Democracy is the theory that people know what they want

[Lanny]

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard

-H.L. Mencken

I think we need to assume even less fault (that is assume more competence) with the populace than to say we don't even know what we want. I think in general we can find consensus on ultimate ends on what our society wants for itself, everyone or almost everyone wants to be secure, have some level of material resources available to them, and opportunities to pursue happiness. The controversy that feeds the american political system lies in the best means to achieve those ends, which really is kind of comical. Even if voters do know what they want (and I think they do) they're still doomed to this political purgatory so long as they can't collectively form an opinion on the best way to do it. Since voters are non-experts on pretty much every major issue we have no reason at all to suspect we'll be able to reach consensus, since the people making the decisions (us) aren't basing them on a common reality but a dogmatic set of pre-beliefs that inform our voting practices which we need to cultivate in order to select courses of action in a range of fields no person (let alone the everyman) could possibly acquire the necessary expertise in within a lifetime. We sometimes bait people into democratic systems by talking about politicians who hold some common sets of goals with you who are going to consult with experts to find the best way of bringing that about, but at least in the US we all know that's not how it works. The means have become the ends and we all care more about free market versus command economy than the actual outcomes of either system.

[John Smith]

Lanny, have you heard of futarchy? It has a similar basis to your idea, but would most likely work better.

https://www.google.com/search?q=futarchy&oq=futarchy

[Lanny]

I haven't heard of it but from a few minutes of googleing I'm not really convinced. I could maybe see it working in areas where the public doesn't have a priori moralistic objections. I was reading the thing on prediction markets and they gave an example of a speculative market on how/when terrorist attacks were going to happen. I could see that working out, no one has a reason to throw a bet there (except maybe a terrorist), but it's unclear how it would play out on issues where there are more serious pre-evidence objections.

It also seems like some things would be hard to model that way. Like "predicted outcomes of granting increased oil leases" or something is kinda hard when we're trying to decide if we should do it or not. What if all the money stacks on a negative outcome so we decide not to do it, how does that work?

[Goats]

You have a warm bed in winter and a fridge, oven, stove, internet and video games. Because of democracy.

You have nothing to complain about.

The monkey, who has been removed from nature, and placed in a zoo, now has BANANA whenever he wants, without having to look for it, and swings, and NO LEOPARD'S trying to eat it. But animal liberation is where it's at.

Go fucking whinge somewhere else, if you feel your vote is worthless.

[Lanny]

You have a warm bed in winter and a fridge, oven, stove, internet and video games. Because of democracy.

Because you know, no one has ever had any of those things under any other system of government... right? Everyone who lived under monarchy... slept on the ground and somehow didn't have ovens?

[John Smith]

Rizzo, are you already familiar with this?

www.c4ss.org

If not, I'd highly recommended. I think you'll really like the perspective on some issues, particularly by Kevin Carson, that many don't really understand, and miss, despite their immense. This is a very good interview, he's a notably good speaker, I wonder if he's on cannabis during this video, maybe to reduce his anxiety, or because he finds it generally helps with his speaking, people skills, or he could just be using it medicinally for some unknown reason:

And fuck democracy! It's brought destruction. The vast majority of people attribute everything to it yet never consider the harm done and whether an alternate method of organizing would be superior. They believe they can refute any "fringe" ideology with about 3 seconds based on their poorly formed and biased perception of it, generally without having even so much as read the wikipedia page, they already have a bias toward what they want to believe, and only expose themselves to material that only tells them what they hear, incredibly biased and unbalanced sources like Think Progress, Slate, that distort what others say, ask moronic gotcha questions that they think are clever without even trying to look for answers, and know almost nothing about what they're critiquing.

[mmmmmmmQuestions]

yeah more like decockracy