The Internet is destroying democracy
Up until the last 2 decades the spreading of news was controlled by the orthodox media - TV and newspapers. That news was written by employed journalists; edited, audited for truth and generally respectable if sometimes opinionated - if it wasn't other broadcasters and informed readers would make its shortcomings clear. So the public had reasonably reliable sources.
Now anyone can report whatever 'news' they want via social media, and anyone else who's curious can read it. Trump, in the dictator's clever way, coined the phrase 'fake news' for anything he didn't agree with; giving him licence to lie himself and take the heat out of the term 'fake news' when it's used against him. And where he succeeds others are following.
So, as witnessed in the decline in viewers of TV News and newspapers what we get is a populace ever less informed about reality, and ever more hooked by fear-stokers, and exploited by conspiracy theorists and self-promoting and manipulative politicians.
The US Republican-Trump party is now working to install loyalists in swing-state election-admin posts, so that they can manipulate the 2024 count to ensure he wins - all in defense of the stop-the-steal lie, which 2/3 of them still believe.
Aren't we moving towards a 'Democracy' where the people are so ignorant that election results are meaningless with respect to real issues? Instead the winners will be those who can best whip up fear among the gullible and pretend they will fix its causes. Globalisation has given them the handy weapon of immigration.
Alongside top-down dictatorships like Russia and China, we end up with bottom-up dictatorships, instigated by the jungle of social media, wherein the loudest beasts attract followers and in time rule. Can informed Democracy survive?
Now anyone can report whatever 'news' they want via social media, and anyone else who's curious can read it. Trump, in the dictator's clever way, coined the phrase 'fake news' for anything he didn't agree with; giving him licence to lie himself and take the heat out of the term 'fake news' when it's used against him. And where he succeeds others are following.
So, as witnessed in the decline in viewers of TV News and newspapers what we get is a populace ever less informed about reality, and ever more hooked by fear-stokers, and exploited by conspiracy theorists and self-promoting and manipulative politicians.
The US Republican-Trump party is now working to install loyalists in swing-state election-admin posts, so that they can manipulate the 2024 count to ensure he wins - all in defense of the stop-the-steal lie, which 2/3 of them still believe.
Aren't we moving towards a 'Democracy' where the people are so ignorant that election results are meaningless with respect to real issues? Instead the winners will be those who can best whip up fear among the gullible and pretend they will fix its causes. Globalisation has given them the handy weapon of immigration.
Alongside top-down dictatorships like Russia and China, we end up with bottom-up dictatorships, instigated by the jungle of social media, wherein the loudest beasts attract followers and in time rule. Can informed Democracy survive?
Comments (103)
That past is the result of education for citizenship specifically a citizen of the US. I think the Brits also have a very strong history of freedom of speech and honor. I have read their education was about being English, manners, and customs and they rejected education for technology because they wanted to protect the class social order, and education for technology tends to erase the inherited class order. Germany under Prussian control focused on education for technology for military and industrial purposes. Now you might imagine education for technology is amoral and does not transmit a culture as the US and Britain were focused on their cultures.
The US added vocational training to education when it entered the first world war and there were wonderful benefits to that. However, at that time, war depended more onpatriotism than technology so our schools were used to mobilize us for war and be sure everyone understood our democracy and why it must be defended. Teachers defended our democracy in the classroom. Attorneys defended justice. Newsmen such as our local newspaper called the Register Gaurd defending our liberty with the truth. Investigative reporters had the defined purpose of exposing those things that threatened our democratic principles.
I was greatly saddened when I spoke and a reporter who had no concept of his importance as a reporter because education is no longer explaining what citizens have to do with defending our democracy. We are preparing our young to be products for industry not adults in a democracy. The news business is now about making a profit and it is dying like the goose that laid the golden eggs.
Step one, end education for good moral judgment and leave moral training to the church.
Step two, educate everyone for a technological society with unknown values.
Step three, watch our democracy fall because it is no longer defended.
We are witnessing many serious problems with the internet, but it can also be a place where people learn the principles of democracy and unite to defend it.
I'm active on FB. FaceBook does check facts. Opinions it lets ride, but facts they are serious about.
I can't check facts. I rely on FB, and I trust that its editorial board comprises well-informed people who have access to verified news, because they have full access to the Internet.
And if religions put away their holy books and began teaching math and science, they would be as weak as our democracy is now. Autocracy does not require an educated mass. Democracy does require preparing citizens to be responsible adults who live by shared principles and will defend those principles. Our liberty is impossible without that. Knowing the principles of democracy is as important to a democracy as a Christian knowing the 10 commandments is important to Christianity. Knowing the history and philosophy of democracy is as important to democracy, as Bible stories are important to being an indoctrinated Christian. Without that education, we have anarchy, not democracy.
True. The facts checked out, mostly. The commentary was geared to any opinion, though. They declared the communist countries as evil empires -- they were not as evil as the media depicted, mostly they were rather just inept. The leadership was inept, and their inept way of brainwashing made them look evil, because they did do evil things. Political prisons, for instance. Their inept way of selling their commentary was not bought by the public across the board; they needed terror to take up the slack in compliance.
In the US, Britain, the Western Free World, the difference was that people believed the commentaries, so terror was not needed to quell any resistance to the opinion the ruling class wanted people to accept. That's so because there was no resistance. The media was in complete trust of the people. Because the media created a transferable skill from reporting facts truthfully to getting their opinions accepted as plain truth.
For instance, now we see movies with HEROES in the Viet Nam war. (US-Viet Kong.) At the time the youth was opposing it and condemned it. Famous rockers and philosophers (John Lennon, Bob Dylan et al) condemned the war. People protested against it all over the world, not just on US soil. Now the war is viewed as a just war, producing heroes. And people gobble this new, albeit false, image down, because they still in the same groove as always in the West: believing the facts, believing the commentary.
Do the math. Are Americans voting sensibly? Does the ballot demonstrate/indicate that education makes a difference? I dunno, just askin'. Edify me, pleeaaase.
And they will probably succeed because we have been educated for that. Trump is our Hitler and the supporters of both men have had the same education for technology. Our power and glory is all about our military might, right? That has always made American great, isn't it? (absolutely not!) That and the blessings of a God who takes care of us and favors us above all others.
Here is our great former President Trump. I am posting it because it is exactly what Chis Hedge explains in his book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NsrwH9I9vE
Chris Hedges's book "THE END OF LITERACY AND THE TRIUMPH OF SPECTACLE?" is a must-read for this thread.
"The more we sever ourselves from a literate, print-based world- a world of complexity and nuance, a world of ideas- for one informed by comforting, reassuring images, fantasies, slogans, and a celebration of violence, the more we implode."
Thank you, you are so right! Americans are not voting sensibly and the change in education is why they are not.
Mad Fool, I don't think you are getting the nuances of my post?
And people believe the Military-Industrial Complex is just theory and the same things as Hitler's New World Order.
Charles Sarolea's book "The Angle German Problem" is perhaps one of the most important books to read in order to understand what has happened to the US since implementing the 1958 National Defense Education Act. One of the first things the Prussians did when they took control of the whole of Germany was to centralize public education and focus it on technology for military and industrial purpose. The Prussians lived for military might as the citizens of the US lived for a love of God. Religion is good for war and war is good religion.
The Tea Party that is an essential part of the US history was opposition to Britain taxing US citizens to pay for the military essential to its control of the colonies. When the US entered the second world war its military strength ranked 17th, far below the military strength of much smaller countries. The US and democracy were best known as forces of peace, not forces of war.
The enemy was welcomed with open arms at the end of WWII, Not only did nations compete for German scientists, but the US also adopted Germany's models of bureaucracy and education. We replaced our education with the German model of education for technology. Only when democracy is defended in the classroom is it defended. That ended in 1958 and yes the enemy is within.
Like I said, my IQ is on the wrong side of 69.
Education, education, education! Chant it like a mantra and everything will be ok! The demographic most active in re the small matter of global warming is children - the least educated members of society. Climate scientists - some of the most educated lot - are simply looking to score career points, they aren't really interested in saving the earth. So much for education. Bah!
True. And other people voted for it, organised it and went to fight in it. Other people thought that John Lennon and Bob Dylan were useless hippies or dangerous communists. The rightness or wrongness of the war was debated then as it is now. There is no agreed history, just as there is no agreed account of current affairs. This is not a matter of ignorance or knowledge but of political judgement.
I'm not sure if you've seen a lot of US schools.. but a lot of them have nothing to do with the kind of education needed to engineer weapons.. Are we talking urban or suburban schools? Because urban schools are often just trying to keep the kids and its own funding afloat for four years...
Now we can see the problems of democracy and we find that we’re all responsible and should check and double check our sources and keep in mind that what we might be hearing may actually be quite false.
The more sensitive the subject the more dangerous it is to stack evidence to back your beliefs and abscond from and derail others. I think younger generations are more adapted than older folks realise as they’ve grew up with the ability to communicate on a global scale.
Your case against independent media reads like it was written by CNN. But to derive your info from the legacy, fake news media, is too puerile an approach to informing oneself. It’s narrow, curated, doesn’t involve much thinking, and is subject to the whims of someone else.
Much better that all information is provided, true or false, and to learn to navigate it. Not everything is meant to be curated and disseminated for us. We ought to wean ourselves from curated information or we will never learn.
In that sense the internet has brought us closer to informed democracy.
Lies, misinformation, errors, superseded theories, pseudoscience. If you need someone to differentiate between truth and falsity then you are a part of the problem.
You’re a big boy. Figure it out.
Observation, trial and error, scientific method, logic, principle—foundational critical thinking skills can suffice to help navigate information.
Ancient philosophers warned against the pitfalls of Democracy ("popular rule" ; "mob rule"). Over the millennia since, people have experimented with variations on bottom-up rule, and have gradually weeded-out some of its weak points. The US Constitution was a major milestone in limiting the dangers of "tyranny of the majority" along with "tyranny of the few".
Many of the pioneers of the Internet envisioned it as an ideal format for Direct Democracy with no rules, just freedom to express the art of humanity without censorship. Ironically, that unbridled freedom has resulted in exactly the social problems that Plato predicted : "mass ignorance" (Twitter) ; "hysteria" (viral conspiracy theories) ; and "tyranny" (social media bullying). Unfortunately, proponents of Web 3.0 seem to focus more on technical improvements than moral & social considerations. Nevertheless, the wild-west freedom of the early internet has been partly & inconsistently tamed by the introduction of civilized laws (rule by rational rules, not reigning rulers). Maybe we need a formal Constitution for the Internet.
Until natural evolution has time to breed rational & civilized traits into brutish internet barbarians though, we'll just have to muddle along with cultural patches & temporary fixes. You might call the desired development : survival of the nice-est. :smile:
"Plato uses The Republic to deliver a damning critique of democracy that renders it conducive to mass ignorance, hysteria, and ultimately tyranny."
https://medium.com/the-philosophers-stone/why-plato-hated-democracy-3221e7dcd96e
Web 3.0 :
https://blockgeeks.com/guides/web-3-0/
There is no un-curated information
Of course there's more to this as the negative sides have not happened because of some sinister actors like Russia (or the vast hordes of different lobbyists). I think the historian Neil Ferguson has made a clever comparison with the time we live in:
Let's just remember the religious wars that rocked the Christian world back then at the time after Gutenberg.
My point, I guess, is the choice between curating your own information or letting others do it for you.
I start from the end :smile:
I would rather call it "Democracy of information", at least this is how I see it.
The problem lies on where democracy starts and where it ends. Can anyone write and spread his shit in the world? Well, Internet certainly allows that. It is then up to the reader to distinguish between unreliable and reliable information. Internet itself provides for it as an "antidote": you can look in it for cross references and other ways of validating information. (BTW, this makes people more knowledgeable and clever. (Except of course the unintelligent, gullible, etc. who are "lost cases".)
So, in the case of the Internet there are no limitations in democracy. Therefore democracy of the information cannot not depend on the Internet. Its survival instead will be threatened only if governments start to censor information in one or the other way.
(BTW, since we are talking about Internet, there are more important issues to be handled than information, which anyway, one can chose what to read. These are e.g. spam, viruses, etc. and concern security.)
Democracy was threatened even earlier, with the advent of radio. A booming voice spouting propaganda could be broadcast across an entire continent, in support of whatever rich group was funding the speech. The fascist movements of the 20th century would not have been able to achieve the degree of control they did had it not been for instant communication and high-speed transportation networks. Technology provides the perfect means of domination.
Nowadays in pseudo-democratic countries like the US, citizens routinely go through a ritualistic election of politicians who represent the interests of groups of rich people, and who are paid to convince everyone else that these interests are also their own. People literally elect others to take on responsibilities they do not and likely cannot take on themselves. That is the nature of a highly technicized society; any attempt to isolate the good from the bad is just daydreaming. You want technology that keeps you well-fed and well-entertained? Then you have to accept that you won't have any real freedom. That's just how it goes :roll:
Someone will point out that in a democracy I can voice my objection/opinion. However, if no one listens anyway, I see no value in it, and so my voice remains just as silent as if in a dictatorship. Unvoiced is unvoiced, regardless of the why behind it.
The dictatorship has less freedom. But does it? Really? If I disagree with the government I go to jail. Here...There, pretty much the same. If I disagree with them while armed I get shot. Here...There, just as shot, by government sanctioned shooters. Still dead though, not sure why I would be concerned about the format of the government that shot me. I have to go to work, here...there. Same thing. Pretty much across the board, same thing, different label. Someone will claim that we can choose what we do in a democracy (work, play,etc), but really, how is that working out for the common person? How many of us wake up each day and say "Thank God I chose this job, I love it so much!" Would it make such a difference if someone else had chosen the job you dislike? State or parental pressure, the outcome appears similar. I do not live where I want, I live where I can afford to live, very little choice there in truth. Yes, in a dictatorship the police can boot down your door and take you away to be interrogated. Of course, with "No Knock" entry (yep, a real thing) so can my local Police service, or the Federal RCMP. So again, at three in the morning, do I really care what emblem the armed jack-booted thugs kicking my door in are wearing? No, not really. And it doesn't matter if they are at the wrong place; the door is still broken, my house has been effectively pillaged, and everyone in it will be questioned for hours before any mistake is acknowledged.
I am not seeing much difference.
The internet and the massive exchange of information it brings doesn't destroy democracies, but it brings to light all the flaws that have crept into them. The corrupt power structures that have infested our democracies prefer to stay in the shadows, but amidst the exchange of information they cannot.
This is why we see a rise in attempts of states to regain control over the flow of information, and regain control over their populations. They're trying to creep back into the shadows, but the light of truth shines brighter.
1) When I said 'can democracy survive?', I meant a system where electors decide on real fact-based issues who will lead them, and their view is accepted and acted upon by those elected. You can talk about the democracy of social media and the 'post truth' world, where all views are accepted as valid, but that results in the absurd anti-vax movement we now have, which is seriously harming efforts to stop Covid. No matter how stupid, selfish and ill-informed the views of its supporters are, govts won't call them out in those terms; any attempts to make vaccination mandatory are met with riots by those defending their right to decide for themselves. You have to say that the Chinese anti-Covid measures have been most effective - brutal though they have been. So maybe 'a meaningful democracy' is a better phrase.
2) Those who reply with the 'things won't get better until we learn to think and act like responsible adults' point don't get it: Democracy invalidates that approach. Its tenet is that voters must be accepted for what they are and politicians should lead them with sensitivity and understanding - not arrogant judgement of their failings. Most people are ignorant, simple and prone to emotional decision-making. That's the way humanity is. To expect them to learn to act otherwise is naive.
I think the Guttenberg point is a good one. It has occured to me that down the ages the great advances in our civilisation have been brought about through improved communication: as witness the printing press, the railways, the car, the telegraph, phones, the mail, radio, TV and now the Internet. The possible dangers of the last of these are matched only by the first. (Maybe 'advances' should be in quotes?)
The difference getween a meaningful democracy and a dictatorship, by the way, is that the former has the means of turfing out corruption and ineptitude on the part of leaders.
Quoting ssu
Yes, but if well-meaning democrats find they can't compete except by copying that approach we get into Animal Farm territory - the pigs become men..
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Really? I have never noticed that. How is that accomplished in your country exactly? Here we can't do anything until the next election, and then we have a choice about which lying sack of crap gets in, but ultimately there is no discernable difference to any of the political parties: all of them will lie, all of them are corrupt, and all of them will back pedal on any promises they made during the election. So we vote in someone that back pedals, lies, and rewards friends with government contracts, then 4 years later we vote in someone that back pedals, lies, and rewards friends with government contracts. Does the detail that the name of the person has changed make any difference to anyone, other than the person that got voted in? I would posit that all of my available electoral choices in the last thirty years have been inept, quasi-corrupt, and lacked conviction. The only one that I believe may not have fit that bill died before he could come to power. The four hours off I get to vote is much better spent taking my wife out for dinner; that actually has an effect on my life. Voting, not so much.
Two sayings from the 1970's - are they still current? "If voting changed anything, it would be illegal," and "Whoever you vote for, the government always gets in". The first is anarchist, the second is grumbling at the bus stop, but similar sentiment.
Exactly. One of the most perilous strategies is to think that if in a democracy some actors use dubious methods, to protect democracy you have to use similar dubious methods.
The truth is that populist conspiracy theorists promote the most excessive, incredible and most pure propaganda on purpose: they just assume that everything is propaganda, so you fight "the powers that be" with your own propaganda.
You are responding to a post where I said the Military-Industrial Complex has been in control of education since the 1958 National Defense Education Act. That is not an issue of city or rural schools, nor is it about this state or that state. It is about education for technology replacing what Eisenhower called our "domestic education". Our domestic education added on vocational training when we mobilized for the first world war, but we retained education for good citizenship and transmitted an American mythology and education for citizenship, until the National Defense Education Act.
Education is like a genii in a bottle, the defined purpose is the wish and the students are the genii. We changed the wish in 1958.
A primary purpose of domestic education was preparing the young for good moral judgment and that means teaching the children how to think, not what to think. Our liberty and social order really depend on that past education. Education for technology is amoral and tries to program the child's brain to be of use to industry and the military. Does that make sense, the difference between education to achieve a democratic and social goal, or education to achieve industrial and military goals?
I have no argument with the observation that many, many schools are just struggling to survive. Students in those schools are being cheated of having an education because what they are getting will not help them in any way and the environment is largely responsible for the failure of the schools. The 1958 National Defense Education Act was supposed to end in 4 years. It obviously did not end and it may be too late to save our democracy now. We took our culture for granted and that was a big mistake!
I was worried about this too, but a disputed election will be challenged in the courts, and ultimately SCOTUS, and none of the judges on there are morons. Will Republicans abide by what this particular SCOTUS says? Enough will so that our democracy will continue.
Where do you live? Where I live we can write to our representatives, and write letters to the editor, and protest in the streets, attend public hearings on the city, county, and state levels. This activity can lead to people uniting and having a much stronger voice than an individual. Such as the National Rifle Association. It is possible to write a bill and get have a vote on it.
I have actively changed law at a local level and bureaucratic policy at the state level, by working with others. What is really horrible is I seem to be the only one in forums who understands what citizens can do and that the meaning of citizenship is being responsible for such things. Democracy means the people have the power. We just aren't educating for that anymore.
What other options are there? Defeat them with your kindness?
a) keep the economy robust and in good health.
b) provide the services the people want, starting with safety and listen to their demands.
c) Uphold transparency and keep corruption low.
d) basically keep the people happy.
e) and don't rest on your laurel's if you have reached the above. It's a constant struggle, and in the end the voters will likely just get bored with you and replace you with someone worse. At least people will then later note how good things were back in your time...
People who are content are difficult to get to be hostile at each other, ready to take the barricades. The criticism will be left to the true "fringe" or to the "intelligencia", which actually the latter is quite beneficial. Nothing works as well as honest open laughter when someone comes up with something outrageous. Being angry at them only turns on a conspiracist: remember, for him or her you are just the brainwashed sheeple.
If then everything is going to hell in a hand basket, then the vicious circle can be so bad there's not much to do. Might be worth noting to people who are important to you what is happening and how to prepare for even worse time. I think simply making a hilarious joke that tells the real truth in a funny short way spreads far better than demonizing the other side. For example, cartoons can be far more effective than a grotesque images filled with absolute hatred and loathing. That kind of propaganda turns people off, if they aren't already extremely angry about the issue. If people are truly really fed up with a politician and hate his or her guts, then by all means do make images of him or her as the worst of the worst. But then it's just incitement.
What when it's the government/state who is the actor who uses dubious methods?
Democracies are not kept in check by informed citizens, they are kept in check by powerful legal institutions and as well as various other rules and systems. An authoritarian government is completely controlled by a handful of - or even just one person who goes completely unchecked in what they're allowed to do. They control the army, the institutions, the businesses, the media and nobody can stand up to them. The citizens' rights can be given or taken away, people can be imprisoned for nothing and there are few rules to stop the ruling party from doing, really whatever they please.
That is the big difference between an authoritarian government and a flawed democracy from a full democracy. A full democracy holds leaders accountable for their actions, the institutions aren't under their control, their power is limited. They are subject to the law like anyone else, there are many rules telling us what they can and can't do.
What's great about democracy is how the system protects the rights of its citizens and the leaders are held accountable to a far greater degree than any other government type. When we see corruption, the free institutions lose that freedom, the rights of the media taken away and so on, that's when we say democracy is in trouble, not when people have no idea who they're voting for and barely have any options.
Whether citizens are voting for bad reasons or have bad options, these are trivial concerns in comparison. So its a problem that Trump was corrupt, he did try to interfere with free institutions, he did try to discredit the media and he attacked the vote itself and broke so many rules and he really needed to be impeached for these things. Yet US politics is a mess and he wasn't, but ultimately, the system did rebuff Trump's coup pretty effortlessly, many parts of the system are still doing their job.
Many other democracies around the world are not having this problem, in Australia, where I live, leaders resign over issues that are so unbelievably trivial in comparison to all the things Trump has done and I think that's how it should be, the flaw in the US is that Trump was able to get away with far too much.
tldr in a democracy it's the institutions that matter for its success, not the voters.
Shows only the integral weakness built into the regime. Why once in power, do you still have to attack others as viciously as before? Your showing your weakness. What your base actually would want is for you to do what you promised to do, simple as that. It's the populists dilemma: once in power, you are those "powers to be" that you have criticized. Hence if you want to follow that act and not keep your promises, you have to enlargen the "conspiracy" to the international level. Good luck with that. In the end you do have to have a support base and they have to be happy.
Yes, governments can control the media, but then they simply distort the political debate not to show the real opinion that there is. Going from verbal assault to physical assault is actually easy. Coming back from that isn't anymore. An authoritarian simply cannot know just how much popularity he has and going down that rabbit hole isn't actually a smart move.
The really smart move is to get the whole political class to follow your tune, and then you would have to stay quite silent, be above the political debate. Have perhaps someone below you be the lightning rod that can be replaced. You don't do that by ferociously attacking others.
This is true, but any government or regime has to have a support base. There simply has to be people who at least think that supporting the present leadership and system is better than the alternative. Otherwise the whole apparatus will come apart in a drop of a hat.
Without a doubt the closest country to having an actual ‘democracy’ on Earth is Switzerland. The thought of that system on a global scale fills me with dread not hope. I simply don’t believe a global vote would result in something ‘good’ for humanity’s long term development. Smaller isolated governments concerned with a limited population size would be okay … somewhere along the way we missed that boat though.
Looks like another stage of feudalism and then an eventually power struggle leading with a stable population size followed by centuries of wrangling before we settle on a reasonable body of people to be held within a governed system where each individual has enough of a voice to matter. Decentralised power can only make sense if nations effectively split up and act as a community of peoples rather than as a disassociated body called ‘nation’ where the power is both unregulated, inefficient and short-armed in reach and scope due to the sprawling population.
If you just copy-paste the Swiss system into an existing power structure in many countries, yes, that would be something to be dreaded. Or simply would tarnish the name of the Swiss model. Because having the institutions and system in name only wouldn't help many countries.
Hence it doesn't go like that. For example, Liberia has similar Constitution as the US, yet that hasn't prevented a military sergeant taking power and shooting the whole government (the story goes that he got the inspiration of making a coup when the President inspected the troops in pyjamas and bathrobe). The civil wars that the country has endured were gruesome.
It all comes to those institutions, how well the system operates, some basic educational level, social cohesion and, as Marx pointed out before Bill Clinton: it's the economy, stupid.
I think it's simply racist to think that some people (unlike others) would be incapable of having a democracy. It's the above mentioned things that have to work.
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I look around at the people I work with, arguably educated and literate, and listen to their spoken values and am appalled at the profound absence of thought processes and shallow values being yammered about. These are the educated voters, Bachelors and Masters degrees all around, and very little substance or critical thought to be found anywhere. In a majority rules situation, I would have to listen to what these clowns want, because there are more of them than there are of me. Absolute nightmare.
Perhaps a democracy wherein the requirement to vote, or hold office, is an IQ above 130. That should remove a substantial amount of dead weight. Then at least I could say that my representative might be corrupt and a asshole, but not an idiot. That would be a good place to start.
That's an interesting parallel, thanks.
Quoting Judaka
But no dictator is going to allow those institutions to act fairly. He's going to install his own judges. Hence, they only survive under a democracy where leaders cannot dismantle them without being voted out next time..
Quoting ssu
What type of people do you think make dictators?! The likes of Trump don't win by respecting their opponents, they trash them. Of course he's weak. Dictators are driven far more by egotism than ability. As for promsies: most of those on which they get elected are unachievable, and they knew that all along. Where's Trump's wall? And was it paid for by the Mexicans? It was a cheap slogan he could never make come true. Remember 'drain the swamp'? Surely that doubled in size during Trump's presidency. What about 'prosecuting crooked Hillary'?! Once in power his tactic was to attack his enemies and deflect attention from all those absurd promises.
Quoting Book273
I have pondered on an election held entirely online, where voters have first to answer say 5 multiple choice questions about the basic issues of the election; and if they get 2 or more wrong they can't vote. There'd have to be a secoind chance at it, incase they pressed the wrong key by mistake. So you'd need say 20 questions, of which 5 would be picked at random for each attempt to vote.
But it makes no difference what method of weeding out you choose. The only way to stop corruption is to let everyone vote. If not; what guarantee is there that your 130+ IQ elected govt wont decide on a policy of eugenics, to stop lower IQ babies being born? Power corrupts...
Democracy is what we make it, but to get something changed requires a huge effort and connecting with the people who are willing to work for the change. Timing is also important. I discovered it is much easier to make change happen when someone like the governor is new to the office and wants to make change. Today our children's services policy is very different from the past and grandparents have rights by law.
The whole point of democracy is that the dictator isn't the one who decides what is "allowed", the institutions do. A democratically elected leader, whether he's going to get voted in again or not, lacks the legal power to undermine the democratic institutions. Otherwise, it wouldn't matter what the vote was, and that's normally how democracies become dictatorships because a leader is able to interfere with the election process and undermine it in some way.
A leader may be elected democratically, but once in - like Hitler, he can easily disempower those institutions by force, stopping them from calling out his corruption. Come the next election, like Putin, he can ensure he wins. So it's not the existance of the institutions that safeguard democracy, it's their ability to continue to function without interference from the govt. Only via the next free-and-fair election can any wrongs a govt has committed on them be part of the campaign of a prospective new govt and if they win be righted.
The strength of a democracy should be measured by how easily its leadership can undermine it.
Quoting Tim3003
These are not mutually exclusive, it is the institutions that safeguard democracy, and their ability to do that is dependent upon some independence. Putin can manufacture elections results because he has complete control, Trump couldn't because he didn't. It's what the democracy does to stop in-power officials, if it cannot check them for corruption or if it cannot stop them from interfering with elections then that "democracy" is weak and ineffective.
20th century US government would enter wars, institution massive policy changes, order covert missions and play geopolitical games that either the public had no say in or if they did have a say, they were often influenced by propaganda. Look at communism, Iraq, Vietnam and so many other examples. How is the modern US worse? It's just that people are better informed today, better educated and can be slightly more attuned to how things really are. Trump on Twitter didn't achieve anything compared to what was achieved with 20th-century propaganda but the internet has done much to educate and inform the people better than ever before.
As for bad information, there is nothing new under the sun, Public discourse and the press have operated at abysmally low levels for long stretches of time. There was no 'golden age' when everyone read only balanced, carefully thought out opinion pieces and altogether factual 'news'.
People who believe--the corona virus is a hoax, or that the moon landing was faked, or that Donald Trump actually won the 2020 election, or any number of other stupid lies--are impervious to fact and balanced argument. It doesn't matter whether they flock to web sites that present garbage, or not. In 1969 there was no internet, yet the "the moon landing was faked!" individuals managed to find each other, anyway, and they have persisted in this nonsense for decades.
As an aside, there are many sites on the internet, television stations and programs, publications, and individuals or groups who are just not good for one's cognition or mental health. One does well to avoid them.
Usually it's a problem of motivation. Who cares? Elections happen very rarely and it's a vote among millions. But let's say their careers where on the line with the choice they made in the election booth (which btw. goes against the crucial anonymity of voting). If their candidate does do what he or she promises they keep their job, if he or she doesn't, they lose their job. Suddenly there would be a lot of interest to elections and many of your colleagues and they would follow politics.
What's the net effect though? Positive/negative? The same nose through which we take in life-sustaining air, oxygen to be precise, is Covid-19's preferred mode of entry/exit into/from the human body.
You perhaps think of the person, but I think of the people that support dictators. They are the more interesting case here, because it opens up a bit this discussion on a new level.
You see, those that crave for power and have egotist traits of a dictator, can actually be so smart that they do hold onto power, but do go along even with respecting the democratic rules. Then we won't call them dictators. Or we can have various states of emergencies, when for example marshal law is implemented. And then nations can get back to normality.
Quoting Tim3003
Let's just remember that Trump's self-coup failed. Trump is a bully, not an ideologue and certainly not a dictator, even if he loves them. Trump bet everything on Pence and getting Republicans to back him. He didn't order a state of emergency because of the "steal". I think that someone like general Michael Flynn would have gone through with a real self-coup like that. He sure has totally taken the alternate-reality propaganda to heart. Yet it's likely that even with that and the Trump putsch would have failed as badly as the August Coup of 1991 in the Soviet Union. Even if the Jan 6th crowd would have been a great image for doing a self-coup.
But what about the people who genuinely support a dictatorship? You seldom have everybody fearing for their life, then it would be quite a shaky support. So who are these people?
The type of people that in Greece could choose tyrants to lead them or in Rome those who supported Ceasar and then Augustus. Basically quite ordinary people who did have a say in politics (now the voters in general). Do note that people end up supporting dictators because for them the country seems to be going to hell in a hand basket. And because history has just one way it's gone, we can only guess what might have happened without those various states of emergency, when freedoms have been curbed and the authoritarian policies have been implemented.
I think this is true. I've been reconsidering my initial question. Maybe it should be: is the Internet allowing democracy to destroy itself?
The Internet empowers democracy by allowing everyone to have their say, to everyone else. The problem is, most people have a 'confirmation-bias' - they are not capable of dealing rationally with the amount of information now available - without running away from its overload and taking refuge in what they already believe, and hence in new 'information' that bolsters their beliefs. Unfortunately the unscrupulous know that that fear can easily be manipulated and infiltrated with more extreme and fantastical views.
What's the answer? I think self-censorship by social media companies is never going to work - the fear-mongers will always find ways around it. China would say it's a brutal regulation of the information available.
From a UK perspective I don't know why our govt hasnt initiated a TV ad campaign to encourage people to get Covid vaccinated. Have other countries? This would be a good way of countering all the disinformation. But I suppose I'm assuming people still watch broadcast TV..
It might be helpful to make a distinction between "democracy" (broadly understood) as a system of government, and "democracy" as ordinary, daily interaction of citizens.
In our republic, representatives are elected by the citizenry. Political parties have been part of the American system since the beginning (and that was an issue, early on). Our system of election, representation, and government was never pure, never perfect. On-line social media is a new thing, but corrupting the system is not.
The ordinary daily interaction of citizens has mostly been helped by the internet. Consider the difficulty of organizing events 50 years ago: One had to put up posters, buy advertisements in daily newspapers or neighborhood papers--if there was one. One had to use social networks like bars, clubs, bowling teams, etc. Not bad, but inefficient. Now there is MeetUp, Facebook, NextDoor, and much more. It's all faster, cheaper, better.
BUT: There is a downside. (There's always a downside opposite every upside.). Ideas can spread faster than the speed of reflective thought. An example might be "defund the police" idea. This was picked up by a lot of people on line --"woke whites" it seems like, before the idea was given reflective attention.
In Minneapolis, "defund the police' caught fire after the 2020 summer rioting season. A year later, the voters of Minneapolis defeated a charter measure which would have led to a sharply reduced police force. There was pushback on police defunding on line, as well as in more typical media, but a year's time gave people a chance to think over the idea of what a defunded police force would mean. A solid majority didn't like the smell of it.
The internet itself is hypothetically neutral, in the sense of The Wisdom of Crowds. The Net merely provides more-or-less equal access to information. But users choose which sources to rely on. That's our constitutional right. But the difference between Anarchy and Viable Democracy is chaos versus the organization of representative self-regulation.
In theory, we are supposed to elect regulators, who are more like Plato's Philosopher Kings than lawless rule by the rabble. In practice though, we tend to choose people who reflect our own biases (ahem -- tr*mp), not those noted for Rational Thinking. So, it seems that we need an Internet Constitution to regulate how we choose our regulators. Then, we need to institute some central body, not to dictate, but merely to curb our excesses. :cool:
A Constitution for the Internet :
http://www.federalist-debate.org/index.php/current/item/371-a-constitution-for-the-internet
Bill of Rights for the Internet :
https://edtechbooks.org/mediaandciviclearning/internet_constitution
Why You Can’t Always Trust the Wisdom of the Crowd :
https://time.com/4588021/power-of-networks/
[/quote]
The problem with constitutions and Bills of Rights is: who's going to uphold them? How are they to be policed? And if social media companies transgress where are they to be convicted? We've seen from the Haugen testimony how Facebook are quite capable of ignoring accusations - and unless they make their source code available to authorities, how can we prove they're deliberately allowing inflamatory information, hate-speak or whatever? I don't think the internet can ever be effectively policed. The only possibility is at UN level, but the chances of every country signing up to that look vanishingly small.
And even if specific hate-speak terms are successfully banned surely it will just mutate - ever tried filtering out all the viagra adverts? It's impossible...
Yes. Right now, the primary ethical regulator of major social media is the court of public opinion, led by investigative journalists. But that still leaves it up to the companies to self-regulate, or to deflect criticism with a brand-name change (e.g. Meta, nee Facebook).
An early attempt to supervise the net was the US Telecommunications Act of 1996. And there are some spotty attempts to codify Cyber Law. But we still don't have a world-wide central authority, other than the various voluntary Internet Standards & Protocol organizations. The UN could possibly establish a global clearing house for standards and regulations, but it is often internally divided over political concerns,
So, those who favor Net Neutrality might object to any government influence. Yet, some kind of non-governmental organization (NGO) might be sponsored, but not controlled, by the UN, Anyway, I'm glad it's not up to me to grab the cyber-tiger by the tail. Fortunately, there are many minds, better informed than mine, that are focused on the core problem of Democracy : how to regulate, not dictate. :smile:
- As long as democracy, capitalism, socialism, fascism are taken to denote abstract ideals nothing will destroy them. And this is worth to keep in mind if we reason in historic terms, because not only there are historic events that can more or less favor or oppose the popularity and implementation of such economic-political regimes, but we may also notice some cyclical patterns in their emergence and decline.
- Democracy was a disparaging term probably invented by some “Old Oligarch” in ancient Athens to define a form of government where the low-class populace (poor, uneducated, emotional, superstitious) could directly govern (meaning electing and proposing not only officials but also laws by referendums). Its bad reputation persisted so long that even the American “democratic” constitution didn’t dare even to name it, differently from its presidents. The name became much tolerable when its meaning progressively and slowly shifted from its original usage to the current usage (at least in the western tradition) that comprises a family of institutions like representative government based on universal suffrage & majority rules, rule of law (constitution, divisions of power, system of rights like human rights), and welfare system (at least, in some minimal form). Of course these institutions can be more or less well designed and implemented, my contention is however twofold: 1. what we understand now as democracy should be the right kick-start for any comparison between democratic and non-democratic countries or when we assess democratic claims (as Russia, China and Iran do). 2. Yet the history of the democratic ideology (not only of the implemented democratic regimes) is dark from its onset. And we wouldn’t be far from the truth if we claimed that philosophy as popularized by Plato begins as an intellectual war against the democratic ideology of his time. So I’m not surprised by the resurgence of “populist” (“democratic” in its original meaning) feelings which can go so far as to vote to death the wrong people and cheerfully elect dictators.
- Interestingly enough, in any information technology revolution there are always 2 sides of the story: the side of those who can consume the information made available by the technological revolution and the side of those who master or can exploit the prodigies of the new technology to win over their competitors. This is also true in Ancient Greece where the transition from oral to literate culture contributed to the rise of populist elites aligned to the democratic ideology of that time, as much as internet social networks are now favoring the rise of populist representatives.
- The much celebrated victory of the US at the end of Cold War supported the idea of the capitalist democracy primacy over other ideologies (whence the confidence on the thesis of the end of history by Fukuyama): unfortunately once the major threat of the common enemy (a totalitarian communist regime) disappeared, the support for the much celebrated alliance between the democratic and capitalist ideologies started to crumble down, and internet became the battle field where this much celebrated alliance is progressively but bitterly torn apart.
Whose information?, and how successfully is it being distributed and absorbed? And at what rate compared to the news cycle and what we can reliably digest?
I don't think I can come up with the right answer to that question. It's like asking how is water bad for plants? :chin:
Yes indeed.
What I said is probably not the whole truth.
Information on its own is neither good nor bad. It becomes potentially destructive when it's based on distortions, simplifications and downright lies. And that depends on the motives of the person posting the info. Does he/she genuinelty want to inform people, leaving them to decide what they think? Or to scare/browbeat them into accepting his/her opinion as correct; and using the techniques above to help achieve it.
Which brings us back to my original point: When all available news was broadcast by journalists from companies with high standards of impartiaility, the public could trust it and form reasonable views. Now, when news is accepted by people form any old source they open themselves to being misled and manipulated.
To answer your question: information based on truth is good for democracy; that based on rumour, lies, half-truths and fear is not. Of course in a democracy the latter cant be prevented, the question is how we educate people to see it for what it is and seek their news from reputable sources instead. Are people really shunning those news organisations deliberately in favour of conspiracy peddlars? If so, what has caused such a catastrophic loss of trust? Or are people just more easily engaged by simplistic stories playing on their fears, slants that reputable organisations just won't print? If that's so for the majority, then democracy really is in trouble. We'll be back to burning witches before long..
The same logic applies to the issue of internet-information-democracy trio. The full effect of internet/information on democracy hasn't yet manifested itself. We should wait and watch. It's too early to comment is what I'm trying to say. Cause-effect at these levels of social organization may take 30-50, even centuries to play out.
On the flip side, there's also the speed of transmission vis-à-vis the internet to factor in. For those concerned, it must feel like riding a sports car: the speed comes at a cost - the window period for escape in case of a mishap is virtually nonexistent and an accident means certain death.
Yes. "Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come" ---Victor Hugo. And all of those political ideals have had their "time", but have come and gone, and come again. During the 1950s Red Scare, campaign against communism, presidential candidate Thomas Dewey, responded to the proposal to outlaw Communism with, "you can't shoot an idea with a gun". Consequently, he was labeled as "soft on Communism". Likewise, the original notion of a free exchange of ideas on the Internet was intended to "destroy" censorship, and government regulation. But the necessity for limits on freedom is another idea, whose time is always with us. :meh:
:chin: While philosophers argue about free will, the legal system and the legislature are busy laying down laws, really restrictions on our free will, regulating our options. WTF?
Individually, the freedom to do as you please is a good idea. But collectively, that would result in chaos and conflict. So, in politics, and in internet interrelationships, some restrictions on freedom are necessary to avoid a bloody free-for-all.
The lone wolf is free to do as he pleases, but in a pack, he is just one willful agent among many. A pack of wolves is successful to the extent that it has a harmonious collective will, typically embodied in the wisdom of an experienced leader. Currently, the internet seems to be leaderless. So, it's every wolf for himself. Which is why each website must make and enforce its own rules for permitted participation in a collective endeavor.
Over time, those local rules seem to be merging toward a general consensus of what behaviors are permitted, and which forbidden, and which violations can be overlooked. That's how a Democracy can function only with a division of powers : law-makers, law enforcers, and a general consensus Constitution -- interpreted by wise elders. So, maybe the World-Wide-Web Democracy needs a high court to resolve internal disputes --- but elected or appointed? Hmmmm?. :chin:
"See everything, overlook a great deal, correct a little."
___Pope John XXIII
Limited Democracy :
definition: a form of government in which the power of the people is limited to the parameters of a constitution.
A simple but telling truth: There are more laws today then there were in the past. As I suspected, it's our freedom that needs to be checked rather than our lack of it. Was George Orwell right? Is the future of humanity an authoritarian world order?
I haven't studied historical trends in depth. But I suspect that, as Hegel's Dialectic indicates, governments tend to oscillate between Permissive and Restrictive. Hence, generally tracking close to a moderate middle position. Therefore, I suppose that any centralized World Government would also vacillate somewhere in the middle between the poles of Liberal and Conservative, Democracy and Autocracy. Of course, I could be wrong.
The predecessor of the current "world order", the United Nations, was the League of Nations. It was short-lived because its charter gave it no power to enforce its rules. Due to the experience of two world wars with no world police, the UN was given a bit more authority over sovereign nations, but remains almost toothless, primarily due to the fear of developing into a repressive Autocracy.
For some people the notion of a "New World Order" sounds like a godsend compared to the current international disorder. But to others, a NWO would inevitably exceed the bounds of its constitution, in a bid to become a World Empire. And its ruling class would be the semi-criminal Oligarchs of developed nations. Fortunately for us peons, even the powers-that-be tend to offset the extremes, by disputing among themselves about the Need-for-Change versus Maintaining-the-Status-Quo.
Personally, while I admit the danger of a slippery slope, I doubt that an Orwellian world is likely, unless the world gets bombed back into the stone age --- as in some post-apocalyptic movies. And I tend to be optimistic enough to assume that Reason will ultimately prevail. Others may not agree, and prepare to despair. Nothing daunted, I hope for an upward slope. :smile:
Note -- Orwell prophesied the spread of Communism. But that seemingly inevitable domino-fall eventually ended in compromises with Capitalism and Democracy. Even Jeremiah's doom & gloom was offset by the more positive predictions by Hananiah.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah%2028&version=NIV
I's some time since I read 1984, but wasn't Orwell pointing out the dangers of totalitarianism rather than specifically communism? If I look at Russia, China and a potentially crippled US under Trump again I worry about a world dominated by totalitarian/authoritarian powers. One of the effects of globalism could well be the rise of Oeania, Eurasia etc as Orwell forecast. The EU could be the last bastion of smaller countries clubbing together, and its future doesnt seem to me assured at all. As you say the UN, which should be the way forward, doesnt have any power. Until its security council members are selfless enough to vote to give it real power it will remain a sideshow.
Will reason and democracy prevail? All I can learn from the 20th Century is that man is just about smart enough not to destroy himself, but that's all. Our best hope may be that the battle against global warming acts a uniting factor, as the one against Covid has over the past 2 years.
I assume that Orwell's book was directed at totalitarianism in general. But, at the time he wrote 1984, in 1949, the Nazis were history, and Communism was ascendant. So, his specific criticism was directed at the Russian implementation of Communism. Orwell was sympathetic to Democratic Socialism, and saw that Russia had overcome all odds to end the Tsarist autocracy, and Fascist regimentation, only to create a centralized political & economic system that was just as stifling to individual freedom as its predecessors.
Orwell may have been in favor of the Communist dream, but became disillusioned at the oppressive reality under Stalin. Although he fought in the Spanish Civil War against the Fascists, he had clashes with the Russians, who as outsiders were trying to dominate that internal conflict. Ironically, he even sported a Hitlerian toothbrush mustache at one time. So, I think you are correct that his book was illustrating the errors of top-down government in general. Again, ironically, some Americans today seem to view such total control of the populace as a good thing, even as they are willing to overthrow our current "out-of-control" government.. History has a tendency to repeat itself. :sad:
There are more rules/laws/regulations now than in the past is the premise I'm working with. Given so, doesn't it look like democracy is a sham? After all, our freedoms have been drastically curtailed over the timespan between the very first proto-governments and the current "democratic" zeitgeist. Typically, the average person living in a democratic country today has less freedom than the average person living under an authoritarian regime a thousand years ago.
Why does the limitation of freedom mean democracy is a sham? It's clear to the vast majority of voters that freedom cannot be unlimited - the majority have to protect themselves against the lunatic fringe. As long as these limits and the laws enshrining them are democratrically agreed what is the problem?
It has always seemed to me that politics boils down to a simple choice between the prioritisation of 2 mutually exclusive ends: namely freedom and the alleviation of poverty. Those (eg. US Republicans) who raise the concept of freedom almost to an untouchable-God-level paradigm are deluded and naive to my way of thinking.
The issue, it seems, is that democracies advertize themselves as champions of freedom but, as you yourself have pointed out, democracy isn't that; freedom is not the be-all-and-end-all of democracy and truth be told, it, on many occasions, has traded personal freedom for something else e.g. stability. Ergo, democracy associating itself with liberty is a scam, a fraud, a con job of the most deplorable kind.
Do you really think that collectively people have the guts to do as they please? It's my impression that collectively people are behaving in conforming mode. Abberations of accepted behavior are frowned upon, dismissed as crazy or mental, "tolerated" (a fancy word for silent dislike), locked away, or simply wiped out of existence.
The internet offers a means for the gutless to speak and spell in an environment where physical repercussions are not to be expected. It offers a means to express ideas as well. There is no board of censorship checking upon fake news or true news. That's true. But a thread to democracy? I think it are the people using the internet are the real thread. Not the internet per se.
The internet is like a global telephone line. It's easy to fool people on the telephone line, and much easier to insult, fight, or have a love relation with than in real life. Insofar human interaction is concerned, the net sucks.There is no truly direct contact. You can be superman on the net, without repercussions to be expected. You can call names however you like, from the safe environment behind your screen, protected by a fake identity or algorithms to hide your whereabouts. You can spread ideas which could have your face smacked if you had spread them in the real world. Which makes it a wonderful medium for politicians or perpetrators of constraining ideas,. If we don't watch out life itself is redirected to the net. I think the disadvantages should be taken for granted. It's a great medium, like television. Television can be used to control or to set free. The will to control or set free can't be taken away by abolishing the internet, TV, or any form of media. It merely adds a means to realize the control.
Democracy will be endangered if the net is used to enforce or regulate a free exchange of ideas or actions by a state-empowered institute.
Yes. The US is quite law-bound, but it seems necessary to regulators, in part, to reign-in the torrid pace of technological & social change. Consequently, I have long advocated that lawmakers be required to repeal one law on the books for every new law they pass. That might weed-out some of our bizarre or antiquated laws (no bear wrestling ; illegal to impersonate a priest ; boogers must not be flicked into the wind ; etc)
I haven't made a study of comparative freedom in so-called democratic versus autocratic regimes. But Steven Pinker has done similar research, and has concluded that, despite our tangled web of laws, modern technocracies are healthier, wealthier, safer, and freer than in most earlier societies. Besides, the United States has never been a true Democracy. The founding fathers argued both pro & con, and finally reached an imperfect, but workable hybrid system of checks & balances. Over time though, we seem to have moved farther away from the agrarian ideal of independent local farmer citizens, into a consumer society dominated by inter-connected global cash-flow corporations. Yet, again our hybrid system -- part democracy, part socialism, part oligarchy -- is flexible enough to adapt to accelerated evolution of human culture and technology.
As the OP asserted, the internet is driving us in a new direction, for which we have no historical precedent. So, let's hope our modern hybrid systems of government are agile and flexible enough to adapt and evolve to "fit" the new social & technical environmental niches. :cool:
Collectively, people are sheep who follow their gutsy leaders. That's why we elect a few bellwethers to lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Yet even those influencers are often indecisive when circumstances place them "in a new direction, for which we have no historical precedent." Somehow, we usually muddle through. Our collective survival instinct forces us to adapt to changing and challenging conditions. And it has ever been thus. :cool:
"It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory."
___W. Edwards Deming
I believe that the military-industrial state will eventually collapse, possibly even in our lifetime, and that a majority of us (if prepared) will muddle through to a freer, more open, less crowded, green and spacious agrarian society. (Maybe; of course it may be only a repeat of the middle ages.)”
— Edward Abbey
Modern(and semi-modern) democracy likes to pride itself as a successor to Greek democracy but this couldn't be more false. Greek democracy was an aristocracy of a few educated, intelligent men who would personally meet their candidates and get a first account of what they were voting for. While in modern democracy everyone, without any barriers, is allowed to vote. With this extended voting pool, most don't understand the issues at hand, let alone each candidate's views and proposed policies on them. Most votes would be casted based off emotion or appealing to friends/family/co-workers. If they did, they still wouldn't have anything close to interaction with their candidates, the closest would be a scripted debate or the sort. They're voting for a perceived, media-based image of a candidate.
So modern democracy is very spoon fed and halters the facilitation of ideas. The internet undermines this by allowing unlimited sources for information, going much further than the mainstream media. In this system of immediate, relatively unmonitored communication many false ideas/information will be spread too, but it's illogical to say this started with the internet. One thing that has clearly scared the mainstream media since its very advent has been the internet. They're not scared of people having "wrong" views however, they're scared of new, different views. And, even worse, these people with alternate views can organize through the internet, and could spread their ideology further.
Even in the past, partakers in this democratic system have been hardly "informed". Their views are merely regurgitated and socially influenced. With the internet, people with so many sources of knowledge at their disposal from every source of information can strive for a genuine understanding of the world rather than accepting whatever is said around them as fact.
The OP seems mostly concerned by the internet itself and its impact on democracy.
My own views on the matter is the internet makes it possible to create virtual communities that transcend geographical borders e.g. this forum. When such virtual communities will be given full country status is an open question but I have feeling that it's just a matter of time. What sorta governments virtual countries will choose will have ramifications for real world countries and governments, democracy included.
Have you played Sid Meyer's civilization video games?
Yes. It was the ability of modern communication systems to transcend traditional borders and social islands that made pioneers of the internet optimistic for an egalitarian New World Order. But many of those progressive idealists were appalled at the speed with which corporate & partisan interests came to dominate the system by manipulating personal interests & prejudices into exclusive cliques. However, such innovations as the global Starlink satellite system, may quickly allow people in underdeveloped areas of the world to play catch-up. And one possible outcome might be for them to escape from the tyranny of banana republic dictators.
On the other hand, techno-communities could also result into a retreat into internet tribalism, instead of nationalism or globalism. Let's hope it will bring us together, as in some non-shooter cooperative video games such as SimCity. At this point in time, most online games seems to be cooperative only in terms of making war on enemy communities. The Civilization games are mostly empire builders, trying to recapture the Glory That Was Rome. Even virtual empires may tend to grow and prosper at the expense of their colonies and local communities. Unless we learn from history, instead of merely repeating the same interpersonal mistakes. Unfortunately, one of those lessons is that freedom must be limited & regulated in order to avoid the Tragedy of the Commons :cool:
Internet debased :
Berners-Lee has seen his creation debased by everything from fake news to mass surveillance. But he’s got a plan to fix it.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/the-man-who-created-the-world-wide-web-has-some-regrets
Tragedy of the Commons :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
Humans tend to suck. The internet is just this presented in a hyper way. Layers of obfuscation created by the consuming of technology.. What's so great about the act of survival? What's so great about our little hobbies, friends, and family? Really, the internet is just a mirror of this lack at the center. We crave more because we cannot just be. Being and becoming are important themes here. Internet is a network of manifested obfuscation of becoming. But being is really not much better. Just thereness there.. so we diddle and daddle and doodle and dawdle.
First time I'm hearing anything about that!
That internet mods are increasingly ruthless tyrants or that TPF has a pretty decent mod team? :wink:
Discord is the worst offender, afaik. More and more whiny kids wanting "safe spaces" where they never have to hear about politics or philosophy *at all*. It makes them "uncomfortable." Reddit is getting worse too. I keep seeing subs with a brand new "no politics allowed" rule.
Which, I understand that politics have gotten heated in the past years and so shutting it down saves a lot of time and energy, but I just can't understand how any person who lives in and most likely theoretically supports democracy can suddenly be in favor of censorship.
Of course, I'm not totally naive: I realize free speech has pretty much always only been supported by and for the "in group" but still.... it boggles the mind.
That one.
In my experience, humans tend to suck and blow. So, like everything else in our imperfect world, we have to take the good with the bad. As they say, "that's life". But we don't have to overdose on either.
Back in the good old days, before mass communication, most news was mundane local gossip. And really bad news was rare. But now, with instant communication, news is global & instantaneous, and mostly bad news. As they used to say about newspapers, "if it bleeds, it leads". So, for those who pay attention to such things. they are inundated with reports of "man's inhumanity to man". Even uncommon "man bites dog" stories are told & retold, even if the event is a thousand miles away. It's that broadened scope and wearisome repetition that makes the whole world seem to suck more than in the Golden Age before technology gave us eight billion neighbors.
Consequently, as you say, internet news is mostly bad news "presented in a hyper way". Ironically, the human brain is always on the lookout for threats to survival. Hence, it's innately interested in tittle-tattle gossip, especially scandalous & terrifying information. But when such news is not relevant to your local situation, such fake & fatalistic news tends to color your outlook a gloomy gray, even when your own skies are sunny. You are the center of your worldview. And that shadow can only penetrate your personal corner of the world, if you let it in.
To avoid the extremes of Optimism or Pessimism, I call myself a "Peptomist". That's why I usually try to look away from the burning building or the bloody crash, and note the heroic firemen with a saved child, or just return to my little comfy nest, where little is newsworthy. If you look for it, there is usually some good news on the back page -- even on the internet. :cool:
“Inhumanity, n. One of the signal and characteristic qualities of humanity.”
? Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
“Humanity needs injustice, which it can savour through the bitterness, the self-directed Schadenfreude that is one of the variants on the spectrum of misfortune. This mortification is particularly noticeable among the most celebrated, who like to see themselves as betrayed and misunderstood."
? Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories V: 2000 - 2004
"Some people see the glass half full. Others see it half empty. I see a glass that's twice as big as it needs to be". — George Carlin, 1936-2008, American comedian
"An optimist expects his dreams to come true; a pessimist expects his nightmares to."
— Laurence J Peter, 1919-1990, Canadian writer & educator
"An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?"
— René Descartes, 1596-1650, French philosopher
Unfortunately, disinformation/information travels/employs the same medium with equal ease and efficiency.
It's about free speech in the end, right? Democracies depend, existentially, on the liberty to speak one's mind. Sadly, hate speech must also be accepted as part of the bargain.
One possible solution to counteract hate speech/disinformation/misinformation would be to teach people how to use the internet (digital safety): a baloney detection kit à la the late Carl Sagan's should be put together and made hypervisibile so that people can learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff online. I found one :point: Internet Safety 101.
:clap:
The problem with solutions like this is that the only people who'll read them are the likes of us who don't need to! Those who do, won't, just as they won't bother to get their news from reputable sources..
But again, its the internet - if the wireless one - that's allowing the social media addiction to capture so many minds. Obviously people - especially children - should turn their phones off at night, and bosses should not be allowed to msg workers outside office hours. But who's going to enact legislation that would limit freedom and annoy many ignorant voters? Instead today's populist politicians work on exploiting the public's lack of patience with ever more simplistic and emotive messaging.
According to an article by Johann Hari in the UK Observer: people think they can do several things a once - ie work and phone; but they can't; the mind doesnt work that way. With each switch the mind has to stop, adjust, remember; then re-adjust and re-remember after the return. A side-by-side test of workers with phones with text-message interrupting and without showed a 20% reduction in the productivity of the 1st group. The longer it takes for the problem to be recognised the harder it will be to solve - like the obesity problem..