534 karma · joined May 29, 2018
Got about a billion people here who'd like to disagree. In fact, of all the crimes against humanity the British visited on India, I think that assertion might just be the worst.
As per my knowledge, representative democracies have an advantage over direct democracies primarily in ease of administration and legislation. I don't think there are any particularly strong reasons to suggest representative democracy is less prone to a tyranny of the majority than a direct democracy.
My hypothesis is that the idea is borne out of a necessity to resolve the dissonance between the US founders and constitution being in many ways anti-democratic, with a culture that holds up democracy & freedom as its highest ideals. (democracy in this case defined as it would be in the dictionary)
http://www.openculture.com/2016/11/umberto-eco-makes-a-list-...
My anecdotal examples would be mostly middle-class families and college students in the US, not particularly valley-related. In my country these type of devices are on the market but not popular (only seen a couple), but they're priced out of the range of the majority of the population anyway.
Granted, the ease of use of their functionality is largely dependent on the microphone being on at all times.
Many things. Using violence to spread your beliefs is not the sole preserve of fascism and is not the primary identifier of fascism either.
Or maybe your superficial response is correct, and there is nothing exceptional about this election, and COVID-19 will no longer be a concern, tomorrow?
I think that says enough about your worldview to preclude engaging with you. I suppose I should be wistful that my country didn't have the opportunity to be nuked and/or occupied by Anglo-Americans. (A specious enough category as it is)
It takes a certain level of historical ignorance and narcissism over and above your garden variety American-exceptionalism to say something like:
> The US occupied vast swaths of the world after WW2, and instead of permanent occupation and extraction of wealth and resources, the US set up, where it could some of the most successful civilizations in history.
Just take the L for misusing an American idiom. There's nothing wrong with not knowing the precise meaning of particular idioms in a language that is not your own. 'Drinking the Kool-Aid' is not relevant to our cultural context and using it incorrectly is hardly relevant to the content of your article. Trying to draw spurious comparisons with foreign interpretations of Sanskrit words is not really relevant.
Do you mind if I quote this attributed to you?