coop_solution

Is there any way to disagree with this comment without being disregarded as resentful?

Good work is the key to good fortune / Winners take that praise / Losers seldom take that blame

I guess that’s yet another reason to make a HN account.

> That's right, to get a democratic web you will need to raise a tax and have the government run (or otherwise subsidize) the infrastructure.

Is this the terrible conclusion that you were building up to? I see no problem with that compared to the alternatives (existing or non-existing).

You’re conflating a more general problem of foundations with democracy. How can a form of governance even be started? On what grounds? How has the mandate to put forth the ground rules? Has nothing to do with democracy per se.

Untenable? You kind of resolved it yourself by saying that “democracies” of today are just “so-called” but are effectively oligarchies. So it’s not an untenable statement.

Criticizing democracy because of majoritarianism is like criticizing programming itself because of how Perl, Ruby, or any other particular programming language works. Democratic governance can be implemented using consensus, majoritarianism, majoritarianism with a 60% threshold, or whatever other rule or stipulation. A constitution is of course also possible; then the people would decide on some ground rules which will be very hard to change for the foreseeable future. Which might be a blessing or a curse for the future people.

> Just saying, 'the will of the majority controls' is a recipe for mob rule — which is exactly what 'democracy' means.

You are not saying anything. Mob rule is indeed a pejorative term which is often used as a synonym for democracy. What of it? I could call you by some insult or other but I wouldn’t be making a point or an argument.

What does dplyr syntax look like?