*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Mitchell-and-Webb-God-asks-for-sacrifice

This video has been nominated as a duplicate of this video by Ornthoron. If this nomination is seconded with *isdupe, the video will be killed and its votes transferred to the original.

Agreed.

Reminded me of this Mitchell and Webb skit - his comment at the end about having children is spot on - we need to enable young people to achieve things that are real achievements.
>> ^bareboards2:

Somehow, we need to teach these kids Hope. Pride in something bigger than making a baby (both the boys and girls).
>> ^Skeeve:
The girl does say that there should be classes that teach the girls about protection and about not getting pregnant so I imagine it is a bit of both.

>> ^gorillaman:

Here we are with our downvotes and promote powers, an elite of an elite, privileged members of the internet class, which is itself already practically superhuman, talking about our democratic website? LOL.

I'm noticing that you aren't really responding to my argument, but instead are trying to declare Videosift...what? An oligarchy? An Aristocracy? Totally devoid of any wisdom of crowds?

I've never really seen downvotes make a difference when it comes to getting on the Top 15. Hell, I can't even remember the last time I saw a video get more than 3 downvotes.

All promote and quality do is increase exposure. They can make a difference between a video "sifting" instead of going to pqueue, and it can pad the number of votes it gets after it hits the Top 15, but I doubt you could get, say, a video of silent blackness into the top 15 purely with quality and promote.

>> ^gorillaman:
The misconception I see in your posts is this arbitrary distinction between the oppressors and the oppressed. The average man on the street is as guilty today as the plutocrat with his snout in the trough, because if their positions were reversed they'd each behave in the same way.

It's not a misconception, it's that I disagree with your assertion. I doubt reversal would make no difference. In any case, my aim isn't to "reverse" their positions, but to equalize them.

>> ^gorillaman:
Accountability to 'the people' is hardly a check on corruption if the people themselves are corrupt.

The theory is, if people vote for politician A, and A does things that fuck them over, they can vote for another politician next time. To use the favorite conservative example, you can't raise taxes with impunity, because if people don't think it's justified, they'll vote you out. Get rid of the vote, and those eeevil government bureaucrats can raise taxes, and spend all of it on palaces for themselves instead of healthcare. The only "accountability" valve then comes in terms of an armed rebellion.

You're vaguely alluding to a tyranny of the majority issue, but in practice every tyranny I can think of has been a "tyranny of the elite".

>> ^gorillaman:
There's a linguistic issue here as well. Over time 'democracy' has become perversely synonymous with 'freedom'. There's an essential difference between taking power away and taking freedom away. Power here means the power to enforce ones will over others, freedom is the freedom from the power of others. Removing power from the majority will actually increase their freedom.

Again, it's not a linguistic issue, it's that you disagree with other people's feelings about democracy. Maybe that's justified, maybe it's not, but it's not that people don't understand what the words mean.

As for freedom vs. power, it's a slippery thing. I'd say they're synonymous in this context in a lot of ways.

Do I have the ability to own a house because I'm "free" to do so, or because I have the power that comes from having the talents to build a decent career for myself? Or am I "free" to have land like this because the government is ensuring that my property rights will be respected? Or am I somehow a slave to the majority because I pay taxes to a democratic government?

>> ^gorillaman:
Look at the progress of this thread. I don't see much ideological territory left to the democrats, squeezed as you are from both sides. While dft lectures blanarchist on the need for a government to protect free men from one another, you want to turn around and give those same men a stake in that same government with all its might and authority. Even on the site of your last stand - the desperate, impossible compromise of constitution, you admit to massive deception and malfeasance and even in the strongest and best designed democratic state an apparently irredeemable collapse. With all this you still believe democracy is moral? It amounts to a kind of political stockholm syndrome.


For all the proclamations of victory, I notice that the vast majority of that paragraph refers to things people other than me have said. I haven't used the word "constitution" until just now, for example.

I do think the US's implementation of democracy is headed for a collapse. Not because people left to their own devices slit their own throats (which you seem to think is inevitable), but instead because a wealthy elite has effectively subverted the mechanics of democracy.

So you say to me, as the elite stands over our wounded democracy, choking the last life out of it, that this is proof that the corruption and stupidity of the people has finally led to democracy's demise, and demand that we empower the elite to rule over us.

That's Stockholm syndrome.

Hell, you have yet to even try to explain what it is you're really suggesting, beyond that you want Superman and the Justice League to come and save us from ourselves. Not only that, you want them to totally ignore what we might say about their edicts, lest our filthy corruptness infect them.

>> ^gorillaman:

@NetRunner
One hates to nit-pick, but if self-scrutinising governments are bound to fail where does that leave democracy, where everyone's the government?

I think you're glossing over a key difference. In democracy, everyone is bound by the laws of government, but the government is accountable to all the people bound by those laws. In your system, everyone is bound by the laws of the government, but the government is only accountable to certain special people.

Again, I'm not of the position that democracy can't become an oligarchy, but it takes completely undermining people's understanding of the basic institution before it can fully be subverted.

>> ^gorillaman:
In fact an intellectual authority, as well as itself serving as an oversight body, over the depredations of the mob; can have whatever accountability measures, separation of powers and so forth it needs. It would be better capable of implementing and maintaining those measures than any alternative.

Again, you say authority should rest in the hands of some group of intellectuals over the rest of us. What keeps the intellectuals concerned with the welfare of "the mob"? The goodness of their hearts?

It seems like it's a lot easier to corrupt the kind of closed system you're talking about. It sounds like purely a recipe for corruption.

>> ^gorillaman:
In any case shouldn't the goals of the wisest among us determine those of society and its government? If not theirs then whose?

Who's the wisest among us? Wisest according to who?

Our current ruling class are all convinced of their own infinite wisdom, why should plebes like us have any right to question that?

>> ^gorillaman:
This is my alternative to democratic principles, which seem to be, and you'll forgive the dramatisation: 'Let's get as many morons together as we can - they're bound to make good decisions. The more morons the better.' It goes against all logic and experience.


You're on a website that ranks videos purely via a democratic rating system. What's your opinion of the Top 15?

It seems to me that they're almost universally interesting videos. I don't think even a council of the Top 15 users could pull that off on a consistent basis.

How about user ratings of products on Amazon? I often find them more useful than professional reviews of products these days.

Internet crowdsourcing like that seems to be working the way a small-d democrat would expect it to.

>> ^gorillaman:
You obviously have a lot more faith in your government than I do, and yet you seem to be arguing that we should stick with them because they can't be trusted. If they're too corrupt to administer a basic competence test without undermining it completely why not just admit they've lost all legitimacy? Why not admit democracy has failed utterly?

I wouldn't really characterize my position that way. I remain convinced that the basic principles of democracy are moral, and I believe that the flawed implementations of democracy we've seen have produced vastly superior results to the flawed undemocratic governments we've seen.

The United States's implementation of democracy looks like it's pretty much been successfully killed. It's not dead yet, but I'm not really seeing a lot of chances for revival. But it's pretty much taken a massive propaganda campaign conducted over decades to convince enough people to vote it out of existence. They still don't know that's what they've been doing, but that's the power of a good propaganda campaign.

>> ^gorillaman:

Do you really think it's impossible or just difficult?

...

It absolutely doesn't require a perfectly advanced agent to begin an improving process. Where would science be were that the case, or education?

The improvement would compound itself naturally over generations. A smarter government will develop better procedures for selecting its successors. You don't need perfection from the start. Call it a political singularity. We're talking about the ultimate prize, the best possible society, at least until our species is smart enough to leave governments behind forever. It only needs to work once. If you miss the mark completely and get a self-perpetuating mafia state, well, that's no different to what we have today. Just try again.

I think it's entirely possible that you could pick a government that is composed entirely of people with golden souls. I think you might even see that government pick golden souls to replace them for a few generations. I just think before long, the power and recognition of a few generations of successful rule would go to their heads and hubris would ensue, followed by defensiveness, followed by tyranny, followed by revolution.

I think if you set up an institution that a) holds the traditional powers of government, and b) can control its own selection process, I think it's only a matter of time before they start seeing their own whims and desires as being the only purpose of government.

I just fail to see what the feedback loop is that results in continual improvement once you shut off democratic accountability.

>> ^gorillaman:

That's all I want from you, actually. I don't have a fully formed, coherent alternative to offer. It's the principle I'm endorsing, and the necessity of aiming our thinking toward its realisation. If you remember this discussion started with the proposition of limiting voting to people who could demonstrate they knew what they were voting for. It's simple little baby steps like that we should be considering, and if the only objection is, 'but that's undemocratic,' pfff.


I think you're confusing this conversation for the one dft linked to. This conversation started with you saying democracy was fascism because poor people might vote to redistribute wealth so they're not so poor anymore.

I can expand a bit on why I'm leery of "limiting voting to people who could demonstrate they knew what they were voting for". On the surface, that sounds good to me. However, the question I have is how do we discern who knows what they're voting for? A standardized test? Who writes the test? Who grades the test? How do we decide those people know what they're talking about?

It quickly reverts back to the need for a foolproof methodology for finding people with golden souls to write these hypothetical voting literacy tests. But then if we had a way of identifying superlative leaders, why waste them on writing rules for voting, why not just give them the keys to government directly?

We also have a chicken-and-egg issue. Absent a revolution, the power would have to come from our existing government. That means letting the likes of Harry Reid or John Boehner have ultimate say on who writes the test (or worse, what's specifically in it).

Even if they somehow picked the absolute best possible person for the task, I think the implication of the task is beyond mortal capabilities. They wouldn't just need to write a test that would be fair, they need to write a fair test that would also ensure that the resulting elected officials would appoint a successor who would be willing and able to write a fair test for the next round that produced good elected officials, and so on and so forth for all eternity.

What I imagine would really happen in that loop is that the whole thing would slowly (or maybe even quickly) turn into a tool for one party/ideology/family to consolidate power, and shut off any legal, nonviolent way for the people to get rid of them.

It's why I think that if your goal is to make sure your electorate is comprised of people who know what they're doing in the voting booth, then you should be fighting for policies that make the electorate smarter and more engaged, not smaller.

>> ^dgandhi:
When was the last time a piece of paper did anything? Some system of human involvement is always required, even "strict constructionists" differ on the meaning of any document. Attempting to run a society on ground rules without any interpretive framework is not even wrong, it just doesn't make sense.
Democracy is, of course, not perfect, but it is a functioning manner in which to resolve the conflicts in society while only rarely resorting to violence in the streets. While pure democracy would be terrible, it does not follow, either theoretically, or in practice that constitutional democracies make worse decisions than beneficent tyrants.
I understand that you think that the government being "honest" about who is in charge would be preferable to a shadow oligarchy, but I submit, that "democracy" results in more transparent oligarchy than explicit oligarchy. Pragmatically we are better off having some oversight in a "dishonest" system, than no oversight in an "honest" one.


Where constitutional democracies make better decisions than would pure democracies they do so because they're bound by rules laid down by wise men. Wouldn't you say theocracies have a kind of constitution? It seems to me the only difference is their constitution was written by stupid people. Stupid constitution, bad results. Wise constitution, good results. Is it the constitution or the wisdom doing the good?

You say democracy is not perfect, I say it's immoral and disastrous. Do you think all the freedom we lose and all the damage that's done to our society is a fair price to pay for a conflict resolution mechanism? Shackles are a great peacemaker. The absence of violence is an illusion. So beaten down are we by enforcers of the artificial consensus that we daren't provoke the most obvious displays of their aggression, but the truth is they bring violence to the streets every day.

>> ^NetRunner:
I would agree that if I'm going to entrust someone with authority, I'd rather they be smart (and wise and kind) rather than stupid (or megalomaniacal or cruel).
But I think you have yet to state a coherent alternative you believe would be superior. If I thought it were possible to set up a reliable mechanism where only people of "golden souls" got to hold the reigns of power, I might actually prefer it to conventional forms of democracy. I just don't believe such a mechanism has been discovered, and I doubt that such a mechanism is possible.


That's all I want from you, actually. I don't have a fully formed, coherent alternative to offer. It's the principle I'm endorsing, and the necessity of aiming our thinking toward its realisation. If you remember this discussion started with the proposition of limiting voting to people who could demonstrate they knew what they were voting for. It's simple little baby steps like that we should be considering, and if the only objection is, 'but that's undemocratic,' pfff.

i'm amongst that stastitic. i don't vote because its fucking bullshit. not because im not smart enough to grasp the issues, but because the options do not, will not and never have represented me. i can not lend my support to someone who is owned by a moneyed interest. i'm in texas too, it's fairly obvious that all our politicians are owned by oil companies, natural gas companies, home builders, halliburton, lockheed martin and wal mart. it's insulting and it is a waste of time. all the options are false.

oh, i take that back. i do vote in local elections like school board and city council and railroad commissioner and judges, etc. but only when i have reason to believe that at least one of the candidates isnt working for a church or a company. and i do a pretty thorough evaluation.

poor does not equal stupid. i would say poor simply equal unrepresented. but none of you are being represented, unless one of you happens to own lockheed martin, then you probably are very well represented.

anyway, voting is such bullshit.

i do however, enjoy vandalizing campaign signs. like, a lot. i go around and rip them out of the ground during the day, like im the person in charge of them and im supposed to be doing it. then i take them home, deface them with clever graffitti. then drive back around and put them back in the ground. like im supposed to be doing it. sometimes i just strategically relocate them, like in front of strip clubs or "gentlemen's spas". i highly recommend you all adopt this tactic in your own towns.
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

Nearly 64% of the lowest 20% income bracket do not vote. Tell me DT, why do you hate poor people?

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Before labor was regulated in this country, self governing business men enslaved other self governed men. How is this an improvement?
As banking regulations were removed over the past few decades, self governing bankers defrauded millions of Americans. How is this an improvement?


I'd disagree. It wasn't labor regulation that freed the slaves in a country that claimed all men were created equal.

Also this "deregulation" didn't happen only under Dubya, it began in the 1970s with the Marquette decision and increased every decade since, trading one set of old regulations for a set of new ones. Hardly as simple as calling it "deregulation", but whatever.

Before labor was regulated in this country, self governing business men enslaved other self governed men. How is this an improvement?

As banking regulations were removed over the past few decades, self governing bankers defrauded millions of Americans. How is this an improvement?

Self governance is subject to all of the evils of any other style of government, but is impotent to do anything about it.

>> ^blankfist:

Democracy is dangerous. But selecting an oligarchy from the brightest minds is easily as dangerous. There's no good government system. Not a one.
Self-governance to me seems obvious as the least intrusive.

>> ^gorillaman:

A constitutional democracy is a system in denial. If democracy's such a good idea what do you want a constitution for, and if the constitution's so wonderful why bother with democracy?
It's also unstable. Very nice for wise and benevolent founders to write down a list of rules for the mob to observe, until they decide not to observe them any more. Gradually or suddenly, every constitution is subverted. An effective model wouldn't be vulnerable to these periodic collapses.

Let me one up you in pessimism and cynicism. Humans are never going to create a society that everyone finds just. At least, not as long as humans remain human, and the physical laws continue to work as we presently understand them.

Also, physical laws and human behavior being what they are, no society is ever going to be static. Further, no society is going to dynamically adjust to change without someone somewhere feeling an injustice has been done to them. No paradigm of government is guaranteed to last forever.

So now that we agree everything is hopeless, and justice and freedom will never permanently eradicate tyranny and suffering, let's move on to actually talking about the best options for what we can do in this life with the tools we have at our disposal today.

>> ^gorillaman:
Would anyone here really dare to deny that smart people make better decisions than stupid people? Then we have an agreed foundation for building a superior government model and can put all this populism and consensus foolishness behind us.


I would agree that if I'm going to entrust someone with authority, I'd rather they be smart (and wise and kind) rather than stupid (or megalomaniacal or cruel).

But I think you have yet to state a coherent alternative you believe would be superior. If I thought it were possible to set up a reliable mechanism where only people of "golden souls" got to hold the reigns of power, I might actually prefer it to conventional forms of democracy. I just don't believe such a mechanism has been discovered, and I doubt that such a mechanism is possible.

>> ^gorillaman:
A constitutional democracy is a system in denial. If democracy's such a good idea what do you want a constitution for, and if the constitution's so wonderful why bother with democracy?


When was the last time a piece of paper did anything? Some system of human involvement is always required, even "strict constructionists" differ on the meaning of any document. Attempting to run a society on ground rules without any interpretive framework is not even wrong, it just doesn't make sense.

Democracy is, of course, not perfect, but it is a functioning manner in which to resolve the conflicts in society while only rarely resorting to violence in the streets. While pure democracy would be terrible, it does not follow, either theoretically, or in practice that constitutional democracies make worse decisions than beneficent tyrants.

I understand that you think that the government being "honest" about who is in charge would be preferable to a shadow oligarchy, but I submit, that "democracy" results in more transparent oligarchy than explicit oligarchy. Pragmatically we are better off having some oversight in a "dishonest" system, than no oversight in an "honest" one.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

gorilla: dghandi said it better than I could have.
danny: If I called you racist or a homophobic, it was because I found something you wrote racist or homophobic. Don't take it personally. Post the link if you'd like me to further clarify.
As for Geesus, he chose to out himself. I didn't mention his name. Here's the thread: http://videosift.com/video/Tea-Party-Only-Property-Owners-S
hould-Be-Allowed-To-Vote


Yes, your modesty and humility is fast becoming legend.

I'd like to comment on how I enjoyed the humor in this Mitchell & Webb short, but methinks this is the wrong crowd for that.

I hate you all and whatever government you prefer!! Vote Morganth King in 2012!