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

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
        > I'd love to agree with you but people in general are easily manipulated on mass. It's even easier with single persons or small groups… Just given them a little bit money or alternatively aim with a gun at them or someone they love. This method wouldn't scale to a whole society. > Currently the majority are too I'll informed to make appropriate decisions about anything […] > They need to all be informed about all the issues in an impartial way in a way that those people can fully understand. And you really think the "decision makers" are anyhow better informed, smarter, more altruistic and don't just think about their own well being most of the time? That's a very naïve stand, to be honest.
        account-5 3y ago
        > And you really think the "decision makers" are anyhow better informed, smarter, more altruistic and don't just think about their own well being most of the time? That's a very naïve stand, to be honest. At no point did I say anything of the sort, and I'm not sure how you've extrapolated that from what I've said.
  - pmoriarty 3y ago
    "We have since many years the tech to make it possible to vote on everything by everybody." Electronic voting machines and vote counting machines are hackable. Technology is the disease here, not the cure. I wouldn't trust anything other than hand-counted paper ballots.
    - still_grokking 3y ago
      > Electronic voting machines and vote counting machines are hackable. Sure. And elections in general aren't malleable? In a lot of cases that's even simpler than hacking a distributed cryptographic system. The problem with electronic voting is not the security. It's "just" the secrecy. That's the only hard problem. > I wouldn't trust anything other than hand-counted paper ballots. So you should stop trusting in any decision made in most parliaments on this planet. Almost all of them are made by primitive and completely nontransparent "press the button" electronic voting, which can be trivial hacked. But "voting" in parliaments is anyway just show for the dump masses. All the decisions are pre-made behind closed doors, of course.
    - account-5 3y ago
      Provided of course you trust the person counting those ballots.
      - still_grokking 3y ago
        "I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how."
  - bostik 3y ago
    I keep saying that what we are currently living through is a surprisingly accurate reflection of how democracy began. In the city state of Athens, all free men had the vote. The definition of "free man" just happened to exclude approximately 97% of the population. Our governments have since figured out that you can merrily hand out the privilege, as long you remain in control of what is allowed to be put on the vote in the first place. I'm not alone with my view, btw. Lessig has made the same point in his "Country of Lesters" talk.[0,1] 0: https://www.politicallawbriefing.com/2013/04/a-lester-whats-a-lester/ https://www.politicallawbriefing.com/2013/04/a-lester-whats-... (overview, writeup) 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g (recorded talk)
  - TrapLord_Rhodo 3y ago
    Direct democracy scares me more than a corrupt government. I can imagine a group of americans voting for $2,000 a month basic income, not realizing that the total is greater than our GDP. I can see racism creap in, denying entry to the US to foreign natioals. Watching the UK vote on "Brexit", without an understanding of what that actually 'means' or if it's possible, shows the failure of democracy.
    - raincom 3y ago
      Whose corruption is better? Whose corruption is worse? The collusion of bureaucrats, politicians, media, corporate elite is WORSE than any corruption whatsoever resulting from direct democracy: in the case of brexit, people who voted for it face the consequences themselves. In the case of collusive elite, normal public (except bureaucrats, politicians, lobbyists, corporate elite) bear the brunt. Definitely, people don't mind taking their own medicine, than the ones prescribed by the collusive elite.

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
        > I'd love to agree with you but people in general are easily manipulated on mass. It's even easier with single persons or small groups… Just given them a little bit money or alternatively aim with a gun at them or someone they love. This method wouldn't scale to a whole society. > Currently the majority are too I'll informed to make appropriate decisions about anything […] > They need to all be informed about all the issues in an impartial way in a way that those people can fully understand. And you really think the "decision makers" are anyhow better informed, smarter, more altruistic and don't just think about their own well being most of the time? That's a very naïve stand, to be honest.
        account-5 3y ago
        > And you really think the "decision makers" are anyhow better informed, smarter, more altruistic and don't just think about their own well being most of the time? That's a very naïve stand, to be honest. At no point did I say anything of the sort, and I'm not sure how you've extrapolated that from what I've said.
- pmoriarty 3y ago
  "We have since many years the tech to make it possible to vote on everything by everybody." Electronic voting machines and vote counting machines are hackable. Technology is the disease here, not the cure. I wouldn't trust anything other than hand-counted paper ballots.
  - still_grokking 3y ago
    > Electronic voting machines and vote counting machines are hackable. Sure. And elections in general aren't malleable? In a lot of cases that's even simpler than hacking a distributed cryptographic system. The problem with electronic voting is not the security. It's "just" the secrecy. That's the only hard problem. > I wouldn't trust anything other than hand-counted paper ballots. So you should stop trusting in any decision made in most parliaments on this planet. Almost all of them are made by primitive and completely nontransparent "press the button" electronic voting, which can be trivial hacked. But "voting" in parliaments is anyway just show for the dump masses. All the decisions are pre-made behind closed doors, of course.
  - account-5 3y ago
    Provided of course you trust the person counting those ballots.
    - still_grokking 3y ago
      "I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how."
- bostik 3y ago
  I keep saying that what we are currently living through is a surprisingly accurate reflection of how democracy began. In the city state of Athens, all free men had the vote. The definition of "free man" just happened to exclude approximately 97% of the population. Our governments have since figured out that you can merrily hand out the privilege, as long you remain in control of what is allowed to be put on the vote in the first place. I'm not alone with my view, btw. Lessig has made the same point in his "Country of Lesters" talk.[0,1] 0: https://www.politicallawbriefing.com/2013/04/a-lester-whats-a-lester/ https://www.politicallawbriefing.com/2013/04/a-lester-whats-... (overview, writeup) 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g (recorded talk)
- TrapLord_Rhodo 3y ago
  Direct democracy scares me more than a corrupt government. I can imagine a group of americans voting for $2,000 a month basic income, not realizing that the total is greater than our GDP. I can see racism creap in, denying entry to the US to foreign natioals. Watching the UK vote on "Brexit", without an understanding of what that actually 'means' or if it's possible, shows the failure of democracy.
  - raincom 3y ago
    Whose corruption is better? Whose corruption is worse? The collusion of bureaucrats, politicians, media, corporate elite is WORSE than any corruption whatsoever resulting from direct democracy: in the case of brexit, people who voted for it face the consequences themselves. In the case of collusive elite, normal public (except bureaucrats, politicians, lobbyists, corporate elite) bear the brunt. Definitely, people don't mind taking their own medicine, than the ones prescribed by the collusive elite.