https://allianceofdemocracies.org/democracy-perception-index

What makes this report interesting is that the organization publishing it was started by an ex-NATO chief and claims to unite democracies, meaning Western liberal style democracies. So it can’t be accused of having some sort of anti-Western bias. Their methodology is also straightforward, where they simply ask people if they feel their government works in their interest and whether they can hold it accountable. That’s the whole ballgame, because if people don’t believe the system is democratic then it inherently lacks legitimacy no matter what the constitution says. While people will surely attack this methodology, the sheer fact that a NATO-connected group published such a report gives its claims a certain credence given how dire these results are for the Western model of democracy. France now ranks alongside Kazakhstan, Yemen, and Zimbabwe in its own citizens’ eyes while the U.S. is split down the middle with about half of Americans saying they don’t think they live in a democracy anymore. China, on the other hand, sits up there with the Scandinavians and Switzerland, and Chinese people overwhelmingly say the system works for them. Notably, we can also see that perceptions of transparency, rule of law, and free speech are on the rise across the board in China.

And before you start trying to claim that people in China are simply afraid to speak their mind, the same report shows Russia at -21 points and Belarus at -9, so that whole excuse falls apart. Turns out that people living in states the West labels as being authoritarian do, in fact, complain when they’re unhappy. Various other western publications have reported the same thing for many years.

https://www.tbsnews.net/world/china-more-democratic-america-...

https://www.newsweek.com/most-china-call-their-nation-democr...

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2021/0218/Vilif...

On the other hand, your claim that multiple parties hold guns at each other's heads is directly at odds with empirical research on the subject:

> What do our findings say about democracy in America? They certainly constitute troubling news for advocates of “populistic” democracy, who want governments to respond primarily or exclusively to the policy preferences of their citizens. In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule—at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.

Single party democratic model is a well defined principle known as Democratic Centralism and all the actual data shows that the way it is implemented in China produces far better tangible results than the western attempt at democracy. I'm sorry this hurts your feelings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_centralism

Meanwhile, Western voting systems are much more of a game of hot potato than a Mexican standoff. Each party just blames the other party for all the problems, and you just a revolving door policy with no accountability. With a one party system, there's no scapegoat to blame. The very legitimacy of the party hangs on it delivering on the promises.

Ultimately, the whole point of an economy is to direct labour and resources in a way which allows people to have a good standard of living. If most labor can really be automated, then people can just spend more of their time enjoying their lives instead of working. The technology itself is not the problem. The only reason this becomes a crisis under capitalism is because the means of production are privately owned, and the people who own them require the rest of the population to sell their labor in order to live. Automation under private ownership frees people from a paycheck, while the owners keep the gains.

If you need to be explained why companies like to harvest customer data, then what else is there to say about you.

What's more important is that open models can be inspected, they can be customized, and you don't have to worry that a company will decide that you're not allowed to use them for stuff like reverse engineering things or do security work.

That's why open models, and especially ones you can run locally will always be important. When you're renting closed models, you're basically a serf who has no say in how the model can be used.

https://allianceofdemocracies.org/democracy-perception-index

What makes this report interesting is that the organization publishing it was started by an ex-NATO chief and claims to unite democracies, meaning Western liberal style democracies. So it can’t be accused of having some sort of anti-Western bias. Their methodology is also straightforward, where they simply ask people if they feel their government works in their interest and whether they can hold it accountable. That’s the whole ballgame, because if people don’t believe the system is democratic then it inherently lacks legitimacy no matter what the constitution says. While people will surely attack this methodology, the sheer fact that a NATO-connected group published such a report gives its claims a certain credence given how dire these results are for the Western model of democracy. France now ranks alongside Kazakhstan, Yemen, and Zimbabwe in its own citizens’ eyes while the U.S. is split down the middle with about half of Americans saying they don’t think they live in a democracy anymore. China, on the other hand, sits up there with the Scandinavians and Switzerland, and Chinese people overwhelmingly say the system works for them. Notably, we can also see that perceptions of transparency, rule of law, and free speech are on the rise across the board in China.

And before you start trying to claim that people in China are simply afraid to speak their mind, the same report shows Russia at -21 points and Belarus at -9, so that whole excuse falls apart. Turns out that people living in states the West labels as being authoritarian do, in fact, complain when they’re unhappy.

Various other western publications have reported the same thing for many years.

https://www.tbsnews.net/world/china-more-democratic-america-...

https://www.newsweek.com/most-china-call-their-nation-democr...

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2021/0218/Vilif...

Turns out the US is the place where human rights are actually being suffocated.

So, it's a race to the bottom because they have to keep spending more and more money on training the models just to keep ahead of the competition, while prices are driven down by the availability of open models.

Chinese companies understand this, and that's why they give their models away in the open. The real money is going to be in integrations and custom services built on top of the models. The models themselves aren't what's valuable.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50386716

Points: 44

# Comments: 34

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50379622

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Meanwhile, in the west, the standard of living has been eroding for the majority of the population. Technological progress is associated with layoffs, loss of agency at the workplace, and diminishing life prospects. So, it's no surprise that there is growing opposition to AI.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50324966

Points: 6

# Comments: 5