Posted: May 17, 2011 9:29 am
Yeah, maybe you guys are right; democracy isn't a great word. That said, I am talking about rule by 'the people'; just not all of them. A subset. So 'selective suffrage' still seems a reasonable description.
matt: I'm saying that we should try something other than that ideal, for a better society. Maybe representing the needs and desires of the less intelligent is a bad idea. It's always taken as a given that we should, but why?
bill: An oligarchy is defined as 'a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique'. I'd hardly call this a class or clique; it's still a large group of the population, determined purely on intelligence rating.
Ihavenofingerprints: How are you defining 'fair'? If this resulted in an increase in the overall human happiness (because stupid people couldn't influence it) - even amongst stupid people - isn't that 'fairer' than letting them drag everybody down? And again, if one's defining fairness as being an equal voice for everyone, regardless of intelligence, why is that automatically a good thing? Indeed, you quite often hear people celebrating various groups' lack of representation - prisoners, the BNP, communists, etc. It's done openly in parliament.
matt: I'm saying that we should try something other than that ideal, for a better society. Maybe representing the needs and desires of the less intelligent is a bad idea. It's always taken as a given that we should, but why?
bill: An oligarchy is defined as 'a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique'. I'd hardly call this a class or clique; it's still a large group of the population, determined purely on intelligence rating.
Ihavenofingerprints: How are you defining 'fair'? If this resulted in an increase in the overall human happiness (because stupid people couldn't influence it) - even amongst stupid people - isn't that 'fairer' than letting them drag everybody down? And again, if one's defining fairness as being an equal voice for everyone, regardless of intelligence, why is that automatically a good thing? Indeed, you quite often hear people celebrating various groups' lack of representation - prisoners, the BNP, communists, etc. It's done openly in parliament.