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Scientists Say People Aren't Smart Enough For Democracy To Flourish
cold fjord writes "The inability of the incompetent to recognize their own limitations is a story that has been covered before on Slashdot. But, what happens when you apply that finding to politics? From the article: 'The democratic process relies on the assumption that citizens can recognize the best political candidate, or best policy idea. But a growing body of research has revealed an unfortunate aspect of the human psyche that would seem to disprove this notion, and imply instead that democratic elections produce mediocre leadership and policies. The research shows that incompetent people are inherently unable to judge the competence of other people, or the quality of those people's ideas. If people lack expertise on tax reform, it is very difficult for them to identify the candidates who are actual experts. They simply lack the mental tools needed to make meaningful judgments...democracies rarely or never elect the best leaders. Their advantage over dictatorships or other forms of government is merely that they "effectively prevent lower-than-average candidates from becoming leaders."'"
How about this one then:
"We are now in a period where there are mediocre men everywhere. People have opinions but no knowledge, and leaders are made in the image of the masses. Democracy is only tolerable because no other system is." --Dean Acheson
The first and main advantage of democarcy over is that a government can be thrown out without a bloody revolution. This prevents common people being hurt by the political plays of violent social climbers, where previously they were used as literal pawns on the battleground.
It usually also has the benefit of keeping the current leader in check; a truly terrible elected government will have a quick fall, so they have to at least pretend to cater to the will of people. This is a small plus that too often can be subverted, but even without it I'd say that the first reason makes democracy worth every penny.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
A few thousand years ago, philosophers were already indicating that the inherent problem with Democracy was that the majority of people were never going to be smart/wise/informed enough to make appropriate decisions. The founders of the United States also identified this as a problem, and had many debates about how to mitigate the dangers.
The best quote I've heard is that true democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner (usually attributed to Ben Franklin)
And true liberty is when the sheep has a gun
I think the core problem with this discussion is that "smart" is such a loaded word. I know I'm pretty savvy with computers, and very clever with algorithms and design. I'm pretty well-read, and I know quite a lot about the world's history and its present situation. I know a lot about how things work, both natural and man-made. However, I have found that I'm a pretty bad judge of character, and can be somewhat gullible when my guard is down. Am I smart? Would Democracy do better or worse having had my participation?
E pluribus unum
I don't think any political theorist has ever thought that democracy would create qualitatively better governments than other means of choosing governments (monarchies, autocracies, theocracies, etc.). It's advantage, as singular as it is, is that it creates an environment in which a government can be peacefully removed from power and another transitioned in its place. Of course most people are not equipped to judge which party's policies, which run the whole gamut from economics to foreign affairs to social policy, are better or worse. I doubt even most politicians are. Most people either just vote kneejerk for the "conservative" or the "liberal" or the "little guy" or the "wise-looking older fellow".
No, it's not about choosing leaders, it's about getting rid of them. That's where democracy, when coupled with a tradition of the rule of law, really shines.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
What I'd like to see is some kind of very tough civics test as a requirement for voting.
You raise some good points but the above is not really relevant. One can be uninterested in civics/politics while at the same time holding very valid points about an issue. Case in point, should the 'ruling' of the internet be left to the politicians/lawyers or to engineers who built it. If you exclude the latter because they are not involved 'enough' in politics, you'll break the internet. This applies to almost everything.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
causality expounded:
Voting is tougher. In the early days of the USA, only a small minority could vote. You had to be white, male, and you had to own land at a time when most people didn't. Obviously the requirement that voters be white was plain racism, though at the time the same racism meant only whites would be educated. The exclusion of women meant that what we now call "big government" proposals had less support automatically (this has been proven and I don't care how anyone feels about facts - women tend to look for security from an external source and the government is only too happy to offer it). The exclusion of anyone who didn't own land tended to mean the voters were educated and prosperous enough that they could devote time to being active in politics.
Oh and the fact that Senators were appointed by the states to represent the states meant you had one part of the legislature that didn't have to run campaigns, didn't have to worry about the way the wind was blowing, and could actually vote their conscience. Changing that was a bad idea. It was an important check against the soundbite-driven (well really headline-driven, back then) world we know today.
Actually, I've been reading The Gilded Age recently. In it, Twain and Warner keep politics in the age of buccaneer capital squarely in their sights. One of the supporting characters is Senator Dilworthy, who is up for re-election. He goes back to his home state of Missouri to campaign for reelection in the state legislature, and winds up losing in a landslide, when his widespread bribery of legislators is exposed.
It's fiction, not history, but it's indicative of at least one of the problems with having Senators elected by state legislatures, rather than by direct vote of the people - it's a lot easier to bribe a few dozen than an entire electorate.
Twain and Warner likewise rip the lid off of Washington politics of the time, when Dilworthy and his allies use bribery, coercion, and blackmail to ram through a bill to purchase 1200 acres of Tennessee land - ostensibly to benefit "the Negro", but actually for the benefit of a poor, but well-connected Missouri family, and the network of lobbyists, politicians, and infuence-makers who will "administer" the fund created by the measure.
The book is a lot of fun - and quite enlightening. Politics, it seems, is ever the same. The details change, the corruption remains consistent.
What I'd like to see is some kind of very tough civics test as a requirement for voting. It should be as openly and transparently administered as possible, so that anyone who wants to study and learn could pass it but very few who didn't care to study would stand a chance. In addition, anyone currently receiving some form of "entitlement" should not get to vote because what they're going to vote for is not difficult to guess and this situation is too exploitable and too dangerous for our long-term survival. The last thing I would change is that all campaigns be publically funded, each candidate gets a very generous amount, and any other "contributions" are treasonous bribery resulting in a death penalty for the candidate and 20 years in prison for the one "contributing" the money.
With something like that, we could have a nation again.
Mmm ... the civics test I could see. It would ensure an at least nominally informed electorate. Forbidding anyone who receives any kind of "entitlement" is a whole other issue. In fact, I'm really glad you put the term in quotes, because I don't think you've thought that restriction through.
And I mean I don't think you've thought it through at all.
For instance, your proposal - if it were implemented across the board - would mean that no one who receives Social Security or Medicare benefits could vote. Is that what you had in mind? Because it's senior citizens who have the most experience with the consequences of voting, as well as the leisure time necessa
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