[danholo]

Good news I guess, I wonder if the Trump-Kushner administration will screw this up.

So Ahmadinejad didn't run?

"So Ahmanidejad didn't run"? You are joking, right?

How deep does one's head need to be in the sand to present this election in some form of credible and progressive manner? As far as I know, it isn't ultimately up to a candidate if they want to run or not.

[Beren]

How deep does one's head need to be in the sand to present this election in some form of credible and progressive manner? As far as I know, it isn't ultimately up to a candidate if they want to run or not.

As far as I know this is the best one can expect from Iran right now.

[danholo]

Ah, the soft racism of low expectations. I guess not. Cultural differences are a reality, so you can't expect a similar political climate but it's odd when it's portrayed as such.

[Beren]

Ah, the soft racism of low expectations. I guess not.

Cultural differences are a reality.

I must be bigoted anyways, hah? Whatever that makes your superiority complex justified.

I think it's just realism. However, if they do their best they still do better than America or Israel does.

[danholo]

I think bigotry is a general human condition, and applies to all - but that's another discussion altogether.

However, if they do their best they still do better than America or Israel does.

With what, and why is this relevant to this thread?

[Beren]

With what, and why is this relevant to this thread?

With their heads of government.

It's relevant because if America and Israel keep doing their worst (or could they do even worse? ) and join up with Saudi Arabia completely, then Iran won't be able to do its best for long.

[danholo]

It's relevant because if America and Israel keep doing their worst (or could they do even worse? :?: ) and join up with Saudi Arabia completely, then Iran won't be able to do its best for long.

It might be relevant but I don't think Iran is a entirely rational actor, so the measure of Israel's or America's leadership could just be viewed as a smokescreen. Also, If this is 'the worst' I think your idea of bad is relatively mild.

[Beren]

It might be relevant but I don't think Iran is a entirely rational actor, so the measure of Israel's or America's leadership could just be viewed as a smokescreen. Also, If this is 'the worst' I think your idea of bad is relatively mild.

Sure danholo, Iran must be less rational than America with Trump as president or the pathological government of Israel with PM Netanyahu, both ready to team up with the totally corrupt and devilish Saudi Kingdom.

You may be right though that it's still not the worst they can produce.

[danholo]

Sure danholo, Iran must be less rational than America with Trump as president or the pathological government of Israel with PM Netanyahu, both ready to team up with the totally corrupt and devilish Saudi Kingdom.

Odd deflection from the topic to focus on America and Israel here, honestly.

Iran is a religious republic whose supreme leader is a religious cleric. I think it diminishes its value as a rational actor considerably. I just think it's odd that the country's elections are presented in awfully PC manner as if it were France.

I don't think the rationality, or lack thereof, of its adversaries needs to be mentioned.

You may be right though that it's still not the worst they can produce.

Of course I'm right, it's a fact of existence - but I don't see how this is relevant to Iran's election or its political system, or the transparency of it thereof.

then Iran won't be able to do its best for long.

What does this allude to?

[Beren]

Odd deflection from the topic to focus on America and Israel here, honestly.

It would be hard to understand what's going on in Iran without putting the issue in context. Trump making a $110 billion arms deal with the devil and ISIS attacks in Tehran won't do much good.

[danholo]

I don't see how that is relevant to how Iran's political system functions, which I was pointing out.

[Beren]

I don't see how that is relevant to how Iran's political system functions, which I was pointing out.

So you don't see how Iran's geopolitics and history matter? You rather see they're just religious nuts, whereas their opponents are rational actors (with good will perhaps).

[Oxymandias]

@Rugoz

1. In America and most of Europe, this is never the case. It isn't direct democracy like you said it was. Do people consider it legitimate? Of course, many people even like their governments.

And you could also still let the disenfranchised vote through disenfranchisement lotteries or aggregate the political preferences of the citizens through digital oracles. There are many ways to do this if you just read the article and not skim through it!

2. But there is a difference between "well-informed" and "uninformed" opinions. Well-informed opinions are arguably "good" since even though you may disagree with a person's vote you at least know that the person voting is informed about the current political situation and understand it well under a Epistocracy. An uninformed vote is bad regardless of the situations since it can lead to the misconception of certain policies and expecting them to be something else or vote for a hasty uneducated decision that could have terrible consequences on the country.

That is absolutely wrong and ignorant of you. The Swiss Cantons each have their own legislature, constitution, government, and courts. The Swiss Federal Constitution says that they are sovereign states to the extent that their sovereignty is not limited by federal law. Cantons are responsible for healthcare, welfare, law enforcement, taxation, and public education. This is more than anything a state can ever have. If states had these abilities, California would've have a universal healthcare system by this point.

There's no reason why this can't be also in Epistocracy and Technocracy.

[Rugoz]

@Rugoz

1. In America and most of Europe, this is never the case. It isn't direct democracy like you said it was. Do people consider it legitimate? Of course, many people even like their governments.

And you could also still let the disenfranchised vote through disenfranchisement lotteries or aggregate the political preferences of the citizens through digital oracles. There are many ways to do this if you just read the article and not skim through it!

2. But there is a difference between "well-informed" and "uninformed" opinions. Well-informed opinions are arguably "good" since even though you may disagree with a person's vote you at least know that the person voting is informed about the current political situation and understand it well under a Epistocracy. An uninformed vote is bad regardless of the situations since it can lead to the misconception of certain policies and expecting them to be something else or vote for a hasty uneducated decision that could have terrible consequences on the country.

That is absolutely wrong and ignorant of you. The Swiss Cantons each have their own legislature, constitution, government, and courts. The Swiss Federal Constitution says that they are sovereign states to the extent that their sovereignty is not limited by federal law. Cantons are responsible for healthcare, welfare, law enforcement, taxation, and public education. This is more than anything a state can ever have. If states had these abilities, California would've have a universal healthcare system by this point.

There's no reason why this can't be also in Epistocracy and Technocracy.

First of all, in the future, quote my post or the passages you respond to.

1. One man one vote is a reality in all existing democracies. You want to disenfranchise a part of the population, it is doubtful they will simply tolerate that. Look at the controversy over voter ID laws in the US for example, and that's comparatively trivial.

As for "simulated oracles" as described in the latimes article. Opinion polls are notoriously unreliable when it comes to particular issues, unless they're conducted right before the actual vote. They're an indicator of how people feel about an issue, but do not necessarily tell us how people would decide at the ballot. I'm not saying they're useless. I think representatives should consider them when making decisions, but they're simply not a replacement for the "real thing". Further, one cannot derive the public's "enlightened preferences" from polls through statistics, that's just bollocks.

As for the "enfranchisement lottery", which I would call a jury system. It's an interesting idea, but IMO only as a complement to a representative system. Selecting 10k (presumably randomly) and letting them choose the government for themselves and hundreds of millions comes with a number of issues.

2. An uninformed vote is a problem only when it is biased. See this post. More importantly, I reject the existence of an informed vote in the first place.

Regarding the Swiss cantons. American states also have their own legislature, constitution, government, and courts. And you're wrong. Healthcare, welfare, law enforcement, taxation, and public education are all federal matters as well. Frankly I have no idea where you get your (mis)information from.

[Barmakid]

I wouldn't consider Iran an irrational actor. Khamenei is much more shrewd than Khomeini and has developed many institutions and cadres subordinate to him. He is the one who initially reached out to Obama about reaching a nuclear deal during Ahmadinejad's presidency.

The elections in Iran are certainly a farce though as they only include regime insiders and the president doesn't have much authority in the realms of foreign policy and defense. Rouhani aspires to succeed Khamenei as Supreme Leader. If he can deliver economically his prospects for doing so may be bolstered but he doesn't seem to have much influence among military institutions like the Sepah and Basij.

[Oxymandias]

@Rugoz

I don't know how to quote a post.

1. Then please explain to me what the electoral college is then? I certainly do not. There are enfranchisement lotteries as I said before and simulated oracles. Also this isn't about changing an existing democracy into an epistocracy. This is about changing a theocracy into a epistocracy. Many people would not be used to the idea of democracy and I want to avoid another Egypt. Lebanon, or Pakistan fiasco. Many of the reasons why authoritarians gained power is because of the countryside and often the countryside is uneducated both politically and in general. And it is the countryside that ended up creating the disasters of Egypt, Lebanon, etc.

It never was a replacement of the real thing. Also there's no reason why you can't make opinion polls reflect how people will ballot. If you ask them directly how would they vote for a certain issue, that rephrases the question making them think about how they would vote instead of they feel about it. The two are fundamentally different. Not only that but the poll would also include information about the actual situation. That is how you would get those enlightened preferences.

Which is why the country would also be a Technocratic Democracy so experts would also have leverage in the discussion in informing the enfranchisement lottery.

2. However everyone is biased. The point of epistocracy is to get "Vultures", people who are open-minded enough and educated enough on certain matters to talk about them. However why not, instead of letting anyone in Iran vote, let only "Vultures" vote. In your post you did not reject the notion of an informed vote. As you stated, under equally distributed information the uncertainty of the masses preform better than individuals.

However you forgot one thing, that many people do not vote at all. If the knowledgeable voter feels that it's no use to vote since it doesn't matter anyways (despite evidence that says otherwise) then N will continue to go on for infinity. Not only that, but voters do not in fact randomly vote but choose political parties and have political bias. Many of which would rather stay uninformed or even disregard information if it does not fit their political ideas and perception of reality. You see this in America a lot. Not only that but what is wanted isn't always what is good for the people. This can also lead to a rejection of minorities as well.

Oh yeah, that's a mess up on my part!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantons_of_Switzerland
https://www.reddit.com/r/Switzerland/

There's a shit ton of references there if you want to proof check it. You can translate if you wish, that's what I did. I also linked to /r/Switzerland so you can ask actually Swiss people about whether or not Swiss cantons actually can control taxation, healthcare, welfare, law enforcement and public education. Or you can reject all of these and you can be the one mis-informed. I've written essays in college about the Swiss cantons, I know them better than anybody.

[anasawad]

@Oxymandias
Wait wait wait. What exactly is the Lebanon disaster you speak of ?
Lebanon empirically speaking has one of the highly educated populations in the greater middle east region.

Do you mean to talk about that time when Lebanon was invaded by 3 foreign armies whom fought a war on its ground ? That you say is because of the Lebanese country side ?

[Oxymandias]

@anasawad

Oh I confused Lebanon with Libya! Sorry.

[Rugoz]

@Oxymandias

- You seem to be confused. Either polls are binding, then they're not polls, or they're not binding, then they're irrelevant. The reasons, IMO, why polls differ from ballots: There is not public debate preceding the poll and no responsibility or decision-making power comes with it.
- I agree that in reality votes are almost certainly not going to be unbiased, that's a weakness of Condorcet's theorem. That post was descriptive by the way: I do reject the notion of an informed (i.e. objectively correct) vote. Certainly though more information should lead to a better understanding of the consequences (if the information is unbiased).
- As for the voting paradox, I won't comment on that. People obviously derive some utility from voting.
- As for the Swiss cantons. If you haven't noticed, I'm Swiss. I pay federal taxes, the healthcare law is a federal law, I studied at a federal university (though there are also cantonal ones). There's a federal police force, etc. etc. Remember Swiss cantons are tiny.

Regarding education and democracy:

I don't think it's all about (formal) eduction or income. America was a functioning democracy in the 19th century, yet Americans were certainly poorer in those days than Middle Easterners today, and likely less educated.

Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" is a good read in that respect. He tried to explain why democracy succeeded in America and failed in his native France (note in Britain, Germany etc. only an elite had voting rights in the 19th century, see here for example). Among other things, Tocqueville emphasizes the importance of local government (American townships):

Yet municipal institutions constitute the strength of free nations. Town meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people's reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it. A nation may establish a free government, but without municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty. Transient passions, the interests of an hour, or the chance of circumstances may create the external forms of independence, but the despotic tendency which has been driven into the interior of the social system will sooner or later reappear on the surface.

Note that in Switzerland, arguably the only other full and functioning democracy in the 19th century, local government also played an important role (Landsgemeinde). Begs the question what the future holds when governance becomes more and more globalized/centralized.

[Oxymandias]

1. This is because polls aren't tied to the democratic process that much. This is why polls are like this way. If citizens had prior knowledge that how you answer in the poll has very real political power then people would answer differently. There's no reason why public debate can't happen with a simulated oracle. If people were aware that the polls had real political power then public debate would happen naturally.

2. So you reject the idea of an informed vote yet you believe that information will allow the voter to make an informed vote. A person who votes knowing information about the consequences of the vote is an informed vote. That's what I mean and that's what the article means. Also nowhere in that post do you disprove the idea of an informed vote.

3. Although I agree I have to ask what may be the utilities of voting? I think you may have some potentially interesting answers. It's fun to hear of new ideas.

4. Then why does a well-referenced wikipedia article and all the references in that wikipedia article state otherwise? If you are truly Swiss you would have no problem reading it and would probably be better at reading it than I did (and you wouldn't have to go through all of them like I did) therefore there's no reason why you can't read the relevant references. Not only that, but I can point to thousands of academic articles talking about the Swiss cantons and what makes them different from states because Swiss cantons are different from states.

I have not noticed at all that you are Swiss. I thought you were British at first.

5. I don't think you understand my point. America during the 19th century was already accustomed to democracy and understood it after many, many mistakes along it's run. Not only that, but America started out as a democracy unlike Iran which would turn from a theocracy to a democracy. The idea of good municipal institutions with political power in Iran doesn't exist at all.

6. I think that as we progress we should be getting more and more decentralized rather than centralized. With the internet people can connect with each other even better than before, we should take advantage of that. Globalization is inherently decentralized though. No one rules over world or feasibly do so therefore globalization cannot be equated with centralization because in order for globalization to be centralized, it must be ruled over by a singular entity.