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Comment by mathattack | Hacker News Reader

Is it possible that solving the great challenges of humanity today (global poverty, climate change, nuclear non-proliferation) stretch the ability of democracies to solve?

I'm an anti-elitist libertarian at heart, but the "let everyone do as they will" mindset may cause problems. (And I understand that elites get it wrong much of the time)

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> but the "let everyone do as they will" mindset may cause problems

You can change that "may" to "does". Even in the case of perfect coordination and cooperation, there are fundamental mathematical limitations on the optimization power of distributed algorithms. Introducing independent, competing agents then adds game-theoretic results into the mix and everything goes straight into the toilet.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

Libertarianism is not "let everyone do as they will", but to interfere only to maximise liberty. The challenge - and e.g. the primary split between left-libertarianism / libertarian socialism and right-libertarianism - is to define what it means to maximise liberty, and which forms of liberty should be inviolable even if affects the liberty of others.

"Let everyone do as they will" only works if you are prepared to step in when someone's idea of "doing as they will" involves preventing someone else from doing the same, or it won't be "let everyone do as they will" but "let a small portion of people do as they will, and everyone else be damned".

As a left-libertarian, I'd certainly argue that if you pollute and as a result affect the very ability of others to survive or negatively affect their health, you are also affecting their liberty, and society is justified in sanctioning you.

Elites get this wrong because few, if any, elites aim to maximise liberty. Maximising liberty does not (currently, anyway) win you elections.

Remember that a function of at least the American Constitution is to smooth processes of change over many years for the purposes of stability.

Climate change is a particular challenge here: immediate action is required, but warning signs are too diffuse to work against political inertia.

I think democracy would be in much better shape if there weren’t such massive campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry to a wide range of politicians.

But that's a reflection of "The People" and their will. People want their existing jobs and status quo. They care about next week's pay check. Not a theoretical tidal wave that people they don't know say will happen if they don't stop working on fossil fuels and switch to being a cashier at Wendy's. To separate that reality of will from democracy would make it no longer democratic.

Campaign Contributions are imo clearly not a reflection of the will of the people. They are a reflection of business interests, protecting the status quo and working against balanced arguments on public policy.

A reflection of The People would be simply their democratic vote, informed by balanced and unsubsidized arguments from both sides.

> What if The People's democratic vote is to commit collective long term suicide for short term gains?

I mean, obviously, individually, it's up to each person to choose. But when the majority chooses for everyone (including the minority), is the minority bound to respect that decision?

> 'They care about next week's pay check.'

And whose fault do you think that is... There can be no talk of the will of the people when they are beholden to the coercion of the elites through structured economic insecurity.

> But that's a reflection of "The People" and their will.

I don't think so. I need to heat my house or I will die, so I pay the energy company. But, my "will" is that climate change is the most important issue today, and I would greatly like to increase subsidies for alternative energy and funds for climate science. If the energy company lobbies against that, then they are using my money to lobby against my will. It's easy to extrapolate this to the majority of the energy company's subscribers. You can't say that corporate lobbying is a reflection of the country's will.

"A third objection is that Easter Islanders surely wouldn’t have been so foolish as to cut down all their trees, when the consequences would have been so obvious to them. As Catherine Orliac expressed it, “Why destroy a forest that one needs for his [i.e., the Easter Islanders’] material and spiritual survival?” This is indeed a key question, one that has nagged not only Catherine Orliac but also my University of California students, me, and everyone else who has wondered about self-inflicted environmental damage. I have often asked myself, “What did the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree say while he was doing it?” Like modern loggers, did he shout “Jobs, not trees!”? Or: “Technology will solve our problems, never fear, we’ll find a substitute for wood”? Or: “We don’t have proof that there aren’t palms somewhere else on Easter, we need more research, your proposed ban on logging is premature and driven by fear-mongering”? Similar questions arise for every society that has inadvertently damaged its environment."

- Jared Diamond, "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed"

(A must read book, by the way.)

Perhaps, although I don't believe another system of government would be better suited to solve it. The problem with not addressing climate change, for example, is greater concern for personal interests over the general welfare. In this case, fossil fuel companies prioritize their profits over the planet's well-being. That prioritization is the source of fossil fuel lobbying and anti-science news that supposedly refutes climate change.

Theoretically, in an informed democracy, the people would recognize the threat and act to stop it by voting in representatives who are committed to curtailing climate change. In the real world, though, our democracy is not that informed. The mainstream media covers stories that are more sexy. I don't believe there were any climate change questions posed at the presidential debates.

The two possible solutions would be to change the system in such a way to foster an informed democracy. The other, as you mentioned, would be an entirely different government system. I think the former solution is more feasible by passing legislation that makes it harder for fossil fuel companies to have so much influence on representatives. I'm not sure how to fix the news. The reason I don't see a different system of government working is because I don't think any system solves the "individual interest > general welfare" problem. Democracy is pretty much as good as it gets when it comes to the general welfare, other than a smart benevolent dictator... but how long has that ever lasted?

Everyone gets it wrong much of the time, seems like the question may be more about who gets it wrong a little less often.

Or that modern democracies are simply too inept to deal with them. I think we could design a democratic state that is far more effective than any that exists today.

Well, sure, we could design one - but could we design one that would survive itself?

For example, consider the problem of gerrymandering. When one political party takes control over another, they may look at their gerrymandered districts and cry out "Unfair! We need to fix this!" But how do you incentivize them so that they don't just redraw the boundaries in their favor this time?

IMO, we should abolish elections entirely and select legislators by lottery out of pools of people who pass qualification exams. Random selection has a lot of benefits. There have been a number of studies on its use in promoting workers in the private sector. Sortition has a long history of use in government, from ancient Greece, to the Irish constitutional convention of 2012.

Elections inherently favor those who desire power over other, demagogues, and narcissists. They also result in the creation of an insular political class, which often trends towards oligarchy.

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