Democracy and evolution

[Phil Henshaw-2]

Whether a 'marketplace' for ideas works efficiently or not, or simply
supresses any innovation departing from the trusted standards, for
example, is not easy to assure.  

Take the global expectation that multiplying the rate of economic
expansion forever assures prosperity.  Everything in nature begins
with growth but it is also the most unsustainable behavior there is.  
Because the investment world requires every business and persuades
researchers and governments to feed and promote its investment growth
plan, the discussion of where it ends is profoundly inhibited.    

I'm just suggesting that assuming every point of view has *some* valid
basis is as close to a guarantee of intellectual marketplace
efficiency as you can get.

> This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
>
>
> The Genius of James Madison was to see that a large country with many
> factions would be freer from factionalism that a small country would
be.
> The factions would cancel each other out.  Factionalism was the
greatest
> threat to democracy that the founders saw.  Much the same applies to
> corporations and the marketplace -- we are saturated with islands of
self
> interest, but have a system which has them cancel each other out --
except
> insofar as they mostly line up, i.e. except for the widely held
positions.
> It's like filtering out all but the DC signal.
>  
> Democracy as an evolutionary matter, once it is well established, is
pretty
> good at allowing agreement to emerge from the cacophony of
viewpoints.  It's
> rapid spread (from one to more than 100 democracies in two centuries)
> attests to it's evolutionary superiority.
>  
> There has never been a time when those in power didn't believe in
> suppressing all other viewpoints.  It is the essence of all non-
democracies.
> In democracies people always want to achieve that, but they they are
> structurally inhibited.  If they ever succeed, then they are no
longer have
> a democracy.  "Democracy is Well Established" == "No One can
Suppress all
> other Points of View"
>  
> Mike Oliker
>  
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
-

>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 07 Dec 2006 08:15:31 -0700
> From: "Marcus G. Daniels" <mgd at santafe.edu>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] US intelligence agencies "discover" blogs and
>         wikis
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>         <friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <45783013.5000006 at santafe.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Phil Henshaw wrote:
> > The ideal product of democracy is decision making that reflects a

whole
> understanding of things by integrating all points of view.   Trouble
> develops when the points of view that believe in suppressing all
others take
> over.  
> >  
> I have my doubts about the evolutionary value of democracy in the
modern
> world.   For example, in the corporate world the motivation is
supplied
> by stockholders and the points of view are supplied by employees.
> Worse, the corporate leaders, workers, and stockholders are all
> different people, disinterested in the welfare of one another.  
> Complicating matters is that the corporations have the ear of
> government.  Democracy in these kinds of conditions requires
individual
> courage and idealism.
>
>
>
>

--
Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~        
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[Marcus G. Daniels-3]

Phil Henshaw wrote:
> I'm just suggesting that assuming every point of view has *some* valid
> basis is as close to a guarantee of intellectual marketplace
> efficiency as you can get.
In public decision making we need to be able to make distinctions in
shared language.   That doesn't imply a price and a number line for idea
quality, but it does require the ability to make distinctions and
(implicitly) form partially-ordered sets on different dimensions.  
Luckily, ideas can be traded concurrently and multilaterally so there is
no need.  We can simply let ideas have relevance in different situations
without any implication of universal value until it becomes useful to
push the idea into a larger and more critical and contextualized arena.  
On the extreme end of that are metrics like citation counts and
patents.  I'd like to think that some great ideas will never be so measured.