Being ruled (-cracy) by someone else (demo = the people, auto = self which is not the way it is usually used, pluto = a small group of royals or oligarchs which often happens with or without democracy) is not my cup of tea. There is no reason I would consent to it. So it requires no justification to dispute.
We hear a lot of how laws restricting voting or “making it more secure” are a non-partisan issue and “simply wrong.” I will disengage this issue on two points. First of all, one party seems to prefer them so automatically they are partisan and those who loudly proclaim otherwise are just demagogs. I have no sympathy for either side. I don’t like demagogary and voting restrictions are a poor fix to the real problem of democracy, which is that voters will vote themselves largesse, and most are not capable of running the country. The modern world is so complex, no one is capable of running it or any major part of it.
Is there an alternative to democracy? Certainly, but not plutocracy of any kind. That is just an exclusive democracy where I don’t get a vote.
Beyond the obvious of self-interest voting, you might get a country established at one point in time where either the majority of the population is somehow enlightened, or self-interest somehow produces an OK result. The trouble is, it won’t last. The makeup of the population with change. Attitudes will deteriorate directly due to the success of the system (people get spoiled and come to feel entitled).
And a principal objection to democracy is that it rewards population growth. In nature, simple population growth is NOT generally favored by natural selection. Instead, predator and prey, prey and food, they stay in rough balance. Humans do not. The latest theory is that their oversized brains have allowed them to adapt after causing the extinction of one kind of prey and then another, resulting to their own slavery to population growth. Yes, hunter gatherers had 80% free time and better nutritional health. Both declined with agriculture, and still further with industrialization.
Inequality among humans only appears in settlements larger than about 8,000 the archaeologists tell us. Farming productivity increases so that everyone is not necessary. The excess people move to cities and invent things to do, like mass produce pottery and ploughs for farmers, and build houses for each other. Being everyone is not strictly necessary, this puts them in a weak negotiating position. Those better at extortion get ahead.
Also brain size decreased with the transition to agriculture. This was probably necessary for the extensive level of cooperation. Scientific results show intelligent people cooperate less. Everyone cooperates less when game theory is explained to them. According to a famous 2012 paper by Press and Dyson, extortionary strategies come to rule all games, and if both sides have a theory of mind (most humans do), all games eventually become ultimatum games. Sounds like politics, right? Right.
Consider the population of the world at 7.5 billion. There is not room on the beaches or in the parks I used to frequent. If everyone drives a car, much less flies, apparently we flood the coasts and ruin the temperature. Below is a map of where population is increasing fastest.
Ah, the people in red and pink will rule the world shortly due to their increasing numbers and the increasing use of democracy. I scan the news from every region of the world daily using the BBC (one of the few news services that covers all the world regions, though coverage in China is limited by government policy there). There is a qualitative difference. Issues in Australia are trivial. Issues in the pink and red regions, even the tan ones, are serious. There are as many democratic governments there as not, but it doesn’t seem to make much difference. I do NOT want them ruling me. I do not consent to a world ruled by democracy, period, end of discussion. It is not open for discussion. That is my opinion. And eventually they will move to the US, so I do not consent to immigration. This is NOT a partisan issue. It is just plain common sense.
Let me dispose of one objection quickly. Liberals typically feel people are programmable. For the easy cases, if you talk to them for an hour you can convince them of anything. Lacking that, if you can indoctrinate their children you can change them in any way. Well, it just isn’t so. Study after study shows such methods are only about 50% effective. I have a new research paper proving mathematically that if you made it somehow more effective, this would wreak havoc on the world. See Deleterious Behaviorally Transmitted Traits in Equilibrium.
Keeping the status quo while going to green energy, much less improving standards of living (which we have come to expect world over) just isn’t going to happen. Producing the lithium, rare earths and other commodities needed to run the world on EVs requires maybe 6 times the mining activity we have today. See New climate goals are going to need a lot more minerals.
Well, if you only had 7.5 / 6 = 1.25 billion people, same as in about 1875, you’d already have enough mines. Increasing the mining means burning fossil fuels. You aren’t going to run a lithium mine on batteries, sorry.
Europeans weren’t running the world by democracy in 1875, and they sure aren’t running it now. The Asians and Africans will be running it. Not even Latin American will get much of a say. Really the Chinese will be running it. They improved their standard of living through a one-child policy. Not through democracy, or even “managed capitalism.”
I would like to see a 10x increase in MY PERSONAL energy usage, and a 100x in my son’s and 1000x in his son’s, and so on up through about a 10 billion x increase which begins to be enough for interstellar travel. Even if a good bit is off-planet usage, that suggests the world population has be be decreased to a few million souls. That is plenty for genetic diversity. For most of pre-history the human population fluctuated between 50,000 and 300,000. That was enough to create civilization. It is enough to go to the stars. Too many won’t make it.
However, governance through democracy will favor, even require, population increases as factions vie for power. So I’m against democracy. China did not “vote” on the one child policy. I’m against “-cracy” generally (rule by someone else). So let’s just remove the incentives to have boo-koo unnecessary children beyond what is a survival advantage, and come back into long term natural selection balance.
The first step is each family gets one vote, and this vote is divided among their children. It never increases. If the family population decreases, grandchildren might get several votes (inherited from different ancestors).
Eliminate all subsidies for children, even the income tax credit. Instead, give a credit for childlessness or just one child.
Eliminate automatic citizenship due to birth on US soil.
That’s a start. Leave other suggestions in the comment area.
Shuler Research 