7 ms·

Sadly, this seems to be the case. Which means we the people, have lost control of our government.

freerangebat 3y ago
I wonder if historically governments were ever controlled by the people. It seems democracies that can somewhat control the government are extreme outliers in human history.
- lstodd 3y ago
  Like it's said in Russia - government is controlled by the people, and we know who these people are.
- dudul 3y ago
  Democracy via elected representatives is a lie. "Extreme outliers" may even be too much. Is there even a handful of examples?
  - still_grokking 3y ago
    It's not even a lie. It's just not democracy. The whole point of democracy as it got invented was that the people can directly vote on any government issues. No direct voting on every day do day policy, no democracy. Simple as that. "It would not be possible in practice" is the actual lie. We have since many years the tech to make it possible to vote on everything by everybody. I'm not saying that everything would be perfect if people could decide about their fate in an actually democratic way. The majority is dumb on average. That's a sad truth. But I'm not sure it would be really worse than what living in our current lie is. Given some fundamental rules (like human rights), which couldn't be overruled easy by simple majority voting, such a system could work, imho. The "only" question is how a society could arrive at a true democracy. Given for example into what the french revolution culminated I have no high hopes that creating a bigger democratic society is even possible.
    - phs318u 3y ago
      Pure democracy as you describe it, even if technically feasible, would still result in tyrannies and terrible outcomes. The biggest problem isn't lack of influence on the laws, it's lack of knowledge, reason, understanding and empathy. And that problem exists whether it's x number of people influencing the outcome, or 1,000,000x. Every negative influence that politicians are open to, the masses are also open to (though scale may vary e.g. wrt corruption). The overwhelming evidence across the globe is that people are easily fooled, easily misled, easily manipulated, prone to illogic, prone to responding emotively, prone to selfishness, and can be corruptible, destructive and suicidal. They routinely will sacrifice advances to their own cause in order to exclude, punish and exorcise others. No, technically direct democracy would lead to no better outcome, though I'm sure at some point in our history we'll try it.
      - still_grokking 3y ago
        You've just made an anti-argument to your own claim. As people are people, real democracy would not be worse than the status quo as we're already ruled by people with lack of knowledge, reason, understanding and empathy. But you can't for example corrupt the majority of all people. So real democracy would be at least in this point better. By no means worse, but better in some regards is a clear win imho! > lack of knowledge, reason, understanding and empathy.
        account-5 3y ago
        I'd love to agree with you but people in general are easily manipulated on mass. Currently the majority are too I'll informed to make appropriate decisions about anything, making them even easily to manipulate. I'll include myself in this. For real democracy to work it's more than giving all people the right to vote on all things. They need to all be informed about all the issues in an impartial way in a way that those people can fully understand. That I'd say is impossible.
        still_grokking 3y ago
throwaway892238 3y ago
In 2020, the Presidential election voter turnout was the highest it's been in three decades, at just over 60%. But that's still 40% of eligible voters that didn't "lose" their voice in government, like losing their car keys. 80 million people decided to give up their voice. In other countries, people really do lose their voice in government. Plenty of countries are under the jack-boot of totalitarian regimes that will torture and execute whoever steps out of line. We live in a country that is so far away from that, that all we have to do to change our government is mail in a form. And we still can't be bothered to do that. So any lack of government control is completely our own fault. The government's still gonna do whatever it wants to do. But we also have the power to bring it to heel. The thing is, you have to actually do something with that power.

I wonder if historically governments were ever controlled by the people. It seems democracies that can somewhat control the government are extreme outliers in human history.

lstodd 3y ago
Like it's said in Russia - government is controlled by the people, and we know who these people are.
dudul 3y ago
Democracy via elected representatives is a lie. "Extreme outliers" may even be too much. Is there even a handful of examples?
- still_grokking 3y ago
  It's not even a lie. It's just not democracy. The whole point of democracy as it got invented was that the people can directly vote on any government issues. No direct voting on every day do day policy, no democracy. Simple as that. "It would not be possible in practice" is the actual lie. We have since many years the tech to make it possible to vote on everything by everybody. I'm not saying that everything would be perfect if people could decide about their fate in an actually democratic way. The majority is dumb on average. That's a sad truth. But I'm not sure it would be really worse than what living in our current lie is. Given some fundamental rules (like human rights), which couldn't be overruled easy by simple majority voting, such a system could work, imho. The "only" question is how a society could arrive at a true democracy. Given for example into what the french revolution culminated I have no high hopes that creating a bigger democratic society is even possible.
  - phs318u 3y ago
    Pure democracy as you describe it, even if technically feasible, would still result in tyrannies and terrible outcomes. The biggest problem isn't lack of influence on the laws, it's lack of knowledge, reason, understanding and empathy. And that problem exists whether it's x number of people influencing the outcome, or 1,000,000x. Every negative influence that politicians are open to, the masses are also open to (though scale may vary e.g. wrt corruption). The overwhelming evidence across the globe is that people are easily fooled, easily misled, easily manipulated, prone to illogic, prone to responding emotively, prone to selfishness, and can be corruptible, destructive and suicidal. They routinely will sacrifice advances to their own cause in order to exclude, punish and exorcise others. No, technically direct democracy would lead to no better outcome, though I'm sure at some point in our history we'll try it.
    - still_grokking 3y ago
      You've just made an anti-argument to your own claim. As people are people, real democracy would not be worse than the status quo as we're already ruled by people with lack of knowledge, reason, understanding and empathy. But you can't for example corrupt the majority of all people. So real democracy would be at least in this point better. By no means worse, but better in some regards is a clear win imho! > lack of knowledge, reason, understanding and empathy.
      - account-5 3y ago
        I'd love to agree with you but people in general are easily manipulated on mass. Currently the majority are too I'll informed to make appropriate decisions about anything, making them even easily to manipulate. I'll include myself in this. For real democracy to work it's more than giving all people the right to vote on all things. They need to all be informed about all the issues in an impartial way in a way that those people can fully understand. That I'd say is impossible.
        still_grokking 3y ago

throwaway892238 3y ago

In 2020, the Presidential election voter turnout was the highest it's been in three decades, at just over 60%. But that's still 40% of eligible voters that didn't "lose" their voice in government, like losing their car keys. 80 million people decided to give up their voice. In other countries, people really do lose their voice in government. Plenty of countries are under the jack-boot of totalitarian regimes that will torture and execute whoever steps out of line. We live in a country that is so far away from that, that all we have to do to change our government is mail in a form. And we still can't be bothered to do that. So any lack of government control is completely our own fault. The government's still gonna do whatever it wants to do. But we also have the power to bring it to heel. The thing is, you have to actually do something with that power.