"throw capitalism at it" ad absurdum

[untermensche]

In terms of present conditions, do people get more or less representation with this plan?

More than they'd get in a dictatorship.
Less than they'd get with proportional representation.

Is representation a good thing or not? If it's a good thing, than having less representation because you live in a more populace state is NOT a good thing.

You don't have less representation because you live a large state.

This is human interaction. It is not a mathematical formula. The people who get representation are the people who join with others. No single person sitting at home gets anything.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

More than they'd get in a dictatorship.
Less than they'd get with proportional representation.

Is representation a good thing or not? If it's a good thing, than having less representation because you live in a more populace state is NOT a good thing.

You don't have less representation because you live a large state.

Again, that's just as true in a dictatorship. A single person can "represent" an entire country and claim to act on behalf of every single citizen in it. You could say the people who "get representation" are the people who actually bother to interact with the dictator to influence his decisions. But that's the key problem with dictatorship in the first place: the concentration of political power in the hands of the few (or the one) means that the ability of the people to express their will in the government's decisions is extremely limited. It is more limited the less closely their will is represented by their proxies. The fewer the proxies, the less accurately popular will is represented.

Break the dictatorship up into two parts and have one representative elected by popular vote and the other elected only by the tallest 50 people in the country. In this situation, the tallest 50 now have equal representation to the shortest 99,999,950 people in the country. Those 50 people have the power to deadlock the entire government if their representative disagrees with the other. Add another bloc of 50 to this dynamic, and you now have a situation where 100 people can completely override the will of the other 99,999,900 million. This three-person congress will NOT make decisions as reflective of popular will as, say, a massive vote of the entire population.

I'm no even sure what point you're trying to make anymore. If proportionality of representation doesn't matter, there's almost no point in even HAVING elections, you could just have the representatives choose their own members by voting among themselves all the time.

 

[ZiprHead]

 

[coloradoatheist]

I guess it's only me that sees that it's funny that being in a nation of 350 million people, where you get to vote every 2 years for a system that sends people off to war, could tomorrow decide to draft me or family members to go fight that war, can put me in a 6x6 cell for smoking or selling a green natural leaf and other drugs is supposedly more moral than a group of a people that dictate that I actually show up to work and ask that I focus my work on the group's goals is more moral.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I guess it's only me that sees that it's funny that being in a nation of 350 million people, where you get to vote every 2 years for a system that sends people off to war, could tomorrow decide to draft me or family members to go fight that war, can put me in a 6x6 cell for smoking or selling a green natural leaf and other drugs is supposedly more moral than a group of a people that dictate that I actually show up to work and ask that I focus my work on the group's goals is more moral.

Stop applying logic to it! That will drive you insane in no time

It's all smoke and mirrors

 

[untermensche]

You don't have less representation because you live a large state.

Again, that's just as true in a dictatorship. A single person can "represent" an entire country and claim to act on behalf of every single citizen in it. You could say the people who "get representation" are the people who actually bother to interact with the dictator to influence his decisions. But that's the key problem with dictatorship in the first place: the concentration of political power in the hands of the few (or the one) means that the ability of the people to express their will in the government's decisions is extremely limited. It is more limited the less closely their will is represented by their proxies. The fewer the proxies, the less accurately popular will is represented.

Break the dictatorship up into two parts and have one representative elected by popular vote and the other elected only by the tallest 50 people in the country. In this situation, the tallest 50 now have equal representation to the shortest 99,999,950 people in the country. Those 50 people have the power to deadlock the entire government if their representative disagrees with the other. Add another bloc of 50 to this dynamic, and you now have a situation where 100 people can completely override the will of the other 99,999,900 million. This three-person congress will NOT make decisions as reflective of popular will as, say, a massive vote of the entire population.

I'm no even sure what point you're trying to make anymore. If proportionality of representation doesn't matter, there's almost no point in even HAVING elections, you could just have the representatives choose their own members by voting among themselves all the time.

The original point is that humans should move away from the need for "great father figures" and branches of government controlled by a single person. A remnant of the King.

It is time for humans to grow up.

 

[iolo]

Again, that's just as true in a dictatorship. A single person can "represent" an entire country and claim to act on behalf of every single citizen in it. You could say the people who "get representation" are the people who actually bother to interact with the dictator to influence his decisions. But that's the key problem with dictatorship in the first place: the concentration of political power in the hands of the few (or the one) means that the ability of the people to express their will in the government's decisions is extremely limited. It is more limited the less closely their will is represented by their proxies. The fewer the proxies, the less accurately popular will is represented.

Break the dictatorship up into two parts and have one representative elected by popular vote and the other elected only by the tallest 50 people in the country. In this situation, the tallest 50 now have equal representation to the shortest 99,999,950 people in the country. Those 50 people have the power to deadlock the entire government if their representative disagrees with the other. Add another bloc of 50 to this dynamic, and you now have a situation where 100 people can completely override the will of the other 99,999,900 million. This three-person congress will NOT make decisions as reflective of popular will as, say, a massive vote of the entire population.

I'm no even sure what point you're trying to make anymore. If proportionality of representation doesn't matter, there's almost no point in even HAVING elections, you could just have the representatives choose their own members by voting among themselves all the time.

The original point is that humans should move away from the need for "great father figures" and branches of government controlled by a single person. A remnant of the King.

It is time for humans to grow up.

They seem to be very slow about it! I think that, to get rid of fuhrers, you have to change the economic system into a democracy. Incidentally, our Queen here is far less able to boss than that fat slob who's ruling the 'States so incompetently. If they are allowed constantly to personalise politics, the media will impose the unlikely advertising images of bad actors on us all, happy to rule for their rich masters.

 

[dismal]

The original point is that humans should move away from the need for "great father figures" and branches of government controlled by a single person. A remnant of the King.

It is time for humans to grow up.

They seem to be very slow about it! I think that, to get rid of fuhrers, you have to change the economic system into a democracy. Incidentally, our Queen here is far less able to boss than that fat slob who's ruling the 'States so incompetently. If they are allowed constantly to personalise politics, the media will impose the unlikely advertising images of bad actors on us all, happy to rule for their rich masters.

So if I want to eat a biscuit I have to get 3,500,000,001 of 7,000,000,000 people on earth to vote for me to eat it?

Assuming that enough of them voted for the wheat to be grown and the flour to be made and the oven to be built and the baker to be employed for the biscuit to exist at all.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Again, that's just as true in a dictatorship. A single person can "represent" an entire country and claim to act on behalf of every single citizen in it. You could say the people who "get representation" are the people who actually bother to interact with the dictator to influence his decisions. But that's the key problem with dictatorship in the first place: the concentration of political power in the hands of the few (or the one) means that the ability of the people to express their will in the government's decisions is extremely limited. It is more limited the less closely their will is represented by their proxies. The fewer the proxies, the less accurately popular will is represented.

Break the dictatorship up into two parts and have one representative elected by popular vote and the other elected only by the tallest 50 people in the country. In this situation, the tallest 50 now have equal representation to the shortest 99,999,950 people in the country. Those 50 people have the power to deadlock the entire government if their representative disagrees with the other. Add another bloc of 50 to this dynamic, and you now have a situation where 100 people can completely override the will of the other 99,999,900 million. This three-person congress will NOT make decisions as reflective of popular will as, say, a massive vote of the entire population.

I'm no even sure what point you're trying to make anymore. If proportionality of representation doesn't matter, there's almost no point in even HAVING elections, you could just have the representatives choose their own members by voting among themselves all the time.

The original point is that humans should move away from the need for "great father figures" and branches of government controlled by a single person. A remnant of the King.

It is time for humans to grow up.

THAT makes sense to me, but the best way to do that is actually a properly structured democracy IMO. That means either proportional representation and a parliamentary-style government, or DIRECT DEMOCRACY where laws, public officials, policies and even wars are ultimately decided by massive nationwide consensus. The former is a problem of structure and planning, the latter a problem of technology. I think either one is doable.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The original point is that humans should move away from the need for "great father figures" and branches of government controlled by a single person. A remnant of the King.

It is time for humans to grow up.

THAT makes sense to me, but the best way to do that is actually a properly structured democracy IMO. That means either proportional representation and a parliamentary-style government, or DIRECT DEMOCRACY where laws, public officials, policies and even wars are ultimately decided by massive nationwide consensus. The former is a problem of structure and planning, the latter a problem of technology. I think either one is doable.

What having single people in charge has going for it, is that it allows us to fire that one person if necessary. And then the rest of us can switch sides and pretend that we never supported that guy to begin with. That's quite a magic trick that has healed many a social wound in societies.

If the Germans weren't allowed to pretend they didn't support Hitler after the war we'd never seen peace and stability. What playing along with the lie allowed us all is instantly welcome the Germans back into the international community and we could built a stable peace. That's worked out very well indeed.

The magical power of the single scapegoat.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

THAT makes sense to me, but the best way to do that is actually a properly structured democracy IMO. That means either proportional representation and a parliamentary-style government, or DIRECT DEMOCRACY where laws, public officials, policies and even wars are ultimately decided by massive nationwide consensus. The former is a problem of structure and planning, the latter a problem of technology. I think either one is doable.

What having single people in charge has going for it, is that it allows us to fire that one person if necessary. And then the rest of us can switch sides and pretend that we never supported that guy to begin with. That's quite a magic trick that has healed many a social wound in societies.

If the Germans weren't allowed to pretend they didn't support Hitler after the war we'd never seen peace and stability. What playing along with the lie allowed us all is instantly welcome the Germans back into the international community and we could built a stable peace. That's worked out very well indeed.

The magical power of the single scapegoat.

I don't think in my entire life I have ever WANTED to disagree with anything as much as I do with this post...

It's all dismal's fault.

 

[iolo]

They seem to be very slow about it! I think that, to get rid of fuhrers, you have to change the economic system into a democracy. Incidentally, our Queen here is far less able to boss than that fat slob who's ruling the 'States so incompetently. If they are allowed constantly to personalise politics, the media will impose the unlikely advertising images of bad actors on us all, happy to rule for their rich masters.

So if I want to eat a biscuit I have to get 3,500,000,001 of 7,000,000,000 people on earth to vote for me to eat it?

Assuming that enough of them voted for the wheat to be grown and the flour to be made and the oven to be built and the baker to be employed for the biscuit to exist at all.

Sober up. lad, and talk some sense!

 

[coloradoatheist]

THAT makes sense to me, but the best way to do that is actually a properly structured democracy IMO. That means either proportional representation and a parliamentary-style government, or DIRECT DEMOCRACY where laws, public officials, policies and even wars are ultimately decided by massive nationwide consensus. The former is a problem of structure and planning, the latter a problem of technology. I think either one is doable.

What having single people in charge has going for it, is that it allows us to fire that one person if necessary. And then the rest of us can switch sides and pretend that we never supported that guy to begin with. That's quite a magic trick that has healed many a social wound in societies.

If the Germans weren't allowed to pretend they didn't support Hitler after the war we'd never seen peace and stability. What playing along with the lie allowed us all is instantly welcome the Germans back into the international community and we could built a stable peace. That's worked out very well indeed.

The magical power of the single scapegoat.

But you are actually describing an efficiency for the divide/conquer with people in charge that has over a democracy. It allows for a praise or blame for decisions made. If the marketing team makes a bad decision that loses half their customers with the campaign, it's very easy to assign blame to that group and the person in charge of that group. With a democracy it makes it harder. If 51% decide to make a bad commercial then who do you blame? It's the hardest part about our Democracy, assigning praise or blame and we spend all the time trying to do it.

 

[DrZoidberg]

What having single people in charge has going for it, is that it allows us to fire that one person if necessary. And then the rest of us can switch sides and pretend that we never supported that guy to begin with. That's quite a magic trick that has healed many a social wound in societies.

If the Germans weren't allowed to pretend they didn't support Hitler after the war we'd never seen peace and stability. What playing along with the lie allowed us all is instantly welcome the Germans back into the international community and we could built a stable peace. That's worked out very well indeed.

The magical power of the single scapegoat.

But you are actually describing an efficiency for the divide/conquer with people in charge that has over a democracy. It allows for a praise or blame for decisions made. If the marketing team makes a bad decision that loses half their customers with the campaign, it's very easy to assign blame to that group and the person in charge of that group. With a democracy it makes it harder. If 51% decide to make a bad commercial then who do you blame? It's the hardest part about our Democracy, assigning praise or blame and we spend all the time trying to do it.

I think the most important thing with elections and society is creating an illusion of unity. Let's face it. Most people in a country have nothing in common. All national symbols, complete bollocks. Shared history. Who gives a fuck? Nobody alive today is responsible for any of that.

To me nations are like money. Just money itself is worthless. But we have collectively decided to delude ourselves that money is valuable, and then it actually becomes valuable.

Assigning blame or praise, is the same thing. We all know that it takes 10- 30 years before an economic policy has any noticeable effect in the statistics. Also, technological innovation and international politics is way more important than any national economic policy. Still we constantly here comments like "well, you know I had more money in my wallet when Obama was president". Statements like that prove the power of collective delusion.

Who cares who really deserves the praise or the blame for anything? It's too complicated to work out anyway. Nobody knows. It's a lot easier to do it via proxy. And I'd argue, the only method that actually works. We decide to blame Obama or Hitler and then we all agree to stop asking questions that might reveal that he wasn't.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So if I want to eat a biscuit I have to get 3,500,000,001 of 7,000,000,000 people on earth to vote for me to eat it?

Assuming that enough of them voted for the wheat to be grown and the flour to be made and the oven to be built and the baker to be employed for the biscuit to exist at all.

Sober up. lad, and talk some sense!

The problem is when decision making groups get too large they get unwieldy.

 

[iolo]

Sober up. lad, and talk some sense!

The problem is when decision making groups get too large they get unwieldy.

So keep 'em small and have them send delegates to have discussions. Obvious, really.

 

[dismal]

The problem is when decision making groups get too large they get unwieldy.

So keep 'em small and have them send delegates to have discussions. Obvious, really.

So if I want to eat a biscuit I just need to convince a majority of some number of delegates to allocate one to me?

While presuming my particular small group has enough guns to secure a field in which to grow wheat and defend a mill in which to produce flour from other small groups -- who may be forming bigger and bigger better and better armed groups to take our field and mill while we are all sitting about voting on who gets to eat a biscuit?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem is when decision making groups get too large they get unwieldy.

So keep 'em small and have them send delegates to have discussions. Obvious, really.

In other words, democracy. Not anarchism.

 

[Elixir]

So keep 'em small and have them send delegates to have discussions. Obvious, really.

In other words, democracy. Not anarchism.

Repesentative democracy. The quibble is over the degree of representativeness (representativity?). But there is no getting around the problems that arise from living in groups larger than the tribal units with which we evolved.

 

[dismal]

In other words, democracy. Not anarchism.

Repesentative democracy. The quibble is over the degree of representativeness (representativity?). But there is no getting around the problems that arise from living in groups larger than the tribal units with which we evolved.

I think the non-quibble here is about how resources are allocated to human wants and needs. The "capitalist" approach, which most of us use every day, is to vest property rights in resources to individuals and to allow those individuals to reach mutually voluntary transactions to exchange resources they own with other individuals. The anarchisismisticist approach is not entirely clear to me, but it seems to involve some indeterminate group process whereby others decide if I can eat a biscuit or not while presuming the lack of coherent processes to allocate resources among groups and to specific wants and needs within groups will in no way affect the amount of resources available.