Re: frustration
posted by rick on November 18th, 2004 at 6:16PM

my point with the uninformed populace is that they are the demise of democracy -- democracy is not sufficient. basically consensus should be the only acceptable option.

And how does consensus deal with an uninformed populace? And you still didn't address where the 1% came from ...

he complains that democracy can shaft up to 49% of the people, and also bashes consensus for not shafting anyone.

No. Dan complains that it's impossible to get 100% consensus on any issue in a community. By definition consensus will not shaft anyone.

do you think that people, when given the choice, will do harm?

I'd say that some people would try to take advantage of the system. But this is a personal opinion.

i call it both a community and a voluntary spirit -- i said from the beginning that nobody is forced to do anything.

Imagine trying to sell this idea to me ...

*You: /I have this great idea for a new social system ... you're not forced to do anything and you have all of your essentials taken care of!/

*Me: /Wow! But how will it sustain itself?/

*You: /Well, everyone in the community will pitch in .../

*Me: /Woah wait a second ... I thought nobody was forced to work?/

*You: /Well given the choice the people will voluntarily pitch in because they'll think that is the right thing to do ... oh and by the way, you'd be expected to think that way too .../

*Me: /So ... you're telling me how I should think now?/

*You: /.../

my intention is to replace money with community spirit.

You're replacing one force with another. You're saying that given the choice people will work because they know that other people will work as well, and they can be assured of this through some magical /community spirit/. That's your system. Well, I can say the following: <cite>We give people some abstract entity for their work. Let's call it money. With this money, they can trade it for whatever they need to get for their survival.</cite>

In *theory*, neither has an advantage over the other.

Link