Sorry CC, this is getting a bit tedious now. I have no particular interest in digging though the webs to find whatever nonsensical promise Bojo (or one of the others) made regarding a trade deal before the referendum but I do remember one of them saying "we will stay in the single market no matter what" or words to that effect.
This is the first result on google:
https://fullfact.org/europe/what-was-promised-about-customs-union-referendum/
At best it supports the idea that it was utterly unclear what would happen, though I don't know how reliable this site is.
Regarding if remain had won - I assume leaving the EU is always an option, and as such something the UK could do at any time, meaning that implicitly it is kind of voted on every time there's an election, no? By which I mean a party is free to campaign on the idea at any time.
Absolutely agree it was daft of parliament to split in this way. Absurd they would rule out a no-deal. Weakens the UK's position greatly I think, which as an EU citizen makes me happy… but still, not a good move imo.
I'll be honest, I don't understand what you mean in point 3. I do think that once you've had the referendum, you have to respect what the people have voted for, otherwise what's the point of voting. I just don't think it was a good idea to have it in the first place. I'm not offering any details, as I don't know much about running a country, so I couldn't tell you exactly which issues I think the general populace can reasonably understand and which - not. The EU, I think, falls into the latter category.
I think I wasn't clear in my previous post, which caused you to… come up with… point 4. I didn't mean people should need to pass a test in political theory in order to vote, just that they shouldn't be burdened with doing things beyond their level of understanding. I don't think it's practical or constructive at this point in time to even think about "philosopher kings" as you put it.
When you say "perfect" dataset, you don't really define what that word means. If perfect means "best possible" we need to discuss what "best" means. Which is far from trivial and extremely use case dependent. For example, I'd much prefer a chocolate bar that gives blowjobs to one that just tastes better every day.
I do, however, agree that an oracle that tells us exactly what happens when we vote for something would be very handy. It won't eliminate the need for elections, because "best possible outcome" is a notion reliant on the objective function / reality quality measure of the person expressing it. Meaning that if different people have a different view of what is best possible, they might disagree with the machine and wish to do things differently.
I do not agree with your penultimate paragraph. The humble simpleton is a humble simpleton for a reason - they're simple. Yes, experts can be wrong and a huge deal is made of it whenever they are. But they usually aren't which is why they're experts. That's not to say their vote should count more than yours or mine, but rather that their opinion should be heeded and not deified, as you so rightly said. The humble simpleton's intuitive senses can be a useful tool when nothing better is available and might even outperform the expert sometimes, but I'd wager it's not often. Otherwise you'd see people other than mathematicians / scholars doing extremely well at blackjack for example.
I do agree that conveying your expert knowledge to the populace is an extremely important skill and, as you said, if you fail to do so, you should have done better. It doesn't help when the media constantly lies to the people and we really really like to hear nice things are more likely to accept them as truth.
Yes, life is tough. And pointless. Ah well, at least there's footie this weekend, no?
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