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mothballedlast Saturday at 5:26 AM1 replyview on HN

Why would the minority prefer to live under a 'democracy' when the majority have decided they would kill them because they don't acknowledge their 'legitimacy'? That's when they need to avoid monopolistic democracy the most! You present the strongest case for my argument!

Under the split model they at least have a chance; the minority can bind together, form alliances, and frustrate the 'majorities' force. This is what we see on the world stage -- minority populations like USA or India form alliances and somehow survive without a world government to force the will of a vote of the majority of the world. The USA population is a minority and most are extremely happy it's not a world democracy which is what the logical conclusion of your argument leads to, based on your implied threat that minority USA would experience.

Under your proposal, they all simply are voted into being democracy's 'lackey' assuming the majority don't simply vote them dead.

Not to mention you're contradicting yourself in your statement -- a dictatorship is a minority rule yet you imply they can't exist because the majority would destroy the minority in power.

In reality even in the incredibly unlikely case minorities can't form alliances strong enough it's not worth the risk to try to crush them -- even then in the real world it's often better off for both sides to engage in trade and coexistence rather than to simply kill each other. Of course, even in democracies, war exists, and they would under all other forms of governance.


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dparklast Saturday at 6:08 AM

You can read all about the actual stories of minorities rising up to fight majorities in history books. This isn’t some hypothetical we have to approach from a purely philosophical standpoint.

All modern functioning democracies I’m aware of have a set of rights they have agreed everyone has a right to. This has largely been achieved through bloodshed.

Your idea that we’re should devolve into feudal tribes seems quite obviously destined to result in a great deal of bloodshed. We have the term warlord to describe those who frequently end up in charge in this sort of arrangement.

> a dictatorship is a minority rule yet you imply they can't exist because the majority would destroy the minority in power.

Nowhere did I say or imply that. Those in power usually stay in power because they have power. Numbers are only one sort of power.

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