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Wusti wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 08, 2018 12:22 am

There are no silver bullet because people are:

1. Greedy
2. Stupid
3. Lazy

If human nature consisted only of deleterious traits, we would have gone extinct eons ago.

In a way I do agree with you that a political system has to take the "fundamental characteristics" of human nature into account, but making negative value judgments about those characteristics seems to be the opposite of dealing with them for what they are.

To quote myself:

"These traits account for the majority of human interactions..."

I stand by that comment, and would say that nobility, generosity and other positive factors are not non-existent, but several orders of magnitude rarer.

Tom Bombadil wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 05, 2018 3:26 pm

Are you arguing that monarchy is preferable to democracy? It seems like you've come short of that conclusion but I may be misinterpreting.

But as far as monarchy being less dysfunctional or more efficient that is certainly true - there is just fewer moving parts in a monarchy.

When the monarch is good, monarchy can function reasonably well. When the monarch is bad, though...
glgl

PS monarchies, and the social structures that support them (feudalism, lots of intermarriage between different monarchic dynasties and/or intermarriage between the monarchic dynasty and the noble houses supporting it from within the country, etc) also tend towards inbreeding which tends to increase the odds of severely dysfunctional monarchs occupying the throne

PPS one of the useful things about representative government is that when the government is bad, or dumb, or inefficient, or whatever, it can be replaced with a minimum of violence through the process of elections. In a dictatorship/monarchy, said option does not exist, and the populace must either live with the bad government or overthrow it (typically violently), which itself can cause lots of issues.

But what about when your society degenerates to the point where you are given only a choice between bad and worse at election time?

The dictator or monarch will not save you and will not make your problems go away. Instead he will replace your problems with worse ones.

mhsmith0 wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 09, 2018 4:45 pm

PS monarchies, and the social structures that support them (feudalism, lots of intermarriage between different monarchic dynasties and/or intermarriage between the monarchic dynasty and the noble houses supporting it from within the country, etc) also tend towards inbreeding which tends to increase the odds of severely dysfunctional monarchs occupying the throne

PPS one of the useful things about representative government is that when the government is bad, or dumb, or inefficient, or whatever, it can be replaced with a minimum of violence through the process of elections. In a dictatorship/monarchy, said option does not exist, and the populace must either live with the bad government or overthrow it (typically violently), which itself can cause lots of issues.

Actually, neither of those are particularly true. Whilst there was some degree of inbreeding in historic monarchies this was more a function of the age than anything peculiar to the system. Indeed, monarchies with marriages spanning nations tended to be somewhat less inbred than the typical subject, who tended to marry their cousins from the neighbouring village. You're also using a very restrictive view of monarchies. In many British systems the monarch was elected from a selection of noble families, which avoided the idiot first born son problem. Even when the strict hereditary system dominated, particularly unsuitable candidates had a habit of being discovered to illegitimate, or being firmly encouraged to abdicate, or having unfortunate hunting accidents, before damage was done.

Octavious: Come on, this thread isn't really about monarchy. CroakandDagger was taking a snipe at democracy. Constitutional monarchies haven't even been mentioned yet.

JECE wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 10, 2018 2:56 pm

Octavious: Come on, this thread isn't really about monarchy. CroakandDagger was taking a snipe at democracy. Constitutional monarchies haven't even been mentioned yet.

Wusti mentioned them a few posts back, in fact.

Regardless, you can't judge democracy against the backdrop of monarchy unless you have a decent understanding of what monarchies are, and the popular American view of monarchy does seem heavily influenced by a mix of Disney and their creation myth rather than what monarchies do or did exist.

Octavious: I'd argue that the backdrop isn't monarchy, but rather authoritarianism. Thanks for pointing out Wusti's post.

Wusti: Are you trying to say that separatist movements are inevitable because people are greedy, stupid and lazy (such that the monarchy is irrelevant)?

JECE - the link is most usually greed, followed closely by stupidity.

The main argument for Separatist movements is self-determination for a group that claims some special characteristic that makes them "different" to the point where a Majoritarian government cannot possibly govern effectively and/or fairly on their behalf, or IN THEIR INTEREST.

The clear assumption being made is that they will somehow be better off alone than as part of the group. This brings in the Greed argument, and often includes an element of stupidity, where perfectly sound arguments against separating are ignored.

The case is obviously more complex - but you can see where I am going with this. When you dig deeply into motivations for most questionable action you will find at its heart one of a combination of G, S or L (sorry for laziness :D).

Interestingly, you do get the odd contradiction and more intelligent results on occasion: take Brexit - being a classic argument AGAINST Majoritarianism, and yet a sub-group showed uncommon reason in voting down the Scottish Independence Referendum.

Tl:dr - people do weird shit sometimes and its usually GSL at the heart.

Hell even Trump is the result of GSL - laziness on the part of all those muppets who never voted THEN complained, greed from those who thought they could benefit, and stupidity from the dumbarses in the Rust belt who actually though he would represent their interests.

Monarchism is a snake that eats itself, people don’t like being subjugated.

Goronman wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 26, 2018 8:54 am

Monarchism is a snake that eats itself

What does that even mean? It's mostly harmless but quite interesting? They make good inspiration for jewellery design?

Octavious wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 26, 2018 9:29 am

Goronman wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 26, 2018 8:54 am

Monarchism is a snake that eats itself

What does that even mean? It's mostly harmless but quite interesting? They make good inspiration for jewellery design?

I think he means that it is bad and self destructing.

Goronman wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 26, 2018 8:54 am

Monarchism is a snake that eats itself, people don’t like being subjugated.

A snake that only ate itself would be self-sufficient, the people wouldn't even know it was there.

Incrementalist wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 26, 2018 2:20 pm

A snake that only ate itself would be self-sufficient, the people wouldn't even know it was there.

They doesn't need to elect presidents.
There would be two kinds of people,
1- Managers
2- Civilians
So everybody could focus on their business! This is a part of the good side of Monarchism.

Incrementalist wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 26, 2018 2:20 pm

Goronman wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 26, 2018 8:54 am

Monarchism is a snake that eats itself, people don’t like being subjugated.

A snake that only ate itself would be self-sufficient, the people wouldn't even know it was there.

It had better make sure it's eaten its arse before it needs to take a shite

CroakandDagger wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 09, 2018 7:17 pm

But what about when your society degenerates to the point where you are given only a choice between bad and worse at election time?

Then you vote for the less-bad choice and start making phone calls, sending letters, attending town halls where you voice your displeasure with their crappy things, and because they're afraid they'll lose the next election because you and your voice are loud enough to ring in their ears at night, they'll vote the way you want. They may not be happy about it, but it's better than having to kill people when the monarchy goes sour.