Brian Eno's Theory of Democracy

https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/brian-enos-theory-of-democracy

by akkartik • 1 year ago

176 148 1 year ago

brazzy• 1 year ago

Democracy, then, will be stable so long as the expectation of costs and the uncertainty of the future give the losers sufficient incentive to accept that they have lost.

Brilliant, and provides a foundation for an idea that I've seen elsewhere: that the true test of a new democracy is not the first democratic elections, but the first transition of power, i.e. the first subsequent election where the incumbent loses.

James_K2• 1 year ago

The degeneration of American democracy seems an obvious conclusion to the basic premise set out there. Both parties in America are bad, they know they cannot be replaced because of the two party system, and therefore when they lose power, they can be assured they will gain it back again in a few years once people become dissatisfied with the alternative. There is no incentive for parties to better themselves because being bad at their job nets them valuable and necessary private donations from lobbyists with an interest in disabling the proper function of government.

mettamage3• 1 year ago

How come it's just a 2 party system and not a multi party system like in some European countries?

bazoom422• 1 year ago

First-past-the-post tend to lead to two-party systems while proportional representation tend to lead to multi-party systems. But you can’t have proportional representation in presidental elections since only one candidate can win. Countries with multi-party systems tend to have parlimentary systems.

kybernetikos• 1 year ago

Most countries with multi party systems use different methods for selecting their representatives. When you do a straight aggregation of geographical areas in which you take whomever gets the most votes in each area (sometimes called first past the post) it becomes possible for the most disliked party in a country to win, widely geographical distributed concerns (like ecological concerns) become underrepresented, and most relevant to this conversation, having multiple parties that are close to each other is a huge disadvantage compared to having a single party attracting more people. Because of this, countries with this system will usually see smaller parties merge and stabilise on a 2 party government / opposition set up.

The study of how different kinds of voting systems work and their advantages, disadvantages and consequences is called social choice theory. There's an interesting theorem called Arrow's theorem that proves that given a certain set of assumptions, there can be no voting system that works exactly as we would like. Sometimes this is used to argue that all systems are equally bad, but I think this is not true at all - even while imperfect, some systems are much better than others.

mettamage3• 1 year ago

That question got a downvote? I wonder why. It's a genuine question. Why can't good faith be assumed?

Edit: I get that people downvote this comment since it's always controversial to ask.

I personally always ask when I am more curious about the answer and am willing to burn any potential karma over it.

Asking for feedback is more important.

I'm just genuinely surprised about the other one.

ronnieboy4932• 1 year ago

Not a direct cause but popped into my head:

Previous to 1988 the League of Women Voters[0] handled presidential debates. A fully independent outside organization.

Since then, the Commission on Presidential Debates[1] set rules for admittance to president debates. The CPD was founded jointly by Republicans and Democrats and is controlled solely by both parties.

At best, there _appears_ to be a large, gaping conflict of interest when it comes to admitting candidates to presidential debates. In 1992 Ross Perot was invited to the debates as a third option. In 1996 Clinton and Dole successfully argued for Perot to be excluded from the debates as he had no "realistic chance to win" [2]. Perot aside, what happened was downright anti-democratic and further enforced the two party system.

Now that I'm on this...I'll do another example of this abuse of power. Candidates from third parties have been arrested for protesting outside presidential debates [3,4]. Even if the protests broke the law, arresting opponents for asking to be given a podium to speak at feels bad.

---

[0] https://www.lwv.org

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_on_Presidential_Deb...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/09/18/p...

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/18/jill-s...

[4] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3740146.stm

isaacremuant• 1 year ago

The European systems, I'd argue are absolutely worse than many of the "direct republic" systems in the US and other American countries because in the European systems there's a pretense of "consensus" reaching and it mostly ends up preserving an elite status quo and hiding any problems. That's why there's such a big tendency of nanny stating and censorship. It's entrenched in a bureocratic way.

The direct vote gets a better chance at subverting the system radically and that's a good thing. Regardless of criticism from the losers about "populism". The end result is great for democracy and actual change.

dragonwriter7• 1 year ago

Because the legislature uses single member districts with essentially either majority, plurality, or some form of two-round runoff elections, and the executive uses indirect elections where the electors are (for the largest part) elected as statewide at-large slates by winner-take-all plurality. This makes, outside of very unusual circumstances, voting for other than one of the two leading parties ineffective in the normal case, and where it has any effect most likely it will shift the result from the least-unacceptable of the major parties to the most.

Many European countries use varieties of proportional representation (most commonly either party list proportional or mixed member proportional), and have a parliamentary system (so that there is not a separately-elected executive administration -- there may be an elected President but they tend to be a head of state and not head of government -- whereas in the US the executive election is even more heavily tilted to support two-party dominance than the legislative system, though the legislative election system is still the more important piece of the problem.)

existencebox• 1 year ago

While I normally keep the political threads at arms length, this is an interesting enough game/voting-theory question that I'm honestly surprised no one has linked the fact that this is a well-studied effect, to the point that it has a specific name: Duverger's Law. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

dragonwriter7• 1 year ago

Both parties in America are bad, they know they cannot be replaced because of the two party system

Yes, the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalists know that they cannot be replaced because of the two party system. (Likewise, neither faces the threat of, if it fails to be replaced, being completely re-oriented in a political realignment.) It's not as if, currently, scholars disagree about whether the US is in its Sixth or Seventh Party system -- the two major parties are dominant, stable, and forever unchanging.

James_K2• 1 year ago

Do you think "political parties in America never change" is a steel man interpretation of my comment? I would suggest there is material difference between my statement "the parties have little electoral incentive to change" and your interpretation "they do not change". In my view, the latter is hyperbolic but reasonable, and the former is outright true. The parties would clearly not act as they do if people had other options to vote for.

whatever13• 1 year ago

Democracy & separation of powers stand for something simple: Over long horizons, everyone is wrong.

Take any governance system that is in power for too long. It becomes rotten and it serves its own purposes. Democracy breaks that downwards spiral.

It is not a stable system, it is not predictable, it is not cheap to operate, heck it’s not even guaranteed that it will work. But it prevents the certain path to self-destruction.

mtsr• 1 year ago

And there are actually more flavors of democracy that have been used to break this death spiral:

- ostracism, where the people voted to ban a person who was too mighty or dangerous from the city of Athens for a period of 10 years;

- random selection of (some kind of) representatives. This has predictable downsides, but ensures fair representation and prevents the existence of a political class.

noduerme• 1 year ago

Does the Roman republic's tradition of appointing a dictator count? Do "illiberal democracies" with quasi-kings like Orban, Erdogan, Maduro, et al, still count as something comparable, or are these the downside of that spiral? Obviously everything that works, works until it doesn't.

dr_dshiv2• 1 year ago

Big fan of the second, which is called “Sortition.” Seems powerful

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

Eextra953• 1 year ago

I think random selection would be really cool. Imagine if some fraction of our representatives were chosen at random. Not enough to be the majority, maybe something like 1/3, but enough to have a real effect.

The more I think about it, the more I like it. This would allow a sampling of all groups in a country to have access to power and decision making without the need to be exceptional in some way. It would also remove the self-selection bias of all elected officials.

notahacker2• 1 year ago

This has predictable downsides, but ensures fair representation and prevents the existence of a political class.

This depends one whether you consider the existence of a political class to be purely negative.

Seems like random selection of candidates who have no influence over what happens after their term selects for all the negative aspects of a political class (ability to enrich themselves and their friends at others expense, tendency to be ignorant of and ambivalent about issues that don't really affect them) and against the [at least arguably] positive aspects (institutional knowledge of how things operate, some sort of political philosophy which has some public support, some level of skill and drive to get things done, and the motivation to try to keep the public happy enough to reelect them or their compatriots)

lurk25• 1 year ago

But it prevents the certain path to self-destruction.

History presents us with far more examples of successful autocracies.

actionfromafar• 1 year ago

What is successful?

heresie-dabord2• 1 year ago

Factually true, but this is like saying that history presents more examples of rotten teeth.

cco• 1 year ago

It does?

heresie-dabord2• 1 year ago

I enjoyed the article but it could be clearer and more concise.

In TFA, the author wrote:

    Democracy, then, will be stable so long as the expectation of costs and the uncertainty of the future give the losers sufficient incentive to accept that they have lost.

The essence is that all participants must be co-operative in their education, motives, and intentions. And this requires a system of reliable information and agreed laws.

Democracy works within the tolerances of reliable information, demonstrable co-operation, and the rule of law.

The US implosion is not yet irreparable, but it is a societal failure.

amos-burton2• 1 year ago

we would not have this narrow vision of losers/winners IF the inequalities were reduced, it would not be as strong as it is today in our world view if this parameter was adjusted. In turns, "winners" would not feel like they are at the verge of loosing it all, constantly, because the wealth they generate would be stored into a living organism (a nation, or else). like having multiple bank accounts, with multiple currencies, that one being .... bio-economic i guess.

democracy does not work. Or first, we should clarify the meaning of "it works". IMO, it did not prevented us from burning the world, this is sufficient to say that in a parallel universe i would bet differently.

fifilura• 1 year ago

Respect for minorities also needs to happen in democracies.

Even if democracy in some strict sense means that majority decides, you still need to care about the minorities to keep the system credible.

Otherwise any minority will soon realize that they will never win and break out of the system.

patrickmay• 1 year ago

It also explicitly requires the parties and candidates to think beyond the current election cycle. That behavior is not in evidence for at least one major party in the U.S.

A candidate's personal expectation of costs must also be factored in. When a candidate faces criminal charges (to pick an example totally out of the blue) if they lose but can eliminate those if they win, the calculus changes for them.

bazoom422• 1 year ago

This assumes ruling parties start out as “good” but becomes “bad” over time. A more pragmatic view is that different people and different interests have different ideas about what is good and what is bad, and politics is the stuggle between these viewpoints.

GolfPopper2• 1 year ago

My understanding has always been that one of the "killer apps" of democracy as a system of government is peaceful transfer of power. It seems like one of those "nobody asks what the old software did well" questions; so many people (i.e. Americans) are so used to the idea of peaceful transfer of power that we don't ever think about what a major achievement it is, and how dependent on it everything we take for granted is.

mitthrowaway2• 1 year ago

Another advantage of democracy is a source of popular legitimacy for the government, which helps prevent coups. Dictatorships struggle with this, and have to apply other countermeasures to prevent coups.

Unless a dictator is some kind of super-popular national hero or has managed to convince everyone that they have a divine right to rule, they depend on the support of a group of elites to maintain their power, and have no choice but to prevent other ambitious people from concentrating power themselves. This means that even in cases where the dictator happens to be wise, skillful, and benevolent, their regime will suffer from corruption and fragility, because they have to keep doing favors for their support group to keep them loyal or else risk a coup.

Being a dictator is a position that tends to invite well-grounded paranoia and suspicion, because you know that ambitious and bloodthirsty people want your job. So you need to keep files on people.

They can't defer too much independent authority to talented bureaucrats or military generals or private business leaders, at least not without some guarantees on their loyalty, or else they run the risk of those people attempting to seize power. They can mitigate this by developing a cult of personality, but that makes it impossible to gracefully admit mistakes, and in conflict with maintaining a free press.

int_19h2• 1 year ago

And the benefits derived from that. When the consequence for the elites of losing the fight for political power is being targeted personally, imprisoned, or even killed, it makes them cling to power using much more brutal and violent means to avoid this fate, which means more repression for the average folk as well - no dissent can be tolerated. In a modern liberal democracy, they know that they can lose an election cycle without losing their head.

This is why things are so concerning in US - we've already lost this benefit, even though the elections are still genuinely free for now. I don't think they will remain so for long now that the stakes for their losers are so high.

AnimalMuppet• 1 year ago

It prevents more than one path to destruction.

"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to become the villain". Stay in power long enough and you are likely to become the villain, because power corrupts many people.

So people who stay in power may have the wrong policy (because their approach quit working), or they may just become corrupt. Either way, there needs to be a way to get rid of them that is more peaceful than assassination or civil war.

dragonwriter7• 1 year ago

Democracy & separation of powers stand for something simple: Over long horizons, everyone is wrong.

You could look at it that way if you believe that there is a unique right policy answer and government is the solution to finding it, but that's not what democracy and separation of powers are about, in terms og why they have historically been adopted. It can certainly be viewed as a reason to prefer democracy and separation of powers.

But, really, democracy is about people having the right to make their own decisions and how to incorporate that into a collective government (or, more cynically, about people rebelling when they feel they have been deprived of that right and how to prevent it for the sake of domestic peace), and separation of powers is about protecting democracy by preventing the concentration of power in a particular institution within a representative democacy being leveraged to make a dictatorship.

selecsosi• 1 year ago

I'm a fan of Joseph Tainter's analysis around organization of societies and issues around collapse being related to diminishing marginal returns. I think there's a lot to that position when you look at the general political party agendas. Technocratic solutions trying to squeeze more blood from the stone while providing less and less to participants (I have less of a theory on effectiveness for any given action, this is more of an observation).

https://risk.princeton.edu/img/Historical_Collapse_Resources...

prox• 1 year ago

What is your theory, if you are willing to share?

svilen_dobrev• 1 year ago

you might be onto something here.

some time ago i discovered Wardley maps [1] (about company's "landscape" and strategy there), and one thing that stick with me was this:

there are 4 levels/stages of development there - genesis, custom-built, product, commodity. With three transitions, made by different kind of people - Pioneers, Settlers, Town-planners. And the last one, mass-production, is about "ruthless removal of deviation".

i guess these "diminishing returns" in keeping long-time same-thing (democracy?) have something in common with the removal of deviations/variety..

[1] https://feststelltaste.github.io/wardley-maps-book/#_the_fir...

vintermann• 1 year ago

This post’s title is a little cheeky. Brian Eno does not have an explicit theory of democracy that I know of

Well I do know he's politically active and worked with Yanis Varoufakis and Noam Chomsky. So it's more than a little cheeky.

fuzzfactor3• 1 year ago

Plus Eno is brilliant, which is a far cry from most politicians.

In music his works can sometimes be considered way different than most, because of even further distance from the familiar composer/songwriter/conductor/bandleader paradigm.

Even more so than things like pure jazz improvisation which can be one of the most "democratic" combos where each person has equal creative input and a wider-than-average freedom of expression. Sometimes the bandleader here is actually voted into position as the one most qualified to do the unavoidable "guidance" tasks of leading even free-form musicians.

As "opposed" to classical orchestral works where each musician's part is well-prescribed, they may have an equal voice among themselves but this is art intended to express the composer's efforts, overwhelmingly more than each individual musician's talent. The conductor here can be more like a dictator and get away with it more often because this tradition has much closer roots to medieval practices.

All these ways, it's the resulting sound that counts to the most significant degree, and it can be a wonder to behold across the spectrum.

Now if there's one type of conductor or bandleader who would be most suitable under all conditions, I would have to describe their most valuable quality as being "magnanimous". Otherwise you can not expect the music to be as satisfying as it could be from the same talented underlying musicians.

kstenerud• 1 year ago

Unfortunately, this is a little too simplistic.

A democracy doesn't exist in a vacuum; there are competing nations that are at work to undo or subjugate yours, and this never stops. We've lived a charmed life these past 80 years that are unlike any in the history of the planet.

American wealth and power are what brought this unprecedented stability to the western world, but it has been eroding.

As it erodes, the flaws in the American system begin to show, and then fray. The very means by which Americans elect automatically pushes it into a two party system, which is by nature polarizing, especially when external pressures come to bear.

It's also incredibly difficult to change course safely when so many people are involved (this affects all organizations, which is why startups can eat their lunch). Assuming that you can dynamically rise to the challenge is naive at best.

Federation only amplifies the problem, as you simply add more uneven competitors to the national riches.

jemmyw• 1 year ago

I don't know, it doesn't seem simplistic in conclusion. The article describes a dynamic environment and you're just postulating further variation than described there. That doesn't mean the ideas don't agree or that the general formula isn't sufficiently complex to incorporate more nuance than the article lays out.

The linked solution isn't as interesting, mainly because the idea of there being a solution seems the simplistic part. It is a system and it will play out.

HappMacDonald• 1 year ago

I could cite dozens of times a society has gone 80 years (4-5 generations) without serious threat from foreign parties. How is our case unlike those?

The entire world has seen greater technical advances in the past 80 years than any time before, but zero percent of that is related to the politics of any one nation: either causally or effectually.

ultrasandwich• 1 year ago

Is the last sentence satire? I can't really tell. Literally entire fields of study are dedicated to this, including one at Harvard. https://sts.hks.harvard.edu/about/whatissts.html

t0bia_s2• 1 year ago

Also, democracy let vote for dictatorship that killed most people in human history. It's harder to implement ideologies in decentralised society.

thom• 1 year ago

Ah, so it turns out the solution to the centre not holding is to create as many falconry schools as possible, hoping to yield a dynamic system of falcons in a variety of overlapping gyres, so that at least some remain in hearing distance of a falconer? Big if true.

notepad0x903• 1 year ago

For a democracy to make sense, the people need to be educated enough to understand policy that affects them and they need access to accurate and timely information (a functioning 4th estate). If either of those two are false, then full democracy becomes a force of destruction and harm. Partial democracy where local governance is democratic but provincial and national level governance cannot be directed by the voice of the people is more tenable.

Contrary to common sentiment, there is nothing about democracy that makes it inherently correct. democracy isn't a religion and the form of governance a nation chooses should be adjusted and tuned over time.

I won't comment on current matters, but I will say that education and press should have been fundamental institutions of the American republic, the same way the supreme court and the house of reps are. It isn't enough that the freedom (and responsibility!) of the press is a right, an organization to manage and protect it should have been established, as should have an organization to maintain and police education.

RhysU5• 1 year ago

Contrary to common sentiment, there is nothing about democracy that makes it inherently correct.

"Least bad" is all anyone claims.

Swenrekcah5• 1 year ago

True, but even “least bad” is not correct unless the public is well informed [as in not being fed misinformation] and in a rational state of mind [as in not scared of or trained to despise the jews, immigrants, woke etc.].

The difference in election outcomes around the 1930s, 1990s and 2020s can be mostly explained by these factors.

gradus_ad• 1 year ago

Democracy is not about policy or institutions. Those are downstream of what democracy is really about, which is the Demos. The community. The people themselves who recognize each other as being like themselves in some fundamental, exclusive way. This is beyond reason or rationality. It is a matter of arbitrary culture, history and identity.

Policy in a complex system like society is infinitely debatable and no amount of education will ever find a "right" or optimal answer to the hard questions a society faces. Division and partisanship is guaranteed in a democracy that allows free debate and expression, regardless of the level of education among the people. The most acrimonious debates often take place among the most educated of the citizenry. Therefore something else must sustain the people as a community and bind them together.

notepad0x903• 1 year ago

I wasn't talking about the meaning of democracy but its practical implementation. In practice, all systems of governance are built upon institutions.

Policy in a complex system like society is infinitely debatable and no amount of education will ever find a "right" or optimal answer to the hard questions a society faces.

You are right on the first part, which is why voters need to understand policy that affect them and vote for the people they want. I didn't mention anything about the policy or their vote being correct, just that they should understand it when voting.

Division and partisanship is guaranteed in a democracy that allows free debate and expression, regardless of the level of education among the people.

The purpose of education is not to avoid those things you mentioned but so that debates and disagreements happen between well informed voters, not deceived voters that vote and disagree based on vibes and manipulation by malicious forces and deceptive demagogues. More debates and disagreements between actual well informed voters is a sign of a very healthy democracy. Hatred, treason and violence are not.

Therefore something else must sustain the people as a community and bind them together.

Yeah, actually liking their country and educating themselves enough about the policy and choices being made on their behalf, that's what. Education here doesn't mean a phd in chemistry, it means reading,writing, critical thinking skills and being able to consume news and information and discerning facts from fiction.

teamonkey2• 1 year ago

Democracy is based on citizens making informed decisions about how they are to be run, therefore misinformation is a fundamental assault on democracy.

criddell• 1 year ago

Politicians know that using emotional arguments is much more effective than factual arguments. I don’t really expect that to change anytime soon.

mrangle2• 1 year ago

"Truth" in Education, understanding, and Press easily becomes "propaganda and lies" without the system blinking nor anyone being notified.

The only way to ensure the existence of truth is to give people a choice in what to believe. There are no wildflowers (truth) without also permitting weeds (lies). Certainly, no "organization to manage and protect" can be trusted to manage and protect truth.

The democratic ideal is that people are permitted to come to their own conclusions, given all arguments. Not that the arguments are institutionally restricted.

What happens when your ideological opponents suddenly come into control of the "truth police"?

Freedom to choose is the only protection, unless one's goal isn't democratic.

PaulDavisThe1st7• 1 year ago

The only way to ensure the existence of truth is [...]

there is no way to ensure the existence of a thing until there is first some consensus on how the thing is defined.

with the conservative right adopting and extending foucault-era post-modern epistemology ("alternative facts", "that's just, like, your opinion"), it isn't even possible to discuss what "the truth" is, because the agreement on what how we would arrive at an answer is has been undermined (intentionally so, IMO).

for some period of time, much of the west's population bought into the idea that truth was arrived at using some variety of evidence collection, falsification, logic, experimentation and debate. this consensus has been undermined to the point where questions like "do vaccines cause autism" can be asked without any willingness to engage with the historical definition of how a true answer would be arrived at.

globnomulous• 1 year ago

Classical Athens offers a fascinating example. It was a radical democracy of citizens who certainly understood what they were doing, and it became the most imperially ambitious, expansive, destructive, and exploitative polis of the classical period. They put an entire city to death for refusing to join the 'defensive' alliance that they led and massively enriched themselves at the expense of member states.

notepad0x903• 1 year ago

Sure, but their society prospered and the actions of the state reflected the will of the people. That's a big caveat with democracy, it can only be as good as the majority of people.

chaosprint• 1 year ago

reading about Eno's ideas on organization and variety makes me want to share some perspectives directly from my experience with music performance practice, specifically in live coding.

For a long time, the common practice in live coding, which you might see on platforms like Flok.cc (https://flok.cc) supporting various interesting languages, has been like this: Everyone gets their own 'space' or editor. From there, they send messages to a central audio server to control their own sound synthesis.

This is heavily influenced by architectures like SuperCollider's client-server model, where the server is seen as a neutral entity.

Crucially, this relies a lot on social rules, not system guarantees. You could technically control someone else's track, or even mute everything. People generally restrain themselves.

A downside is that one person's error can sometimes crash the entire server for everyone.

Later, while developing my own live coding language, Glicol (https://glicol.org), I started exploring a different approach, beginning with a very naive version: I implemented a shared editor, much like Google Docs. Everyone types in the same space, and what you see is (ideally) what you hear, a direct code-to-sound mapping.

The problems with this naive system were significant. You couldn't even reliably re-run the code, because you couldn't guarantee if a teammate was halfway through typing 0.1 (maybe they only typed 0.) or had only typed part of a keyword.

So, I improved the Glicol system: We still use a shared interface for coding, but there's a kind of consensus mechanism. When you press Cmd+Enter (or equivalent), the code doesn't execute instantly. Instead, it's like raising your hand – it signals "I'm ready". The code only updates after everyone involved has signaled they are ready. This gives the last person to signal 'ready' a bit more responsibility to ensure the musical code change makes sense.

I'm just sharing these experiences from the music-making side, without judgment on which approach is better.

emsign• 1 year ago

And the method by which autocrats and fascists destroy democracy is make people believe, that when a party loses and it's being replaced by another party, that the ruling "elite" isn't really replaced. They know what part of democracy they have to discredit. This is what the AfD in Germany is doing: they say EVERY party except the AfD belongs to the "block" of "Altparteien" meaning "old parties". There's only two parties really in Germany left, according to the AfD, the "real opposition party" namely the AfD, and then there's the other party, a hegemonial woke block of "Altparteien".

Politicians who cast such doubt into the democratic principle that a government can lose its power, those politicians are up to destroying democracy and the very principle that they have to step down.

jack_h• 1 year ago

And the method by which autocrats and fascists destroy democracy is make people believe, that when a party loses and it's being replaced by another party, that the ruling "elite" isn't really replaced.

I think this line of argument requires some self-scrutiny. If you're suggesting that people are being manipulated into believing there's a ruling class of elites that span the traditional parties then you have to be willing to examine the possibility that you have been manipulated into dismissing that concern prematurely yourself. Propaganda absolutely exists, but assuming that it is the driving force behind opposing views in a democratic system turns valid concerns into illegitimate concerns which leads to disaffection by those who legitimately hold it.

There's only two parties really in Germany left, according to the AfD, the "real opposition party" namely the AfD, and then there's the other party, a hegemonial woke block of "Altparteien".

This isn't unique to Germany. In the US, many call it the "uniparty" which consists of establishment/neocon Republicans and Democrats. In the UK the Reform party portrays both Labour and the Conservatives as indistinguishable. France's National Rally makes similar arguments from what I understand. It seems to be a recurring pattern.

The rise of these alternative parties across Western democracies suggests that a significant portion of the electorate feels under-represented politically. From their perspective the political establishment dismisses their concerns while simultaneously labeling the alternative parties that address these concerns as being anti-democratic. I think this is a very dangerous place for any sort of democracy to be in.

keiferski• 1 year ago

As general literacy declines, one of the consequences seems to be that words with multiple meanings or variations become compressed into a single vague meaning. Not so long ago there was a common distinction between capital-D Democracy the political system and small-d democracy the process of power or knowledge being diffused through the masses. You don’t see this idea expressed much anymore, and even the expression “making something more democratic” almost always implies a reference to the political system, not the the second sense.

This distinction is useful, because one of the biggest trends of the technological age is the capital-D version supplanting and erasing the small-d version. Almost all of the institutional “defenders of democracy” have essentially no interest in small-d democratization processes, because they are themselves in the driver’s seat in the political democratic system.

This leads them to ignore or disregard the issues of everyday people, which leads to populism, which is of course the biggest global political trend of the last decade.

This is kind of a shame for tech in particular, because for the most part technology has been a democratizing (small-d sense) force throughout history. Phones, computers, cars, on and on: all examples of expensive exclusive technologies that became democratized and accessible to everyone. And yet that same force doesn’t seem to have been applied to the political system itself.

ncr100• 1 year ago

On "reduced linguistic precision":

Another example (this is a hard one imo) "discrimination". It is used in the US in an important legal document, a part of a powerful legal social right.

It's both the NEGATIVE and unjust social process of dividing minorities, often segregating them away from the resource-plenty enjoyed by majorities -- basic 'good favor', low prices, neighborhoods with food oases.

And it's also the POSITIVE or NEUTRAL term of "making a fine distinction and discerning". Such as, "The experienced journalist listened intently to the politician's statement, applying a keen sense of intellectual discrimination. She was able to quickly discern the subtle ways in which key facts were being selectively highlighted and crucial context was being omitted, allowing her to call out the misrepresentation rather than accepting the narrative at face value." (gen'd by ai <3)

It was once an efficient term for identifying careful critical thinking. I speculate we do less of this as we have fewer words to do this with, nowadays.

I suppose "bigot" and "bigotry" ought to have been used by the US when it made its civil rights advancements.

jfengel2• 1 year ago

We designed the civil rights code so as to be least unacceptable to bigots. They feel that bigotry is an unalienable right, and to be honest, it took some serious rereading of the Constitution to not make it so.

Even now they are finding that the Constitution does not in fact allow civil rights, and the Civil Rights Act is being pared away.

You can call it out by whatever name you want, but in the end a lot of Americans want that and you don't have the overwhelming political force required to override them.

The one small upside: they'll tell you that you're only making it worse by name calling. That's not actually true. It may not make things better, but it is not the cause of it. Arguing about words is just a common tactic to get you to stop talking about the actual subject.

afpx• 1 year ago

Which document, and why vague? It's not in the constitution.

I checked ngram viewer, and it showed this document from 1937 that first used it in that context:

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Jews_Jobs_and_Discrimin...

atmosx• 1 year ago

democracy the process of power or knowledge being diffused through the masses […]

Power sure, but knowledge? Nope. If anything it’s the opposite.

akomtu• 1 year ago

IMO, that's the sign of a different process.

When the state cannot get rid of a popular idea that benefits the people, the state puts on a mask with that idea and then hollows it out. The most cartoonish example is the "democratic" republic of north korea.

driuha• 1 year ago

"almost all controversy would be removed from among Philosophers, if they were always to agree as to the meaning of words" (c)

One could say it was always the case, you can cut through bs and have a productive dialogue if you define the meaning of words before the message, i.e. scientific papers do that. The problem with that is that most people won't do it because its hard and on the other end you will get ostracized most of the time if you try doing that in casual conversations. This problem is even bigger in politics which is a game of large numbers and you have to be as stupid as possible for your message to reach the masses.

keybored4• 1 year ago

As general literacy declines, one of the consequences seems to be that words with multiple meanings or variations become compressed into a single vague meaning.

I don’t know for who the literacy is declining. But the people who yap about democracy are the educated intelligentsia.[1] So it’s the educated that narrow and widen definitions.

Not so long ago there was a common distinction between capital-D Democracy the political system and small-d democracy the process of power or knowledge being diffused through the masses. You don’t see this idea expressed much anymore, and even the expression “making something more democratic” almost always implies a reference to the political system, not the the second sense.

That’s not true. When people talk about “democratizing X” where X is distant from the political process they mean people participation and power. Like “democratizing social media” could mean user-controlled and driven social media as opposed to everything being controlled a by corporation or something.

This distinction is useful, because one of the biggest trends of the technological age is the capital-D version supplanting and erasing the small-d version. Almost all of the institutional “defenders of democracy” have essentially no interest in small-d democratization processes, because they are themselves in the driver’s seat in the political democratic system.

Pretty much true.

This leads them to ignore or disregard the issues of everyday people, which leads to populism, which is of course the biggest global political trend of the last decade.

Pretty much. That there are a group of people who can ignore or disregard the issues of everyday people means (by its very premise) that there is no democracy.[2]

People who then might have tolerated that then have enough and turn to the correct political theory: elites rule the commoners. Again the premise proves the theory correct.

This is kind of a shame for tech in particular, because for the most part technology has been a democratizing (small-d sense) force throughout history. Phones, computers, cars, on and on: all examples of expensive exclusive technologies that became democratized and accessible to everyone.

This is a bit of a vulgar[3] conception of democratization. Democracy is about power, not access to X. If a car indirectly gives you political power by being able to travel and organize then it indirectly has that effect. But if it only gives you the opportunity to commute one hour each way to your workplace then it has got nothing to do with democratization.

And if your phone just makes you addicted to social media—as the technologists on this board so smugly like to point out—then it doesn’t give you power.

And yet that same force doesn’t seem to have been applied to the political system itself.

Democracy is about governing your own life in harmony with the rest of the people under that democracy. The political system is a big deal there. But there are other spheres of life the workplace.[4]

[1] Parochial way of referring to relatively wealthy people who set the intellectual agenda

[2] Although people can call it “liberal democracy” if they want since the Liberal in that is much more important to the system (according to its defenders) than the Democracy part

[3] Tongue in cheek!

[4] Referring to socialism

bigbadfeline• 1 year ago

"But the people who yap about democracy are the educated intelligentsia."

Are you a time-traveler or something? Nowadays the language is shaped by privately owned bot farms and media - be it social or legacy. They work for pay, the truth is social or not for pay, etc. "The educated intelligentsia" is being defunded and investigated to help them shut up sooner.

keybored4• 1 year ago

But there are other spheres of life the workplace.

* But there are other spheres of life like the workplace.

hayst4ck• 1 year ago

As general literacy declines, one of the consequences seems to be that words with multiple meanings or variations become compressed into a single vague meaning.

Words don't have objective meanings. Words are indirect references to ideas in your head. They are like named memory addresses that can be de-referenced. That's why "woke" can have different meanings to different groups of people who speak together. Words are sociologically derived, not objectively meaningful. Eventually these words can even become shibboleths which can be used to determine whether you are part of a group or not.

People deeply underestimate the power of linguistics, especially in the hands of those who wish to exploit it. Control/influence over language and it's mapping is political power.

smitty1e• 1 year ago

Przeworski’s theory starts from a simple seeming claim: that “democracy is a system in which parties lose elections.”

I like this, but a more general point is that at all scales, we need to resolve the tension tension between the singular and the plural, the individual and the group, the `int` and `[int]`.

Results vary between Milton Friedman's famous pencil to the devastation of war.

t0bia_s2• 1 year ago

Cardew's score expect singers able to recognize tones, sing them and hear harmony. Im not sure if this analogy could work for general society. Probably most people don't even know if they are able to sing a tone they hear.

metalman• 1 year ago

without a constitution that is the absolute definition of peoples rights and government power in an easily understood and brief document, you have nothing to govern, there is no law, just deciders, chosen in a popularity contest, each hopeing for a chance at dynastic power. the current situation highlights exactly what you get with an "amended" constitution the fundamental question is do we want a world where indivuals have very strong personal rights to themselves and there property, or do we want to meddle, pick, and choose, deciding this way and that....since the answer is very, very , clearly that most wish to meddle and decide about every little thing, then they can only complain about what they,have done, can do, will do again. It is impossible to meddle ,choose and decide our way into a prosperous, sustainable, just, and happy civilisation. pick a lane......

PaulDavisThe1st7• 1 year ago

It is impossible to meddle ,choose and decide our way into a prosperous, sustainable, just, and happy civilisation

Asserted without evidence.

the answer is very, very , clearly that most wish to meddle and decide about every little thing

Asserted without evidence. Most people don't want to be involved in decision making at all - witness participation in civic institutions and groups. Most people simply want a working system which gives them the right amount and the right kinds of liberty (in all possible senses) and safety. They may choose to "meddle" when they perceive these goals as not being met.

gsky2• 1 year ago

I came to a conclusion that democracy is not as good as I thought initially. It has be replaced with a better system quickly or else we are going to loose all advancements humanity made so far

pstuart4• 1 year ago

And what is that better system? To date, it appears to be the "least worst" option. Regardless, the two-party system has to go.

gsky2• 1 year ago

Ask yourself whether society is flourishing or crumbling?

Hashex1295423• 1 year ago

Democracy isn't better system either least worst. It's top most worst system. It's giving power to criminals only.

2 peoples saying 1+1 = 10 and a human saying 1+1 = 2

In democracy theory 10 is very correct answer. They don't consider the answer 2 even as experiment. Now you will argue for the answer 10 only. That's crime in general. But technically you can use the loop hole to argue for Democracy.

Democracy = Demo Crazy!

thrance• 1 year ago

I'd argue that the instability of our democracies and their tendency to break down into fascism isn't an intrinsic property of theirs. Rather, this instability is fueled by growing power imbalances among the economic classes.

Unless we ever address the issue of rampant capital accumulation in the hands of the few, we are condemned to suffer fascism, propped-up by an all-powerful oligarchical class, every 80 years or so.

Economic disparities were at their lowest after WWII, and have been steadily rising ever since. They have now surpassed what they were at their worst, before FDR and his New Deal.

Discontent is rising, and neither party is addressing the real issue. Not the weakly neoliberal democrats, and certainly not the republicans, too busy scapegoating migrants and LGBT people.

antics9• 1 year ago

I really like his talk about basic income and communities role in fostering ideas:

”Although great new ideas are articulated by individuals they are nearly always generated by communities.”

https://archive.org/details/brian-eno-on-basic-income

dzink• 1 year ago

Feedback accepted and acted upon by those in power is what any country really needs. Uncertainty for those in power means they would take feedack. Democracy give each person over a certain age a vote and a stake in the outcome. Populism promises anything, including the impossible to draw in votes. Fascism herds the voters by scaring them away from the opposition - an easy benchmark is to check if you know anyone directly who has been impacted by the "scares" they promote. Autocrats accept feedback by only those who pay them with political or financial favors. They may use any of the above methods to gain power and then use violence and complete control of media to retain it.

codr7• 1 year ago

We need a new game, this one is so full of loop holes by now that practical implementations are the opposite of the idea.

Same with Agile in the form of Scrum.

Humans are very good at playing games.

srhtftw• 1 year ago

This post’s title is a little cheeky. Brian Eno does not have an explicit theory of democracy that I know of, although he is visibly and emphatically committed to its practice. But Eno’s arguments about the arts tell us important things about how democracy ought work, and what kinds of democratic stability and variety we ought aspire to.

So... clickbait.

keybored4• 1 year ago

Democracy is complicated in practice and has a complicated history. But the theory is simple. Most of my own studies into the subject was learning and conceptualizing the wrong-headed mainstream conceptions of democracy.

No useful theory of democracy involves game theory. As a democrat the idea of social scientists maintaining a quasi-mechanical machine offends me. Politics needs less eggheads.

Then there’s the part about humility about Trump coming to power. Well by your own admission then your theories were just bad. People ranging from Richard Rorty to Noam Chomsky had predicted that someone like Trump could come to power if the current trajectory of the time kept on going. That was in the 90’s.

The quote about parties losing power isn’t true. America has an undemocratic duopoly. But I guess “fear” might be the keyword. Since neither party seem to truly fear it.

Hashex1295423• 1 year ago

Democracy is Regional-Majority-Chauvinism!

hoseja• 1 year ago

Democracy: process of arbitrage of elite interests via contest to capture the mass media propaganda machine.

Brian Eno's Theory of Democracy

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