Comment by bagxrvxpepzn
5 hours ago
> Tobias Lutke in particular has chronically been on the wrong side of fundamental issues
Just because someone has different ideas about what policies would produce better outcomes for society doesn't mean they are a malicious person.
Clearly there is a lot wrong with society and many suspect it's due to structural problems in how society is organized. Even if he's wrong, it's not surprising at all that a successful well-intentioned person who pays a lot in taxes who is otherwise not experienced in policy would have the opinion that the votes of people who pay more in taxes should have a greater weight.
There is no civilization if it's the norm to assume that someone is acting in bad faith if he has opinions different than yours. E.g. Wikipedia would have fallen apart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith
I'm sure the people who would have their right to vote stripped from them would consider that malicious, and they would be correct. That's not democracy.
> I'm sure the people who would have their right to vote stripped from them would consider that malicious, and they would be correct.
I don't agree with him but you're incorrect here. To play devil's advocate, if his policy idea resulted in better outcomes for them, e.g. better material conditions, then they may end up preferring not having a right to vote and consider him a good person.
> That's not democracy.
Democracy isn't necessarily the same thing as direct democracy, or "everyone votes." The Ancient Greeks didn't practice democracy this way. In any case, democracy isn't a virtue in itself. If one system is democratic according to your standards but the vast majority of its citizens live in squalor while another system is not democratic according to your standards but the vast majority of its citizens live in prosperity, which system is better?
Historical precedent (both recent and not) shows that concentrating wealth and then giving those wealthy few an inordinate amount of political power does not end well for those disenfranchised by this system.
It is not reasonable to give the benefit of the doubt on the basis of Lutke and his ilk maybe being benevolent dictators if given largely unfettered access to the levers of power.
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I think most people will agree that empowering the edgelord Shopify CEO is not going to improve most people's outcomes. All you need to do is read his tweets to see that he should have less power (much less), not more.
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