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serbuvladtoday at 4:52 PM2 repliesview on HN

> As if "the public" knows literally anything

Ah, yes, democracy!, except for when the public is wrong.

Who decides when the public is wrong? We do! Who decides "what the public voted for"? We do! So we are the rulers? No, of course, not, this is democracy.

You want to become the decider of when the public is wrong and of what the public voted for? TYRANT! TYRANT!


Replies

estearumtoday at 5:46 PM

No, the claim above is "I know the voters' intent behind their vote based on who they voted for."

This is simply epistemologically incorrect. It's obviously incorrect in this case because voters writ large do not have any idea how the government is administered and how to improve it, so even if they claimed to be voting for that, it would not necessarily be an endorsement of any particular approach.

More specifically we know it's not true in this case because there are polls. Voters didn't even claim to care about this! "How the government is administered" was not a high salience issue to voters. Simple as that.

Nonetheless, I didn't suggest anything about overriding their votes. It sounds like you have some sensitive spots to work through (someone obliquely criticizing your idol for sucking at his job?)

verdvermtoday at 5:07 PM

being ignorant and influenced is different from being wrong, the american electorate is well known to be under informed

half of voters don't pay any attention to politics until the week or two before voting