Thought experiment

Aubrey and I were discussing campus policy on posters and demonstrations, namely at what point offensive is too offensive. I come down on the the side that as long as universities are not privately owned and/or receive any subsidization, there is no real answer since there is no real policy manager when voters and their politicians can override anything that gets attention. Assuming universities are privately owned and operated, I think the solution then is whatever they choose, and the winners will end up being those who make the best cost-benefit analysis of the types of things students on that campus what to see on billboards.

I devised a thought experiment that could possibly aid understanding of how different policies would work, which could give us an idea of which type is better other than just being ideological. Here it is: imagine a university with one giant billboard where there are no rules. Anybody can post anything on it, and anybody can take anything off it. No kiddie porn and no physical fighting, but what goes on the billboard or is taken off it, is entirely up to what any student who cares chooses. What do you think the billboard will look like?

I think after a short while of sporadic chaos, it would become a joke, where all postings are trivial. Before this point, several people would put some effort into their postings, only to find somebody for whatever reason, tore it down. Or several people would post things others object to and they would get torn down. Offense, distaste, or just trolling, it all gets torn down at some point. Producers of posters would start realizing they're losing the battle because the amount of effort it takes to tear something down is far less than to create something to post. I think everybody would start realizing the futility of using the billboard for any message, and the only things that get put up would be so trivial that the sjws find no offense and those who just want to watch the world burn find it too much effort to tear down something that nobody truly cares about.

I think this is an analogy to democracy and the foundational meaning of public space. I think it demonstrates the need for rules, but more specifically for rules created by and enforced by private actors. The intent of the free-for-all billboard is to provide as much public ownership as possible (which is the philosophical foundation of democracy), yet it results in a swamp where progress goes to die.

If this is true, and if we relegate regulation of public space to delegates, it means we're banking on the ineffectiveness of democracy in order to keep some set of rules on billboard postings. I think this necessarily undermines democracy and the philosophy of public ownership.

I'm trying to keep it short so I'm just going to end it now and open the floor to youse.

So what you're saying is, if not stopped from doing so, some dick always comes along and ruins it for everyone. That doesn't mean democracy doesn't work or is inherently broken, it means people can be idiots, most of us, fortunately, only for a small portion of out lives.

Why would we allow our most useless that much influence?

Also you described anarchy not democracy.

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Originally Posted by rong

So what you're saying is, if not stopped from doing so, some dick always comes along and ruins it for everyone. That doesn't mean democracy doesn't work or is inherently broken, it means people can be idiots, most of us, fortunately, only for a small portion of out lives.

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I don't think there is any difference between one dick and 51% dicks. Even if you extract the trolls from this experiment, I think the billboard still devolves into trivialities based on all the non-troll grievances people would have.

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Why would we allow our most useless that much influence?

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Well, this is already how our democracies work. Our governmental policies do not come from experts or any position of credibility. On any sort of issue that government makes policy, the vast majority of voters are these "most useless idiots" whose influence enacts terrible policy.

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Also you described anarchy not democracy.

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I think this is a common misconception. Anarchy, as a political system, has nothing to do with lack of rules, but with lack of a taxing rule-giver. Democracy is where the decider of rules are citizens of the system. You are on point if you say that in a democracy, the students would develop bodies to set rules on this billboard, but my point is that this is an inherent contradiction in democracy since the philosophical foundation of democracy is the will of the voter. The principles engaged by the desires of one voter or by a collection of 51% of voters are still the same.

Democracy is 51 wolves and 49 sheep deciding what's for dinner.

I'd consider it a good thing that it's constantly changing. It's dynamic art. Just because something that was there is now gone, doesn't mean it was a waste of effort. It would be a healthy mix of grafitti, trolling, and art. It would never look the same from one day to another. It would be awesome.

So applying this analogy to society, if rules were no longer in place, chaos would ensure, but it would be beautiful.

I would argue that the magic billboard will be covered in penises within an hour of its erection.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

I don't think there is any difference between one dick and 51% dicks. Even if you extract the trolls from this experiment, I think the billboard still devolves into trivialities based on all the non-troll grievances people would have.



Well, this is already how our democracies work. Our governmental policies do not come from experts or any position of credibility. On any sort of issue that government makes policy, the vast majority of voters are these "most useless idiots" whose influence enacts terrible policy.



I think this is a common misconception. Anarchy, as a political system, has nothing to do with lack of rules, but with lack of a taxing rule-giver. Democracy is where the decider of rules are citizens of the system. You are on point if you say that in a democracy, the students would develop bodies to set rules on this billboard, but my point is that this is an inherent contradiction in democracy since the philosophical foundation of democracy is the will of the voter. The principles engaged by the desires of one voter or by a collection of 51% of voters are still the same.

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OK, poor understanding of anarchy. But this isn't democracy. Democracy would be saying to everyone, let's all put ideas forward for what we should do with the board, the most popular few ideas can be put to a vote, and the winner gets to manage what happens to the board for the next 5 years at which point we can reassess. Only problem being that within that 5 years they would have sold a chunk of theh board, changed the voting system to favour the incumbent and brought in a bunch of media hounds to promote them prior to the election.

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Originally Posted by rong

OK, poor understanding of anarchy. But this isn't democracy. Democracy would be saying to everyone, let's all put ideas forward for what we should do with the board, the most popular few ideas can be put to a vote, and the winner gets to manage what happens to the board for the next 5 years at which point we can reassess. Only problem being that within that 5 years they would have sold a chunk of theh board, changed the voting system to favour the incumbent and brought in a bunch of media hounds to promote them prior to the election.

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This is true. I mean, it has to be since it is seen in literal democracies.

I'm coming at this from a philosophical perspective. I think my main point is here:

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If this is true, and if we relegate regulation of public space to delegates, it means we're banking on the ineffectiveness of democracy in order to keep some set of rules on billboard postings. I think this necessarily undermines democracy and the philosophy of public ownership.

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I think my point is subtle and might have gone under the radar. I'm saying that the vote's utility is in how effective it is at extinguishing its own utility. A vote that works purely as votes do with regards to this billboard, is like a free-for-all, where whatever the voters decided is the flavor of the month. The establishment of delegates to regulate by voters is a diminishing of the vote's role in policy directly, which I think is an untenable contradiction in the philosophy of democracy.


Inherent to the philosophy of democracy is public property. Or at least that's inherent to the left-wing view of government. This thought experiment is an attempt to make property as public as it can be. And I think the analogy holds up because I do not think there is difference in principle of one voter vs 51% of voters.

A counter could be that the logical extension of private ownership is that one person or one group owns everything, but I don't think that's accurate. Private ownership doesn't realistically extend like that. Inherent to a system of private ownership as it scales up is that it fragments and competition arises. In the example you give about how democracy works, the vote centralizes control and stymies progress and diversity.

Let's be honest though, you just thought a tangible tumbler was a neat idea :p

Too many chiefs and not enough Indians.

A free for all is not democracy. Democracy is about coming to a common consensus on how to apply things. The vote itself is not the point of democracy, it's a tool of it. Democracy should be about discussion and agreement on common goals and the best approach to reaching them.

So yes, delegating power does by definition dilute the value of each vote, but not each persons ability to engage and persuade which is a big part that you seem to be ignoring and which is certainly lost in the fee for all example you gavw in your example. It allows a minority or even an individual to derail a common consensus which goes against the concept of democracy.

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Originally Posted by rong

Too many chiefs and not enough Indians.

A free for all is not democracy. Democracy is about coming to a common consensus on how to apply things. The vote itself is not the point of democracy, it's a tool of it. Democracy should be about discussion and agreement on common goals and the best approach to reaching them.

So yes, delegating power does by definition dilute the value of each vote, but not each persons ability to engage and persuade which is a big part that you seem to be ignoring and which is certainly lost in the fee for all example you gavw in your example. It allows a minority or even an individual to derail a common consensus which goes against the concept of democracy.

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The collective vote is the point of democracy. Does the philosophy of the vote change when it scales up? I don't think there is reason to think it does. Instead of tyranny of an individual voter, it creates tyranny of a group of voters. It likely doesn't even create more structure even though on the surface it appears to. The magic rule-less billboard settles into its structural trivialities. I don't think that's much different than the sort of paralytic, corrupt structure we get when votes collect and regulate.

At the heart of democracy is the belief in public property. This thought experiment is an attempt to make property that is as public as possible. You're saying that what 51% of people design is public, but by definition that isn't public property. It's some sort of majority consensus property. Real public property is where any member of the public can do anything they desire. The fact that this is anathema to the democratic worldview, I think it shows the innate contradiction in the philosophy.

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Originally Posted by JKDS

Let's be honest though, you just thought a tangible tumbler was a neat idea :p

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color me turquoise but i dont get it.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

color me turquoise but i dont get it.

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The billboard idea is essentially an in-real-life tumble/twitter/etc. The difference being that everyone is a mod

The notion that all colleges would produce the (essentially) same result from this public billboard is absurd. At most, we can only speculate about trends. By it's nature, the billboard would be a dynamic thing, maintained by a rolling assemblage of predominantly 18 - 24 year-olds.

Many of the billboards would be ignored by almost everyone, and the groups that notice them would be more likely to persist if they had an actual message to get out. Certainly, there will be gratuitous use of genitalia that appears regularly, but not by an organized group whom maintain the policy of more cartoon penises on display in public.

I think there would be a huge artistic assault on the billboard from time to time, and a certain crowd will take offense to that kind of thing and deface it if they have an audience.

Placement is key, I think. If it's in front of the freshman dorms, then that's going to be a different billboard than the one outside the math department. There's no way to hit all demographics with one location at any reasonably sized university.

The kiddie porn ban feels arbitrary. Unless it's a depiction of kiddie porn that actually happened (like photographic evidence), it gets to stay. On that note, all incriminating evidence would lead to its removal and the arrest of the offender. (Anything otherwise would imply a different kind of society and I think would fall outside of the scope of this scenario...) Did you think you would escape my knack for making pointless and overly anal observations? >:)

Anyway, I'm pretty much in agreement with wug on what would happen. I actually didn't thoroughly read what you wrote but mid-way through my paragraph, I scrolled up to yours real quick for some clarification, and realized I was pretty much writing the same thing. Great know-it-alls thinks alike?

Btw if anyone is curious, this was the article that sparked the conversation: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/v...-of-minnesota/ I was wondering where you draw the line with religious intolerance when it comes to public property, particularly college campuses. I was just wondering aloud without actually knowing what rules are in place regarding to what extent you can blatantly disrespect a religion, especially on campus.

Anyway, I don't think there is anything wrong with people protesting against the image, but I do take issue with the administration trying to pressure the faculty into caving in, rather than encouraging healthy debate. It is is the college administration that makes policies, and according to this article:

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In the end, the investigation concluded that the flier “does not rise to the level of discriminatory harassment that would violate University policy,” according to a March 27 report.

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It was not in violation of their policies, and no one was legally required to take down anything.

So you say there are no policy managers, but clearly the administration does manage policy, and it isn't simply something that the offended party could change through vote. Public schools are beholden to the constitution.

Private and unsubsidized schools on the other hand aren't, and can theoretically grant even more free speech that public schools since they can protect beyond what the constitution requires them too. Of course, they can also be more restrictive and prohibitive than their public counterparts, which we already see happening. And if they're operating on cost-benefit analysis, like you say, wouldn't that just consistently give the vocal majority the power?

I'm interested in what forces are most instrumental in pushing private schools towards censorship and repression. And I would look it up but goddamnit, the birds are chirping and I have to wake up in 4 and a half hours. "Hear the birds? Sometimes I like to pretend that I’m deaf and I try to imagine what it’s like not to be able to hear them. It’s not that bad."