“the vast majority of the authors are from a similar demographic background to EAs… mainly determined by white males”
A key difference is having both representation of those with other perspectives and interests, and a process which is consensus driven and inclusive.
”It would be a democratic improvement to have that decision made by the US government, because at least politicians are subject to competitive elections. So, having the decision made by the US government would be more democratic. Which part of this do you disagree with?”
One way to make things more democratic is to have government handle it, but it’s clearly not the only way. Another way to be more democratic would, again, by being more broadly representative and consensus driven. (And the switch from “IPCC” to “climate philanthropy as practiced today in the United States” was definitely a good rhetorical trick, but it wasn’t germane to either the paper’s discussion of the IPCC, or your original point, so I’m not going to engage in discussing it.)
in the second bit, I wasn’t talking about the IPCC, I was talking about your second point “you conflated “democratically” with “via governments, through those government’s processes”″. The reason I mentioned climate philanthropy was because that is what I mentioned in my original comment you responded to: if you think philanthropy is undemocratic, then that also applies to climate philanthropy, which Luke Kemp is strongly in favour of, so this is an interesting test case for their argument.
First, are you backing away from your initial claims about the IPCC, since it in fact is consensus based with stakeholders rather than being either a direct democracy, or a unilateralist decision.
Second, I’m not interested in debating what you say Luke Kemp thinks about climate philanthropy, nor do I know anything about his opinions, nor it is germane to this discussion. But in your claims that you say are about his views, you keep claiming and assuming that the only democratic alternatives to whatever we’re discussing are a direct democracy or control by a citizens’ assembly (without expertise) or handing things to governments. Regardless of Luke’s views elsewhere, that’s certainly not what they meant in this paper. Perhaps this quote will be helpful;
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)
As Landemore, who the paper cites several times, explains, institutions work better when the technocratic advice is within the context of a inclusive decision procedure, rather than either having technocrats in charge, or having a direct democracy.
Hello, Yes i think it would be fair to back away a bit from the claims about the IPCC. it remains true that most climate scientists and economists are white men and they have a disproportionate influence on the content of the IPCC reports. nonetheless, the case was not as clear cut as I initially suggested.
I find the second point a bit strange. Isn’t it highly relevant to understand whether the views of the author of the piece we are discussing are consistent or not?
It’s also useful to know what the implication of the ideas are expressed actually are. They explicitly give a citizen’s assembly as an example of a democratic procedure. Even if it is some other deliberative mechanism followed by a majority vote, I would still like to know what they think about stopping all climate philanthropy and handing decisions over all money over to such a body. It’s pretty hard to square a central role for expertise with a normative idea of political equality.
Isn’t it highly relevant to understand whether the views of the author of the piece we are discussing are consistent or not?
No, it really, really isn’t useful to discuss whether people are wrong generally to evaluate the piece.
They explicitly give a citizen’s assembly as an example of a democratic procedure. Even if it is some other deliberative mechanism followed by a majority vote...
They don’t suggest that the citizen’s assemblies use majority voting, and in fact say that they would make recommendations and suggestions, not vote on what to do. So again, stop conflating democratic with first-past- the-post voting.
It’s pretty hard to square a central role for expertise with a normative idea of political equality.
You keep trying to push this reducto-ad-absurdum as their actual position. First, Zoe explicitly said, responding to you, “The paper never spoke about getting rid of experts or replacing experts with citzens.”
Also, are you actually saying that political equality is fundamentally incompatible with expertise? Because that’s a bold and disturbing claim coming from someone who did a doctoral thesis on democracy—maybe you can cite some sources or explain?
I do think it is germane to the discussion, because it helps to clarify what the authors are claiming and whether they are applying their claims consistently.
I was discussing this paper, which doesn’t discuss climate philanthropy, not everything they have ever stated. I don’t know what else they’ve claimed, and I’m not interested in a discussion of it.
“the vast majority of the authors are from a similar demographic background to EAs… mainly determined by white males”
A key difference is having both representation of those with other perspectives and interests, and a process which is consensus driven and inclusive.
”It would be a democratic improvement to have that decision made by the US government, because at least politicians are subject to competitive elections. So, having the decision made by the US government would be more democratic. Which part of this do you disagree with?”
One way to make things more democratic is to have government handle it, but it’s clearly not the only way. Another way to be more democratic would, again, by being more broadly representative and consensus driven. (And the switch from “IPCC” to “climate philanthropy as practiced today in the United States” was definitely a good rhetorical trick, but it wasn’t germane to either the paper’s discussion of the IPCC, or your original point, so I’m not going to engage in discussing it.)
in the second bit, I wasn’t talking about the IPCC, I was talking about your second point “you conflated “democratically” with “via governments, through those government’s processes”″. The reason I mentioned climate philanthropy was because that is what I mentioned in my original comment you responded to: if you think philanthropy is undemocratic, then that also applies to climate philanthropy, which Luke Kemp is strongly in favour of, so this is an interesting test case for their argument.
First, are you backing away from your initial claims about the IPCC, since it in fact is consensus based with stakeholders rather than being either a direct democracy, or a unilateralist decision.
Second, I’m not interested in debating what you say Luke Kemp thinks about climate philanthropy, nor do I know anything about his opinions, nor it is germane to this discussion.
But in your claims that you say are about his views, you keep claiming and assuming that the only democratic alternatives to whatever we’re discussing are a direct democracy or control by a citizens’ assembly (without expertise) or handing things to governments. Regardless of Luke’s views elsewhere, that’s certainly not what they meant in this paper. Perhaps this quote will be helpful;
As Landemore, who the paper cites several times, explains, institutions work better when the technocratic advice is within the context of a inclusive decision procedure, rather than either having technocrats in charge, or having a direct democracy.
Hello, Yes i think it would be fair to back away a bit from the claims about the IPCC. it remains true that most climate scientists and economists are white men and they have a disproportionate influence on the content of the IPCC reports. nonetheless, the case was not as clear cut as I initially suggested.
I find the second point a bit strange. Isn’t it highly relevant to understand whether the views of the author of the piece we are discussing are consistent or not?
It’s also useful to know what the implication of the ideas are expressed actually are. They explicitly give a citizen’s assembly as an example of a democratic procedure. Even if it is some other deliberative mechanism followed by a majority vote, I would still like to know what they think about stopping all climate philanthropy and handing decisions over all money over to such a body. It’s pretty hard to square a central role for expertise with a normative idea of political equality.
No, it really, really isn’t useful to discuss whether people are wrong generally to evaluate the piece.
They don’t suggest that the citizen’s assemblies use majority voting, and in fact say that they would make recommendations and suggestions, not vote on what to do. So again, stop conflating democratic with first-past- the-post voting.
You keep trying to push this reducto-ad-absurdum as their actual position. First, Zoe explicitly said, responding to you, “The paper never spoke about getting rid of experts or replacing experts with citzens.”
Also, are you actually saying that political equality is fundamentally incompatible with expertise? Because that’s a bold and disturbing claim coming from someone who did a doctoral thesis on democracy—maybe you can cite some sources or explain?
I do think it is germane to the discussion, because it helps to clarify what the authors are claiming and whether they are applying their claims consistently.
I was discussing this paper, which doesn’t discuss climate philanthropy, not everything they have ever stated. I don’t know what else they’ve claimed, and I’m not interested in a discussion of it.