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Re:Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping by senttoschool on Monday April 03, 2023 @02:18AM (#35419217)
Out of curiosity, who do you want to have a big influence?
Re:Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping by auggierose on Monday April 03, 2023 @02:26AM (#35419295)
Not China, nor any other non-democratically governed country.
Re:Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping by sakisv on Monday April 03, 2023 @02:41AM (#35419412)
If I may point out here that if we take the word "democracy" at face value (i.e. That the ruling entity needs to have the support of the majority of demos) then most countries are really not democratically governed:

The people in charge get voted in by a minority of the people who go to vote - which gets even worse if you account for people who are eligible to vote but abstain.

Re:Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping by HWR_14 on Monday April 03, 2023 @03:07AM (#35419619)
> The people in charge get voted in by a minority of the people who go to vote

Except for a couple examples in the US, I'm not aware of democratic countries where this has actually occurred.

And in the US, it's not a common occurrence.

Re:Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping by andreiii on Monday April 03, 2023 @03:45AM (#35419922)
in almost any election in every European country the voter presence is 50% or below. I think that's what the comment was about... is just a small % of people that participate in voting and even smaller percentage that votes for the winner.
Re:Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping by suddenclarity on Monday April 03, 2023 @04:39AM (#35420367)
Average voter participation is 65% in european countries.
Re:Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping by HWR_14 on Monday April 03, 2023 @04:31AM (#35420302)
The quote I responded to was explicitly about a minority of people who opted into voting. Other parts of the comment included nonvoters, but that's a different discussion.
Re:Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping by ElFitz on Monday April 03, 2023 @05:54AM (#35420916)
> the voter presence is 50% or below

What do you mean by "voter presence"? And 50% of what? Of registered voters? Of people eligible to vote?

Because statistics would beg to differ. [^1]

It might hold for european elections [^2], as almost nobody seems to care about those, leading to a low turnout, but that definitely isn’t true about national elections.

[1]: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/11/these-countries-have-...

[2]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/05/27/europe...

Re:Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping by TheSpiceIsLife on Monday April 03, 2023 @03:46AM (#35419926)
Surely you've heard of Australia?

This paper discusses minority governments in Australia between 1989 and 2009, a period of two decades in which there have been at least ten examples of this political phenomenon in the Australian States and Territories.

https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/researchpapers/Pages/minor...

If I was paying any attention at all recently it was on the fact that we've had at least a few minority governments since 2009 also.

Finland is having a minority government now too:

With all of the votes counted on Sunday, the right-wing National Coalition party (NCP) won 20.8% of the vote, with the populist, nation-first Finns party scoring 20.1%. Marin’s SDP took 19.9% of the vote. Voter turnout was 71.9%.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/02/sanna-marin-fi...

Re:Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping by throwaway29812 on Monday April 03, 2023 @12:04PM (#35426185)
> (i.e. That the ruling entity needs to have the support of the majority of demos)

There is nothing undemocratic about federalist republics. Or parliamentary democracies that require coalitions to rule. They are simply different kinds of democracy.

Re:Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping by senttoschool on Monday April 03, 2023 @02:31AM (#35419330)
How about a flawed democracy?
Re:Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping by throwawaymaths on Monday April 03, 2023 @02:38AM (#35419386)
At least you can criticize it with a far lower risk of disappearing.
Re:Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping by aww_dang on Monday April 03, 2023 @02:39AM (#35419396)
Not "who", but "what".

Principled arguments which can openly compete and evolve in the marketplace of ideas. Probably not state actors of any flavor, but this isn't necessarily exclusive of them.