Hi David. We were initially discussing whether giving the money to govts would be more democratic. You suggested this was a patently mad idea but then seemed to agree with it.
Here is how the authors define democracy: “We understand democracy here in accordance with Landemore as the rule of the cognitively diverse many who are entitled to equal decision-making power and partake in a democratic procedure that includes both a deliberative element and one of preference aggregation (such as majority voting)”
You say: “You also might want to look into the citations Zoe suggested that you read above, about what “democratic” means, since you keep interpreting in the same simplistic and usually incorrect way, as equivalent to having everyone vote about what to do.”
equal political power and preference aggregation entails majority rule or lottery voting or sortition. Your own view that equal votes aren’t a necessary condition of democracy seems to be in tension with the authors of the article.
A lot of the results showing the wisdom of democratic procedures depend on certain assumptions especially about voters not being systematically biased. In the real world, this isn’t true so sometimes undemocratic procedures can do better. Independent central banks are one example, as is effective philanthropy.
For context, I have read a lot of this literature on democracy and did my doctoral thesis on the topic. I argued here that few democratic theorists actually endorse these criticisms of philanthropy.
You’re using a word differently than they explicitly say they are using the same word. I agree that it’s confusing, but will again note that consensus decision making is democratic in thes sense they use, and yet is none of the options you mention. (And again, the IPCC is a great example of a democratic deliberative body which seems to fulfill the criteria you’ve laid out, and it’s the one they cite explicitly.)
On the validity and usefulness of democracy as a method of state governance, you’ve made a very reasonable case that it would be ineffective for charity, but in the more general sense that Landemore uses it, which includes how institutions other than governments can account for democratic preferences, I’m not sure that the same argument applies.
That said, I strongly disagree with Cremer and Kemp about the usefulness of this approach on very different grounds. I think that both consensus and other democratic methods, if used for funding, rather than for governance, would make hits based giving and policy entrepreneurship impossible, not to mention being fundamentally incompatible with finding neglected causes.
Hi David. We were initially discussing whether giving the money to govts would be more democratic. You suggested this was a patently mad idea but then seemed to agree with it.
Here is how the authors define democracy: “We understand democracy here in accordance with Landemore as the rule of the cognitively diverse many who are entitled to equal decision-making power and partake in a democratic procedure that includes both a deliberative element and one of preference aggregation (such as majority voting)”
You say: “You also might want to look into the citations Zoe suggested that you read above, about what “democratic” means, since you keep interpreting in the same simplistic and usually incorrect way, as equivalent to having everyone vote about what to do.”
equal political power and preference aggregation entails majority rule or lottery voting or sortition. Your own view that equal votes aren’t a necessary condition of democracy seems to be in tension with the authors of the article.
A lot of the results showing the wisdom of democratic procedures depend on certain assumptions especially about voters not being systematically biased. In the real world, this isn’t true so sometimes undemocratic procedures can do better. Independent central banks are one example, as is effective philanthropy.
For context, I have read a lot of this literature on democracy and did my doctoral thesis on the topic. I argued here that few democratic theorists actually endorse these criticisms of philanthropy.
You’re using a word differently than they explicitly say they are using the same word. I agree that it’s confusing, but will again note that consensus decision making is democratic in thes sense they use, and yet is none of the options you mention. (And again, the IPCC is a great example of a democratic deliberative body which seems to fulfill the criteria you’ve laid out, and it’s the one they cite explicitly.)
On the validity and usefulness of democracy as a method of state governance, you’ve made a very reasonable case that it would be ineffective for charity, but in the more general sense that Landemore uses it, which includes how institutions other than governments can account for democratic preferences, I’m not sure that the same argument applies.
That said, I strongly disagree with Cremer and Kemp about the usefulness of this approach on very different grounds. I think that both consensus and other democratic methods, if used for funding, rather than for governance, would make hits based giving and policy entrepreneurship impossible, not to mention being fundamentally incompatible with finding neglected causes.
I really appreciate your effort defending a paper containing parts you strongly disagree with from (what you consider) bad arguments!