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Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

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Re: Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

#111

Post by Retra »

antidesitter wrote: post #64
Jedd wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read it more as 'anyone who doesn't support public education isn't a person that should be setting policy for society'.

Really? How did you read it that way? Seems pretty clear the GP specifically used the term "shill".

You used the term "specifically" but nobody is nitpicking the meaning of that word to elevate a non-generous interpretation of what you mean. Sometimes people are just not that careful with the words they choose and don't expect others to jump on their word choice as indicative of some highly nuanced intent.

Re: Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

#112

Post by wahern »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #43
zackmorris wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the reasons you gave: as a litmus test for whether a politician is a statesman or a shill, I look at whether he/she supports public education or not.

Which do you think is more likely to develop students into citizens capable of independent thought: a) Sitting at a desk. Not allowed to talk unless called upon. Exactly following a schedule determined by authority figures. b) Being free to move about the room. Able to choose your activity with your peers.A constructivist or "discovery" model, where students learn concepts from working with materials, rather than by…

c) Socratic method where an instructor guides inquiry using incisive questioning but never provides answers outright.

You'll always need "a)" for basic reading, writing, and arithmetic, and for providing basic facts and principles. "b)" doesn't even require a school as it's something kids should be doing, anyhow. It's also expensive, especially when you get to more abstract concepts, which is why this is a type of education typically only enjoyed by the privileged, both inside and outside school. And it can't accomplish the depth of understanding that "c)" can, nor cultivate more general analytical skills.

"c)" is the most important, but it also requires the most skilled teachers, especially in middle and high school. It could easily be applied more widely in elementary school, though.

Re: Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

#113

Post by realsunnyg »

clarkmoody wrote: post #69
matt4077 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear you will be disappointed... Large parts of the tech community seem to not just be blind to the consequences of their work, but to openly embrace and nurture the destruction of the fabric of society. This used to find voice in utopian visions of a sort of libertarian, meritocratic revival of democracy: bloggers replacing journalists, "makers", liquid democracy, etc. There are two successful examples of this spi…

As a Bitcoin guy, I'm going to chime in there. > Yet it was always rooted in this sort of cynicism that distrusts institutions and the power of humans to have any positive impact with anything but the tools of physics and math: to wit, the endless conspiracy theories around the FED, the infatuation with Gold and land, etc. Realism, not cynicism. The historical record shows that anyone with a printing press will abuse…

Saying that trust can be abused and thus it should be eradicated entirely from social systems is cynicism, not realism.

There's a spectrum of social system development with regards to trust that has yet to be fully explored - centralized/federated "trusted" authorities in the middle, Bitcoin and most blockchains/tokens to the left (i.e. no trust at all) and some other form of p2p money or credit to the right (i.e. p2p, completely decentralized trust).

That the Bitcoin community doesn't even recognize that an entire half of space for innovation exists is what makes this mindset "destructive."

edit: grammar

Re: Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

#114

Post by mycall »

lisper wrote: post #50
gambler wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good and important counter-measure, but not the only one. People also need better tools for analyzing and making sense of large quantities of information, especially as it evolves over time. Right now, all we have are search engines and excel spreadsheets, and it's clearly not enough. It's amazing how prophetic Neil Postman's criticism of computers turned out to be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqxgCoHv_aE Essen…

Wow, that is one of the best long talks I've ever seen. Do you know if there's a transcript out there somewhere?

http://www.paulos.net/teaching/hcc/papers/informing_ourselve...

Re: Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

#115

Post by wahern »

JediWing wrote: post #44
tareqak wrote: post #38

There was one idea that came to mind when I read The Second Half of Watergate Was Bigger, Worse, and Forgotten by the Public posted here 8 days ago [0][1]. The first part of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) requires corporations to keep accurate financial records in order to not be able to hide bribes [2]. If a corporation can be compelled to be truthful in their financial records, then why can't a news organ…

Lots of risk to free speech, with little benefit. Who decides the truth? All the same problems with automatic/AI approaches to fact-checking are repeated but in the legal arena. Also, I don't think it's really comparable to say "hey make sure what you say about the money receive is true", vs. "hey make sure everything you say is true"

> Who decides the truth?

A jury? In most Western societies the final arbiter of "truth" in a legal dispute is the court, usually the judge but (especially in the U.S.) the jury. If the court's fact finder says the sky isn't blue then the sky isn't blue, period, at least in the context of the dispute. This is one of the principle roles of the courts, and it's why the judiciary is supposed to be independent of the executive organs.

The U.S. is unique in holding journalists and politicians to a lower standard of truth. The U.K. has tough defamation laws that are arguably abused to quiet newspapers, but even so it's a stretch to equivocate the state of free speech in the U.K. to authoritarian societies. That is to say, few people would argue that U.K. citizens don't as a general matter enjoy free speech rights commensurate with American citizens.

A legal principle like defamation, however, requires a cognizable injury to a particular person. It's difficult to pin point the injuries caused by any particular piece of fakes news, so you may have to loosen that standard if you want to encompass fake news. Recognizing, e.g., injuries to the public can be dangerous. OTOH the requirement of intent can help to reign that in.

Re: Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

#116

Post by mc32 »

azemetre wrote: post #93
beginningguava wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just legacy media trying to regain power. Fake news has been around forever, look up Yellow Journalism. The difference now is that the 5 multi-national corporations that controlled nearly everything we saw and heard are losing their monopoly on what information reaches the population. Everybody loved big data and social media when Obama used it to win and when Arab Spring happened. But now it's a threat to de…

Telling likely voters to vote for your candidacy is drastically different than telling people Climate Change is a Chinese hoax or that thousands of men, woman, and children seeking asylum are terrorists.

But it’s also false to claim most are women and children and that most are fleeing violence (most are men seeking economic sdvantage) and that entering illegally deserves as much rights as people who’ve applied legally and have waited decades. It’s also false to insinuate the Obama admin didn’t use teargas against wannabe border crossers. And it’s also false to insinuate it’s illegal. France, just the other day had suppressed a demo against taxes in Paris using teargas but no one’s outraged at that. Teargas is used as crowd control in many euro countries.

Re: Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

#118

Post by mcguire »

GatorD42 wrote: post #71
harimau777 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think libertarians are shills in that I believe they are genuine in wanting to improve society. However, in my experience their policies tend to be built on the assumption that the government is entirely restructured in line with libertarian principles. Since that is unlikely to ever happen, those policies that do get implemented tend to assist those who already hold power. As an example, my understanding is…

Some libertarians (such as myself) generally believe corporations already have strong incentives to make non-defective products. Some products that compromise safety for cost provide consumers low cost options they would otherwise not have. Efforts to regulate such products to make them safer can cause more harm than good (by making such products more expensive and therefore unavailable so consumers will use somethin…

I don't think history beat bears that out.

I was just listening to an interview with Deborah Blum on her new book, The Poison Squad, concerning the history of food safety regulations. It seems like most corporations have strong incentives to make defective products; bad products drive out good.

As for litigation, without regulations, you could only sue on the grounds that the corporation knowingly violated some "reasonable" standard of behavior.

One example that comes to mind is vinyl chloride in hairspray:

"The companies did not, however, immediately move to take the chemical out of hairspray. Their major fear seemed to be the possibility of lawsuits. In a January 1973 meeting, industry lawyers warned of the enormous potential legal liability:

""If vinyl chloride proves hazardous to health, a producing company's liability to its employees is limited by various Workmen’s Compensation laws. A company selling vinyl chloride as an aerosol propellant, however, has essentially unlimited liability to the entire U.S. population.""

https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/the-crusa...

https://www.pbs.org/tradesecrets/evidence/secrecy_pop02.html

Re: Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

#119

Post by wahern »

deogeo wrote: post #24
peterwwillis wrote: post #6

Democracy is doomed, but not because of advanced attacks. Autocracy/nationalism/monarchy/etc are just the natural order of human societies. We've had a good run, but so did the Greeks and Romans.

Isn't nationalism orthogonal to democracy? How are they opposed?

It's sort of like gimbal lock: when a particular social movement becomes so pervasive and powerful the mechanisms of government become dangerously aligned and you lose the ability of the political system to perform an important function, namely defend itself and minorities from the tyranny of the majority. Remember, part of the design of separation of powers is that institutions must retain the ability and motivation to compete for power. If the motivation is gone the ability becomes at risk--either by atrophy or by one institution making power grabs that go unchallenged by others institutions or by the people. Discord is, to an extent, a feature, not a bug.

Hugo Chavez was a nationalist that was popularly and fairly elected multiple times until, eventually, the elections weren't actually fair anymore and the institutions of government were irreparably corrupt.

Nationalist movements aren't the only the way this can naturally occur, but it's perhaps the most common in the past two centuries.

Re: Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

#120

Post by wahern »

msla wrote: post #73
peterwwillis wrote: post #6

Democracy is doomed, but not because of advanced attacks. Autocracy/nationalism/monarchy/etc are just the natural order of human societies. We've had a good run, but so did the Greeks and Romans.

Going three-for-three in this thread, a whole page on the fact Liberalism Works: https://www.zompist.com/liberalism.html

I think the contention isn't whether liberal government is better, but rather whether it's stable.
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