Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site l5.uucp Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!sun!l5!laura From: laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Changing ideas Message-ID: <149@l5.uucp> Date: Mon, 23-Sep-85 04:43:27 EDT Article-I.D.: l5.149 Posted: Mon Sep 23 04:43:27 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 25-Sep-85 12:43:23 EDT References: <8509171814.AA23399@ucbopal.Berkeley.Edu> <1803@psuvax1.UUCP> Reply-To: laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton) Organization: Ell-Five [Consultants], San Francisco Lines: 24 In article <1803@psuvax1.UUCP> berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman) writes: >The question as it was posed presumed that humans are usually irrational >as voters. However, the very same people who expose this point of view >frequently adher to a theory assuming that peoples behavior may be >explained as the rational pursuit of their objectives. > To be wrong is not teh same thing as to be irrational. A great many people believe in a free lunch. It is difficult to disbelieve it since so many politicians promise it. The problem with a democracy is that it degenerates into demegoguery -- as soon as people learn that they maintain political power by promising what people would like them to be able to deliver rather than what they can, it is game over. Lying now becomes a successful political strategy and between ignorance and a desire to be deceived everybody loses. A democracy is only viable when the voters have accurate information, and as soon as the state learns that it can control people to the extent of voting for them through feeding them wrong information it inevitably does. -- Laura Creighton (note new address!) sun!l5!laura (that is ell-five, not fifteen) l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa