote from an approved list of candidates, but the following makes it sound as if, in principle anyway, there ought to be enough voting to keep the better apparatchiks and bounce the worse ones:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_China#Direct_elec...

tl;dr: lots of voting; no ballot access

EDIT: meanwhile, over on https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中華人民共和國選舉 we find the Party line:

> 《人民日報》称，中国大陸的基层换届选举是世界上规模最大的基层民主选举。

("The People's Daily* says the grass-roots general elections in mainland China are the largest [900 million voters] grass-roots democratic elections in the world.")

* http://www.people.com.cn

[gradschoolfail]

Borodin might have kept Cordwainer at arms length ( or hardly ever fraternized with SYS except thru Eugene. (Purely from psychoanalysis)

Have you checked with the Lords of Instrumentality? (Did 101 speak with the equivalent of a midwestern accent?)

[082349872349872]

Nope, will have to dig in! ('Watch, but do not govern; stop war, but do not wage it; protect, but do not control; and first, survive!' sounds very 3-principles-adjacent)

[082349872349872]

As to Whondertine, I'm with Mustafa Mond, and suspect the rovin' Cordovan hadn't lived long enough to discover that Bildung is an antidote to ennui?

(the World Controllers have an excuse not to offer proper Bildung; the Lords and Ladies of the Instrumentality have no such)

Come to think of it, Goethe (1749-1832) was about the same age as Linebarger (1913-1966) when he started on Faust (ca 1800)...

[082349872349872]

Huh, our rovin' Cordovan died of a heart attack at 53, which (at least by XXI stats) is unluckily young.

I wonder if he might have killed another Lord o.I. — where is the which of the what-he-did?