You are much more likely to die on the toilet than you are to die of a gunshot wound. This does not mean guns are safer than toilets.
That's because people spend more time on the toilet than at gunpoint on average.
Damage = Dangerousness * Number
Lowercase-d democrats have also done more good in the world than flat-earthers, and caused more change in the world with unclear value.
Very well, I'll bite. What do you propose as an alternative? How does your alternative solve the current issues?
And since "people are too dumb" for us to adopt direct democracy is a legitimate complaint, it might be a good idea to address that problem simultaneously. Teaching epistemology and logic to the masses would yield massive benefits across the board imho.
You backpaddled. So you still want democracy? What you actually want is to organise a coup. A shadow government that one day replaces the official one. You want a coup.
In your initial comment you complained about democracy itself therefore signaling you would prefer a totalitarian regime. Wanting a coup and a totalitarian regimes goes hand in hand.
> Teaching epistemology and logic to the masses would yield massive benefits across the board imho.
Very well, do it!
Maybe then you will realise this last comment is word salad.
No, I didn't.
> So you still want democracy?
Actual democracy, yes.
> What you actually want is to organise a coup. A shadow government that one day replaces the official one. You want a coup.
coup: a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government.
Technically, you are dealing with your imagination of what I want - I do not desire this, and no such claim exists in the text that I wrote.
> In your initial comment you complained about democracy itself therefore signaling you would prefer a totalitarian regime. Wanting a coup and a totalitarian regimes goes hand in hand.
Consider carefully this word: "signalling". What does it mean in this context, precisely?
>> Teaching epistemology and logic to the masses would yield massive benefits across the board imho.
> Very well, do it!
How am I doing so far?
> Maybe then you will realise this last comment is word salad.
This sounds like a fun epistemological exercise: do you have the ability to articulate why that comment "is" "word salad"? Do you mean this in a comprehensive sense...it "is" "word salad" to all observers, or do you actually only know that it appears that way (as opposed to "is") to yourself?
1. By backpedalling I mean that at first you said "As are people who blindly support "democracy" and the subsequent actions that are taken by the people elected (typically re-elected) "by the people"." and afterwards you said "develop a new system for implementing democracy". If you claim that people blindly support democracy, you imply that democracy is a bad thing and afterwards. Furthermore, by using "democracy" and "by the people" in scare quotes, you are implying you are not satisfied with election results. Afterwards, you claim you are actually in support of democracy. If you are against representative republics and prefer direct democracy, then say so and don't complain that people blindly support democracy.
2. "grassroots initiative is started with the intent to develop a new system for implementing democracy, the goal being to run in parallel with the current system and then one day replace it" There is no conceivable situation in which a government would accept a paralel government to function. The only plausible way for governance to switch is abruptly, either peacefully (a monarch abdicating, a change following a referendum, etc.) of by force (a coup or a revolution). The notion that a government would create a situation in which all state institutions would answer two masters is absurd. And I believe it shows that you do not understand what a government actually is.
3. I should not have used the word "signaling". I forgot it is a loaded term in English. I meant "implying". And I believe that your initial comment (in which you compare democracy believers with flat earthers in terms of dumbness, you complain about the validity of elections and blame military incursions on them) paints a clear picture. Based on the military adventures part you are referring either to the USA, Russia or China. Since we can rule out China as undemocratic and Rusia as a non-functional pretend-democracy that leaves only the USA. In this case, since you are using the scare quotes with regards to elections, you are implying that you are unhappy that Biden won over Trump. You are implying you believe the election was stolen.
4. "Teaching epistemology and logic to the masses" how are you doing so far? I would say zero progress. I am ridiculing the idea that you find it feasible to propose such a thing. If teaching anything to the masses would have been anywhere close to easy, humanity would not be in the mess it is today. You truly believe you can teach ... TO THE MASSES. Go for it. If you succeed that will earn you at least a Nobel prise. I believe the existence of flat earthers proves the opposite. It is possible to teach many people, but not the masses. Some people are immutable in their determination to not learn.
5. This is what I meant by word salad. You display a lack of understanding about governments and about the ease of teaching people which leads you to propose absurd solutions.
6. If what you want is actually a transition to a direct democracy in which the citizens assume responsibility, that is actually plausible to achieve. But not by creating a shadow government and not through a pie-in-the-sky teaching project.
Stranger, can you articulate why people shouldn't discuss this aspect of reality? Are there some specific ideas in here that you'd like to keep out of public discourse?
Complaining about individual pain points is helpful. No past present or future democracy is perfect. There is plenty that can be improved.
Complaining about democracy means you want to bring about totalitarism or theocracy or something else.
Are the members of "something else" similarly distasteful to "totalitarism or theocracy"?
Racism and xenophobia on the other hand...
On democracy, I really like this quote: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” Democracy gives equal merit to the intelligent, the stupid, and the wilfully ignorant. This is the best we can do?
If you want a somewhat uniquely American critical-thinking-eschewing topic: Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism. That's a land mine I like to step on occasionally to gauge the current sensitivity.
Also: war and economic dominance conducted by democratic countries, decade after decade, whose citizens seem to exist in some sort of a state of hypnosis where they seem fascinated by trivial matters like flat earthers, but have little more than platitudes or "nothing can be done" when it comes to actual harm, which their tax dollars and political complacency support, indefinitely.
~~ Winston Churchill.
As are people who blindly support "democracy" and the subsequent actions that are taken by the people elected (typically re-elected) "by the people". Maybe flat earthers are dumber on a relative scale, but it would be interesting to see how things look on an absolute scale.
> I mean something specific about stupid. Not just wrong, not just ignorant, but actively and self-assuredly wrong, often to their own detriment. Beware stupid people in large numbers.
And more important than their relative intelligence: who causes more harm in the world (say, measured in body count in foreign military adventures)?