> I know HN has a natural tendency towards wailing and gnashing of teeth, but I don't understand this reaction at all.
That's fair. I didn't bother explaining it since the details of implementing a democracy is a hobby horse of mine and dropping a couple paragraphs seemed... beside the point. But,
> Why would watching a debate from a virtual auditorium be any worse for democracy than watching it on TV?
It's not the act of watching that I'm criticizing here.
It's the fact that it's being venerated as remotely important. The mere suggestion that seeing a sweat drop on a presidential candidate's forehead is even passingly relevant to anyone is profoundly disturbing to me.
Presidential elections have been a "looks good on TV" contest since the first televised debate in 1960, when Nixon lost. 54 years later, there is no sign of that changing. Humans are humans - the soap opera is more important than the policies.
That's fair. I didn't bother explaining it since the details of implementing a democracy is a hobby horse of mine and dropping a couple paragraphs seemed... beside the point. But,
> Why would watching a debate from a virtual auditorium be any worse for democracy than watching it on TV?
It's not the act of watching that I'm criticizing here.
It's the fact that it's being venerated as remotely important. The mere suggestion that seeing a sweat drop on a presidential candidate's forehead is even passingly relevant to anyone is profoundly disturbing to me.