Notices by Forest Gregg (fgregg@mastodon.social)

@ntnsndr thanks! i appreciate the opportunity to better understand your thinking.

@ntnsndr how do you think that such a democratic landscape comes to pass? i was imagining that the direction you were going was to make democratic arrangements more attractive than implicit feudalism to consumers, and hopefully reaching a point where the default was democratic, but now i’m not sure.

@ntnsndr or is the idea if almost every project is democratic, that people will find some project that they find engaging even if most people in that project are passive?

@ntnsndr it sounds like high-engagement is necessary to teach us to be democrats. so, if the we want online associational life to support democracy we need to think about not just how to build democratic projects but build some democratic projects that are very compelling and engaging?

@ntnsndr that makes sense that we don't always have to participate in democratic processes even when have the option, but i think that undercuts the tocquevillian argument i think you are making.

don't we actually have to participate in group decision making in order to learn the skills and habits that will support larger democracy?

you are right that i place to much emphasis on "fun", but i do think there needs to be other benefits of democracy besides a richer set of options in a crisis.

@ntnsndr or do we develop some of the habits and skills just by being passive members of democratic institutions? that seems plausible.

i read @ntnsndr's new book /Governable Spaces/. it's core observation that most of online, associational life is authoritarian in governance is very smart, but i wish that he had spent more time arguing why we should prefer more democracy.

more here:

https://bunkum.us/2024/03/30/fun-and-democracy.html