>"I hope this article can help those normal diggers understand just how it is the power users got that way, and why digg is not a democracy"
Actually, it sounds like Digg is exactly a democracy to me. You have as much chance making the front page of Digg (or a popular subreddit) as you do getting your preferred policies enacted by the government - essentially zero. Having your voice heard in a crowd of millions is hard. Those that succeed usually hack the system.
The position that there is no conflict between competing interests in a democracy because "everybody has a voice" is BS (not that I would expect such arguments from this crowd). You can ask my sister who was outvoted for 18 years by my brother and I, the Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, or the Republicans in DC about how great a job democracy does of balancing competing interests.
You have as much chance making the front page of Digg (or a popular subreddit) as you do getting your preferred policies enacted by the government - essentially zero.
The entire article was a description of how to go about consistently getting articles on the front page. It takes months of work and effort into ensuring that you are noticed as a "power user". It's not easy, but there's nothing stopping people from putting in the effort if they really wanted to.
As to preferred policies in the government... I have no idea. I'm assuming that if you put in years of work starting a special interest group and doing fund raising for politicians, you might be able to get a rider attached to a bill.
There are certainly counter-examples to Churchill's thesis. While Singapore is technically a democracy, it has been under one-party rule for 50 years. In the early years of independence, the ruling party used its power to persecute its primary political opponent, the communist movement which was sweeping southeast Asia at the time.
Now Singapore is a clean and prosperous state with a per capita GDP higher than the USA and three times higher than its neighboring countries. There are things to dislike about Singapore if you are accustomed to Western political liberties, but it is hard to say that it would be better off if it had followed the dictates of liberal western democracy, especially in the precarious early years.
Chile is the most prosperous state in South America, although it was led to that point by a dictator that did horrible things to his political opponents. Iraqis had a higher standard of living under Saddam than they do under the current regime, though not if you opposed the government.
You're right, but whether the dictator was necessary is disputable. Maybe all you need is Chicago economists. Nowadays Chile is ruled by the people who were tortured or at least jailed under the old regime (Ricardo Lagos, Michelle Bachelet) and all of Pinochet's children are in jail because of corruption. [1] Right now, it's very democratic, and not all that corrupt. Apparently, one of the best ways to return to democracy is for the tortured to forgive the torturers and rule the country henceforth. This also happened in the Seychelles.
What we have in the U.S. is not democracy (literally, "rule by the people"). We have, instead, a quasi-accountable tyranny of politicos and lobbyists. Do not call that democracy.
I am curious exactly what you think democracy is, then. The combination of democracy with large bureaucracies is vulnerable to horse trading and power abuse, behind-the-scenes deals and favors, pork politics, and the like. Bureaucracy is needed to implement the policies desired by democracy, so there is really no way around it.
I think of some examples of well-run, transparent democracies in history, but they are all much geographically smaller, less populated, or poorer than the United States.
I think democracy is implementing the will of the people. No scrap that.
Democracy is doing what a reasonable man would do. There is no arguing that the people might have not been told the true reasons for going to Iraq. Nonetheless most of the people are reasonable hence there is no reason to lie to them.
Democracy is about being guided by high principles, by acknowledging that each human on this earth deserves equal treatment, by acknoledgin that my interests do not come before another etc.
Socrates said that the rulers ought to be philosophers taught in academia for 25 years. Or maybe it was Aristotle.
The point is that we know that the majority might be wrong, we certainly know that the minority might be wrong, but in the system of governence we currently hold it is rather apparante that the prevailing principle is that if you have more I will have less.
There must have been a time when people realised thatthey could have been born into any family, any country, any social status, etcetera. I believe that is the time when empathy emerged for fellow human beings.
If we as people realise what it means to be in someones shoes and continue to treat that someone inhumanly, or take away from him privileges that we ourselves enjoy, we become barbaric and not much different from our ancestors who found slavery convinient or colonialism profitable.
The people posses empathy. It is this question of what if that person was I that I believe has hlped us advanced somewhat.
If people are not governed by leaders whom are guided by reason rather than personal or country interests there will never be peace on earth nor happiness in the houses.
Ideology makes good dreams but bad practice. In a sense, 'true democracy' is a lot like 'true communism' - both sound good on the outside but have issues when implemented. Like the Digg article, it seems that 'equality of vote' is one of the ideals that isn't enforced in real life (due to social engineering, money, politics, etc)
Actually, it sounds like Digg is exactly a democracy to me. You have as much chance making the front page of Digg (or a popular subreddit) as you do getting your preferred policies enacted by the government - essentially zero. Having your voice heard in a crowd of millions is hard. Those that succeed usually hack the system.
The position that there is no conflict between competing interests in a democracy because "everybody has a voice" is BS (not that I would expect such arguments from this crowd). You can ask my sister who was outvoted for 18 years by my brother and I, the Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, or the Republicans in DC about how great a job democracy does of balancing competing interests.