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Quote of the day by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel: 'I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible' — a foundational thesis of the new tech elite (www.techradar.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/boycottus@lemmy.ca
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[–] 1 point 4 months ago (3 children)

I have similar suspicions. "Democracy" tends to mean, "governed by corporations and foreign oligarchs" over time. It is extremely vulnerable to outside influence and depends on its constituents' conscientiousness to protect it from that influence. The study of human psychology and manipulation (or just call it mind control) keeps leaping forward, but democratic structures aren't benefiting from the advances and the gap is widening. Democratic methods work great when everyone knows each other and respects the process, and they don't really work in the presence of bad actors.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (2 children)

    That’s pretty much only because the idealized form of democracy in the West is a representative one, i.e. the people vote in a representative when a certain period of time passes and hope they don’t cave in to foreign interests/bribes.

    In a direct democracy, the people have a direct say in government policy and can make their interests known via regular votes and meetings. I’m not going to pretend like it’s a flawless form of democracy, but it’s definitely harder for bad actors to push their agenda if citizens can directly push back against that without any red tape getting in the way. Unfortunately even consideration of it is extremely rare in the world though.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    Do you have an example that supports your view? How does a system with thousands of votes a year survive the effects of voter inattention better than one that has one big one every four years?

    Something that came to my mind as a possible such example is open-source software. But I think that only maps in an analogous way, not literally.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

    For sure! Switzerland is definitely the biggest example, though there's also Liechtenstein and arguably Cuba (not saying it is outright). If I were to play devil's advocate I'd say that those are all semi direct democracies, though considering how abstracted they all are from representative democracies in general I'd also say that it hardly makes a difference from a relative standpoint.

    In Switzerland's case, there's no need to register directly as a voter, and every citizen has an opportunity to vote on various issues on about a quarterly basis, or 4 times per year. People can also vote on appending the constitution and can vote against bills approved by authorities. According to the Politics of Switzerland Wikipedia page:

    The people also assume a role similar to the constitutional court, which does not exist, and thus sovereignty resides with the people, who exercise supreme political power and act as the guardians of the rule of law. According to the V-Dem Democracy indices, Switzerland was, in 2024, the most participatory democratic country in the world and Freedom House has Switzerland as one of the freest countries in the world, scoring 39 out of 40 points on political rights, and 57 out of 60 on civil liberties for a total of 96 out of 100 in 2024.

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