Comment by vlehto | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vlehto | Hacker News Reader

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Do you think only burqa wearing Muslim society is prosperous and cohesive? That seems to be only way how that Taleb article could support Radical Democracy.

To me the most homogeneous societies seem to be frontiersmen living in extremely harsh places. The Sami, Pygmy tribes and Inuits we're left alone for most of history. Nobody can fight off immigration indefinitely if there is some reason for them to come.

The most violent civilizations in history didn't seem to care who they oppressed. Roman Empire, Mongol empire and British empire had no problems taking different ethnicities as subjects. Some of them even had somewhat varied ethnic makeup in the power-base of the empire. For example Romans had Latins, Etruscan people and Greek city states assimilated into Rome proper.

This idea that ethnic makeup dictates success and violence of society is essentially racist. It doesn't really matter if you advocate a mix of ethnicity, you are still trying to sell policy with race. The only non-racist stance is to assume that ethnicity and success have no correlation what so ever.

I think it's interesting that you assumed ethnic minority/majority when I had in mind all sorts of minority/majority contrasts.

> Do you think only burqa wearing Muslim society is prosperous and cohesive? That seems to be only way how that Taleb article could support Radical Democracy.

What? I'm going to ignore your nonsensical question and merely clarify what I meant:

In the traditional logic of democracy, consensus is the ultimate goal. It makes sense to me and you that a process that seeks consensus can function and effectively govern, probably because we have been raised to learn this logic since a young age. Radical democracy turns this on its head: The essence of democracy is plurality that defies consensus.

I don't think it is intuitive that this could function on large scales. I think Taleb's article gives evidence that yes, this can work, because the real dynamics of society are not driven by consensus building, but by minorities advocating for themselves. I am not saying the article is explicitly supporting radical democracy, but it gives us an empirical point of view from which to analyze its merits.

I agree that idea of conflict in democracy seems good.

But to me that Talibs article is specifically one of the big problems that idea has. If the most stubborn and intolerant part of the populace always get their way, regardless of their size, then it should always result in stubborn and intolerant policy.

The more you put distinctly different groups of people in a society that runs this way, the more likely it is to have some extremely stubborn and intolerant idea to surface.

I give you that if the stubborn idea is "freedom of speech", that could work nicely. But recently "not mocking prophet Muhammad" has been seemingly bit more stubborn.

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