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California’s billionaires pour cash into elections as big tech seeks new allies
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2026
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A Boring Dystopia
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Unlimited political donations and money as speech doesn’t work.
Democracy is better than every alternative.
Which hasn't been proven. But what has been proven, is that democracy doesn't work. Mathematically or otherwise.
What would you suggest instead then? Communism? Theocracy? Feudalism?
I would definitely suggest trying them, along with anarchy. Democracy is ripe for making corruption easy, not to mention how crazy it is to have a handful of people voting on just about everything in our lives because a few of their alleged policies at the time of their campaign were able to convince people to vote for them (without much alternatives). The truth is that nobody would ever agree with everybody's policies and they put the important ones on the long finger to use in the next election citing how much they've done.
We've tried all of them. Read a history book already!
Theocracy has never been tried in history (not properly). Not feudalism, nor communism. What history book do you suggest I read? What countries can you show me as an example of somewhere that has tried any of them to their exact definitions?
Anyway within what is considered a 'civil' society today and knowing what we now know and with the technology that we now have, we could try. Which we haven't yet had (a truly civil society), and is debatable whether or not we have one now.
What Trump has shown the world is that the scales are uneven and need to be balanced. It is my belief that anarchism would be the best to reset them, I could easily be wrong and would hold my hands up to that. We have been taught that anarchism is a bad word and as a result, most people don't understand it. One thing is certain. Democracy isn't working, and doesn't work. Politicians hold too much power for such a small group of people, and they are easily bought, especially now when there are billionaires that can literally afford to buy a country if they wanted to.
You're looking at it wrong. If your understanding of theocracy has never been seen in history, that only means that your understanding of theocracy is flawed. More generally, we need to accept that all systems evolve and change, and account for that.
The problem with the 'democracy' we have now is that it is a democracy of the rich. Those with the wealth to buy politicians, courts and media houses. So the solution is to prevent that - either prevent people becoming that rich in the first place, or, as a compromise, regulate political donations, media ownership and the assets of judges and other regulators.
Anarchism is the removal of such regulations, and any public authority that can enforce them. As such, it will only make things worse.
Give me an example of true theocracy being used in history. One where the governments ruled by a holy scripture or Bible, and the citizens lived by the same script..
Yes, and democracy has evolved even moreso into a one sided scales. Other options have not been attempted in a modern westernised world and we already know that they have evolved.
Aren't those things already in place, to a degree, yet proven to be easily circumvented, as those same people create and uphold the laws regulating them. - Not working.
No. Anarchism is not the removal of regulations, it does remove central authority, the coercive and corruptible bodies in control. It is based on the belief that we can govern ourselves as a whole. So rather than then being imposed regulations, they would be agreements that communities as a whole have planned together through natural occurring issues as they come up. So universal agreements would become a law through mutual respect and cooperation with each other.
Before you go any further into this, I want to reiterate my point from the beginning.
Democracy in all of its current forms, in the world that we live in today, is not working. It is badly broken. There is far too much to fix, even by your own admittance. It has grown into the very ugly behemoth that we see today.
I am not saying that any and every other system is better or perfect, I am saying we need change to fix the things that are broken. That will not happen within the democracy that we currently have.
The theocracies that actually existed - the caliphate, or imperial Japan - are the true theocracies. In general, whatever exists is real and true; if our expectation does not match up to it, then it is our expectation that is flawed or incomplete.
If they were easily circumvented, you would not hear billionaires crying about progressive taxes or labour standards.
And that's the problem with a completely free 'democracy'. The rich will use their greater wealth to buy politicians or spread disinformation. We need to either remoce wealth inequality, or at least prevent it warping democracy. This requires rules, and an authority to enforce them.
If rules are not enforced, they might as well not exist.
I agree with all points except the third. A truly democratic state - one in which all people have equal voice - is the only defence against the rich and powerful abusing their wealth and power.
I don't know. I hope peaceful change is possible. But those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable.
Okay then. Come back when you find a provably better system.
Come back where? To text at somebody stuck in their ways? Why would I do that?