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Comment by bruce511 | Hacker News Reader

You're going to get downvoted for that not by me though.)

It's a serious point though, but unfortunately one that has copius evidence that the outcome of that approach is worse, not better.

The problems with democracy are evident (brexit being a poster child.) The democratic successes are equally good (South Africa, Northern Ireland).

The primary problem with alternate systems is that there's no way out. Once you have an authoritarian approach, if you don't like the authority you SOL.

Basically it's all the worst bits of democracy without any of the up sides.

Ultimately people vote, (or don't care) and get to live with the consequences.

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> The democratic successes are equally good - South Africa

I'm not sure how rampant official corruption, cronyism, a skyrocketing murder rate [1], crumbling infrastructure, dwindling regional influence, and a deeply polarized civil society can be considered a democratic "success".

[1] - https://www.groundup.org.za/article/how-bad-murder-in-south-...

At 46 murders per 100k per year, it might just be the worst intentional murder rate in the world right now.

Clearly south Africa has problems.

But Apartheid was a problem several magnitudes larger. World pariah status, 80% of the population subjugated, colonialism at its worst. Democracy (the White vote in 1990), the national vote in 1994, lead to a revolution without a civil war.

Of course it has not lead to utopia, and democracy has challenges there, as it does elsewhere, but the authoritarian regimes before were far, far worse.

You really have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to call it a great success. I'd say it's actually a curious example of democracy failing miserably, and worth studying how to avoid that.

The alternative would’ve resulted in it ending up like Rhodesia (a country that no longer exists)

I don’t get why brexit is constantly brought up as the cause of some of this rather than a reaction.

This whole thread and story has folks explaining how this has been a slow creep over 30+ years.

There are a lot of people who don't believe in local control or the concept of an independent nation state. They imagine that in their preferred future all governments are merged into one, and regional differences are reduced to food, drink and local dances. Up until Brexit they imagined this future as glorious, popular and inevitable. After they realized it wasn't all that popular nor inevitable, and have been on a rear guard action to blame everything on it ever since. They hope that if they lie big enough, often enough, the lies will stick and one day this horrific aberration can be reversed. Hence why Brexit is often described as the cause of every problem the UK has even if those problems existed before then, or if no change is visible on the data, etc.

It's an alignment problem. Any ruler has to keep the right people happy to stay in power. An autocracy has a couple choices how to do that. You can use military and police, you can use religion, you can make the population richer with great economy or great social programs, you can bring law and order to a previously crime-torn country, etc. Each of these gives someone the power to dethrone you, and the state typically has to spend large amounts of resources to keep those people happy.

The "genius" of democracy is that it guarantees that at least half the population is in that group, because a popular vote can dethrone the government. That doesn't mean they are the only group the government is paying off to stay in power, but better to be in than to be out.

One of the problems we have currently is that the population is aging, meaning it's more rational to cater to old people who on average dislike change. This eventually leads to stagnation or even regression.

Yeah, I generally agree with all of that. At the same time, if you reach a point where breaking democracy becomes the only way to survive an existential threat, then it’s do or die.

So considering how severe those consequences are, something would need to be done to prevent that outcome if that’s the trajectory you’re on.

Britain's democracy is in need of reform, not further damage.

The electoral system is unrepresentative (the more representative system used to elect the mayor of London was recently changed to FPTP). The upper house is composed of people nominated by the government, children of nobles and bishops.

In the last few years, the traditional behaviour expected in Parliament — not to lie — has been lost.

As the most recent example, when Johnson resigned the election[1] for his replacement was heralded as a win for the Conservative party. The campaign centred around green policies. The Conservative party has fewer votes than Labour + Green, but still takes all the power.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Uxbridge_and_South_Ruisli...

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