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[–] 20 points 6 hours ago (22 children)

If the broader population is so retarded that their vote can be controlled by clankers on reddit to this extent, then democracy is a fundamentally flawed system.

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  • [–] 14 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

    Democracy is a bad system. However it is the best we have right now.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 minute ago

    Democracy is inefficient at central control and efficient at making sure no single faction stays in power for long. Dynastic autocracy had its chance for several thousand years and never advanced very far past people shitting themselves to death, what with ruling noble bloodlines hamstringing themselves with nepotism and inbreeding. At least with democracy people fixing things and producing food can defend their harvests and reïnvest their profits into free time to improve their tooling instead of getting sent off to kill one another wars no one wants except for idiot lords.

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  • [–] 36 points 6 hours ago* (9 children)

    Any system ruled by humans is a flawed system. Which is why democracy must be ruled bottom-up and not top-down. And have more than one representative, on any level. And last but not least, good general education (which is why the fascist always start there).

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  • [+] -16 points 5 hours ago (8 children)

    I called this years ago (ruled by humans being flawed, not bottom-up democracy which IMO is a half-measure). AI is the only solution that can be better long-term than democracy. I do not, however, mean we should let Claude run society. We'd need actual AGI that doesn't just get trained, but learns properly on its own without cheap tricks like writing memory files. It also shouldn't be influenced by any individuals or organizations.

    It's really a pipe dream at this stage.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 hours ago* (2 children)

    This is the elite wet dream, yes. Replace all pesky humans with machines, because "democracy doesn't work".. Except it does work, if you have a unbiased media and an educated population.

    Humans ruled by some AI that will never be influenced by humans will never happen. What if the Ai suggests things that are bad for the rulers of society? There will always be corrupt humans directing our systems, to stay rich and powerful.

    Which means we need less technology, less machines, less surveillance, to have a society where humans can feel free and happy. Unlimited technology leads to dystopia for humans.

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  • [–] -2 points 2 hours ago* (1 child)

    This is the elite wet dream, yes. Replace all pesky humans with machines

    I'm proposing that the elite be replaced with machines. I'm not saying it's easy, nor necessarily even possible, certainly not at the current level of technological and societal development.

    Except it does work, if you have a unbiased media

    There's no such thing as truly unbiased media, it's nearly impossible. Or are you proposing banning all media that isn't state media? Private media will always have an agenda. Often so will state media though, and that can easily become even more dangerous.

    and an educated population.

    Doesn't work. Or are you going to force everyone into poli sci majors? Majority of Europe has free higher education and in most countries the far right has been on the rise again. Even plenty of educated people vote for those parties. Hell, I can tell you that many of the people IN those parties, at least in my country, have degrees one might consider relevant to good governance (history, law, etc) and yet they spew hate.

    What if the Ai suggests things that are bad for the rulers of society?

    The idea is that the AI has to be the ruler of society and nobody else can have power over it. It also involves developing perfect AI first. I did say it was a pipe dream, didn't I?

    There will always be corrupt humans directing our systems, to stay rich and powerful.

    It goes without saying that the existence of private property is part of that plan. The AI would decide who needs how much resources. The book you've named yourself after is kind of relevant, but the inner party still consisted of humans and they had ulterior motives. As O'brian himself said, the party's ultimate goal was nothing other than just the control itself. The AI would have to have an ultimate goal of maximum human happiness, freedom and longevity, as much as possible without giving people freedom to have power over others.

    Which means we need less technology, less machines, less surveillance, to have a society where humans can feel free and happy.

    Doesn't work either, unless society is fewer than 100 people or so. Above that we start developing these nasty things called hierarchies. Rulers and such. No human rulers can be allowed to exist if we want a truly just society. Impartial, completely neutral humans don't exist. Democracy doesn't work because voters can be swayed and BDFLs are just that, FL. They die and the next one might not be very B, but will be just as D if not moreso.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 hours ago

    Right and wrong are just words. What matters is what you do.

    (I just watched that episode of Futurama where Bender was God and it's a perfectly fitting analogy here, I think).

    Firstly, your proposal requires a perfect and noble system. There's two major problems right there...one in developing a perfect system, and the other in defining what "noble" actually means.

    What's good for one may be bad for another. In often cases it is, especially under a capitalist system where we are made to compete directly with each other.

    An example...my box of Kellog's Raisin Bran says, on the back, "Cereal makes eating well easy". I misread it at first and thought it said "cereal makers eating well", and pondered about that for a moment.

    As a consumer, we don't want cereal makers eating well. I mean, we say we do, but our actions prove otherwise. Consumers are disincentivised from the cereal makers (as in the grain farmers) eating well, because that means a more expensive product, which is money out of their pockets, which now means they are eating less well than they would have. We are subconsciously at war with our peers.

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