They killed Socrates because he was acting like an ass.

Also, does anyone understand economics?

A democracy isnt just about the right to vote. The people have a responsibility to be informed, thats part of it. The state of democracy is the west is a result of the voting public sitting on its ass and being content to know nothing. The people have failed their democracy, not the other way around.

They killed Socrates because he was acting like an ass. — YuZhonglu

In what way?

Athens was in the middle of a big giant 20-year long war with their mortal enemies (Sparta) and Socrates goes up to everyone and tells them they're fighting for lies.

It's like some dude in MidWest America telling everyone during WWII that maybe Hitler wasn't all that bad and that democracy is a lie.

Socrates was offered exile. It's his fault for refusing it.

Were they mortal enemies with Sparta because the Spartans were like Hitler?
Were the Athenians being lied to?

Well, the Spartans at that point were trying to enslave them, so I reckon the Athenians had justification to hate the Spartans.

Granted the Athenians wanted to do the same to Sparta so it wasn't like the Athenians were any better. By that point of the war, no one knew why they were fighting anymore, except that neither side wanted to lose.

Athens at least had the decency to give him a trial. If he had shown up in Sparta with his views, he would have been stabbed on sight.

So...how is your comparison with WW2 valid?
Anyway, sounds like Socrates had a point, rather than just being an asshole.
Also, his execution was on account of his philosophy and against the grain teachings to the youth of Athens.

You can be right and still be an asshole. The two conditions are not related.

People form factions to fight other factions. Beliefs are necessary to maintain unity. Otherwise, everyone goes their own way, your side loses the war, and your sister, your mother, and your wife gets raped by foreign soldiers with large phalluses.

Even if Socrates had a point, he presented it at the wrong time and place.

Im not really sure where you are coming from here. I do not recall the war being at all the focus of what he was about. Why would his teachings to the youth of Athens weaken the war effort? When Socrates spoke of soldiery it was from his own experience as a soldier, and wasnt derogatory that I can recall.
Also, Socrates was willing to die for his principals, in fact he did. To suggest he should have put them aside to maintain some questionable unity (questionable that his teachings would effect unity) is to not understand Socrates and the importance of his story.

The people who executed him had every right [by their laws] to execute him. You're looking at it from the perspective of some dude 2000 years later. Regardless of whether they were right or wrong, the authorities had no choice but to kill him because of his actions.

Furthermore, the "Socrates" you're thinking of is different from the "Socrates" the Athenians back then were thinking of. So technically in your post you aren't even talking about the same person as the one we believe the Athenians executed 2000 or so years ago.

Lol, ok.

Good. Glad to see that you agree.

Let's put it this way: can you picture Socrates? Can you hear his voice?

Answer: Only if you imagine it. There were no video cameras back then. Any pictures of Socrates come from sculptures made by people 1000 years later, which may or may not be accurate. Any voice you hear when you read the stuff he writes is an invented voice that your mind fills in. Your mental representation of Socrates is different from the mental representations of the Athenians back then (who did see his face and hear his voice). Consequently, when you refer to Socrates in your posts you're referring to a different Socrates then them.

Unlike driving a car or shooting a gun, being a good citizen who understands the decisions that need to be made is not a skill that can be directly measured because the people holding the rulers have their own politics and bundles of interest.

Unrestricted suffrage is the only way to get people to buy into results of elections. Otherwise, there is no reason to support elections when "your" side is getting the short end of the stick.

It is true that clueless people are not helping the republic. The need to educate them for that purpose is not the central focus of our present system.

Unlike driving a car or shooting a gun, being a good citizen who understands the decisions that need to be made is not a skill that can be directly measured because the people holding the rulers have their own politics and bundles of interest.

Unrestricted suffrage is the only way to get people to buy into results of elections. Otherwise, there is no reason to support elections when "your" side is getting the short end of the stick.

It is true that clueless people are not helping the republic. The need to educate them for that purpose is not the central focus of our present system. — Valentinus

No no I am not talking about any other right, free speech, religion, guns, you can have guns... But you can't vote if you cannot read Harry Potter.

Seems Fair to me..... We have many people in our society who are recognized as needing additional assistance some to the extent of being warded... Why cannot you not look at Brexit where Cambridge Analytica helped gather target data.... Running a big red advert with bullshit stats on a computer and rather than be skeptical the targeted people voted on that basis... ]

They could have taken their hand moved it to a tab and googled something but didn't... Why? No answer so what is the answer... Pass the parcel of blame.

So now it is facebooks fault, googles, fault, the newspapers fault, politicians faults, anyone but the 2 digit IQ motherfuckers that is who... Now I don't want any eugenics, to put them out of work or anything else but I think one of two things needs to occur.
a) secessionist state... cut the cord, let them go and let nature take its course
b) No more voting for what is a clear and obvious liability to democracy, the dumb fuck.

If you don't drive a car, you are not a stakeholder in the driving of one. You are a stakeholder in how you are governed, weather you like it or not.

A blind person is not a stakeholder in the color red because they cannot see it thus cannot comprened it.... Because these people either refuse or have an incapacity to think they should not vote because it is impossible for them to become a stakeholder in a democracy.... How can you be a stakeholder in math if you can't count?

Because these people either refuse or have an incapacity to think they should not vote because it is impossible for them to become a stakeholder in a democracy.... — thedeadidea

Whether or not you can or cannot 'think', you are a stakeholder in how you are governed. Your comprehension of how you are governed is irrelevant to that fact that you are governed.

Whether or not you can or cannot 'think' you are a stakeholder in how you are governed. Your comprehension of how you are governed is irrelevant to that fact that you are governed. — StreetlightX

There is good empirical research that suggests the general publics taste of politics is irrelevant to policy making. I will get the study from home once I leave the office if you want to raise the conversation with evidence based premises. Short of anarchy being governed is an inevitability. Moreover plenty of institutions advocate on behalf of people all the time without any interference, for instance NPR's for cancer research or the homeless.

Do you think the cancer patient or homeless set the policy of the NPR for which they are as a non voting passive member the beneficiary of ? I think you are using stakeholder too loosely, idealistically and axiomatically to be really addressing the argument made at all...

I think you are using stakeholder too loosely, idealistically and axiomatically to be really addressing the argument made at all... — thedeadidea

The argument is based on a bad analogy. That's all I'm pointing out. Everything else you wrote is irrelevant.

The argument is based on a bad analogy. That's all I'm pointing out. Everything else you wrote is irrelevant. — StreetlightX

So your deference to a bad analogy is your very own bad analogy... You engage polemic as literal with your own village bicycle kind of lose concept of stakeholder then categorically deny every ostensible edification or clarification of the original argument calling it irrelevant.

No for people like you I move to evidence based claims or nothing because it is fire ball in the sky called the sun obvious, a fruitless endeavor to talk to you otherwise.

You don't understand what "democracy" means, do you? As @StreetlightX points out, the sine qua non of democracy is that the governed have a say in how they are governed. You are saying, in essence, "I want democracy without all that democracy stuff." If you don't like democracy, then say so.

It's funny how words acquire such stable positive or negative connotations that people forget about their meaning and remember only the connotation. It's like someone saying "I am not a racist, I just hate niggers."

the sine qua non of democracy is that the governed have a say in how they are governed. — SophistiCat

Just felt the need to highlight that this is ideological garbage. Democracy is the pacifying of those who might otherwise turn to violent revolt by providing alternative means of complaint. That doesn't make it any less necessary, or less of a good idea, but it just worsens arguments like the OP to respond with idealogy.

If democracy were about the governed having a say in how they are governed, they why are children not allowed to vote? Are they not 'governed'?

If democracy were about the governed having a say in how they are governed, they why are children not allowed to vote? Are they not 'governed'? — Isaac

Nope. Unfortunately they are enslaved. Enslaved to a system that makes them believe they have a say in how they are governed.

uld be wrong for people who find it hard to spell their own name ruining democracy today. — thedeadidea

Democracy is above all a safety valve. It isn't perfect, but as a safety valve it works brilliantly. Yes, there are ignorant people and those who don't care at all about the actual politics, but it gives the society a peaceful way to change the political course if everything is going wrong. Democracy doesn't eradicate the problems of politics like corruption, but it tends to work better than a system without any trace of democracy.

Without democracy there is no safety valve. The machine either works or ends up breaking up totally usually rather violently. That's a bad thing.

Democracy is the pacifying of those who might otherwise turn to violent revolt by providing alternative means of complaint. — Isaac

Lazy edgelord rubbish.

Lazy edgelord rubbish. — StreetlightX

What on earth is "edgelord rubbish"? I mean, I'm guessing it's bad...

You don't understand what "democracy" means, do you? As StreetlightX points out, the sine qua non of democracy is that the governed have a say in how they are governed. You are saying, in essence, "I want democracy without all that democracy stuff." If you don't like democracy, then say so.

It's funny how words acquire such stable positive or negative connotations that people forget about their meaning and remember only the connotation. It's like someone saying "I am not a racist, I just hate niggers." — SophistiCat

I think you have taken democracy in your head and thought "this is all it can be"

Excluding the ancient Athenian randomization principle of election.
Excluding the fact that it is only relatively recently that minorities and women got the vote.
Excluding illegal immigrants
Excluding foreigners whom might be affected by your dumb-dumb enfranchizing democracy leading to economic collapses because of your own elected incompetence.
Excluding the foreigners whom are killed and slaughtered on mass despite the majority of people not wanting a war they get it because 'they voted'


I think you are unable to separate the ideal from the real, or you are one of those rare bright-eyed people who trust their government and feel somehow enfranchized by their shitty policy. Tell me in this democracy when often we need 5-10 year plans and things can change at a whim how you can possibly enfranchize any stakeholder. If you don't know what cognitive dissonance means you might have a fruitful self-reflective experience if you google it.

Moreover, it isn't as if I have just looked around the thought "I need a scapegoat" I have more or less identified a group and said they are a threat to democracy and specifically why in some arbitrary nonsensical way... I have exactly NOT done what YOU ACCUSE me of which is blind prejudice. Nowhere have I said 'black people should not vote because they are black' or anything to the effect.

Rather I have pointed out to the incompetence of large swathes in the population being unable to participate in civics anyway. While the media describes them as victims, misguided, preyed upon for this democratic burden you want to impart nobody will say why these people are victims, misguided or preyed upon.

Furthermore this idea that every stakeholder should be enfranchized at the expense of any other consideration or context is exactly the kind of cancer abstraction and justification these postmodern Ponzi schemes, pedaling shitheads use when they think someone should lose their job every time a liberal tear is shed...

They also use the same kind of irrational appeal if a speaker is invited to go to the University in an attempt of deplatforming. In spite of the law of the land, the function of the university or any other opinion contrary to their own.

Your utopian democracy does not exist, it is a fiction of your own mind... A dream no more real than when you sleep at night sadly you are doing it consciously.

Democracy is above all a safety valve. It isn't perfect, but as a safety valve it works brilliantly. Yes, there are ignorant people and those who don't care at all about the actual politics, but it gives the society a peaceful way to change the political course if everything is going wrong. Democracy doesn't eradicate the problems of politics like corruption, but it tends to work better than a system without any trace of democracy.

Without democracy, there is no safety valve. The machine either works or ends up breaking up totally usually rather violently. That's a bad thing. — ssu

FInally, someone said something worth responding too...
Fair point but then do you think we should run it as is or do you think a citizen elect by randomization would be more helpful....
Moreover in principle, if I could point to say the American States where large amounts of the adult population have gradeschool level literacy and numeracy should we just remove the age cap from voting?
I mean part of me is saying this half-jokingly but only half just look at the EU....

I mean I get what you are saying but to me a system of government needs to be able to solve problems. WIth global banking becoming a Quantitative Easing international agenda which in English just means a corporate welfare state and global warming.... I am struggling to find the commitment or structure necessary to bring the deals to the fore and make the changes that need to be made.

I look at what happened with the EU that introduced some very forward-thinking policies, were about as left as one could get in a lot of ways.... Then Brexit happened and has in ways jeopardized the entire project. The media did their usual three-ring circus of paranoia and fear whilst part of a targeted campaign which was an illegal invasion of privacy and against the laws of the U.K. the over capitalization of advertising.... We end up with this mess and in the end what were the adverts

Big red banner ads saying some shit about Turkish Immigrants coming over in impossibly high bullshit rates, Muslims coming to take jobs and so on.

It is racist toxic shit....
So if you expect me to sit here and say no... this is a safety net, democracy at work as it were... No it clearly is democracy destroying what was a carefully constructed vision of EU politics for multiple years.... Run down and run over by a swing vote of dumb fucks being manipulated.

It is absurd.... It isn't like I sat in a classroom and didn't like some kid that couldn't read or something it is 8 years of Bush, Trump and Brexit that will make you bitter... I predicted Trump would win the election the moment he ran.... you know why ? Because I thought that looks like someone who voted in fake-rancher G.W. would go for....

Where is the safety net? As is I mean?

You are still talking about "democracy" as if it was synonymous with "the best form of government." If you remove what makes democracy a democracy, you may or may not end up with a better form of government, but what you won't have is a democracy.

I have exactly NOT done what YOU ACCUSE me of which is blind prejudice. Nowhere have I said 'black people should not vote because they are black' or anything to the effect. — thedeadidea

Where have I done this?

Socrates asked questions similar to these once in Athens, and they killed him and giving us our own figurative Jesus figure. Only Socrates did not die for our sins, but our ignorance, prejudice and stupidity. If it was wrong for people unqualified to kill Socrates then it should be wrong for people who find it hard to spell their own name ruining democracy today. — thedeadidea

A strong case can be made that Socrates was guilty as charged. We should not assume that the way we might evaluate these issues post Socrates is the way we would have evaluated them then. Whether one judges him to have corrupted the youth depends in large part on whether you were a patriotic citizen who believed in the Athenian traditions regarding gods and men. It should be noted that Socrates did not deny the charges of atheism. We may approve of the changes he helped bring about, but the jury was persuaded that he posed an existential threat.

As to voting:

It can be argued that since everyone is effected by at least some of the decisions made by the government, they should have a voice is how they are to live. In addition, intellect alone does not assure that one will make the right decision. Well informed, intelligent people often reach very different conclusions.