"The Rational Vegan" is anything but rational

[Mr. Purple]

Rich people influence government based on personal ideology, which may be liberal or conservative.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/katiasavchu ... 3d419c717e

Democrats and Republicans both are on board with making the rich richer unless you get someone like Bernie Sanders. Republicans and Democrats aren't that different(In action) when it comes to most things.

The wealthy are not simply puppets of corporations; they are human beings with individual interests.

The people at the head of corporations are the richest of the rich people that we are most worried about. It seems likely that there would be significant overlap between the corporation's values and the values of the people who lead those same corporations. Corporation's just want money, and corporation owners probably want the success of their corporation.

Companies lobby the government too, but you have every right to boycott the companies for doing so.

How would people know what that company is up to since they lie, and the government will gladly assist in this deception. Factory farming is a great example of this with ad gag laws.It's pretty sketchy that lobbyists are so embedded in our government structure that i'm not sure the government would operate correctly without them anymore.

This gives the rich way more power to shape a corporation's behavior

Only the consumers have the power to boycott and destroy the corporation -- this is the ultimate power, if it's exercised. Where do rich people get their money?

How does this change the fact that rich people have MORE influence? I am still aware that poor people are capable(if you exclude lack of information) of shaping corporations as well. Rich people are more likely to be directly involved with corporations(managing or investing) and they are also the people with the most power to shape policy relating to corporations. Maybe the difference is you are talking about rich and poor in aggregate, and i'm talking about them as individuals?

How does the fact that the consumer makes rich people rich change anything? Slaves made slave owners rich, but that doesn't mean the slaves ultimately had the power.

Even so, it's pretty clear they aren't that stable: http://www.economist.com/news/business/ ... le-workers

How does this make it clear they aren't stable? A single failed coop out of the 110 coops that are part of mondragon given spain's economic context seems like an argument in their favor to me. I was under the impression that most businesses have worse track records than that. The fact that they were able to reabsorb all the workers into other factories is also really cool in my opinion. I don't know enough to say if they are actually unstable, but this example doesn't seem like it should be a big hit to the mondragon model.

It's unfortunate when people can't see the success or failure of an economic model in the context it was born into. It's hard to tell how well Cuba\Venezuela would have done economically if it's success wasn't actively opposed by the most powerful country in the world for example, yet for most people, it's another example of socialism's failure. I imagine socialism would have succeeded just fine if people with socialist values would have settled America instead. Getting a massive continent the size of america complete with free slave labor all to themselves with no(real) nearby competition or enemies has got to help the success of your economic model. This mondragon coop model is managing to survive along side capitalism in a free market even without profit as its core goal. It's probably the most human(socialistic) economic system I've seen that won't immediately come into conflict with capitalism. Since we need a more human system, and capitalism currently has a monopoly, this seems like the most promising option to me.

It sounds like Mondragon is highly focused on education. It's unclear what kind of pressure the workers are under to be educated. Possibly something like the "hire a full time professor and take the cost out of everybody's salaries" model, or where upward mobility is dependent on it.

And? An emphasis on education seems really intelligent. I wish our government would take that approach.

What the workers vote on is likely more limited than what you suggest.

He talked about that in the video. They elect the person above them who makes the large scale plans, and then that is approved by everyone. To me that's fine. They never give up their power to this person they elected. It seems to be working for them. That's probably how it would have to work for some chunk of the direct democracy in government too. The people express a general desire, someone with the proper education is hired to crunch numbers and put that desire into official words and into a real world context, and then it's sent back to the people to make sure it's what they intended.

Also, as far as I know, the general assembly can do most of these things directly themselves, it's just that they choose to appoint the appropriately educated people to do this for obvious reasons. They can call for meetings to change things themselves or directly dismiss managers with a collection of signatures for example. These things don't happen often, but I wouldn't expect them to. Add to that the fact that everything the governing body comes up with has to get the sign of approval by the workers, and I don't know what more someone would want out of a democracy.

The people only have the opportunity to approve policy, but since the authority probably controls the propaganda available to people in the company, it's very likely this is something of limited volatility.

Since their pay is relatively tied together systematically, i'm not sure how far they could go with propaganda without hurting themselves. Screwing the workers screws everyone relatively evenly. Im sure propaganda would be an issue to SOME degree like in any system ever devised involving humans. It just seems much less so here. If you are talking about their education as the propaganda, then sure. I'm not sure how to avoid that in any system. They seem to follow their 10 core principles pretty well, and if that is their "propaganda", then I don't even mind at that point.

From what I've read, each branch is largely autonomous. That is, the bank in Mondragon is very much like the board of directors coop in the scenario I explained, which controls the actions of the subsidiaries through money.

I would like to read about that. Can you send me the information you found relating to their control over the other's actions? The issue you have would be fixed if the bank branch was accountable to all the workers in all branches in your opinion?

And if you manage to get hired on credit, that kind of debt means the company owns you, and you have little to no ability to switch jobs after coming on.

This might be true. A transitional period like this wouldn't be a dealbreaker for me though, and it clearly sounds better than the capitalist alternative for the poor. I don't know enough about finance to understand if mondragon has a solution to this.

You aren't getting it. We can talk about a spectrum between pure raw data, with every argument presented and being impossible to sift through, to a convenient little illustration and an either-or option that takes five minutes to consider. As we move toward the latter, biases and corruption in that "crunching" become more relevant and harder to avoid.

I understand that you can fit more lies into ambiguity just fine, but even In it's most basic simplified form, as long as there are multiple sides presented with arguments and counterarguments for each issue, it becomes much easier to deal with and see all the moving parts in context. Right now what we have is arguing over our beliefs about what a limited selection of candidates may or may not try to do for us at some point in the future. Thats a huge difference to me.

Obviously the more educated you are, the less simplified you need your arguments for each side, leading to less possible manipulation by the biased data crunchers and summarizers(in a worst case scenario). But the current system gives everyone no tools to mitigate this manipulation from the start regardless of education. I don't see the advantage there.

I think you're confusing the meaning of "random". If it's based on an algorithm, it's not random; and it's subject to gerrymandering and other forms of corruption.

I meant was once you have a set of things they are likely to care about, if that is still way too much information, use a random sample from that. It could be straight random if there was literally no other way to get the bill to them in an unbiased way, but I doubt that would be the case. I'm not sure why gerrymandering is relevant here.

These are all profoundly subject to bias and corruption. I don't understand how you aren't seeing this.

I am seeing it... And this is why I only suggested it under the assumption that it was literally too much information for people to handle otherwise. But once again, even in worst case scenario where we can't find any unbiased method to crunch numbers, it's still seems vastly superior.

The benefit to corporate influence is that companies are generally sane and just want to make profit: with a rare exception in a profoundly evil company, they generally don't want to execute homosexuals or infringe on civil liberties that have nothing to do with their profit margins.

Yeah, i agree. That's the problem. If it somehow made more of a profit to execute homosexuals they would try their hardest to do it. You make it sound like following money wherever it leads is harmless.

Very often lobbying is more about teaching than bribing.

Are you happy with the system we have where lobbyists for companies play such a huge role in the day to day workings of our government?

Maybe we shouldn't define political policy based on what sounds like "fun"?

We almost certainly should actually. By "fun", I was trying to convey to you that it seemed like something i would like to participate in. Participation and engagement are very important to a democracy.

The best part of the government: Highly educated and not subject to political pressures. They don't have elections, so they don't need bribes.

I like you brim. You have a very unorthodox combination of viewpoints, and this is even accounting for the fact we are on a vegan atheist forum. Maybe you are just playing devils advocate, but it's good to have an smart opposing voice around to try and show the other side to everything.

I'm not sure how we would replace the supreme court in a direct democracy since it hardly fits in a representative democracy. What do you think about having a standard set of free constitutionally oriented law classes focused on why we have a constitution in the first place? It could be taught with equal input by the different parties, and if you have taken the classes you are entered into a pool of people that can vote in a supreme court role for a certain amount of years.

I think that would be terrible, and basically represents everything that's wrong with politics.

I would love to hear why.

[brimstoneSalad]

Democrats and Republicans both are on board with making the rich richer unless you get someone like Bernie Sanders. Republicans and Democrats aren't that different(In action) when it comes to most things.

Those are the parties, that doesn't mean it's what the people believe (and you should know democrats support more taxes and social programs). Many rich are strong supporters of charity and social welfare regardless of politics. Look at how Bill Gates spends his money.
You can't just condemn human beings based on how much they make like this. Wealth is correlated with philanthropy -- and there's a good argument to be made that the philanthropy of the rich is often more efficient than government programs, because the rich (like Gates) are often more intelligent and can spend money more effectively (and they'll be more careful with their own money).

The people at the head of corporations are the richest of the rich people that we are most worried about. It seems likely that there would be significant overlap between the corporation's values and the values of the people who lead those same corporations. Corporation's just want money, and corporation owners probably want the success of their corporation.

That not true, but even if it were, like I said they are slaves to the demands of consumers. You can't have it both ways.

Outside monopolies, the only feedback is advertising to consumers -- attempting to tell them what they want -- but you as a consumer still have "free will" and can choose to buy from one company instead of another, encouraging more progressive social policies and less lobbying.

How would people know what that company is up to since they lie, and the government will gladly assist in this deception. Factory farming is a great example of this with ad gag laws.It's pretty sketchy that lobbyists are so embedded in our government structure that i'm not sure the government would operate correctly without them anymore.

Companies can obscure, but they can not commit false advertising: the FTC prohibits that. If a company says it does not lobby or pay any third party to lobby directly or through membership fees, then it does not lobby (they could get in serious trouble for saying otherwise).
Companies can also choose to show their finances to third party accounting firms to certify that they do not lobby.

If consumers were half as concerned about lobbying as GMOs, we could actually do something about this. This is on the heads of complacent consumers.

Ag-gag laws are being challenged quite successfully in the courts. It's going to take a while. Our government is slow; look how long it took to overturn bans on gay marriage.

Stopping this process of passing unconstitutional laws doesn't require doing the (nearly) impossible task of stopping lobbying (which can be a good thing too, particularly when it's educational). We just need recourse against the legislators who pass these laws.
When a law like DOMA gets ruled unconstitutional, that should open everybody who signed it up to in the very least class action civil suits for all of the pain and suffering it caused, and better yet, criminal prosecution for a hate crime. Every one of those evil pieces of shit that signed it should be rotting in a cell now; that might make legislators think things over first before they impugn on civil liberties, and it wouldn't interfere at all in our economic system.

How does this change the fact that rich people have MORE influence? I am still aware that poor people are capable(if you exclude lack of information) of shaping corporations as well. Rich people are more likely to be directly involved with corporations(managing or investing) and they are also the people with the most power to shape policy relating to corporations.

Rich people only have more consumer influence on luxury companies, like Rolex and yacht companies; these make up a very small part of the economy.
Unless you think rich people are buying more Twinkies than poor people, they don't have more influence over Hostess.

If you're talking about the rich people in charge of the corporations, you said they were only interested in maximizing profit -- so, that makes them slaves to the consumer too.
Again, you can't have it both ways. Are the rich in control, or are they just maximizing profit (which means ultimately controlled by the consumer)?

Maybe the difference is you are talking about rich and poor in aggregate, and i'm talking about them as individuals?

It's irrelevant. Companies catering to the rich make up a very small part of the market; assuming only the rich are evil (as you seem to be trying to paint them) and it were ONLY these companies that had bad human rights records, there wouldn't be such a big "problem".

How does the fact that the consumer makes rich people rich change anything? Slaves made slave owners rich, but that doesn't mean the slaves ultimately had the power.

This is a terrible analogy which just indicates how poorly you understand economics. Slaves did not choose which owner to have -- if they did, then owners would be in competition to provide good living and working conditions to attract the most slaves vs. their competitors, otherwise they'd be unable to run their plantations.

Consumer choice gives consumers the power. This is why monopolies are such a big problem: they take away that choice, and make the consumer powerless. That's why we have antitrust (competition) laws.

How does this make it clear they aren't stable?

That branch couldn't get things together and cut costs enough to compete because the workers wouldn't compromise on low enough wages, sufficient automation, and aggressive enough strategies. As a result, despite that branch's desire to remain open, they were closed down because the rest of Mondragon (favoring the majority) wouldn't support them (even with government subsidies).

Coops like these make fair weather friends.

The fact that they were able to reabsorb all the workers into other factories is also really cool in my opinion. I don't know enough to say if they are actually unstable, but this example doesn't seem like it should be a big hit to the mondragon model.

It's a demonstration of my point. They reabsorbed the workers because they were otherwise obligated to pay them unemployment -- they didn't have a choice, which is an interesting consideration. Because of the contracts the workers have, Mondragon is limited in its democracy (they can't violate contract and cut dead weight; this is distinct from an entire nation which is under no such obligations from outside powers and is an unlimited democracy).

It's unfortunate when people can't see the success or failure of an economic model in the context it was born into. It's hard to tell how well Cuba\Venezuela would have done economically if it's success wasn't actively opposed by the most powerful country in the world for example, yet for most people, it's another example of socialism's failure.

This is an issue with apparent "success" as well as failures: there are no controls available to extrapolate conclusions into different systems.
Something that works in China is very unlikely to work in North America, for example, because of cultural differences.

Capitalism, as a system of economics, is very close to fool proof because it's mostly self-stabilizing in any context; the issue is its consequences upon the society.
Communistic systems are the opposite; consequences are naturally more good IF it works, but they're very prone to failure and corruption because of the unstable economic system.

There are few things less efficient in terms of GDP than advertisement and competition, and yet competition is the only reliable stabilizing force we currently know of.

I imagine socialism would have succeeded just fine if people with socialist values would have settled America instead.

There's really no reason to believe that either.

This mondragon coop model is managing to survive along side capitalism in a free market even without profit as its core goal.

Profit is its core goal, the shareholders just happen to be its workers; that's perfectly fine in itself, but forcing this upon an economy is problematic because it does require significant investment to just get a job. It's also a problem to run a company with a direct democracy (which Mondragon doesn't do, so they can manage to get along with more educated representatives).

And? An emphasis on education seems really intelligent. I wish our government would take that approach.

If we had a highly educated population, the idea of direct democracy wouldn't be a problem.

In the U.S. over 80% of the population believe in a god, nearly 80% believe in miracles, nearly 70% reject natural selection (over 40% of those believe in theistic creationism), over 70% of consumers favor organic food, and disturbingly over 90% of consumers favor labeling "GMO" foods.
Irrationality and fear mongering lead on the majority of important issues.
A very slim majority of only 51% (and falling fast) of Americans support nuclear power despite it being the cleanest, greenest, safest practical energy source there is: the lingering reason will soon be overtaken completely by the fear mongers.

People are ignorant, fearful, and irrational; a direct democracy would lead the world into the gutter faster than ever.

He talked about that in the video. They elect the person above them who makes the large scale plans, and then that is approved by everyone. To me that's fine.

It's much better than a direct democracy where the people decide on policies. Are there multiple parties suggesting policies? If not, and it's just one suggestion made by a single party, it's easy to understand why that works. Again, without an adversarial climate, those in power control the propaganda (this could be good OR bad).

That's probably how it would have to work for some chunk of the direct democracy in government too. The people express a general desire, someone with the proper education is hired to crunch numbers and put that desire into official words and into a real world context, and then it's sent back to the people to make sure it's what they intended.

If the people were educated enough to do that, and we didn't get a tyranny of the ignorant majority, that could be fine. OR if we only had one party that by luck happened to be rational and benevolent, and controlled the propaganda then that might work too (this relates back to education).

Also, as far as I know, the general assembly can do most of these things directly themselves, it's just that they choose to appoint the appropriately educated people to do this for obvious reasons.

That may or may not be true.
To understand what's going on, we'd have to know a lot more about the psychology and social atmosphere there.

Since their pay is relatively tied together systematically, i'm not sure how far they could go with propaganda without hurting themselves.

What if, in a system of these companies competing, they were bribed by another company or interest? What if they're going based on some kind of ignorant ideology, and so end up screwing themselves, but take down the whole with them?

Anyway, it's easy to cap executive salary by law without completely reinventing the capitalist wheel. This is unrelated to Mondragon's system. There have been some countries doing this or considering it already, and various arguments for and against it.

If you are talking about their education as the propaganda, then sure. I'm not sure how to avoid that in any system. They seem to follow their 10 core principles pretty well, and if that is their "propaganda", then I don't even mind at that point.

Propaganda is education; the issue is you can't always trust those who create it. Right now, Mondragon may be lucky; you don't know what a larger system like this would look like. The executives ultimately still retain control here as long as they control the message, but with multiple competing firms like these, competitive sabotage would be incredibly easy through advertising and counter-propaganda, and could be worse than the consequences to modern capitalistic competition.

I would like to read about that. Can you send me the information you found relating to their control over the other's actions?

I think it was in that pdf.

The issue you have would be fixed if the bank branch was accountable to all the workers in all branches in your opinion?

NO. It would be made worse. That's a good thing, and what has kept the company stable and in business, because it's being run by experts, not the ignorant masses.

The companies being independent is what isolates them from interference from other companies which don't know their business, and can't make informed decisions about operations. Compartmentalization is what lets this organization survive despite being somewhat democratic in nature. Voting is limited in scope to the knowledge those voters possess, and damage is limited in the case it doesn't work.

I understand that you can fit more lies into ambiguity just fine, but even In it's most basic simplified form, as long as there are multiple sides presented with arguments and counterarguments for each issue, it becomes much easier to deal with and see all the moving parts in context.

The U.S. government has two parties: does that fix things? You said yourself earlier in this post that they both want to see the rich get richer.
The only way you ensure an alternative to every perspective is to let every perspective be heard: that means millions of voices chiming in on everything.

You could go the journalistic route, and present a for and against for everything, but you have to decide which for arguments to present, which against arguments to present, and then you run into the journalistic bias of presenting both sides, even if one is a fringe, and representing them as equally credible. This is not a solution.

But the current system gives everyone no tools to mitigate this manipulation from the start regardless of education. I don't see the advantage there.

Actually it does: you can join with others and become a manipulator yourself. Start lobbying: that's how you can be a part of your political process. Lobbying isn't just about money, it's also about time and education. Write to your representatives about what you want. Organize others to do the same.

The influence just isn't what you thought it was, but it's there.

Also, as explained earlier, you have control over companies' behavior. Individuals are the most powerful political force in this country; they just rarely use their power.

It could be straight random if there was literally no other way to get the bill to them in an unbiased way

There probably is no other way; or at least no way we currently know of.
In this case, we're essentially talking about creation of passing of legislation by juries, which I already mentioned, and which is a very compelling political theory.

Yeah, i agree. That's the problem. If it somehow made more of a profit to execute homosexuals they would try their hardest to do it. You make it sound like following money wherever it leads is harmless.

No, it's not a problem.
You have to look at consequences: It doesn't make more profit to execute homosexuals. In practice, the things that are more profitable are USUALLY more sensible. Nuclear power, efficient agriculture, etc.
We have to have provisions in place to protect the people from abuses, but for the most part the courts do this. If a company makes a dangerous product, that company gets sued: this means it's more profitable (given that) to make products that aren't so dangerous.
It also makes sense for companies to WANT certain regulations of industry, as long as they apply to all companies. It's better for companies to keep their consumers alive long enough to buy more stuff, for example, as well as their employees alive long enough to work. Study game theory.

The worst things companies would do is often a lot better than the worst thing ideologically driven ignorant fearful consumers would do.
I would rather government ruled by corporations than fear mongers; it's the lesser of two evils by far.

Are you happy with the system we have where lobbyists for companies play such a huge role in the day to day workings of our government?

As I said earlier, it's the best crappy system we have.

The only thing I would agree on is that we need more and better education for the consumers: once we have that (if it's ever achieved) we can start talking about more direct democracy as finally being better than corporate rule.

We could take measures to limit the corporate power over consumers by blocking campaign financing (not blocking educational lobbying), and by blocking advertisement to consumers (so consumers would advocate brands they care about and that offer good products themselves). These policies would also probably be better for companies, but it's something that would have to be experimented with.

We almost certainly should actually. By "fun", I was trying to convey to you that it seemed like something i would like to participate in. Participation and engagement are very important to a democracy.

I know what you're saying, but I don't see the benefit to being ruled by an ignorant voter base. Making it fun would just make more ignorant people likely to participate, while if it's tedious it will more likely be the more educated -- navigating the tedium itself would at least be somewhat educational.

What do you think about having a standard set of free constitutionally oriented law classes focused on why we have a constitution in the first place?

If they're free, that's a problem, because the course material would probably be propaganda provided by special interests (which is where the funding is ultimately coming from).
Better to be independent, but academia has its own biases (see the regressive left in modern academia, "safe spaces" "microagressions" etc.)

It could be taught with equal input by the different parties,

You run into the same problem the two party system has, or you end up with an untenable amount of input.

and if you have taken the classes you are entered into a pool of people that can vote in a supreme court role for a certain amount of years.

IF you can figure out how to make a good and unbiased class, then sure: that's just a meritocracy. Source merit properly, and there's nothing wrong with a direct democracy from properly educated people within the domains of their education.

I would love to hear why.

It's ideological. Compromising between different irrational ideologies does not a reasonable policy make.

[Mr. Purple]

free will" and can choose to buy from one company instead of another, encouraging more progressive social policies and less lobbying.

If they all lobby, how would this message be conveyed by not purchasing their product? This seems like a very inefficient way of sending a message for certain things.

Outside monopolies, the only feedback is advertising to consumers

Are you counting government influence in the monopoly category? Pharmaceutical and Insurance companies don't seem to follow that rule since the government forces compliance. Subsidies also are a deal with government that influences consumers and favors some companies over others.(Giving the rich more power over corporations)

Companies can obscure, but they can not commit false advertising: the FTC prohibits that.

They can obscure the truth effectively enough that it really wouldn't make a difference even to a relatively educated consumer. All they need to do is use a different word that isn't on the governments off limits list that means the same thing to a consumer. "Part of this nutritious breakfast". What's worse is the government's list of what counts as healthy, and the nutrition requirements that makes a product count as healthy are both probably being defined with help of the lobbyists. There is an infinite amount of workarounds for each issue, and corporations in a capitalistic society have the incentives and resources to find them all or create them from scratch.

assuming only the rich are evil (as you seem to be trying to paint them) and it were ONLY these companies that had bad human rights records, there wouldn't be such a big "problem".

I definitely don't think the rich are evil, and i wouldn't care even if they were. A system should be able to handle that. I'm only worried about systematic problems and incentives.

Capitalism, as a system of economics, is very close to fool proof because it's mostly self-stabilizing in any context; the issue is its consequences upon the society.

To me the only relevant point of failure for an economic system is it's consequences for humans(and animals). Being stable means nothing without that, and probably is a hit against it. Do you not see the boom\bust cycles, and recessions\depressions as an economic issues for capitalism? If it wasn't for a strong welfare state backing it up, could it survive?

It's also a problem to run a company with a direct democracy (which Mondragon doesn't do, so they can manage to get along with more educated representatives).

It's much better than a direct democracy where the people decide on policies.

I don't know why you are so strict with your definition of direct democracy. They basically get suggestions from management(themselves) that they themselves implement. This is well within the definition of direct democracy's definition on wikipedia at least. Not that this would matter either way. Even Straight Representative democracy in an economic system would be amazing compared to the strictly top down capitalist structure.

The U.S. government has two parties: does that fix things?

The two parties acting similarly would mean they aren't separate sides of every issue. You just have to find the groups that are for the bill and the groups against it, and then do an arguments and rebuttals page.

The only way you ensure an alternative to every perspective is to let every perspective be heard: that means millions of voices chiming in on everything.

It probably wouldn't be needed, but handling so many voices is getting to be possible actually. The semantic web is near a point that you could have it reliably assist with this kind of thing.
You probably could just have a threshold of how many people there needs to be in a party to accept their arguments as part of the debate like is done for debates in the US. You could even have it so people can tag\mark the text in the summary of the bill with videos, blogs, wikis, fact checkers, or whatever else they think is relevant in green or red to argue for or against a point, and similar tags will make that the prefered link. We would have to test stuff out.

Actually it does: you can join with others and become a manipulator yourself. Start lobbying: that's how you can be a part of your political process. Lobbying isn't just about money, it's also about time and education. Write to your representatives about what you want. Organize others to do the same. The influence just isn't what you thought it was, but it's there

Yeah, i've thought about this before, then I realized my representative is republican. A miracle could happen, but i doubt it. In a direct democracy, or even a runoff election, that would matter more. The influence isn't there, there is just a possibility that it's there. Depending on who you are talking to and if he actually cares about the people who didn't vote for him.

We have to have provisions in place to protect the people from abuses, but for the most part the courts do this. If a company makes a dangerous product, that company gets sued: this means it's more profitable (given that) to make products that aren't so dangerous.

You have a very idealistic view of capitalism. You never include corporations getting their way through cheating, taking advantage of their workers, or government help, all of which we know commonly happens and is incentivised. If everything works out in the storybook way where everyone plays by the rules then capitalism is more appealing, but that's inherently not where the incentives are. Even compliance with the counterbalancing law is optional since it's a cost benefit analysis between penalties and profit from cheating. This probably encourages cheating in as big a way as possible in many contexts such as before a bankruptcy\bailout. There are so many ethical holes in capitalistic systems I don't see how so many people support it. In the current system where government and business are joined, the consumer's "Power" is meaningless.

You run into the same problem the two party system has, or you end up with an untenable amount of input.

Just put a threshold somewhere unless hundreds of parties spring up for some reason, it should be fine. If it's anything like the examples we have in the world now, you will get pretty much everyone represented within a few parties. Maybe it could be a set of 3-5 classes taught by each of the parties, or maybe they have to get on a council together and approve a syllabus. Imagination!

It's ideological. Compromising between different irrational ideologies does not a reasonable policy make.

So you don't believe in compromise? I'm pretty sure a government doesn't do anything without compromise. You may as well have 2 different states at that point.

[brimstoneSalad]

free will" and can choose to buy from one company instead of another, encouraging more progressive social policies and less lobbying.

If they all lobby, how would this message be conveyed by not purchasing their product? This seems like a very inefficient way of sending a message for certain things.

It takes a little leg work, you can't be a lazy consumer. This is where organizations of consumers can be greatly beneficial. The message can also be conveyed very verbally, through campaigns for boycotts.

Are you counting government influence in the monopoly category? Pharmaceutical and Insurance companies don't seem to follow that rule since the government forces compliance. Subsidies also are a deal with government that influences consumers and favors some companies over others.

I'm not convinced you know what you're talking about, but patents and subsidies can be a problem.

It's ideological. Compromising between different irrational ideologies does not a reasonable policy make.

So you don't believe in compromise? I'm pretty sure a government doesn't do anything without compromise. You may as well have 2 different states at that point.

This is where subsidies largely come from; sweetening the pot for a bill by stirring in some bribes for a local industry in the representative's district. Representatives are doing these things because their human constituents want it. It's asinine to pretend all of this is coming from corporations.

(Giving the rich more power over corporations)

That's absurd. I already explained your contradiction. Either the rich want to maximize profit for the corporation, making them a slave of the consumers too, or they don't, You can't have it both ways, so you need to stop making stuff up and ignoring my point.

Which is it?
Are the rich ruled by maximizing profit, so they're ultimately slaves to consumers too?
Or do they have their own ideas and ideology independent of profit, and act like other human beings?
If so, are they disproportionately ignorant and evil?

They can obscure the truth effectively enough that it really wouldn't make a difference even to a relatively educated consumer.

A relatively educated consumer is still a moron; you're setting the bar very low.
Don't be a relatively educated one, be a properly educated one. Don't be lazy; if you care about something, do the leg work. Collaborate with others who also care and share the burden of research, and form an organization to inform consumers.

All they need to do is use a different word that isn't on the governments off limits list that means the same thing to a consumer. "Part of this nutritious breakfast". What's worse is the government's list of what counts as healthy, and the nutrition requirements that makes a product count as healthy are both probably being defined with help of the lobbyists.

That's not being an educated consumer, that's being an idiot. People need to take information, and their health, into their own hands and stop trusting industry.
The U.S.D.A. has widely been criticized for having a conflict of interest in setting nutritional policy. Look to other independent groups, and foreign government organizations without such interest conflicts.

At no point did I say our system was perfect, but you're not proposing anything that has evidence of being better, and the obvious solution is having more informed consumers; it's a lot safer than a direct democracy where the majority fucks over everybody -- like a government that would ban harmless (and even more healthy) GMOs. In social terms, an ignorant consumer mainly just fucks over his or herself with unhealthy habits; the damage is at least limited, and not forced onto everybody.

If we're educated and responsible enough for a direct democracy to work, then we're already educated and responsible enough to overcome the limitations of capitalism, so a direct democracy is no longer necessary (although I'd have no problem with it at that point).
You're damning everybody by switching with an ignorant and irresponsible population, and it's unnecessary to switch with an educated and responsible one.

There is an infinite amount of workarounds for each issue,

This is untrue. How are corporations working around the upcoming ban on transfats, exactly? How about the requirement to list added sugar separately? How about the giant labels on cigarette packages?

The FDA is helping to create transparency in nutrition and health. It's limited by political will and an ignorant population, but it's making progress still.

To me the only relevant point of failure for an economic system is it's consequences for humans(and animals). Being stable means nothing without that, and probably is a hit against it. Do you not see the boom\bust cycles, and recessions\depressions as an economic issues for capitalism? If it wasn't for a strong welfare state backing it up, could it survive?

This is irrelevant, because we have welfare. The government also steps in to improve the economy, and provide unemployment benefits, etc.
The consequences of tearing down a functional system and replacing it with some anarchist wet dream are to any sensible person clearly terrible.

Socialism is another thing: and it's a direction we're moving in (with increasing regulation and welfare). That's probably a good thing. I'm not an anarcho-capitalist, don't try to paint me as one.

I don't know why you are so strict with your definition of direct democracy. They basically get suggestions from management(themselves) that they themselves implement.

Within a very limited scope. This can neither be applied nationally, or to an entire company; compartmentalization is what makes it stable and borderline functional.
You continue to ignore all of the problems with this system I went into.

What exactly are you proposing forcing on the world?
You want all companies to become like Mondragon, compelled by magically sourced government subsidies (instead of supporting social programs, due to faith in the model being better than say feeding the hungry and providing medical care)?
I already explained why this won't work.

Even Straight Representative democracy in an economic system would be amazing compared to the strictly top down capitalist structure.

No, no it would not. This is why it's almost impossible to have a productive conversation with anarchists. You're functionally insane, driven so by blind ideology.

You completely ignored all of my arguments.

The two parties acting similarly would mean they aren't separate sides of every issue. You just have to find the groups that are for the bill and the groups against it, and then do an arguments and rebuttals page.

I already covered this! What the hell?
I wrote several sentences explaining the issue this causes regarding what we see today in journalistic biases created in attempt to be fair.

It probably wouldn't be needed, but handling so many voices is getting to be possible actually. The semantic web is near a point that you could have it reliably assist with this kind of thing.

This could one day be a sensible point. But as computer technology improves, we'd really be better off with computer run governments. Avoid the whole problem of politics.

Yeah, i've thought about this before, then I realized my representative is republican.

That's your fault then, for writing somebody off for being a Republican.
You'd probably make more of a difference communicating with a Republican to encourage him or her to be more moderate.
If you aren't listened to, it may be because you're wrong (keep an open mind that you're the one who is mistaken).

A miracle could happen, but i doubt it. In a direct democracy, or even a runoff election, that would matter more. The influence isn't there, there is just a possibility that it's there. Depending on who you are talking to and if he actually cares about the people who didn't vote for him.

You ignored my argument.
I'm not talking about voting.

You have a very idealistic view of capitalism.

No I don't. I have a very pessimistic view. I just actually understand economics.

You never include corporations getting their way through cheating, taking advantage of their workers, or government help, all of which we know commonly happens and is incentivised.

Stop incentivizing it, then, if you don't like it. Form an organization of concerned consumers, organize boycotts, and show companies they can benefit from being progressive and suffer from employing these problematic strategies.
The power is in your pocket -- in every consumer's pocket -- it just relies on them being educated and responsible.

If consumers are not responsible enough to participate productively in a capitalistic system, there's no way in hell they can manage a direct democracy.

Even compliance with the counterbalancing law is optional since it's a cost benefit analysis between penalties and profit from cheating.

This is called cost of doing business, and I've discussed this before elsewhere with regard to decriminalization of drugs.
There are not resources to watch everybody all of the time; fines make it harmful to a company to violate the law, but you have to make sure they are properly proportioned and enforced to actually discourage activity.

This probably encourages cheating in as big a way as possible in many contexts such as before a bankruptcy\bailout. There are so many ethical holes in capitalistic systems I don't see how so many people support it. In the current system where government and business are joined, the consumer's "Power" is meaningless.

Bullshit.
Nobody likes capitalism (at least, nobody aside from anarcho-capitalists, who are as ideological about capitalism as you are about whatever it is you think you believe in), capitalism is just the best of the shitty systems we have available, and seen as a necessary evil.
Government and business are not joined, outside a couple branches whose mandate is to promote business (like the USDA); you're either completely ignorant or indulging in a delusional conspiracy theory.
Consumer power is the ultimate power in a capitalism, but it only works well if the consumers are educated and responsible. Lacking that, a direct democracy is the LAST thing we need.

I posted a list of just a few ways consumers are morons. You again ignore my arguments.
The bottom line is consequence, and unfortunately consumers are do ignorant and driven by fear mongers that they make even worse rulers than corporations (this is a very sad reality).

Just put a threshold somewhere unless hundreds of parties spring up for some reason, it should be fine. If it's anything like the examples we have in the world now, you will get pretty much everyone represented within a few parties. Maybe it could be a set of 3-5 classes taught by each of the parties, or maybe they have to get on a council together and approve a syllabus. Imagination!

Your solution to everything seems to be to just make up a system and have faith that it will all work out.
Try it then. Don't attempt to force untested ideas on others or assert their truth as you are.

I'm open to other options, but only if they have evidence.
Otherwise, we might as well consider Sharia law; they have as much claim to evidence of creating a utopian society as you do.

As in science and medicine, you can't just make shit up and promote it as a real theory or a cure to something. Odds are that whatever you just made up is broken; no amount of biased pondering on how it will all just miraculously work out means anything if you don't present a credible falsifiable model that you have tested.

Make something solid, do some small scale human tests and computer modeling with good methodology, and publish in a peer reviewed political science journal. That would start a real conversation.
I'm happy to jump ship on capitalism as soon as there's a better option available. But there isn't. Not yet.

[Mr. Purple]

This is where subsidies largely come from; sweetening the pot for a bill by stirring in some bribes for a local industry in the representative's district. Representatives are doing these things because their human constituents want it. It's asinine to pretend all of this is coming from corporations.

Yeah, That seems likely to happen as well.

Are the rich ruled by maximizing profit, so they're ultimately slaves to consumers too?

I thought i already told you I agree that consumers technically could change a corporation if they became fully knowledgeable about all the corporations details and inner workings. Strong incentives to keep that necessary information away from the consumer is the problem here.

If we're educated and responsible enough for a direct democracy to work, then we're already educated and responsible enough to overcome the limitations of capitalism, so a direct democracy is no longer necessary (although I'd have no problem with it at that point)

I feel like there are two different kinds of information here. One is just general knowledge of how a given system works to know how to not screw up its basic operation(relevant to direct democracy), and the other is information about what a seperate entity is actively trying to hide from you. I feel like a more difficult system that doesn't have incentives to hide it's information from it's own operators(consumers in your opinion) would be better even at the possible cost of overall productivity from that increased difficulty.

No, no it would not. This is why it's almost impossible to have a productive conversation with anarchists.

I don't know if I am an anarchist though I tend to lean that way a bit. I don't know if hierarchy is necessarily bad, but capitalism's version of it seems to be. I feel like a state run socialist country could work better as well, i'm just not sure what that would look like, and it seems like a much harder transition from our current state of capitalism than the coop model. I'm also not ruling out the possibility that capitalism is literally the only workable option, but since it is a terrible one, forgive me for trying to explore a bit.

You're functionally insane, driven so by blind ideology.

Whoa there buddy!

You want all companies to become like Mondragon, compelled by magically sourced government subsidies (instead of supporting social programs, due to faith in the model being better than say feeding the hungry and providing medical care)?

Why are you calling them magically sourced? Wouldn't it just be sourced from taxes from us agreeing that it's better and voting for those subsidies?

You completely ignored all of my arguments.

I'm sorry if i'm not as meticulous as you would like me to be. I thought I addressed the relevant topics.

A miracle could happen, but I doubt it. In a direct democracy, or even a runoff election, that would matter more. The influence isn't there, there is just a possibility that it's there. Depending on who you are talking to and if he actually cares about the people who didn't vote for him.

You ignored my argument.
I'm not talking about voting.

I am aware you are not talking about voting. My point was that in a proportional voting system, representatives being elected can be sourced back to you as a voter. In a winner takes all system, a massive portion of the votes are literally thrown away. Even ignoring his personal ideologies against my proposal, If I am part of the group whose votes were thrown away, there is much less incentive(if any) for the representative to care about what I have to say. Since he already won without me, and it risks losing him the votes that elected him, it's going to be much less convincing.

Government and business are not joined

Consumer power is the ultimate power in a capitalism

I guess this is the root of our difference. I currently don't believe either of these things. If both of these things are true then things get a lot better.

This is why think our number one priority as a country should be to make sure that government and business prove those two things without a doubt to us. Step one is getting money out of politics, and I think Bernie would be wonderful for this. Gmo's and nuclear are nothing compared to establishing the legitimacy and competence of our rulers in the first place.

Try it then. Don't attempt to force untested ideas on others or assert their truth as you are.

I'm open to other options, but only if they have evidence.

I don't view talking on a forum with people about these ideas to be attempting to subjugate the world to my untested ideas. We are just talking...
I thought I was presenting evidence with the mondragon model, and I gave the reasons I thought that it would be a good next step for our economic system.




I think i'm coming around to your interest of focusing on juries though. I found something called deliberative democracy that I am really liking. It avoids the problems I have with juries by making sure the jury sample is actually representative through verifying their views against a wider polling before starting the process. The relevant information is in what way those people change their opinions after debating the issue with various interests and each other by the end of a 2-3 day period. I think it could be really effective to have this constantly going on for each of the issues, or maybe having a day or two dedicated to it periodically for all the citizens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5cpY0MuMDU
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliberative_opinion_poll

[brimstoneSalad]

Strong incentives to keep that necessary information away from the consumer is the problem here.

Then support a law that made companies stamp a label on all of their products specifying their lobbying activities.
This would be more safe and useful than gutting a functional system and replacing it with an unknown.

There's still an issue of corporate rule being better than rule by the ignorant masses.

I feel like there are two different kinds of information here. One is just general knowledge of how a given system works to know how to not screw up its basic operation(relevant to direct democracy), and the other is information about what a seperate entity is actively trying to hide from you.

The latter is much easier to convey. The former is wrought with all kinds of ideological conflicts about how economics works; for many people, it is far from intuitive.

It's like the difference in getting people to understand evolution, and getting people to understand antibiotic resistance. People have trouble with theory and large systems, but something straight forward as "this company does this thing I don't like" is easier.

I feel like a more difficult system that doesn't have incentives to hide it's information from it's own operators(consumers in your opinion) would be better even at the possible cost of overall productivity from that increased difficulty.

Why do you feel that way?

Also, why not just mandate transparent labeling? Doesn't that seem a lot easier, if you think the root of the problem is corporations obscuring their behavior?

I don't know if I am an anarchist though I tend to lean that way a bit. I don't know if hierarchy is necessarily bad, but capitalism's version of it seems to be.

Like the creationist who offers the brilliant challenge to evolution "if man came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?", I think you just need to spend more time studying the systems and their consequences before challenging them.
Educated dissent is much more valuable than guesses and assumptions based on vague rhetoric.

I feel like a state run socialist country could work better as well, i'm just not sure what that would look like, and it seems like a much harder transition from our current state of capitalism than the coop model.

We have functional examples of socialism in Europe, and we're already most of the way there. I can appreciate and respect most of the social policies Sanders advocates.
We have no such examples of a coop model, and as I explained, it doesn't solve the "problem" you presume it solves (and the "problem" isn't even necessarily a problem, as I'm glad you admitted), it just makes things worse.

A coop model would fragment, and exaggerate the issues we already have by becoming a purely outsourcing driven model which would lower wages and quality of working environment, and make it harder for people to get jobs at the same time. You can overcome some of these problems, but it's an expensive and complicated endeavor that would take years of trial and error.
Why try to fix something that's not broken (or has other simpler and more obvious/tested solutions)?

The thing you have to understand about my criticisms, is this is an obvious consequence, because it's how you take advantage of the system as a CEO to see savings.
Currently, hiring is more efficient by a small margin to outsourcing; once it was no longer the case, hiring would no longer exist.

This is much like the knowledge that increasing the minimum wage will result in more automation and job loss; it's just a fact of how the market works.

When you change one thing, something else gives to re-establish the equilibrium. This isn't hypothetical or speculative. You can do the math yourself. How much does the worker cost? How much does the machine cost? What's maintenance like? Depreciation?

I'm also not ruling out the possibility that capitalism is literally the only workable option, but since it is a terrible one, forgive me for trying to explore a bit.

I understand what you're trying to do, and that's important, but you're doing it without the prerequisite knowledge of the systems we're dealing with.

Why are you calling them magically sourced? Wouldn't it just be sourced from taxes from us agreeing that it's better and voting for those subsidies?

They would be if we had a balanced budget, which would also mean all of that free money which goes to companies (and which doesn't solve the supposed "problem", as I explained) would come away from more effective and deserving social programs.
Money comes from somewhere, or it's printed; both have consequences.

Even ignoring his personal ideologies against my proposal, If I am part of the group whose votes were thrown away, there is much less incentive(if any) for the representative to care about what I have to say. Since he already won without me, and it risks losing him the votes that elected him, it's going to be much less convincing.

You don't have to convince him to become a democrat.
Inform him of centrist positions, or those which will be useful and won't alienate his voter base.

Despite wanting to stay elected, politicians are human beings and generally want to do good (they're just often misinformed).
A large part of what lobbying does, e.g. from Nuclear or GMO interests, is simply to inform the politicians of the science. If they're capable of listening, they can understand that supporting these things is in the interest of the greater good.

I pointed out the irony in another thread that Sanders could be the worst president in our history on environment, and Bush could be the best; it's a simple matter of nuclear policy.

Republicans aren't as unreasonable as you expect them to be. They can be educated. So can be Democrats... sometimes. I doubt Sanders can be, and that's a shame, but he's a rare ideological exception.

I guess this is the root of our difference. I currently don't believe either of these things. If both of these things are true then things get a lot better.

You just need to study law and economics more. Look into how government contracts companies; it's a mess of bureaucracy created to avoid biases and special interests taking contracts. In practice, some companies are just the best at what they do, which is why they'll usually get the contracts -- like in defense -- but that budget gets spread far and wide too. Build a competent tech firm, and you can bid on and pick up government contracts if you can compete.

Step one is getting money out of politics, and I think Bernie would be wonderful for this.

"Getting money out of politics" is a great line of rhetoric, but it doesn't make a lot of sense.
Do you want to end the educational programs directed at politicians?
What exactly is the mechanism you propose?

People are making a mountain out of a mole hill with this one.

Gmo's and nuclear are nothing compared to establishing the legitimacy and competence of our rulers in the first place.

GMO and nuclear are well over half of the solution to global warming. You ignore their consequence at the peril of the Earth and billions of human lives.
If Sanders is elected, he could be responsible for the greatest accidental death toll since Mao; probably far greater. He'll go down as one of the worst monsters in history, and we'll have let it happen.

I don't view talking on a forum with people about these ideas to be attempting to subjugate the world to my untested ideas. We are just talking...

Even talking about these things is a loaded question: Do vaccines cause autism? No, obviously not. But even asking the question is dangerous, and propagates fear.
Talking is fine as long as you keep it purely theoretical, carefully peppering your discussion with disclaimers (or do it in private), and don't make claims. Making claims is dangerous, since it spreads misinformation and promotes these ideas which could be very harmful.

I thought I was presenting evidence with the mondragon model, and I gave the reasons I thought that it would be a good next step for our economic system.

I know, but it isn't evidence, and it's not addressing the problems you believe it does (for reasons I explained), and those "problems" aren't even necessarily problems (for reasons I explained).

Don't get me wrong: It's an interesting model. I also think there should be more voluntary companies like this. But voluntary is the key word. We could learn a lot from innovative company models, but forcing something like this on the economy is misguided.

I think i'm coming around to your interest of focusing on juries though. I found something called deliberative democracy that I am really liking. It avoids the problems I have with juries by making sure the jury sample is actually representative through verifying their views against a wider polling before starting the process.

A conservative Juror could easily lie and claim to be liberal, thus biasing the jury. This is where a more effective lie detector could be useful (FMRI), it would almost completely eliminate that, and allow small juries to be representative.
A large enough Jury would end up representative by a purely random sampling, I think that's our only sure way until there's better lie detector technology.
Shrinking the Jury is great in theory, though, since it makes it much more efficient and cheaper.

The relevant information is in what way those people change their opinions after debating the issue with various interests and each other by the end of a 2-3 day period. I think it could be really effective to have this constantly going on for each of the issues,

That's interesting, but only works if you get truthful information from the start, and unfortunately debate has a majority bias if you have the citizens discussing it, since the majority could be swayed by peer pressure. There's also too much weight given to personal charisma, which may not map at all to competence or correctness.

or maybe having a day or two dedicated to it periodically for all the citizens.

That's not enough time to properly inform people, and that would be both amazingly expensive (you have to pay people for their time), and damaging to the economy by pulling people out of work. The small random samples is the key advantage to such systems, in that they're actually more cost effective than the typical political process.
You'd have to take people out of their jobs for weeks or months to pass a new law (they'd need more time than the legislature needs now, since they need to be brought up to speed on everything).

It would be highly beneficial to have an IQ cutoff, so the chosen citizens could learn faster and the whole process would be easier, but that's a tough sell.

[Mr. Purple]

I feel like a more difficult system that doesn't have incentives to hide it's information from it's own operators(consumers in your opinion) would be better even at the possible cost of overall productivity from that increased difficulty.

Why do you feel that way?

Also, why not just mandate transparent labeling? Doesn't that seem a lot easier, if you think the root of the problem is corporations obscuring their behavior?

I just value transparency over supposed productivity. Once things are transparent, we can evaluate what is actually needed to take steps towards effectively managing that system. Maybe we can't do it without businesses, but that seems really unlikely to me. Humans are good at adapting when they need to.

I would love a candidate that would mandate transparent labeling as well of course, but i'm obviously going to prefer a candidate like bernie that is going after what I perceive to be the root of the problem. Too bad he has little chance of winning now. I'm for whatever it is that establishes that trust and legitimacy that democracies need. For me personally, and for a lot of other people, trust is going to be very hard to come by when government and business are as intertwined as they are now with lobbyists, government contracts, campaign contributions, and the "revolving door".

I think you just need to spend more time studying the systems and their consequences before challenging them.

I don't know a ton compared to some people, but If the average person needs to read about this stuff even half as much as I have, then we should all just give up now. If you want to accomplish anything in a democratic system, you need to come up with a way to explain something to the public without them requiring a PHD on the topic.

It very well could be that if I just learned more, i would see that everything is totally legit and above board between business and government, but you must see how bad of an argument it is to say i would trust them more if i had all the information right? A system that can't make that basic 101 prerequisite of their legitimacy clear to the average person is not a system fit for democracy. You may be fine with that since you seem to dislike democracy.

Ignorant people challenging things they don't know anything about is an opportunity to teach them or an audience why they have a bad argument. I don't see a problem with that.

We have functional examples of socialism in Europe, and we're already most of the way there.

We are close to the government taking over all our private companies? That seems unlikely to me. By socialism do you mean high taxes?

A large part of what lobbying does, e.g. from Nuclear or GMO interests, is simply to inform the politicians of the science. If they're capable of listening, they can understand that supporting these things is in the interest of the greater good.

Are you or do you know a lobbyist? How are you are so trusting of them?
There may be a lot of teaching involved, but every piece of information is given purely for the purpose of making their company look as spotless as possible. To me that isn't informing politicians of the science, that's propaganda in it's most negative sense. If it's too difficult, or our politicians are too lazy to figure this out on their own, then we need to solve it in a sensible way. Having our politicians learn how to govern from people we know would have an interest in lying to them to make more money is not sensible. If we have to create a government job of legislative teachers specifically to help politicians do their jobs than so be it.

I'm not discounting the possibility that all of these companies are as wonderful as their lobbyists make them out to be, but the voter and the representative would have to know a lot about each company for us to verify that. To me a much more basic and effective solution is to just to get the incentives lined up properly.

I pointed out the irony in another thread that Sanders could be the worst president in our history on environment, and Bush could be the best; it's a simple matter of nuclear policy.

I agree that nuclear is what we need as a bridge to renewables right now, but that's a distant priority compared to getting our incentive chain cleaned up and verifying that we are actually being represented.
I also think it's much more likely that sanders will either be talked into nuclear, or that our next president will go ahead with nuclear, than the chance of our next president being this aggressive towards money in politics like sanders is.

You just need to study law and economics more. Look into how government contracts companies; it's a mess of bureaucracy created to avoid biases and special interests taking contracts. In practice, some companies are just the best at what they do, which is why they'll usually get the contracts

I'm not discounting this possibility. But in my opinion there is value in making it clear to all those people that can't possibly gain the requisite information to verify this, that nothing shady is going on. You aren't a big democracy guy, so maybe this stuff isn't important to you.

"Getting money out of politics" is a great line of rhetoric, but it doesn't make a lot of sense.
Do you want to end the educational programs directed at politicians?
What exactly is the mechanism you propose?

People are making a mountain out of a mole hill with this one.

End the education from the lobbyists? Of course. Get a teacher in there that doesn't have a blatant conflict of interest. I would pay more taxes for that in a heartbeat.

It very well may just be a mole hill, but how does the voter realistically verify this without studying the details of all the different corporations?

Even talking about these things is a loaded question: Do vaccines cause autism? No, obviously not. But even asking the question is dangerous, and propagates fear.

I don't like that view. If it's really so ridiculous a question, then it's the perfect opportunity to blow them away and teach everyone reading how to deal with that kind of argument.

Don't get me wrong: It's an interesting model. I also think there should be more voluntary companies like this. But voluntary is the key word. We could learn a lot from innovative company models, but forcing something like this on the economy is misguided.

I think I said I preferred it to be voluntary as well.

A conservative Juror could easily lie and claim to be liberal, thus biasing the jury.

Very few of the people who take the original issue poll are going to be randomly selected to be part of the deliberation. If you lie in your original poll, you are just putting some random person from the opposing side into the deliberation right?

[brimstoneSalad]

I just value transparency over supposed productivity. Once things are transparent, we can evaluate what is actually needed to take steps towards effectively managing that system. Maybe we can't do it without businesses, but that seems really unlikely to me. Humans are good at adapting when they need to.

Or it just gives fear mongers more power. Things are already pretty transparent if you know where to look.
If people were better educated, we wouldn't need corporate rule to override their ignorance.

I don't know a ton compared to some people, but If the average person needs to read about this stuff even half as much as I have, then we should all just give up now. If you want to accomplish anything in a democratic system, you need to come up with a way to explain something to the public without them requiring a PHD on the topic.

Which is why I do not support direct democracy. People are stupid, and education is difficult and expensive. And in the case of political and economic education, it's not even necessarily something that will benefit most people (who probably need trade school).

Sticking random people in a room for weeks or months and teaching them about a law is about the best you can get with something like a democracy.

If you want a good government, a meritocracy based on relevant STEM education is your best bet.

It very well could be that if I just learned more, i would see that everything is totally legit and above board between business and government, but you must see how bad of an argument it is to say i would trust them more if i had all the information right?

Conspiracy theories are very popular, and it's very hard to dismiss them because it requires education.
It's like telling a theist that he or she would be an atheist and believe in evolution if he or she just had all of the information -- it's true, but it's not convincing.

A system that can't make that basic 101 prerequisite of their legitimacy clear to the average person is not a system fit for democracy. You may be fine with that since you seem to dislike democracy.

No system is fit for democracy until the people are unrealistically well educated (at least unrealistic today, maybe not in a hundred years).
The republic system of indirect democracy, however, is best of the terrible options we have so far.
Meritocracy would work great for a few years, but then would likely be prone to corruption.

Ignorant people challenging things they don't know anything about is an opportunity to teach them or an audience why they have a bad argument. I don't see a problem with that.

I'm here explaining this to you instead of doing vegan activism, because I think anarchism reflects negatively on veganism.
There are opportunity costs to everything, and when this is information you don't really need and will probably never find useful, it's harm without benefit.
Not all education is productive.

We are close to the government taking over all our private companies? That seems unlikely to me. By socialism do you mean high taxes?

That's communism.
European socialism, high taxes, lots of social programs (redistribution of wealth through these), and strict regulation on industry.

There may be a lot of teaching involved, but every piece of information is given purely for the purpose of making their company look as spotless as possible.

Untrue. There are bad lobbyists I'm sure, but they're also human beings, and they aren't generally speaking evil; they want the best for the economy, the country, the employees, and their company.
Educating politicians and public voices on, for example, GMO is not just about making a company look good, but about countering the culture of fear mongering and retaining support for such a vital technology to our future.

Having our politicians learn how to govern from people we know would have an interest in lying to them to make more money is not sensible.

Rarely will anybody else have the funding to teach them. Of course when concerned scientists speak out without industry funding that means a lot, but they can't really afford to do that stuff much (time and money, they have jobs and families).

If we have to create a government job of legislative teachers specifically to help politicians do their jobs than so be it.

Then you're just talking about the legislatures teaching themselves, because they're in charge of funding the education and deciding what they get taught.

To me a much more basic and effective solution is to just to get the incentives lined up properly.

That's easier said than done. No matter what you do, people will find ways to game your system.

I agree that nuclear is what we need as a bridge to renewables right now, but that's a distant priority compared to getting our incentive chain cleaned up and verifying that we are actually being represented.

Only if you buy into the conspiracy theories.
Nuclear is not a bridge; it's the road. You need to understand more about the technology behind solar and wind, and their inherent limitations.

I also think it's much more likely that sanders will either be talked into nuclear, or that our next president will go ahead with nuclear, than the chance of our next president being this aggressive towards money in politics like sanders is.

Sanders didn't get this far without being educated on nuclear power, and dogmatically dismissing it over and over again. It's more likely that Ham will suddenly accept evolution. We're talking about political dogmatists here.

We're at a tipping point now. Waiting eight years more years (and decommissioning nuclear plants along the way) could be catastrophic.

And again, you keep saying getting money out of politics is a priority, but it's not something you can just do like that, and even if you managed, that's more likely to have negative consequences because it hands the keys to the nation over to the fear mongers, giving them unchecked power.

But in my opinion there is value in making it clear to all those people that can't possibly gain the requisite information to verify this, that nothing shady is going on. You aren't a big democracy guy, so maybe this stuff isn't important to you.

Great, so let's defund medicare and social security, and devote all of that money instead to finally convincing people that the government isn't out to get them!
Do you have any idea how expensive and useless such an endeavor would be?
You're very out of touch on the costs of education.

End the education from the lobbyists? Of course. Get someone in there that doesn't have a blatant conflict of interest. I would pay more taxes for that in a heartbeat.

Again, what is your alternative? Where is this other educator coming from? How do you determine there's no conflict of interest?

If you could just find a way to identify and vet such people, you wouldn't have to pay more taxes; corporations could pay for it to a general fund that goes to these people regardless of their conclusions.
But if you had such a method, why stop at assigning them to educate the politicians? Just get rid of the politicians entirely and replace them with the competent and unbiased experts you found.

It very well may just be a mole hill, but how does the voter realistically verify this without studying the details of all the different corporations?

They can't, which is why we have all of these absurd conspiracy theories going around, and all of the fervor about getting money out of politics.
Money in politics is to Sanders as the Jews were to Hitler; it's something to fear monger about and rally people around. A big scary bogeyman which oversimplifies complex issues and makes the ignorant masses think they have finally understood the root of all of the world's problems. People like it when you make them feel smart.

I'm not saying Trump doesn't fear monger too; of course he does. The point is that this is what politics has been reduced to, and it's a very sad state of affairs.

I don't like that view. If it's really so ridiculous a question, then it's the perfect opportunity to blow them away and teach everyone reading how to deal with that kind of argument.

Economics and politics are complicated, and that would take an inordinate amount of time and effort that would be better devoted to vegan advocacy.
Look at how long it took to just convince this guy that the Earth wasn't flat:
https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... f=7&t=1829
That should have taken ten seconds, and it took days or weeks.

Very few of the people who takes the nationwide issues poll are going to be randomly selected to be part of the deliberation. If you lie in your original poll, you are just putting some random person out there with an opposing view to you into the deliberation right?

Oh, I see what you mean now. If they are polled ahead of time, and that poll has meaning and we can track what their original responses were from before the sampling, that could provide a fairly reliable baseline.
We'd need really good participation in the original poll, though. And the fear of being sampled for "jury duty" could put people off. I guess you could say if you're available or not, but that would bias the selection.

I have concerns, but few enough it may be possible to actually fix it. As I said earlier, the jury based system of legislation is probably our best bet for an alternative.

[EquALLity]

They can't, which is why we have all of these absurd conspiracy theories going around, and all of the fervor about getting money out of politics.

Conspiracy theories?

Money in politics is to Sanders as the Jews were to Hitler; it's something to fear monger about and rally people around. A big scary bogeyman which oversimplifies complex issues and makes the ignorant masses think they have finally understood the root of all of the world's problems. People like it when you make them feel smart.

Do you not think that money in politics is a major issue? Perhaps the most pressing issue?

Why do you think that republican politicians, with great college educations, deny the reality of climate change?
Why do you think we spend so much in the military?
Why do you think we have privatized prisons?
Why do you think we make cuts to important social programs, like Social Security?
Why do you think that we don't regulate Wall Street as much as we should?

Why do you think we do all of these things that are harmful to the country, and often highly unpopular? I suppose it's just a coincidence that oil giants give republican politicians millions of dollars, and then they say that climate change doesn't exist.
They're just throwing their money around for fun, really, they don't actually expect it to do anything when they give millions of dollars to the people who make our laws.

I should make a topic on this.

[brimstoneSalad]

Do you not think that money in politics is a major issue? Perhaps the most pressing issue?

Why do you think that republican politicians, with great college educations, deny the reality of climate change?

Because of conservative religious world views, mainly; at their cores, they don't believe man kind can change or destroy the Earth that their god created -- nothing can happen except by god's will, and anyway the world will end soon so it doesn't matter.

Lobbying does both harm and good, there are harmful lobbyist groups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreedomWorks#Funding
Contact those companies (like AT&T), tell them you don't appreciate them lobbying against environmental laws, and pressure them to make up for it by donating to groups in favor of environmental legislation. Follow the money, and make sure companies know that this is not OK.

If it weren't for the important efforts of lobbying for scientific advancement against fear mongering, I'd agree that lobbying is more of a problem than a solution.

Why do you think we spend so much in the military?

Conservative Christians want to support Israel and continue meddling in the Middle East to ensure the temple is rebuilt, and the Biblical prophecies are fulfilled for the end times.

Why do you think we have privatized prisons?

Conservatives can't understand that just because something is bad (drugs) doesn't mean it should be criminalized. Thanks religion.
Prisons being public or private isn't as much of an issue: the issue is the sheer number of people we're throwing in them.

Why do you think we make cuts to important social programs, like Social Security?

Because we can't stop wasting money on other shit like throwing people in prison for drug crimes, and wasting money invading other countries to help god bring about the apocalypse.

Why do you think that we don't regulate Wall Street as much as we should?

Regulation is difficult and expensive, it's probably a combination of factors.

I suppose it's just a coincidence that oil giants give republican politicians millions of dollars, and then they say that climate change doesn't exist.

There are different kinds of lobbying. There's educational lobbying, which is probably more often good, then there's outright campaign contribution, which is more questionable.
Anyway, these oil companies are probably giving the candidates money because they believe that, not necessarily the other way around.
A significant amount of their base doesn't want to believe in global warming, because they think it goes against their religious beliefs.