Re:Ozone: The Earth's protective shield is repairing
by apatters on Wednesday November 07, 2018 @12:36AM
(#18397293)
In the United States, the Founding Fathers debated the idea of direct democracy at length and rejected it. Their reasons included preserving state sovereignty/local governance, and protecting rural minorities. Here's an article by George Friedman at Stratfor which serves as an introduction to the discussion: https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_13051196
The only thing which can reliably be said about modern debate on how to structure a good representative government, is that the participants are rarely informed about the 500 years of debate on the subject that occurred before they were born
Re:Ozone: The Earth's protective shield is repairing
by skrebbel on Wednesday November 07, 2018 @02:05AM
(#18397541)
I keep being amazed how Americans treat anything said or done by the Founding Fathers (with two capital Fs even) as holy scripture.
They were just some guys drafting a law, get over it. People draft laws all the time.
Re:Ozone: The Earth's protective shield is repairing
by tempestn on Wednesday November 07, 2018 @02:33AM
(#18397615)
You might be interested in the idea of a delegative democracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy
In theory it has the advantages of direct democracy, without requiring telepathy. Of course, that's not necessarily to say that it would work well, but it's an interesting concept at least.
My true definition of democracy is direct democracy. Once you start giving power to a representative then you stop being democratic. And that includes power to survive, eat, have shelter, have vacation, have time to study and pursue creative things.
But unless we can instantly communicate like the Protoss can then no, we can't achieve 'rule by the people'. However, it's not simply a choice of Direct Democracy, 3-branch system, 1-party system. We can have system where there is way less concentrated power (again, emphasis on power including many things like education in critical thinking).
Having said that. Yes China is not a democracy. Nor any other country. It is a question of how power (again, my emphasis) is concentrated and the potential of corruption.