Topic: Democracy

+Anonymous A — 9 months ago #67,168

Is it valid if I like democracy but at the same time I don’t really believe in it that deeply? I’ve noticed that some people for instance will act as if "the will of the people" is some sacred thing that can never be questioned. But just because the majority of people think something doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true. Collective decision making isn’t necessarily better than individual decision making. There is an effect where people make better decisions on average when their individual ideas are averaged out, but that only works when people aren’t influenced by outside forces, which they always are. So in an election, it won’t necessarily work out that way. And then human rights, they’re good obviously. They’re good because it’s good to have protections. But at the same time, they’re not objectively true or false. People will say "Well it’s a human right so of course the government should give it to us." Well what makes something a human right? Basically, it’s just how you feel, and how you feel isn’t a fact, it’s just an opinion. It can be your opinion that all people should have the right to speak, but it’s not a fact. It’s a fact that people can speak and it’s a fact that people can be made to shut up. Whether it’s good or bad or what should happen is just an opinion based on subjective values. There’s nothing "real" about it. And just because the constitution says some thing obviously doesn’t mean anything at all unless people decide it does. Any document can say that it is important because it references itself as evidence of its own importance. Anybody can do that. A constitution doesn’t create a nation, a state monopoly on the legitimate use of violence is what creates a nation. It’s not prices of paper, it’s men with guns that enforce the laws of the powerful and the wealthy that make you an American, the ideology is just a bonus on top of that fundamental reality of what a nation state is. You can’t create a nation that doesn’t kill people, you need a military and you need a police force. People don’t willingly submit. They need a little bit of convincing. So obviously democracy is good but obviously, there’s no objective truth that makes democracy the most correct or most inevitable form of government. One of the things that annoys me about people who support democracy, is sometimes their arguments are just flat out lies. Like absolute freedom of speech for example. People will say censoring doesn’t work, because of x, y, and z. It doesn’t work except for the endless counterexamples of countries which exist today and existed in the past where information was not free and ideas and ideologies were and are censored which did function as nation states for incredibly long amounts of time. Most countries which ever existed were not democracies. Authoritarianism is the default, not democracy. I don’t agree with Mitt Romney, but I think he has the right idea about this specifically https://youtu.be/h8IwapfW79g

·Anonymous A (OP) — 9 months ago, 4 minutes later[T] [B] #667,608

For most of history, there wasn’t this idea that what people thought or wanted mattered. There was a king, you were a subject, you worked the land as a peasant, and like a stone thrown into the air will return to the ground, a peasant who tries to be anything more than a peasant will fall back into place and a king who tries to be anything other than a king will fall back into place, because that’s the natural order that God wanted. And actually, if capitalism goes unchecked, and the rich just get richer forever unchecked, they’ll rig the system, and it will return to that and be almost impossible to get back what we had. And probably, nobody will stop it.

+Anonymous B — 9 months ago, 38 minutes later, 42 minutes after the original post[T] [B] #667,610

Then I guess there’s the saying "freedom isn’t free" you have to fight for it or you won’t have it. And I’ve thought about it, and honestly, if it came down to it, I’d probably just rather live under authoritarianism than die trying to stop it. YOLO

+ducky !MwWb.dJjRc — 9 months ago, 40 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[T] [B] #667,613

democracy is literaly awful lol

+Anonymous D — 9 months ago, 1 hour later, 3 hours after the original post[T] [B] #667,632

@667,610 (B)
100%. At least we can try to eek out a life. I do that at work too - adapt to the new boss in charge (I don't have to like them or their mission).

·Anonymous D — 9 months ago, 2 minutes later, 3 hours after the original post[T] [B] #667,633

@667,613 (ducky !MwWb.dJjRc)
Probably why I identify with a lot of counter culture ideas - the noise of the masses gets tiring.

·ducky !MwWb.dJjRc — 9 months ago, 19 hours later, 23 hours after the original post[T] [B] #667,751

@previous (D)
they are npcs