Good idea. Perhaps we should vote for a group of people to coordinate this action.
Just to clarify, I do not have a bone to pick with democracy, but it obviously is not the only source of leadership, nor the only source of positive leadership.
> I believe we must solve them ourselves directly, not indirectly through government.
And perhaps to refine the question for a HN audience, I'll note that game theory, social choice theory etc, offer opportunities for technical insights to potentially play a part in answering this. But only a part.
2. Because your idea is unworkable for running a nation of 300 million people. It's not even workable for running a medium-sized town. You need coordination. That thing that coordinates winds up being a government.
Now, you are right that the answer isn't going to come from government. We need something more. But we still need government.
People don't cry for help, they want efficiency. Healthcare, infrastructure (transportation), education and social services (nursery, kindergarten, school), research, disaster relief, environmental protection, consumer safety standards (from food to communications and financial services), etc. are all best done on a larger level.
And all of it needs coordination.
And of course there are hundreds of millions of people that don't accept this. Are they stupid? Maybe. Are they ignorant? Maybe. Do they have serious counter-arguments? Maybe. Are they constructive? Well, not really, it seems.
We seem to be facing a rather serious regression toward tribal "standards" (old conservative values like purity, respect for authority, might makes right as only the strong survives, and we're in very hard times, we need to follow the strong, etc) via populism. Why? Because the social psyche is very susceptible to this, because there are real problems (growing inequality, serious changes due to globalization, automation clearing the middle-jobs, global warming).
But this also means that public policy lags public opinion. If you want new (govenrment) solutions, you have to change public opinion first.
Change the public opinion and the politicians will follow but I wouldn't expect them to take the lead.
Except that the EU has nothing to do with elections, and they are utterly tone-deaf to the will of the public. EU leadership are sometimes openly contemptuous to the will of the people.
Even this is from the Telegraph ... they are still actual Junker quotes: [1]
So European leaders already think they get to 'do as Europe needs without interference from pesky voters' and yet this is where we are.
I don't think the answer is in our political leadership either - they only have so much knowledge, ability.
[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/1096716...
I find that in the UK the right-wing media tell everybody what they want, the BBC then takes that as rote and amplifies it. The officials then mirror that.
Take the immigration issue as a case in point to demonstrate (I am not going to argue the rights and wrongs of immigration itself so don't bother commenting, this is a meta-comment). The current PM talked about reducing immigration constantly as Home Secretary (mirroring the Daily Mail). As PM she has done the same. Recently a story came out that she tried to suppress reports that immigration was a benefit to the economy on multiple occasions. A recent report said that immigrants on average were more of a benefit to the economy than native Brits.
This seems to me nothing like mirroring public opinion, and instead they are trying to bend facts to fit the newspapers narrative, so they will get coverage.
I think we do need leadership from elected officials, otherwise 'public opinion' is lead by the press barons.
I think we can all agree that that is politics, but not leadership. Politicians are active players in the game of politics, no argument.
So I suppose the null hypothesis is that the current PM has a large contingency of voters who don't like immigration (who are also pandered to by the Daily Mail), and is trying to represent them. I really like that one - a politician who attempts to show leadership _will_ be controversial and resisted. Democracies settle uncontroversial issues extremely quickly, then settle into an awkward status-quo with competing interest groups, where any change advantages some and disadvantages others. Someone who tries to lead anywhere new will face fierce opposition.
Are you fundamentally saying that that null hypothesis is wrong? What are you proposing replaces it?
I guess if you are a democrat, and at the same time have your own political ideas, the fact that many people disagree with you causes some cognitive dissonance. A nice solution is to think that the populace has been misled by the Yellow Press.
This story might have worked in the 1990s when it was the Sun Wot Won It (the 1997 election, for non-Brits). Since then, the media market has exploded and anyone can now reach thousands of alternative news sources. Simultaneously, public opinion has got much more anti-immigration. How does this data fit the theory of manipulation by press barons?
It's not the number of media outlets, it's the number of narratives and which one is winning people's hearts and minds. And the truth be damned.
As I write this, a ycombinatorish analogy pops up: It seems we have Tim Cook in our governement but want Steve Jobs.
- snake oil campaigning
- a good chunk of the mandate is devoted to try to be reelected
- candidates are often vaguely different shades of gray
- voters cannot make a good decision, too much bipartisan reflex, not enough time to understand the complexity .. basically blind trust and group-dynamics
Imagine people rioting in the streets because you put a carbon tax on gas.
the carbon taxes should be levied on large corporations and their shareholders rather than than low income individuals and employees
We all know that no one will do anything.
the yellow jackets are out rioting, killing, and dying to protest what they see as unfair
the prime minister has already agreed to suspend the gas tax for 6 months, and will need to make further concessions or else risk being ousted/replaced
>>Every time I hear politicians say how they know what needs to be done, but they will get voted out if they try. I don't believe this is true.
I meant we all know that no one will do anything about climate change, because whenever anyone proposes something with an actual effect people come out "rioting, killing, and dying to protest what they see as unfair".
But, this is more of an example of the problem: the state is propping up crumbling social infrastructure with extra taxes, and trying to greenwash them. You can see it in the things Macron promises to do now: Raise the minimal wage of the protesters. In the same way, the main complaint from the protester is that they are average salary workers, and they can't make ends meet anymore. It doesn't matter much that the straw that broke the camel's back was a green tax.
They have been allowed to poison the world for far too long.
As an ordinary person, what you need to do is shift your priority to vote almost exclusively based on environmental policies of the candidate, get involved in politics and not give in to people who claim it's "no big deal".
I think this is a commendable initiative from Piketty et. al., which actually has a chance of being supported by a large number of people. Personally I don't think it's nearly hard-hitting enough, but it's a good start.
In other words, while I am sure that "fossil fuel industry" was never motivated by purely altruistic ideas, we have also to take in account that the standard of living we take for granted is in large part due to "fossil fuel industry and all other gross industrial polluters".
I do try to keep a low personal climate profile, but there is only so much each individual can do, while still being able to sustain a living under the current system.
Industry has been given a free pass for far too long, their pollution has been grandfathered in and even considered a necessary evil in the name of Holy Profit. But we are no longer so ignorant to their deleterious effect on our climate and (to put a point on it) the continued existence of humanity on this planet.
Corporations could have shaped up and improved their environmental profiles decades and decades ago, when climate scientists first started pointing out the problems. But their didn't, because it was more profitable to continue poisoning the environment and clear cutting the rainforests.
Personally I think they would just pass the price along. We'd then be back to protests in the streets of France because none of those people are idiots. Plus the idea that raising the price of energy won't have knock on effects on the rest of the economy seems doubtful.
In the long run, the solution is to completely rattle the very foundations of capitalism, but the world is not quite ready yet.
Even if the timing was very stupid (mixing it with a tax cut for very high income individuals to entice them to relocate to Paris from London post-Brexit, even if in the end that tax cut pays for itself), the French gov. tried to do the "right" thing, and it completely failed to communicate this. (As far as I know.)
The biggest reason was the tax cuts (which will not pay for themselves, that's nonsense like all trickle-down theory) and the complete slashing of public transit and transportation alternatives for people outside of Paris, Marseille etc.
Thanks to tax cuts and reforms, the people living in small towns and rural areas have literally no alternative, they have to use a car. So by trying to greenwash corrupt policies with a at-the-pump fuel tax, the French government would in effect be forcing a highly regressive tax on ordinary people, who are already struggling to make ends meet, while completely neglecting to deal with the highly polluting fossil fuel and transportation businesses.
It's not trickle down theory. Paris overtook London as the city with most high-net-worth individuals. Thus a lot of people are not paying taxes in Paris as opposed to London.
Though, of course, it depends how much money they end up actually paying compared to the lost revenue. But this is the one point that I can accept. The others are unacceptable, we are in agreement about them.
There is a lack of clarity of thinking, vision, a clear path forward. It makes me think of, although this is a weird analogy, the difference between how AlphaZero plays chess compared to traditional chess engines. AlphaZero plays with a strong sense of purpose and energy. Traditional engines seem to just... make some moves, trying to avoid mistakes without any high-level plan.
Another analogy is Elon Musk's companies (even though I don't like the guy personally). He's able to present coherent, clear vision and make people excited about following the progress of his companies.
In France, the government has spent beyond its means. But people want lower taxes, higher spending, more pensions.
The solution is crystal clear to anyone who isnt in the corporate media bubble. End the aforementioned policies.
This has stats on immigrants to France. As you can see, most are from Algeria, Europe, and Morroco. Further, it you investigate the sub saharan africa segment I'm quite sure you'll find it's almost exclusively from former French colonies.
The collapse of the Gaddafi regime certainly led to more migrant boats crossing, but the absolute numbers entering France are not high, and certainly not compared to other sources.
Oh, and the Algerians mostly came after the Algerian war. One of the biggest early groups were Algerians who had fought with the French army.
You appear to be very certain, but you don't seem to have any evidence to back up your views.
I googled "degaul algeria immigration". https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/quotes/charles-de-gaull...
>Do you think the French body politic can absorb ten million Muslims, who tomorrow will be twenty million, after tomorrow forty? If we integrated, if all the Arabs and Berbers of Algeria were considered French, would you prevent them to settle in France, where the standard of living is so much higher?
-Charles de Gaulle
Obviously deGaulle didnt agree with you that being a citizen of a colony gave someone the right to immigrate to France. Algerians being admitted to France for serving in the military is exactly what "invade the world invite the world" means. After the Iraq war Iraqis who collaborated with the occupiers got green cards.
True. Also, France played a big role in the (attempted but unsuccessful) destruction of Syria.
The leaders you seek are glaring you in the face, but you reject them because you buy into the lies about "right extremism" from the corporate media that got us here in the first place.
Surely there are no other similarities between the two though [1].
There is no coherent response to a long list of hard problems. We know China or Russia are threatening us. Extremist leaders are appearing in a lot of our western countries, including US, Australia, a lot of Europe, ... Big multinationals abuse and damage the core social contracts that provide the stability of our nations. A huge climate crisis is coming at us.
Meanwhile, our politicians are bickering amongst themselves. The problems of the 70's are fought with solutions of the 70's. I hate to see how people support right extremism, choose leaders that only damage them, but I do understand their frustration very well. It is clear something is not working.
Every time I hear politicians say how they know what needs to be done, but they will get voted out if they try. I don't believe this is true. A few times, I saw a few rare politicians make a sane proposal where they told voters there would be hurt in the short run, and most of them actually get chosen. I believe the average voter is ready for change. Only there is no politician decent enough to get their vote.
So where are you, leaders? We really need someone who has the daring to acknowledge the problem, the vision to dream big , the common sense to keep it possible, and to actually be capable of executing this vision. Not a small list, but not impossible either.
I'm not saying this proposal is the one final idea to rule them all, but at least it is some step in the right direction.