What's the best Political System?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > What's the best Political System?

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Homura and Sickle: Apr 21, 2013

I think its a tie between social democracy and caliphate

# ? Sep 23, 2015 21:06

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# ? Apr 29, 2024 10:41

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

CommieGIR posted:

He's Libertarian, you don't want to know what he thinks about governing.

No and pointing out that people arn't ideal is the most trivial way to destroy libertarianism.

# ? Sep 23, 2015 21:10

Plastic Megaphone: Aug 11, 2007; No more credit from the liquor store.

Whiskey Sours posted:

Absolute dictatorship under an omniscient, omnibenevolent artificial intelligence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EddX9hnhDS4

# ? Sep 23, 2015 21:17

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

asdf32 posted:

No and pointing out that people arn't ideal is the most trivial way to destroy libertarianism.

I didn't say that we were ideal.

# ? Sep 23, 2015 21:22

Ernie Muppari: Aug 4, 2012; Keep this up G'Bert, and soon you won't have a pigeon to protect!

space amoeba absorptionism

# ? Sep 23, 2015 21:27

burnishedfume: Mar 8, 2011; You really are a louse...

Tribute paying vassalage.

# ? Sep 23, 2015 21:29

Nathilus: Apr 4, 2002; I alone can see through the media bias.

I'm also stupid on a scale that can only be measured in Reddits.

Another vote for omnibenevolent ai here. The problem with benevolent dictatorship is that it's not a plan so much as a wish. How do you get that nice, smart person into power and keep him there? What happens when he croaks? Rome tried this at various times and its just not stable. Besides you run into all the usual issues concerning human corruptability anyway. Program an ai to govern. Give it a sarcastic sense of humor so people dont feel alienated, and to keep things interesting. Wahlah. Perfect governance and religion too if you want to play it that way.

# ? Sep 23, 2015 21:38

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

The Inkan redistributive gift economy.

# ? Sep 23, 2015 21:41

reignonyourparade: Nov 15, 2012

A dictatorship run by me, with Full Communism as a runner up.

# ? Sep 23, 2015 21:49

QuoProQuid: Jan 12, 2012; Tr*ckin' and F*ckin' all the way to tha
T O P

The might kallipolis, but only because Mike Huckabee hates it.

# ? Sep 23, 2015 21:57

Fojar38: Sep 2, 2011; Sorry I meant to say I hope that the police use maximum force and kill or maim a bunch of innocent people, thus paving a way for a proletarian uprising and socialist utopia

also here's a stupid take
---------------------------->

Nathilus posted:

Another vote for omnibenevolent ai here. The problem with benevolent dictatorship is that it's not a plan so much as a wish. How do you get that nice, smart person into power and keep him there? What happens when he croaks? Rome tried this at various times and its just not stable. Besides you run into all the usual issues concerning human corruptability anyway. Program an ai to govern. Give it a sarcastic sense of humor so people dont feel alienated, and to keep things interesting. Wahlah. Perfect governance and religion too if you want to play it that way.

Also what does a benevolent dictator do when there is no benevolent course of action.

# ? Sep 23, 2015 22:18

The Bloop: Jul 5, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

QuoProQuid posted:

The might kallipolis, but only because Mike Huckabee hates it.

Lol say what, now?

# ? Sep 24, 2015 02:03

America Inc.: Nov 22, 2013; I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even 500 would be pretty nice.

Nathilus posted:

Another vote for omnibenevolent ai here. The problem with benevolent dictatorship is that it's not a plan so much as a wish. How do you get that nice, smart person into power and keep him there? What happens when he croaks? Rome tried this at various times and its just not stable. Besides you run into all the usual issues concerning human corruptability anyway. Program an ai to govern. Give it a sarcastic sense of humor so people dont feel alienated, and to keep things interesting. Wahlah. Perfect governance and religion too if you want to play it that way.

I don't know why we assume a machine made by humans is going to be free from human flaws, or that its morality will be compatible with ours without essentially encoding our current forms of governance (and all its problems) into a more efficient, easily enforced and more entrenched format.
Essentially, Barrack Obama but he's God.

America Inc. fucked around with this message at 03:53 on Sep 24, 2015

# ? Sep 24, 2015 03:50

burnishedfume: Mar 8, 2011; You really are a louse...

THE BEST POLITICAL SYSTEM IS NONE BUT DOOM! DOOM RENDERS ALL POLITICS OBSOLETE! THIS THREAD IS IRRELEVANT BECAUSE NONE WHO POST IN IT ARE GREATER THAN DOOM!

# ? Sep 24, 2015 04:05

America Inc.: Nov 22, 2013; I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even 500 would be pretty nice.

DrProsek posted:

THE BEST POLITICAL SYSTEM IS NONE BUT DOOM! DOOM RENDERS ALL POLITICS OBSOLETE! THIS THREAD IS IRRELEVANT BECAUSE NONE WHO POST IN IT ARE GREATER THAN DOOM!

true

# ? Sep 24, 2015 04:13

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

A democratic central planned economy, leading eventually into full communism.

Nathilus posted:

Another vote for omnibenevolent ai here. The problem with benevolent dictatorship is that it's not a plan so much as a wish. How do you get that nice, smart person into power and keep him there? What happens when he croaks? Rome tried this at various times and its just not stable. Besides you run into all the usual issues concerning human corruptability anyway. Program an ai to govern. Give it a sarcastic sense of humor so people dont feel alienated, and to keep things interesting. Wahlah. Perfect governance and religion too if you want to play it that way.

The problem isn't just the person at the top though. Power isn't a thing you can physically hold, it's a chain of persuasion, so you need a hierarchy of people to do what you say. Who will then elevate people they like, so even a dictatorship under a benevolent dictator would still be a corrupt piece of poo poo. Unless you can make everyone below perfect as well, which is just as impossible.

# ? Sep 24, 2015 06:19

EvilGenius: May 2, 2006; Death to the Black Eyed Peas

Politics has always infuriated me, as it seems to be largely based on ideology and intuition, rather than evidence. Example - in the UK, there are certain conditions you have to meet in order to claim unemployment benefit. If you fail to turn up at the job centre, or an appointed interview, you can have your payments temporarily stopped.

To those that implemented it, it prevents people from perpetually remaining on welfare, because they get punished for not finding work.

To it's opponents, it's self defeating in that taking money away makes it harder to make appointments, leads to hunger, depression, homelessness, etc.

Neither position is evidence based. But why is this, when it would be fairly easy to study whether or not benefit sanctions are working? Why does the government get to ignore any evidence contrary to their ideas? Why do they not welcome evidence and alter policy based on it?

Evidence based policy to me would seem like the adult way to go. Take Obamacare as an example of it's application. Bizarrely unpopular, but all evidence was that the US health care system was hugely unequal, and that it needed to be closer modeled on more successful implementations in other countries.

Evidence is independent of the childish political pantomime that seems to be gripping the US at the moment. It reduces the role of government to a body that carries out studies and implements change to benefit people, rather than to fit some political ideology.

# ? Sep 24, 2015 07:08

Homura and Sickle: Apr 21, 2013

EvilGenius posted:

Politics has always infuriated me, as it seems to be largely based on ideology and intuition, rather than evidence. Example - in the UK, there are certain conditions you have to meet in order to claim unemployment benefit. If you fail to turn up at the job centre, or an appointed interview, you can have your payments temporarily stopped.

To those that implemented it, it prevents people from perpetually remaining on welfare, because they get punished for not finding work.

To it's opponents, it's self defeating in that taking money away makes it harder to make appointments, leads to hunger, depression, homelessness, etc.

Neither position is evidence based. But why is this, when it would be fairly easy to study whether or not benefit sanctions are working? Why does the government get to ignore any evidence contrary to their ideas? Why do they not welcome evidence and alter policy based on it?

Evidence based policy to me would seem like the adult way to go. Take Obamacare as an example of it's application. Bizarrely unpopular, but all evidence was that the US health care system was hugely unequal, and that it needed to be closer modeled on more successful implementations in other countries.

Evidence is independent of the childish political pantomime that seems to be gripping the US at the moment. It reduces the role of government to a body that carries out studies and implements change to benefit people, rather than to fit some political ideology.

While this post is all very beep boop stemlord sounding logic, the administrative state in America generally does focus on collecting evidence and analyzing it before implementing a policy because of the requirements of the APA and various executive orders that have accumulated over the years.

# ? Sep 24, 2015 07:11

Nathilus: Apr 4, 2002; I alone can see through the media bias.

I'm also stupid on a scale that can only be measured in Reddits.

LookingGodIntheEye posted:

I don't know why we assume a machine made by humans is going to be free from human flaws, or that its morality will be compatible with ours without essentially encoding our current forms of governance (and all its problems) into a more efficient, easily enforced and more entrenched format.
Essentially, Barrack Obama but he's God.

It's not a given that a machine would be incorruptable, but they follow the rules they are given much more discretely than a human is able to. Even "learning" algorithms are incapable of going completely off the rails of their programming. This is something i dont expect to change even as we build more true intelligence into our systems. Artificial evolution can produce novel configurations that might not be expected but they still perform the tasks the original iteration was engineered to accomplish. We're not talking about the difference between an automaton and a true intelligence either. We're talking about a difference that is steeped in the physical differences between biochemical and electrical "thought". IMO, at least. I could be completely wrong about it. It might be that we get machine self programming to a level that negates those core differences.

Either way, I agree that incompatibility might well become an issue. Even perfect omnibenevolence might seem horrific at human eye level and people would resent the gently caress out of being governed by a godlike computer no matter how manifestly awesome it was. This is where the humor comes in. I think it's utterly crucial. It's not just an ian banks reference. How do you ensure a software deity remains human enough to be acceptable? Make it sarcastic as hell, obviously.

The other issue that seems obvious to me is what rudatron touched on, that power is a process and it is not held in a vacuum. In this case, the computer needs maintence and probablly additional programming occasionally. The people that do this are the de facto watchers of the watchman and the highest rung of power. Whoops, we're back to oligarchy. I can't think any good way around this, excepting a magically and scarily self sufficient machine. If the computer doesn't need people at all you're walking into the setup of an alarmist sci fi movie though.

# ? Sep 24, 2015 07:29

EvilGenius: May 2, 2006; Death to the Black Eyed Peas

Jagchosis posted:

While this post is all very beep boop stemlord sounding logic, the administrative state in America generally does focus on collecting evidence and analyzing it before implementing a policy because of the requirements of the APA and various executive orders that have accumulated over the years.

OK, but I'm talking about removing ideology from government. Bush still banned stem cell research, based essentially on religious reasons. Gun control is still a huge issue, despite it being hugely successful in most developed countries (I'm not sniping, I'm just trying to think of examples where the US difers from other countries based on ideology rather than evidence).

I also realise that it's not always possible to govern on evidence. The question 'evidence of what' has to be asked. Evidence that your step towards the free market ideal is going to work? And it fails to deal with changes in demographic and population growth, because ways of dealing with that have never been tried before.

I'm just more and more aghast at the political squables of the day. Arguments that could have an objectively correct side, that remain arguments because politicians and the people they serve are stubborn.

EvilGenius fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Sep 24, 2015

# ? Sep 24, 2015 07:30

Mayor Dave: Feb 20, 2009; Bernie the Snow Clown

any political system that embraces literal human sacrifice, and i don't mean any namby panby "soldiers going off to war" type of sacrifice, i want the steps of the capital to run with blood, like real aztec level poo poo

# ? Sep 24, 2015 07:39

Mayor Dave: Feb 20, 2009; Bernie the Snow Clown

EvilGenius posted:

OK, but I'm talking about removing ideology from government. Bush still banned stem cell research, based essentially on religious reasons. Gun control is still a huge issue, despite it being hugely successful in most developed countries (I'm not sniping, I'm just trying to think of examples where the US difers from other countries based on ideology rather than evidence).

I also realise that it's not always possible to govern on evidence. The question 'evidence of what' has to be asked. Evidence that your step towards the free market ideal is going to work? And it fails to deal with changes in demographic and population growth, because ways of dealing with that have never been tried before.

I'm just more and more aghast at the political squables of the day. Arguments that could have an objectively correct side, that remain arguments because politicians and the people they serve are stubborn.

hot takes on the policy process here

# ? Sep 24, 2015 07:40

exmarx: Feb 18, 2012; The experience over the years
of nothing getting better
only worse.

Sharia

# ? Sep 24, 2015 09:55

eSports Chaebol: Feb 22, 2005; Yeah, actually, gamers in the house forever,

I mean the closest existing example to what I would consider an ideal system of proportional representation is the Knesset so either I'm wrong or having the ideal political system doesn't guarantee it won't be awful (both of these are probably true).

# ? Sep 24, 2015 09:59

Cerebral Bore: Apr 21, 2010; Fun Shoe

EvilGenius posted:

OK, but I'm talking about removing ideology from government. Bush still banned stem cell research, based essentially on religious reasons. Gun control is still a huge issue, despite it being hugely successful in most developed countries (I'm not sniping, I'm just trying to think of examples where the US difers from other countries based on ideology rather than evidence).

I also realise that it's not always possible to govern on evidence. The question 'evidence of what' has to be asked. Evidence that your step towards the free market ideal is going to work? And it fails to deal with changes in demographic and population growth, because ways of dealing with that have never been tried before.

I'm just more and more aghast at the political squables of the day. Arguments that could have an objectively correct side, that remain arguments because politicians and the people they serve are stubborn.

If you remove ideology from the goernment, how are you going to decide what you want the government to achieve?

Also OP, it's full communism

# ? Sep 24, 2015 11:36

Starshark: Dec 22, 2005; Doctor Rope

Cerebral Bore posted:

Also OP, it's full communism

I think we can close the thread now!

# ? Sep 24, 2015 11:38

lol but: Feb 24, 2007; body is a dinosaur; Slippery Tilde

95% Communism :colbert:

# ? Sep 24, 2015 11:55

America Inc.: Nov 22, 2013; I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even 500 would be pretty nice.

rudatron posted:

Unless you can make everyone below perfect as well, which is just as impossible.

Easy

# ? Sep 24, 2015 12:09

Pentecoastal Elites: Feb 27, 2007

the AI but it has to kill all humans first

# ? Sep 24, 2015 13:45

Mc Do Well: Aug 2, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeboqg4t9vs

Basically libertarian Borg.

Of course part of this should involve culling the human population down to 1-2 billion, but ideally it could be done by giving all men a vas deferens valve and requiring licensing for procreation.

# ? Sep 24, 2015 13:59

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Trump has yet to create the best political system.

# ? Sep 24, 2015 14:03

Fojar38: Sep 2, 2011; Sorry I meant to say I hope that the police use maximum force and kill or maim a bunch of innocent people, thus paving a way for a proletarian uprising and socialist utopia

also here's a stupid take
---------------------------->

EvilGenius posted:

OK, but I'm talking about removing ideology from government.

This is literally impossible.

# ? Sep 24, 2015 14:20

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

Wizardopogarchy, thanks OP.

# ? Sep 24, 2015 14:57

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

EvilGenius posted:

OK, but I'm talking about removing ideology from government.

Lol someone is confused about the world and human beings.

# ? Sep 24, 2015 14:58

PlantHead: Jan 2, 2004

I always like the idea of a national lottery, where every year x number of lucky/unlucky members of the public get to be in parliament.

"JOHN SMITH from Brighton, congratulations you are the foreign Secretary this year."

If nothing else it would be worth a good laugh and would be a gently caress load better than the system we have now.

# ? Sep 24, 2015 15:26

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

This thread is fun because I can't tell the difference between joke posts and genuine flailing infants with no understanding of government or politics or even like brain thoughts. "Let's just remove ideological context from decisions" fuckin lol

# ? Sep 24, 2015 16:38

burnishedfume: Mar 8, 2011; You really are a louse...

Removing ideology from politics is nonsense for the simple reason that there are many issues we don't need a cost/benefit analysis for. There is no good financial reason to take in refugees rather than refusing them at the border. I fully concede that you will not make your moneys worth from the refugees, and yet I feel every European nation has a moral obligation to accept the refugees that are coming to Europe. This is what we call ideology.

Besides, DOOM DOES NOT CARE FOR YOUR SQUABBLING, DOOM WILL SPEND AND SAVE MONEY, TIME, AND BLOOD AS DOOM SEES FIT! FOR THE ONLY THING THAT GUIDES THIS NATION'S FUTURE IS DOOM'S WILL!

# ? Sep 24, 2015 17:23

Mc Do Well: Aug 2, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

Is this for or against Donald Trump?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nguURaLOfkQ
Everyone agrees with the phrase 'Make America Great Again', but each individual has their own vision of what a great America is and how to get there

Thish ish ideology.

# ? Sep 24, 2015 17:33

QuoProQuid: Jan 12, 2012; Tr*ckin' and F*ckin' all the way to tha
T O P

Trent posted:

Lol say what, now?

During the last debate, Huckabee decried recent actions of the Supreme Court and accused them of transforming democracy into rule by "philosopher-kings."

CLEARLY, if Huckabee had read The Republic he would know that democracy is the lowest form of government as it is subject to the momentary passions of the mob. It is only through the kallipolis that we can achieve eudaimonia.

# ? Sep 24, 2015 17:33

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# ? Apr 29, 2024 10:41

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

DrProsek posted:

Removing ideology from politics is nonsense for the simple reason that there are many issues we don't need a cost/benefit analysis for. There is no good financial reason to take in refugees rather than refusing them at the border. I fully concede that you will not make your moneys worth from the refugees, and yet I feel every European nation has a moral obligation to accept the refugees that are coming to Europe. This is what we call ideology.

Besides, DOOM DOES NOT CARE FOR YOUR SQUABBLING, DOOM WILL SPEND AND SAVE MONEY, TIME, AND BLOOD AS DOOM SEES FIT! FOR THE ONLY THING THAT GUIDES THIS NATION'S FUTURE IS DOOM'S WILL!

Cost/benefit analysis is itself part of an ideological framework. :ssh:

# ? Sep 24, 2015 18:48

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