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Thanks for the link, thanks for your efforts. I'll definitely read up on sudval.org.

"They are fully democratic and focus on producing empowered self directed citizens..."

Word.

I've run democratic teams. The empowerment is real. I can't explain it; it feels like magic. Those experiences have transmuted me into a full throated advocate for democracy.

Democracy, in its multitude of forms, is very much a technology. Just like arabic numerals, management, offset type, etc.

"No grades or grade levels..."

I'm hoping your sudval.org link says something about achievement models for education, as an alternative to testing regimes and grades.

My son is an Eagle Scout. He wasn't a very good K-12 student, but he rocked the Scouts. That achievement is largely self-directed, but also structured with concrete outcomes. With plenty of mentoring both up and down. I wonder why learning can't be more like that?

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> I wonder why learning can't be more like that?

As John Taylor Gatto explains, it is because our education system was designed back in the 19th century to produce factory workers who would follow orders and do the same boring thing all day long.

http://johntaylorgatto.com/ -- his books are all worth reading, especially his Underground History of American Education.

> Those experiences have transmuted me into a full throated advocate for democracy.

And if a majority of wolves vote for a sheep dinner?

A well armed sheep contests the outcome...

So vote my way or civil war?

Would you voluntarily submit to being eaten then?

That hardly sounds civilized.

What if the sheep can't arm themselves? What if the wolves are better armed?

Then the sheep is fucked. But at least they have a shot at trying to defend themselves. Note that I'm assuming that it goes without saying that armed defense is a measure of last resort. Obviously one would try diplomacy, etc., first. But my point is that "democracy" isn't any kind of inherently perfect system if you're the minority party. It has pathological edge cases that can't just be hand-waved around.

I think all forms of government and/or social codes are just temporary and perforated stopgaps on the way to the actual solution: a post-scarcity world, where everybody can just get whatever they want and nobody needs to infringe on anybody, baring psychological defects.

Agreed. I just wonder if we'll ever actually be able to achieve a complete post-scarcity world. I'm optimistic, but not completely so.

There's also a question of whether there is such a thing as "basic human nature" at play. As long as we are driven to compete with each other for access to the most desirable mates, etc., it seems there might always be some cause for humans to attempt to stomp on one another in various ways. Even if there was no shortage of material goods, food, water, etc., I suspect we'd still find some kind of basis to compete on, which could still lead to conflict.

Everyone's grumpy about our (USA) elections, which use a terrible voting system (winner takes all), and then cynically conclude that all democracy is bad news. Because people are stupid. And can't be trusted to do the right thing. Because reasons.

How do you currently choose new hires? Decide to ship (go/no go)? Probably something like Roman Evaluation.

How do you triage defects or choose features? Probably something like Approval Voting.

There's also the possibility to vote on values, but bet on beliefs.

Ie vote on your priorities and what you want to get done. Then use a prediction market (possibly on a very informal level, if it's a small group), to decide on a policy to reach those goals.

"Winner takes all" is not a voting method, it just means single-winner districts. You can use an excellent winner-take-all method like Score Voting or Approval Voting.

The country I live in uses a proportional voting system - and what happens is that one of the smallest and most narrow special interests party gets to be the the point of equilibrium - as nobody can form government without it.

And then that party proceeds to blackmail everybody all the time.

Thus all the governments need to pander to this particular party and they get to gridlock the government whenever they feel the smallest slight or displeasure.

nobody can form government without it

Of course they can, they just choose not to. What you are saying is that the parties are choosing a blackmailer over a self-declared "enemy". That's a choice, it's not inevitable.

Besides, if the political landscape is diverse enough, a minority coalition can be a boon for everyone: it means that the ruling parties must actually learn to cooperate with the opposition instead of dictating policy for the duration of their term.

You are indeed correct.

However our political landscape is polarized to a degree where minority coalition has no chance of doing anything.

Not that any political problem could solve people acting as idiots.

as the Hardline unionists did in the UK which is why northern irland lags the rest of the UK in civil rights

The key point of democracy isn't voting, it's participation.

If you have participation, where all are heard, and real work is made for a consensus - voting doesn't have to have centre stage. Voting makes sense for simple decisions, where little discussion is needed. It's a pretty poor way to foster participation (You voted, you lost, you can't complain).

That said, sometimes the sheep needs to be eaten. If that is taken literally, that a group votes to eat one of its members - the situation should be rather extreme - like people stranded without food. One might agree to draw straws. But it would be much better to avoid such situations in the first place...

The key point of democracy isn't voting, it's participation.

Your right to vote is the mechanism by which your right to participate is ensured.

If you have participation, where all are heard, and real work is made for a consensus, voting doesn't have to have centre stage

And yet in practice, the only reason for a political party to hear all (including its opposition) and to seek consensus is to seek the number of votes need to pass a rule. Therefore, in practice, voting does take the center stage.

Your right to vote is the mechanism by which your right to participate is ensured.

That's just one mechanism. Your right to participate is also ensured by freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the ability to get your name on the voting ballot.

Indeed! I wasn't my intention to reduce it just that one freedom, I merely wanted to address that specific comment.

Another very prominent example would be freedom of press.

>> The key point of democracy isn't voting, it's participation.

> Your right to vote is the mechanism by which your right to participate is ensured.

It's a shallow form of participation. Being educated, informed, and being part of the decision process - drafting bills, finding alternatives - forming political parties, being part of committees , being available for election, all the work that is done before a vote his held is arguably more important. And if most people aren't involved in that part, you don't IMNHO have what can reasonably be called a real democracy.

It's of course much easier to just present "the people" with the choice of a red or green bike shed, rather than discuss alternative economies that might make the nuclear plant less relevant.

And how does the average voter get involved in "drafting bills" I suspect that there are very few of us on HN who have ever done something like that.

I manged to get several thousand people a better pension by using the democratic process but I suspect as a dual wonk/nerd I am in a minority.

I did half consider going to work in the HOC if one of my colleagues had got the speaker ship.

> And how does the average voter get involved in "drafting bills"

This is exactly my point - real democracy means engaging in the political decision process on all levels, and taking/feeling a sense of ownership of/to it.

I agree but moist systems are not setup to facilitate this, and nor do people want to do the hard yards.

And how does the average voter get involved in "drafting bills" I suspect that there are very few of us on HN who have ever done something like that.

In representative democracies [1], they usually don't get involved at all. You delegate your rights to someone else (eg members of parliament), who then act on your behalf, so to speak.

The alternative of direct democracy [2] is much rarer.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy

>> Your right to vote is the mechanism by which your right to participate is ensured.

> It's a shallow form of participation.

It's not a form of participation at all.

>Being educated, informed, and being part of the decision process - drafting bills, finding alternatives - forming political parties, being part of committees , being available for election, all the work that is done before a vote his held is arguably more important.

You are arguing about how the right to vote is exercised. With the right to vote as a given, I would agree with you on all of the above.

However, none of the above is relevant without the right to vote (and other rights), hence why I'm arguing that the right is more important.

Then it is not a democracy in any meaningful form, but a tyranny. It is insufficient with pure majority rule to form a democracy - democracy requires participation and at least basic levels of protection of all participants as well.

There are many ways of doing this, with various suitability depending on context, but e.g. one alternative is simply to guarantee the right of withdrawal - if you can always remove yourself from the group if a decision is unacceptable to you, a majority will need to seek compromise if it wishes to avoid shedding members. Other alternatives include requiring super-majorities for particularly important decisions, guaranteeing rule of law and basic human rights.

> And if a majority of wolves vote for a sheep dinner?

If that happens, you don't want to live in that society anyway, under whatever system. In other words, this is an extremely pessimistic view of human society.

> a majority of wolves

The problem lies there, not with democracy - whatever system you use, such an assemblage is going to screw the sheep over.

In a democracy, there's at least a sense of shared responsibility, and hence in real life there'd be a dampening of the wolf's id by each one's conscience.

In monarchic or oligarchic systems (and these terms don't have to be restricted to governments), the top person(s) will still probably end up being a wolf in such a condition, only now the other wolves would be "just following orders" and be more efficient in making dinner.

> I wonder why learning can't be more like that?

Money. There isn't enough of it. America would rather spend it on other "more important" things.

Funding is not the silver bullet to a better education system that many would like it to be. Misguided reliance on systemstic top-down reform, conflicting interests of education providers and their agents, and the immovable inertia of traditional institutions are far greater enemies to the unrealized potential of new educational paradigms. Among the multiple dimensions of human experience that technology is currently disrupting and reinventing, education should be at the forefront. Instead it is held hostage by the special interests of the current education system, which are reinforced by their entrenchment within the state. Much must change before a new system can be realized.

The problem is not that we aren't buying enough education; it's that we're being sold a counterfeit.

That's simply not true. Per student spending in the US is among the highest in the world.

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp

We just blow it on administration-heavy bureaucracies and demonstrably failed methods.

>>We just blow it on administration-heavy bureaucracies and demonstrably failed methods.

Not to mention sports. The absurd amounts of money, attention and time poured into college athletics especially never ceases to amaze me. Even at the high school level, many students focus way too much on being "discovered" by talent scouts so that they can get scholarships to colleges they want - grades be damned.

I would refine this to say that teaching is not sufficiently respected as a profession. A large part of this is the low pay. Another part is the top-heavy bureaucracy, and that we take our best teachers and push them out of teaching because administrators are the only ones making decent money.

Other posters have pointed out that there's plenty of spending in schools, but it is in frivolous activities on the periphery of education. They did not mention facilities, which I believe is another huge point of financial irresponsibility when it comes to how municipalities fund their schools. Any town pointing to a dilapidated school as proof of need for a new one is among the least likely to be a good steward of that school, given that it is deferred improvements and maintenance, not age, that really causes problems (to a point, of course). Worse yet, they move these schools to huge complexes on the edge of town so that no one can reach it without a car or bus. Then they get to spend more good school money on buses.

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