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Comment by mmsimanga | Hacker News Reader

From where I am standing I wonder if this is not reflection of the ineffectiveness of governments. In my part of the world there is a lot more talk about devolution, basically self governance of the different regions. Everyone is sick and tired of decisions being made from the capital city by people who do not have your interests at all.

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Democracies need to be ineffective and slow to some degree in order to be stable and to allow all people to participate. Otherwise, a coup d'état would be far too easy because efficiency means that only little time would pass between a decision (whether legal or illegal) being made and it getting implemented.

There's a difference between slow and slowly doing things that are bad for you and everyone around you because some "powers that be" who live in some far off city and have close to nothing in common with you want it done.

If it were up to me I'd make the US into ~100 states and reverse a lot of the power transfer from the states to the feds that's happened over the past 100yr.

There is a reason why it's much harder to change federal law than a local ordinance. The broader the effect, the more difficult it should be. Effective government should not be about kneejerk reactions.

Then what about decisions from corporations who do not even consider you as a person, or a citizen, but as a consumer?

It seems more and more that the government treats us like a consumer. Both parties trying to deliver more and more "value" for the currency that matters to them: votes.

It's not votes. They buy the votes with money and that's what matters.

I think you mistook my post as supporting Facebook. I am not supporting Facebook nor do I trust central governments. I ultimately think the Swiss model of governance where a lot of power is held in the region.

Brexit shows, citizens are not in the best position to take decisions on complex matters.

Educated citizens may be. The problem is when politicians are allowed to lie through their teeth, as they did for brexit, and the educational system didn't prepare everyone to question the obviously absurd claims made by leavers.

Brexit was a structural failure of British democracy, not an indictment on British voters.

How so?

Multiple reasons, two I can think of right now that frustrate me at that the vote was held when students were on holiday (they needed to vote where they lived, so many students didn't vote who were 6-1 remainers). Secondly, lots of undemocratic goings-ons such as https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/14/judges....

Pro-Brexiters lying on the motives and outcomes? (Farage & Johnson not the least)

Like every party on every election at every level. Even though I share the outrage about it, we can't deny that lying is not uncommon.

That's not an acceptable standard for any public figure.

And yet we accept it all the time.

This is funny. A big reason people voted brexit is because they want more local governance instead of letting some bureaucrats in Brussels decide their fate.

In the grand scheme of things brexit might be a bad idea, but you're effectively saying people shouldn't govern themselves because they would vote for more self-governance...

I would also not be in disfavor of a Federal Council as opposed to a singular executive. The Swiss have a good thing going.

Interesting comment, given that the Libra group behind this currency is based out of Switzerland.

Person > family > neighborhood > community > region > state > nation > > world

That's how decision making power should reign.

The problem is not government, but highly centralized government at near continental and global scales. Power needs to remain as local as possible. This Facebook move is not a solution because it just puts some global-scope power in another entity, that just happens to be an Internet company.

It's not hard to make the case that today's governments are tired and slipping and in need of reform. But there's no such thing as the libertarian fantasy of "lack" of governance. Human nature dictates that if there's a power vacuum, it will be filled. If it isn't filled carefully with a system designed to serve the people, it'll be filled by whoever can take it for themselves. And whether that's a feudal lord or Mark Zuckerberg, it will be worse than the alternative.

It's nothing short of a miracle that for the past 150-200 years, we've managed to fill much of the world's power space with a system that roughly serves the people (with lots of flaws, but nevertheless). Let's hope it isn't just an anomaly.

> But there's no such thing as the libertarian fantasy of "lack" of governance. Human nature dictates that if there's a power vacuum, it will be filled. If it isn't filled carefully with a system designed to serve the people, it'll be filled by whoever can take it for themselves.

Then let that power vacuum be filled on the state and local level.

West Virginia and California should be free to run their societies into the ground (or not) in their own ways without the other telling them how to do it or being on the hook for the cost.

Except people are not perfectly mobile and can't simply relocate across a continent. Should California be free to say, deny all brown eyed people access to public schooling? Or to run its economy into the ground and dissolve as a state? What about selling itself to a foreign power?

People are free to relocate where they want. They are not free from the consequences, particularly economic ones. As someone who is living in an fairly terrible state because there happens to be some high paying jobs in my industry I am unfortunately very aware of these kinds of trade-offs.

Don't straw-man me, I'm not saying we should dissolve the federal government. I'm saying states need to be less under its thumb and with that comes some responsibility for the consequences of mismanagement. Some of those consequences compound (screw up your state enough and all the people who can move will, taking their tax revenue with them) but that risk seems like a pretty low price to pay for more government happening on a level that is easier for the average Joe to influence.

If they can somehow reconcile your eye color restrictions with existing state law, the US constitution, etc then sure, why not.

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