You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Konkvistador comments on I've had it with those dark rumours about our culture rigorously suppressing opinions - Less Wrong Discussion

26 Post author: Multiheaded 25 January 2012 05:43PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (857)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: [deleted] 25 January 2012 08:33:51PM *  24 points [-]

Multiparty electoral democracy has no real utility, confers no legitimacy and doesn't satisfy any primal urge for freedom laying dormant in non-Western peoples. "Democracy" as a concept is mainly used in international politics as a weapon to suppress other political systems through sanctions and military action. When a country becomes "democratic" by holding elections, it's really just signalling its compliance with the West. The current period of liberal democratic triumphalism has created an intellectual Dark Ages of political thought. There are many valid forms of governance that don't involved voting. Moreover, so-called "authoritarianism" has a proven track record for development.

Holy Moldbug I swear I get giddy at the very idea of a critical rationalist discussion about democracy on LessWrong! Please someone who has done some heavy lifting on the subject make a post about it!

Comment author: TimS 25 January 2012 08:45:56PM 12 points [-]

From the contrary position, I totally agree that this would be an interesting discussion.

Comment author: JenniferRM 26 January 2012 01:43:44AM 6 points [-]

I don't think this is likely to have good consequence if it happens in a public forum. However, if a private mailing list for this was being organized, I'd be interested in participating.