What Is To Be Done? It is time to consider alternate systems of governance | Hacker News Reader

What Is To Be Done? It is time to consider alternate systems of governance

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55 pointsrbanffy69 comments

Or, you know, decrease the size of the federal government and then give the states enough power to function much like their own countries.

why must we always focus towards a stronger federal government? The most functional countries seem to all have a small population (e.g. Norway, Sweden).

Whether you prefer socialism or capitalism, we can all see that neither work optimally with a mega-large population. Breaking up power would break up corruption and make it more manageable.

Maybe that will be the result of the author's master plan of organizing insurrection through the power of software and the internet is successful. But he doesn't say what happens after the insurrection, so there's no real alternative offered other than chaos once the system breaks down. It's hard to predict what system will arise out of the ashes if he is successful.

It's kind of sad, really. It feels like I'm back in the '90s reading Usenet posts on alt.society.anarchy or alt.politics.usa.

I was wondering why people who advocate use of blockchain for voting. now it makes sense.

I don't see it as sad. The most important step in making the world a better place is using our imaginations. I think this is a core part of radical systems of thought. Anarchists would invite even you to imagine what would come next rather than a minority of them dictating a system that is prescribed.

I think it's also a problematic to percieve the system braking down as resulting in chaos. It's the desire of people for peace that preserves peace, not the system.

Also, saying the system isn't choatic now is misleading. The chaos is just both hidden and displaced.

That would devastate the huge swaths of rural America dependent on federal subsidies for income, medical care, fuel, etc. Are those people supposed to simply die? Become refugees in the coastal states that generate the bulk of the revenue?

Small government doesn't necessarily mean that there can't be a transfer of wealth between states. But on the other hand maybe it is better if people move to jobs. I notice you use the perjorative word "refugees", but they're really people moving for work so "economic migrant" might be less charged.

I don't think of refugee as a pejorative, at least not in this context. They wouldn't be economic migrants because they would be migrating to the wealthy states specifically to take advantage of the social programs those states are funding/would fund on a state level. A corn farmer whose income vanishes because his federal subsidies are taken away isn't going to migrate to San Francisco for a tech job, he'll migrate because he needs to see a doctor.

> Small government doesn't necessarily mean that there can't be a transfer of wealth between states.

I will remain skeptical until I see a state willing to give resources away to improve living conditions of other states.

That's what's happening now, isn't it? "Blue" states are paying in more so "red" states can pay in less?

I suspect it isn't only because of the relative poverty of "red" states. Rather, it's an unavoidable compromise among states with different political preferences. The reason that "red" states will agree to greater entitlement spending than their voters prefer is because they are bribed to do so. The reason "blue" states will agree to the bribery is because it helps them fulfill their voters' preferences.

If decentralization ends this cooperative arrangement, it won't be a disaster. "Red" states will have to reorganize their spending priorities. "Blue" states will have a little more money to spend on whatever. Life will go on, but just a bit differently in South Dakota than in Oregon.

> That's what's happening now, isn't it? "Blue" states are paying in more so "red" states can pay in less?

Do you think it'd happen without a federal government?

It's an interesting question. Keeping in mind the levels of "foreign" aid we maintain now, I would suspect... yes? Is there a transition that American politics makes from the state level to the federal level, that makes us more generous? Is there a reason for that transition, or is it simply magical?

Foreign aid is just a tool in the soft diplomacy spectrum. It's not usually given out of generosity, but to influence local politics, develop markets etc...

Is there any reason to believe that those factors would not apply?

One good reason of a stable relationship (as in states of a single country) is not needing to spend time and energy with diplomacy, freeing those resources for use abroad.

If the military-industrial complex could be coopted into building schools, roads, railroads and hospitals instead of weapons, soft diplomacy could change the face of the planet.

For a fraction of current prices.

In the case of California specifically, the difference between federal taxes paid and federal money received represents about 7% of the state budget. Foreign aid is about 1% of the federal budget, though. Why would California spend more? (Edit: Of course its budget might have to triple if it didn't get all that federal money, so there you go.)

Doesn't the EU do that all the time, to develop the less developed members? (Read: Mostly Poland)

http://msp.gov.pl/en/polish-economy/economic-news/4015,dok.h...

> The value of total European Union funds allocation for particular EU member states, according to the EU budget for 2014-2020, as agreed during the EU summit in Brussels on February 8, 2013

As difficult as it is to admit, I don't see them resolving their problems until they have no choice.

With efforts to disenfranchise minority voters underway in many states [1][2], I'm not sure giving them more power is the best idea.

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/0... [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/opinion/voter-suppression...

The federal govt would still be able to keep the states in check. It would just delegate more responsibilities and liberties to the states. I'm not talking about disbanding the supreme court or anything.

yeah, it's hard to tell what people mean when they say "smaller government". In today's climate, that's come to mean the extreme "make it so small you can drown it in the tub" version of small.

I cannot express how fantastically hilarious I found that expression, I am absolutely going to be using that as shorthand for the position from here on out!

I often have the same worry when it comes to people asserting that state governments should be more able to function like smaller countries- I worry in particular that to some traditional enemies it would our individual parts "small enough to drown it in the tub."

"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist

Imagine dealing with all of the refugees, chased from one state to another, as every state tries to give itself an economic advantage by deciding who's a citizen and who isn't. The states are already doing this to the fullest extent that they can get away with.

> The most functional countries seem to all have a small population

The least functional ones also have a small population. See http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8863.pdf

yes, there are dysfunctional governments at every scale, but the functional ones seem to always be small.

The title "What is to be Done" is, of course, the English translation of Что Делать. The title was originally used by Chernashevsky and later Vladimir Lenin—the latter making the call for revolution explicit.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_To_Be_Done%3F

"Communism needs one more try"

Anyone wants to take a figurative stab at who or what's behind this movement?

if only capitalists weren't so horrible that people keep truning to it

the dark lord soros and above him the red shields

Citation needed.

Seriously though, bring me evidence, please. I hear this circulated a lot but I don't know if there's something there or if it's pravda.

I'm not joining the Church of Anti-Zionism but I'm more than willing to believe actual evidence. I lost the mainstream belief that Jews are such oppressed pure little angels when I read about the history of Israel.

Not communism, but at least a democracy where nobody is hungry, uneducated, exploited, sick or living on the streets for lack of money to pay for what should be basic rights, does. It deserves as many tries as it takes to get it right.

Twenty-five years later, two former Nixon administration officials, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, managed to take firm control of yet another presidential administration. This one, too, was marked by revelations of unconstitutional and criminal acts, including torture, mass surveillance, the unprecedented negligence of emergency preparedness functions, the politically motivated firings of U.S. attorneys, and the most disastrous military engagements since Vietnam. The second of these two wars, incidentally, was originally billed as the natural outgrowth of Iraq's intransigence. A memo would later become public confirming the suspicion that it was in fact planned from the start by Rumsfeld, with the ostensible issue of WMDs having been listed as one of several convenient pretexts by which this might be accomplished.

Hmm the article seems rater one-sided in its political bias, omitting possible corruption by the 'left'. Compared to the rest of the world, America ranks pretty low in terms of corruption, so as bad as it seems it could be a lot worse.

Sorry, America ranks low in corruption? How are you quantifying that? Does international covert intervention count?

> Does international covert intervention count?

If it is done for the personal benefit of whomever authorises it, yes. If it is done for American interests, no.

What do you think the military-industrial complex is? The entire purpose of the whole stinking pile of corruption, is for armaments manufacturers to have more money to transfer to politicians, bureaucrats, officers, think tanks, journalists, and lobbyists. They're not monsters; they're not really motivated to kill innocents in other nations. It's just a convenient way to make more money!

Sure, but if those wars promote an American economic interest and voters have relative transparency into the fact that it's happening and choose not to disagree because they're getting economic or political benefits en masse then I don't think it's corruption. We might agree or disagree on whether it is ethical. But the principal-agent bond is not been broken unless the politician gets a payout.

Can you think of a war that has been beneficial for average Americans? Can you think of a politician who hasn't received "donations" from armaments manufacturers?

It takes a real commitment to the tabula rasa stance to pose the hypotheticals you've posed here.

I think World War 2, the Korean War, the first Gulf War and possibly the NATO engagements in former Yugoslavia benefited Americans. Furthermore, I place value on the deterrence broadcast by such actions. Look at any poll--war is popular.

WWII and the Korean War were not instigated by the military-industrial complex as such. (Although of course the Korean situation has been preserved and worsened by their constant input...)

The 1st Gulf War resulted in USA troops occupying Saudi. That was the pretext for 9/11, a decade later, and all of the ensuing disasters. I'm not saying that Iraq couldn't have been ejected from Kuwait in a manner that was on balance beneficial, but that's not what happened. Even deterrence is constantly undercut by decisions that benefit the complex while harming USA citizens (as well as everyone else on earth). Libya was for a moment an argument for deterrence, until we said, "thanks for getting rid of all your weapons Muammar, now here's a bayonet up your ass!" DPRK love to talk about that episode...

Wars are not popular, without massive media efforts to make them so. Fortunately, as we've seen in Syria, that button gets less effective every time the war pigs press it.

> The 1st Gulf War resulted in USA troops occupying Saudi.

No, it did not. There is a difference between troops being based on a country and troops occupying a country. The 2003 Iraq war ended with the US occupying Iraq. The 1991 Gulf war ended with US troops based in Saudi Arabia. The two things are radically different.

Well that's not what Osama said. To him that was a distinction without a difference. He didn't want USA soldiers eating pork and drinking beer on the outskirts of Mecca and Medina. Maybe you distrust him, maybe he had some other reason for turning the world upside-down that he didn't admit, maybe you have a better model of his decision process than the rest of us have... maybe though, that's subconsciously motivated by an attachment to the idea that USA fights and wins justified wars? If you didn't believe that already, would you be more receptive to the idea that things could have been done differently, with less disastrous results?

> Well that's not what Osama said

Osama bin Laden was upset because he tried to leverage the Iraq crisis to get the Kingdom to bring him and his fighters in to protect against Iraq as a way to magnify his own influence, and the Kingdom choose the US instead.

> Maybe you distrust him, maybe he had some other reason for turning the world upside-down that he didn't admit, maybe you have a better model of his decision process than the rest of us have...

I dunno who “the ready of you” are; plenty of people are familiar with the basic history of al-Qaeda. This isn't one of the deep mysteries of the universe.

Let me guess... you saw a report on CNN? Try harder, man.

Here, you don't have to bribe a low-level functionary simply to do their job (give you a birth certificate for your kid, for instance). Our corruption is only at the political level---still a problem, but different than the third world.

Which do you think is better?

Pretty much every study on societal stability, social measures and economic development says the American kind is better. (Search Google Scholar for well-cited intercountry studies of corruption.)

It would be interesting to look at those countries that rank poorly and look at the effects of American global liberalism and try to understand how those countries are affected by the American kind of corruption.

Since the third world kind includes political corruption at an intense level as well as intense administrative corruption, I'm going to have to say the developed-world form with political corruption but without excessive administrative corruption.

> America ranks low in corruption? How are you quantifying that?

There's the Corruption Perceptions Index: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

In the 2016 version, the USA ranks 18th out of 176 countries, with 74 out of 100 points (higher is less corrupt, best actual score by any country is 90). If you accept this index (and don't assume things have changed dramatically since the 2016 poll), then it's fair to say that America does rank low in corruption.

We certainly need a better way to organize politically. Listing to John Oilver's episode on congressional fundraising (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk) leads me to believe that our representatives aren't particularly accountable to the people they represent.

That said, this https://pursuanceproject.org/ seems a bit technical, a bit more technical than what's needed? Couldn't we just take standard democratic representation down a level? Replicate and automate a pattern is already known to work, at a more granular level, rather than reinventing a brand new structure?

Let's say a house representative agreed to cast their votes reflecting the preferences of a majority of "block champions" in their district. Perhaps these block leaders having some sort of rank based upon the number of people who endorse them? Those same champions could also reflect their preferences for local and state issues as well. In this way, the representative would use the preferences of the champions to justify their vote. The nice thing about this proposal is that it could be implemented and would be compatible with our existing governmental structures.

> These block leaders having some sort of rank based upon the number of people who endorse them? Those same champions could also reflect their preferences for local and state issues as well.

I prefer a system with perfect balance: sortition. Just randomly select 1000 people from US and they can take a decision (like a jury). Disband, repeat. It doesn't even require parties, elections and funding. It's hard to control by lobbyists because every time different people are chosen.

If the decision is technical, then there should be a preparation period before voting, where presentations be held in front of the legislators.

Why is my comment and this thoughtful response being downvoted?

EDIT: and this one too? -3 and counting?

That's a good question. Russian bots, perhaps?

You might be interested in reading about participatory politics and nested councils. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_politics

I don't think the solution needs to necessarily be a technical one.

I'm not sure I have too much to say here. The article comes off as incredibly smug, and through its use of an eight-pointed star, downright heretical ;-).

The author needs to be made aware that the anarchistic, chaotically liberatory vision of Anonymous morphed, over the past few years, into /r/The_Donald. The networked people are not the ones fighting authoritarianism; they're the ones supporting it.

Is that a guess or there is actually evidence that the groups are composed of the same people?

Anon grew out of 4chan 10 years ago. The_Donald is (loosely, I think) associated with /pol. The assertion that Anonymous turned into TD is absolutely absurd. Critical thinking depends on making distinctions, not squinting and lumping as much as you can into a bucket.

The point is not that Anon and /pol/ are the same group. The point is that there's nothing structural about anonymous online fora that necessarily gives rise to a politics centered around personal rights and freedoms. It can just as easily go to mob authoritarianism as to individualism.

That sounds a lot like a guilty by association. If some people in a group of people hang out with some people who are bad, all of them are bad. In this case, you claim the author associates with groups which in turn are associated with /r/The_Donald, which I presume you think of as bad.

All the while, you are indeed not saying much on the contents of the linked article.

Ten years later, many now regard the Bush Administration with actual nostalgia.

And 10 years from today, will we look back to 2017 with the same longing?

Why is every discussion of American politics dominated by the President and their administration? Congress is the part of government that effects long-lasting change, not the President. That's the part of government we need to be paying the most attention to.

> Congress is the part of government that effects long-lasting change, not the President.

I don't think that's true at all. Almost all lasting change is accomplished by executive action taken in the regulatory and administrative state. Even in areas where Congress does act, it often only provides broad outlines, leaving the specifics of implementation up to the bureaucratic rule making process.

I think unfortunately some great ideas are coming out of the mouth of a figure who makes himself incredibly unlikable and may ultimately backfire in the court of public opinion (e.g. Al Gore, Assange). [I say unlikable because the sourcing seems dubious, the author talks about himself too much, and there's something too emotional and insufficiently analytical about his style]

However maybe it's good these points are out there. For the severity of Nixon's crimes (attempted destruction of democracy) how are the most severe charges not appropriate (i.e. death)? It really does stink of a fundamentally broken system.

"I don't like the president, so it's time to scrap the whole system."

Ok.

Whatever one's opinion of Trump, he has convinced all Democrats and many Republicans that the executive has too much power. Who could have imagined that, a couple of years ago? I say we should strike while the iron's hot!

(Apparently he's also convinced them that war with Russia is preferable to war with North Korea: I'm not sure what to make of that.)

How big of an ego do you have to have to name your monthly column "The Firstname Lastname Review of Arts & Letters & Civil Strife"

move to a desert and start your own community.

TLDR:

- The guy who got caught hacking Stratfor is about to get out of jail, and wrote this article

- He believes that there is a widespread and insidious government conspiracy against him that involves members of both the Obama and Trump administrations, as well as Peter Thiel and Palantir

- He is in the process of building a virtual network of superfriends, comprised mostly of people affiliated with Anonymous and the European Pirate Parties, that will expose wrongdoing by governments and corporations

>- He believes that there is a widespread and insidious government conspiracy against him that involves members of both the Obama and Trump administrations, as well as Peter Thiel and Palantir

What, against him personally, or just the usual ongoing surveillance state stuff?

I wouldn't join the European Pirate Parties, but I would attend a European Pirate party. Assuming there's cake.

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