Positions of political power (ie public office, etc) require that a person make decisions about what others can and cannot do. These decisions are enforced by police and military. That is the definition of "ruling" .
Because he was voted in by people who thinks he represents their interests. If he is voted into the presidency, it will because the majority of voters believe he most represents their interests (of the choices available).
I suppose the real question is, do you have a problem with democracy?
I do think that it meets more needs of more people than a monarch could. It's the worst form of government, if you forget about all the other forms we've tried so far.
and the followup question would be "What should we do with people whose needs are not served by our ideas and our systems? Should we disregard their needs as unimportant? should we force them to comply with systems they do not agree with?"
You need to choose a aggregate function to define the public’s interests from the individuals interests. The aggregate function you choose, will change what is the public’s interests.
That's an opinion. Change "better" to "more effective" or "more relevant" and you've got more of an argument; still, though, it'll be tough to separate from personal bias.
The problem is that some of the Sanders "policies" are actually not achievable goals, and/or consist of strategies that will not work within the system that is currently in place.
Why do we need someone to represent our interests, either individually or as part of a group of people sharing interests? Do we not feel capable of representing or own interests?
Just because you vote for someone it doesn't mean they represent your interests. Just because you don't vote for someone it doesn't mean they don't represent your interests.
I don’t assume all candidate are lying about all things. But a lot of candidate lie, for particular things, the examples of lie are numerous. And there is no way to know if they are lying or not.
It doesn’t mean there is no incentive to vote for anyone, people can lie more or less.
The exact chain of argument you're taking is also an argument against altruism. Judging from your other comments, I'm guessing you believe in altruism. Why do you then not believe people can decide who they think best represents them?
Your statements: "I don't assume all [people] are [acting in bad faith]. But a lot of [people] [do], for particular things, the examples of lies are numerous, and there is no way to know if they are lying or not." lead to: "So why should I help them if I can't trust them?"
It is improbable that the interests of people change as often as the elected party. If the party being elected change so often, it is because people are trying to find who really meet their interests.
It is not improbable that the people's opinion on what they need changes. If people didn't change their mind based on new evidence, they wouldn't be rational. They may not always take the best evidence into account but "this party didn't work last time" seems reasonable.
But because we live in a binary political system, they have no other choice. Any further analysis is irrelevant unless you can change the voting system away from first-past-the-post.
I do not. A person's interests *are* their opinion on their interests. I reject the notion that an external source can divine their needs better than them.
For my part, i am not at all discussing a political point of view, neither some wisdom about what we ought to do or not to do (thing as "you should not try to help people against their will").
What i am discussing is a philosophical point of view, about what is.
sources:
Do we at least agree we aren’t discussing about politics or wisdom ?
You don't know the outcome of any policy. This is equally applicable to the politicians themselves. Any theory that assumes politics is any more than slightly-evidence-based speculation is incorrect.
I'm disagreeing with you. I'm saying that some unpredictability is inevitable, and that doesn't mean we should give up trying to collect data, nor does it mean we should assume voters are incapable of deciding for themselves what represents their interests.
This is a bad analogy because the people on the stock market have no way to affect change in the companies they're investing in. They can only look at their current course and extrapolate.
But they have way to win or to lose money by betting on one companies or on the other.
The analogy is about assuming that the outcome of the acts of someone (voting / betting), was probably one of their goal. (winning or losing money / the outcome of the policy)
But it falls short because they're deciding which policies would work, not which companies would succeed. Unlike in the stock market, these policies will exist in a vacuum, independent of each other.
The voting system doesn’t change the main problem.
My goals/interest is to reduce suffering, you can give me whatever voting system you want, i can’t be sure about the real outcomes the party i want to be elected will produce, this is way too much complicated.
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The outcome of my vote can be unrelated to my interest, because i can be completely wrong in my analysis.
You're still making the assumption that everyone shares that goal. You'd be surprised by just how many people either don't, or don't hold it as their first priority.
Any line of argument that starts with that assumption is invalid.
This is not a assumption about the goals of others, it is only about my goals here : I am a counter example to the idea that people necessarily vote for whom represent their interests the best.
cozm
