democracy
Elections, the losers accepting them, and the rules that keep power answerable to voters.
FilterEveryone, all time27 from 20 people
- AT
Adam Tooze quoted
Economic historian, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis…
Their wordsVoting for the AfD in the current landscape, whatever your economic issues, in short, is not a vote to have your economic issues addressed by social democracy, or welfare or government intervention.
↗Chartbook 473 Germany’s democratic earthquake: the AfD breakthrough in Sachsen-Anhalt and the question of an “alternative to the Alternative”.adamtooze.substack.com 1st of 3 in this piece
- 3 months earlier
- MP
Mark Pincus quoted
Founder and former CEO of Zynga
Their wordsIt's false to believe that a company is a democracy. The way I run the company was what I called a democratic dictatorship. And I said, I want everyone everyone's voice to be heard and then I'll be the single vote. And I think that's the way a company should be run. I think there's one CEO, there's one chef. I think a good CEO is going to seek out the intellectual honesty, the truths from everywhere and hear from everybody and then they're going to make the decision and they're not going to make the decision because it's most popular in the company.
↗FarmVille Creator: The Hidden Path to Successful Productsyoutube.com 11th of 16 in this recording
- 3 months earlier
- TG
Tanner Greer quoted
Essayist, journalist and independent researcher on Chinese…
Their wordsAuthoritarian order seems far more "natural" to our species than democracy-and in the long history of human polities may prove less brittle.
- 5 months earlier
- BS
Balaji Srinivasan quoted
Co-founder of Counsyl and of Earn.com
Their wordsBy building new societies with defined social smart contracts where everyone has explicitly consented to governance - and anyone can opt out - we can defend capitalism, democracy, internationalism, self-determination, and liberal values in an increasingly illiberal world.
↗Network State Conference 2025balajis.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 13 days earlier
- AS
Arnold Schwarzenegger quoted
Austrian-born American bodybuilder
Our readingAnswering Trump's gerrymandering with a Democratic gerrymander in California means becoming Trump
Their wordsIt doesn’t make any sense to me that because we have to fight Trump, to become Trump
- 4 months earlier
- JH
James Holland quoted
British historian and writer specialising in the Second World War
Their wordsBut Chamberlain was prime minister in a democracy, a parliamentary democracy, where 92% of the population were against going to war in 1938. There was not a single democratic leader in the world that would go against the wishes of 92% of the population.
↗James Holland: World War II, Hitler, Churchill, Stalin & Biggest Battles | Lex Fridman Podcast #470youtube.com 10th of 27 in this recording
- 3 months earlier
- DH
David Heinemeier Hansson quoted
Creator of Ruby on Rails, CTO of 37signals
Their wordsOpposition to mass immigration and multi-culturalism in Europe isn't likely to go away
↗The New York Times gives liberals The Danish Permission to pivot on mass immigrationworld.hey.com
- 4 months earlier
- AS
Arnold Schwarzenegger quoted
Their wordsBecause rejecting the results of an election is as un-American as it gets.
- 2 days earlier
- NS
Noah Smith quoted
Economics writer; author of the Noahpinion newsletter
Their wordsBut if the American people have decreed that a person should not get in, they should not get in.
↗On immigration, what Americans want is democratic controlnoahpinion.blog 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 2 weeks earlier
- DH
David Heinemeier Hansson quoted
Our readingOpen source is not a democracy
Their wordsOpen source is not a democracy, and we all benefit from that fact, whether we accept it or not
↗Open source royalty and mad kingsworld.hey.com 1st of 2 in this piece
- 12 days earlier
- DA
Dario Amodei quoted
Co-founder and CEO of Anthropic
Their wordsUnfortunately, I see no strong reason to believe AI will preferentially or structurally advance democracy and peace, in the same way that I think it will structurally advance human health and alleviate poverty.
- 6 months earlier
- AJ
Annie Jacobsen quoted
Investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist
Their wordsSo, in addition to the Launch on Warning concept, there’s this other insane concept called Sole Presidential Authority. And you might think, in a democracy that’s impossible, right? You can’t just start a war. Well, you can just start a nuclear war if you are the commander in chief, the President of the United States. In fact, you’re the only one who can do that.
↗Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420youtube.com 4th of 16 in this recording
- 4 months earlier
- JM
John Mearsheimer quoted
Political scientist at the University of Chicago
Our readingWhether a state is a democracy or an autocracy makes no difference to how it behaves abroad.
Their wordsA realist like me would say that it doesn't matter whether a state is a democracy or not, all states behave the same way because the structure of the system, getting back to our earlier discussion about international anarchy, the structure of the system leaves those states no choice, whether they're democracies or autocracies.
↗John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 | Lex Fridman Podcast #401youtube.com 4th of 22 in this recording
- 6 months earlier
- RB
Roy Baumeister quoted
American social psychologist, born 16 May 1953
Their wordsInstead of thinking that one is always right and the other always wrong, perhaps the optimal outcome for a modern democracy is an ongoing alternation in power between the left and the right.
↗Why Do Republicans and Democrats Hate Each Other? (Psychology Today, Cultural Animal)psychologytoday.com 1st of 5 in this piece
- 14 months earlier
- AM
Adam Mastroianni quoted
Their wordsThese misperceptions may bedevil people's efforts to understand and change their social worlds, distort the democratic process, and turn imaginary trends into real ones.
↗Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change (with 1 co-authors)doi.org All 4 from this paper
- 4 weeks earlier
- DH
David Heinemeier Hansson quoted
Their wordsA healthy democracy will engage with protesters to hear their claims and consider their voice within the guardrails of peaceful expression
- 13 months earlier
- AS
Arnold Schwarzenegger quoted
Their wordsour democracy is like the steel of this sword. The more it is tempered, the stronger it becomes. Our democracy has been tempered by wars, injustices, and insurrections.
↗Arnold Schwarzenegger's video address on the attack on the U.S. Capitol, posted 10 January 2021 (transcript published by Rev)rev.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 2 months earlier
- MM
Matthew McConaughey quoted
American actor, born in Uvalde, Texas
Their wordsthe beautiful part about democracy is the confrontation brings unity. And if you invalidate or illegitimize or persona non grata the opposition, that’s not real confrontation. That’s not real democracy.
↗Matthew McConaughey On His New Book “Greenlights” (The Hugh Hewitt Show, video and transcript, 11 November 2020)hughhewitt.com 1st of 2 in this piece
- 14 months earlier
- AS
Arnold Schwarzenegger quoted
Their wordsAll of this is bad for democracy. Gerrymandering insulates politicians from the voters. It entrenches a party in power, providing a firewall that preserves a majority even when the other side wins more votes. It pushes our politics to the extremes
- 12 months earlier
- YH
Yuval Noah Harari quoted
Israeli historian and philosopher, born in 1976
Their wordsWe should defend liberal democracy, not only because it has proved to be a more benign form of government than any of its alternatives, but also because it places the fewest limitations on debating the future of humanity.
↗Yuval Noah Harari: the myth of freedom (The Guardian)theguardian.com 5th of 5 in this piece
- 3 years earlier
- KS
Kathryn Schulz quoted
American journalist and author
Our readingDemocracy exists to settle conflicting claims of conscience by means other than decree or force
Their wordsIt is the point of democracy to adjudicate among such conflicting claims through some means other than fiat or force, but Thoreau was not interested in that process.
↗Pond Scum (The New Yorker, published online as “The Moral Judgments of Henry David Thoreau”)newyorker.com 5th of 7 in this piece
- 3 years earlier
- DD
Daniel Dennett quoted
American philosopher of mind and cognitive scientist (1942 to 2024)
Their wordsWe're beginning to come to grips with the idea that your brain is not this well-organized hierarchical control system where everything is in order, a very dramatic vision of bureaucracy. In fact, it's much more like anarchy with some elements of democracy.
↗The Normal Well-Tempered Mind (Edge)edge.org 1st of 4 in this piece
- 4 years earlier
- PT
Peter Thiel quoted
Co-founded PayPal and Palantir
Our reading · no longer heldFreedom and democracy are not compatible -- a conclusion reached after two decades of changing his mind about how freedom is achieved.
Recalls holdingBut I must confess that over the last two decades, I have changed radically on the question of how to achieve these goals. Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.
SaidBut I must confess that over the last two decades, I have changed radically on the question of how to achieve these goals. Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.
- PT
Peter Thiel quoted
Their wordsIn our time, the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms — from the totalitarian and fundamentalist catastrophes to the unthinking demos that guides so-called “social democracy.”
- 8 years earlier
- SS
Susan Sontag quoted
American writer and critic (1933 to 2004)
Their wordsThe unanimity of the sanctimonious, reality-concealing rhetoric spouted by American officials and media commentators in recent days seems, well, unworthy of a mature democracy.
↗Tuesday, and After (The New Yorker, Talk of the Town, her contribution)newyorker.com 3rd of 4 in this piece
- SS
Susan Sontag quoted
Their wordsPolitics, the politics of a democracy—which entails disagreement, which promotes candor—has been replaced by psychotherapy. Let’s by all means grieve together. But let’s not be stupid together.
↗Tuesday, and After (The New Yorker, Talk of the Town, her contribution)newyorker.com 4th of 4 in this piece
- FH
Friedrich Hayek quoted
Austrian-British economist and political philosopher (1899…
Their wordsIt is the price of democracy that the possibilities of conscious control are restricted to the fields where true agreement exists, and that in some fields things must be left to chance.
↗The Road to Serfdom (Routledge, 2001 edition)books.google.com All 23 from this book