How do you respond when people bring up Mao Zedong killing sparrows and causing a famine that killed "millions"?

The opposite of democratic. It’s a gradient. The people of a nation either has equal influence on how the nation is run, you have something in between or a very small minority has all the power.

The extreme where everyone have equal influence (impossible in reality) is perfect democracy. The extreme where a single person has all the influence, is an perfect authoritarian. Then you draw rough lines at points where the democracy is as good as you can possibly get, a flawed democracy, authoritarianism light, etc, depending on how unequal the influence is between people.

Also, I am not the one who you originally replied to.

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diegeticscream[all]🔻@lemmygrad.ml

0 points

1 year ago

The opposite of democratic. It’s a gradient. The people of a nation either has equal influence on how the nation is run, you have something in between or a very small minority has all the power.

Where are you getting this definition from? It doesn’t match what I’ve seen.

The extreme where everyone have equal influence (impossible in reality) is perfect democracy. The extreme where a single person has all the influence, is an perfect authoritarian. Then you draw rough lines at points where the democracy is as good as you can possibly get, a flawed democracy, authoritarianism light, etc, depending on how unequal the influence is between people.

I’m not clear on how you’re determining which flawed political project is “as good as you can possibly get”. Is there some non-authoritarian political project you support? If not, is there a level of authoritarianism you find acceptable?

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ydieb@lemmy.world

-1 points

1 year ago

You are trying to be way too specific in your counter questions for it to ever be meaningful. A better question would be, why isn’t it possible to get a perfect democracy.

The answer is simple, if you have any influence over another person, it’s already not perfect. As in a well spoken person at any workplace can voice their support for certain policies and create a higher influence for some stated ideas than a person being silent.

Your final question does not make sense. The point is to try to find more and more democratic systems regardless of initial conditions. Forced transparency for people in power for example increases democracy, nice, then we do it.

I have not stated any specifics on what constitutes what to what degree, I only defined the entire solution space. So it’s no wonder it’s not clear.

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diegeticscream[all]🔻@lemmygrad.ml

0 points

1 year ago

You are trying to be way too specific in your counter questions for it to ever be meaningful. A better question would be, why isn’t it possible to get a perfect democracy.

I’m trying to use the specific questions as a rhetorical device, so that you can’t avoid defending your position with a vague out like this:

I have not stated any specifics on what constitutes what to what degree, I only defined the entire solution space. So it’s no wonder it’s not clear.

Your final question does not make sense. The point is to try to find more and more democratic systems regardless of initial conditions. Forced transparency for people in power for example increases democracy, nice, then we do.

I’m trying to get you to argue for the political system you support. I’m frankly not very clear on your explanation of an authoritarian gradient, but it’s very common for “anti-authoritarians” to support a wide range of things that are very authoritarian.

I’d like to highlight one bit you said:

The point is to try to find more and more democratic systems regardless of initial conditions.

This is basically the goal of the political philosophy of Marxism-leninism. Like, idk if we have much to argue about if that’s your goal.

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ydieb@lemmy.world

0 points

1 year ago

I’m trying to use the specific questions as a rhetorical device, so that you can’t avoid defending your position with a vague out like this:

I can’t avoid defending my position? I havent stated my position… How can you attack something I havent even stated. I just stated the only possible solutionspace which is valid regardless of position. Go watch Rules for Rulers by CGPgrey, it gives a better description than what I can.

This is basically the goal of the political philosophy of Marxism-leninism. Like, idk if we have much to argue about if that’s your goal.

What are you talking about? I have absolutly no idea what “Marxism-leninism” is, so this label means nothing to me. The possible combinations of political policies is WAY larger than the total combinations of a list of political philosophists… So trying to collapse it any position into these few labels is just crude.

You state “but it’s very common for “anti-authoritarians” to support a wide range of things that are very authoritarian” and then point at my “The point is to try to find more and more democratic systems regardless of initial conditions”. You are literally saying that trying to make society more democratic is authoritarian. There is absolutly no logic to this and you need to really clear up your ideas, cause and effect, because that does not compute in any universe.

So I agree, using a math metaphore, if we are discussion any solution, but you have made up your own axioms, then you can never get a good understanding, because your priors are incompatible with eachother.

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