The first question is whether the current moderators can in any meaningful sense be considered “rulers”.
I think its more the case that whoever actually owns LW (MIRI? EY?) is the ruler, but at some point they delegated some power to the mods.
If the monarch goes crazy you depose him, if necessary via raising an army and having a bit of of a war.
A lot of what Moldbug says is dependent upon the idea, even if just for a thought experiment, that the monarch has absolute power and cannot possibly be deposed.
OTOH, if the monarch does not have absoute power, well, any system which depends on actual wars to get rid of a crazy monarch is … not somewhere I’d be entirely happy about living. One of the arguments against democracy is that having elections every four years imposes costs, in terms of politicians spending time campaigning rather than running the country, not to mention the time and money other people spend campaigning. But those costs are tiny compared to the cost of fighting civil wars.
NRx would inquire about how do you get rid of a crazy Cathedral X-)
A ‘tyranny of the majority’ is a concern about democracy. However, there are still limits—its possible that a majority could subscribe to an insane ideology, but rather unlikely that a majority of people could have a psychotic episode when they vote. A single leader is far more heavy tailed in distribution, they could be a genius or insane.
Cathedral is all about manufacturing consent and so election results, but let’s get more specific.
Leaving aside the traditional example of Hitler’s coming to power why don’t we consider a bit more recent phenomenon—Mr. Putin. He seems to be genuinely popular and even though the Russians fudge their elections (I suppose they just can’t help it), I would bet that Mr.Putin would actually win a fair election in Russia without any problems.
So how does he fit into your picture of democracy?
But those costs are tiny compared to the cost of fighting civil wars.
Are you sure about that? In well-run polities, civil wars are vanishingly rare; the implied threat of civil war is what’s more relevant, in most cases. The costs of demotist politicking may be smaller at any given time, but they add up quickly.
(All that said, democracies do seem to be a lot more peaceful than autocracies, and this is a huge efficiency gain. But there might be further gains on the table by moving things towards a formalist/NRX direction. Especially since modern democracies need a lot of oligarchy/aristocracy in practice if they are to actually function—this is what we call ‘the Cathedral’.)
I think its more the case that whoever actually owns LW (MIRI? EY?) is the ruler, but at some point they delegated some power to the mods.
A lot of what Moldbug says is dependent upon the idea, even if just for a thought experiment, that the monarch has absolute power and cannot possibly be deposed.
OTOH, if the monarch does not have absoute power, well, any system which depends on actual wars to get rid of a crazy monarch is … not somewhere I’d be entirely happy about living. One of the arguments against democracy is that having elections every four years imposes costs, in terms of politicians spending time campaigning rather than running the country, not to mention the time and money other people spend campaigning. But those costs are tiny compared to the cost of fighting civil wars.
Not that democracies are immune to civil wars.
The proper expression is probably “an absentee landlord”.
NRx would inquire about how do you get rid of a crazy Cathedral X-)
A ‘tyranny of the majority’ is a concern about democracy. However, there are still limits—its possible that a majority could subscribe to an insane ideology, but rather unlikely that a majority of people could have a psychotic episode when they vote. A single leader is far more heavy tailed in distribution, they could be a genius or insane.
Cathedral is all about manufacturing consent and so election results, but let’s get more specific.
Leaving aside the traditional example of Hitler’s coming to power why don’t we consider a bit more recent phenomenon—Mr. Putin. He seems to be genuinely popular and even though the Russians fudge their elections (I suppose they just can’t help it), I would bet that Mr.Putin would actually win a fair election in Russia without any problems.
So how does he fit into your picture of democracy?
Well, Putin isn’t doing anything particularly insane, is he? I’m not saying his policies are sensible, but he’s not making his horse a senator.
Are you sure about that? In well-run polities, civil wars are vanishingly rare; the implied threat of civil war is what’s more relevant, in most cases. The costs of demotist politicking may be smaller at any given time, but they add up quickly.
(All that said, democracies do seem to be a lot more peaceful than autocracies, and this is a huge efficiency gain. But there might be further gains on the table by moving things towards a formalist/NRX direction. Especially since modern democracies need a lot of oligarchy/aristocracy in practice if they are to actually function—this is what we call ‘the Cathedral’.)
Then you would need to add the societal and medical costs derived from having a perpetually stressed population.