[ExI] democracy sucks

Rafal Smigrodzki rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com
Thu Mar 3 02:40:43 UTC 2011


On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 8:55 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

>
> So my way of rephrasing the question is: what governance structures enable
> open societies to function well and maintain their governance? It seems to
> me that they should have a high degree of transparency/traceability so
> problems can be found and the relevant parts held accountable, modularity so
> that corrections of one part does not mess up other parts, a suitable level
> of responsivity so that they adapt but are not too affected by noise
> (current political fashions, the latest blogquake), and provide a reward
> mechanism for constructive criticism/modification that is not easily
> short-circuited.

### Think about the price mechanism in a competitive market, which
integrates enormous amounts of information into a single signal -
price/performance ratio that can be perceived by consumers (yes, I do
claim that consumers are by and large able to perceive the performance
component of the signal, at least in well-established markets). Any
governance structure that could distill the relevant data into a clear
price/performance signal that could be acted upon quickly by
individuals would be vastly superior to a democracy - and most likely
would entail modularity, incentives, and other features you mention.

Rafal



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