Open Thread, March 1-15, 2012

(which I'm going to tentatively define as governments where a noticeable proportion of elections have surprising enough results to be worth betting on)

Is this really key feature? Lots of elections considered perfectly democratic are more or less predictable. I mean you do have places like Norway or Japan where the same party kept winning for decades in a row. Once you knew who the party leader was before the election you would also usually know who the PM will be. Who will ascend in the Chinese Communist Party next is if anything less predictable than if say Obama will be re-elected. Also the conclaves often produce surprising choices for the Pope and they are elections, but I don't think most people consider the Vatican to be a democracy.

there seems to be a fair number of LessWrongians who are revolted by democracy, and I've never been sure why.

But why Because I think "democratic" is an applause light. Indeed the ur example of an applause light. People go as far as to often think of it as having intrinsic value! Indeed I think Western civilization has had an affective death spiral around democracy.

I think we systematically overestimated how good democracy is partially because of the following reasons:

1. We cherry pick what counts as democracy and especially what a failed democracy is, why do we so seldom consider the aftermath of a failed democracy (think Weimar republic )? The badness of Communism is more often talked about in the context of the mess it left in former Communist countries after collapse than in the context of the millions of lives it lost. Why not talk about democracy that way every now and then? I mean sure ideally you don't want your car to crash. But if your car does crash you do hope it has been designed to make crashes as survivable as possible.

2. Wealthy countries with well educated citizens tend to be democracies. Wealthy countries with well educated citizens also tend to have high rates of obesity. Clearly obesity is less bad than starvation and democracy is less bad than Communism, but is this really something to brag about?

3. Because it says it is and most of us grew up in it. Children will believe in God just because they are told by their parents, imagine what they will believe if told by not only their parents, and perhaps priests but teachers too!

I can understand not approving of government in general, but democracies (which I'm going to tentatively define as governments where a noticeable proportion of elections have surprising enough results to be worth betting on) seem to have less awful failure modes than a lot of other sorts of governments.

Democracy is viewed as the only legitimate kind of government by Western thinkers. This stifles possible innovation in government. Democracy is also by far the most popular kind of government (who would have thought that popular government would be a popular concept?).

Also if democracy is indeed the best form of government tried so far, maybe by analysing it we can come up with something even better? Isn't this argument for democracy merely a Burkean conservative one in nature ? LW dismisses those out of hand so often, yet when it comes to democracy it seems to be seldom questioned.

Think of the famous Churchill quote:

Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

A Vizier in Ancient Egypt could have said the same thing about divine right monarchy where the king is worshipped as a living god. Do we really expect no further positive (?) change in government except in the direction of it being more "democratic"?

Would you or anyone else be interested in explaining why democracy seems like an obviously bad idea to you?

That is more or less the point of the thread. But first I'd like to learn why people seem to think it is a great idea.

It always comes down to which politician can trick the most voters using their native biases. Even in an idealized setting where all voters were educated and all educated were voters, they'd still be humans with all the tribalism and biases that implies.

The traditional critique of democracy is that it leads to what we moderns would call class warfare, demosclerosis, and political corruption (by political corruption, I mean the regulatory state, spawned by Olsonian multiplication of special interests). All of this stuff used to be called the social war, named after the Roman civil wars leading to Sulla's reforms.

To check theory against observation, compare Britain from the restoration to the mid nineteenth century, with Britain from the mid nineteenth century to the present.

Restoration Britain founded the scientific, technological, and industrial revolutions. British merchant adventurers went forth as mobile bandits, and settled down as stationary bandits, creating what was later called the British empire.

Democratic Britain has been downhill from there. If Cecil Rhodes or Lord Garnet was around, you can imagine what they would think of the present state of Britain.

I've been wondering-- there seems to be a fair number of LessWrongians who are revolted by democracy, and I've never been sure why.

I don't think I'm revolted by democracy. I do currently disbelieve in democracy.

But I said I wanted to talk about democracy not that I have proof that it sucks more than anything else ever. I don't think I've so far strawmaned how polite educated opinion thinks a particular brand of democracy should work (though I'll admit I'm not done).

I think your essay should clearly articulate where you disagree with the democracy consensus.

Oh its just half an essay at this point. I was still describing how the idealized version of this government supposedly works.

I think your essay should clearly articulate where you disagree with the democracy consensus. You discuss tragedy-of-the-commons and state-of-nature arguments, but those are about whether to have government or anarchy, not what form the government should take. That is, a competent absolute monarchy could avoid both problems pretty easily. If that isn't what you intend to discuss, I recommend removing it from the essay.

Maybe no government is better than democratic government, but I do think you have a point. I will assume few people will for now question that we need some kind of government, I will remove it from this essay.

I see the seeds of two distinct arguments against democracy in the essay at this point. First, you might be challenging the idea that what is best for "the People" is best for "the Nation." I think I've read prior comments where you challenge the coherence of the concept consent-of-the-governed, but I'm not sure that this is the argument that you intend make here. If it is, pedantic-Tim says that consent-of-the-governed is a wider concept than democracy, so you should acknowledge your intent to refer to things like the justifications for the Glorious Revolution, which I wouldn't call "democratic." For reference, this is where my disagreements with Moldbug are located.

Overall, I must admit you seem to have a very good idea of where I was going to develop some of my arguments based on (it seems to me at least) not so much data. Considering that in the part of the essay written so far I just wanted to accurately if informally describe educated opinion on how this kind of democracy should work, would you say that I've failed and that I'm making a straw man? Or where the hints and foreshadowing not problematic in this regard?

I think your essay should clearly articulate where you disagree with the democracy consensus.

Oh its just half an essay at this point. I was still describing how the idealized version of this government supposedly works.

discuss the abstract correlations between several different democracies

I was aiming for European parliamentary democracy, implicitly more on the non-Monarchical ones (Parliamentary Republics ) as educated people in practice believe they should work and how they do work (belief in belief about what is happening and how they should work is trickier).

This just isn't going to work if it's considered acceptable to make potshots at various countries and nationalities.

I agree. Pentagonese isn't a nationality (I hope). I think that's the only one I made (besides Scotsmen, but there aren't any true Scotesmen anyway).

EY once recommended that if politics needs to be discussed, one should stick with examples so historical that the participants are not invested in the rightness of the politics. Of course, with democracy this is almost futile, since nothing I would call liberal democracy was really in evidence prior to the modern era. The problem then becomes, how do we prevent people's System 1 from kicking in when discussing contemporary, relevant politics? I don't know.

Yes the historical gap is too vast. I was hoping that since I willl describe Parlimentary Democracy in Central European cultural context Americans will have an easier time thinking about it calmly than they would if I criticized their own particular system, even if I was attacking the same key points!

I however don't think criticism of democracy is that mind-killing for most, for the reasons CaveJohnson described. But maybe if this essay gets done particularly well the realization that democracy is actually and seriously being questioned might kill some minds. Maybe I should take advice on talking about politics more seriously than I did originally.

4) Ontology

I'll just link this here.

I tried to limit this by defining casual usage of the term to a very small set of seemingly decently run countries that share noticeable similarities in government stricture.

Thank you for your response, since it is a response to a draft I suggest any direct comments quote the text they are referring to?

I'd reply as I think Thomas Sowell would, with his standard question "compared to what?"

I agree with this criticism, yet I find it ironic that what I think is the strongest argument in favour of democracy is a fundamentally small c conservative one. Modern society (unwisely in my opinion) doesn't let such arguments stop it from changing things. Yet when it comes to democracy someone just bringing up a quote by Churchill is enough to dispel all doubts.

You are the happiness generating machine; it is the freedom protecting machine.

I don't think having government be a goodness generating machine is a good idea. I start here with an argument for setting up a democracy as one as someone who thinks this would work would present it. Hence the draft, before proceeding to critique it I wanted to make sure I was attacking a steel man of moderate social democracy the currently reigning Western ideology.

Looking from the outside it seems pretty obvious the US government is expected to be a goodness generating machine. This is especially true among the classes engaged in opinion making, let alone among the kinds of people who actually make up the USG and run the country. It also seems obvious democratic means will not change or restore it into an effective guardian of negative rights.

Recall what I said:

Secondly because educated opinion in America and Europe seems to admire the idealized version of this model.

Goodness generation is also the standard rationalization for the existence of everything from the department of education to an army geared for foreign intervention. For a reason, democracy basically is early stage socialism. Plato and Aristotle didn't think much of democracy because of this. And we know from previous patients that early stage always gives way to late stages eventually, sometimes in a matter of months or years like in the case of the Russian revolution, sometimes decades and even centuries as is the case with the American one.

What does the "pro-freedom" or negative rights camp have? A few internet blogs and think thanks? Recall that even on lesswrong the Libertarian position is called "far right". This is not an accident. In a democracy wealth redistribution with the pretext of higher goals is how elections are won. Even more damningly in a democracy the sate perhaps does not control the press but the press controls the state, and recall state power is supposed to be tied directly to public opinion! What we see is a power pump where public opinion drives changes in governance and changes in governance drive public belief. Nature finds a way, be it with birds loosing flight or herbivores finding a taste for meat or with "negative rights" memes suddenly finding themselves invested and nested in memeplexes supporting state expanding projects. I mean look at the Republican party.

This post was mostly about seeing if I'm getting the pro-democracy argument right.

I was talking of Central not Eastern Europe. While Slovenia is indeed a former communist country, I focus far more on the states we have sought to model ourselves after (Germany, Scandinavia, ect.) that any deviations or imperfections we may have to them comparing ourselves by our standards. Also I suggest you check your assumptions, Slovenia is a developed country by nearly any ranking, and indeed one of the very much nicer parts of the planet to live in and according to international opinion and the estimates of various organizations one of the "more democratic" or "free" ones.

I mean sure they could be wrong, indeed I do suspect they are biased. But if they are wrong then basically democratic societies (naturally America is apriori the golden standard of democracy ) seem to systematically mislead its citizens to what a democratic society is or isn't. That's a bad isn't it? And isn't the NYT and your own educated opinion often leaning towards such models? Aren't there many many people who criticze the US for supposedly not measuring up to the Liberal Democracies of Europe? I don't think they mean Spain or Italy or Ukraine. I do think they mean places like Germany or Austria or Finland. And those are just the places I'm going to talk about!

As one example, do you think that doing utilitarian calculations is near or far? Do you think that LessWrong thinks that doing utilitarian calculations is near or far?

Have tried it twice, failed both times. Like Alex_Altair, I recognized problems and attempted to fix them, going so far as to have 24-hour surveillance during my second attempt to ensure that I wouldn't crash. The surveillance only lasted a week, and I started crashing as soon as I went off it. Typically, the transition period process is getting worse until you get better, and I just noticed getting worse. I strongly suspect that there's a biological flag which determines whether or not this can work for you, and it won't work for me.

I tested it four times. Each time I failed, figured out the reasons I failed, removed those reasons the next time, and failed again. I've concluded that it doesn't work, at least for me and my friend.

Have tried it. I don't think Uberman is workable for people with a normal SWS (deep sleep) requirement. "Everyman 3" (3 hour core, 3 20-minute naps) is probably doable by anyone who doesn't mind torpedoing their social life; I did that for > 6 months or so.

EDIT: You can measure how much deep sleep you normally get with a Zeo.

Seems interesting, but I work a 10 hour shift, so the logistics of sleeping for 20 minutes every 4 hours isn't going to work. I'll look into it though and see if I can figure something out. Consider it under consideration.

You are right, of course (apart from impossible being too strong a word). I replied here.

"Subreddits" were discussed here and you can see there some of the pros and cons.

Personally, I would support subreddits. I've been involved in one or two spinoff mailing lists, and it seems a shame that the content of those posts is not available to all on the LW site, if they want to read through them.

I'd be quite happy to do things here, but there's no natural place for it and I suspect it'd be unpopular and considered "offtopic".

I'll be very surprised if Konkvistador posted this to talk about the speed limits.

I have two separate objections.

1) The first objection, which I hint at in my original post, is that the selection of a reference class of human beings seems to be selected specifically to make whatever point the anthropic reasoner is trying to make. Why don't I have an equal likelihood of being

• any available 1.4 kg oblate lump of matter, including rocks and large jellyfish, or
• any animal possessing more than 100 neurons, or
• any human being who is aware of the concept of anthropic reasoning, or
• any sentient being capable of self-awareness ...

Obviously each of these reference classes generate completely different answers. You would guess that, e.g. for each reference class,

• most 1.4 kg lumps of matter must be brains; or
• that most animals possessing more than 100 neurons must be humans; or
• that the concept of anthropic reasoning or the human race dies out pretty soon; or
• that there must not be any other self-conscious life forms in the universe.

In other words, there is no good reason to pretend that human consciousness works anything like a virtual-parallel-Earth device rather than being like any other conceivable reference class.

2) The second objection is, again, that the existence of "observers" in the first place is an illusion. You have a 100% likelihood of being you because you are identically you (minus some small increment allowing for insanity, etc.). We aren't souls injected into bodies from heaven. We are matter that thinks it has identity.

Thanks, I'll let you know when I get it down on paper.

"Damage" and "differing function" are two different things. You can increase your capacity for high-quality rational thought by increasing your blood glucose levels, which doesn't really seem qualitatively different from boosting your creative abilities by increasing your blood alcohol levels.

It would justify (if true) becoming drunk/sleep deprived when you want to try and solve what the article calls 'creative insight' problems, that is, problems that are usually solved in a flash of insight and not through deliberate, methodical process.

One study (the one I linked to above) tested people at their 'least optimal time of day' (night owls in the morning) and found them to be more effective at solving these types of problems, and the other (which I neglected to link to before) is about inebriated students (BAC ~0.075) attempting to solve 'remote association tests' with word problems and found that, 'Intoxicated individuals solved more RAT items, in less time, and were more likely to perceive their solutions as the result of a sudden insight.'

Just an X-Ray Malfunction. But it seemed quite Transhuman-ish to me.