sure. unfortunately reality is very complicated! 1/

still, the motivating question here is “why democracy?” if your worldview is something like what @mattyglesias.bsky.social confesses at the top of the thread. so far, the responses (not by Matt) have been it’s a failsafe against really really bad technocracy. 2/

particularly given actual experience of what follows when the demos rejects a longstanding establishment, i’ve argued this might not be so compelling a case for democracy. 3/

but i think it turns on this question of the distribution of successors, when technocracy fails sufficiently to impose a radical break despite technocrats’ pandering and manipulation, is there a reasonable shot something good results, 4/

the whole view strikes me as entirely indefensible if the ex ante expectation is something *worse* (which experience does i think largely suggest). 5/

if democratic revulsion leads to worse, then under technocratic utilitarian ethics (where this thought experiment begins) we should prefer authoritarian technocracy that the demos is not permitted to overthrow. 6/

if you have a more sanguine view of the distribution if successors, then a case can be made for this view. if successors are typically bad, but a bit better than what they replace, you could support this version of democracy under a pessimistic “worst except all the alternatives” philosophy. 7/

you’d be hard-pressed to make any kind of enthusiastic, positive case for this version of democracy unless successors following democratic revulsion tend positively to be good. i find that a hard case to make, but YMMV! /fin

i guess the case would be removing the bad without contributing to the good replaces the bad with a roll of the dice? so under some distributional assumptions (say 50/50 good/bad in similar degrees) that has net positive expected value? (we are acting as democracy technocrats here, no?) 1/

but if the distribution is skewed, then it could be net bad. if throwing out the bastards without preparing anything better has a *tendency* to mean sociopaths or fascists or tyrants fill the gap, then the case for this kind of check-the-negative-with-no-positive-capacity democracy gets weak, no? 2/

so do you think it’s reasonable to believe “let an establishment technocracy mostly manipulate and thwart the electorate, ostensibly for its own good, but let the electorate throw it off in extremis, beyond certain bounds” would *not* have a sharp negative skew in subsequent regimes? /fin

so basically democracy is irredeemably bad at contributing to policy, so it should be manipulated around by wise technocrats. but democracy has the useful characteristic that beyond certain guard rails it cannot be manipulated to sustain a status quo, constraining perhaps unwise technocrats. 1/

i don't find it a very compelling story, but i see how one can make it. if one *did* make it, though, wouldn't Trump's ascendance, or Brexit, serve as pretty clear examples of the fuse being tripped, democracy performing its role? 2/

given what follows when the putatatively stupid demos throws off a bad status quo, wouldn't it be a frying-pan-to-fire transition? can that really be an affirmative case for democracy, if the demos can occasionally throw off bad governments but can have no capacity to help constitute good ones? /fin