tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22339746.post1093665557042609178..comments2023-08-01T15:05:35.540+01:00Comments on a blog from a Citizen of Woking: Waging war with disinformationCayce Pollardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18441199457742532638noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22339746.post-79504838736565089132018-03-05T18:08:46.493+00:002018-03-05T18:08:46.493+00:00I didn't say anything about whether people are...I didn't say anything about whether people are clever enough (and agree with your point that clever people making bad choices), but about whether they are sufficiently well-informed to take part. This isn't about judging peoples' opinons but abotu their knowledge of basic facts that are essential to the process. It is not clear to me at all that someone who doesn't know that the government spends more on debt repayments than defence should be having a say on government spending.<br /><br /><br />A democratic system born in the Edwardian age and shaped for mass media is not necessarily the best system for a post-industrial society and needs reinventing and reinvigorating. How? I don't know, but I'm open to hypotheses.Cayce Pollardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18441199457742532638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22339746.post-49924824854922126462018-03-05T16:02:29.273+00:002018-03-05T16:02:29.273+00:00You will know without asking that I agree that Tru...You will know without asking that I agree that Trump's steel and aluminium tariffs are stupid and self-defeating. All systems will produce errors; protectionism has been tried by all kinds of regimes and is a remarkably resilient policy for one that has been so comprehensively demolished in theory and in practice. What we should aim for is a system that can corrects errors without recourse to blood on the streets. Excluding people from political participation on the grounds that they're not clever enough to be considered is not likely to achieve that.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15543808883177437160noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22339746.post-36953960787733415682018-03-05T15:22:40.271+00:002018-03-05T15:22:40.271+00:00Don't know why the formatting is all wrong - w...Don't know why the formatting is all wrong - will try and fix it.<br /><br />I agree that its because the concerns of those who didn't benefit from the "new economy" were not addressed they quite rightly got angry, but that doesn't mean that they will a course of action that will address their concerns - look at Trump and his steel tariffs. They may (but almost certainly won't) improve the lot of 150,000 steelworkers by reducing the living standards of 5m other workers.<br /><br />I haven't read the Popper so I just read a couple of summaries eg https://philosophynow.org/issues/38/The_Open_Society_Revisited.<br /><br />Cayce Pollardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18441199457742532638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22339746.post-69484545370160954832018-03-05T11:52:27.838+00:002018-03-05T11:52:27.838+00:00"The Open Society and its Enemies" got l..."The Open Society and its Enemies" got left out after "Popper", for some reason.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15543808883177437160noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22339746.post-28111282922233659272018-03-05T11:16:56.107+00:002018-03-05T11:16:56.107+00:00Objections:
(1) It's not as if well-informed,...Objections:<br /><br />(1) It's not as if well-informed, clever people cannot make spectacularly bad decisions.<br />(2) Many political questions have a large, sometimes dominating, subjective component. No-one should imagine that there is an objectively correct answer to every political question.<br />(3) People who are less well-educated may have legitimate interests that are different to those of the better educated; a restricted franchise would rely on the altruism of the reduced electorate.<br />(4) If the concerns of the less well-educated (well-founded or not) are not addressed, to what do they resort? Lampposts and ropes?<br /><br />Have you read Popper's ? Part 1 is a thoroughgoing deconstruction of Plato's 'philosopher-king' model of governance.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15543808883177437160noreply@blogger.com