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0 pointsdmix12y ago0 comments

Interesting. In The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies - does Caplan do a good job of proving the inverse as an attainable goal? For example:

a) that fully rational voters instating representative politicians into power will result in good policies (that benefit voters)?

b) that it's possible for voters to become less ignorant and more rational on average, within the current system, in order to reach the outcome of a)?

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unclebucknasty12y ago· 2 in thread

Fully rational or merely fully informed? That is, a rational voter must first be an informed voter.

But, there is a machine dedicated to disinformation. In the aftermath of Citizens United, we are seeing the rise of dark money to the point where billion dollar campaigns are imminent. Combine that with the consolidation of media, the fall of investigative journalism, and a 24 hour news cycle which has devolved news into infotainment, and it is little wonder that the populace is woefully ignorant. Actually, ignorant is too generous. They are actively misinformed, in that they think they know.

So, I would say no, the current system makes it all but impossible for voters to make rational choices, or even to identify what the real choices are.

LekkoscPiwa12y ago

And it is possible to see "why" all these things have been happening once you understand that the country has been getting poorer and poorer for some time and more and more in debt. In other words, the USA in an Empire in decline. Each and every aspect of life in the US is a little bit worse every year. This has been a process since I believe 1973 when US went out of the gold standard. Rich nations, creditor nations, want a gold standard. Because they want their debt to be repaid in gold, not paper. Once the economy started going down and be more and more dependent on debt and cheap credit -- that's precisely when all the other things started going down.

The solution is bankruptcy, to be able to start over from scratch.

unclebucknasty12y ago

>The solution is bankruptcy, to be able to start over from scratch.

I believe it has more to do with the unfettered rise of the military-industrial complex (including banking/finance), which has siezed near complete control of our political machinery. We have become a corporate state, wherein politicians are fully purchasable and policy is made for a narrow set of interests vs. for the people.

If this is not changed, then these same powers will sieze control again after a bankruptcy reset.

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