The paradox of electoralism
(midwest.social)
A404 to 
Flippanarchy
TBF current rulers aren't even real rulers.
Like, are they 6ft? 6ft2in??? Like, there's absolutely no indication of their lengths.
Politicians are absolutely useless for measuring things with, and it shows.
my house is 3 obamas long
We need a ruler because humans are too stupid to rule themselves
Looks inside
The ruler is also a human
If people are wise enough to rule themselves, they must be picking the right rulers already!
But if they are wise enough to rule themselves why pick rulers at all?
You basically just re worded your post there but ok
There are always more dimensions than you can see, yet.
I always thought of it as more of an efficiency thing. Perhaps a bad analogy, but let's say I have a few hundred photos I took on vacation. Yes, I could store them all together in a single batch. However, grouping them with some kind of predetermined taxonomy can help make sense of things through the noise. In a similar fashion, elected officials, imperfect though they may be, consolidate the voices of many into the voices of a few. At a certain scale and across certain distances it does make sense.
I think it was somewhere here in Lemmy, but I saw a proposal of randomized government appointments akin to jury duty which I found quite fun. Good way to make sure the populace is smart because any of them may be called up.
Yeah, it's more about that. The fastest acting, lowest overhead form of government is a dictatorship. The slowest would probably be trying to reach a consensus from discussion with the whole populace. You'll always need delegates for decision making if you want to make any society wide decisions, but it has proven very hard to make elected officials actually act in the people's best interest.
this has some truth to it, but electoralism is not democracy. don't let this discourage yourself from voting or from preferring democracy over a dictatorship or so.
democracy is not for comoensating voters being stupid. they can be, but their intelligence is completely disregarded for the systems existence. it's about being able to swap out the person in charge without a murderous power struggle.
there's a lot of competition for being in charge and traditionally this meant whoever was able to violently subdue their enemies first got to be in charge and had to constantly, violently suppress opposition.
this was obviously horrible and only happens in democracies when someone tries to change them back into a more athoritarian regime and it's time for the people to rise and fight to protect their freedom.
I probably should have used another word for the title tbh
That's why they give you just a couple of options to vote for and even then they rig the whole thing. lol
There's a reason why kings used to create chiefdoms by force
I'd argue that the system is designed or at least indifferent to a majority being uninterested in the politics that influences their daily life.
When you get to vote every 4 years on all topics at once while the choice you make is afterwards still influenced by corruption, coalition an lobbying that doesn't further interest into politics at all.
Imho: Let's abandon representatives with fixed legislation periods all together and either elect officials only if they can be removed by public vote at any time or skip the corrupt representatives completely and let the public vote on any matter individually. This way ones choice has an actual impact an people have motivation to actually get informed on specific matters.
One might suggest a democracy of action/labor, where you do the things you feel like matter in the world in the ways you feel are best. 'If you care, do the work' in a broad sense.
It raises issues of ableism that need to be worked out, but its not like amy current systems dont fuck people, still encourages ambition, and makes things like amassing power more difficult.
Some people are good rulers. Some are really bad. With the fucked up system we have, we tend to get the bad rulers because they crave power. The good leaders don't and won't make it as far, as the competition is willing to do whatever is needed to gain power. That's why this system needs to go. If we want a system with leaders, we need to hold them accountable for lies, corruption, mistakes, etc. A leader should need to pass tests of intelligence and clean a clean past. But most importantly, a psychological test.
But since bad people will always play dirty to gain power, it's best to ditch the entire system and leaders all together.
I like Asimov's (or maybe Heinlein's) thought on the matter.
Anyone who wants to be a public official should be disqualified from office. Officials should be dragged in kicking and screaming and only be allowed to leave when they've done a good job.
Aah the misconception about democracy.
People think that democracy is fantastic, just vote for what you want and it will be given.
Nothing is further from the truth.
Democracy has one and only one specificity that puts them over the others, it's that you can kick a bad leader out (without bloodshed).
That's it!
Now before our american friends tells me I'm wrong, you have to have a functional democracy, which you don't.
Personally it's literally the only thing that, IMO, is missing from anarchism (are there anarchist systems with strict voting rules?). But that's just my personal view of course.
If democracies work, why are they against humanity?
Using Norway, Sweden and Denmark as deem for supporting the Knesset raid upon palestinians.
Oh no a tankie, no wonder you don't like democracy.
Blocked.
Thats not democracy. Democracy is rule by the people.
You mean 'electoral representative democracy' which you describe accurately. Other kinds do exist.
Not that any of thrm are allowed or americans believe they exist.
You say it's not democracy in one breathe and then in the next you say it's "[adjective] [adjective] democracy" which makes it sound a lot like it actually is democracy
We should go back to sortition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
But what if someone with bad intentions gets choosen?
Power struggles are destructive. The purpose of a representatve democracy is to change leaders without damaging the infrastructure necessary to generate wealth. This guy made a good video about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
Imagine not living in a monarchy.
lol
lmao even
They can be educated about what decisions each party made, is making and is promising to make.
Then based upon that, weigh the pros and cons, and pick whatever they want to live with.
There are 2 terminal problems with that:
- You cant actually live how you want to in most cases because there are other people that should vote in their own favor.
- Nobody has time and willpower after a stressfull work day to indulge into politics, because it is not apart of our culture these days, to fully care about that which controls our lives: politics, politicians and mafia.
I have a solution to this, but you probably dont want to hear it.
I have a solution to this, but you probably dont want to hear it.
You are in an anarchist community, you are allowed to voice radical opinions.
Right.
Clans.
Imagine countries, but youre free to move to whichever clan you wanna live with, because every clan has their own rules.
These days every country has more-less the same laws so there is no choice of life, really.
And the choice should be close to you, so its feasable so you can actually move there.
This can only be achieved if the clans are smaller and bigger in numbers aka more often and not too far from every person, ideally.
So a world where, lets say, anarchist, liberal and fascist "clans" coexist peacefully, freedom of movement is guaranteed and supported by all those clans and information regarding all existing clans are available freely so people can make informed decisions?
While not quite exactly, the situation you're describing isn't too far off from some of the ways people have lived historically. I 10/10 recommend reading The Dawn of Everything if you're interested. Some of that research really changed my thoughts about what is possible.
Good to know, thanks
Yes?
Why do you make it sound like its a joke instead of a idea worth contemplating?
That was not my intention, instead I tried to repeat your idea in my own words to make sure I actually understand. Also I intentionally added kinda opposing factions and the concept "freedom of movement" to my question to make the idea more clear to me and others.
Also your idea reminds a little of the "World where many worlds fit" idea that comes from (or I have first learned of when reading) zapatista texts.
Wow
I read that page, and it sounds promising, but im not sure how much exactly it is how I wanna live, yet.
Because a large part of many of these practices is the exclusion of all others. Thanks for sharing, though!
What you mean?
They do not want to coexist. The existence of an 'other' is a threat/attack to them.
Read nazi philosopher carl schmitt or fiction novel 'blindsight'.
