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How Twitter poisoned politics

prospectmagazine.co.uk

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Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#131

Post by slg »

refurb wrote: post #105
bliblah wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the issue; at least in the U.S. EVERYTHING is becoming more politicized no matter how inane. You are also EXPECTED to have a binary opinion on all these issues with no room for differing opinions. Look at the NFL protests during the anthem. Kneel and you are a bleeding heart liberal that hates the cops. Stand and you are a red hat conservative promoting police brutality and the Private Prison Complex.…

I blame the media. They only ever cover the most extreme viewpoints. They wouldn't get clicks otherwise if an article was titled "Voter aren't sure what to make of the Supreme Court nominee". I've overheard a few conversations of my coworkers (yes, anecdote) about the whole Kavanaugh debate and pretty much every one of them was pretty common sense (e.g. not sure if I believe her, but Kavanugh certainly sounds like he…

And Twitter is part of the media and has helped shape nearly all other forms of media. That brings us back to the subject of this post.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#132

Post by village-idiot »

ordinaryperson wrote: post #34

Was there a time when politics wasn't full of poison? By the end Thomas Jefferson hated George Washington so much he refused to attend his funeral. And that's just 242-year history of America, you can go back to Rome, Greece or Ancient Egypt and see thousands of years of vitriol inside any large human collective. Modern tools could do a better job, sure. Twitter, FB, YouTube and the rest could use some kind of reputa…

Never forget the Gracchi brothers. Populist reformers who were both executed by the Senate because of the threat they represented to patrician power. The older of the two was killed in an area of Rome where weapons were not permitted, by senators, while he was Tribune and technically sacrosanct.

When politics goes bad, it goes really bad.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#133

Post by rexpop »

evan_ wrote: post #128
bliblah wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the issue; at least in the U.S. EVERYTHING is becoming more politicized no matter how inane. You are also EXPECTED to have a binary opinion on all these issues with no room for differing opinions. Look at the NFL protests during the anthem. Kneel and you are a bleeding heart liberal that hates the cops. Stand and you are a red hat conservative promoting police brutality and the Private Prison Complex.…

> Stand and you are a red hat conservative promoting police brutality and the Private Prison Complex. Nobody is saying this

I am saying this. There's no reason for anyone to stand for the national anthem, these days. Women should be kneeling in protest, men should be kneeling in solidarity.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#134

Post by longerthoughts »

chasd00 wrote: post #111
hnruss wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's classic divide and conquer. The ultra rich have framed politics as red vs. blue, when in reality it has always been (and always will be): them vs. the rest of us.

i remember during the financial crisis thinking if only the tea party and the occupy crowd realized they were two sides to the same coin maybe something great could have happened. I feel like that dawned on the powers-that-be and the old divide and conquer technique was quickly applied; tea party turned far right, occupy turned far left and they've been fighting ever sense.

It's eerily similar to the Machiavellian approach to alliances. Something along the lines of joining forces only with those who are weaker than you but can be used to amass power against your greatest threats. In the context of the examples you provided: major party identifies small group making noise, major party aligns themselves with that group, major party exploits that group as tool against opposing major party, major party under no obligation to truly pursue agenda of absorbed group due to relative power.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#135

Post by rexpop »

clairity wrote: post #83
ordinaryperson wrote: post #34

Was there a time when politics wasn't full of poison? By the end Thomas Jefferson hated George Washington so much he refused to attend his funeral. And that's just 242-year history of America, you can go back to Rome, Greece or Ancient Egypt and see thousands of years of vitriol inside any large human collective. Modern tools could do a better job, sure. Twitter, FB, YouTube and the rest could use some kind of reputa…

> "Was there a time when politics wasn't full of poison?" no. politics, by definition, is the exertion of power, and that is "poisonous", in the sense that someone will not like it, and will, if possible, resist and potentially counter-attack. it's an interesting mental exercise to consider whether or not all unhappiness stems from the application of power.

Interesting ontology. If politics is exertion, what do you call the passive observance or determination of extant power balances?

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#136

Post by chrisco255 »

chasd00 wrote: post #111
hnruss wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's classic divide and conquer. The ultra rich have framed politics as red vs. blue, when in reality it has always been (and always will be): them vs. the rest of us.

i remember during the financial crisis thinking if only the tea party and the occupy crowd realized they were two sides to the same coin maybe something great could have happened. I feel like that dawned on the powers-that-be and the old divide and conquer technique was quickly applied; tea party turned far right, occupy turned far left and they've been fighting ever sense.

They definitely had the same spirit and were pissed off about many of the same things, but they differed drastically on the solutions...

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#137

Post by fipple »

genericone wrote: post #130
crooked-v wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one in Washington would cry about Trump being impeached because Trump has done literally nothing with the Presidency that would earn respect from anyone. Even his own party sees him as little but a seat-filler who's only useful because he picks appointees along party lines.

Literally nothing that would earn respect? If something that Trump did that was good was considered revenue, and something he did that was bad was considered costs, you're saying that it has all been costs? Or do you mean that in your view his profits = revenue - costs has been negative? I'm sure you can go around the country and DC and find plenty of people who think Trump has earned revenue, so to speak, even if th…

To continue your analogy, the revenue that Trump has made to date has been by selling the furniture. It's like a new Google CEO came in and sold the datacenters and said "look at the revenue!"

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#138

Post by tareqak »

The cost of communication has fallen much faster (quantity of discourse) than the cost of education (quality of discourse). I don't just mean monetary cost: time, effort, and attention required to communicate is much less than the amount of those three required to keep yourself informed.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#139

Post by simplify »

longerthoughts wrote: post #119
debaserab2 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could take that a step further and blame media consumers then - the media promotes the stories that bring in ad revenue more than others.

Yes. Seems far more plausible that the media is a reflection of human nature than that the media has reshaped the way people think.

Media is not merely a reflection, but a perpetuator of extremes. If everyone stopped using media, there would still be extremist, but they would be so far distant we wouldn't think of them or their ideas.

Here's a great interactive explanation of how this works: https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#140

Post by nindalf »

village-idiot wrote: post #132
ordinaryperson wrote: post #34

Was there a time when politics wasn't full of poison? By the end Thomas Jefferson hated George Washington so much he refused to attend his funeral. And that's just 242-year history of America, you can go back to Rome, Greece or Ancient Egypt and see thousands of years of vitriol inside any large human collective. Modern tools could do a better job, sure. Twitter, FB, YouTube and the rest could use some kind of reputa…

Never forget the Gracchi brothers. Populist reformers who were both executed by the Senate because of the threat they represented to patrician power. The older of the two was killed in an area of Rome where weapons were not permitted, by senators, while he was Tribune and technically sacrosanct. When politics goes bad, it goes really bad.

A word on the Gracchis. The Gracchis were radical reformers by the standards of their time - they wanted to take lands from large landowners and give it back to landless peasants. Tiberius Gracchus was clubbed to death in broad daylight. Gaius committed suicide when he knew his death was inevitable.

What's interesting is that when studying the fall of the Republic, it makes sense to start with these guys. Roman politics had always been high stakes and cut throat, but this was when it took a turn for the violent. Starting 130BC, it started going downhill. In the next few decades, this violence gradually became regular civil war, especially after military reforms that meant that poor people could sign up to be soldiers.

By around 60BC, a politician would run up massive debts to get elected, try to make it as much money during the 1 year consulship and then try to rob whichever province they became governor of. If they lost the election, they had no hope of paying back the debts, unless they launched a civil war, overthrew the state and seized power. Catiline was one such person.

Things got worse after that. The sham of democracy remained, even after Augustus cemented power.

Point being, the Republic took nearly a century to die, it didn't happen overnight. The degrading of politics was a gradual process. Previously unthinkable acts are normalised. Good people who are disgusted with the state of politics leave, and the horrible people remain, leading a race to the bottom.

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