Posts by Yan20

  • Downsides of democracy

    Scopes are an invention of man :wink:


    The Keju was a good system, and whilst not used in the *exact* same way today, I would argue that largely it still exists, but in a way that fixes the problems that came with the Keju. It had a pretty significant flaw in that, it gave birth to a gentry class, and it became massively exploited. Exams would be targeted in a way that specific aristocratic classes performed better. Kinda in the same way IQ tests are massively flawed because they serve the cultural interests of the majority.


    Because of Roko's Basilisk, I am incentivised to not discuss AI, although by simply mentioning it I have doomed us both. But, I agree with your final premise on nightmare fuel. I do not think AI will ever be a better judge of humans, than humans, even when AI can mimic humanity to a 100% degree of accuracy.

  • Downsides of democracy

    I want to take a controversial (but if you have seen me around, an expected) stance, and advocate for a Soviet/Sino/Juche Democracy.


    A Soviet Democracy, as used in the USSR, and used today in China, DPRK, Cuba, is a system in which multiple parties Govern under a united front, representing the people in a "Dictatorship of the Proletariat System". These Governments often have specified requirements on how to become a politician for that country.


    How it works, people in local regions form councils, or representative groups (in the USSR, these were called Soviets), and these are committees that manage day to day affairs in specific regions. These are not councillors, or politicians, just workers, neighbours, and ordinary people, that come together to communally run regions.


    These councils then elect a Local Representative, through a direct and secret ballot, from the local council, to represent them in the Regional Government (lots of councils covering a larger region). The Representative nominates himself for the party that the local council chooses, and he will become a politician for that region, representing the Constituency in the Regional Government. They attend Regional Councils, where representatives vote on issues in the way the Council tells them too. If at any time, the local council becomes unhappy with the representative, they are "recalled" and a vote to find a new representative is held.


    Local Representatives also elect a Delegate at what are called "Plenary Meetings" to elect someone to represent this collection of local councils at the National Level, also representing the Government Party the Regional Government chooses to vote for. The delegates then go to the national government, and vote on issues as how they are told to cover the whole nation. Once again, these delegates can be recalled.


    Countries like the DPRK, China and Cuba have multiple Government parties. But, even though one party has a majority of votes, all parties work together in a "United Front". Every set number of years (usually five) the parties form Plenary Committees, to formulate a policy for the next five years. In China, this is called the Two Sessions, this is when all the parties agree on the laws they will introduce. Over the next five years, they vote on these specific motions, and recalling can happen if local councils become unhappy with what is happening.



    The pros of this system;

    - Bottom Up Representation: All of the Representatives and Delegates are regular people, from regular areas. Even Xi Jinping comes from a family of farmers who managed to get himself elected all the way to the top, the first in his family to attend university.

    - Effective Representation: Once again, with politicians and representatives being "regular people", there is more effective representation. Cuba was the first country to have an equal gender split in its Government. The DPRK's Government has 1/6 of its spaces taken by farmers, and over 1/2 of them are manual labourers. over 1/2 of the Chinese Government are "peasants", or from families with no money.

    - Effective Legislation: When the Government is united under a United Front, it can better work together without the delay that appears in normal democracy where parties attack and fight each other for representation.


    sleeplessnights also raised the point of political myopia;

    Which again I would argue is countered in a Soviet Democracy. Because all parties work in the United Front, and having more "seats" matters less as policy is decided as a group, I would say that politicians are less likely to be short sighted. Communities care about the future, even if normal career politicians do not. So when you can recall your local representative if you feel that they are not doing a good job to protect the future, politicians working in a United Front, where they know they can be heard, will be more likely to prepare for the future. The Five Year Plans work with this in mind. They are specific plans for the future, five year plans outline goals for the future that they want to set out for over the next five years.

  • Do minorities need to have their own exclusive spaces?

    Quote from godkingteshub

    Actually Ancient Egyptians were pretty skin color racist. I’m not sure if they had specific racial words but in their art they made those with black or yellow skin as either being defeated or attacked, while those with brown skin as victorious

    Also not true. They focused on accuracy with their depictions, and did include skin colour, but royalty was often shown as dark skinned, even when they were not as dark as the drawings depict.

  • Do minorities need to have their own exclusive spaces?

    Quote from godkingteshub

    You are seeing history through the rose tinted colored lenses of a modern day person. The only reason people wanted to move around in the pre-modern era was exactly to rape and pillage. Even in the earliest human writings there’s accounts of racial stereotypes and capturing of slaves from far away lands. People getting their house in order rather than burning down the houses of others would have set the world in a much better path

    But that isn't the case. In Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece, this separation based on race definitely did not exist, both languages didn't even have words to describe "skin tone". The Chinese also travelled long and far for trade on the silk road, with no clear intent to cause such harm, and native groups that were separate in many countries also co-existed. Even Neanderthals and homo-sapiens co-existed for years.


    I do not say it didn't happen, but to suggest that was always the only reason to ever travel, or that people left their native lands, is just plain wrong. We spend so much (warranted) time focusing on colonialism and imperialism in history learning, which again is warranted, that we forget there is and always has been an alternative.

  • Do minorities need to have their own exclusive spaces?

    Quote from godkingteshub

    Actually if white people never left Europe the world would have been a much better place. So there is something about isolationism that has positive outcomes

    That's a bit unfair. White people leaving Europe wasn't the problem. The problem was colonialism. You could say "if white people didn't somehow think they were entitled to rape and pillage the world, it would be a better place", then I would agree. But the movement of people's has bought the world much good.


    History isn't so straightfoward either. Countries like Brazil have white skinned natives, which lived there long before Europe discovered the content, as did some parts of North America. Even originally, in the early days of humans moving around, Greek Empire for example, they had no word for white, and never saw skin tone as a way to classify people, same for Ancient Egyptians. Humans managed to move around the World for hundreds of years, mixing as racial groups, without classifying these groups based on race. They fought conflicts, sure, and there were definitely issues with humanity before race became a huge factor (such as early slavery in Africa, the Middle East), but these were rarely based on race, but location and class.


    It wasn't until the World became concerned with profits, that there was suddenly a need for mass exploitation.


    Imperialism/Colonialism is inherent to capitalism, not humanity.


    People moving around is not a bad thing. People exploring and exploiting to generate profit, is a bad thing.



    On the same note, and to answer the question, no. I do not think minority groups should be segregated. Even if you could argue that segregation/isolationism is somehow ever "justifiable", that only applies to the start of segregation. As soon as that group is segregated, and there is no more integration, no more mixed education, no more promotion of understanding through co-existing, it becomes less about "protecting minorities safe spaces", to, "that minority should be isolated from people because they are not like us".


    Assuming what your OP is describing is a real issue, not just a Twitter spat with sock puppets, lesbians today feeling the need to be separated from trans lesbians, is no different than straight people feeling the need to be separated from gay people, because they are homophobic. Education and acceptance come through integration.

  • Question about races and how we refer to them

    Quote from JaedaKim

    This also makes sense to me

    Although black and asian people call white people whites all them time

    Why doesn't it feel weird to them? Is it because white people haven't been slaves to black people the way black people were to whites?

    Checks out, white people have historically been the oppressor, and racism against other minorities of white people (slavic, "gypsies" or travellers) is also very specific, and not just under the "whites" flag.

  • Question about races and how we refer to them

    There are probably a lot of varying factors. In the case of Hispanics, I think its because Hispanics are not a racial group. Nearly half of Hispanics identify as just simply, white. In the case of Asians, I am not so sure, I would probably attribute it to a difference in the connotations of the words. White slave owners called black people "blacks", and black people have suffered through a much harsher period of being oppressed by white people under that term.


    I am of course not denying the oppression and systemic struggles Asian Americans face, but compared to slavery, Asian Americans are not being belittled through simply the term "asians", the racism against Asians is usually very specific. We hate Arabs, we hate "orientals", "chi*nks" etc etc. Black people were just grouped under the "blacks" flag, and I think that makes it considerably more negative.