Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy(theatlantic.com) |
Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy(theatlantic.com) |
It's five year mission...
Let's not kid ourselves... Democracy is no perfect ideal to aspire after. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
Let's also consider what Bastiat had to say[1]:
What, then, is law? It is the collective organization
of the individual right to lawful defense.
Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend
his person, his liberty, and his property. These are
the three basic requirements of life, and the
preservation of any one of them is completely dependent
upon the preservation of the other two. For what are
our faculties but the extension of our individuality?
And what is property but an extension of our faculties?
If every person has the right to defend even by force —
his person, his liberty, and his property, then it
follows that a group of men have the right to organize
and support a common force to protect these rights
constantly. Thus the principle of collective right —
its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on
individual right. And the common force that protects
this collective right cannot logically have any other
purpose or any other mission than that for which it
acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot
lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or
property of another individual, then the common force —
for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to
destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals
or groups.
Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases,
contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to
defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say
that force has been given to us to destroy the equal
rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting
separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights
of others, does it not logically follow that the same
principle also applies to the common force that is
nothing more than the organized combination of the
individual forces?
If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than
this: The law is the organization of the natural right
of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common
force for individual forces. And this common force is
to do only what the individual forces have a natural
and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties,
and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to
cause justice to reign over us all.
I think that everyone already knew that the poll was nothing more than a meaningless diversion, and "Boaty McBoatface" was just throwing it back into the organizers' faces. Everybody knew this would happen, and that was the entire reason for the joke names. If it doesn't matter anyway, it's at least good for a laugh or two.
» The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. «
It seems to be an attack on the fundamentals of modern governments, that the legitimacy of the government follows from the will of those governed. Because those governed can't be bothered.
So, what's your next suggestion, then?
Personally, as a random human and as a scientist, I have no problem with Boaty McBoatface, although I know a lot of the stuffier set who would regard it as ridiculous and insulting, and might reflect those feelings on the work done aboard the ship. (I also feel those people should be vetoed.)
Interestingly, the name Vegemite itself was also originally "crowdsourced" back in the 1920s [1], so the effort had some tradition behind it. Perhaps "Vegemite" also sounded really silly back then.
I think (but not sure) that it's still for sale in Australia... in any case it is/was delicious, regardless of the name.
[1] http://adage.com/article/global-news/crowdsourcing-wrong-veg...
The only reason to vote for this name is because it would be funny to make them name it something stupid. The humor is only in the anarchy. A mindset that juvenile doesn't deserve to be taken seriously.
I know it is silly and childish, but that would be so awesome. That joke would never get old.
One reason that democracy works vastly better than authoritarian government is that the public agrees on a lot of things. For instance, the public in the US disapproves of governmental corruption, and so it is far lower than in authoritarian countries like Putin's Russia.
Oh, and if the authors think that informing the public doesn't work, then why are they working for a media organization is, guess what, informing the public?
Just imagine being the parents and losing to McBoatface. Have it named after the kid with Mcboatface be the nickname.
Or how about toys, educational videos, educational cartoons, educational books featuring Boaty McBoatface and friends.
This is a Scientific Research Vessel that people could really fall in love with, and instead of capitalizing on that possibility, they'll give it a name like the Hawking. Nothing against Hawking.
Second, everyone, including the government is making it sound as if this is a "terrible name", just because it's out of the framework they imagined it to be. But I think this is a great name and has brought nothing but popularity to the project being done on that boat.
It's partially true this isn't how elections work, but I think what the article was trying to get by or at least what I got out of it is that the process was democratic and in similar ways democracy fails. Now this is somewhat subjective and entirely dependent on what you call democracy. It's funny I read this now as I had just started reading a new book I got titled Our Republican Constitution by Randy E. Barnett (great read by the way.) The writer is talking about the American constitution.
Once when Benjamin Franklin was asked what form of government the framers had devised he answered famously "a republic, if you can keep it." This was in contrast to a democracy which the writer says they didn't wholly disagree with, but having an excess of democracy had created problems.
The author states two conflicting paradigms a Democratic Constitution and a Republican Constitution. He states these are not reflections of what we see as the democratic and republican parties that the USA has today as both parties have believers of both viewpoints. His main distinction that I perceived from reading was that the Democratic Constitution perceived what was constitutional or law by the "majority". Well the alternative to that doesn't seem like it would be anything good it's quite the contrary. The alternative as he states is The Republican Constitution (what he states was the founders paradigm) which has the basis of constitutionality on whether each "individual" had there basic rights. In some cases throughout american history majority rule hasn't favored the individual e.g. racial segregation. In cases where majority rule opposes the inalienable rights of the individual I feel democracy fails and as I stated before that's the one part that I could agree with the journalist that democracy isn't always the best solution to a problem.
2) US elections are so dominated by advertisement, expensive campaigns and donations that there is no way a politician can actually do what they tell voters because at the end of the day they have to satisfy donors otherwise they can't get money to run elections. There has been studies that show American politicians are mainly aligned with the wishes of the rich rather than people who vote on them.
That is just two big points, which makes the US stand out of many other western democracies, and there are multiple others.
My other objection is that Boaty McBoatface, somehow represents the will of the people. No it doesn't. It represent the will of people who bothered to vote on an issue most people likely don't give a dam about. If a choice was demanded of the whole population then Boaty McBoatface would never have won.
Whenever there is an issue most people don't have a vested interest in or think is very important it is likely that whoever wants to stirr up stuff or make some fun are going to win, because nobody else has any incentive.
This is of course a major issue with democracy. When you let people make decisions on things they don't really care about then they will make poor decisions. Democracy shouldn't make everything a choice, but rather be about choosing people you think will make good choices on your behalf.
Voting is to democracy as is telescopes is to astronomy.
Democracy is about the people being in charge, of the government existing for the benefit of the people (as opposed to a dictator/absolute monarch/aristocracy) on the broadest possible stretches. It's about replacing the people in charge peacefully every few years. It's not about every decision being made at every level of government always being in line with what a majority might vote -- and it's emphatically not about online votes for silly things. It's an abomination to suggest such votes have anything to do with democracy (or, if you're so minded, an elaborate tactic for the power cabal to create the illusion of people being in power, but that theory is rather diminished by the power cabal not following the decision).
Democracy is worst form of government, except for all other others. It's not perfect, and it doesn't hold the seeds of perfection. It's at best a decent way of preventing a strong man and his cronies from grabbing too much power too fast -- it's not even a guarantee against that happening.
However, the unexpected strong performances of Trump and Sanders in the US primaries is for all its weirdness a symptom of the system working, however imperfectly: It's a huge vote of non-confidence in "the system" and the perception that it has been captured by some vaguely defined instance of not-the-people (Sanders: Wall Street; Trump: Who the hell knows? Mexicans?) and that (however crudely) something should be done about it.
most technically we call ourselves a Federal Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_republic
"It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election." (Aristotle)
In general, I'm inclined to think that in a democracy, the people should have more direct influence to things “closer” to them (by some measure), and less for bigger, nationwide, issues, of which they presumably have less understanding. This is, in fact, how most democratic nations work in practice.
The case of Boaty McBoatface, though, is unusual in that it doesn't actually much matter what the name of a research vessel is. It's just a name. Names are almost always boring. Unless… if the name becomes so popular and widely known that the very name opens up completely new opportunities for raising funds and awareness. Which, I would have thought, was kind of the point of the competition to begin with.
So, why not reap the PR benefits of this name? Why would they start a contest but back out when they hit the jackpot? I do not understand.
You could do merchandise, books, characters, You could have Boaty McBoatface sale up to the ice caps to look at why they are melting.
It's not like this is unusual we had a Childrens TV series here that was massively popular about talking trains and talking helicopters.
I think they squandered a massive opportunity because they don't understand how the internet works.
This is reminiscent of a contest on EEVBlog that Keysight just sponsored. Participants entered the contest by posting a video on Facebook describing what they would do with an oscilloscope. The person whose video garnered the most votes would win a new 20 GS/s oscilloscope with a bandwidth spec of 6 GHz and a price tag in the neighborhood of US $70,000.
Naturally, the winner turned out to be a kid who made a video about an electric water heater and got a bunch of her schoolmates to flood the voting page. The highest-ranked entry by someone with a legitimate need for a 6 GHz oscilloscope finished in a distant third place.
So Keysight did the only thing that could have avoided a giant online dumpster fire, and gave one of the scopes to each of the top three contestants. It was an expensive lesson in the failings of democracy (and in not using Facebook for anything important).
So yeah, they should just paint the name on the boat and get over it. Keysight salvaged their marketing effort by taking the high road, but you can bet they won't run this contest the same way in the future. They're lucky they didn't have to give away three dozen 6 GHz scopes to random high school kids.
Not everyone feels this way. Names can be important and in the arts are particularly relished/valued and interpreted, to the extent that noms-de-plume and other forms of pseudonym are popular.
A formalist account of names sees them as dumb labels, and in computing you can get away with that. But it's not whole story because it doesn't consider the emotional side.
Problem is, it's easier to develop an understanding of national issues than local or regional issues because national issues get pushed on us by media, while you have to actually seek out information about anything local. Everyone talks about national issues, that's social pressure to become knowledgable about them.
This assumes McBoatface is a poor decision, which is a completely personal (and most likely wrong) assessment.
There are no objective parameters for what a good ship name should be in generic terms. For something with military applications, probably easy spelling and brevity would factor in, but in reality a lot of military ships have long and windy names anyway. Something with a publicity element, like a research ship, could do with something memorable and fun, which Boaty McBoatface undoubtedly is; naming it as some obscure last-century researcher would make it utterly forgettable.
So it looks like there is wisdom in the crowds after all; it's just that often it doesn't match the wisdom of stuffy establishment types.
The point is that if it does represent the will of the people and the people in power don't like it, the will of the people will still lose out.
The two party system in the US is a problem, but it turns out it's natural consequence of Democracy. There's no law against other parties, it just turns out that with direct voting in a large country, over enough time, we arrive here with two parties.
If you look at the Democratic party, in 1968 an unfavored candidate was nominated based on votes, and so the DNC decided to institute the concept of super-delegates from thereon out. They did this because letting normal democracy run its course didn't work because the people elected someone the party elites didn't think was the best. The super delegates composed of party loyalists and high ranking party members that could ignore DNC votes. This essentially gave the party more control over who would win and removed voting power from normal people.
In the current election, Donald Trump is doing the same thing to upset the Republican party leadership. The Republicans haven't implemented anything as undemocratic as super-delegates yet, but if Trump wins they might be encouraged to (since it's the type of Democracy-giving-poor-results scenario people in power try to avoid).
It's a natural consequence of the specifics of how the US does elections. The US isn't the only country with democracy and plenty of others have more than 2 significant parties.
Wrong.
It turns out that with First-Past-The-Post, we arrive with two parties.
In many other countries, over centuries, even more parties develop, and fail again.
Indeed the vote was obviously silly and did in fact achieve its desired goal: publicity for arctic research. The officials are insane if they don't go along with the choice. It's an opportunity for further publicity on arctic research for decades to come!
If you force British people to vote then Boaty McBoatface would probably win, because british people can be surprisingly bloody minded.
And boaty mcboatface is the polite version, you'd have a number of people writing Cunty McCuntyCunt on the form.
Imagine if the national conventions were deciding which of the many already balloted candidates to endorse, rather than a media circus driving national attention to a smaller and smaller number of candidates that are then placed on state ballots by the parties months after an independent would have had to finished submitting ballot petitions.
It would still be a circus, but it wouldn't be a circus where the choices are filtered through a few thousand people. I suppose it would be necessary to again make the first loser the Vice President, but that shouldn't really hurt anything.
I didn't participate in this election (I'm not a UKian) and didn't see exactly how it was done, but I'll bet (esp. given the statements made about the results, and how the winner got 3x the number of votes of the runner-up) they had a big list of names, and then people had the chance to vote for exactly one of those names. "Boaty McBoatface" therefore was probably not the choice of the majority of the voters, but only a small minority, with all the other votes spread across a bunch of other names.
If the name was not chosen by a clear majority of people, then it's not the "choice of the people".
If this had been done by some other voting system, then we would have seen very different results most likely. Approval voting might have worked well here; whichever name got the most votes of approval, if more then 50% of the voters approved it, can rightfully be said to be "the choice of the people".
This is the problem with "democracy": the voting system itself is inherently rigged and unfair, and then we're told to believe in its results. How many elections actually use a voting system besides plurality? Not many.
By outspending his opponent over 2:1 and still losing by a large margin, Bernie Sanders has proved that money can't buy an election.
Realistically it's the will of 4chan and Reddit, which is nowhere near as noble-sounding as "the will of the people".
This can be said about the election in pretty much all western societies. There have been several occasions where I myself have not voted in the UK elections. Does it make those elections any less valid? Same can be said for the US as well, where even those who voted found that majority rule didn't matter in the end [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...]
Maybe we should follow the Australian way where people are forced to vote or face a $100AU fine. But then democracy right, it should give you the right to not vote.
The parties in the US don't control the opinions and seats of their elected members, which means you get a greater variety of political positions under the same label than you do in a lot of parliamentary systems. Republicans in California can easily be left of Democrats in Georgia.[0]
There are opinions held by small interest groups that are not reflected in the democratic process, to be sure.
On the other hand, performing artists have their own line in the tax code, so sometimes these groups do get their way.
> US elections are so dominated by advertisement, expensive campaigns and donations that there is no way a politician can actually do what they tell voters because at the end of the day they have to satisfy donors
A lot of studies have debunked the influence of money on campaigns.[1]
Jeb's massive war chest didn't keep him in the race.
Here are the richest individuals to ever launch a bid for the presidency[2]:
1) Ross Perot
2) Steve Forbes
3) John Kerry
4) Mitt Romney
5) Al Gore
The Clintons are next, but most of their money was made after Bill's Presidency.
Giuliani, Edwards, and Huntsman round out the list (before this election, I'm not sure if anyone really knows how much Trump is worth).
A lot of losers on that list for a system so influenced by money.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zell_Miller
[1] http://freakonomics.com/2012/01/17/how-much-does-campaign-sp...
[2] http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ross-perot-tops-lis...
After gaining the #1 position the organization decided to withdraw the name from the polling, causing more controversy about this digital process.
> A band of Spanish net buccaneers has mounted a determined incursion into Her Maj's territorial cyberwaters by demanding that Blighty's forthcoming Royal Research Ship be named the RRS Blas de Lezo, in honour of the man who administered the British a serious military shoeing during the War of Jenkins' Ear.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/29/boaty_mcboatface_spa...
It was going to win, so they had to shut down the candidacy. Not even the brits can handle the power of roto2...
"Imagine Boaty McBoatface sailing into the world's iciest waters with the wide-eyed fascination of a child. Observing global challenges that affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people, Boaty McBoatface absorbs new facts and ideas without the jaundiced and prejudiced views of older research vessels while providing fresh perspectives and iron-clad observations of data regarding global warming, the melting of polar ice and rising sea levels."
I think it works!
I think refusing that name would be not just be 'anti democratic' -- it's just be very un-british, because as a foreigner, that's /exactly/ what I'd expect the british to come up with as a name, just for a smirk, and that's something I like about them!
My nephew would have wanted to learn about it, it would have been something I could keep up to date a bit on what it's doing and he'd love to hear about it.
Hell I can't believe the people on the project didn't go 100% for it right away, giving the boat a fun paint-job and maybe even doing something like working with a children's book author to write some stories about what the boat is doing that are geared toward children.
It would have been an amazing way to get kids involved and interested in the whole thing.
And you're absolutely right, it's bloody un-British to refuse to name it Boaty. I mean, we won't do anything about it but there'll be a lot of tutting I'll be bound.
I'm also a bit sore that they removed the Spanish admiral as an entry. Not exactly fair play. Rather disappointing actually.
http://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2016/04/18/us-military-intr...
As a sideline, what is democracy even? Democracy via elections would be oligarchy to ancient Athenians, who prefered democracy by lot anyway.
Agree with your point that it doesn't really help the discussion to treat obscure and easily manipulated online polls on trivia as actual mass expressions of public will. I mean, it's about as valid as the poll Redditors brigaded to try to prove that nearly every American would vote for Sanders.
executive powers originally designed for extenuating circumstances are being used on one side and the other: to select delegates in an election, to get around a stonewall Congress in Washington, to name a boat in England. Where they aren't used, there is pressure to use them: to avoid a Brexit disaster, to stand up for a comedian's right to free speech in Germany, to respond to terrorist threats in France and Belgium.
I have to wonder if this is the Internet doing to Democracy what it is doing to Capitalism : breaking fundamental assumptions of how the world works. Information and opinions work very differently, now. We are part of much larger social herds, governed by different forces, with much faster (and more selective) information transfer. Populism is a different beast today than when Berlusconi ran in the 90s. Maybe it's time you disrupt democracy.
Second - even proper referendums are usually advisory, i.e. the outcome isn't bindnig for legislators. I don't see a democratic problem with that either unless legislators would go against a strong public opinion, repeatedly.
You say it's going to be doing important research? Great! Add a social media presence, pull in people with the "funny name" and keep them for the exciting and interesting research.
But you're not going to that, because you're too important for that, ... because you're snobs.
I think it's on topic as there are many ships in his books with names referencing a lack of "gravitas". As explained by Banks:
"But it was a scathing review of Culture ship-naming policy delivered by another Involved civilisation. They suggested that such enormously powerful and intellectually refined entities ought to have names with a little more gravitas, to reflect their near-god-like status; the immediate and sustained reaction of one of the Culture's ship manufacturies was to name all its subsequent vessels things like:
Stood Far Back When The Gravitas Was Handed Out; Gravitas, What Gravitas?; Gravitas... Gravitas... No, Don't Help Me, I'll Get It In A Moment; Gravitas Free Zone; Low Gravitas Warning Signal"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_spaceport_drone_shi...
So it's no suprise that the best objection I've heard to the name so far is that it's stupid because the vessel is clearly a SHIP, not a BOAT.
"mayday ma-day may--y this is Shi--y McShi-face ..."
Surely it's closer to compare it to a referendum: in which, the public majority agreed on an answer that the establishment didn't like, and will now renege on.
You so wish. It's a popularity contest like any other. Proof: Reagan, Schwarzenegger, Ventura, Berlusconi, Trump, Franken, the Ghandi dynasty, even the last Troudeau. Name recognition alone pretty much trumps (eh) everything else, once you couple it with pre-existing popularity you've basically won, no matter what your message is. You can try to outweigh that with massive doses of continuous higher education, sure, but the natural rest state is that any electoral process is mostly a popularity contest.
If a majority prefers pepperoni pizza but will eat basically anything, don't be surprised when the representative orders vegetarian. The vegetarians care far more about the exact type of pizza that's served and are more likely to change which representative they vote for in order to get what they want.
"tyrannical" because a group that got a boat, asked some people what their thought on the matter was, and then said "no that silly"?
"What happened to disapproving of what you name your boat, but defending to the death your right to name it" and now this is infringing on free speech as well?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh_7100#Codename_...
Also, the "Sosumi" alert sound introduced in MacOS 7 is short for "So sue me", referencing the Apple Corps v. Apple Computer lawsuit.
Edit: Or maybe it's all part of the plan. Let us all down by hinting that they're not using the name, then announce a change of heart. The internet would explode.
It's not to say that the work isn't serious or important, just that sometimes it's OK to have a laugh, even in an omgsrsbzns environment. It's not really at the expense of anyone (aside from perhaps the pride of a few) and it's not really disrespectful or non-kid-friendly (actually I'm sure kids would love it) like e.g. RRS Naff Minger or something else that the internet at large might dream up. My point is that it's actually a viable family-friendly name, and I mean...just look at it. Totally looks like a Boat McBoatface to me. It has that Pixar anthropomorphic look to it. It also looks like a big toy version of a real boat. Very cartoony, especially in bright red
Boaty McBoatface it is, then.
So - better ride, less fuel consumption, cartoonish look. Win-win-win.
Here's hoping that the authorities relent.
I'm not a fan of grover norquist but I think it is unfair to say our representatives should be free to disregard the pledge they so publicly made when they were campaigning. Yes, we expect our representatives to go against their platform in extreme cases for the greater good but I'd say if that happens, the representative must turn right around and resign immediately from office and not run for office again.
No, it doesn't matter if the cause was an "obstructionist" Congress. It didn't matter with George HW Bush and it won't matter now.
Can you imagine if we had a referendum for independence of Scotland and had Cameron said "nah jk" after the results came in favor of Independence? Or if he started attaching new conditions to the promised he made Scots to vote no? "Oh we will get right to the issue of devolution but we must make sure Scots can't vote in England only legislation" but then who didn't they say that when campaigning?
Imagine a system where there was a yearly pie eating contest to determine the king for a year. Would it be OK for the current winner to abolish the contest and make the position hereditary? Of course not!
The US system seems to be doing quite well. The majority of the population doesn't care at all, and their votes don't count. Those are people who either always vote for the same party or don't vote at all. The important decision then comes down to the minority of people who are most interested in the policies - the swing voters. Isn't that quite an efficient division of labor?
Similar issue: when the new Wembley stadium got a new bridge, there was a voting for the name of the bridge. The german football (soccer for my american friends) player Dietmar Hamann scored the last goal in the old stadium, and german football fans tried to overrun the election to force the englishman to name it "Dietmar-Hamann-Bridge", a slap in the face for every english football fan. Although Hamann won the vote, the bridge got the name White Horse Bridge (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Horse_Bridge)
(And as another commenter who is familiar with the project internals pointed out - they already do call it McBoatface)
Except for the captain.
This is good advice. In Toronto we have a baseball stadium called the Rogers Center (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Centre). It was originally called the SkyDome but it was bought by a company called Rogers and renamed.
Everyone still refers to it as the Skydome. Corporate branding be damned:)
"Ak-Chin Pavilion (formerly known as the Desert Sky Pavilion, Blockbuster Desert Sky Pavilion, Cricket Pavilion, Cricket Wireless Pavilion and Ashley Furniture HomeStore Pavilion) is an amphitheater located in Phoenix, Arizona, which seats 8,000 under a pavilion roof and an additional 12,000 on a hillside behind the main stands."
That much renaming is really ridiculous IMO.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_St_Mary_Axe
In the past few months I have heard all 4 names used for the facility.
Nobody calls it anything but Science World.
Coca Cola Starplex (original) > Smirnoff Music Center > Superpages.com Center > Gexa Energy Pavilion
Not one of the brandings has resulted in any noteworthy facility improvements, interestingly enough /s
It's been nearly a decade since Austin's "Town Lake" was renamed by the city council as "Lady Bird Lake" (in honor of Lady Bird Johnson). To this day, I'm not sure I've ever heard it referred to as anything other than Town Lake. I certainly can never remember to use the new name.
I hope the officials hold firm. Long after the easily entertained public has moved on, they can do their job without being reminded of how poor the sense of humor in the general populace actually is.
I mean, it's cute to give the public an opportunity to name something, but half the people who voted in the poll have probably forgotten the ship even exists by now.
I'd buy a Boaty McBoatface toy and I'm not even British.
And regardless I doubt anyone will call it "Boaty McBoatface". It'll be abbreviated into something anyway. BMBM or Boaty or something.
And it will demonstrate that resistance is futile!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg0_Vhldz-8
The idea being, you can let people vote on your behalf, or you can vote directly, and you have the freedom to choose between these on an issue by issue basis.
The country that gets least tax evasion and most volunteers to army is likely to perform better than anybody else. And so survival of the fittest governments has favored democracy for past three centuries.
I doubt this has any explanatory power as to why sortition isn't used much today.
Among other things, the median citizen doesn't care even a little bit about who is prime minister or otherwise in charge.
Well, you don't really have a choice in the former, and when there's a draft, you don't in the latter either.
> The country that gets least tax evasion and most volunteers to army is likely to perform better than anybody else
I disagree. You are elevating the state too high. I would counter that the countries with the most economic freedom -- those that have embraced markets and rule of law -- are the ones at the top.
(In many places ballot initiatives could be used to work around insider resistance to such a change)
I've had people walk out of company dinners (to get "real" food) due to inconsiderate behaviour like this, from supposedly "tolerant" managers. Needless to say, such incidents are seldom repeated.
And I say inconsiderate, because that's what such behaviour constitutes as in my cultural climate.
Then I wondered why there are so many telco/media stadiums/pavilions/etc., and not more furniture stores in the mix.
How is the a bland, inane government-issue name it will no doubt end up with going to be any better?
Next thing you know they'll want to be doing science themselves. Where will it end?
Really, people take this stuff waaay too seriously.
I understand that calling it "CuntBrick 5000" would be offensive and we shouldn't do that, but "Boaty McBoatface" is just whimsical...
Of course democracy was never meant to be the most efficient or effective system of government. It's simply the most compromising one.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_I...
Most countries where there are more than two parties are smaller. Just like in the US at lower level elections independents and other party members might win.
For a full accounting, look back to the rise of the two party system during the Jacksonian era, or the current system of Democrats and Republicans (replacing the Whig party) started in the 1850s.
An explanation based on population size would have to be able to explain why it is that the current two party system in the US started when it was a much smaller country.
The US population in 1860 was 31,443,321. There are now 42 countries with a population larger than that.
If you are U.S. citizen, you probably would prefer Obama over Enrique Peña Nieto. Personally as a Finn I like Sipilä and Niinistö over Putin. In a way any Finnish party head would suit me better than Putin. It matters little which of them, but it matters a lot that it's one of them.
In medieval Europe, vassal dukes would bargain who king they would pay taxes to. And you had situations where Britain was ruled by dude who spoke French and lived in Normandy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81lvaro_de_Baz%C3%A1n-clas...
Edit... anyway: De Lezo took part in the Spanish Sucession War. In that war, Catalonia lost some fueros (middle ages common law) because it was against the Borbons (that won) and in the revisionist version of history that we're hearing in very recent years, that's tantamount to genocide.
It's mystifying how such a diverse and populous country can be represented well at all. And the evidence is stacking up to show that it can't, in USA, Russia, China, and India.
The point is that you can delegate for individual bills, as well as taking back your power to vote on individual bills. You can delegate by category, but you don't need to if it doesn't serve you. The idea is that the people you delegate to have to stick up for your best interests, as their power can be taken away at any point if they do not.
Surveillance law is a pretty relevant example, since for most people not on HN it's a relatively low priority, and there's a fairly high likelihood that if they're able to delegate somebody to vote for them on a general area like "civil liberties issues" (for most people, a delegate with a decent libertarian credentials) and "national security" (for most people, a delegate who promises to be robust), the person or committee that decides for whether a particular surveillance bill is considered "civil liberties" or "national security" in effect holds a casting vote any time most of the public doesn't feel strongly enough to make a bill-specific decision. Somebody has to resolve differences between a budget balancing bill popular with the public's preferred delegates for "taxation" issues and a bill with public spending implications popular with the public's preferred delegates for "health issues", "education issues" or "social policy issues" too. Since they're supposed to be administering a process rather than enacting a particular programme of government they were elected on like a de jure executive, they're probably also subject to far less scrutiny.
Of course, the system still has the advantage that the public can step in and overrule their regular representative whenever they feel strongly enough to do so, but not necessarily any more effectively in practice than powers to force a referendum as a form of public veto.
If on the other hand giving it a silly name "dilutes their brand" (to use an HN favourite) then they're going to do the stuffy thing. Not entirely sure why folks would be surprised at a Conservative minister taking a conservative approach...
Really seems that SCIENCE does a lot better in the public eye at the moment when it goes populist rather than cloistered, but here we are...
Except vaccines. And chemtrails. And moon landings. And and and...
I'm a populist by nature but let's not get carried away here.
This isn't a particularly convincing argument for a silly name. If kids will accept Thomas, surely they'll accept a more serious name than Boaty McBoatface.
https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=thomas%20the%20tank%...
Why does it have to appeal to 4 year olds, who have zero understanding of or interest in what it does? Why does it require an infantile name to appeal to kids who are old enough to be interested in what it does?
The only reason this is even any kind of issue is because of the way internet works, where all kinds of pointless immature stupidity is given far more time of day than it deserves, because newspaper sites have to fill themselves with something.
Edit: Oh dear. Looks like I hit a nerve with some people. :( ∗sad mcsadface∗
And you don't have to be a child to appreciate the name, just not quite as allergic to whimsy as you seem to be.
British public life is nothing but whimsy. Consider that "wheelie bin" is the actual normal name of a thing, not a cutesy nickname.
A little non-whimsy is frankly refreshing.
He was talking about free merchandise, books, characters then?
You realise that those 4 year olds grow up right? And that by possibly catching their attention and imagination at an early age it might even make them more interested in the area and maybe, gosh, make them want to become researchers and scientists when they grow up and tackle issues like climate change.
And the very people objecting to it now will be retired, dead or moved onto a more senior position and then care less about it.
No, I didn't realize that 4 year olds grow up. Thank you for clearing that up.
Also, most people in DC just call it National. Probably because the other airport also has a one word name (Dulles).
Which airport, "Reagan", "Dulles" or "BWI" ?
They don't say "Marshall" for BWI, though.
Im recent years, the city renamed the airport to Louis Armstrong airport, but no one in the city refers to it as that. Everyone still calls it Moisant. Not that we don't like Louis Armstrong, it's always been called Moisant and New Orleans really doesn't like change.
However, I can think of one counterexample: JFK airport in NYC. It used to be called Idlewild, named after some golf course I think, but was renamed to JFK (with the airport code JFK) back in the 60s. No one knows what "Idlewild" is any more.
A further tangent, but the more obvious airport code LOU is still in active use across town at Bowman Field, the city's original air field (definitely not an airport) and these days the oldest remaining continually operating air field in the country.
There are words in all dialects that sound whimsical to outsiders, but internally they're so normalised that no one considers them whimsical at all.
These movements share a message: "the man is screwing us little people". That's a populist message, which it's why they're much more popular than their actual craziness would otherwise grant.
> You could have Boaty McBoatface sale up to the ice caps to look at why they are melting.
An example of how it could be used to deliver important messages.
And merchandise can be part of the message anyway.
(I should however note that I just edited my comment to include the word "simply".)
And exactly what problem does attaching the name to a real boat cause? I think the objection to the name is far more childish than the name itself. "Oh no no no, we can't call it that. This is a serious boat, for serious grown ups."
No one forced them in to the situation.
FWIW I don't find the name stupid, one person's humour is another's stupidity I guess.
Hopefully it's a lesson for them not to ask The Internet its opinion again.
So what's your presumably non-childish objection to other things being given "whimsical" names?
I don't object to that either?
Do you or do you not believe everything should have a whimsical name?
To save time: If your answer to this is "No, I do not believe everything should have a whimsical name", then what is your non-childish objection to whimsical names in some cases?
(Except in the sense that variety is preferable, but I don't think that's what you're getting at.)
If not, you'd be an excellent committee member. You'd be a total hit at committees.
