[rayiner]

> Regardless, if you work at Shopify, you should consider quitting. You do not have to work for a crazy person like that.

Democracy is an engineering exercise, just like any other system. Every part of the system has trade-offs that must be evaluated. You can make a logical argument that any other policy is open to abuse, etc. But why do you have to accuse other people of being “crazy” for having ideas about how to engineer a system?

[rainsford]

Like any engineering exercise, there are ideas within the bounds of reasonable debate and ideas that are so bad they should be immediately dismissed and those advocating for them excluded from further discussion until they can participate like intelligent adults.

If I'm a civil engineer designing a bridge, I think it's perfectly reasonable to call someone crazy if their plan is to build it out of Popsicle sticks and unicorn tears. Or more appropriate for this discussion, from the bones of poor people. Wasting time on their nonsense not only makes it harder to reach our actual goal of building a bridge, but reinforces the nonsense notion that all ideas are equally valid or worthy of consideration just because someone voiced them.

[rayiner]

The difference is that you can prove with math and physics that building bridge out of popsicle sticks is crazy. Whereas your point here is based on emotional appeals (“bones of poor people”) and religious dogma. Poor people are the ones who suffer the most from dysfunctional government. Every unit of inefficiency or dysfunction in public services—every late bus or bad teacher—is a tax on the people who can least afford it.

[maxerickson]

You mean government and society are an engineering exercise. You can't strip people of power and then say it's a democracy, at least not if words mean things.

[rayiner]

Words do “mean” things. But the word “democracy” refers to a broader category of government systems, of which democracy with universal adult franchise constitutes a subset of the broader concept. The ancient Greeks practiced democracy, but universal adult franchise was a much later development.