Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

You can fool some of the people, all of the time

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 229 posts

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#171

Post by sputr »

buboard wrote: post #97
sputr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy is nothing more than a system that replaces swords/bullets with votes. That's it. The fight for power (aka. resources) it inescapable and the only thing that democracy did, was to change the field that this fight is fought on. Democracy is more tolerable because no people die (in the open) when the landscape of power changes. The only two benefits of democracy to "the people" are: (1) the fact that they hav…

I don't know to what extent this adversarial definition of democracy is true. Democracy literally means the power is with "the many" instead of "the few", and in recent centuries it reemerged due to the rise of the urban class who could no longer tolerate centralization of power. In ancient times, democracy was largely ensured by allotment, in our times it's almost exclusively through majority-election. The principle…

> I don't know to what extent this adversarial definition of democracy is true.

I'm being more and more convinced of this because in my experience it is much better at explaining and predicting reality.

It's not pleasant and I didn't want to accept it. But here I am.

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#172

Post by kbutler »

slg wrote: post #144
kbutler wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is counterfactual. Since the 1970s, military spending has decreased as a percentage of government spending and as a percent of GDP, while "for the people" spending - social security, healthcare, etc. - have risen dramatically in both measures. See http://metrocosm.com/history-of-us-taxes/ and scroll down to the spending breakdown.

Pure spending numbers are a little misleading. One reason is that spending is often dictated by need. Military spending, for example, is hugely influenced by the current political environment so a reduction in military spending from the levels of the 40s-80s is not really a "for the people" change as it is more a "we don't need to fight the Axis/Soviets anymore" change. Similarly spending on social security and healt…

So your position is that post 1970s increases in government transfer payments are "not a huge benefit to the middle and lower classes" and represent "austerity", and that major reductions in spending are "largesse for the military".

Interesting.

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#173

Post by whatshisface »

Animats wrote: post #168
whatshisface wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the evidence that lies and the believing of lies are increasing?

See current article on HN about Facebook leaks. Lying at scale without consequences seems to be becoming more prevalent. The inventor of that is generally considered to be Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister. He used radio and film technology, which were new at the time, plus large rallies, to present a consistent but bogus view of reality. After WWII, that sort of thing had such a bad reputation that it wa…

Lying at scale? Humans have had organized religion for millennia. You don't need radio, you just have to have an organization of priests to keep the fires burning in the temple and tell people about Jupiter when they visit. Even if you only count directly political lies, we have records of ancient historians expressing their doubts about various stories. I mean, come on, is the claim that the high water mark of truth and public knowledge was the Middle Ages?

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#174

Post by pazimzadeh »

Zarath wrote: post #158
stared wrote: post #32

There is an excellent SMBC comic on politics: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-08-21 . Transcribing the headings (not the complete dialogs): " 1. If you have a self-consistent view, you're going to have problems. 2. In a self-consistent framework, you have infinite regression problems. 3. If you want your group to hold together, you need an ideology that doesn't make any sense. 4. Once you have a nonsensical pl…

Totally agree. I used to know a hardcore catholic and spend a lot of time around other hardcore catholics and I was amazed at how nearly anything could be back-rationalized and absorbed into the philosophical framework with ease. It's as if the framework itself is designed to neutralize counterarguments. And not because it is based in reality and there is evidence to back everything up, but rather because, as you men…

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Agreed. As an atheist, I found that some of the smartest people around are religious.

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#175

Post by leppr »

didibus wrote: post #143
jniedrauer wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an example of Hobson's choice[0]. It is not really a choice. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson%27s_choice

In this case you also have the right to vote and get equal representation. I'm not saying it's an amazing position to be in, but I can't think of any way to make things more consensual on all sides.

In practical sense, voting in a democratic republic is simply choosing, very infrequently, between a set of pre-defined parties. Only the natural supporters of the most popular party are given real agency. Any other viewpoint is discarded by design.

That a candidate is elected, doesn't mean they have anything close to 50% real support in the population. They just need to embody the one set of decisions that the largest homogeneous group of people agree with. That could very easily be a low single digit percentage of the population.

Smaller scope, heterogeneous governments with protected passageways in-between them would be a way to make things more consensual. If people can chose between multiple governments while still staying in similar climate and language-speaking areas, then you could say they really "chose to live in their country".

The agency situation for the average democratic republic citizen is not great right now. Exercising the negative side of consent requires huge sacrifices that many rationally can't make.

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#176

Post by simonh »

whatshisface wrote: post #157
randcraw wrote: post #107

I think the rise of lies has little to do with humans being hardwired to resolve questions using emotions over reason. We prefer lies because we want a complex world to be simple, predictable, and manageable. Obviously it's not, so the only way that powerless people can believe their lives aren't spinning out of control is for authority figures to tell them what they want to hear: 1) every problem is simple and 2) a…

What is the evidence that lies and the believing of lies are increasing?

I’m not sure there is any way to show that, you’d need historical data to compare to.

I think a lot of people expected that scientific advances and evidence would prove to be so convincing and powerful that superstition, irrational clinging to false beliefs and the use of misinformation would fall away and lose their power. That doesn’t seem to be happening, and so this feels like a regression even if it’s just the same old trash piling up for the same old reasons.

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#177

Post by brutt »

leppr wrote: post #162
brutt wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You gave your consent at democratic election, so now you have your representatives in government. In democracy, your country is your property, so you were given your share of your country at your birth, with corresponding benefits and obligations. In despotism, country, including citizens, is owned by despot, so citizens inherit obligations only.

Think about how many differences between those two abstract interpretations of citizenship manifest in real life.

Differences are astonishing. It's Ok for a despotic country to murder their property, or property of some other country when net effect is positive for them. For them, it's like a plantation: if we cut some trees, or cut grass, then net yield from field will increase, so lets do it. If you are good plant and in good place, you will be left. If not, you will be cut.

For example, it's Ok for Russian Federation to kill their own or foreign people (e.g. British citizens), or start a war just to increase their profit from their natural gas.

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#178

Post by AnimalMuppet »

smoll wrote: post #12

If most people are hard-wired to be duped, why does it feel like only recently people are getting even more conspicuously duped by their political leaders (a la Trump and Johnson)? Presumably this effect should have had a more uniformly distributed effect throughout history. Is it solely due to the weaponization of technology for this means? Or are there other reasons for “why now”?

I'm tempted to say that it's because of the change in epistemology. If there is no such thing as real truth, if truth claims are really assertions of power, then there's no point trying to figure out the truth. And, once you no longer are looking for the truth, any lie will do. Pick whichever one you like best.

Now, that's been going on for a while. I think it's been getting worse over time, as fewer and fewer people believe in actual truth.

And if you think that it's just Trump and Johnson - if you think the insanity is only on one side - you haven't been paying attention.

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#179

Post by Retric »

pnutjam wrote: post #84
Retric wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically, monarchy’s seem to be more stable and result in less open warfare (civil wars). The US did not even last 90 years before the first civil war. A rather large number of democracies have fallen and been replaced with dictatorship. Democracies have other benefits, but stability does not seem to be one of them. PS: I am ignoring assassinations and power struggles as we have lost 4 sitting US presidents witho…

You could make a good argument that the South was not a democracy and the civil war was an overthrow of their aristocracy; not a war between two Democracies. Just look at the Constitutions of pre-civil war Southern states. https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/suppressedbooka0...

Interesting perspective. Some people arguable if the US is currently a democracy with for example the 4+ million people in DC and the territories effectively lacking the vote.

IMO, what defines a democracy is large segments of the population having a meaningful vote rather than requiring some ideal implementation.

Re: You can fool some of the people, all of the time

#180

Post by leppr »

brutt wrote: post #177
leppr wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about how many differences between those two abstract interpretations of citizenship manifest in real life.

Differences are astonishing. It's Ok for a despotic country to murder their property, or property of some other country when net effect is positive for them. For them, it's like a plantation: if we cut some trees, or cut grass, then net yield from field will increase, so lets do it. If you are good plant and in good place, you will be left. If not, you will be cut. For example, it's Ok for Russian Federation to kill…

Are you positive western democratic republics don't murder and/or start wars for profit ? Last I heard the USA's army and secret services were pretty active.

What's different about their armies and ours ? I mean when was the last time citizens of a democratic republic gave their input on what assassination to carry out or war to wage ?

There is definitely a point about overt, extreme abuse against their own citizens being mostly prevented by representative democracy. But nothing about general consent or agency.

Post reply on HN