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iiioiia t1_is81p8s wrote

Reply to comment by blastuponsometerries in Ethics of Nuclear Energy in Times of Climate Change: Escaping the Collective Action Problem by CartesianClosedCat

> Why do we allow those who benefit massively from the status quo to stymie any change or progress?

Democracy. The current governance of the country is literally The Will of The People.

And in case you're the type to criticize it, first realize: it is literally our most sacred institution (as seen on TV - over, and over, and over).

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gandzas t1_is86ji7 wrote

I think you missed the rest of his post.

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iiioiia t1_is8g92y wrote

Oh I read it, and agree with it.

What is happening in the US is very much not the will of the people, it is extremely sophisticated theatre.

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blastuponsometerries t1_isb65da wrote

Just a few basic things we have to do. Deeper changes come from questioning how on earth people still think the senate is a reasonable institution after increasing the number of states by 5x. Many of which have minuscule populations. Of course the Senate is the only body that can approve Supreme Court appointments. How convenient

In general the US population gets most things right over time.

But our current system is designed to constrain the will of the people at many key points. Then the people can be blamed for failures even as the people are basically ignored.

Nearly all our problems can be fixed by more democracy and giving the people a greater influence.

  1. Removing money and bribes from political elections
  2. Ranked choice to remove the 2 party duopoly
  3. Anti-gerrymandering protections and 2 winner districts to reduce polarization

Just a few basic things we have to do. Deeper changes come from questioning how on earth people still think the senate is a reasonable institution after increasing the number of states by 5x. Many of which have minuscule populations. Of course the Senate is the only body that can approve Supreme Court appointments. How convenient 🙄

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iiioiia t1_isbf4ao wrote

> Just a few basic things we have to do. Deeper changes come from questioning how on earth people still think the senate is a reasonable institution. after increasing the number of states by 5x.

FTFY.

And regarding "how on earth people still think":

See also: https://ml4a.github.io/ml4a/how_neural_networks_are_trained/

> Of course the Senate is the only body that can approve Supreme Court appointments. How convenient.

The entire structure of the systems seems rather convenient. And archaic. And...some other things.

Nothing strategically planted heuristics can't paper over though!

> In general the US population gets most things right over time.

I suspect knowing this would require access to a counterfactual reality machine. No such machine is required to believe it though!

> Nearly all our problems can be fixed by more democracy and giving the people a greater influence.

Perhaps, but maybe only for very specific definitions of "nearly", "can", "fixed", "democracy", "giving", and "influence". People tend to have strong aversions to complexity/accuracy though, so maybe best avoid such styles of thinking - leave that up to The Experts, and of course, Democracy (our most sacred institution)!

I'm sure it will all work out in the end.

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