• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    24 hours ago

    You can’t get good policy without democracy

    Put two policies on a coin and flip it. Half the time you’ll get good policy. No democracy required.

    Democracy grants input from a broad base of social perspective. But if that persective is polluted by propaganda and haunted by historical bigotry, you’ll get out what you put in.

    An apartheid democracy is less preferable than revolutionary anarchy, even if you didn’t all get to line up at a voting booth and decide to overthrow the corrupt establishment

    Non-democracy violates inalienable rights

    If you can consistently violate a set of rights, they aren’t inalienable. Pretending social obligations and taboos are written into the stars is what gets us some of the more destructive social impulses (abortion clinic bombings, white power marches, etc).

    • J Lou@mastodon.social
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      23 hours ago

      The coin flip is inherently part of policy, and it is bad policy to decide on policies with a coin flip

      Inalienable rights are moral rights that can’t be given up or transferred. It doesn’t mean that the legal system can’t fail to enforce the right such as by legally treating it as alienable like capitalism does in the employment contract. If the legal system doesn’t grant it, that’s a bad legal system.

      Moral concepts have an objective sense that is unknowable.

      @politicalmemes

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        it is bad policy to decide on policies with a coin flip

        A/B testing is a classic tool for evaluating a range of options for best results