We need to reinvent democracy for the long-term (2019) | Hacker News Reader

We need to reinvent democracy for the long-term (2019)

bbc.com

11 pointsarp2425 comments

Democracy is already obsolete as a form of government. For democracy to work, you need an educated public, i.e. electorate, that is reasonably cohesively informed by a legitimate press. The press has been destroyed by the collapse of the barrier-to-entry of publishing and the collapse of the monopoly on attention which enabled them to make good money advertising. Now there’s just an endless sea of web-based, dubious publishing outfits. Nobody really knows what is true, nobody can agree on what is true or right or even real (e.g. “fake news”) — there is no longer a cohesive, educated, informed public that can more or less agree on a view of reality and elect a government to manage that reality. Democracy is a dead man walking. The really scary thing is we’re not ready with its replacement.

The only real rebuttal I guess would be asking whether people were really more informed in the past? For a good chunk of the history of the US most people would only have had access to, what, maybe a newspaper on a monthly or so basis? Maybe the publications back then were more intellectually honest and unbiased, but maybe not.

Either way, unfortunately, I agree with the current state of media and the education level of the public. Even more unfortunately, in the midst of things being in such a sorry state, we now have LLMs/bots added to the mix, where groups and nation states now have an entirely new level of public manipulation available and it's already making the situation completely untenable.

No, the average person was not. However, in a representative-democracy model people voted for someone to become better informed and then act on their behalf. I think people were (generally speaking) more aware of their own informational limits, and more prepared to take seriously their choice over those empowered to act on their behalf.

Now, of course, everyone has "all the world's knowledge at their fingertips", and drowns in information of dubious relevance and / or provenance. As, increasingly (and ironically) do their representatives.

A distressing twist: I am incredibly over-informed about national politics, and almost entirely uninformed about local matters.

>Maybe the publications back then were more intellectually honest and unbiased, but maybe not.

Many of the newspapers in the US were open about their biases. They would often have a political party as part of their name. The first newspaper in Chicago, for example, was "The Chicago Democrat". In Springfield Massachusetts there was a newspaper called "The Republican". Many cities had similar newspaper names like those.

I see my post was downvoted and flagged.

apanatel said: > For democracy to work, you need an educated public, i.e. electorate, that is reasonably cohesively informed

I argue: We do not want the Government deciding what "educated" means, or opposing the dictator will be defined as an uneducated stance.

So we need a few objective & market-based measurements where those who fail to meet those measurements are not allowed to participate.

First, you need to be able to feed yourself and keep yourself alive. If you can not do this, you do not need to be voting to take my money to keep yourself fed. This is why ending all wellfare is a good first step.

We must care for the children, especially as we fail to even reproduce at the replacement level. The government can provide for children, and maybe a little bit for displaced workers who can once again be productive. I suggest free dorm rooms at community colleges for the second group. Let them live there for free as long as they are working towards being self-sufficient.

Some will correctly argue that if we end all welfare except for free community college & dorms, there will be an upswing in crime. This is why we need to legalize the use of deadly force to prevent crimes like shoplifting.

A few years later I expect we would have a very different set of election outcomes.

It is possible that I am wrong, but I think my voice should be heard.

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