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Comment by withinboredom

19 days ago

Governments should be working on multi-generational scales. Not "fads" of what people want because they saw it in a movie or they grew up with it.

> Governments should be working on multi-generational scales. Not "fads" of what people want because they saw it in a movie or they grew up with it.

If the people disagree with you, then you're not talking about democracy, you're talking about "benevolent" authoritarianism ("we know what's good for you, and that's what you're going to get, like it or not").

Just be clear what you're really advocating for.

  • No, what we need is not "democracy" as in "we get what every idiot thinks is good off the top of their head".

    What we need is a representative democracy, where our representatives genuinely care about getting the best outcomes, so they enlist experts who actually know what they're talking about, and make policy based on that.

    Yes, sometimes that will disagree with what the masses want—and in most of those cases, that means that our representatives need to enlist some communication experts to explain why it's actually best.

    Democracy isn't an end in itself. It's supposed to be the means to an end of better governance for all. We don't have to accept things that are actively worse for us just because 50%+1 of the relevant voters think they're better right this second.

  • Since when is government a democracy? Roman times or something like that? Most? Some? Or at least a few government officials are elected. Pretty sure most are hired.

    • Since today. We elect our representatives and they are supposed to reflect the people's wishes as they go about their duties. Some city government staff might be hired employees, even most. But they are still fundamentally accountable to the elected representatives, and thus to the people.

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When you pan out, walkable neighborhoods are at the multi generational scale — car centric suburbia is the fad.