The problem of democracy | Thoughts #34

The most widely accepted definition of democracy is as follows; a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives. “Whole population” is the focal point here. Democracy is older than some religions of the world, it’s traditionalist in some sense, originating according to some in Athens, ancient Greece. Any country in the modern world which isn’t a democracy is considered to be unethical and totalitarian. Now there are some, but mainly two branches of democracy; direct and representative democracy. Before I get into the analysis of a democratic system’s problem, we need to understand the two briefly.

In a direct democracy, people directly deliberate and decide on legislation. In a representative democracy, the people elect representatives to deliberate and decide on legislation, such as in parliamentary or presidential democracy.

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Stop being a sports fan | Thoughts #33

I think almost all of us, regardless of how much sport content we consume, what category of it, support one team or the other for reasons either unknown, unacknowledged or justified. There is something very intriguing about sports that everyone jumps to know which team won. But sports shouldn’t matter, at all for its fundamentals, let me explain why.

I, like many others, have played tons of sports matches, from cricket, to football, to badminton. And I totally understand the importance of playing the sport, but not the importance of the sport. And yes, there is a difference.

Sports has become a “religion”, and this is not an overstatement. Just imagine the “fans”, they buy clothes that represent them in the team’s identity, they have chants that they shout in gatherings, they feel actual pain at a loss, and pleasure beyond comprehension on a nail-biting win, some have passed down the support from one generation to the other, they pray for the team’s success, they spend entire savings to attend the matches around the country, their team goes to “war” with the other teams and so on. Here I’m not trying to mock religion by the way, it is the “religiosity” that has been induced into sports, which creates the issue. A proud “super-fan” rather a fanatic, will buy shirts and chants slogans, go home and drink beer on victory and shout at kids on a loss, and then repeat this over every weekend – which it has become.

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What is the point of intellectual elites? | Politics #31

In this day and age, information spread is rapid, before a theory, a research paper or survey is peer reviewed, the catchy headlines makes its way into the minds of people. Now, not only does this hold true for mere mundane celebrity gossip, or the top tier scientific research but the thoughts of the ones considered to be the elite class in intellectual capability have their thoughts spread much faster. Imagine if Socrates, or Aristotle were alive, with all their subtitled clips spreading on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, that would be a spectacle to observe.

The “intellectual elites”, most of them have their books in the world, selling millions of copies, and that’s totally fine. In those books are ideas, thoughts, propositions that are catered to a certain area of a problem-ridden world. If one had to classify difficulty levels in any field, difficulty as in the ability required for a certain problem, there would be tiers, we call “elite” to those who tackle with the most difficult of problems, you can’t be an elite football player if you’re playing in ISL as compared to someone playing in the Premier League or LaLiga. There has been this term thrown around about an informal group called the “intellectual dark web.”

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