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The Reasons Authoritarianism Is Growing – and How to Reverse It

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Re: The Reasons Authoritarianism Is Growing – and How to Reverse It

#41

Post by xg15 »

I don't think it's a good article, honestly. It falls into the same trap that, I believe, Democrats have fallen before - which is to assume that their strategy is perfectly rational and aligns with objective truth, while everyone who disagrees must necessarily suffer some cognitive failure.

Therefore it's enough to analyze the disagreement from a psychological or emotional level and the solution is to simply frame the existing agenda in some way that it is more psychologically palatable for the target demographic.

This misses that there may be a lot of completely rational, fact-based reasons to reject incumbent policy: If your statistics tell you that the economy is fine, but a significant part of the population doesn't know how to pay the bills, then this isn't some psychological error of that population group, it means your statistics suck.

From the perspective of one of the affected, the statement "the economy is fine" will also be understood quite differently: It means that whoever said it obviously doesn't include you in their definition of "the economy" and so is unlikely to alleviate your situation. Of course you then won't vote for them.

As a leftist, I also find the "diversity vs sameness" divide quite superficial. A lot of progressives and left-wing types are promoting cultural diversity while demanding strong economic regulations, while conservatives advocate deregulation and laissez-fair economics but have no problem directly interfering with people's private lives. The ultra-libertarians and ancaps who are so in love with freedom that they would like to abolish the state completely nevertheless have no problem with all-encompassing dystopian megacorps, as long as those megacorps are private enterprises.

Who exactly is the authoritarian and who is the libertarian here?

Re: The Reasons Authoritarianism Is Growing – and How to Reverse It

#42

Post by skhunted »

tim333 wrote: post #35
skhunted wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost no one really wants government to leave them alone. Everyone looks to government after a disaster. People rely on government for policing and most people for providing their children education. People rely on government to ensure the food supply is safe. These things are largely forgotten about by the people saying they want less government. There are contradictory views held by the people who say they want go…

A lot of people would like quite limited government that does the basics but otherwise leaves them alone.

Can you give some examples of this “leave me alone” that they want to see enacted?

Re: The Reasons Authoritarianism Is Growing – and How to Reverse It

#43

Post by honkycat »

skhunted wrote: post #25
honkycat wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realized HN was lost during a thread about having to provide identification to access adult websites. There we SO many voices in favor. I was shocked. Hackers historically cared a TON about their privacy, yet they were willing to throw it away for the sake of "the children." Ignoring that there is a huge suite of tools that would allow you to protect children WITHOUT having to register with the government and be tr…

I’m very liberal and very much opposed to authoritarianism. I don’t see the problem with forcing online content to be different than offline content. You gotta show ID or otherwise prove age to buy alcohol and pornography offline. Why not for online as well?

Yes clearly ISPs, OSs, and everyone involved who is making money should provide easier and better tools for protecting kids from adult content.

But a state mandated thing associated with my ID is... iffy.

People have perfectly good reasons for wanting to protect their privacy.

Re: The Reasons Authoritarianism Is Growing – and How to Reverse It

#44

Post by pavlov »

tim333 wrote: post #35
skhunted wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost no one really wants government to leave them alone. Everyone looks to government after a disaster. People rely on government for policing and most people for providing their children education. People rely on government to ensure the food supply is safe. These things are largely forgotten about by the people saying they want less government. There are contradictory views held by the people who say they want go…

A lot of people would like quite limited government that does the basics but otherwise leaves them alone.

Trumpism has proven that most American conservatives don't want that.

Republicans used to have a strong faction of fiscal hawks who advocated eliminating all the expensive non-military government spending: privatizing Medicare, cutting Social Security, etc. But Trump discovered that you can simply promise to eliminate the deficit while also promising to leave all those programs in place exactly as they are, and people will eat it up.

That left politicians like Paul Ryan in a weird place because they were pushing for a limited government that their constituents didn't want anymore.

Re: The Reasons Authoritarianism Is Growing – and How to Reverse It

#45

Post by skhunted »

honkycat wrote: post #43
skhunted wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m very liberal and very much opposed to authoritarianism. I don’t see the problem with forcing online content to be different than offline content. You gotta show ID or otherwise prove age to buy alcohol and pornography offline. Why not for online as well?

Yes clearly ISPs, OSs, and everyone involved who is making money should provide easier and better tools for protecting kids from adult content. But a state mandated thing associated with my ID is... iffy. People have perfectly good reasons for wanting to protect their privacy.

But they have done that and so a government mandated solution is warranted.

Re: The Reasons Authoritarianism Is Growing – and How to Reverse It

#46

Post by JohnFen »

skhunted wrote: post #25
honkycat wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realized HN was lost during a thread about having to provide identification to access adult websites. There we SO many voices in favor. I was shocked. Hackers historically cared a TON about their privacy, yet they were willing to throw it away for the sake of "the children." Ignoring that there is a huge suite of tools that would allow you to protect children WITHOUT having to register with the government and be tr…

I’m very liberal and very much opposed to authoritarianism. I don’t see the problem with forcing online content to be different than offline content. You gotta show ID or otherwise prove age to buy alcohol and pornography offline. Why not for online as well?

Because when you show ID to buy age-restricted things in person, nobody is keeping a record of anything. A clerk looks at your ID and that's the end of it.

Online is a completely different beast on that count.

Re: The Reasons Authoritarianism Is Growing – and How to Reverse It

#47

Post by honkycat »

tzs wrote: post #34
honkycat wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realized HN was lost during a thread about having to provide identification to access adult websites. There we SO many voices in favor. I was shocked. Hackers historically cared a TON about their privacy, yet they were willing to throw it away for the sake of "the children." Ignoring that there is a huge suite of tools that would allow you to protect children WITHOUT having to register with the government and be tr…

Age verification that protects privacy can be done using clever cryptographic techniques.

Yeah I would be 100% for that, honestly.

I'm not a big anti-adult content person, I don't think it is a big deal. Cockfighting and dogfighting used to be popular pass-times. People used to take their whole family down to the public square for a nice afternoon hanging. Brothels used to be widespread! The old world was so much seedier and dirtier and violent, stuff is tame today by comparison.

But I 1000% respect someone who wants to control their kids access to adult content. I just know there is a lot of danger in implementing a Chinese-style "internet identification system."

Re: The Reasons Authoritarianism Is Growing – and How to Reverse It

#48

Post by honkycat »

skhunted wrote: post #45
honkycat wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes clearly ISPs, OSs, and everyone involved who is making money should provide easier and better tools for protecting kids from adult content. But a state mandated thing associated with my ID is... iffy. People have perfectly good reasons for wanting to protect their privacy.

But they have done that and so a government mandated solution is warranted.

Look into the Chinese identification systems associated with internet access to see where this leads. It isn't good.

Re: The Reasons Authoritarianism Is Growing – and How to Reverse It

#49

Post by HDThoreaun »

tzs wrote: post #34
honkycat wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realized HN was lost during a thread about having to provide identification to access adult websites. There we SO many voices in favor. I was shocked. Hackers historically cared a TON about their privacy, yet they were willing to throw it away for the sake of "the children." Ignoring that there is a huge suite of tools that would allow you to protect children WITHOUT having to register with the government and be tr…

Age verification that protects privacy can be done using clever cryptographic techniques.

yea but we all know it wont be

Re: The Reasons Authoritarianism Is Growing – and How to Reverse It

#50

Post by mmooss »

naveen99 wrote: post #28
mmooss wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say that? Without tariffs, the most efficient producer makes the good or service. With them, someone less efficient may make them. Efficiency includes, but isn't only, waste and pollution.

You could say the same about progressive taxes. Without them, the most efficient do the work. With them, less efficient people below taxable income threshold will do more work.

That's the first valuable, novel insight I've heard about taxation in a long time. While I support progressive taxes for other reasons (fairness), I'd be interested in the economic impact.

(The research would have to use overall tax rate, not just 'income' tax (i.e., wage tax).)

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