It was known to the Attic Greeks that democracy had a fatal bug: a system that entrusts ultimate authority to the masses will predictably privilege persuasion over knowledge, passion over judgment, and populism over excellence.

It just couldn't be exploited effectively until now. Thanks, Mark and Elon.

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alecco 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> It just couldn't be exploited effectively until now.

Are you saying until Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022 there were no effective election interference problems?

	▲	the_gastropod 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Politics isn't Newton's Third Law of Motion. Prior to Musk's takeover, there absolutely and unequivocally was no "equal but opposite" deliberately biased system in place like there is now. This is a classic playbook in U.S. politics. Conservative media gins up a conspiracy theory (e.g., Hollywood is biased, universities are biased, mainstream media is biased, social media is biased, etc. etc.) and then they use these imaginary foes as justification for actual retribution. There was no purposeful and systematic bias at Twitter under Jack Dorsey (himself, a pretty conservative character, having backed Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr in the past election, both of whom both now work in the Trump administration).

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tbrownaw 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No, mass media had been around much longer than just a couple years.

But also, that bug is why our government was initially set up with the structure it was. And why you'll occasionally see complaints about parts of the structure being "undemocratic".

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techdmn 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It was set up the way it was because the founders didn't trust voters. Voters don't always make optimal choices. Nobody said democracy was perfect. It's just a lot better than every other system we've ever tried. Benevolent dictatorship is good in theory, but quite rare in practice.

	▲	makeitdouble 31 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> Nobody said democracy was perfect. It's just a lot better than every other system we've ever tried. This has bugged me for a long time: Why do people repeat this ? I mean this on the fundamental core of it: not on the merit of the argument[0], or whether people deeply believe it, but on making the argument in these terms in the first place. I don't remember people running around saying Christianism isn't perfect, but better than every other religion _we tried_. Or using the same rhetoric for Object Oriented programming. Or touting as a mantra that frying chicken isn't perfect but better than every other cooking method we tried. IMHO we usually don't do that kind of vague, but short and definitive assertion. The statements would usualy be stronger with specific limitations, or an opening for what we don't know yet. Why did it take this form in particular for political system? (I am aware of the starting quote, but it wouldn't have caught on if people didn't see a need to repeat it in the first place. I think it hit on a very fundamental need of people, and I wish I knew why) I feel understanding that would give insights on why we're stuck where we are now. [0] We're two centuries in western democracies, and many other regimes lasted longer than that. I personally don't think there is any definitive answer that could bring such strong statements, but that's not my point.

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CamperBob2 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Mass media wasn't enough to wreck the whole concept of democracy.

It was almost enough, admittedly... but not quite. The coup de grace was administered by social media.

	▲	lostmsu 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It wasn't? That's the reason why religion was and in many places still is the major part of the state.