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Comment by hcarvalhoalves | Hacker News Reader

Because elections are a poor way to elect competent people, overall?

The best democratic system in the world won't help anything if the population is not educated or interested enough to make an informed decision. Democracy itself is distorted because it doesn't thrive for optimal solutions, instead, it thrives to please the people.

The people who get elected are detached from the population to begin with. Being a "politician" is a full-time job. That's absurd. Policies are responsibility of each individual citizen.

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> Being a "politician" is a full-time job. That's absurd.

Really? Representing thousands (if not hundreds of thousands or millions) of people and sorting/synthesizing policy suggestions to try and come up with something that will (a) work in constituent interests (b) will fly with some majority well enough to make it happen -- it's somehow "absurd" that this might conceivably take up 40+ hours a week?

A lack of information and disengagement on the part of most citizens is a problem, but it's not one that stems from having full-time offices or representative democracy itself.

> Democracy itself is distorted because it doesn't thrive for optimal solutions, instead, it thrives to please the people.

Apparently a displeased people would be more optimal?

Being a politician != representing thousands (or more) of people.

> Apparently a displeased people would be more optimal?

Let me make an analogy:

Democracy is like presenting hamburger and healthy food to kids every 4 years and asking them to chose one; then later complaining they're obese.

There was that popular link being circulated a while back... Democracy does not aim to select the optimal candidate but to minimize the damage caused. The candidate chosen is the "least bad", not the most optimal.

Isn't "least bad" equivalent to optimal?

If your selection function optimizes for minimized damage, not maximized improvement, sure.

Same scale, different sign, and varying by person. One person's maximized "improvement" is another person's maximized damage. Sometimes "do nothing" is the best we can hope for, because the alternative is worse.

See also Duverger's Law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

I think in this case "least bad" means "least bad in the worst case".

We are in a position to change politics in this connected era, yet we don't do it. We need modern thinkers to propose new election systems, new forms of government, new ideologies more consonant with modern times.

It will take time, old school politicians are dying, new crops are learning the old tricks to perpetuate themselves in power. New ideas are emerging, people is getting sick of corruption, occupy movements gaining momentum, etc.

We just need strong voices and calls to action. Things need to change, and no matter what, things will change.

What we need is less government and more conscious individuals willing to make decisions.

Any concentration of power leads to corruption and manipulation of masses. Democracy is just one way of doing it - the most successful so far.

I completely agree, and India is a prime example of this. In some of the poorer states there, the politicians are blatantly corrupt, yet keep getting re-elected.

I know what you're talking about: I'm from Brazil.

Democracy is a recipe for bad decisions everywhere, though. In Europe, you won't elect a leader who talks about cutting government expenses, even if those are needed. Instead, you'll get a leader who pleases the population, with catastrophic results.

> Because elections are a poor way to elect competent people, overall?

Better than anything else we've tried.

I could mention Pol Pot and I could mention the Soviet Union and so on, but I won't. All I'll say is, "When you fuck up a system of government, the results get bloody extremely fast."

Elections are the least worst system so far, but they are far from optimal.

In effect what we get is "second rate people recruiting third rate people". If you have ever had anything to do with the general public you will realize the average person is pretty stupid. That is why they so easily fall for all the lies politicians tell.

In particular the public consistently votes for deficit spending and the accumulation of unsustainable debt, short sighted policies and policies based on emotion rather than reason.

We need to find some way to skew the legislature towards people who are honest, and who are more than fast talking lawyers - people committed to rationality and sustainable policies.

> Better than anything else we've tried.

Is it really better? Or is the one people chose because it favors inertia and doesn't force them to think?

> Is it really better? Or is the one people chose because it favors inertia and doesn't force them to think?

There's never been a system tried that forced people to think any more than democracy does. All the other systems actively discourage some kind of thought, in fact, usually at gunpoint.

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