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Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

papers.ssrn.com

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Re: Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

#91

Post by DFHippie »

beginningguava wrote: post #86
rrggrr wrote: post #25

The only counter-measure that works against polluting the polity with influence operations is earnestly educating people to be critical consumers of information. Why? Because one cannot empower government to counter-message influence operations without risking an abuse of power. My son's middle school appears to be tackling this problem to some degree by teaching students to: (a) not accept 'facts' without multiple s…

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…

Using electronic media to influence opinion isn't all "big data". Obama didn't use massive deception, for one thing. Putin's program involved lots of people pretending to be people they weren't to say things that weren't true. These two campaigns aren't different sides of the same coin, as you imply.

Re: Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

#92

Post by johnchristopher »

mattcaldwell wrote: post #78
johnchristopher wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not downvoting you but I disagree. A friend of mine has two daughter in a Montessori like school. One of them has a young teacher, the other a more experienced one. One of them is severely lacking in basic arithmetic and grammar and the other one is striving. Anecdata but when I add my experience and feedback from acquaintances in teaching position I conclude that the style doesn't matter as much as the teacher.

Striving for what???

Woops, sorry :)p

"thriving"

Re: Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

#93

Post by azemetre »

beginningguava wrote: post #86
rrggrr wrote: post #25

The only counter-measure that works against polluting the polity with influence operations is earnestly educating people to be critical consumers of information. Why? Because one cannot empower government to counter-message influence operations without risking an abuse of power. My son's middle school appears to be tackling this problem to some degree by teaching students to: (a) not accept 'facts' without multiple s…

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.

Re: Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

#94

Post by clarkmoody »

thanksDr wrote: post #77
clarkmoody wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the proper libertarian argument is that we don't initiate violence against innocent people. In order to tax someone, you must ultimately threaten them with violence. Public schooling is paid for with taxes. Therefore, we oppose it on moral grounds as improper threats of aggression against the public.

I don't get it - How do you fund the police? Or are you 'free' to protect yourself?

Huge topic within libertarianism.

You could start here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7717015-the-private-prod...

Re: Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

#95

Post by clarkmoody »

msla wrote: post #72
clarkmoody wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the proper libertarian argument is that we don't initiate violence against innocent people. In order to tax someone, you must ultimately threaten them with violence. Public schooling is paid for with taxes. Therefore, we oppose it on moral grounds as improper threats of aggression against the public.

Here's a critique of Libertarianism (not the same one I posted above, in fact) with an answer to that: http://world.std.com/~mhuben/faq.html > If you don't pay your taxes, men with guns will show up at your house, initiate force and put you in jail. > This is not initiation of force. It is enforcement of contract, in this case an explicit social contract. Many libertarians make a big deal of "men with guns" enforcing…

You cannot leave. The US has near-global extradition treaties.

To renounce your citizenship, you must ask permission (which can be denied), then you must pay a fee.

Also, the social contract is not voluntary.

Re: Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

#97

Post by apozem »

beginningguava wrote: post #86
rrggrr wrote: post #25

The only counter-measure that works against polluting the polity with influence operations is earnestly educating people to be critical consumers of information. Why? Because one cannot empower government to counter-message influence operations without risking an abuse of power. My son's middle school appears to be tackling this problem to some degree by teaching students to: (a) not accept 'facts' without multiple s…

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…

> 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 democracy, I wonder what changed?

Obviously you are implying that Obama voters dislike "big data" and social media because Trump won. This is lazy strawmanning.

Perhaps we are unhappy with the role the internet played in the 2016 election for other reasons? Perhaps it is bad when voters are fed objectively false stories? Perhaps a democracy is only possible with an informed populace that uses common facts and a shared reality?

Re: Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

#98

Post by pessimizer »

It's a huge flaw that this paper keeps referring to the "US" and its intentions, even explicitly distinguished from the FCC or its president in the blog entry linking the paper[1]. Baked into the examples used to illustrate its premise is a United States that is never specifically located or identified; it just makes appearances as "some Arizona Republicans" and "national security officials" and only intends to spread its "liberal and democratic values" with its "pro-freedom" bias.

The idea that Americans are now soaked in more or more vulnerable to intentional misdirection due to ideas flooding the internet from twitter and facebook is completely ahistorical. If anything, American "consensus" beliefs have always been dictated and enforced from above, and have never been a consensus.

I hope that he reads some Walter Lippmann before he continues to treat politics like a computer program. We are and have always been constantly under attacks from people who want to define the facts that we base our decisions on, including all parts of government. Additionally, those attackers do not always have bad intentions, and may be using deceptive simplifications in order to trick us into doing what they think is best for us.

The evaluation of a flood of information coming from actors with a full range of motivations to manipulate that information is the basic dilemma of democracy. This paper itself is soaked in and re-enforces a bunch of questionable common knowledge, especially as it seems to be addressed to an American flag when only people are available to read it.

[1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/11/propaganda_an...

Re: Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

#99

Post by humanrebar »

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…

> ...why can't a news organization be compelled to be truthful when proclaiming to disseminate news?

In addition to the other free speech concerns already covered, it's worth noting that "freedom of the press" is not about The Media, but about written and disseminated speech. Everyone who tweets is exercising her freedom of the press.

It would be horrible and impossible for the government to make sure every blog post and tweet were truthful. And an incomplete attempt to ensure truthful speech would result in an arbitrary or corrupt result, which can easily be worse than not attempting the censorship in the first place.

Re: Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy

#100

Post by frabbit »

johnchristopher wrote: post #52
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am not downvoting you but I disagree. A friend of mine has two daughter in a Montessori like school. One of them has a young teacher, the other a more experienced one. One of them is severely lacking in basic arithmetic and grammar and the other one is striving. Anecdata but when I add my experience and feedback from acquaintances in teaching position I conclude that the style doesn't matter as much as the teacher.

"Montessori" on its own does not mean too much: there are large gaps between AMI Montessori and Froebel, London School etc.

AMI only accepts trainee teachers who have already have a bachelors (as a minimum) and their pedagogy seems to be more rooted in experimental results than simply psychological theories (see e.g. Angeline Lillard's book for further details http://www.montessori-science.org/montessori_science_genius.... )

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