Interesting Links for 05-03-2012

[andrewducker]

• People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish
  (tags: politics society intelligence democracy )
• Sex and the modern girl: living in a world where women aren't ashamed of their desires
  (tags: uk sexuality sex women )
• Archie gay marriage comic sells out in face of boycott call
  (tags: lgbt comics )
• Bechdel Testing Comics
  (tags: bechdel women

Comments

[spacelem]

I've been thinking about the democracy problem recently - that there's just too many people who don't understand the problem to be able to choose what to do about it (take the economy for example, I'd say I'm pretty well educated, and I can't make head nor tail of it, how's someone who doesn't have a maths degree supposed to know what's best?). Alternatively, just the problem of huge numbers of people voting because that's the way they've always voted, like my dad, and his dad before him. Does that really help anyone?

Unfortunately, last time I mentioned it to someone I got a reponse along the lines of "that's how dictators think". I like to think I'm not a crazed despot, bent on controlling everyone, but can this really be reconciled, or should I just give up and accept that the opinions of informed people are worth no more than general ignorance?

[cartesiandaemon]

It seems like the most viable models are (a) let the most ruthless person rule (b) have a democractic process that at least some of the time rules out things that are obviously awful to everyone. Obviously neither of those is great, but I think it's understandable to pick (b), although I don't know for sure it's better, but (a) is certainly scary.

The question is, is there any better way? A representative democracy appears to do some good: of policies that parliament implements that people disagree with, some are awful (eg. lots of surveillance), but I think more are worthwhile (eg. no death penalty). I don't if we can guarantee that, or if we're just lucky, and I don't know if we can improve of that without falling into (a) or (b).

[drdoug]

My personal view is that the big positive thing about democracy is that it draws a line under just how awful a government can be before they get chucked out. People aren't very good at judging how good a prospective government will be, but they are much better at judging a spectacularly poor one as being spectacularly poor in retrospect.

So even if elections are essentially random noise, because you've put a lower bound under how shockingly bad a government can get, and a new government essentially starts from there the previous one left off (all those democratic institutions), you have a stochastic process. It's a bounded random walk, in essence, and that'll give you much better outcomes (on average) than a random scatter of governments with no dependence.

[iainjcoleman]

True, and this is essentially Machiavelli's argument for the superiority of republics over principalities.

But the other big advantage of democracy is that provides a mechanism by which bad governments can be removed without bloodshed.

[andrewducker]

That's definitely the advantage when a country first adopts democracy - the general level of stability is going to improve dramatically.

[steer]

take the economy for example, I'd say I'm pretty well educated, and I can't make head nor tail of it, how's someone who doesn't have a maths degree supposed to know what's best?I have a maths degree, regularly attended seminars in economics (as they have a high maths content) and conclude that while economics is a fascinating subject and well-founded mathematically, the evidential basis for most economics is not so clear cut that we can yet make important decisions on that basis

[danieldwilliam]

I suggest that our representative democracy is modelled on a false premise. I suggest that the false premise is that it doesn’t need to be scaled to fit our current view of the franchise

[andrewducker]

Any suggestions?

[danieldwilliam]

No further suggestions for the time being but thank you for asking. Much obliged. Very civilised of you, I'm sure.

(I am trying to signal that I'm thinking out loud or talking about a working theory and not something that I consider to be a proven fact.)

[naath]

I think a big problem is that all the people in politics are trying to crowd around the same political positions. I think people can make ethical judgements about what outcomes are desirable without knowledge of the specifics of how to get those outcomes

[danieldwilliam]

That’s pretty much my position.

I’d add that it’s not impossible for people to become knowledgeable about particular issues. They can in a few months become knowledgeable enough about an issue to interact with experts. To get themselves to a position where they can ask the right questions and understand the answers.

That’s more or less what elected politicians do on committees. It’s more or less what university students do.

So two additional questions flow for me. Does this potential representative have a good track record of doing their homework? Can we or should we widen the pool of lay experts we create and use in our decision making.