Yes you could eliminate voting AND still have democracy... arguably even more democracy than at present.
Just take a random sample of the population as your congress.
Bingo - no election, and a congress that will probably be more accurately and scientifically representative of the people than the current "rich people only" system of candidature.
Sophisticated variations involve letting people nominate themselves, and then taking a stratified random sample of the nominees (e.g. stratified by sex, age, religion, race, location, occupation status, etc, etc). This, however, leads to arguments over which factors should be used to stratify, and how to measure them. Still, it is an option to get round the problem of randomly-selected persons refusing to serve in congress (although high pay might take care of that).
Such a random selection system ALSO gets rid of expensive party politics and campaigns, pork-barrelling, and brib- er, election funds.
So, you have faith that we *will* understand them all one day?
And your evidence for that is? How can we know we *will* understand everything one day? You already know the future???
How about:
1) things we understand 2) things we don't understand, but are trying to understand 3) things we don't know of, and so cannot even begin to understand 4) things we don't want to understand 5)...
The scientific method is inherently Procrustean ("I only have a hammer, so all problems must be treated as nails."). Discuss.
(begin sarcasm) Yeah, I mean America would never work if everyone had a vote for the legislature and for the national president.
Only the rich people, who own a share of the country, can really run the country. And the richest should get even more votes than the others. (end sarcasm)
Um... how is it that huge nations (and India is much bigger than the US) can be run democratically, but a firm with only a fraction of the size of the nation's population on its workforce could not run democratically?
Why not just change the corporate law: instead of stockholders voting for the board of directors, let the workforce vote for the board of directors, one person one vote?
At the moment, democratic governments are faced with a plethora of non-democratic institutions (business corporations) with enormous powers. The corporations are governed the same way that America (and England, etc) were governed long ago: those with property had a vote (and those with the most property, the aristocrats, were represented in person in the English Parliament); those without property had no vote. This system is called plutocracy - rule by the wealthy. We got rid of it in politics... but now it is time to get rid of it in the economic world. America campaigned against decisions (like taxation) being made without the Americans being represented in the decision-making body. Why should employees - the owners of human capital - take second place to those who only invest financial capital in the business? The "human capitalist" (the employee) has more at stake in the business - usually their whole human capital is invested in the one business - it is hard to work in more than two or three businesses at the same time. But the financial capitalist (stockholder) can split their money capital up among hundreds of companies at the same time, to hedge against something going wrong in one company.
Business requires money and human effort. How come those who contribute the money control the business; and those who contribute the effort get no say? Does that sound fair or democratic? Isn't it putting money above people? Isn't it contrary to the whole basis of a democratic society?
So people are out there sending in their patches to the holy scriptures... then someone goes and forks the project.
So you have ScriptureFree86 and Scripture.org competing with each other, and each of the religous distributions has to decide which branch to take up.
Meanwhile, the evil MicroScripture.com is preaching that you should give them 10% of everything you earn, if you want to be blest. And they insist that you use their DRM'd Scripture reader that won't allow you to look at alternative versions.
Nah, it will never work. back to the Closed Source Brethren.
The RIAA and BSA are like a light globe company that discovers it has produced a light globe that lasts "too long" - and wants the government to legislate the smashing of all light globes more than a year old, in order to ensure demand for its product.
Why not licence light globes? "You are permitted to use this light globe for a period of 12 months. After the elapse of that period, you must destroy the light globe and purchase a new one. Continued use of the light globe beyond the licence period is theft, as it deprives the light globe manufacturer of their rightful reward for designing and manufacturing the product."
"You don't buy light globes. You only buy a licence to *use* a light globe for a limited period. The globe remains the property of the manufacturer. Stop light globe piracy!"
First the geeks - they know how to set up their own systems. That's been done.
Then government and big corporations - they have specialist IT guys (yeah... geeks) and they want to save the money. And that gets the industry building up decent support. That is what is starting now.
Then the home user and small business last, where Joe Enduser is the sysadmin / newbie user / owner. For this, you need switch-on-and -run stuff. That is still down the track for most - they will sooner use a Mac, especially now that it can dual boot - maybe even soon do virtualisation like VMWare, etc.
Linux for the desktop isn't currently Linux for home and small business, it is Linux for the big org with the IT guys. Thousands of desktops in one roll-out. Restricted applications (do you want your office staff running Flash, or DVD players??)
The Federal Government has NO "unenumerated powers"!
You are quite right. Anyone can enumerate the tanks, soldiers, attack aircraft, and other powers in the possession of this government. The enumerated military powers of the government always trump a piece of paper. There a numerous examples in history.
"the idea that absolutely all of them are uncorruptable is absurd"
I find the idea absurd that *any* of them is incorruptible.
Lincoln threw a man out of his office who was trying to bribe him, upping the amount each time. Lincoln's secretary commiserated, "Sir, he was insulting you by offering a bribe." Lincoln replied, "No, he was getting too dang near my price."
No one is incorruptible. You just haven't found their weak spot.
I am sorry, but asking about your rights represents a breach of national security. Terrorists like you seek to hide behind their supposed rights while they pursue their anti-American peace-hating activities. True patriotic Americans are proud to give up their constitutional rights without asking any questions that might hinder the security of this great nation.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes you could eliminate voting AND still have democracy ... arguably even more democracy than at present.
Just take a random sample of the population as your congress.
Bingo - no election, and a congress that will probably be more accurately and scientifically representative of the people than the current "rich people only" system of candidature.
Sophisticated variations involve letting people nominate themselves, and then taking a stratified random sample of the nominees (e.g. stratified by sex, age, religion, race, location, occupation status, etc, etc). This, however, leads to arguments over which factors should be used to stratify, and how to measure them. Still, it is an option to get round the problem of randomly-selected persons refusing to serve in congress (although high pay might take care of that).
Such a random selection system ALSO gets rid of expensive party politics and campaigns, pork-barrelling, and brib- er, election funds.
Only in America is half the nation more concerned about whether the President screwed one person than whether he screwed 300 million people.
So, you have faith that we *will* understand them all one day?
...
And your evidence for that is? How can we know we *will* understand everything one day? You already know the future???
How about:
1) things we understand
2) things we don't understand, but are trying to understand
3) things we don't know of, and so cannot even begin to understand
4) things we don't want to understand
5)
The scientific method is inherently Procrustean ("I only have a hammer, so all problems must be treated as nails."). Discuss.
(begin sarcasm)
... how is it that huge nations (and India is much bigger than the US) can be run democratically, but a firm with only a fraction of the size of the nation's population on its workforce could not run democratically?
... but now it is time to get rid of it in the economic world. America campaigned against decisions (like taxation) being made without the Americans being represented in the decision-making body. Why should employees - the owners of human capital - take second place to those who only invest financial capital in the business? The "human capitalist" (the employee) has more at stake in the business - usually their whole human capital is invested in the one business - it is hard to work in more than two or three businesses at the same time. But the financial capitalist (stockholder) can split their money capital up among hundreds of companies at the same time, to hedge against something going wrong in one company.
Yeah, I mean America would never work if everyone had a vote for the legislature and for the national president.
Only the rich people, who own a share of the country, can really run the country. And the richest should get even more votes than the others.
(end sarcasm)
Um
Why not just change the corporate law: instead of stockholders voting for the board of directors, let the workforce vote for the board of directors, one person one vote?
At the moment, democratic governments are faced with a plethora of non-democratic institutions (business corporations) with enormous powers. The corporations are governed the same way that America (and England, etc) were governed long ago: those with property had a vote (and those with the most property, the aristocrats, were represented in person in the English Parliament); those without property had no vote. This system is called plutocracy - rule by the wealthy. We got rid of it in politics
Business requires money and human effort. How come those who contribute the money control the business; and those who contribute the effort get no say? Does that sound fair or democratic? Isn't it putting money above people? Isn't it contrary to the whole basis of a democratic society?
So people are out there sending in their patches to the holy scriptures ... then someone goes and forks the project.
So you have ScriptureFree86 and Scripture.org competing with each other, and each of the religous distributions has to decide which branch to take up.
Meanwhile, the evil MicroScripture.com is preaching that you should give them 10% of everything you earn, if you want to be blest. And they insist that you use their DRM'd Scripture reader that won't allow you to look at alternative versions.
Nah, it will never work. back to the Closed Source Brethren.
See? That's a security feature.
No, but I'll sell it to you.
I'd like to be the first to welcome our new presidential overlord.
....
I know where quite a few of your enemies are, I believe I can help you round them up
Wouldn't that be Sharapovteryx?
But.... weaponizing things is the American way!
... or something.
The US Constitution (all rise and salute) says that the right to weaponize bears will not be a bridge
"How about cutting out the sex scenes so we reduce the number of teenage pregnancies."
What?? You can get pregnant by watching sex scenes???
If they were serious, the next update that a virus checker made to a Windows box would be a download of something like Ubuntu ...
...
Of course, I would love for the virus checkers and Microsoft to kill each other with their last dying act.
Now back to my Debian testing desktop with XFCE and Firefox and OpenOffice and Rhythmbox and
The Church shouldn't have any influence over the state - big business doesn't like competition.
Or just stick a virus on the hard disk ... oh, wait. There already is.
When you secretly give money to one official, to get them to decide in your favour, it is bribery and illegal.
Whwn you do it on a larger scale, giving money to a whole party, which is more effective, then it is called lobbying, and it is legal.
Apparently, political parties got to make the rules, and provided they get their cut, they are OK with bribery.
It's those loners who keep it for themselves that have to be stamped out.
Arrr! Captain BillG here, arrr, to help you, sirrrr!
The RIAA and BSA are like a light globe company that discovers it has produced a light globe that lasts "too long" - and wants the government to legislate the smashing of all light globes more than a year old, in order to ensure demand for its product.
Why not licence light globes? "You are permitted to use this light globe for a period of 12 months. After the elapse of that period, you must destroy the light globe and purchase a new one. Continued use of the light globe beyond the licence period is theft, as it deprives the light globe manufacturer of their rightful reward for designing and manufacturing the product."
"You don't buy light globes. You only buy a licence to *use* a light globe for a limited period. The globe remains the property of the manufacturer. Stop light globe piracy!"
Thieves!
"We'll, I'm curious, since there appears to be relatively recent common ancestry. Do we know if humans can successfully mate with any other primate?"
Well, it would explain a few people I've met...
The rule of thumb is easy.
... geeks) and they want to save the money. And that gets the industry building up decent support. That is what is starting now.
First the geeks - they know how to set up their own systems. That's been done.
Then government and big corporations - they have specialist IT guys (yeah
Then the home user and small business last, where Joe Enduser is the sysadmin / newbie user / owner. For this, you need switch-on-and -run stuff. That is still down the track for most - they will sooner use a Mac, especially now that it can dual boot - maybe even soon do virtualisation like VMWare, etc.
Linux for the desktop isn't currently Linux for home and small business, it is Linux for the big org with the IT guys. Thousands of desktops in one roll-out. Restricted applications (do you want your office staff running Flash, or DVD players??)
Who thought this article was about the new WMP having memory leaks?
No, I think the two parties really are appalled at each other's encroachments upon liberty and privacy.
They each much prefer their own encroachments.
(e.g. I don't mind it when I cheat at poker - I just hate it when you cheat.)
The Federal Government has NO "unenumerated powers"!
You are quite right. Anyone can enumerate the tanks, soldiers, attack aircraft, and other powers in the possession of this government. The enumerated military powers of the government always trump a piece of paper. There a numerous examples in history.
"the idea that absolutely all of them are uncorruptable is absurd"
I find the idea absurd that *any* of them is incorruptible.
Lincoln threw a man out of his office who was trying to bribe him, upping the amount each time. Lincoln's secretary commiserated, "Sir, he was insulting you by offering a bribe." Lincoln replied, "No, he was getting too dang near my price."
No one is incorruptible. You just haven't found their weak spot.
"Hell what about my RIGHTS?"
I am sorry, but asking about your rights represents a breach of national security. Terrorists like you seek to hide behind their supposed rights while they pursue their anti-American peace-hating activities. True patriotic Americans are proud to give up their constitutional rights without asking any questions that might hinder the security of this great nation.
"Communism won."
Wow. Our first sighting of an alternate universe.