Why does our democracy no longer appear to work?

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Robdemanc
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11 Dec 2011, 10:19 am

Please don't slate me for going off the deep end here but I am wondering if our democracy has reached a point where it no longer works the way it was intended, and the reason is because we are all too used to human nature (particularly NT) and can predict how politicians are going to spin things, and they can predict how we are going to react to their spin. The newspapers almost seem to be guessing what will happen before things happen (like outcomes of policy decisions, how opposition will react, and how government will react to their reaction etc.)

Perhaps it has all turned into a silly game now, and it almost looks like a pantomine going on infront of our eyes.

In the UK we had a ridiculous referendem last year on changing the vote system. We had two choices: stick with the one weve got, or have a complicated rank system of voting. I think it was predictable that most people would want to stick with the same system because the new one appeared too complicated. I was angry because I want them to change it so that at General election time we vote for the party we want in government, and not our local elected MPs. Then all votes are counted up regardless of the constituency and whoever gets the most gets into government. That would be more valuable to people at general elections and I think more people would vote.



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11 Dec 2011, 10:56 am

Robdemanc wrote:
Please don't slate me for going off the deep end here but I am wondering if our democracy has reached a point where it no longer works the way it was intended, and the reason is because we are all too used to human nature (particularly NT) and can predict how politicians are going to spin things, and they can predict how we are going to react to their spin. The newspapers almost seem to be guessing what will happen before things happen (like outcomes of policy decisions, how opposition will react, and how government will react to their reaction etc.)

Perhaps it has all turned into a silly game now, and it almost looks like a pantomine going on infront of our eyes.

In the UK we had a ridiculous referendem last year on changing the vote system. We had two choices: stick with the one weve got, or have a complicated rank system of voting. I think it was predictable that most people would want to stick with the same system because the new one appeared too complicated. I was angry because I want them to change it so that at General election time we vote for the party we want in government, and not our local elected MPs. Then all votes are counted up regardless of the constituency and whoever gets the most gets into government. That would be more valuable to people at general elections and I think more people would vote.


Very simple. Democracy is on a certain course to destruction when the people of a democracy aided by crafty politicians assume majority control of the nations's treasury. Once the "the People" get the key to the cash drawer by way of politicians who lust after re-election, it is just a matter of time before destruction or decay happen.

ruveyn



Last edited by ruveyn on 11 Dec 2011, 12:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

visagrunt
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11 Dec 2011, 12:14 pm

Any system of rules is going to be vulnerable to people manipulating those rules for their own ends. At some point you have to have the flexibility to close gaps in the rules.

But when the people who make the rules are also the beneficiaries of those gaps, they are not incentivized to make changes. So pressure must be brought to bear in other ways.

In the United States, the electorate have abandoned any pretence at power. The Republicans and the Democrats are content to swap control back and forth, secure in the knowledge that no amount of public outrage will displace them, because the money that comes from deeper pockets will always ensure that they have control of the message.

The United Kingdom and Canada are not quite so bad, but we are both teetering on the brink.


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Robdemanc
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11 Dec 2011, 12:22 pm

visagrunt wrote:
Any system of rules is going to be vulnerable to people manipulating those rules for their own ends. At some point you have to have the flexibility to close gaps in the rules.

But when the people who make the rules are also the beneficiaries of those gaps, they are not incentivized to make changes. So pressure must be brought to bear in other ways.

In the United States, the electorate have abandoned any pretence at power. The Republicans and the Democrats are content to swap control back and forth, secure in the knowledge that no amount of public outrage will displace them, because the money that comes from deeper pockets will always ensure that they have control of the message.

The United Kingdom and Canada are not quite so bad, but we are both teetering on the brink.


I think in Britain it is the same. Labour and Conservatives are happy to keep taking turns. The lib dems are just there to facilitate hung parliaments like the current one which is conservative led. At the moment Labour are happy to take a back seat thats why they elected as their leader a man who clearly isn't going to be elected. I think I saw the same thing in the 2008 elections in the US with Sarah Palin.



fraac
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11 Dec 2011, 12:57 pm

NT nature is to help themselves at the expense of other people. No created system can withstand that, all you can have is an emergent system that won't be as advertised.

What I find really interesting, and I'll probably start a new topic about it, is the question of why NTs expect systems/people/life to be fair. We expect it because it's our nature but NTs keep telling themselves stories about how society should work based on autistic nature. It's bizarre. From Jesus to John Hughes, from socialism to capitalism as ideas, the popular stories are all totally autistic and totally out of line with NT morality. Why?



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11 Dec 2011, 1:15 pm

fraac wrote:
NT nature is to help themselves at the expense of other people. No created system can withstand that, all you can have is an emergent system that won't be as advertised.

What I find really interesting, and I'll probably start a new topic about it, is the question of why NTs expect systems/people/life to be fair. We expect it because it's our nature but NTs keep telling themselves stories about how society should work based on autistic nature. It's bizarre. From Jesus to John Hughes, from socialism to capitalism as ideas, the popular stories are all totally autistic and totally out of line with NT morality. Why?


The vast majority of NT folk are ethical and decent. If they do un-well it is generally by accident or inadvertence.

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fraac
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11 Dec 2011, 1:20 pm

They have very different ethics to us, but they tell themselves they have autistic ethics. That's what's weird. I would say, strictly speaking, they don't have ethics, they have a hierarchy. To them it feels like ethics.



Robdemanc
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11 Dec 2011, 1:46 pm

fraac wrote:
NT nature is to help themselves at the expense of other people. No created system can withstand that, all you can have is an emergent system that won't be as advertised.

What I find really interesting, and I'll probably start a new topic about it, is the question of why NTs expect systems/people/life to be fair. We expect it because it's our nature but NTs keep telling themselves stories about how society should work based on autistic nature. It's bizarre. From Jesus to John Hughes, from socialism to capitalism as ideas, the popular stories are all totally autistic and totally out of line with NT morality. Why?


I think because they have a fully developed theory of mind, and a fully developed executive function they know how to get around the agreed morals and ethical codes that society wants. So they try to get away with things that will promote their own upward mobility. I shudder to think of the things that people have gotten away with. Things that will never become public.



Robdemanc
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11 Dec 2011, 1:48 pm

fraac wrote:
They have very different ethics to us, but they tell themselves they have autistic ethics. That's what's weird. I would say, strictly speaking, they don't have ethics, they have a hierarchy. To them it feels like ethics.


They have social ethics which are different from the overall agreed ethics of humanity.



fraac
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11 Dec 2011, 1:52 pm

Robdemanc wrote:
fraac wrote:
NT nature is to help themselves at the expense of other people. No created system can withstand that, all you can have is an emergent system that won't be as advertised.

What I find really interesting, and I'll probably start a new topic about it, is the question of why NTs expect systems/people/life to be fair. We expect it because it's our nature but NTs keep telling themselves stories about how society should work based on autistic nature. It's bizarre. From Jesus to John Hughes, from socialism to capitalism as ideas, the popular stories are all totally autistic and totally out of line with NT morality. Why?


I think because they have a fully developed theory of mind, and a fully developed executive function they know how to get around the agreed morals and ethical codes that society wants. So they try to get away with things that will promote their own upward mobility. I shudder to think of the things that people have gotten away with. Things that will never become public.


Right, but how did autistic rules become accepted as The Rules anyway? Doesn't that seem odd to you? Legal trials are set up on totally autistic ideas of fairness, but then they have a jury behind closed doors who use hierarchy ethics. How weird is that? And yet the shocking part to NTs would be what happens in the jury room, not what happens openly. How did a society emerge whereby the dominant creatures are being shielded from their own nature?



Last edited by fraac on 11 Dec 2011, 1:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Robdemanc
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11 Dec 2011, 1:55 pm

fraac wrote:
Robdemanc wrote:
fraac wrote:
NT nature is to help themselves at the expense of other people. No created system can withstand that, all you can have is an emergent system that won't be as advertised.

What I find really interesting, and I'll probably start a new topic about it, is the question of why NTs expect systems/people/life to be fair. We expect it because it's our nature but NTs keep telling themselves stories about how society should work based on autistic nature. It's bizarre. From Jesus to John Hughes, from socialism to capitalism as ideas, the popular stories are all totally autistic and totally out of line with NT morality. Why?


I think because they have a fully developed theory of mind, and a fully developed executive function they know how to get around the agreed morals and ethical codes that society wants. So they try to get away with things that will promote their own upward mobility. I shudder to think of the things that people have gotten away with. Things that will never become public.


Right, but how did autistic rules become accepted as The Rules anyway? Doesn't that seem odd to you?


What do you mean by autistic rules? Do you mean morality? If so we cannot really take credit for inventing morality. I think autistics place greater importance on morality though.



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11 Dec 2011, 1:55 pm

When has democracy ever really worked perfectly?

NT/Aspie nature = Human nature. They just go about it slightly differently


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fraac
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11 Dec 2011, 2:01 pm

Autistics did invent morality, surely? But how did it saturate society as an ideal way to be? Or NTs invented it to delude themselves. There's so much weirdness going on here.



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11 Dec 2011, 2:04 pm

fraac wrote:
They have very different ethics to us, but they tell themselves they have autistic ethics. That's what's weird. I would say, strictly speaking, they don't have ethics, they have a hierarchy. To them it feels like ethics.


There is no "autistic ethics". There is just ethics.

Maybe we auties come to understanding of ethics by a different path than our NT brethren, but we end up in the same place.


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fraac
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11 Dec 2011, 2:05 pm

You think there is 'just ethics' because you're autistic. NTs have the hierarchy; to them ethics are external, from stories and such. But how did they become so popular at all?



Robdemanc
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11 Dec 2011, 2:42 pm

fraac wrote:
Autistics did invent morality, surely? But how did it saturate society as an ideal way to be? Or NTs invented it to delude themselves. There's so much weirdness going on here.


I am confused with what you are saying. I would say morality came about in an evolutionary way, in gradual steps. It changes depending on circumstances facing a society. It was once considered moral for women to do as men told them. But that is not the case now. Surely you don't mean autistic people made these changes and NTs followed us?