So, What is Democracy Anyway? | Peter Emerson | TEDxVienna

[haleyy.luunguyen]

What an amazing speaker! I love his energy and his tone of voice. I was engaged and laughing the whole time.

[kevintravelPH]

i have never seen an audience so attentive

[dxx]

Just look at the Swiss Democracy, there is no other that's so good! Research and learn about the Democracy that I adore so much, we the Swiss Democracy are not just contained out of Left or Right, Democrat - Repuplican and so on, we have parties and diversity which is in my opinion a very strong component of an wotking democracy. People, I know that our Democracy in Switzerland will not work in every other country because of diffrent culture and history, but I just want to say: dont lose the hope in Democracy, dont forget what our whole last generations wanted for us - freedom, therefor have the motivation to influence yourself of working democracies in the world and discuss - learn with other people, the Swiss is one of a kind to learn from. And yes indeed every working democracy is hard to understand and not easy to comprehend in the first try, especially when you didn't lived with it, but this is just any comprisemise that we have to do for understanding the potential of a modern - working democracy, which does not only stand on majority yes/no or democrats/republicans, but also the intrest of a society in the first place, also known as the freedom of a democratic society to not only decide, but also to creat.

[MustSeto]

A love a lot of the spirit of this talk. We can do better than majoritarianism.

But, there are a lot of different voting methods. Some still have notions of majoritarianism embedded within them but still work for elections with many options, most notably Condorcet methods. Unfortunately, the method discussed here, where you rank options and the ranks equate the points, also known as The Borda Count, has a couple major issues:

1. Clones. A sort of reverse-spoiler effect where fielding a lot of similar candidates ("clones") gives that "party" an unfair advantage.

2. Strategic voting. No method is completely immune to strategic voting, but Borda is particularly vulnerable, to the point that it can become an "anti-method" that elects candidates everyone agrees is terrible.

A better method that preserves the ideas behind this talk is Score Voting. Every voter gives every candidate a score from within some pre-defined range. The winner is the candidate with the highest total/average. This is the basic version, but it has a lot of variants, some of which try to address some of its perceived weaknesses (though I would argue many of its criticisms are dubious). Other variants adapt it to be multi-winner or even proportional.

[el-mehdibenchaib]

Despite everything, despite its imperfection. I like democracy, why? Because it lets me express my voice, gives me the right to be who I am. Democracy should be representative, not oppressive. Majority isn't right, minority isn't wrong. We must practice democracy in totally tolerant and respectful actions because in the end, all the opinions matter, all the ideas are worthy.

[stormrider]

"A political creed claiming to defend freedom of choice, democracy ascended not because of universal popularity, but through overwhelming economic and military force." - Richard Tedor, "Hitler's Revolution" (2013), pg. 5

[casatranquilafilms]

congratulations, an extraordinary reflection about democracy, I just started to follow in twitter

[SafetyMentalst]

On shore of the lake tepee stood
Beautiful Princess gathered wood
In buckskin living in brotherhood
Survived a thousand years Good
A democracy they had withstood

[rudivandoornegat]

preferential points voting vs majority voting
conflict vs consensus

[senamit]

How do you put this into practice in a large country voting for a leader?

[Theodorst]

5:57 Yo, directors of TEDx Talks. It would've been better to leave this angle for all the duration of the speaker's explanation. It would've been more clear!

[vladdumitrica]

Democracy is when those who make decisions on your behalf have the duty to ask for your consent first. Today's republics are actually modern oligarchies where the interest groups of the rich are arbitrated by the people, that is, you can choose from which table of the rich you will receive crumbs.
The "fatigue" of democracy occurs when there is a big difference between the interests of the elected and the voters, thus people lose confidence in the way society functions. As a result, poor and desperate citizens will vote with whoever promises them a lifeline, i.e. populists or demagogues.
The democratic aspect is a collateral effect in societies where the economy has a strong competitive aspect, that is, the interests of those who hold the economic power in society are divergent. Thus those whealty, and implicitly with political power in society, supervise each other so that none of them have undeserved advantages due to politics. For this reason, countries where mineral resources have an important weight in GDP are not democratic (Russia, Venezuela, etc.), because a small group of people can exploit these resources in their own interest. In poor countries (Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, etc.) the main exploited resource may even be the state budget, as they have convergent interests in benefiting, in their own interest, from this resource. It is easy to see if it is an oligarchy because in a true democracy laws would not be passed that would not be in the interest of the many.
The first modern oligarchy appeared in England at the end of the 17th century. After the bourgeois revolution led by Cromwell succeeded, the interest groups of the rich were unable to agree on how to divide their political power in order not to reach the dictatorship of one. The solution was to appoint a king to be the arbiter. In republics, the people are the arbiter, but let's not confuse the possibility of choosing which group will govern you with democracy, that is, with the possibility of citizens deciding which laws to pass and which not to.
The solution is modern direct democracy in which every citizen can vote, whenever he wants, over the head of the parliamentarian who represents him. He can even dismiss him if the majority of his voters consider that he does not correctly represent their interests.
It's like when you have to build a house and you choose the site manager and the architect, but they don't have the duty to consult with you. The house will certainly not look the way you want it, but the way they want it, and it is more certain that you will be left with the money given and without the house. It is strange that outside of the political sphere, nowhere, in any economic or sports activity, will you find someone elected to a leadership position and who has failure after failure and is not fired after 4 years. We, the voters, must be consulted about the decisions and if they have negative effects we can dismiss them at any time, let's not wait for the soroco to be fulfilled, because we pay, not them. In any company, the management team comes up with a plan approved by the shareholders. Any change in this plan must be re-approved by the shareholders and it is normal because the shareholders pay.

[Giokondo]

evenbetter thisis something always happening...the fact that you have it up on you youre will to do is something you must...

[ljsmooth]

Notice the guy said if everyone has a logical set a preferences. Then the collective will also always be logical. What if the people that are voting are somewhat logical and some are somewhat not logical whether it be even number of people are not the outcome more likely will not be a logical outcome for the collective whole. That's something they never tell you.

[toddhansell]

While often categorized as a democracy, the United States is more accurately defined as a constitutional federal republic. What does this mean? “Constitutional” refers to the fact that government in the United States is based on a Constitution which is the supreme law of the United States.

[untouchablex]

It's got to do with young men killing each other, I believe.

[Richard_is_cool]

Democracy doesn't have to be about simple majority voting - there are number of other electoral systems that produce more nuanced answers that get closer to what the populace really wants. The question is whether it is good to do what even an informed populace wants, or whether the decision taken should be simply the right one. But I do see the beauty in the former.

[mayskha]

does anyone have any tips, I'm interested in learning about politics but I don't know where to start?

[NSBarnett]

Very good, but I am not sure you're Russian is quite right; большая (and hence bolshevik) is as much greater or larger or major, as it is majority, so in the case of 49%, 44% and 8%, bolshevik and menshevik (from меньшая, lesser) are justified.

[DrEhrfurchtgebietend]

This is of low quality. He did not get into any of the systems. There are bad multi option systems and good multi option systems. This is at way to high of a level and I am not sure he can go deeper