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Comment by vivekd | Hacker News Reader

I disagree. I don't think there's any historical data showing a correlation between loss of voting rights of a % of the population with totalitarianism. I think among the few countries where it has been tried would be Canada stripping Japanese of voting rights in WWII. Of course this was bad, but at the same time it doesn't seem to have, at least not in most people's view, turned Canada into a totalitarian states.

In my opinion the real trend towards totalitarianism is inability to talk freely about ideas

It's easy and popular to talk about how important democracy or voting rights are. And that makes it a bit annoying because it deprives the possibility of freely exploring other ideas. There's no possibility of free speech or free exchange of ideas so long as portion of the population thinks we have to immediately nip dangerous ideas in the bud without exploration.

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> among the few countries where it has been tried would be Canada stripping Japanese of voting rights in WWII. Of course this was bad

That's the point.

> There's no possibility of free speech or free exchange of ideas so long as portion of the population thinks we have to immediately nip dangerous ideas in the bud without exploration.

The "nipping dangerous ideas in the bud" language relates to those ideas being implemented, not being discussed.

Find us a person who honestly believes there a class of citizens (other than convicted felons, minors, and mentally incompetent) shouldn't have a right to vote who doesn't want to use it for political gains.

>Find us a person who honestly believes there a class of citizens (other than convicted felons, minors, and mentally incompetent) shouldn't have a right to vote who doesn't want to use it for political gains.

Easy the philosophers Plato and Socrates who believed that only philosophers and those who sought wisdom should have a say in the affairs of the sate. I mean philosophy is full of ideas of how nations should be organized and it's interesting because there's no dogma around it and no villainizing disagreements

>e "nipping dangerous ideas in the bud" language relates to those ideas being implemented, not being discussed.

Great because last I checked Tobais Lutke was discussing the idea not implementing it

> Plato and Socrates who believed that only philosophers and those who sought wisdom should have a say in the affairs of the sate [sic]

Plato and Socrates obviously weren’t democrats. Also, neither of them is still alive.

> philosophy is full of ideas of how nations should be organized and it's interesting because there's no dogma around it and no villainizing disagreements

That’s because philosophy is abstract. Nobody of any importance is seriously claiming that we should have philosopher-kings leading Western societies. It’s too distant a threat.

> last I checked Tobais Lutke was discussing the idea not implementing it

Lutke was only discussing the idea, but that doesn’t mean it should be paid any heed. It’s also completely fair game to publicly shame him for such ideas.

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