Democracy: The art of winning an unfair game

[BenedictusXIV]

I was taught and I have long believed that one should respect the will of the majority (as long as they respect the minority). However in the last decade (or two) I am reminded time and time again of George Carlin’s saying: “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that”.

I can’t help feeling that this is exactly the cut that political analysts make.
“Sure Mr. Trump, if we can get all the stupid people to vote for you, we just need one more vote to get you in the White House”
“Oh, so all I need to do is vote for me?”
“Umm, no sir. Like I said we need one more vote. Maybe you can persuade Mrs. Trump?”

Is it pretentious of me to label every trumpeteer as dumb? I don’t think so. When it comes to politics or policy, I might be wrong but they’re not right. Instead of debating whether or not former criminals should have voting rights, we need to worry about the 63M people who casted a republican ballot during the last general election. Against all democratic principles, I think these people should be labeled TDTV (Too Dumb To Vote) and have their voting rights suspended until they pass a simple competence test. Even now, faced with the results of their poor judgement, they still won’t admit they made a terrible mistake. They don’t deserve democracy.

Don’t tell me it’s a self-regulating system, it’s not. Elections are not about differences of opinion, they are about big data, special interests and playing to the stupider half of the population.

Putin knows this. I firmly believe that our faith in democracy and freedom of speech is being used against us. Democracy is based on the premise that the majority of the people is mostly right, but that no longer applies in a world where the majority is easily influenced by fine tuned campaigns and personalized propaganda.

Our nation is under attack. Not from Islamic terrorists, invading hordes of murdering and plundering Hispanics or nuked up communists, but from cancerous ideas that are injected by our enemy to destabilize and create chaos. Ideas that feed on stupidity and lord knows we have plenty of that. Ideas that will ultimately destroy everything this nation has stood for from the day of its founding.

Political strategists don’t shy away from anything that will give them an edge over the competition (aka their former or future employer) so they are more than happy to ride the tea train all the way to Washington. Never mind if the tickets are priced in rubles.

“That’s what I like about Trump. At least he speaks his mind.”
No! Two thirds of what comes out of his mouth is bullshit. If that’s speaking his mind then it’s only more proof that he is a shit for brains…like you, dear trumpeteer.

I could live with the mistake if we would have some general concensus that it was indeed a mistake. Instead Trump has approval ratings of over 40%. Sure, he is hitting all-time lows, but they’re not low enough. How can 40% approve??? That doesn’t even mean that 60% disapproves because there is always the blessed 20% who just go…huh?
How?? Is 40% of the population deaf, dumb and blind or are they just stupid?
George Carlin knew the answer. Putin knows the answer. Steve Bannon knows the answer. I know the answer.

I shouldn’t be worried about 2020, but with so much stupidity going around, I am starting to lose sleep already. There shouldn’t even be a remote chance of a second term for this nincompoop. Instead I’d say the odds are 50/50…and that’s not counting Mrs. Trump.

Disclaimer: Being a republican doesn’t make you stupid. Being a democrat doesn’t absolve you from being stupid. Being a Trump supporter makes me wonder how you manage to breath in and out in the proper sequence.

[Ludovic]

I’m more interested in the title of the OP than the contents: Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem states that under a certain set of criteria that could be considered “fair”, and faced with more than two choices, it’s impossible to design a selection method that meets all the fairness criteria. So in a very real way, democracy is indeed the art of winning an unfair game.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@BenedictusXIV

Democracy is based on the premise that the majority of the people is mostly right, but that no longer applies in a world where the majority is easily influenced by fine tuned campaigns and personalized propaganda.

Not entirely. Under democracy, the majority can be wrong, but at least the results of their wrong choices are self-inflicted, so they arguably get the government they deserve.

“You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” So far Trump has only won one election, the one where people hadn’t yet had the chance to see how bad a leader he was. I want to believe they’ll know better next time.

[BenedictusXIV]

@Ludovic

I’m more interested in the title of the OP than the contents: Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem states that under a certain set of criteria that could be considered “fair”, and faced with more than two choices, it’s impossible to design a selection method that meets all the fairness criteria. So in a very real way, democracy is indeed the art of winning an unfair game.

Interesting read. If I understand it all correctly then the problem is with the “single winner” concept.

according to William Poundstone, author of Gaming
the Vote: Why elections aren’t fair . “It’s really the worst system.
Its only virtue is that it is the simplest way of voting, which is
why we put up with it,” he says.

So one solution can be a multiple party system and a coalition government.

I see that here in Europe. The loonies still get to rant, but there are no parties who have absolute power. That kinda limits the amount of damage one administration can do. Where it goes wrong is when they fall back on a dualistic approach (such as the Brexit vote).

[BenedictusXIV]

@Thudlow_Boink

Not entirely. Under democracy, the majority can be wrong, but at least the results of their wrong choices are self-inflicted, so they arguably get the government they deserve.

I said mostly
THere is another statistical principle that says something like: The larger the group of participants, the better the odds of getting it right.

Example: If you let 1,000 people guess how many marbles are in a big bowl (of marbles), then the average of all guesses will be pretty clost to the actual number. The bigger the group, the more accurate the result.

(forgot what it’s called)

Of course the majority can be wrong. Do we want to stop paying taxes? Yes! When do we want to stop? Now!
You can also argue (and I believe Aristotle already did) that the minority view should not be ignored in a true democracy or else it would simply become a dictatorship of the majority.

[septimus]

I mostly agree with OP, but will note some exceptions.

@BenedictusXIV

… George Carlin’s saying: “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that”.

… we need to worry about the 63M people who casted a republican ballot during the last general election. Against all democratic principles, I think these people should be labeled TDTV (Too Dumb To Vote) and have their voting rights suspended until they pass a simple competence test. Even now, faced with the results of their poor judgement, they still won’t admit they made a terrible mistake. They don’t deserve democracy.
… Our nation is under attack. Not from Islamic terrorists, invading hordes of murdering and plundering Hispanics or nuked up communists, but from cancerous ideas that are injected by our enemy to destabilize and create chaos. Ideas that feed on stupidity and lord knows we have plenty of that. Ideas that will ultimately destroy everything this nation has stood for from the day of its founding.
… Being a Trump supporter makes me wonder how you manage to breath in and out in the proper sequence.

I doubt if there’s much difference between the average Trump-voter IQ and average Hillary-voter IQ! This is partly because right-wingers do their political thinking with their amygdala rather than with the cerebral centers of intelligence. And most Americans, whether on the left or the right, are content to treat national politics as vague and remote, rather than engage in in-depth research and contemplation.

Also, while it’s truly horrid that Putin (and other foreign players, especially China) now find it easy to manipulate us using social media, the problem would exist (though to a smaller extent) even without foreign manipulators. The Koch Brothers spend far more on manipulating American public opinion than Vladimir Putin does. Even without any deliberate manipulation, the traditional roles of selfless wise men and professional journalists have been usurped by the crazy-gets-eyeballs model of modern social media, etc.

Democracy had a great hey-day; in less than two centuries democratic capitalism propelled the U.S. economy to develop railroads, airplanes, computers, and finally the Internet. But going forward, I wonder if autocracies which practice Internet censorship will achieve more success than the “free world.”

The problem is very serious and I have no solution to offer. Sorry.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@BenedictusXIV

I said mostly
THere is another statistical principle that says something like: The larger the group of participants, the better the odds of getting it right.

Example: If you let 1,000 people guess how many marbles are in a big bowl (of marbles), then the average of all guesses will be pretty clost to the actual number. The bigger the group, the more accurate the result.

(forgot what it’s called)

Wisdom of the crowd? That’s a real thing, but it mainly applies when each person is guessing independently.

[Aspidistra]

I read an interesting book last year called ‘against elections’ (different from ‘against democracy’ which is also a recent book) whose main thesis was that modern democracy suffers from its insistence that democracy==elections, and that we would benefit from the addition of a whole lot more sortition (the practice of choosing officials by lot) as was used in ancient democracies such as Greece and medieval Italian states.

The main supporting points I recall were the fact that the ‘representatives’ elections choose are never very representative of the actual population - too many lawyers, extroverts, rich people, people with good hair … elections select on the basis of ‘person can present themselves well’ not ‘person has good decision making’.

And also, the process of deliberating together with diverse people over an issue is actually a very valuable one that leads to good decision making, but the ‘election’ model doesn’t really encourage that kind of thinking, but just the snap judgement ‘pick a box’ kind of decision making, which may not have any real thought behind it.

It’s worth pointing out that although support for ‘democracy’ appears to be failing in the West, people still appear to trust juries … which use the sortition model

[Buck_Godot]

@Thudlow_Boink

Not entirely. Under democracy, the majority can be wrong, but at least the results of their wrong choices are self-inflicted, so they arguably get the government they deserve.

Of course in our “Democracy” the majority can be right but the results be wrong anyway.

[HurricaneDitka]

@BenedictusXIV

… our faith in democracy …

It seems pretty clear from the OP that you don’t actually have faith in democracy.

[HurricaneDitka]

@Buck_Godot

Of course in our “Democracy” the majority can be right but the results be wrong anyway.

“Majority” is not the word you’re looking for there. Try “plurality”.

[Gyrate]

@HurricaneDitka

It seems pretty clear from the OP that you don’t actually have faith in democracy.

IAN the OP but I don’t have much faith in democracy either. Mind you, I have even less faith in the other alternatives (see Churchill yadda yadda yadda) so the best option is to try and make democracy work as best one can.

[F.U.Shakespeare]

@BenedictusXIV

I was taught and I have long believed that one should respect the will of the majority (as long as they respect the minority).

I would phrase this as, “respect the *decisions *of majorities, while preserving the *rights *of minorities”. It’s also important not to define “right” too broadly. Everyone has a right to vote, and to equal treatment before the law, but not IMO to free health care.

[EscAlaMike]

Democracy is not the ultimate ideal.

The ultimate ideal is liberty.

Democracy is only useful insofar as it promotes liberty. If Democracy becomes destructive to liberty, then to hell with it.

[sbunny8]

@BenedictusXIV

There is another statistical principle that says something like: The larger the group of participants, the better the odds of getting it right. Example: If you let 1,000 people guess how many marbles are in a big bowl (of marbles), then the average of all guesses will be pretty close to the actual number. The bigger the group, the more accurate the result. (forgot what it’s called)

John Brunner called it the Delphi Principle.

However, there’s an equal and opposite principle: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

The Delphi Principle fails when the participants have no knowledge at all relating to the subject, or they have been fed disinformation. Example: You let 1,000 people guess the number of marbles in a bowl, while showing them a photo of a completely different bowl. Another example: You let 1,000 people guess the total number of marbles in all the bowls, jars, and boxes located in a fictional town that you just made up.

I was teaching statistics at a community college in the Spring of 2002. I asked the entire class to write down the number of victims who died in the attacks on September 11th, so we could make a histogram. Every single person in the class (all 30 of them) gave an answer which was higher than the correct number. Most of them were too high by a factor of three or more. I used this to emphasize that sampling error only tells you the likelihood of mistakes due to random chance, which is often dwarfed by the likelihood of mistakes due to poorly designed sampling methods, such as asking for information from people who do not have the correct information.

The famous book How to Lie With Statistics used the example where pollsters asked people how many times per week they took a bath, and reported the results of the poll. The fundamental error is that people don’t actually KNOW how many times per week they take baths. They can only estimate, based on fallible memory. The poll results didn’t show anything about bath-taking, only about memories of baths taken.

Getting back to the OP, monarchy is based on the assumption that royals have wisdom to make good decisions based on good information they get from their advisors, but democracy is based on the assumption that citizens have the wisdom to make good decisions based on good information they get from the free press. When the press is owned by giant corporations who push propaganda to suit their own selfish interests (or fail to challenge the propaganda of dishonest politicians), it becomes even less likely that you can trust the citizens to make good decisions. Garbage In, Garbage Out.

[Red_Wiggler]

@Aspidistra

I read an interesting book last year called ‘against elections’ (different from ‘against democracy’ which is also a recent book) whose main thesis was that modern democracy suffers from its insistence that democracy==elections, and that we would benefit from the addition of a whole lot more sortition (the practice of choosing officials by lot) as was used in ancient democracies such as Greece and medieval Italian states.

The main supporting points I recall were the fact that the ‘representatives’ elections choose are never very representative of the actual population - too many lawyers, extroverts, rich people, people with good hair … elections select on the basis of ‘person can present themselves well’ not ‘person has good decision making’.

And also, the process of deliberating together with diverse people over an issue is actually a very valuable one that leads to good decision making, but the ‘election’ model doesn’t really encourage that kind of thinking, but just the snap judgement ‘pick a box’ kind of decision making, which may not have any real thought behind it.

It’s worth pointing out that although support for ‘democracy’ appears to be failing in the West, people still appear to trust juries … which use the sortition model

I’m a closet demarchist. Having elections is way better than not having any organized selection process at all but the winner of an election is not necessarily one who is good at governance. He or she might be. But what they’re really demonstrably good at is winning election.

[HurricaneDitka]

I don’t love the idea of choosing officials by random lottery. What other methods could we use to to enhance the “good at governance” quotient of our government officials? Should we eliminate people based on certain criteria (e.g. criminal record, mental illness, income / education level, property ownership, tax contributions, hours of public service, etc) and choose randomly from those who make it through our filters?

[DSYoungEsq]

@BenedictusXIV

I was taught and I have long believed that one should respect the will of the majority (as long as they respect the minority). However in the last decade (or two) I am reminded time and time again of George Carlin’s saying: “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that”.

I can’t help feeling that this is exactly the cut that political analysts make.
“Sure Mr. Trump, if we can get all the stupid people to vote for you, we just need one more vote to get you in the White House”
“Oh, so all I need to do is vote for me?”
“Umm, no sir. Like I said we need one more vote. Maybe you can persuade Mrs. Trump?”

Is it pretentious of me to label every trumpeteer as dumb? I don’t think so. When it comes to politics or policy, I might be wrong but they’re not right. Instead of debating whether or not former criminals should have voting rights, we need to worry about the 63M people who casted a republican ballot during the last general election. Against all democratic principles, I think these people should be labeled TDTV (Too Dumb To Vote) and have their voting rights suspended until they pass a simple competence test. Even now, faced with the results of their poor judgement, they still won’t admit they made a terrible mistake. They don’t deserve democracy.

Don’t tell me it’s a self-regulating system, it’s not. Elections are not about differences of opinion, they are about big data, special interests and playing to the stupider half of the population.

Putin knows this. I firmly believe that our faith in democracy and freedom of speech is being used against us. Democracy is based on the premise that the majority of the people is mostly right, but that no longer applies in a world where the majority is easily influenced by fine tuned campaigns and personalized propaganda.

Our nation is under attack. Not from Islamic terrorists, invading hordes of murdering and plundering Hispanics or nuked up communists, but from cancerous ideas that are injected by our enemy to destabilize and create chaos. Ideas that feed on stupidity and lord knows we have plenty of that. Ideas that will ultimately destroy everything this nation has stood for from the day of its founding.

Political strategists don’t shy away from anything that will give them an edge over the competition (aka their former or future employer) so they are more than happy to ride the tea train all the way to Washington. Never mind if the tickets are priced in rubles.

“That’s what I like about Trump. At least he speaks his mind.”
No! Two thirds of what comes out of his mouth is bullshit. If that’s speaking his mind then it’s only more proof that he is a shit for brains…like you, dear trumpeteer.

I could live with the mistake if we would have some general concensus that it was indeed a mistake. Instead Trump has approval ratings of over 40%. Sure, he is hitting all-time lows, but they’re not low enough. How can 40% approve??? That doesn’t even mean that 60% disapproves because there is always the blessed 20% who just go…huh?
How?? Is 40% of the population deaf, dumb and blind or are they just stupid?
George Carlin knew the answer. Putin knows the answer. Steve Bannon knows the answer. I know the answer.

I shouldn’t be worried about 2020, but with so much stupidity going around, I am starting to lose sleep already. There shouldn’t even be a remote chance of a second term for this nincompoop. Instead I’d say the odds are 50/50…and that’s not counting Mrs. Trump.

Disclaimer: Being a republican doesn’t make you stupid. Being a democrat doesn’t absolve you from being stupid. Being a Trump supporter makes me wonder how you manage to breath in and out in the proper sequence.

This entire sentiment about those who voted for the President is exactly what is wrong with a large number of “liberals” and Democrats today: the assumption that they are on the “right” side of things because their position is inherently “superior” to that of those who are on the “other” side. I know several people who voted for Donald Trump for a variety of reasons, none of which can be considered inherently stupid. From those who were concerned about the state of the federal judiciary, to those who are socially conservative on things like abortion, to those who are fiscal hawks and/or opposed to liberal federal social programs, to those who simply disliked Hillary Clinton more than they disliked Donald Trump, there are any number of people who had perfectly valid reasons to vote for him. To label all such people as “stupid” just shows an incredible bias in your own thinking.

[squidfood]

@BenedictusXIV

I see that here in Europe. The loonies still get to rant, but there are no parties who have absolute power. That kinda limits the amount of damage one administration can do. Where it goes wrong is when they fall back on a dualistic approach (such as the Brexit vote).

The solution to that part of it is adding strong federalism to the equation. If the Brexit vote had been structured “a majority of (England, Scotland, Wales, N. Ireland) has to approve to exit”, it would have failed. Major constitutional changes/referenda just shouldn’t be done on straight majority vote, especially when substantial regionalism exists in a country. This is independent of whether the overarching structure is parliamentary or congressional: each of the federal pieces can have its own structure (within limits).

[Ludovic]

@squidfood

The solution to that part of it is adding strong federalism to the equation. If the Brexit vote had been structured “a majority of (England, Scotland, Wales, N. Ireland) has to approve to exit”, it would have failed. Major constitutional changes/referenda just shouldn’t be done on straight majority vote, especially when substantial regionalism exists in a country. This is independent of whether the overarching structure is parliamentary or congressional: each of the federal pieces can have its own structure (within limits).

I’m not sure if a majority of each country would have been the way to go but I’m with you on major consitutional changes and referenda needing more than a simple majority. They should require at the very least 53% or so to take into account possible polling error just from the weather or calendar (let alone buyer’s remorse.), no use tying your horse to a huge change when it could have very well been a different result on a different day.

My personal opinion is more like 55% at the bare minimum for such things.