Democracy or Epistocracy?

[Malaclypse]

sonst klatschd et, aber keinen beifall!

 

[Taliesin]

Joa.. wenn das mit dem Traktorstrahl nicht geht, joa, dann könnte man es vielleicht mal mit dem Wasserstrahl versuchen!
Wie den Traktor? Der einzige der hier Traktor fährt bin ich!

 

[Dark_Jester]

Stupid Germans

 

[Malaclypse]

joar also wenn - ich mal was sagen düüürfte! ich kann diese art von grober ausdrucksweise - nicht gut heiiißen!

 

[Taliesin]

I could go on for hours but we better stop
Best show ever

 

[Malaclypse]

there's even a 2 set dvd edition available... a friend of mine is aquiring them as we speak, should be ready sometime next week, when we will fortify in a room with a beamer and karlsquell pils, echt jetzt, and watch the whole thing

 

[Taliesin]

Mein Name is Karls Quell und ich komme aus Krombach!

Sick shit, I hope you dont come out of it with severe brain damage or something
Where did he get it? What did he pay?

 

[solefald]

what are you talking about?
diese startrek-neuvertonung?die is ja nur krank aber besser als lord of the weed hehe

 

[Malaclypse]

he got it through emule, they can't publicly sell/share it because of legal issues with the original star trek footage... try searching there. this are basically the same audio tracks with dvd quality video rips, plus a nice menu! echt jetzt! iih, das schmeckt ja nach himbeer!

 

[Dark_Jester]

Stop gaying up my thread with Star Trek!

 

[Siren]

First of all, i've never heard the term epistocracy before.. neither has my dictionary. Not to mention that it sounds all blahhh to my greek ears.

But anyway, since you gave a decent explanation for it, i'll go on and give my opinion on this: i agree with the things YaYo said.

I think that something like this is only dangerous, and makes it a hell of a lot easier for people who want power to grab it and never leave it from their hands.

Who would choose the tests and the information given and who asks the questions and what are the right answers?
It would be a lot easier to exclude people from voting (and don't tell me they'd still get to vote. If my vote=1 and your vote=2, isn't it the same as my vote=0 and yours=1 ?).
And don't be foolish to assume you would always be on the voting side.

Let me tell you, that once someone would be established in the government, it would be very hard to ever change them.
Even supposing the government would be benevolent and would leave room for change, the malevolent (and there's always someone who just wants power and cares about nothing else) would grab the chance to prevail and govern, and then never leave room for the government to ever change again.
I've been living in a country with a very high level or corruption and political discriminations. Even though we have democracy, i've been feeling like it was a covered dictatorship of some sort. Because they established themselves in the state mechanism so well, that it was very hard for the government to change. But it finally did, and guess why: because there's democracy. I would never want to see the same without a chance or hope for change.

Sure, democracy is a vulnerable system, but in a way it's also the most secure one. I sure prefer that to having an aristocracy or dictatorship. Sure, many times i have thought myself that stupid people shouldn't be allowed to vote, but in the end i prefer that to having people impose their opinions on me, without me having a say. I'm sick of people who think they know what's best for me.
At least with democracy you have the freedom of your opinion and you have the chance to try and change things if you want. Heck, you even have the freedom to say dictatorship is better!

In my opinion, the only solution to all these problems is EDUCATION. And i mean real one. If there was education there wouldn't be the need for any epistocracy or anything like that, and democracy would work. So why not try for that instead of changing the whole system?



@the "benevolent dictator" discussion: I don't think there's such a thing as a benevolent dictator. No matter how you look at it, it's still a dictator. And in my book, that usually means imposing things with force and violence, so i can't see how that can be good (even though i recognise that good things can sometimes come from dictators).

@NL: I do agree with the things you posted about Plato. But in the context you mentioned it, it seemed like Plato actually said a benevolent dictator is a good thing and proceeded to give those qualities about him, so i'd please like you to clarify.




/Siren (sometimes we only appreciate something after we've lost it)



edit: i could say that theoretically it's a nice idea, but i can't ignore the fact that we live in reality.
and i value my freedom and democracy a lot, so even theoretically there's something about it that just feels wrong. i don't see the reason why we should go from an accomplishment to something more primitive, especially when (as marduk said) it has already failed so many times before.

 

[Rusty]

Stupid Germans

Yeah! *changes vote to UKIP*

I remember there being a topic once, so here it is: I agree with what YaYo said about epistocracy being flawed, with Malaclypse about stupid people deserve being ruled stupidly, but I also think that democracy is flawed... well naturally, apart from me being a dictator there is no perfect system of rule. I think I would prefer democracy though (to epistocracy, not to me being dictator).

 

[Rusty]

It would be a lot easier to exclude people from voting (and don't tell me they'd still get to vote. If my vote=1 and your vote=2, isn't it the same as my vote=0 and yours=1 ?).

Unless I've misunderstood your point: they're not the same.

 

[Siren]

Well, i was thinking on a scale of 2 people, so maybe i was wrong (maths is not my strong point).
But as an idea it's more or less the same, the intention is the same. So why not just exclude those people from voting and save you some trouble.

 

[Rusty]

Well because those one-voters, and presumably there'd be a lot of them, could swing the result one way or the other. Excluding them from voting would be making it even more unfair.

 

[Siren]

There's few things that suck as much as unfairness disguised as fairness.

 

[Northern Lights]

@NL: I do agree with the things you posted about Plato. But in the context you mentioned it, it seemed like Plato actually said a benevolent dictator is a good thing and proceeded to give those qualities about him, so i'd please like you to clarify.

I do believe I jumped from one thing to another in my head without actually writing down the train of thought. I read "benevolent dictator" and immediately thought how such a one should be Anyway, I don't believe that he ever expressely said anything about a dictator being good, he did however believe that the philosophers, eg the wisest, should rule - aristocracy. This meant two further classes, the warriors and the commoners, as well as the guardians. I believe Plato's thought was that everyone should go where they fit in, and that it should be examined from early on who actually had the qualities for which class. Here's a quote from a site about his Republic theories:

Plato realizes that even with his breeding program, there will be children born to the Guardians who do not belong there. That is especially likely when we realize that it is not intelligence that distinguishes Plato's philosophers but the dominance of a particular kind of interest. Anyone dominated by desire, however intelligent, belongs among the commoners. There will also be children born to the commoners who belong among the Guardians, and so there must be some way to sort everyone out. That will be a universal system of education. A very large part of the Republic is about education. Those who go all the way in that system and will be qualified to be the philosopher rulers will actually be nearly fifty before they have finished all the requirements.

So from what I understand, he believed the Guardians should rule the state and the other classes wouldn't really have a say about it.

Also, here is his "pyramid" of society: the best ruling system descending to the worst:

1. The idea state itself Plato calls an "aristocracy" (aristos, "best," and krateîn, "to rule"), the rule of the best. The principle of this state is the reason of the philosophers. The danger he sees to this state is that Guardian parents might not wish to give up children who do not belong among them. If they do not give up the children to become commoners, then some other interest will come to operate among the philosophers. They will cease to be philosophers and so will not be respected by the warriors or commoners.
2. The warriors will take over. They have the monopoly of force anyway, so they decide to use it. The kind of state they will establish Plato's calls a "timocracy" (timê, "honor"), the rule of honor. The principle of this state is the spirit of the warriors. We may say that this kind of state has actually existed, not only with Sparta in Plato's day but in mediaeval Europe or Japan, or among the Kshatriya caste in India, with the kind of feudal military society that they all had. European or Japanese nobility felt themselves superior to the desire for wealth (although they didn't always live in poverty) and tended to fight each other over issues of honor. This kind of state will decay, however, when the children of the warriors fall to the temptation to use their military power to obtain wealth.
3. The rulers thus become the rich. Plato calls this an "oligarchy" (oligos, "few," and archê, "beginning," "power" "sovereignty"), the rule of the few. A more appropriate term, however, might be one that we use, "plutocracy" (ploutôn, "wealth," and so the god of the underworld, Pluto), the rule of wealth. The principle of this state is the desire of the rich; but it is still a very disciplined desire, for no one can become or stay rich if they simply indulge themselves in pleasure and spending. We can certainly say that there have been such states. Commercial republics like Venice, Genoa, and the Netherlands come to mind. The limitation of desire is also evident in many of the so-called "robber baron" industrialists of American history. Someone like John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937), the often reviled founder of Standard Oil, lived simply and almost ascetically. By the time he died he had actually given away about $550,000,000 ($8.25 billion in 1995 dollars), more money than any American had actually possessed before him. The plutocratic kind of state will decay when the children of the rich decide simply to enjoy themselves and dissipate their wealth, or when the poor decide to take advantage of their numbers by overthrowing the rich.
4. The result is a "democracy" (dêmokratia; dêmos, "people"), the rule of the people. Plato pays grudging respect to democracy as the "fairest" (kallistê, "most beautiful") of constitutions. The principle of this state is the desire of the many. This is "democratic" in the sense that all desires are equally good, which means anything goes. Because the desires and possessions of some inevitably interfere with the desires and acquisitiveness of others, Plato thinks that democracies will become increasing undisciplined and chaotic. In the end, people will want someone to institute law and order and quiet things down. Giving sufficient power to someone to do that leads to the next kind of state.
5. The tyrant succeeds in quieting things down. Then he establishes a new kind of government, a tyranny (tyrannis, "tyranny," from tyrannos, "tyrant"). The principle of this state is still desire, but now it is just the desire of the tyrant himself. Many have noted that nothing quite like this actually happened in Greek history. Tyrannies tended to precede, not follow, democracies. That is what happened at Athens. Consequently, a better case can be made that the whole pattern of "imperfect governments" was a device Plato used for argumentation. However, while the collapse of democracies into tyrannies did not occur in Greek history, it has ironically occurred several times in our own century. The precise process described by Plato occurred in Italy when Mussolini came to power and in Germany when Hitler came to power. It is now in danger of happening in Russia. The English historian Thomas Babington, better known as Lord Macaulay (1800-59), believed that democracy would survive only until people got the idea that they could vote themselves wealth. Since that wealth must be taken from the people who create it, they are not going to like that, and the incentive for them to create it in the first place will be, to a greater or lesser extent, removed.

More can be found at: http://www.friesian.com/plato.htm

Needless to say, a lot of his philosophy is flawed (especially looking at it today), or things that I don't necessarily agree with; I do however fully agree with the part I wrote about earlier - ruling shouldn't really be about aqcuiring wealth and power for yourself, but rather making your country and its citizens prosper.

And you're not the first Greek I've come across who stands up for democracy So I'd say one's country's history shapes one's view of these things...

 

[hyena]

i believe in equal rights, including equal voting rights.

a part of the principle of epistocracy (wouldn't that be oligarchy, literally?) enters democracies anyway: while the general orientation of the government is decided by everyone, people such as cabinet secretaires etc. are chosen on the basis of their technical or political formation, so there.

 

[Northern Lights]

I will begin with apologizing, this got a lot longer than planned because I tend to get carried away when criticizing Feel free to skip the parts that have no relevance . I just wanted to address some other points in Siren's post that I found interesting.

Let me tell you, that once someone would be established in the government, it would be very hard to ever change them.
Even supposing the government would be benevolent and would leave room for change, the malevolent (and there's always someone who just wants power and cares about nothing else) would grab the chance to prevail and govern, and then never leave room for the government to ever change again.

Then again, isn't that true of democracies as well? I can only draw parallells to Sweden; here, the same party (the Social Democrats) have goverened almost without interruption for some 60 years. Chosen by the people, why certainly, yet - these days, nobody seems particularly pleased with them anymore. Yet they stay in power, because people vote for them. Now I'm from the North and not really familiar with the ways of Southern Swedes yet, but at least where I'm from a lot of people vote SD because their parents did that, and because their grandparents before them did so. People from the North were mainly manual labourers, and back then it was the worker's party. Not so anymore, in my opinion. But people vote for them, not because they believe in their politics anymore, but because "it's what we've always voted for in my family." Only recently did I see a lady on tv who said she'd been voting for them for 40 years and only now was she considering to change parties because she's dissatisfied (which she has been for several years, yet kept going).

If you look at Sweden today, the upper-class, old-money (and new-, for that matter) people don't do much except snort coke, go yachting and figure in tabloids if they're ever romantically involved with the royal family. The real elite these days are the politicians - they get millions in "retirement" if they quit the party (or indeed, are thrown out due to embezzling party funds), even though they find new well-paid jobs. If you're an old SD fighter, you can become ambassador in Brazil, despite having shit for brains, admiring the Cuban system, speaking no Portugese and having (as far as I know) no diplomatic experience. It doesn't matter that the Foreign Department had a veritable herd of worthier candidates - if you belong to the Party, you can get everything.
Recently, our Prime Minister was made an honorary doctor of Medicine at the faculty of medicine at a college recently been made university. Many years ago, he studied Sociology at this college but never graduated. The college now wanted to become university, the authority in charge of this said no, it wasn't good enough. Our Glorious Leader then took things into his own hands and made sure his old school became a certified university. As thanks, he was made an honorary doctor, a title reserved for people who have contributed to a subject in a vital way. Oh, and there is no Faculty of Medicine at the university. The other faculties refused to have anything to do with this, and the university board (mainly social democrats) thought an imaginary one might be suitable.

Of course I realise that the governments of all countries are more or less corrupt, and politicians are always going to reward each other. I bring this up because this is so obvious to everyone; while we're getting worse health care and schools and the actual unemployment today amounts to about 20% (even the unions say so), they certainly look after themselves, and people allow them to do so by keeping them in power. I'm not saying everything would magically improve with a different government in charge, I'm saying that this one no longer earns the people's trust and should consequently be fired.

What does this rant (for that's what it is) have to do with the "rule of the wise"? Well, again, it boils down to informed voters with their own opinions, not just people voting in "the family way". Is it laziness that keeps people from taking action? Is it because these days we take democracy for granted here? A lot of people don't even bother voting. "Not interested in politics" they say, or "I was too hungover to make it before they closed". It is kind of tempting to take the right to vote away from them and say, "well you didn't care when you had it so you pretty much asked for this".

In my opinion, the only solution to all these problems is EDUCATION. And i mean real one. If there was education there wouldn't be the need for any epistocracy or anything like that, and democracy would work. So why not try for that instead of changing the whole system?.

Hear hear Definitely agree with you on this one.

 

[Taliesin]

I hear you on the "family voting" there. In polls, the german christdemocrats mark around 45%, and have done so for quite some time. I always wonder who actually votes for them because they're a party for the richasses really. They are the ones who favour the "education tax" I was ranting about some weeks ago, which is in the end just money for the holes in the budget of the state.
Also, they clearly have no interest in educating their voters. After the election for the european parliament, they said something like "The social democrats got what they deserved, they just arent fit to govern anything!" totally neglecting the fact that what happens on the national political level has really not much to do with european politics. Same scheme a few months later in a regional election. Again, the national social democrats arent to be compared with the regional branches of the party.
Basically, all they ever do is block every effort of the government and when things dont work out they're like "See, we told you it wouldnt work! Vote for us, vote for us!" it just makes me sick. Im really not a fan of the social democrats but they surely deserve better than this.
It's scary what you can do with people's minds when they have close to no clue about a subject