Why does MIT Tech Review insist on an incognito-hostile and tor-hostile mechanism to try to limit free views (to 3/month)?
Who needs democracy when you have data?
41–50 of 113 posts
Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?
#42The people inside the democracy. They need democracy.
Do they? Can you really establish a rational need for democracy, or are you just running on cultural reflex? If you take this question as me saying we shouldn't have democracy, maybe it's reflex. It's an interesting question. Democracy isn't an end in itself, but rather a means to an end. What is that end (or those ends)? How else can those ends be achieved?
A rational need for democracy for you would be so that I don't govern you according to my wishes.
A rational need for democracy for me would be that you don't govern me according to your wishes.
A rational need for democracy for the uyghurs would be that Xi Jumping doesn't govern them according to his wishes.
I've always understood this to be what is meant by democracy is the worst form of governance, apart from all the others.
Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If Trump, Brexit and Duterte are what the people want, perhaps we live in societies that are incapable of self-governance Only if we take the preferences of the 10% of well cushioned (who see themselves as Elois and the masses as Morlocks) as some universal law, or _the good_ itself, as opposed to what they are: preferences based on their private interests.
You are advocating for the marginalization of minorities if popular opinion is that minorities should be marginalized. This is the very definition of "tyranny of the majority", and is also self-defeating in terms of democracy: marginalized groups are no longer fully represented in democracies once they have been marginalized.
>You are advocating for the marginalization of minorities if popular opinion is that minorities should be marginalized.
That's part of democracy. Whether they should be marginalized or not is up to the culture, not to the political system.
Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?
#44The people inside the democracy. They need democracy.
Do they? Can you really establish a rational need for democracy, or are you just running on cultural reflex? If you take this question as me saying we shouldn't have democracy, maybe it's reflex. It's an interesting question. Democracy isn't an end in itself, but rather a means to an end. What is that end (or those ends)? How else can those ends be achieved?
Those with an intellectual and/or engineering bent (myself included) often make the mistake of assuming people can be purely rational. If people were purely rational, you might be able to make a case for this type of benevolent authoritarianism. But every human is always flawed, power corrupts, etc. Despite all its problems, some form of democracy is the only (known) way to truly hold those in charge accountable when they inevitably become corrupt.
Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Trump, Brexit and Duterte are what the people want, perhaps we live in societies that are incapable of self-governance. I'm no fan of centrist neoliberal politics, but regimes and decisions which destabilize economies, marginalize minorities and villainize immigrants are clearly not a better alternative.
Having an election manipulated by the Russian government does not count as "self-governance."
Whereas "manipulated" = some emails nobody cared about and fewer read were leaked at a time that everybody had made up their mind already? Or maybe some FB groups they pointed at?
What was the "manipulation" exactly?
Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
How long is this going to be the go to excuse? Some ad buys and an email phishing scheme is “manipulated”?
Russian interference and manipulation went far beyond that. They've been buying election machine companies, sending spies to funnel money and influence to U.S. politicians, hacking and offering stolen information on opponents (which they've done for decades, but this is the first known time someone accepted rather than reporting it to the FBI immediately, and in fact ignored the FBI's warnings that it might happen),…
The crudeness of the accusations has raised the Russians to some kind of James Bond villain organization status...
NATO has been suffocating their borders, steadily advancing, bombing around, creating proxy states (Kossovo), influencing "orange revolutions", and operating tons of political groups and NGOs in Russia and tons of army bases around Russia. Including tons of sponsored reporting on all mainstream media (not just an obvious state outlet like RT which the Russian government has).
And it is Russia that's made into the "villain du jour" based on BS like "hacking the democratic emails" etc, as an excuse for the democrats that have made a mess for themselves by cutting off their better candidate, and offering a Wall Street pawn nobody really likes in his place...
The same old hypocrisy of colonialism and Cold War. Which never ended, apparently. Even back in 1996:
"The outcome was by no means inevitable. Last winter Yeltsin's approval ratings were in the single digits. There are many reasons for his change in fortune, but a crucial one has remained a secret. For four months, a group of American political consultants clandestinely participated in guiding Yeltsin's campaign. Here is the inside story of how these advisers helped Yeltsin achieve the victory that will keep reform in Russia alive."
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,136204,...
Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?
#47Why does MIT Tech Review insist on an incognito-hostile and tor-hostile mechanism to try to limit free views (to 3/month)?
What extensions/privacy settings do you use? (Chrome or another browser?)
Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?
#48The people inside the democracy. They need democracy.
Well, they believe they don't. My compatriots from my two home nations, Russia and China, usually defend the authoritarian policy thanks to years of soft propaganda and opinion guiding. "Western countries have problems too, and did you see America, this is what democracy leads to." You can see that on HN, too.
See "Manufacturing Consent" (1988) by Chomsky and Herman for a classic critique of how in the West there are also "soft propaganda and opinion guiding" systems in place and operating successfully. I wonder though, with the internet and the rise of Trump, if Chomsky might say these systems are not in control as much as they used to be.
Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?
#49The people inside the democracy. They need democracy.
Well, they believe they don't. My compatriots from my two home nations, Russia and China, usually defend the authoritarian policy thanks to years of soft propaganda and opinion guiding. "Western countries have problems too, and did you see America, this is what democracy leads to." You can see that on HN, too.
>Western countries have problems too, and did you see America, this is what democracy leads to."
When you compare the "democratic" two-party American answer to terrorism and the "autocratic" one-party Chinese answer, it's hard to see democracy as the superior choice. Spying on millions of people is terrible, as are the re-education camps, but the "War on Terror" is responsible for millions of deaths while spying on millions of people. Years of soft propaganda make people praise American behavior, and democracy provides no option to end it.
Re: Who needs democracy when you have data?
#50Data is nothing; interpretation is everything. That's why democracy is needed even in the presence of data: the people still have a need to choose how the data is interpreted and who will do the interpreting.