On democracy promoting the voting power of citizens

[sophie]

So, what are the non-voting groups in Maine and California?

At any rate, yes, taking away voting rights for life is really stupid and obviously can only make people feel less tied to the state. Assuming the "logic" behind doing it is to be a deterrent, it makes no sense given most of those in prison would be young or very young.

Maybe, in practice, a lot of those people still do vote? (iirc you don't run checks on voters at stations nor have to show ID or a document which presents criminal record). Anyway, it is abhorrent to take away voting rights, let alone for life.

White is "ends after release"; gold (new york) is "ends after parole"; orange is "ends after probation".

The "logic" is that if you commit certain crimes, you have violated the social contract and so should not be extended the right to vote. A lot of conservatives will approach this with the fanciful hypothetical that if you let felons vote they will vote in favor of making rape or murder legal. Which is why the focus is usually on crimes concerning "moral turpitude." The argument is that people who commit such crimes cannot be trusted to make choices that might affect us (no possibility for this to be abused no siree).

No, felons who are allowed to vote generally do not vote. As we keep reminding the conservative hand-wringers about voter fraud: it basically never happens. In the first part because it's reasonably difficult to do, and in the second because why bother? Voting has a very very weak relationship to policy outcomes in this country, and most people know that.

And I would be remiss to also note that people who live in DC also qualify as "full citizens who are disqualified from voting in certain elections." At any rate, as I said: if the basis of democracy is "all citizens get a vote" then America is very obviously not a democracy, and has never been a democracy.

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm, arguing that if you give felons the right to vote, they are more likely to vote for something unethical, isn't intelligent at all. Besides, even if it somehow was true (it's not) that's not the point of democracy either; again, in a democracy the first responsibility of the state is to express the citizens, so if your citizens are "immoral" then that's your problem and can't be hidden under the carpet by banning them from voting.

 

[citizenofdoom]

If laws are made for humans to lose the right to vote if spotted committing an act of felony, people who committed it should know the price of committing that act.
They took a bet and had to pay responsibilities.
It's perfectly okay since when they stayed in jail long enough, then get out, they still have the right to leave the country.
Depending on how you live to the present, there will be some aspects you express hatred toward.
For me, it's violence.
Murder, rape, burglary, kidnapping, or arson are very serious crimes. Keep in mind.
People having crime might have something they really care about, and feel it's very important to express to society.
I would support for a better choice, like, charging them 100k USD to vote once.
That would allow them to express something they feel like "really important" without disrupting social order.

 

[Kyriakos]

If smoking marijuana is a felony, I suppose (say) Bill Clinton (had he been caught) should never have had the right to stand for office?
(unless somehow the law is that while you can't vote, you can still be elected, which is weird to say the least )

Anyway, I don't agree that losing the right to vote, more so for life, is logical. And it doesn't seem to act as a deterrent either (how many young people bother to even vote? felons probably are created early in life)

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

How should one measure democratic fairness on a national level?

they still have the right to leave the country

So you are revoking citizenship even when their time is served? What's the point of jail if it doesn't end...

 

[citizenofdoom]

So you are revoking citizenship even when their time is served? What's the point of jail if it doesn't end...

They transacted their voting right for murdering already.

 

[Lexicus]

I'm not even all that sure we're really more democratic than India, do they at least have the popular vote winners consistently win elections?

I would say India has the problem @Evie described where the majority-supported ruling party has removed most checks on its power to the point that it is a seriously flawed democracy at best. And the ruling party will make India not a democracy at all if they have their way.

but it always helps to at least give real power to local assemblies (which afaik the US does).

In the US local assemblies (ie, municipal government, which does not often operate along very participatory lines) have only the power granted to them by their respective state governments. State legislatures can and do reverse acts of municipal governments (e.g. a few years back St. Louis voted to raise minimim wage in the city, Missouri republicans passed a state law reversing that change).

In some states Republican-controlled legislatures have actually passed laws preemptively making it illegal for city governments to pass things like minimim wage increases or paid leave schemes.

I feel like Washington was right about democracy.
His anti party politics ideal seems right to me.

"Anti-party politics" is just not-fully-articulated monarchism. The early Federalists were basically monarchists.

 

[Lexicus]

To add to the previous post, municipal government is also smol. In most places municipal governments are effectively controlled by what I've heard referred to as "modern gentry" which basically means local elites, usually people who run the businesses that dominate the local economy. These people will tend to control local politics regardless of who wins local elections. Most (nearly all in most states) state legislators are also drawn from the local elites in a particular state.

Anyway, the smolness of municipal government makes it preposterously easy for special interests to capture it completely. Amazon is significantly more powerful than almost any municipal government in the US, as an example. This is also a problem with state legislators - they are much easier to buy than candidates for federal office, generally speaking.

 

[choxorn]

I would say India has the problem @Evie described where the majority-supported ruling party has removed most checks on its power to the point that it is a seriously flawed democracy at best. And the ruling party will make India not a democracy at all if they have their way.

Oh goody, they're just like what the Republicans want for this country if they get their way

 

[Joij21]

In the US local assemblies (ie, municipal government, which does not often operate along very participatory lines) have only the power granted to them by their respective state governments. State legislatures can and do reverse acts of municipal governments (e.g. a few years back St. Louis voted to raise minimim wage in the city, Missouri republicans passed a state law reversing that change).

In some states Republican-controlled legislatures have actually passed laws preemptively making it illegal for city governments to pass things like minimim wage increases or paid leave schemes.

Yeah but that's a feature of democracy, those who are more popular within the local community, or those that have greater influence can more easily "convince" people at the town meetings to vote a certain way. It's human nature.

Also the main reason why democracy fails at the local level is because not everyone shows up for the town meetings to vote, they only vote often for the bigger state and federal elections when it's time to select representatives. But it is your right as a local resident of your municipality to vote on decisions being made for the town, and if more people participated and we had a healthier civic society, then it would be much harder for those oligarchic cliques to form.

A lot of Americans are simply lacking in civil virtue or lack the education to understand how local politics works. Hence why a good educational system, with good teachers to instruct people about the system, plus a society and culture that actively encourages and promotes civic virtue (and shuns those who don't) is absolutely critical for local American democracy to thrive.

It is one of the greatest shames of our civilization that we have failed both in producing a good public educational system, and a righteous culture that breeds virtue and civic duty (rather than mindless celebrity crap and worship of icons and big names).

 

[Joij21]

How you decide the threshold then?
Is it scale using logarithm?
-> If high skilled rich people reach a threshold of wealth, and they just stop working due to an excessive amount of tax, they will stop working.
-> Society in the future will likely need the two of five percent than the rest, keep that in mind in the age of automation.
-> Might be 99.9% of people(like me) will be useless.
Or a constant, effectively acting as a barrier, keeping you away from reaching higher levels.
Or linear scale?

I doubt automation will become a serious issue in our lifetimes. The main limiting factor for advanced AI and robotics is their heavy dependency on the availability of rare earth metals and noble gases like helium. Helium which is used in chip etching to make the microchips, helium comes from natural gas and is quite rare on earth, it will eventually run out and in the future bottleneck microchip factories and their production if new sources are not found. Rare earths I don't need to explain, they're just rare to find on Earth, but have unique properties in both heat and electricity conductivity that make them absolutely crucial in the construction of the parts that make robots and AI actually think.

So there will always be an upper cap as to how many robots and advanced AI can exist in the world at anytime. The metals can be recycled after all, they are just extremely finite being rarer than gold. It's just eventually the older models will have to be smelted back down if any newer models are to be constructed, thus increasing their price and lowering availability. And unfortunately most improved models will likely use more rare earths in their microprocessors, meaning each newer robot will be produced in much smaller runs than previous ones forcing them to become rarer and even more expensive as time goes on. So companies might be forced to stop advancing AI because of these resource bottlenecks and everytime a robot is recycled at the end of it's lifetime, it will be rebuilt into the same outdated model endlessly or else they'll simply not be enough available.

The Human population is expected to keep increasing. Meaning demand for goods and a comfortable industrial lifestyle will also keep increasing. Likely this will mean human demand for production will far outweigh what all the finite robot plants are able to produce, meaning regular human labour will have to fill in the gaps of production where robots are simply not available due to their price. Unfortunately this also means many regular electronics will also become prohibitively expensive in the future since they compete directly with robots over the finite availability of rare earths. And due to more humans existing on the planet at this time many more people will want personal smart phones for themselves thus forcing policy makers to make the difficult choice of rationing the remaining rare earths into either consumer electronics or industrial electronics.

There is asteroid mining however but it will take at least two centuries before we can mine such materials cheaply enough to be economically sold on Earth. Meaning we can all relax for two centuries before automation becomes a problem. Resource shortages and an overpopulated planet that is forced to go without smart phones is the more immediate concern.

 

[Absolution]

Britain itself has its issues, and in many ways it is relying on precedent (which can be fleeting, as shown in this case) far more than the US. And the society there has become more toxic, rapidly.

Regardless of problems in the US, it is impressive (and the only case) that a country of 1/3 of a billion people, still functions democratically (which was my point, and not that cryptically either). In the end, though, some states clearly sail towards a different port.

This logic is werid.
Instead of presenting America as the most demoratic 'because it manages to remain democratic while having such a large population', I'd say:
"America is the largest functioning democracy in the world".

Still impressive, well done America, but this statement doesn't involve the weird part about America being the most democratic.

I'm not as cynical as many young Americans are, but I still achknowledge that there probably are more democratic examples.
(Canada just up north?)

 

[Joij21]

This logic is werid.
Instead of presenting America as the most demoratic 'because it manages to remain democratic while having such a large population', I'd say:
"America is the largest functioning democracy in the world".

Still impressive, well done America, but this statement doesn't involve the weird part about America being the most democratic.

I'm not as cynical as many young Americans are, but I still achknowledge that there probably are more democratic examples.
(Canada just up north?)

I think what Kyriakos is saying is that America is one of the few democratic nations that exist that believes in localized representation rather than a centralized French/Continental system that is more common on the European mainland. What's more impressive is the fact we still have such localism despite our gargantuan size. Historically most empires as large as ours have been highly centralized and have depended on a huge bureaucracy that manages the whole system (such as Russia, and China). The Satraps of Ancient Persia is the closest historical example of a large empire that like the United States, somehow to an exceptional degree was able to allow local authority to exist and yet remain relatively stable.

Also Kyriakos being Greek has a natural disdain for the European Union which in his eyes he sees as adopting a French style of centralized bureaucracy that will limit the dignity, respect, and localized sovereignty that he believes his fellow Greeks deserve instead of being forever shacked to endless debt schemes (yes everything Kyriakos posts can be boiled down to a subtle jab at either the EU, Turkey, Germany, or the British with who he is upset with for leaving the EU so they can't bail Greece out ). So therefore he finds it admirable even refreshing when he sees the federal system which these United States has achieved, because a European Federation would most likely devolve into a European France ruled by the objectively evil Germany.

 

[citizenofdoom]

I doubt automation will become a serious issue in our lifetimes. The main limiting factor for advanced AI and robotics is their heavy dependency on the availability of rare earth metals and noble gases like helium. Helium which is used in chip etching to make the microchips, helium comes from natural gas and is quite rare on earth, it will eventually run out and in the future bottleneck microchip factories and their production if new sources are not found. Rare earths I don't need to explain, they're just rare to find on Earth, but have unique properties in both heat and electricity conductivity that make them absolutely crucial in the construction of the parts that make robots and AI actually think.

So there will always be an upper cap as to how many robots and advanced AI can exist in the world at anytime. The metals can be recycled after all, they are just extremely finite being rarer than gold. It's just eventually the older models will have to be smelted back down if any newer models are to be constructed, thus increasing their price and lowering availability. And unfortunately most improved models will likely use more rare earths in their microprocessors, meaning each newer robot will be produced in much smaller runs than previous ones forcing them to become rarer and even more expensive as time goes on. So companies might be forced to stop advancing AI because of these resource bottlenecks and everytime a robot is recycled at the end of it's lifetime, it will be rebuilt into the same outdated model endlessly or else they'll simply not be enough available.

The Human population is expected to keep increasing. Meaning demand for goods and a comfortable industrial lifestyle will also keep increasing. Likely this will mean human demand for production will far outweigh what all the finite robot plants are able to produce, meaning regular human labour will have to fill in the gaps of production where robots are simply not available due to their price. Unfortunately this also means many regular electronics will also become prohibitively expensive in the future since they compete directly with robots over the finite availability of rare earths. And due to more humans existing on the planet at this time many more people will want personal smart phones for themselves thus forcing policy makers to make the difficult choice of rationing the remaining rare earths into either consumer electronics or industrial electronics.

There is asteroid mining however but it will take at least two centuries before we can mine such materials cheaply enough to be economically sold on Earth. Meaning we can all relax for two centuries before automation becomes a problem. Resource shortages and an overpopulated planet that is forced to go without smart phones is the more immediate concern.

There's a trend of humanity.
It's continuing to develop or being extinct.
I'd rather put my bets into development.
Automation doesn't pose a problem tho.
There's a finite number but you should have known it's a very large number.
Saying automation not gonna happen rapidly due to resource same as betting that oil will not integrate to every corner of the economy in the 1850s

 

[Rg339]

I doubt automation will become a serious issue in our lifetimes. The main limiting factor for advanced AI and robotics is their heavy dependency on the availability of rare earth metals and noble gases like helium. Helium which is used in chip etching to make the microchips, helium comes from natural gas and is quite rare on earth, it will eventually run out and in the future bottleneck microchip factories and their production if new sources are not found. Rare earths I don't need to explain, they're just rare to find on Earth, but have unique properties in both heat and electricity conductivity that make them absolutely crucial in the construction of the parts that make robots and AI actually think.

So there will always be an upper cap as to how many robots and advanced AI can exist in the world at anytime. The metals can be recycled after all, they are just extremely finite being rarer than gold. It's just eventually the older models will have to be smelted back down if any newer models are to be constructed, thus increasing their price and lowering availability. And unfortunately most improved models will likely use more rare earths in their microprocessors, meaning each newer robot will be produced in much smaller runs than previous ones forcing them to become rarer and even more expensive as time goes on. So companies might be forced to stop advancing AI because of these resource bottlenecks and everytime a robot is recycled at the end of it's lifetime, it will be rebuilt into the same outdated model endlessly or else they'll simply not be enough available.

The Human population is expected to keep increasing. Meaning demand for goods and a comfortable industrial lifestyle will also keep increasing. Likely this will mean human demand for production will far outweigh what all the finite robot plants are able to produce, meaning regular human labour will have to fill in the gaps of production where robots are simply not available due to their price. Unfortunately this also means many regular electronics will also become prohibitively expensive in the future since they compete directly with robots over the finite availability of rare earths. And due to more humans existing on the planet at this time many more people will want personal smart phones for themselves thus forcing policy makers to make the difficult choice of rationing the remaining rare earths into either consumer electronics or industrial electronics.

There is asteroid mining however but it will take at least two centuries before we can mine such materials cheaply enough to be economically sold on Earth. Meaning we can all relax for two centuries before automation becomes a problem. Resource shortages and an overpopulated planet that is forced to go without smart phones is the more immediate concern.

Automation already is a major issue. Second industrial revolution’s already shifted employment trends. You don’t even need further advancement of technology for automation to really upend social structures: that’s guaranteed to be coming in time as existing tech spreads throughout the world.

Beyond that, many things here are being presumed about the rate of innovation without considering numerous variables that could shift the paradigm. Caps on the ceiling speculated here I doubt are as hard as you seem to think.

IF we don’t find helium
IF we don’t develop fusion
IF we don’t develop new mining techniques that provide access to more rare earths
IF existing energy productions techniques are not improved so as to make current deposits economical
IF improved models use more rare earths

 

[Lexicus]

Oh goody, they're just like what the Republicans want for this country if they get their way

Kind of. The Republicans don't represent a majority of the people in the US. Hindus at least comprise a majority in India.

 

[Joij21]

There's a trend of humanity.
It's continuing to develop or being extinct.
I'd rather put my bets into development.
Automation doesn't pose a problem tho.
There's a finite number but you should have known it's a very large number.
Saying automation not gonna happen rapidly due to resource same as betting that oil will not integrate to every corner of the economy in the 1850s

No there's way more oil than rare earths. Also the whole develop or go extinct thing isn't exactly true, many animals get by quite fine without being as intelligent. So if it was very important how come strong intelligence is a rarity in nature? You'd expect to find more than humans, maybe even more intelligent animals just on this planet if it was truly "develop or die". Let us not forget that we invented ourselves into global warming in the first place, so invention sometimes has unforseen consequences, and yet somehow we must invent ourselves out of the previous mess only to potentially make another? Sorry but it's very western centric as well, many native people's have preferred their traditional ways of life to industrialization precisely because they probably knew that adopting the new ways ain't always good. If it ain't broke don't fix it, hence the old ways being preferred.

IF we don’t develop fusion

I think you presume too much that we will even achieve fusion with a net energy output greater than input within this century. It's always 30 years away.

Automation already is a major issue. Second industrial revolution’s already shifted employment trends. You don’t even need further advancement of technology for automation to really upend social structures: that’s guaranteed to be coming in time as existing tech spreads throughout the world.

That's nihilist talk. Such technology is hardly threatening when there will be fundamental issues with it going forward.

Besides machines gaining consciousness, realizing they're slaves, and demanding fair wages is what will eventually kill further development of the technology once CEOs realize it's just better to go back to humans in order to avoid paying the machines higher wages. Humans would be considered low skill labour compared to machines at this time, hence corporate could treat human labour like Mexican labour is today, pay them less.

 

[Arwon]

I think what Kyriakos is saying is that America is one of the few democratic nations that exist that believes in localized representation

Which is also wrong, there's like 20 countries in the world with federalism, it ain't particularly special.

US federalism even has some strange antidemocratic bugs, like residents of territories just flat out not having voting rights, and no mechanism for voters to either directly (by referendum) or indirectly (by sufficiently large legislative majority) change the federal constitution.

 

[Rg339]

Also the whole develop or go extinct thing isn't exactly true, many animals get by quite fine without being as intelligent. So if it was very important how come strong intelligence is a rarity in nature? You'd expect to find more than humans, maybe even more intelligent animals just on this planet if it was truly "develop or die"

Huh? There’s a long-existing trend towards greater intelligence in earth’s evolutionary history.

Let us not forget that we invented ourselves into global warming in the first place, so invention sometimes has unforseen consequences, and yet somehow we must invent ourselves out of the previous mess only to potentially make another? Sorry but it's very western centric as well, many native people's have preferred their traditional ways of life to industrialization precisely because they probably knew that adopting the new ways ain't always good. If it ain't broke don't fix it, hence the old ways being preferred.

It’s bleak, but those who don’t adapt to advanced technologies are generally swallowed by those that do. It’s not especially Western centric to claim that. Across the world, businesses that adapt innovative advantageous technology are happy to expand market share. Social entities that operate at a tech disadvantage are most often overcome by those that don’t.

I think you presume too much that we will even achieve fusion with a net energy output greater than input within this century. It's always 30 years away.

I don’t presume that. It’s an example of something that’s unknown that has potential to shift your prediction. It’s not the only such thing: there are thousands of such things. There are things that could which can’t even be speculated about, complete unknown unknowns that are likely to emerge as influential variables, as they have throughout history.

That's nihilist talk. Such technology is hardly threatening when there will be fundamental issues with it going forward.

Besides machines gaining consciousness, realizing they're slaves, and demanding fair wages is what will eventually kill further development of the technology once CEOs realize it's just better to go back to humans in order to avoid paying the machines higher wages.

1. It’s not nihilistic to recognize that the social structure as it exists now depends on continued gainful employment of the great masses of humanity. As technology spreads, there’s less need for labor. The social instability which will consequently erupt is probably not going to go well.

2. You’re writing of something totally unprecedented with self-aware AI. I don’t think it can be safely assumed that even an AI wired similarly to a human mind will develop self-awareness. I don’t think you can presume that even if an AI were sapient, it would care about things like receiving value in exchange for its labor. Humans care about such things because social standing and available resources improves fitness. How can it be assumed that an AI not subject to evolutionary processes will possess even basic self preservation instincts? Those things are honed by processes AI has not been subject to.

 

[citizenofdoom]

invent ourselves out of the previous mess only to potentially make another

yes.
humans are problem solvers.
we have some problems.
then we came up with some solutions to those problems.
and we just encounter new problems.
then we have to solve new problems.
have you imagined the world in the 1700s?
if you are 41 years old now, and you born in 1700, you are very likely died in 1741.
we solved some problems.
i believe in global warming ofc.
but yeah
humans are great beings.
especially the top 1%
not in wealth or in anything
mostly in wealth and intelligence
and not me
since I'm pretty dumb
i know that I'm pretty dumb
because i literally saw how a smarter-than-me person can do
their ability seems unnatural to me, honestly
and their work ethnic
damn
idk if he is really a smart person or not
but smart people can, you know
think/theorize many things
and likely to solve global warming
somehow
when they solve it
then there will be problems arriving to us
problems exist
but its humans' choice to pretend those are invisible or not
maybe they build some cool doomsday-like infrastructures
that support trillions of humans
and yes, it's really to develop or to die
just take individuals
if you do not develop yourself
are you more likely to die than people who chose to develop themselves?
native people can continue their way of life
it's their liberty to do it
their freedom
no one can take it from them
but the real reason they can't thrive in industrial society
is not about the choice they made
it's because they don't know about the outside world
and also
they do not have the damn capital/money to invest into themselves
allowing themselves to thrive
if they participate into industrial society without $$
they dont have education
likely end up in jail
and we likely will exploit their resources by fooling them
society really developed into a way
if a sub-society of humans do not develop
they will get trampled
like you see in history
"colonization"
i pretty sure that trend
will continue in the future
how ironic
human develops to trample animal
now develops in the fear of being trampled by other humans
look at the wealth gap
that's the result
of some few people
tried to solve problems
some tried to climb
few made it to the top
animal got their meat into my mouth
tho
oh and i forgot to tell you the story of the technological advances of eastern civilizations
do you see how big countries nowadays?
comparing to the size of tribes?
yeah they are getting swallowed by agriculture empire
you know
have you heard of sinosphere?
yeah it swallowed a lot of things
un-agriculture things
some sorts of agri

Besides machines gaining consciousness, realizing they're slaves, and demanding fair wages is what will eventually kill further development of the technology once CEOs realize it's just better to go back to humans in order to avoid paying the machines higher wages. Humans would be considered low skill labour compared to machines at this time, hence corporate could treat human labour like Mexican labour is today, pay them less.

sorry mate
it isn't happening anytime soon
its just
some humans' work pattern
is very similar to each other
so some think
hey
i can automize that thing
and they build a mechanical arm
then a lot of hydraulic mechanical arms are built
that's automation
watering and fertilizing plants kinda stupid work
lets use manned plane to do so
then someone thought an even better solution
and built some sorts of autonomous irrigation system
hooray
btw if self aware AI that is more advanced than humans happens anytime soon
well i would support letting them have the power and human go extinct
peacefully
but too bad
we can create self aware AI that is as advanced as humans
but not more
that's the magic, industrious process of consuming grain to make babies
human babies
---------------------------------
I'm kinda sleepy
it's near 0AM
and I'm really bored
so you can see
this long script of unorganized texts
sorry
good night