This is an isolated demand for semantic rigor. There’s a very long history of.”democracy” or “democratic” being used in an extensive sense to mean much more than just “people voting on things and banning or promoting things they like.”
To choose one of many potential examples, I give you a section of introduction of de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America”, emphases mine.
In running over the pages of our history, we shall scarcely find a single great event of the last seven hundred years that has not promoted equality of condition.
The Crusades and the English wars decimated the nobles and divided their possessions: the municipal corporations introduced democratic liberty into the bosom of feudal monarchy; the invention of firearms equalized the vassal and the noble on the field of battle; the art of printing opened the same resources to the minds of all classes; the post brought knowledge alike to the door of the cottage and to the gate of the palace; and Protestantism proclaimed that all men are equally able to find the road to heaven. . The discovery of America opened a thousand new paths to fortune and led obscure adventurers to wealth and power,
If, beginning with the eleventh century, we examine what has happened in France from one half-century to another, we shall not fail to perceive that at the end of each of these periods a two- fold revolution has taken place in the state of society. The noble has gone down the social ladder, and the commoner has gone up; the one descends as the other rises. Every half-century brings them nearer to each other, and they will soon meet.
Nor is this peculiar to France. Wherever we look, we perceive the same revolution going on throughout the Christian world.
The various occurrences of national existence have everywhere turned to the advantage of democracy: all men have aided it by their exertions, both those who have intentionally labored in its cause and those who have served it unwittingly; those who have fought for it and even those who have declared themselves its opponents have all been driven along in the same direction, have all labored to one end; some unknowingly and some despite themselves, all have been blind instruments in the hands of God.
De Tocqueville gives a long-ass list of things which promote “equality of condition” as turning “to the advantage of democracy.” Though many of them do not have anything have to do with voting. If you want to “technically incorrect” Amazon you gotta also do it to de Tocqueville, which is awkward because de Tocqueville work probably actually helps determine the meaning of “democracy” in modern parlance. (And maybe you also want to ping Plato for his “democratic soul”)
Words don’t just mean what they say in dictionaries or in textbooks that define them. Words have meaning from how people actually use them. If it’s meaningful and communicative for de Tocqueville to to say that the printing press, the invention of firearms, and Protestantism help “turn to the advantage of democracy”, then I think it’s meaningful and communicative for a company to say that making it easier for non-billion dollar companies have use AI can (in more modern parlance) “democratize access.”
Thou shalt not strike terms from others’ expressive vocabulary without suitable replacement. It’s a pet issue of mine; it’s my pinned tweet. “Suitable replacement” means suitable across the board, Pareto improvement as seen by the user along every axis a word can have....
Suitable replacement is a very high standard. It has to be. If you take someone’s words away—and refusing to understand them when the problem is not in fact in your understanding does that, since words are tools to communicate—they are very direly crippled. Many people think communicatively; while you might not be their only outlet for working through their ideas, social shame for imprecise language can do your work for you across the board if you hit someone vulnerable hard enough. If you offer them worse words instead of expecting them to guess, they might only be crippled to the degree of wearing uncomfortable shoes, but that’s still too much. Don’t set up shop a block farther away than you had to and dress code folks for wearing Crocs. Communication is already difficult.
I think you might be right… but I’m going to push back against your beautiful effort post, as follows:
--I am not striking terms without suitable replacement. I offered anarchy and dictatorship as replacements. Personally I think Amazon should have said “anarchizing access for all builders.” Or just “Equalizing access for all builders” or “Levelling the playing field” if they wanted to be more technically correct, which they didn’t. I’m not actually upset at them, I know how the game works. Democracy sounds better than anarchy so they say democracy. --”Turning to the advantage of democracy” =/= rendering-more-analogous-to-democracy. I can criticize Amazon without criticizing de Tocqueville. --Plato’s democratic soul was actually an excellent analogy and choice of words by my book. Those with democratic souls, according to Plato, basically take a vote of what their subagents want to do at any given time and then do that. Anarchic soul would be someone in whom getting-outvoted doesn’t happen and each subagent is free to pursue what they want independently—so maybe someone having a seizure?
This is an isolated demand for semantic rigor. There’s a very long history of.”democracy” or “democratic” being used in an extensive sense to mean much more than just “people voting on things and banning or promoting things they like.”
To choose one of many potential examples, I give you a section of introduction of de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America”, emphases mine.
De Tocqueville gives a long-ass list of things which promote “equality of condition” as turning “to the advantage of democracy.” Though many of them do not have anything have to do with voting. If you want to “technically incorrect” Amazon you gotta also do it to de Tocqueville, which is awkward because de Tocqueville work probably actually helps determine the meaning of “democracy” in modern parlance. (And maybe you also want to ping Plato for his “democratic soul”)
Words don’t just mean what they say in dictionaries or in textbooks that define them. Words have meaning from how people actually use them. If it’s meaningful and communicative for de Tocqueville to to say that the printing press, the invention of firearms, and Protestantism help “turn to the advantage of democracy”, then I think it’s meaningful and communicative for a company to say that making it easier for non-billion dollar companies have use AI can (in more modern parlance) “democratize access.”
Alicorn’s essay on expressive vocabulary strikes me as extremely relevant:
I think you might be right… but I’m going to push back against your beautiful effort post, as follows:
--I am not striking terms without suitable replacement. I offered anarchy and dictatorship as replacements. Personally I think Amazon should have said “anarchizing access for all builders.” Or just “Equalizing access for all builders” or “Levelling the playing field” if they wanted to be more technically correct, which they didn’t. I’m not actually upset at them, I know how the game works. Democracy sounds better than anarchy so they say democracy.
--”Turning to the advantage of democracy” =/= rendering-more-analogous-to-democracy. I can criticize Amazon without criticizing de Tocqueville.
--Plato’s democratic soul was actually an excellent analogy and choice of words by my book. Those with democratic souls, according to Plato, basically take a vote of what their subagents want to do at any given time and then do that. Anarchic soul would be someone in whom getting-outvoted doesn’t happen and each subagent is free to pursue what they want independently—so maybe someone having a seizure?