Democracy (not really France related)

Although I don't write here that often, it's fun to have somewhere to write things that I think about every now and then knowing that someone will read them.. Maybe it's not fair though because I know that the big fans of this blog are Moms who mainly want to see pictures and hear what we've been up to. So, when I'm about to write about something entirely "non-France" related, I will alert you with a NON-FRANCE BIOHAZARD WARNING such as this:



And so, here we go...


Actually, before I really start it just occurred to me that this is even tangentially connected to my research at work and therefore it sort of is France related but really only very tangentially so the biohazard warning remains... Nevertheless, I will frame it within my work.


So one of the things that I'm thinking about through work is how to involve more citizens in the democratic process. A democracy isn't really a democracy unless the citizens discuss, deliberate, and -- maybe most importantly -- get the results of those deliberations to the decision makers -- the government. Unfortunately the scale at which our societies operate are such that this never really happens at all. In the US, for example, pretty much no one has any say in anything because you can choose either blue or red and when it comes down to it, there ain't much difference. It's a similar thing in Canada but maybe (?) not as stark.. Anyways, people can be involved however if they participate in the decision-making and deliberation process. We now have tools (the Internet) that allow most people to share their opinions without much cost (in terms of actual money or time or effort). The problem then is that those opinions don't often make it to the decision makers. So, we're working on ways to automatically learn what people are saying, about what, and distilling those opinions into shorter summaries and then presenting that information to law makers.


Ok. Everyone knows that the full ideals of democracy have never really been attained. But if you read about Kant's arguments for why democracy is, well, good, a lot of it surrounds peace and avoiding war. In The Better Angels of our Nature, Steven Pinker writes:

More important, democracies tend to avoid wars because the benefits of war go to a country's leaders whereas the costs are paid by its citizens. In an autocracy "a declaration of war is the easiest thing in the world to decide upon, because war does not require of the ruler, who is the proprietor and not a member of the state, the least sacrifice of the pleasures of his table, the chase, his country houses, his court functions, and the like. He may, therefore, resolve on war as on a pleasure party for the most trivial reasons." But if the citizens are in charge, they will think twice about wasting their own money and blood on a foolish foreign adventure. [p. 166]

What a cynic! (not). Two things: (1) if Americans really could choose (not just red or blue) would they have decided to not go to war "for oil"? Remember that most democrats voted for the war in Iraq; (2) even if they had a full choice and it was clear that the "non-elite" would be paying with their blood (or their children's blood) and wasting what is essentially their money would they have decided "differently" (differently in quotation marks because they really never decided). The elites would just convince them that it was the right thing to do... Look at the Tea Party in the US run by a bunch of rich guys and the rhetoric that they output and the things they have these people believing...


Anyways, I know I'm a fairly incoherent writer but I thought that these really idealistic views of democracy are just so far from what we're seeing that it's super interesting (and sad) to see how far we are from those ideals...


One other thing. Kant also argued that a democratic government will only wield its power when it must to safeguard the rights of its citizens (again see p. 166). This is one of the factors that Kant explained makes democracies built around nonviolence. But ignoring the violence angle, it's so clear that this ideal is very far from the way that governments actually act. The examples are all too obvious even -- especially (?) -- in Canada right now.


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Maybe I'll need another icon to say something like "end of non-France stuff". If I had one, it could go here. We're having major headaches setting everything up for getting our bikes to Sweden... we should have done Ironman Grenoble instead! (too bad it doesn't exist). Tomorrow I will run some experiments where I'll get interns to tell me which summaries are better.. hopefully they'll choose the ones that my system generates. Yesterday we went for breakfast before work to a place we really like called Pain et Compagnie in the city centre. They make everything there (all sorts of different jams and bio breads, etc.). After that we walked through the book store because it was faster to get to my bus for work and I'd wanted to buy Borges' other collection of short stories el Alelph (or l'Alelph in French) and we just happened to walk by the south american literature section and there it was and I got it.. How about that... Sandi also got new fancy Specialized bike shorts the other day so now we can match in another facet of our outfits (we have matching running shoes, sandals, t-shirts, etc... it's very embarrassing! :-) ) Our coffee machine is sad because Sandi is making us not drink coffee or alcohol until after the race. So sad (but I might cheat). Bed time for me now (can you tell?).. good night