Do we really need democracy?

[pErvinalia]

Broader government =/= larger government.

[Strontium Dog]

Democracy remains a wonderful idea, and one that I hope is eventually put into practice.

[cronus]

There's only so far you can go with technology. Ultimate questions of authority are best approached from how well the educated the masses compared with elites. If there is parity or close then democracy is gonna function. When the elites are less educated than the masses or the other way around then dictatorship is more viable, for good or bad.

[Tero]

problem is that so called "representative democracy" is just blackface on the front of traditional oligarchy by the entitled classes... the so called "representatives" representing their own interests and those of the power structure that brought them to parliament rather than those of of their constituents... I've come to the conclusion that democracy can only be exercised by way of direct involvement in politics, which raises the old problem that only the leisured classes, and possibly those making a job out of politics, generally one and the same can exercise this right properly, the lower, unleisured classes, those who can't attend to their own interests being irremediably shafted in the process, being essentially at the mercy of the decisions and laws passed by "their betters".

Absolutely. I'm in Korea and it looks like the old dynasty thing rules. Even if the guvment last killed people demonstrating in 1980.

[Brian Peacock]

There's only so far you can go with technology. Ultimate questions of authority are best approached from how well the educated the masses compared with elites. If there is parity or close then democracy is gonna function. When the elites are less educated than the masses or the other way around then dictatorship is more viable, for good or bad.

This is the most sensible thing you've said all year.

[Svartalf]

hey, the year is barely 10 days old, give him time...

[Brian Peacock]

Still, IT and the internet is having an influence, to some extent, both up and down the chain. Just look at Trump's Twittering. Never before has someone in his position communicated so freely - even if you think what he's saying is bunkum the internet is allowing people like him, along with sites like change.org or avaaz.org, to coalesce opinion and action in ways and to an extent which couldn't be achieved before. People can email their representatives directly and have easy access to their speeches and voting record. But IT also offers Western states the ability monitor and control, to profile, and to punish. Now if the state can put so much energy in verifying who we are online and on our phones, and what we think, favour, and buy, where we go and who we go there with, then surely it's not beyond the realms of possibility to build technological system that involve people directly in the democratic process? I guess the worry is that this might be all one-way traffic in a Big Brother kind of way, which suggests to me that us regular folks should probably play some part in how society develops other than merely voting at election time.

[Tero]

Trump era:
Bread and circuses
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

[JimC]

Dilute the members of parliament by a partially random selection of other citizens...

[DaveDodo007]

The only people who don't like democracy are commies, theocracies and fascists because they want to impose their own will on the population. Show me a better system?

[Brian Peacock]

Ok. Totalitarian ideologues don't like democracy. Got it.

[pErvinalia]

The only people who don't like democracy are commies, theocracies and fascists because they want to impose their own will on the population. Show me a better system?

Says the guy who loves Putin the fascist.