Local rules instead of global censorship(redecentralize.org)
redecentralize.org
Local rules instead of global censorship
https://redecentralize.org/blog/2021/01/18/centralization-is-a-danger-to-democracy
220 comments
> I think the reason why centralization is a danger to democracy, is because of lobbying.
Also to add, centralized political systems cannot be truly "democratic". The middle ages were far more democratic than our modern enlightened times. Canadian historian Francis Dupuis-Déri writing in the book "Démocratie: Histoire politique d’un mot aux États-Unis et en France":
"During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, thousands of villages had an organized assembly where communal decisions were made. The 'community of inhabitants', which even had legal status, functioned for centuries by a process of self-management. Kings and nobles were content to manage affairs related to wars or their own private property, to administer justice, and to now and then mobilize their subjects for common chores. The hierarchical or aristocratic authorities did not interfere in the affairs of the community, which met to deliberate on political communal, financial, judicial and parochial issues. They discussed the sharing of the harvest and sale of the surplus, the cutting of wood on communal land, the repair of bridges, wells and mills, and the hiring of instructors, shepherds, watchmakers, forest guards, sometimes even parish priests, and guards when brigands, wolves or epidemics were rampant. They designated those who would serve in the militia, debated the obligation of lodging the royal court should it visit, or the utility of sending a notable to submit to the court of grievances in the nature of community."
Also to add, centralized political systems cannot be truly "democratic". The middle ages were far more democratic than our modern enlightened times. Canadian historian Francis Dupuis-Déri writing in the book "Démocratie: Histoire politique d’un mot aux États-Unis et en France":
"During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, thousands of villages had an organized assembly where communal decisions were made. The 'community of inhabitants', which even had legal status, functioned for centuries by a process of self-management. Kings and nobles were content to manage affairs related to wars or their own private property, to administer justice, and to now and then mobilize their subjects for common chores. The hierarchical or aristocratic authorities did not interfere in the affairs of the community, which met to deliberate on political communal, financial, judicial and parochial issues. They discussed the sharing of the harvest and sale of the surplus, the cutting of wood on communal land, the repair of bridges, wells and mills, and the hiring of instructors, shepherds, watchmakers, forest guards, sometimes even parish priests, and guards when brigands, wolves or epidemics were rampant. They designated those who would serve in the militia, debated the obligation of lodging the royal court should it visit, or the utility of sending a notable to submit to the court of grievances in the nature of community."
I have to disagree with such a broad statement covering a period of, what, 600 years. Neither do I agree with the premise that leaving small communities alone, not having the populace or these communities a say in larger affairs, and limiting access to te community decisions to a select few people to be more democratic than our current system.
> broad statement covering a period of, what, 600 years
not only was it long period but the Middle Ages are only ever brought up by people educated by a Western/ized idea of history.
My point stands because we would never hear of systems that "worked" in a decentralized way because required power structures would have never been in place for them to leave any impact that people will feel should be noted in the history books. James C Scott[1] does a great job tracing decentralized societies fleeing the Chinese empire over a period of several hundred years and settling in the hard to access hills of South East Asia.
A successful decentralized society wouldn't be in our history book because the measure of success is different in these systems. In fact things that are a failure in one system are a success in the other.
In the same way today, groups like the Jawara/Andaman or similar tribes will always remain a footnote in our books, at least until their successful assimilated into our own "superior" culture, and then we give them an honorary mention (= by then their way of living is destroyed ofc).
Another way to read this (and the way I personally do) is that a successful decentralized alternative is often the by-product of (an over-reaching) centralized system. Take a look for what the state labels as crooks, outlaws, degenerates, pirates, insurgents, terrorists, or anyone they are struggling to tax and prosecute, ... in modern times Roma/gypsies are the only ones left who come to mind. Everyone else we eradicate!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C._Scott#The_Art_of_Not_...
not only was it long period but the Middle Ages are only ever brought up by people educated by a Western/ized idea of history.
My point stands because we would never hear of systems that "worked" in a decentralized way because required power structures would have never been in place for them to leave any impact that people will feel should be noted in the history books. James C Scott[1] does a great job tracing decentralized societies fleeing the Chinese empire over a period of several hundred years and settling in the hard to access hills of South East Asia.
A successful decentralized society wouldn't be in our history book because the measure of success is different in these systems. In fact things that are a failure in one system are a success in the other.
In the same way today, groups like the Jawara/Andaman or similar tribes will always remain a footnote in our books, at least until their successful assimilated into our own "superior" culture, and then we give them an honorary mention (= by then their way of living is destroyed ofc).
Another way to read this (and the way I personally do) is that a successful decentralized alternative is often the by-product of (an over-reaching) centralized system. Take a look for what the state labels as crooks, outlaws, degenerates, pirates, insurgents, terrorists, or anyone they are struggling to tax and prosecute, ... in modern times Roma/gypsies are the only ones left who come to mind. Everyone else we eradicate!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C._Scott#The_Art_of_Not_...
That works if people's only businesses are what is needed by the small community/tribe. We've reached a point where thanks to a millenia of technological advance, a fraction of the populace works in agriculture. Instead I work in a business that sells a niche enough product that we might have a customer ever other week from somewhere in Europe. In order for that to work, we can't only have customers in our town or its immediate neighbours.
So we can have more devolvement, an endless argument here in the UK, but centralised money structures, standards bodies, transport networks, etc are required for this to be feasible. Already we complain that the more niche ideas can be more successful in the US because there's a larger home market.
So we can have more devolvement, an endless argument here in the UK, but centralised money structures, standards bodies, transport networks, etc are required for this to be feasible. Already we complain that the more niche ideas can be more successful in the US because there's a larger home market.
yes I agree. IMO it looks to us like the only "natural" way for humans is a centralized system/power structure because we simply are unable to envision a world which is not. It also would require an unrealistic "deprogramming" of society which makes the idea just another utopia (at least not achievable without huge sacrifice to what we hold dear today). The more likely scenario in which this is more realistic is after a total collapse of anything we associate today with society/humans. Even after collapse we'd have probably lost everyone except the most brutal selfish individuals and therefore we'd have to again first go through similar phases of central power structure ...
To paraphrase Zizek's quote on the end of capitalism: We are so far down that road, that it's easier to imagine the end of the humanity than it is to imagine humanity living in a decentralized society.
To paraphrase Zizek's quote on the end of capitalism: We are so far down that road, that it's easier to imagine the end of the humanity than it is to imagine humanity living in a decentralized society.
While I'm personally a big fan of zomia, it should be noted that it's received a lot of criticism and has been notoriously hard to operationalize. There are probably less controversial examples to use here.
(as you might be able to tell) this is of great interest to me so if you have any reading recommendations I'd appreciate them (thanks).
some of the people (other than Scott) who influenced my thinking on this would be:
Berger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_L._Berger (especially http://perflensburg.se/Berger%20social-construction-of-reali...)
Jacques Ellul https://archive.org/details/JacquesEllulTheTechnologicalSoci... (also Propaganda)
and Nassim Taleb (e.g. his view on Switzerland) ...
also I'm admittedly thin on anthropological reading (still have Agner Fog's book on my list since ages: https://www.agner.org/cultsel/warlike_peaceful.pdf)
some of the people (other than Scott) who influenced my thinking on this would be:
Berger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_L._Berger (especially http://perflensburg.se/Berger%20social-construction-of-reali...)
Jacques Ellul https://archive.org/details/JacquesEllulTheTechnologicalSoci... (also Propaganda)
and Nassim Taleb (e.g. his view on Switzerland) ...
also I'm admittedly thin on anthropological reading (still have Agner Fog's book on my list since ages: https://www.agner.org/cultsel/warlike_peaceful.pdf)
Jinba Tenzin has been one of the more prominent critics of it. He makes the argument that it's more complicated than just "outsiders" and "china", but rather that there's a whole range of overlapping, marginalized identities and strategic use of power-relations to evolve things according to various positions. His objection is basically that zomia homogenizes marginalized identities and doesn't fully capture their relationships with each other or with the state. The convergence zone paper is probably the one to read for this.
Caroline Humphrey also gave a talk [1] that I've wanted to cite, but haven't found an excuse for. She's not against the idea, but she brings up a lot of issues with applying it to areas like like Tyva/Khövsgöl, as these were clearly state-spaces despite fitting all the other characteristics. She runs into basically the same criticism as Tenzin in that zomia doesn't encapsulate precisely what we intuitively understand as people about these marginal border spaces.
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297392497_IS_ZOMIA_...
Caroline Humphrey also gave a talk [1] that I've wanted to cite, but haven't found an excuse for. She's not against the idea, but she brings up a lot of issues with applying it to areas like like Tyva/Khövsgöl, as these were clearly state-spaces despite fitting all the other characteristics. She runs into basically the same criticism as Tenzin in that zomia doesn't encapsulate precisely what we intuitively understand as people about these marginal border spaces.
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297392497_IS_ZOMIA_...
This is a criminally underratef observation. Well said.
I would absolutely not call democratic a power system where
the common has absolutely no legitimate say in deciding whether or not his polity is going to be at war with another ( with the consequences of having their crops, family,etc... wiped off the surface of the earth )
by that definition which country in the world is then a democracy today? I'm not being flippant and think your point is really important because it touches on the definition of what we even mean by "democracy", and using your yardstick beautifully illustrates that the only democracy possible would be a hypocrite one. To use an example of our time: we hide our crimes in the complexity of global supply chains and by compartmentalizing ...
I was objecting to the extreme situation in the middle age where in theory, war was a god given right that flowed from the top. I tend to think that democracies live on a spectrum. What you would call hypocrisy, I would call it finding ways to deal with the current contradictions of people aspirations. It's always the first stepping stone.
One advantage of a political system accepting hypocrisy and compartimentalization as statecraft tools is that at some point in the future, it will have to reconcile parts of its actions with its stated values.
One advantage of a political system accepting hypocrisy and compartimentalization as statecraft tools is that at some point in the future, it will have to reconcile parts of its actions with its stated values.
Which is why I would not call the current power system democratic either. But at least they had say over shares in harvest and communal land and the likes, whereas I have no such things today.
> I think the reason why centralization is a danger to democracy, is because of lobbying.
They're misattributing something to centralization which has nothing to do with centralization, casual vs. causational.
A failsafe mechanism is possible here to counter lobbying of industrial complexes. Andrew Yang's policy proposal of Democracy Dollars for example, earmark $100/year to every eligible voter to contribute to politician of choice - which will wash out lobbyist money a factor of 8:1 with money from regular citizens.
They're misattributing something to centralization which has nothing to do with centralization, casual vs. causational.
A failsafe mechanism is possible here to counter lobbying of industrial complexes. Andrew Yang's policy proposal of Democracy Dollars for example, earmark $100/year to every eligible voter to contribute to politician of choice - which will wash out lobbyist money a factor of 8:1 with money from regular citizens.
Which might be measured as the proportion of wealth owned by the wealthiest few, and the rest of the peoples. It's like a majority attack, on one side of wealth, on another of votes.
While the combined wealth of all voters exceeds that of the few lobbyists, in theory votes should win.
It's good to recall that democracy didn't come about in a vaccuum; It came about to displace monarchy. Because democracy is "fair", the aristocrats are among us with at least as much power as any of the rest of us.
The greater the wealth disparity, however, the more power they can purchase by bribing the poor politicians. Which in turn begs the masses to pay politicians well enough that corruption becomes at best unnecessary. The only remaining cure for greed is transparency, accountability, and journalism.
Therefore it is in the wealthy elite's interest to lobby for laws that erode any established amounts of the aforementioned qualities, steadily inching the power structures towards secrecy, carte blanche, and censorship.
Can you think of any government agency that has such powers? I'm thinking of several, and most of them are in the US. Capitalism is allergic to wealth redistribution, which is the true name for the action that begins to solve the issue. The only question is: How much?
One practical example is speeding tickets. AFAIK in the US speeding tickets are flat fees. So a wealthy person barely cares about speeding in traffic. In Finland, a more socialist republic, speeding tickets are proportional to income. So a wealthy person speeding will feel the hurt. Every so often some asshole with a Ferrari gets a million dollar speeding ticket. (possibly exaggerated, don't recall exact amounts)
While the combined wealth of all voters exceeds that of the few lobbyists, in theory votes should win.
It's good to recall that democracy didn't come about in a vaccuum; It came about to displace monarchy. Because democracy is "fair", the aristocrats are among us with at least as much power as any of the rest of us.
The greater the wealth disparity, however, the more power they can purchase by bribing the poor politicians. Which in turn begs the masses to pay politicians well enough that corruption becomes at best unnecessary. The only remaining cure for greed is transparency, accountability, and journalism.
Therefore it is in the wealthy elite's interest to lobby for laws that erode any established amounts of the aforementioned qualities, steadily inching the power structures towards secrecy, carte blanche, and censorship.
Can you think of any government agency that has such powers? I'm thinking of several, and most of them are in the US. Capitalism is allergic to wealth redistribution, which is the true name for the action that begins to solve the issue. The only question is: How much?
One practical example is speeding tickets. AFAIK in the US speeding tickets are flat fees. So a wealthy person barely cares about speeding in traffic. In Finland, a more socialist republic, speeding tickets are proportional to income. So a wealthy person speeding will feel the hurt. Every so often some asshole with a Ferrari gets a million dollar speeding ticket. (possibly exaggerated, don't recall exact amounts)
Calling Finland socialist invalidates your whole post.
It hardly invalidates it, but it does point out how weird US political labelling is. The widespread use of "socialist" and "communist" for bits of extremely mild social democrat public policy.
No wonder there are so many twitter tankies when the right has been spending years saying that communism == free healthcare.
No wonder there are so many twitter tankies when the right has been spending years saying that communism == free healthcare.
Parent didn't call Finland socialist, just said "more socialist".
If one considers "Capitalism" and "Socialism" as the two extremes of an economic organization continuum (which is reasonable), Finland is indeed "more socialist" (or better yet, less capitalist) than the US.
If one considers "Capitalism" and "Socialism" as the two extremes of an economic organization continuum (which is reasonable), Finland is indeed "more socialist" (or better yet, less capitalist) than the US.
Europeans often follow the classical definition of socialism: non private ownership of means if production. Things like so socialist market economies without state regulation thereof, for example, are theoretically conceivable.
However, no European country is socialist in that sense. They have a lot of state involvement, or other public institutions, but they do have private property especially for means of production. That’s all there is to it, and calling Finland socialist seems rather inappropriate to Europeans. Indeed, to describe these different systems, other names are used, for example social democracy, or social market system etc.
For Americans, socialism is just the opposite of capitalism in every particular dimension, not just means of producing. So you can be more socialist in healthcare and so forth, even by having just more state control of things that are still privately owned.
Neither is wrong. It is a semantic misunderstanding.
Americans convey a lot of meaning by using single words. For example, just yelling socialism can now bring forth associations of all kinds, from Sweden to Stalin. Political discourse seems highly polysemic.
Europeans here are to some degree confused. It is not easy to keep up with the context of what socialism all means in the US, and how that meaning constantly shifts and gets new nuances.
But the vividness of it all is linguistically rather interesting.
Anyhow, no one is inherently wrong here.
I would however mention that we converse in English, on a US website. So there is that.
However, no European country is socialist in that sense. They have a lot of state involvement, or other public institutions, but they do have private property especially for means of production. That’s all there is to it, and calling Finland socialist seems rather inappropriate to Europeans. Indeed, to describe these different systems, other names are used, for example social democracy, or social market system etc.
For Americans, socialism is just the opposite of capitalism in every particular dimension, not just means of producing. So you can be more socialist in healthcare and so forth, even by having just more state control of things that are still privately owned.
Neither is wrong. It is a semantic misunderstanding.
Americans convey a lot of meaning by using single words. For example, just yelling socialism can now bring forth associations of all kinds, from Sweden to Stalin. Political discourse seems highly polysemic.
Europeans here are to some degree confused. It is not easy to keep up with the context of what socialism all means in the US, and how that meaning constantly shifts and gets new nuances.
But the vividness of it all is linguistically rather interesting.
Anyhow, no one is inherently wrong here.
I would however mention that we converse in English, on a US website. So there is that.
I think it’s Americans that are confused. They don’t allow any subtlety but scream “socialism” as soon as something deviates the slightest bit from their current system. This is probably by design to suppress meaningful discussion of a system that benefits the people on the top.
Americans being confused is hardly something one can avoid.
It's a false dichotomy. Both can coexist.
Both can coexist, but you can do it in a more capitalism or more socialist way.
Take e.g. healthcare. You can have all private healthcare (capitalist), a public and private sector coexisting (mixed), or exclusively public provider (socialist).
And that's just a sector. You can have socialist healthcare but capitalist manufacturing. Every economy is mixed, but it can balance to one side or the other.
(btw, all modern economies tend to be capitalist, but social democracies in Europe are definitely less capitalist than the US)
Take e.g. healthcare. You can have all private healthcare (capitalist), a public and private sector coexisting (mixed), or exclusively public provider (socialist).
And that's just a sector. You can have socialist healthcare but capitalist manufacturing. Every economy is mixed, but it can balance to one side or the other.
(btw, all modern economies tend to be capitalist, but social democracies in Europe are definitely less capitalist than the US)
A big chunk of European systems are neither of those three, there are three axes, one is regulation, another the practice, and the final one is funding.
France for example, has mostly public funding, relatively heavy regulation (prices are fixed), but practice remains mostly private (though mixed in hospitals).
Switzerland has mostly private funding, even heavier regulation (insurance is mandatory and you can't be refused for pre-existing conditions, for example), and most practice is private (some public hospitals).
The big elephant in the room in US healthcare is that funding is 50/50, yet you can only benefit from the public part by being old or extremely poor.
France for example, has mostly public funding, relatively heavy regulation (prices are fixed), but practice remains mostly private (though mixed in hospitals).
Switzerland has mostly private funding, even heavier regulation (insurance is mandatory and you can't be refused for pre-existing conditions, for example), and most practice is private (some public hospitals).
The big elephant in the room in US healthcare is that funding is 50/50, yet you can only benefit from the public part by being old or extremely poor.
That is an oversimplification. There is more defining Socialism than just healthcare. And having a solid social system in place is hardly a socialist thing.
I think their overall point is that it's possible to have sectors of the economy non-privately owned. Healthcare is a common one, but there's others - power generation, transit, education, etc.
If your definition of socialism is that absolutely all sectors of the economy are non-privately owned, then even places like Cuba don't qualify.
If your definition of capitalism is that absolutely all sectors of the economy ARE privately owned, the U.S. isn't a capitalist country.
If your definition of socialism is that absolutely all sectors of the economy are non-privately owned, then even places like Cuba don't qualify.
If your definition of capitalism is that absolutely all sectors of the economy ARE privately owned, the U.S. isn't a capitalist country.
Thank you, that was exactly my point.
nope, they cannot. in the real meaning of the words: capitalism protects unlimited capital accumulation and socialism forbids it.
they are at odds.
currently most nations have capitalism, often with some social policies in place (mainly to prevent uprisings).
they are at odds.
currently most nations have capitalism, often with some social policies in place (mainly to prevent uprisings).
I see this “mainly to prevent uprisings” idea asserted in lots of places but it strikes me as highly cynical. What’s the evidence this is the case? Even if a social policy was first introduced in response to uprisings, that doesn’t demonstrate that simply quelling the uprising was its sole purpose then, and it certainly doesn’t mean that’s the reason for its continued existence now
Most social policies where the results of strikes and demonstrations. See the Haymarket massacre, for instance.
That's a rather simplistic view of the matter.
They do coexist is most countries, just in different sectors. When a country collectively owns most of the healthcare means of production and protects it by law (e.g. by requiring emergency ambulances to go to public hospitals), how is that capitalism?
They do coexist is most countries, just in different sectors. When a country collectively owns most of the healthcare means of production and protects it by law (e.g. by requiring emergency ambulances to go to public hospitals), how is that capitalism?
The central philosophy in capitalism is competition. The world is currently very acutely seeing the second and third order effects of such "winner takes all" philosophy, ranging from consumer-harming monopolies to environment-destroying profit-seeking. If we set socialism as an opposition to capitalism, it rises naturally to represent cooperation; The idea that everyone is entitled to a base level of creature comfort regardless of accumulated capital, and that in coming together to solve problems, rather than trying to one-up each other, problems can be solved more effectively and with less harm.
Competition is the hallmark of liberalism, or a free-market economy. Capitalism and a free market are pretty much orthogonally related (consider, if you will, the ideal capitalist state in which a single capitalist controls 100% of the market).
The central philosophy is capitalism sure isn't competition. It's the accumulation of wealth. It's usually accomplished by taking it from those who create it. Reducing competition enhances that accumulation, so effectively competition is the enemy of capitalism.
The central philosophy is capitalism sure isn't competition. It's the accumulation of wealth. It's usually accomplished by taking it from those who create it. Reducing competition enhances that accumulation, so effectively competition is the enemy of capitalism.
> The central philosophy is capitalism sure isn't competition. It's the accumulation of wealth.
Exactly. And I believe that the fact i have to explain this constantly is due to the very good PR of capitalism. "Capitalism is just free markets". No, it is not. Markets are not free, and capitalism needs more than "reasonably free markets", they need protection of wealth, no matter how much.
Exactly. And I believe that the fact i have to explain this constantly is due to the very good PR of capitalism. "Capitalism is just free markets". No, it is not. Markets are not free, and capitalism needs more than "reasonably free markets", they need protection of wealth, no matter how much.
Now you've got my brain in a twist.
What about the other extreme (apparently equally ideal) case of a capitalist state in which every single person controls an equal share of the market? Doesn't that sound the least bit socialist to you?
What about the other extreme (apparently equally ideal) case of a capitalist state in which every single person controls an equal share of the market? Doesn't that sound the least bit socialist to you?
Not really. Everyone having an equal ownership of capital is not the same as a central representative authority holding all capital. Democaratically syndicated ownership of capital is closer to (true) communism and the complete opposite of socialism.
No, you've described the caricature of capitalism that those opposed to it repeat to themselves to help justify their opposition. The central philosophy of capitalism is that voluntary trade leads, ultimately, to greater and more efficient production. That's not to say it's necessarily a straight line walk or that what is produced is necessarily pretty. Competition is a side effect that comes into play once you are producing something valuable to someone else willing to buy that something. It is a mechanism that keeps check on the bounds of prices and efficiency.
The real difference between capitalism and socialism is that capitalism requires voluntary action whereas socialism embraces compelled action. Socialist "cooperation" and "coming together to solve problems" are euphemisms for a politically powerful group to harness the productive output of the governed for its own purposes, without regard to if the perceived problems or the perceived solutions are real or not. Unless, of course, true socialist policy allows dissenters to opt-out of participation, in which case I withdraw my characterization. Assuming I'm right, I find the notion of "cooperate or else" far less appealing or moral than capitalism with all of the competition that comes with it.
Finally socialism doesn't eliminate competition... it only moves it from the marketplace to the seat of government. There is no grand collective, there is no "public good": there are individuals with differing beliefs, interests, and objectives. Once you put sufficient power in the government: the most ambitious individuals will compete for privileged positions within political movements rather than businesses, political movements will compete with alternative political movements for the reigns of government. Socialism doesn't remove fundamental human desires for prestige and power, it only redirects the energy into the mechanisms of state; and no that's not necessarily a benefit to the poor, or the underprivileged, or any other banner of victimization that you might fly to justify that state. The inability of a government program to fail means that the real world effectiveness any given government program (assuming that it's even a "right program") is secondary to its ability to attract political support. In capitalism, the voluntary aspect allows for failure if the business isn't producing the product efficiently or it isn't producing something that someone else actually wants or needs.
The real difference between capitalism and socialism is that capitalism requires voluntary action whereas socialism embraces compelled action. Socialist "cooperation" and "coming together to solve problems" are euphemisms for a politically powerful group to harness the productive output of the governed for its own purposes, without regard to if the perceived problems or the perceived solutions are real or not. Unless, of course, true socialist policy allows dissenters to opt-out of participation, in which case I withdraw my characterization. Assuming I'm right, I find the notion of "cooperate or else" far less appealing or moral than capitalism with all of the competition that comes with it.
Finally socialism doesn't eliminate competition... it only moves it from the marketplace to the seat of government. There is no grand collective, there is no "public good": there are individuals with differing beliefs, interests, and objectives. Once you put sufficient power in the government: the most ambitious individuals will compete for privileged positions within political movements rather than businesses, political movements will compete with alternative political movements for the reigns of government. Socialism doesn't remove fundamental human desires for prestige and power, it only redirects the energy into the mechanisms of state; and no that's not necessarily a benefit to the poor, or the underprivileged, or any other banner of victimization that you might fly to justify that state. The inability of a government program to fail means that the real world effectiveness any given government program (assuming that it's even a "right program") is secondary to its ability to attract political support. In capitalism, the voluntary aspect allows for failure if the business isn't producing the product efficiently or it isn't producing something that someone else actually wants or needs.
>are euphemisms for a politically powerful group to harness the productive output of the governed for its own purposes, without regard to if the perceived problems or the perceived solutions are real or not
This is unsubstantiated in that it posits the "politically powerful" as having nothing but their own interests in mind. Ignoring the possible retort I could make that then interests of the politically powerful can not only coincide with the will of the people but also be the will of the people - reformation would remove a significant monetary interest which is exposed time and time again behind the politically powerful. The drive to be politically powerful is thereby lessened, or at least changed.
>The real difference between capitalism and socialism is that capitalism requires voluntary action whereas socialism embraces compelled action.
There's plenty of scholarly work both from libertarian socialism, anarchism and defences of socialism from liberal principles; I'd recommend G.A. Cohen on this point.
> Socialism doesn't remove fundamental human desires for prestige and power, it only redirects the energy into the mechanisms of state
It's worth questioning to what extent fundamental human desires really are so fundamental, isn't it? I'm also not convinced prestige and power are bad things; arguably, that drive is how we have democracy in the first place, never mind the American revolution.
>and no that's not necessarily a benefit to the poor, or the underprivileged, or any other banner of victimization that you might fly to justify that state
There's a whole area of philosophical and economic research dedicated to what extent this is a good question - distributive justice and the theory of exploitation. If the only argument is that it's "not necessarily" the case, we'd have just as much of a case against some forms of markets in that they may satisfy consumer preferences as they create those preferences, not to other advantages.
> In capitalism, the voluntary aspect allows for failure
Democracy also allows for failure if the people do not see their will adequately reflected.
This is unsubstantiated in that it posits the "politically powerful" as having nothing but their own interests in mind. Ignoring the possible retort I could make that then interests of the politically powerful can not only coincide with the will of the people but also be the will of the people - reformation would remove a significant monetary interest which is exposed time and time again behind the politically powerful. The drive to be politically powerful is thereby lessened, or at least changed.
>The real difference between capitalism and socialism is that capitalism requires voluntary action whereas socialism embraces compelled action.
There's plenty of scholarly work both from libertarian socialism, anarchism and defences of socialism from liberal principles; I'd recommend G.A. Cohen on this point.
> Socialism doesn't remove fundamental human desires for prestige and power, it only redirects the energy into the mechanisms of state
It's worth questioning to what extent fundamental human desires really are so fundamental, isn't it? I'm also not convinced prestige and power are bad things; arguably, that drive is how we have democracy in the first place, never mind the American revolution.
>and no that's not necessarily a benefit to the poor, or the underprivileged, or any other banner of victimization that you might fly to justify that state
There's a whole area of philosophical and economic research dedicated to what extent this is a good question - distributive justice and the theory of exploitation. If the only argument is that it's "not necessarily" the case, we'd have just as much of a case against some forms of markets in that they may satisfy consumer preferences as they create those preferences, not to other advantages.
> In capitalism, the voluntary aspect allows for failure
Democracy also allows for failure if the people do not see their will adequately reflected.
> the possible retort I could make that then interests of the politically powerful can not only coincide with the will of the people but also be the will of the people
The good old 'those noble and good hearted revolutionaries get to be the politically powerful and the "will" of the plebs better align with theirs, or else...'
In the end, there is only IngSoc!
The good old 'those noble and good hearted revolutionaries get to be the politically powerful and the "will" of the plebs better align with theirs, or else...'
In the end, there is only IngSoc!
With enough distribution of power, true, un-hijacked-by-lobby, democracy is possible and this will not happen.
> The central philosophy of capitalism is that voluntary trade leads, ultimately, to greater and more efficient production.
But only those who have capital get to participate (and even then the system is antagonistic between traders. everyone is trying to extract maximum value). Everyone else is forced into slavery (in everything but name) or left to die on the streets. Your value, as a person, is literally defined by the amount of money you have. If you have none, you are none.
> capitalism requires voluntary action whereas socialism embraces compelled action
This is an illusion. Under capitalism, you can choose to starve, sure. But what choice is that? When your value as a human being is tied to a monetary competition, you are either rich and alive or poor and struggling to survive.
Maybe people should be compelled? Any and all forms of government are essentially that, a force that compels people to behave in certain ways (under democracy, it's people compelling each other). Usually to do no harm as a baseline for civil society. Is that not a desirable quality of human civilization - people compelling each other to do good, or at least do no harm?
> euphemisms for a politically powerful group to harness the productive output of the governed for its own purposes, without regard to if the perceived problems or the perceived solutions are real or not.
Funny, because that's how I see capitalism. The capital elite (who own most capital) force those who don't to work for them (because their value as people is tied to their wealth which they can't survive without) and then barrage them with endless advertisements for consumer products scientifically engineered to be as addicting and rapidly obsolete as possible while offering little actual utility.
> Socialism doesn't remove fundamental human desires for prestige and power, it only redirects the energy into the mechanisms of state
Neither does capitalism. There the energy is directed into profit maximization at all cost and with limited liability for the consequences. And when costs are considered, a money-less person has zero value and is completely ignored.
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It's an interesting discussion. Yes I'm caricaturizing. I'm not a communist, nor completely opposed to capitalism. There's merit in what you say. But just like with communism, we can't look at the idealized version. Capitalism has given us a lot. But it's also destroying the planet, which we didn't know about until fairly recently in civilized history.
Ideally we'd move competition up to a planetary level where we all work together to colonize space. There it probably causes the least harm.
But only those who have capital get to participate (and even then the system is antagonistic between traders. everyone is trying to extract maximum value). Everyone else is forced into slavery (in everything but name) or left to die on the streets. Your value, as a person, is literally defined by the amount of money you have. If you have none, you are none.
> capitalism requires voluntary action whereas socialism embraces compelled action
This is an illusion. Under capitalism, you can choose to starve, sure. But what choice is that? When your value as a human being is tied to a monetary competition, you are either rich and alive or poor and struggling to survive.
Maybe people should be compelled? Any and all forms of government are essentially that, a force that compels people to behave in certain ways (under democracy, it's people compelling each other). Usually to do no harm as a baseline for civil society. Is that not a desirable quality of human civilization - people compelling each other to do good, or at least do no harm?
> euphemisms for a politically powerful group to harness the productive output of the governed for its own purposes, without regard to if the perceived problems or the perceived solutions are real or not.
Funny, because that's how I see capitalism. The capital elite (who own most capital) force those who don't to work for them (because their value as people is tied to their wealth which they can't survive without) and then barrage them with endless advertisements for consumer products scientifically engineered to be as addicting and rapidly obsolete as possible while offering little actual utility.
> Socialism doesn't remove fundamental human desires for prestige and power, it only redirects the energy into the mechanisms of state
Neither does capitalism. There the energy is directed into profit maximization at all cost and with limited liability for the consequences. And when costs are considered, a money-less person has zero value and is completely ignored.
------------
It's an interesting discussion. Yes I'm caricaturizing. I'm not a communist, nor completely opposed to capitalism. There's merit in what you say. But just like with communism, we can't look at the idealized version. Capitalism has given us a lot. But it's also destroying the planet, which we didn't know about until fairly recently in civilized history.
Ideally we'd move competition up to a planetary level where we all work together to colonize space. There it probably causes the least harm.
> The central philosophy of capitalism is that voluntary trade leads, ultimately, to greater and more efficient production.
That's also what "market socialists" believe, but still they are very different.
The central underpinning of capitalism is the protection of personal wealth, ad infinitum. Thereby allowing capitalists a.k.a. billionaires to exist.
That's also what "market socialists" believe, but still they are very different.
The central underpinning of capitalism is the protection of personal wealth, ad infinitum. Thereby allowing capitalists a.k.a. billionaires to exist.
Finland maintains a healthy distance to the west's extreme capitalism. Healthcare is free. Education is free (and mandatory). Housing is free. Water is free. Electricity is free. Internet is free. The government owns the only railroad. Many governments, including the current one, consist of majority Social Democratic Party. Convicted criminals can still vote. All males are drafted into the army. Newborns receive a free package of baby products. Taxes are among the highest in the world (wealth redistribution). There is a sizable political national-socialist sentiment (a little worrying even).
I'll grant you, the communist-leaning powers did lose the civil war in 1918 though.
I'll grant you, the communist-leaning powers did lose the civil war in 1918 though.
> Education is free (and mandatory).
Yes.
> Healthcare is free.
Not quite, but close. There's a token payment for using the services. Prescription meds are covered when they go over ~€500/year. Social services will cover for you if you can't pay.
> Housing is free. Water is free. Electricity is free. Internet is free.
No, unless you have no property (you need to sell or lose everything first) and no income, in which case the social services covers the basic necessities for you: housing, water, electricity, even internet access are considered basic necessities.
> Convicted criminals can still vote. All males are drafted into the army.
I don't see what either of these has to do with capitalist/socialist.
Yes.
> Healthcare is free.
Not quite, but close. There's a token payment for using the services. Prescription meds are covered when they go over ~€500/year. Social services will cover for you if you can't pay.
> Housing is free. Water is free. Electricity is free. Internet is free.
No, unless you have no property (you need to sell or lose everything first) and no income, in which case the social services covers the basic necessities for you: housing, water, electricity, even internet access are considered basic necessities.
> Convicted criminals can still vote. All males are drafted into the army.
I don't see what either of these has to do with capitalist/socialist.
None of those are policies exclusive to a socialist system. But what do i know about Social Democracy, im just Swedish.
But you do know that historically, 'Social Democratic' is just a name chosen by European socialist parties for themselves? The membership list[1] of the Party of European Socialists (known as Europeiska socialdemokratiska partiet in Swedish) reflects this to this day.
It is of course true that a Social Democracy is not a fully socialist society, but that discussion was already had last century during the Revisionismusdebatt kicked off by Eduard Bernstein in 1896.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_of_European_Socialists#M...
It is of course true that a Social Democracy is not a fully socialist society, but that discussion was already had last century during the Revisionismusdebatt kicked off by Eduard Bernstein in 1896.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_of_European_Socialists#M...
Yes, but these parties use 'social democratic' after a split of socialist parties in 1920s into social democratic parties and communist parties. So no need to use 'socialist' instead of 'social democratic' unless you want to dogwhistle to communist supporters.
Also note that this meaning of term 'socialist' is rather archaic (and not in opposition to term 'capitalist'). The modern meaning of 'socialism' is to describe economic system in countries of soviet communist bloc.
Also note that this meaning of term 'socialist' is rather archaic (and not in opposition to term 'capitalist'). The modern meaning of 'socialism' is to describe economic system in countries of soviet communist bloc.
> Yes, but these parties use 'social democratic' after a split of socialist parties in 1920s
Depends on the country: The parties are still called 'socialist' to this day in Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain.
> The modern meaning of 'socialism' is to describe economic system in countries of soviet communist bloc.
Quote German Wikipedia on Sozialismus[1], which views Sozialdemokratie as one of its branches:
> Demzufolge wird auch grob zwischen den Ausrichtungen von Kommunismus, Sozialdemokratie oder Anarchismus differenziert.
> Hence one differentiates roughly between the strains of Communism, Social Democracy or Anarchism.
Quote Wikipedia on Sozialdemokratie[2]:
> Sozialdemokratie ist eine politische Bewegung und politische Ideologie der Linken, die sich selbst – mal mehr, mal weniger stark ausgeprägt – als Form eines reformistischen demokratischen Sozialismus betrachtet.
> Social Democracy is a political movement and political ideology of the left, which views itself - sometimes to a greater, sometimes to a lesser extent - as a form of reformist democratic socialism.
Quote Hamburger Programm, the German SPD's party platform[3]:
> The end of the soviet type state socialism did not disprove the idea of democratic socialism but it clearly confirmed the orientation of social democracy towards core values. In our understanding democratic socialism remains the vision of a free and fair society in solidarity. Its realization is a permanent task for us. The principle for our actions is social democracy.
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sozialismus
[2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sozialdemokratie
[3] https://www.spd.de/fileadmin/Dokumente/Beschluesse/Grundsatz...
Depends on the country: The parties are still called 'socialist' to this day in Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain.
> The modern meaning of 'socialism' is to describe economic system in countries of soviet communist bloc.
Quote German Wikipedia on Sozialismus[1], which views Sozialdemokratie as one of its branches:
> Demzufolge wird auch grob zwischen den Ausrichtungen von Kommunismus, Sozialdemokratie oder Anarchismus differenziert.
> Hence one differentiates roughly between the strains of Communism, Social Democracy or Anarchism.
Quote Wikipedia on Sozialdemokratie[2]:
> Sozialdemokratie ist eine politische Bewegung und politische Ideologie der Linken, die sich selbst – mal mehr, mal weniger stark ausgeprägt – als Form eines reformistischen demokratischen Sozialismus betrachtet.
> Social Democracy is a political movement and political ideology of the left, which views itself - sometimes to a greater, sometimes to a lesser extent - as a form of reformist democratic socialism.
Quote Hamburger Programm, the German SPD's party platform[3]:
> The end of the soviet type state socialism did not disprove the idea of democratic socialism but it clearly confirmed the orientation of social democracy towards core values. In our understanding democratic socialism remains the vision of a free and fair society in solidarity. Its realization is a permanent task for us. The principle for our actions is social democracy.
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sozialismus
[2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sozialdemokratie
[3] https://www.spd.de/fileadmin/Dokumente/Beschluesse/Grundsatz...
Please indicate which of these policies are presented by the extremely capitalist US, which I compared Finland to.
> Electricity is free
That's hard to believe. Can I just go there (as an EU citizen) and mine bitcoins for free?
That's hard to believe. Can I just go there (as an EU citizen) and mine bitcoins for free?
Free to a point. The government has a (supposedly) reasonable ceiling for electricity consumption. I actually hit that ceiling a while back, but got the decision overturned by complaining about it. I'm running a fair bit of tech 24/7 including electric heating (given Finland winters), no bitcoins though.
I've yet to study the exact nature of the EU with regards to social support, so I don't know if you could just come here and collect welfare.
I've yet to study the exact nature of the EU with regards to social support, so I don't know if you could just come here and collect welfare.
I don't understand your last sentence. Is electricity free only for those who collect social welfare?
Yes. You have to be a Finnish citizen with no income to qualify.
Everyone not participating in the capitalist economy (by owning business or being employed at one) is essentially a government/military reserve employee on indefinite paid leave receiving a budget that covers virtually all living expenses to quite a reasonable standard. And it's baseline, every citizen eligible, other obligations withstanding. You'd have to really make a mess of your life to not live comfortably.
The only downside is, if there's war, I have to give my life for the country. Which, given Finland's history (defensiveness and neutrality), seems like a good deal to me. Most men get actively recalled to military trainings; I've personally been exempt during peacetime.
I could indeed mine bitcoins for free. But that'd be a gross misuse of my time and resources. I'd rather create something meaningful than literally waste electricity just to prove that I have it (the idiotic quality of proof-of-work cryptocurrency).
Everyone not participating in the capitalist economy (by owning business or being employed at one) is essentially a government/military reserve employee on indefinite paid leave receiving a budget that covers virtually all living expenses to quite a reasonable standard. And it's baseline, every citizen eligible, other obligations withstanding. You'd have to really make a mess of your life to not live comfortably.
The only downside is, if there's war, I have to give my life for the country. Which, given Finland's history (defensiveness and neutrality), seems like a good deal to me. Most men get actively recalled to military trainings; I've personally been exempt during peacetime.
I could indeed mine bitcoins for free. But that'd be a gross misuse of my time and resources. I'd rather create something meaningful than literally waste electricity just to prove that I have it (the idiotic quality of proof-of-work cryptocurrency).
>not participating in the capitalist economy
Does this definition include people who actively refusing to be employed, or is there any kind of law obligations to work?
Does this definition include people who actively refusing to be employed, or is there any kind of law obligations to work?
Including active refusal, yes. It's baseline.
The "catches" to everything being free: - Cannot save any money whatsoever. As with all government budgets, what you don't spend is deducted from the next check. - Can receive a maximum of around $50/month from anywhere else. Anything above that is deducted from the next check. - Cannot own much property. They want you to sell everything and live off that first. - Have to report all your assets and provide bank statements to all accounts. - Have to be prepared to fight the bureaucracy. They make mistakes, and usually against your interest (we won't pay because X). Complaining has always solved all issues for me, but it takes two weeks minimum to get an answer. If you didn't file everything correctly two weeks before you needed it, you might go half a month with no money until it resolves. Unless you show up at the office crying. Then they'll help you on the spot. Information doesn't flow between departments; You have to provide everything any department asks regardless if they have your info elsewhere in the system. Often they require you apply for a different benefit first, even if everybody knows you don't qualify; They require the rejection to proceed. Add another two weeks.
And the real bummer: - If you work, everything stops. So you can't work part-time. You have to earn at least as much as the welfare for working to make any economic sense. It's annoying. I'd like to work occasionally, but there's no point. The choice is between doing nothing and getting X, or spending all your time and energy working 8 hours a day, five days a week and getting X+1. Some people go crazy without jobs; I'm creative and self-driven so I make all kinds of stuff by myself. It's pretty neat.
And there's always cash. What they can't track they can't take away... Gifts best given in cash. Unused budget best withdrawn from an ATM and stashed in the matress. God UBI would do so much good here. People stuck in this "welfare trap" could actually work a little to improve their standing.
The "catches" to everything being free: - Cannot save any money whatsoever. As with all government budgets, what you don't spend is deducted from the next check. - Can receive a maximum of around $50/month from anywhere else. Anything above that is deducted from the next check. - Cannot own much property. They want you to sell everything and live off that first. - Have to report all your assets and provide bank statements to all accounts. - Have to be prepared to fight the bureaucracy. They make mistakes, and usually against your interest (we won't pay because X). Complaining has always solved all issues for me, but it takes two weeks minimum to get an answer. If you didn't file everything correctly two weeks before you needed it, you might go half a month with no money until it resolves. Unless you show up at the office crying. Then they'll help you on the spot. Information doesn't flow between departments; You have to provide everything any department asks regardless if they have your info elsewhere in the system. Often they require you apply for a different benefit first, even if everybody knows you don't qualify; They require the rejection to proceed. Add another two weeks.
And the real bummer: - If you work, everything stops. So you can't work part-time. You have to earn at least as much as the welfare for working to make any economic sense. It's annoying. I'd like to work occasionally, but there's no point. The choice is between doing nothing and getting X, or spending all your time and energy working 8 hours a day, five days a week and getting X+1. Some people go crazy without jobs; I'm creative and self-driven so I make all kinds of stuff by myself. It's pretty neat.
And there's always cash. What they can't track they can't take away... Gifts best given in cash. Unused budget best withdrawn from an ATM and stashed in the matress. God UBI would do so much good here. People stuck in this "welfare trap" could actually work a little to improve their standing.
Seems like you and everyone in the replies to your comment may have misconstrued what the parent meant; if he's from Europe, socialist isn't a dirty word like the US. In most of Europe it's quite a positive thing to say your government is more socialist, or has more socialist policies
It should be mentioned that Denmark, which has often been pointed to as an example of a successful socialist country is not socialist. The country's politicians vociferously protest against this label and going by Engels' own definition, the country is not at all socialist.
It is extremely capitalist with classical hierarchies of business ownership. High tax, free healthcare and free schooling does not make a country even remotely socialist.
It is extremely capitalist with classical hierarchies of business ownership. High tax, free healthcare and free schooling does not make a country even remotely socialist.
So what does make a country even remotely socialist, in your opinion?
Workers owning the means of production.
That sounds a lot more socialist than just "remotely". According to Wikipedia, it's the defining characteristic of socialism.
If it doesn't meet this definition, I wouldn't call it socialist. Otherwise, the word socialism would lose its meaning. California having high taxes does not make it socialist. Austria having free education does not make it socialist.
Purple is more red than blue is red. This doesn't make the word "red" lose its meaning. In my opinion, it gives the word more meaning by defining it as a spectrum of quality. Thus we can plot colors on a spectrum of red-ness, which can be useful for certain applications.
Similarily for capitalism-socialism. It is a spectrum. The United States represents one extreme, where something like, I don't know, North Korea maybe represents the other. And Finland is somewhere in-between.
Similarily for capitalism-socialism. It is a spectrum. The United States represents one extreme, where something like, I don't know, North Korea maybe represents the other. And Finland is somewhere in-between.
That is not a good comparison. Blue and red are well defined as high frequency and low frequency electromagnetic radiation. Capitalism and socialism, on the other hand, are very vague terms, and I think the many discussions here prove that.
Take, for example, a country where the majority of things are privately run but are heavily taxed by the government. Is that more capitalist or socialist than a country where most of the economy is run by the government, but the remaining private businesses pay little to no taxes?
Or a country where one party owns everything but pretends to act on behalf of the workers, as opposed to a country where everyone is a business owner? Or a country that has little labor regulation but a strong social safety net, versus a country with weak social welfare but strict labor regulation?
Take, for example, a country where the majority of things are privately run but are heavily taxed by the government. Is that more capitalist or socialist than a country where most of the economy is run by the government, but the remaining private businesses pay little to no taxes?
Or a country where one party owns everything but pretends to act on behalf of the workers, as opposed to a country where everyone is a business owner? Or a country that has little labor regulation but a strong social safety net, versus a country with weak social welfare but strict labor regulation?
The socialst dream is the class-less, egalitarian, solidary society.
The whole point of reformist socialism is that you should not try to get there in a single giant leap, but step by step, with the fully socialist society more of a Platonic ideal: There'll likely always be a next thing to fix.
Austria having free education does not make it socialist - but it makes it more socialist.
The whole point of reformist socialism is that you should not try to get there in a single giant leap, but step by step, with the fully socialist society more of a Platonic ideal: There'll likely always be a next thing to fix.
Austria having free education does not make it socialist - but it makes it more socialist.
I think we have to be careful here because none of these countries which we have thus far mentioned have any ambitions of attaining the socialist crown you speak of. They like it the way it is: capitalist with strong protections for and investments (education, healthcare) in their capital producing peoples.
Indeed. Hence, not every Social Democrat can be considered a socialist - only progressive ones that still dream of a better world instead of having made peace with the status quo.
[deleted]
Not having some of the largest wealth inequality in the world (look it up).
A textbook reformist democratic socialist policy would be giving employees a seat on the board of directors, or allocating some company shares of publicly traded companies to them.
If Bernie Sanders had his way[1] and this was implemented in the US, the country would become more socialist.
[1] https://berniesanders.com/issues/corporate-accountability-an...
If Bernie Sanders had his way[1] and this was implemented in the US, the country would become more socialist.
[1] https://berniesanders.com/issues/corporate-accountability-an...
Sanders here mentions similar policy in Germany, but forgot to mention differences between US and german corporate governance models (one board vs two boards). In Germany (and many other EU countries), companies have executive board and supervisory board, the later is mainly to provide monitoring role and that is the board where empolyees have seat on.
No, you are even more wrong. Social democracy is not socialism. The state doing stuff is not socialism. A functional health care system is not socialism. The bare minimum of being socialist is to want to transition away from a capitalist system which no country in Europe has any ambitions.
Compared to the US, in terms of the US political dictionary it prolly is.
But no: socialism by the most agreed on definitions in the rest of the world needs some sort of wealth cap that Finland has not.
But no: socialism by the most agreed on definitions in the rest of the world needs some sort of wealth cap that Finland has not.
I think he's Finnish himself, but "socialist" was probably a harsh word here.
I don't think lobbying is a symptom of centralization. You see large concentrations around power centers because lobbyists will go wherever the people in power are. In a decentralized system, you'd still have lobbyists, they'ed just be spread out more.
Lobbying is a consequence of a professional political class. Those who make and implement laws need to be knowledgeable about laws, which is why such large numbers are lawyers. In a government that values competence and experience, those in high positions get there by spending years if not decades doing similar, lower level jobs. But if you spend your life in government, when would you have the opportunity to learn the intricacies of non-government life? What fraction of congress has actually worked on a farm? How many cabinet members have ever worked in a factory? How would a president know what it's like to be a refugee? Politicians need information from non-politicians to form and implement coherent policies that work for the people. Enter the lobbyist.
At its core, that's all lobbying is: relaying the views of interest groups to the people in power. We talk about it as a dirty thing because it is so easy for it to become a dirty thing, but it isn't inherently one. Unfortunately it's a slippery slope from legitimate lobbying to graft: even an honest politician will be more easily swayed by better presentation, more money allows a lobbyist to make a better presentation, lobbyists seek to align themselves with those who have money so they can make their better presentations, and soon enough the original cause is an afterthought.
That said, there is nothing about a centralized governance which makes lobbying easier, nor anything about decentralized governance that makes lobbying less necessary. Your local city councilman is just as clueless about the infinite number of things they didn't do instead of pursuing their path, and they are generally just as open to being wined and dined. Indeed local governments tend to be much more prone to graft than the central ones (though this may simply be due to the fact that there are so many more people to potentially corrupt).
Getting professionals in government the information they need to govern without giving undo influence to those handing them that information is a serious open problem in modern democracy, but decentralization doesn't seem like a solution.
Lobbying is a consequence of a professional political class. Those who make and implement laws need to be knowledgeable about laws, which is why such large numbers are lawyers. In a government that values competence and experience, those in high positions get there by spending years if not decades doing similar, lower level jobs. But if you spend your life in government, when would you have the opportunity to learn the intricacies of non-government life? What fraction of congress has actually worked on a farm? How many cabinet members have ever worked in a factory? How would a president know what it's like to be a refugee? Politicians need information from non-politicians to form and implement coherent policies that work for the people. Enter the lobbyist.
At its core, that's all lobbying is: relaying the views of interest groups to the people in power. We talk about it as a dirty thing because it is so easy for it to become a dirty thing, but it isn't inherently one. Unfortunately it's a slippery slope from legitimate lobbying to graft: even an honest politician will be more easily swayed by better presentation, more money allows a lobbyist to make a better presentation, lobbyists seek to align themselves with those who have money so they can make their better presentations, and soon enough the original cause is an afterthought.
That said, there is nothing about a centralized governance which makes lobbying easier, nor anything about decentralized governance that makes lobbying less necessary. Your local city councilman is just as clueless about the infinite number of things they didn't do instead of pursuing their path, and they are generally just as open to being wined and dined. Indeed local governments tend to be much more prone to graft than the central ones (though this may simply be due to the fact that there are so many more people to potentially corrupt).
Getting professionals in government the information they need to govern without giving undo influence to those handing them that information is a serious open problem in modern democracy, but decentralization doesn't seem like a solution.
It would be harder to lobby in dozens of international jurisdictions, for example, they’d have a hard time imposing western values in Turkey or Iran, for example and vice versa, which I think we’d be better off with.
There are significant foreign lobbies in many nations already. To pick a visible and relevant example, a major controversy over the past 4 years has surrounded Michael Flynn who was acting as an unregistered agent lobbying for Turkey in the US.
Lobbying isn't easier in a centralised power structure. When Amazon wanted favours from municipal governments, it held a competition to get them to lobby themselves to cut taxes and bend rules to earn the patronage of the corporation that was bigger and richer and more important than them.
How come they failed to do just that in Europe? It isn't like some random multinational company can come to Sweden and demand special rules from their national government to do something there.
Well, it worked for Luxembourg, Ireland and the Netherlands. it works between counties, it workd between states in Germany.
Sweden is a lot larger than the average US municipality. Still, Ireland (population 6m) is so determined to continue collecting tiny amounts of tax from Amazon so long as it continues to base its EMEA HQ there, its government appealed an EU court ruling that Amazon owed it more tax...
Apple pretty much bought Ireland's tax authorities.
But, as people keep forgetting, Europe has giant multinationals and lobbyists of its own. I wouldn't presume to know who's on top politically in Sweden, but I imagine Saab (for example) have some influence.
But, as people keep forgetting, Europe has giant multinationals and lobbyists of its own. I wouldn't presume to know who's on top politically in Sweden, but I imagine Saab (for example) have some influence.
Because the EU has rules against exactly this kind of thing. But companies do exactly what you have described in the EU, take a look at the financial shenanigans that Ireland and several big companies have been involved in.
Isn't Sweden openly looking for special deals with data centers?
I don't think you really need that much of a justification to claim that centralized power is a danger to democracy.
Democracy is to place power into the hands of each individual, every form of centralized power necessarily pulls this power away from people and into the hands of a limited number of individuals. Democracy isn't so much threatened but actually harmed by the mere existence of centralized power.
Democracy is to place power into the hands of each individual, every form of centralized power necessarily pulls this power away from people and into the hands of a limited number of individuals. Democracy isn't so much threatened but actually harmed by the mere existence of centralized power.
Actually this is not so clear. One can make arguments either way.
For example in feudal Europe and later on, Europe was divided into very small states ruled by tyrants. The power was highly local but this did not result in more freedom for the people. Freedom actually corresponds well with the rise of nation states that centralized power.
Even today it is not so clear. It is not hard to find local administrations that are extremely corrupt.
I reckon it's more about what power is taken away than into how many tyrants that power is concentrated. If you have more tyrants then technically the power is less concentrated but it's mostly the tyrants that have any additional power.
It would get interesting if you could come up with an example where taking power away from the people resulted in more freedom but that sounds like a contradiction.
It would get interesting if you could come up with an example where taking power away from the people resulted in more freedom but that sounds like a contradiction.
> Democracy isn't so much threatened but actually harmed by the mere existence of centralized power.
What's the essential difference?
What's the essential difference?
Democracy is already damaged by the lack of democratic control even if a centralized power chooses not to harm it any further (the fact that they even have this choice is evidence of the damage).
I think the issue is better described as "corruption", rather than lobbying. Lobbying is a form of corruption unique to politicians, but it's just as possible that someone who has access to everyone's data via the CLOUD act uses such data in a corrupt way, or sells their access to that data to the highest bidder. Corruption is a problem that can occur anywhere down the trust stack.
A focus on individual responsibility for security and for integrity refocuses the issue on foundational Confucian principles (for every individual, be: benevolent, righteous, have propriety, build wisdom, and have fidelity), creates a culture of trust, diversity and competence. These things are much better for a thriving society, whether the label for the systems is democratic, dogmacratic, bureaucratic, or plutocratic.
(p.s. I am Australian, not Chinese. I just have an appreciation for learning from your rivals)
A focus on individual responsibility for security and for integrity refocuses the issue on foundational Confucian principles (for every individual, be: benevolent, righteous, have propriety, build wisdom, and have fidelity), creates a culture of trust, diversity and competence. These things are much better for a thriving society, whether the label for the systems is democratic, dogmacratic, bureaucratic, or plutocratic.
(p.s. I am Australian, not Chinese. I just have an appreciation for learning from your rivals)
Lobbying is often painted as wholly negative but in a democratic system this is actually something important: It brings different points of views and interests to the attention of governments and lawmakers in order to inform the law-making and government processes.
It is not only the "super rich" who lobby and benefit. All advocacy groups trying to make voices heard are lobbying.
The key in a democracy is that lobbying be conducted legally and transparently.
It is not only the "super rich" who lobby and benefit. All advocacy groups trying to make voices heard are lobbying.
The key in a democracy is that lobbying be conducted legally and transparently.
>I believe the premise of the title. But the main question should be: why? And the article does not really answer that, well beyond censorship.
Lobbying does hurt, societies more in centralized governments due to stronger trickle down effects. As the top of the organisation is linked to multiple parts of the system.
But, there is however another reason why centralized governments are really not as effective as we want them to be.
There is the notion that, a centralized system (top down) simply cannot process requests of a society as well as a ground up system (decentralized).
This Idea was articulated by F. A Hayek in his essay "The use of Knowledge in society" [0].
To summarize Hayek's case in point, his reason was that, as requests to process tasks make their way up to bureaucracy, information about the granularities and complexities of the needs are lost. The more bureaucracy the less effective the service delivery.
[0]: https://fee.org/articles/the-use-of-knowledge-in-society/
Lobbying does hurt, societies more in centralized governments due to stronger trickle down effects. As the top of the organisation is linked to multiple parts of the system.
But, there is however another reason why centralized governments are really not as effective as we want them to be.
There is the notion that, a centralized system (top down) simply cannot process requests of a society as well as a ground up system (decentralized).
This Idea was articulated by F. A Hayek in his essay "The use of Knowledge in society" [0].
To summarize Hayek's case in point, his reason was that, as requests to process tasks make their way up to bureaucracy, information about the granularities and complexities of the needs are lost. The more bureaucracy the less effective the service delivery.
[0]: https://fee.org/articles/the-use-of-knowledge-in-society/
I think the problem is with the concentration of power. The fewer people that hold the power the more likely they are to diverge from serving the people into serving their own interests. I think it has more to do with accountability than anything. If you have power over people you never have to see or hear from you have little empathy for them.
> I believe the premise of the title. But the main question should be: why? And the article does not really answer that, well beyond censorship.
There's two types of articles around politicized topics like this:
1. Those dealing with Why: for the unconverted
2. Those dealing with How: for the converted
Both types are necessary, but I feel often articles that are being read by "the converted" spend far too long trying to deal with the "Why" (preaching to the converted). So this article is refreshing in that sense.
There's two types of articles around politicized topics like this:
1. Those dealing with Why: for the unconverted
2. Those dealing with How: for the converted
Both types are necessary, but I feel often articles that are being read by "the converted" spend far too long trying to deal with the "Why" (preaching to the converted). So this article is refreshing in that sense.
Agree to everything you say, but also because of the tyranny of the majority. When the power to shape communities is pushed down and out, smaller marginalized groups are more able to shape their lives instead of being outvoted by people who share different cultural beliefs and morals in larger overarching dominions that apply regulations and resource management that isn't in fitting with smaller different interest groups.
> And the article does not really answer that, well beyond censorship
Democracies are incompatible with censorship.
> Currently lobbies have more power in the decision process than voters (any political sciences professor will agree). So democracy is a hollow word, or worse: a facade, a lie.
I agree that lobbies have far more power than citizens, and that this is a problem. However, maybe I'm misreading you, but it seems like you might be implying that since we don't have democracy anyway, censorship is fine? Of course, that's not true; we don't want to actively invest in preventing ourselves from getting back to something we can meaningfully call "democracy" by way of legitimizing censorship. Again, probably not your intended meaning, but I wanted to address it anyway.
While we're talking about corporations having too much power, let's talk about social media companies--they can influence our society directly. They don't have to pay people to petition congress on their behalf; they can pay Twitter and Facebook for access (think "Social Dilemma"). Indeed, they have so much power that we were concerned circa 2017 that the Russians were able to indirectly use their influence over us to corrupt the 2016 POTUS election; how much more influence must Twitter and Facebook (and now Chinese-owned TikTok) have over our democracy given that they have direct access to those algorithmic levers? The super rich can now lobby and pay Twitter/Facebook/etc in order to pass their policies.
Democracies are incompatible with censorship.
> Currently lobbies have more power in the decision process than voters (any political sciences professor will agree). So democracy is a hollow word, or worse: a facade, a lie.
I agree that lobbies have far more power than citizens, and that this is a problem. However, maybe I'm misreading you, but it seems like you might be implying that since we don't have democracy anyway, censorship is fine? Of course, that's not true; we don't want to actively invest in preventing ourselves from getting back to something we can meaningfully call "democracy" by way of legitimizing censorship. Again, probably not your intended meaning, but I wanted to address it anyway.
While we're talking about corporations having too much power, let's talk about social media companies--they can influence our society directly. They don't have to pay people to petition congress on their behalf; they can pay Twitter and Facebook for access (think "Social Dilemma"). Indeed, they have so much power that we were concerned circa 2017 that the Russians were able to indirectly use their influence over us to corrupt the 2016 POTUS election; how much more influence must Twitter and Facebook (and now Chinese-owned TikTok) have over our democracy given that they have direct access to those algorithmic levers? The super rich can now lobby and pay Twitter/Facebook/etc in order to pass their policies.
> Lobbies basically work in favour of the super rich.
One of the most widely respected lobbies in America is the Fraternal Order of Police. And I don't think anyone would consider them super-rich, or even "rich".
One of the most widely respected lobbies in America is the Fraternal Order of Police. And I don't think anyone would consider them super-rich, or even "rich".
That doesn't contradict what he said.
Does it?
My point is that there are plenty of lobbies in America which are powerful and work on behalf of the non-rich. Fraternal Order of Police is the most obvious, but various unions are quite powerful as well depending on what State you're in.
NRA may be bankrupt, but their political strength is what caused so many to donate for their cause as well. I don't think NRA is traditionally seen as a rich-person thing either.
Think of the "heavy hitters" of American Politics: ACLU, NAACP, NRA, FOP. Decidedly working for non-rich causes. EFF is arguably for rich people (since it represents tech freedoms, and tech is generally rich).
My point is that there are plenty of lobbies in America which are powerful and work on behalf of the non-rich. Fraternal Order of Police is the most obvious, but various unions are quite powerful as well depending on what State you're in.
NRA may be bankrupt, but their political strength is what caused so many to donate for their cause as well. I don't think NRA is traditionally seen as a rich-person thing either.
Think of the "heavy hitters" of American Politics: ACLU, NAACP, NRA, FOP. Decidedly working for non-rich causes. EFF is arguably for rich people (since it represents tech freedoms, and tech is generally rich).
Lobbying in decentralised environment is untraceable
I think this is a very compelling point, and much better than most of the "fediverse is for freedom" talking points I have seen on HN:
> I have participated in many a public forum on Internet governance, and whenever anyone pointed out that social platforms like Facebook need to do more as far as content moderation is concerned, Facebook would complain that it’s difficult in their huge network, since regulation and cultures are so different across the world.
> They’re not wrong! But while their goal was to stifle further regulation, they were in fact making a very good argument for decentralisation.
> After all the very reason they are in this “difficult position” is their business decision to insist on providing centrally-controlled global social media platforms, trying to push the round peg of a myriad of cultures into a square hole of a single moderation policy.
I think if there was a more robust social media market instead of a Facebook/Twitter duopoly, we would have seen at least _some_ platforms move to restrict things sooner, and maybe even a majority of platforms. That would have kept us from hitting a moment so fraught that the President ended up banned from all social media overnight.
> I have participated in many a public forum on Internet governance, and whenever anyone pointed out that social platforms like Facebook need to do more as far as content moderation is concerned, Facebook would complain that it’s difficult in their huge network, since regulation and cultures are so different across the world.
> They’re not wrong! But while their goal was to stifle further regulation, they were in fact making a very good argument for decentralisation.
> After all the very reason they are in this “difficult position” is their business decision to insist on providing centrally-controlled global social media platforms, trying to push the round peg of a myriad of cultures into a square hole of a single moderation policy.
I think if there was a more robust social media market instead of a Facebook/Twitter duopoly, we would have seen at least _some_ platforms move to restrict things sooner, and maybe even a majority of platforms. That would have kept us from hitting a moment so fraught that the President ended up banned from all social media overnight.
I agree with your assertion. And I would add a bit on the "content moderation is difficult" argument.
The current state of content moderation - or lack thereof - on these platforms didn't happen by accident. It's the direct consequence of their business model.
If you create a digital space and you host millions of people, you will also pull in the fraught complexity of human relationships. The digital space isn't free from the same challenges regarding governance of communities you'd encounter in the physical world.
However, the businesses that provide the infrastructure and engineering that underpins digital spaces aren't in the "building communities" business. They are selling advertising and business intelligence. Which is a very different proposition.
As such, the very design of the large platforms never quite incorporated proper tooling that models the complexities of (self) governing millions of people in a central digital space. On the contrary.
Recommendation engines - people who you know, people to follow, this might interest you as well, this article was shared x times,... - do the exact opposite. They have helped shape emerging social dynamics which are spilling over in the real world, with real world consequences, creating social feedback loops that escape control.
Rather then acknowledging this fundamental issue, these centralized platforms assumed that they could solve this through centralized content filtering, or through centralized human moderation teams which have to follow company policies. Which is an incredibly difficult proposition considering the amount of digital data produced daily by billions of people.
So, why did they chose this type of content moderation? Because the social issues that stem from these platforms are seen as an expense which ought to be externalized. There's only an incentive to invest in content moderation to the point where the issues caused by the people they host are threatening the performance of the business model.
In that regard, I think that a "social media market" were platforms provide affordances for equitable (self)governance of communities involves a fundamental reflection/reshaping/rethinking/overhaul of the business models and business incentives that underpin such a market.
The current state of content moderation - or lack thereof - on these platforms didn't happen by accident. It's the direct consequence of their business model.
If you create a digital space and you host millions of people, you will also pull in the fraught complexity of human relationships. The digital space isn't free from the same challenges regarding governance of communities you'd encounter in the physical world.
However, the businesses that provide the infrastructure and engineering that underpins digital spaces aren't in the "building communities" business. They are selling advertising and business intelligence. Which is a very different proposition.
As such, the very design of the large platforms never quite incorporated proper tooling that models the complexities of (self) governing millions of people in a central digital space. On the contrary.
Recommendation engines - people who you know, people to follow, this might interest you as well, this article was shared x times,... - do the exact opposite. They have helped shape emerging social dynamics which are spilling over in the real world, with real world consequences, creating social feedback loops that escape control.
Rather then acknowledging this fundamental issue, these centralized platforms assumed that they could solve this through centralized content filtering, or through centralized human moderation teams which have to follow company policies. Which is an incredibly difficult proposition considering the amount of digital data produced daily by billions of people.
So, why did they chose this type of content moderation? Because the social issues that stem from these platforms are seen as an expense which ought to be externalized. There's only an incentive to invest in content moderation to the point where the issues caused by the people they host are threatening the performance of the business model.
In that regard, I think that a "social media market" were platforms provide affordances for equitable (self)governance of communities involves a fundamental reflection/reshaping/rethinking/overhaul of the business models and business incentives that underpin such a market.
The communities or groups who have gone "rogue" aren't going to care for moderation, they're going to ban/block anyone with a dissenting argument/narrative - even if it's reason and truth - which then externalizes the cost to the rest of society into the physical world in the form of violence, terror.
There are always going to be communities like that. The problem with Facebook and Twitter is that they provide a "radicalization pipeline" to get people into communities like that. And one of the big issues with the riot at the Capitol is that there was an interplay between what Trump/Cruz/Hawley/others were saying on social media and what these radicalized groups were saying. That only happens because there's a very porous border between things, so that you can have a radicalized Qanon group sharing the same space as official government accounts.
> "Centralization is a Danger to Democracy"
Ugh, I figured here we go again, some dumb startup taking advantage of the current political climate to pitch some new social network.
But then I looked, and turns out this is really, really cool. I love it when my expectations are greatly exceeded.
Definitely going to spend some time kicking around this thing more. Cool stuff!
Ugh, I figured here we go again, some dumb startup taking advantage of the current political climate to pitch some new social network.
But then I looked, and turns out this is really, really cool. I love it when my expectations are greatly exceeded.
Definitely going to spend some time kicking around this thing more. Cool stuff!
I had the same process -- I mis-clicked and saw that it has been appeared on HN a number of times since ~2013.
I am glad to see the community continually re-discover this site now and again.
I am glad to see the community continually re-discover this site now and again.
> I mis-clicked and saw that it has been appeared on HN a number of times since ~2013.
Maybe the website itself. This article is fresh from 2021.
Maybe the website itself. This article is fresh from 2021.
Similar here. I expected this to be yet another "decentralized networks are the best join now"-article which pops up on HN all the time, but this one had actually well-thought-out points.
Centralised or de-centralised, why would make any difference? The lies are lies, if you don't have a centralised platform they will spread p2p as long as people can communicate.
What we need is a mechanism for breaking circuits of lies and propaganda. In real world social networks we have methods like labelling liars(You have one identity and you risk it every time you say something), right to defend yourself(You can actually identify and force your way to reach the people who are exposed to, or facilitate it) if you are being smeared for or accused of wrongdoing. You don't have these mechanism in the digitalised version of social networks. Social networks work like cults, your reply to an online mob at Twitter/Instagram/Reddit/FB etc. reaches no one else but your own cult(if you have one).
Oh and believe me, lies are dangerous. In istanbul there are many abandoned beautiful buildings in central locations, many these belong to Greeks who lived in Istanbul for generations but in 1955 were targeted by the Turks who were told by a newspaper that the Greeks bombed the Turkish consulate and Ataturk's birth house in Greece: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul_pogrom
There was nothing centralised about this Progom, the newspaper was not the governments publication like in a Communist dictatorship. Yet, it caused so much pain to the Greek minority and Turkey lost so much as the Greek christian population declined from 120K to 7K in 20 years.
If anything, decentralised networks can be targeted very efficiently by a bad actor and the rest would have no recourse. There's nothing stoping (fascists/communits/liberals/$_YOURBOOGYMAN) to identify decentralised networks, connect to all of them, participate and run a propaganda campaign through a centralised unit that connects to all the decentralised networks.
If there were thousands of decentralised social networks, QAnon could have used Buffer to manage their presence in all of them.
What we need is a mechanism for breaking circuits of lies and propaganda. In real world social networks we have methods like labelling liars(You have one identity and you risk it every time you say something), right to defend yourself(You can actually identify and force your way to reach the people who are exposed to, or facilitate it) if you are being smeared for or accused of wrongdoing. You don't have these mechanism in the digitalised version of social networks. Social networks work like cults, your reply to an online mob at Twitter/Instagram/Reddit/FB etc. reaches no one else but your own cult(if you have one).
Oh and believe me, lies are dangerous. In istanbul there are many abandoned beautiful buildings in central locations, many these belong to Greeks who lived in Istanbul for generations but in 1955 were targeted by the Turks who were told by a newspaper that the Greeks bombed the Turkish consulate and Ataturk's birth house in Greece: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul_pogrom
There was nothing centralised about this Progom, the newspaper was not the governments publication like in a Communist dictatorship. Yet, it caused so much pain to the Greek minority and Turkey lost so much as the Greek christian population declined from 120K to 7K in 20 years.
If anything, decentralised networks can be targeted very efficiently by a bad actor and the rest would have no recourse. There's nothing stoping (fascists/communits/liberals/$_YOURBOOGYMAN) to identify decentralised networks, connect to all of them, participate and run a propaganda campaign through a centralised unit that connects to all the decentralised networks.
If there were thousands of decentralised social networks, QAnon could have used Buffer to manage their presence in all of them.
>What we need is a mechanism for breaking circuits of lies and propaganda.
I think this is dangerous thinking, lies are bad but censorship is worse because someone has to decide what is a lie and what isn't, and that quickly becomes politicised. That never works out well. Since you mention Turkey, look at the current government's suppression of journalism. Freedom of expression must be protected as a legal right to maintain democracy.
On the other hand, freedom of expression includes the freedom not to facilitate other people's speech if you choose. I fully support the Parler people's right to propagate whatever bullshit they like as long as it isn't planning or inciting crimes. Equally I completely support Twitter, Facebook, AWS, etc's right to choose what they do and do not allow on their platforms. That's freedom too.
This is all part of the process of civil discourse. However uncivil it might seem right now, it's something we all need to work out as free citizens.
I think this is dangerous thinking, lies are bad but censorship is worse because someone has to decide what is a lie and what isn't, and that quickly becomes politicised. That never works out well. Since you mention Turkey, look at the current government's suppression of journalism. Freedom of expression must be protected as a legal right to maintain democracy.
On the other hand, freedom of expression includes the freedom not to facilitate other people's speech if you choose. I fully support the Parler people's right to propagate whatever bullshit they like as long as it isn't planning or inciting crimes. Equally I completely support Twitter, Facebook, AWS, etc's right to choose what they do and do not allow on their platforms. That's freedom too.
This is all part of the process of civil discourse. However uncivil it might seem right now, it's something we all need to work out as free citizens.
Why only censorship comes to mind? In fact, you can make it 0 censorship platform where the words of bad behaviour is actually preserved like a relic of the time, a proof, a historical record. An example for everyone to see who said what.
My way of thinking is that if someone mentions(even implies or dog whistles) someone else on a social network, the person subjected to the words should have an automatic right for a visible reply. A reply that everyone exposed to the original text is also exposed. Expand it to issues too. If there is an issue, let's say global warming or geology, the flat Earthers should be able to post a visible statement under the photo of Earth posted by NASA and climate scientists should be able to post a statement to climate change deniers content.
BTW, the media situation in Turkey is much more complicated than your mental model of censorship. The media is controlled through money, essentially the media owners get lucrative government contracts if they play nice with the government(an audio recording of a few real estate developers with connections to Erdogan discussing creation of a capital pool to buy out all the mainstream media was leaked. They bought all of it anyway and got into TOP10 contract winning firms in the world [0]) and the radicalised ones that only few care about are left alone as long as their reach is limited to the radicals. The police isn't chasing journalist as much as main stream journalism becoming non-existent and simply being a negotiation tool for people who fight for power. There's a new hope with Youtube journalism becoming mainstream but of course just recently Google was forced to create a local office to moderate the Turkish content. The government introduced advertisement ban on media that doesn't have a local office to respond to government requests.
[0] https://ipa.news/2018/12/30/turkeys-pro-government-construct...
My way of thinking is that if someone mentions(even implies or dog whistles) someone else on a social network, the person subjected to the words should have an automatic right for a visible reply. A reply that everyone exposed to the original text is also exposed. Expand it to issues too. If there is an issue, let's say global warming or geology, the flat Earthers should be able to post a visible statement under the photo of Earth posted by NASA and climate scientists should be able to post a statement to climate change deniers content.
BTW, the media situation in Turkey is much more complicated than your mental model of censorship. The media is controlled through money, essentially the media owners get lucrative government contracts if they play nice with the government(an audio recording of a few real estate developers with connections to Erdogan discussing creation of a capital pool to buy out all the mainstream media was leaked. They bought all of it anyway and got into TOP10 contract winning firms in the world [0]) and the radicalised ones that only few care about are left alone as long as their reach is limited to the radicals. The police isn't chasing journalist as much as main stream journalism becoming non-existent and simply being a negotiation tool for people who fight for power. There's a new hope with Youtube journalism becoming mainstream but of course just recently Google was forced to create a local office to moderate the Turkish content. The government introduced advertisement ban on media that doesn't have a local office to respond to government requests.
[0] https://ipa.news/2018/12/30/turkeys-pro-government-construct...
> I think this is dangerous thinking, lies are bad but censorship is worse because someone has to decide what is a lie and what isn't, and that quickly becomes politicised.
Thing is first step would be to teach people again critical thinking and what the difference is between objective facts and opinions. Furthermore, something I am missing in this discussion and in general is that the concept of responsibility is lost. Sure you are allowed to say anything you like, but that does not mean there are no consequences.
In the analog world we have libel laws and some limitations on speech ( incite violence, endanger others ). For example in Germany it is straight up illegal to deny the holocaust. We as a society have decided that this is the correct decision for that instance to ensure that it won't repeat itself in some form or another in the future.
Other 'speech' laws in germany make verbally insulting others fineable, because human dignity is the fundamental principle of the German constitution. Article 1, paragraph 1 reads: "Human dignity is inviolable. To respect and protect it is the duty of all state authority." Human dignity is thus mentioned even before the right to life.
Anyways what I am trying to say is that just as in chemistry actions will have reactions. Therefore, speech should have consequences. Ironically, republicans have preached over the years that everybody should be responsible for themselves and their actions, and not rely on others but when it is about consequences of speech they are silent.
Thing is first step would be to teach people again critical thinking and what the difference is between objective facts and opinions. Furthermore, something I am missing in this discussion and in general is that the concept of responsibility is lost. Sure you are allowed to say anything you like, but that does not mean there are no consequences.
In the analog world we have libel laws and some limitations on speech ( incite violence, endanger others ). For example in Germany it is straight up illegal to deny the holocaust. We as a society have decided that this is the correct decision for that instance to ensure that it won't repeat itself in some form or another in the future.
Other 'speech' laws in germany make verbally insulting others fineable, because human dignity is the fundamental principle of the German constitution. Article 1, paragraph 1 reads: "Human dignity is inviolable. To respect and protect it is the duty of all state authority." Human dignity is thus mentioned even before the right to life.
Anyways what I am trying to say is that just as in chemistry actions will have reactions. Therefore, speech should have consequences. Ironically, republicans have preached over the years that everybody should be responsible for themselves and their actions, and not rely on others but when it is about consequences of speech they are silent.
Oh sure, education has a vital role. It always bemuses me how bad education and health care seem to be in the US. It's like a left winger's parody of how bad these things would be in a capitalist system, except they really are like that. It's the main reason I fully support the public systems here in the UK even though I'm a full blooded capitalist and life long Conservative voter. If it ain't broke...
When platforms are centralized one organization can push lies to almost everyone. In decentralized systems these lies sit below the noise floor with the dumb conspiracy theories.
I prefer the Web over the Fediverse. Blogs +RSS/microformats/Webmention are decentralized, and with much better support and accessibility. ActivityPub seems to me an overcomplicated restrictive implementation of blogging.
I'd argue the web is the Fediverse. You access instances called websites, some of which are controlled exclusively by one person and some of which allow you to post on them. The websites all communicate with each other via a protocol called a hyperlink, but they may choose to use richer content sharing protocols at their discretion, and can also block certain hyperlinks or entire instances deemed unsuitable for their website. Websites' moderation policies vary from only one person having write access to allowing users to write and link to what they want alongside content syndicated from other fully independent websites, and users can visit many websites, and be as selective as they like about following hyperlinks.
Turns out people really like the big monolithic websites with the most users though...
Turns out people really like the big monolithic websites with the most users though...
What do you define as the Fediverse?
My understanding of the term is that RSS & Webmentions are part of the Fediverse. Email is probably the best-known part of the Fediverse. ActivityPub is just a new/upcoming technology that's as much a part of the Web as RSS.
Not everything in the Fediverse is part of the Web: email, mastodon & matrix are examples that exist outside of the Web (though mastodon is mostly Web-based, and there is also webmail, Element webapp, etc.).
And obviously, not everything in the Web is part of the Fediverse: mainly Facebook, but also most SaaS out there.
My understanding of the term is that RSS & Webmentions are part of the Fediverse. Email is probably the best-known part of the Fediverse. ActivityPub is just a new/upcoming technology that's as much a part of the Web as RSS.
Not everything in the Fediverse is part of the Web: email, mastodon & matrix are examples that exist outside of the Web (though mastodon is mostly Web-based, and there is also webmail, Element webapp, etc.).
And obviously, not everything in the Web is part of the Fediverse: mainly Facebook, but also most SaaS out there.
Where do you get that definition from? I've never seen email or RSS feeds to be considered part of the fediverse. In fact I've only seen the term being used for ActivityPub and Diaspora.
Fediverse is a new term, so it is typically used when trying to explain newer technologies (email & RSS are well-understood and need less exposition). So for that reason, yes, you'll mainly see it used to describe new things.
It is a portmanteau of federated universe, and as such encompasses the full universe of technologies old & new that are considered "federated".
Federation is a system whereby you sign up to a SaaS, and can then interact with other users of other SaaS due to each of the services synchronising data via a unified protocol. Email is the best-known of these; SMTP is the protocol.
RSS is a greyer area. The nature of RSS (heavy on subscription, lighter on publishing) makes it less like other tech in the fediverse which are heavier on the publishing/sending/broadcasting side. Given the prevalence of self-hosting, it could be closer to being classified as properly decentralized except that there is a clear server/client distinction. It's somewhat subjective: either way if RSS (& WebMentions) are considered outside of the Fediverse, that's only because their paradigm isn't compatible with federation (making the original comment about Fediverse competing with things like RSS/WebMentions moot).
It is a portmanteau of federated universe, and as such encompasses the full universe of technologies old & new that are considered "federated".
Federation is a system whereby you sign up to a SaaS, and can then interact with other users of other SaaS due to each of the services synchronising data via a unified protocol. Email is the best-known of these; SMTP is the protocol.
RSS is a greyer area. The nature of RSS (heavy on subscription, lighter on publishing) makes it less like other tech in the fediverse which are heavier on the publishing/sending/broadcasting side. Given the prevalence of self-hosting, it could be closer to being classified as properly decentralized except that there is a clear server/client distinction. It's somewhat subjective: either way if RSS (& WebMentions) are considered outside of the Fediverse, that's only because their paradigm isn't compatible with federation (making the original comment about Fediverse competing with things like RSS/WebMentions moot).
What we need is "diversity in unity and unity in diversity".
Let's take railroads for example: we want many constructors of rails and trains, but we want them to be interoperable - they need to agree on a common track standard. The internet - we want to have many independent websites, but they all need to use a common protocol in order to have wide reach. In politics we want multiple independent parties, but they should play fair with constitution and elections.
We need both the ability to centralize some aspects and diversify other aspects. For Google, FB and Twitter I'd like more diversity on the front end part - UI, personalisation of filtering and ranking, and on the user data storage part - portable user pods.
Let's take railroads for example: we want many constructors of rails and trains, but we want them to be interoperable - they need to agree on a common track standard. The internet - we want to have many independent websites, but they all need to use a common protocol in order to have wide reach. In politics we want multiple independent parties, but they should play fair with constitution and elections.
We need both the ability to centralize some aspects and diversify other aspects. For Google, FB and Twitter I'd like more diversity on the front end part - UI, personalisation of filtering and ranking, and on the user data storage part - portable user pods.
Judging by the comments on these and similar threads, it seems that the biggest danger to democracy is voters who have different ideas about how the country should be run.
The fundamental danger, of course, is money. Everything else is noise.
The fundamental danger, of course, is money. Everything else is noise.
Money being able to influence elections is called corruption. Money isn't a problem in itself, corruption is. Just giving up and saying that money will always have this kind of influence and that all politicians will always be bought and there is nothing you can do is how you ensure corruption festers and grow.
The challenge is, aside from a few people, most are perfectly happy with money, censorship, etc if it helps their side.
I'ma Brit, but as far as I can see democracy in the USA is working fine and exactly as it is supposed to. The voters experimented with something unusual for a few years, then switched back to something more familiar, they'll get more chances to choose over the coming years.
In fact it's precisely because democracy worked so well that the MAGA core lost their shit and tried to over-rule it. They failed, democracy won, a few extremists are dead or will end up in prison and it's time to move on. I just feel bad for the cop who lost his life, and his family.
In fact it's precisely because democracy worked so well that the MAGA core lost their shit and tried to over-rule it. They failed, democracy won, a few extremists are dead or will end up in prison and it's time to move on. I just feel bad for the cop who lost his life, and his family.
For the same reason, smallish countries seem to be much more democratic and closer to the people (e.g., Switzerland). The "sweet spot" seems to be between 5 and 10 million people maybe?
The list of countries between 5 and 10 million includes more countries noted for human rights violations or recent civil wars than liberal democracies. Even success stories in maximising their geographic advantages like Singapore hardly qualify as 'more democratic'
The factor Switzerland seems to have in common with other liberal democracies of that size is being based in Europe, something it also shares with a larger liberal democracies. Exceptional features like the canton system, regular referenda and not going to war are unique to Switzerland (and arguably not as attractive as they superficially sound)
The factor Switzerland seems to have in common with other liberal democracies of that size is being based in Europe, something it also shares with a larger liberal democracies. Exceptional features like the canton system, regular referenda and not going to war are unique to Switzerland (and arguably not as attractive as they superficially sound)
> The list of countries between 5 and 10 million includes more countries noted for human rights violations or recent civil wars than liberal democracies.
Citation needed? Anyhow, the interesting measure is the total number of people living in small vs. large countries noted for human right violations or wars, not the total number of countries with that condition.
I agree that Singapore is a hellish dystopia, but Switzerland's referenda and its strong stance on not going to war (but keeping a strong army for defense) are undeniable attractive points.
These are the European countries with population between 4 and 9 million: Austria, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Serbia, Denmark, Finland, Slovakia, Norway, Ireland, Croatia. That's quite a "dream team" in my view!
Citation needed? Anyhow, the interesting measure is the total number of people living in small vs. large countries noted for human right violations or wars, not the total number of countries with that condition.
I agree that Singapore is a hellish dystopia, but Switzerland's referenda and its strong stance on not going to war (but keeping a strong army for defense) are undeniable attractive points.
These are the European countries with population between 4 and 9 million: Austria, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Serbia, Denmark, Finland, Slovakia, Norway, Ireland, Croatia. That's quite a "dream team" in my view!
The governments of larger states like Britain, France, Spain and Germany are not without problems, but we're not casting envious glances at how Serbia and Bulgaria are run, never mind Belarus :)
Outside Europe you've got a group which includes central American states famed for frequent coups and revolutions, nations synonymous with conflict like Libya, Sierra Leone and Israel/Palestine, extremely authoritarian post USSR central Asian states, a rare communist holdout in Laos, the absolute monarchy of the UAE and Togo which might as well be having been ruled by the same family for its entire history.
Singapore isn't a 'hellish dystopia', its positively paradise compared with most of them, despite the obvious limits to its democracy. Costa Rica's last half century is positive too, I guess.
Outside Europe you've got a group which includes central American states famed for frequent coups and revolutions, nations synonymous with conflict like Libya, Sierra Leone and Israel/Palestine, extremely authoritarian post USSR central Asian states, a rare communist holdout in Laos, the absolute monarchy of the UAE and Togo which might as well be having been ruled by the same family for its entire history.
Singapore isn't a 'hellish dystopia', its positively paradise compared with most of them, despite the obvious limits to its democracy. Costa Rica's last half century is positive too, I guess.
> Britain, France, Spain and Germany are not without problems, but we're not casting envious glances
Well, I do. Having lived most of my life under the governments of France and Spain, I can say that yes, I do indeed cast envious glances to smaller countries were things are easier to change and apparently more democratic.
Well, I do. Having lived most of my life under the governments of France and Spain, I can say that yes, I do indeed cast envious glances to smaller countries were things are easier to change and apparently more democratic.
You won't find many political scientists or Bulgarians or Serbs agreeing that things are easier to change in those countries. And even most people voting for the other candidate didn't change the official result of Belarus' last election.
don't know about putting a number on things, but imo it boils down to how easy it is to maintain a shared identity and purpose. In general I think it's a universal truth that things are fundamentally and nonlinearly more difficult at scale
Politicians would rather run a large country though so they tend to push for centralization.
This piece does a good job reminding me of the larger context for what I've been feeling the past few weeks. Communications freedom is basically my main political issue, but I've had a really hard time caring about The Purge. It seems basically inevitable after what occurred.
What is happening with Big Tech is the same arc as many other instances of American exploitation - an industry springs up around some type of obvious exploitation, but everybody speaking out about it is ignored because they're preaching against business expedience (eg the handful of HN users talking about centralized webapps being a bad idea for the past decade, outnumbered by those with get rich quick startup dreams). Finally the externalities grow too great to ignore and the industry finds itself in an untenable position (financially and socially). The innovative exploiters retreat, while those that bought into the system fight to preserve the status quo, creating a pleb-vs-pleb political issue while the initial exploiters have simply moved on to creating a new manner of exploitation. Even slavery fits this general pattern, and we're still suffering its resulting mess today.
One question I've been pondering is if polarization/propagandization (foreign or domestic) is even possible at the scale we're observing without these centralized watering holes? It's really big tech "social media" that offers this promise of unsophisticated users connecting with socially-distant low-reputation nyms as if they are other good-faith individuals (ie non-Sybil), essentially filling in the companies own reputation in their place. High fanout bad faith actors (political demagogues) will always exist, but it takes an impedance-matching middle layer creating social proof to enable them at such scale. It feels like that would be harder to pull off if people were only connected to closer nodes by default. Although this is probably a hypothetical question now that such structure has already been created.
What is happening with Big Tech is the same arc as many other instances of American exploitation - an industry springs up around some type of obvious exploitation, but everybody speaking out about it is ignored because they're preaching against business expedience (eg the handful of HN users talking about centralized webapps being a bad idea for the past decade, outnumbered by those with get rich quick startup dreams). Finally the externalities grow too great to ignore and the industry finds itself in an untenable position (financially and socially). The innovative exploiters retreat, while those that bought into the system fight to preserve the status quo, creating a pleb-vs-pleb political issue while the initial exploiters have simply moved on to creating a new manner of exploitation. Even slavery fits this general pattern, and we're still suffering its resulting mess today.
One question I've been pondering is if polarization/propagandization (foreign or domestic) is even possible at the scale we're observing without these centralized watering holes? It's really big tech "social media" that offers this promise of unsophisticated users connecting with socially-distant low-reputation nyms as if they are other good-faith individuals (ie non-Sybil), essentially filling in the companies own reputation in their place. High fanout bad faith actors (political demagogues) will always exist, but it takes an impedance-matching middle layer creating social proof to enable them at such scale. It feels like that would be harder to pull off if people were only connected to closer nodes by default. Although this is probably a hypothetical question now that such structure has already been created.
Counterpoint: Here in Germany there is relatively little centralization. For example, the government could not implement country wide corona measures, which in the end meant that much less was accomplished compared to centralized countries such as France. In France, one can just close borders and announce curfews. In Germany, such measures always end up as the minimum consensus between 16 states.
Frequently, federal politicians pursue policies beneficial for their home state. For example, the current government is dominated by Bavarian politicians, who channel funds and attention toward a state that is already doing well. Indeed this is likely to continue with the next chancellor being likely a right wing Bavarian.
By contrast, people from other states, especially ones with higher population like NRW, feel like they have little to none representation in a federal level. This gives an incentive to vote for opportunistic demagogues.
The same thing is probably happening on an EU level, where many people feel their local government has less power than before, but the EU institutions are dominated by countries with different interests. For someone from a relative minority, decentralization seems to be a one way street. If some countries do their own thing, then I would like my country to be separate entirely.
So I‘d say decentralization can also endanger democracy, as only complete separation can really be fair. In a centralized system, however, there is at least the chance that the central governance actually represents all of the population.
Frequently, federal politicians pursue policies beneficial for their home state. For example, the current government is dominated by Bavarian politicians, who channel funds and attention toward a state that is already doing well. Indeed this is likely to continue with the next chancellor being likely a right wing Bavarian.
By contrast, people from other states, especially ones with higher population like NRW, feel like they have little to none representation in a federal level. This gives an incentive to vote for opportunistic demagogues.
The same thing is probably happening on an EU level, where many people feel their local government has less power than before, but the EU institutions are dominated by countries with different interests. For someone from a relative minority, decentralization seems to be a one way street. If some countries do their own thing, then I would like my country to be separate entirely.
So I‘d say decentralization can also endanger democracy, as only complete separation can really be fair. In a centralized system, however, there is at least the chance that the central governance actually represents all of the population.
To me this sounds like you made an excellent argument for more decentralization, not less.
- Germany vs France in regards to Corona: similar sized countries, yet I venture that Germany has been doing far better than France in dealing with the pandemic. Maybe it is because the local governors have a better idea of what are the real challenges of their regions than some bureaucrat sitting in Berlin?
- Bavaria takes too much money from the federal government: maybe that would be an argument to have less federal taxes and more to the state-level. Remove power from the central entity, and there will be less of an incentive/risk of abuse?
- EU: you say probably to something that every Euro-skeptic has been saying for decades already. People outside of the Germany/France/Italy circle are getting more and more tired of losing autonomy over their lives, business and even who they get to have as neighbors to someone in Brussels, who has more to gain by listening to lobbyists than their voters.
> there is at least the chance that the central governance actually represents all of the population.
No. Not at the scales that we talking about and not at this globalized world that we have. In today's world, all that central governance does is foment polarization in order to run divide-and-conquer of the people. Maybe (if you are lucky) you get some alternance of power so that no single group gets to be in control and some equilibrium gets to be established.
- Germany vs France in regards to Corona: similar sized countries, yet I venture that Germany has been doing far better than France in dealing with the pandemic. Maybe it is because the local governors have a better idea of what are the real challenges of their regions than some bureaucrat sitting in Berlin?
- Bavaria takes too much money from the federal government: maybe that would be an argument to have less federal taxes and more to the state-level. Remove power from the central entity, and there will be less of an incentive/risk of abuse?
- EU: you say probably to something that every Euro-skeptic has been saying for decades already. People outside of the Germany/France/Italy circle are getting more and more tired of losing autonomy over their lives, business and even who they get to have as neighbors to someone in Brussels, who has more to gain by listening to lobbyists than their voters.
> there is at least the chance that the central governance actually represents all of the population.
No. Not at the scales that we talking about and not at this globalized world that we have. In today's world, all that central governance does is foment polarization in order to run divide-and-conquer of the people. Maybe (if you are lucky) you get some alternance of power so that no single group gets to be in control and some equilibrium gets to be established.
Yeah like I suggested, it seems to be a convex benefit curve.
Removing the central element entirely seems to be the implication, but where does it stop? At each level, you lose the benefits of a central structure - such as coordination, support, management of risk etc.
Sure, one can get rid of the EU. But you'll notice that most countries actually don't want this - especially Euro-critical countries in eastern Europe profit hugely from the EU and would never seriously consider going back to the previous state of things.
No, I think the EU is far too decentralized in areas that matter. It has power, to some degree, but it doesn't have real representation. For example, if the EU had a centralized fiscal&monetary policy, things would have looked much less bleak for southern parts of the Union.
For covid, Germany was doing well initially due to having a far better medical system. However, in relative terms, it did poorly. Yes, the pre-established institutions worked well, such as having the most advanced hospital system and the most ICU units by a mile, however everything that followed was a disaster characterized primarily by doing too little. Germany never managed to beat the second wave. France did.
Sure, one can get rid of the EU. But you'll notice that most countries actually don't want this - especially Euro-critical countries in eastern Europe profit hugely from the EU and would never seriously consider going back to the previous state of things.
No, I think the EU is far too decentralized in areas that matter. It has power, to some degree, but it doesn't have real representation. For example, if the EU had a centralized fiscal&monetary policy, things would have looked much less bleak for southern parts of the Union.
For covid, Germany was doing well initially due to having a far better medical system. However, in relative terms, it did poorly. Yes, the pre-established institutions worked well, such as having the most advanced hospital system and the most ICU units by a mile, however everything that followed was a disaster characterized primarily by doing too little. Germany never managed to beat the second wave. France did.
> Euro-critical countries in eastern Europe profit hugely from the EU and would never seriously consider going back to the previous state of things.
The elites of those countries benefit way more from the influx of euros, some breadcrumbs are given to the people and then everyone stays under the illusion they are better off. The central bank keeps pushing money, Brussels and Berlin get happy about it until some external crisis show that the periphery countries never actually changed their ways and now are even more fragile to external shocks and even more dependent on the EU.
Sounds familiar? If you know anything about Greece besides Santorini and Mykonos, it should strike a note.
> if the EU had a centralized fiscal&monetary policy, things would have looked much less bleak for southern parts of the Union.
Sorry for the stereotyping, but this is such a German comment and so short-sighted that if I get into a long response to it my blood will boil a little. Instead, let me refer you to https://nntaleb.medium.com/lebanon-from-ponzi-to-antifragili... who maybe can get the point across better than me.
The elites of those countries benefit way more from the influx of euros, some breadcrumbs are given to the people and then everyone stays under the illusion they are better off. The central bank keeps pushing money, Brussels and Berlin get happy about it until some external crisis show that the periphery countries never actually changed their ways and now are even more fragile to external shocks and even more dependent on the EU.
Sounds familiar? If you know anything about Greece besides Santorini and Mykonos, it should strike a note.
> if the EU had a centralized fiscal&monetary policy, things would have looked much less bleak for southern parts of the Union.
Sorry for the stereotyping, but this is such a German comment and so short-sighted that if I get into a long response to it my blood will boil a little. Instead, let me refer you to https://nntaleb.medium.com/lebanon-from-ponzi-to-antifragili... who maybe can get the point across better than me.
> The elites of those countries benefit way more from the influx of euros, some breadcrumbs are given to the people and then everyone stays under the illusion they are better off. The central bank keeps pushing money, Brussels and Berlin get happy about it until some external crisis show that the periphery countries never actually changed their ways and now are even more fragile to external shocks and even more dependent on the EU.
Are you saying these countries would be better off outside of the EU? Like, say, Turkey? Not sure I get your point.
> Sorry for the stereotyping, but this is such a German comment and so short-sighted that if I get into a long response to it my blood will boil a little. Instead, let me refer you to https://nntaleb.medium.com/lebanon-from-ponzi-to-antifragili... who maybe can get the point across better than me.
Not sure if I am going to read a whole article about Lebanon from Taleb, but I take you'd prefer a Grexit early on instead of the drudgery that is occurring now?
You know, at the time this was often discussed. The honest truth is that no one really knows, but everyone is convinced they are right.
It's really where two understandings of reality met.
On the one hand, you had people who believe (like you I'd take it) that economic systems can use reform and a collapsing exchange rate / exports to improve their lot with separation from the Euro.
On the other hand, you had people saying that this would, at best, eliminate decades of economic growth, and at worst, lead to explicable suffering and a mass exodus. All the while cementing the country in a low-income periphery position by virtue of being dominated by the EU central bank actions.
People who actually remember the pre Euro times will remember this situation from countries dependent on the Deutsche Mark, and will also remember that the Euro was - for that reason - France's condition to allow German reunification.
I guess I never resolved in which camp I fall. On the one hand, no non-EU peripheral country really fills me with confidence that this is a good position. On the other hand, perhaps Brexit will eventually show that such a niche can be found.
Are you saying these countries would be better off outside of the EU? Like, say, Turkey? Not sure I get your point.
> Sorry for the stereotyping, but this is such a German comment and so short-sighted that if I get into a long response to it my blood will boil a little. Instead, let me refer you to https://nntaleb.medium.com/lebanon-from-ponzi-to-antifragili... who maybe can get the point across better than me.
Not sure if I am going to read a whole article about Lebanon from Taleb, but I take you'd prefer a Grexit early on instead of the drudgery that is occurring now?
You know, at the time this was often discussed. The honest truth is that no one really knows, but everyone is convinced they are right.
It's really where two understandings of reality met.
On the one hand, you had people who believe (like you I'd take it) that economic systems can use reform and a collapsing exchange rate / exports to improve their lot with separation from the Euro.
On the other hand, you had people saying that this would, at best, eliminate decades of economic growth, and at worst, lead to explicable suffering and a mass exodus. All the while cementing the country in a low-income periphery position by virtue of being dominated by the EU central bank actions.
People who actually remember the pre Euro times will remember this situation from countries dependent on the Deutsche Mark, and will also remember that the Euro was - for that reason - France's condition to allow German reunification.
I guess I never resolved in which camp I fall. On the one hand, no non-EU peripheral country really fills me with confidence that this is a good position. On the other hand, perhaps Brexit will eventually show that such a niche can be found.
What I am saying is that I wished that the EU never existed as a supranational political institution.
Free flow of people and goods? Sure, excellent. A unified body of regulatory agencies to coordinate development of standards? Yeah, ok. A whole political-bureaucratic system that removes autonomy from participating countries and does not allow members to get into bilateral agreements outside of the block? Hell no!
Were the EU something along the lines of NAFTA or Mercosur, I'd be 129% behind it. But this ever-growing monster that it has become, no way. To me the EU is becoming Germany's revenge for losing two wars: they failed by military force, so now they are taking it over by economic domination.
Free flow of people and goods? Sure, excellent. A unified body of regulatory agencies to coordinate development of standards? Yeah, ok. A whole political-bureaucratic system that removes autonomy from participating countries and does not allow members to get into bilateral agreements outside of the block? Hell no!
Were the EU something along the lines of NAFTA or Mercosur, I'd be 129% behind it. But this ever-growing monster that it has become, no way. To me the EU is becoming Germany's revenge for losing two wars: they failed by military force, so now they are taking it over by economic domination.
>Now, alt-right trolls and white supremacists are all but limited to a corner of the Fediverse almost nobody else talks to. While it does not prevent a dedicated group from talking hatefully among themselves on their own instance (like Gab), it does isolate them, makes radicalising new users harder, and protects others from potential abuse.
I don't follow this logic at all. This is effectively how QAnon spread, as a niche group on fringe websites, before it grew to millions of users. A federated network gives better moderation tools to communities who actually want to moderate, but it leaves the radicalised communities free to grow, even freer than on a centralised network.
Another example I heard of were so called "free birth" groups with tens of thousands of women shunning medical help for births, even bullying women who wanted to seek professional help. As a result, quite a few children and women died during labour[1]
Private/semi private anti-vax groups are of course another huge issue right now. They often have hundreds of thousands of members. On a designated fediverse instance there is no possibility to shut this down.
I see no evidence or reason at all how the decentralised internet stops radicalisation or misinformation. It honestly to me seems like it would make it worse.
[1]https://www.thedailybeast.com/she-wanted-a-freebirth-at-home...
I don't follow this logic at all. This is effectively how QAnon spread, as a niche group on fringe websites, before it grew to millions of users. A federated network gives better moderation tools to communities who actually want to moderate, but it leaves the radicalised communities free to grow, even freer than on a centralised network.
Another example I heard of were so called "free birth" groups with tens of thousands of women shunning medical help for births, even bullying women who wanted to seek professional help. As a result, quite a few children and women died during labour[1]
Private/semi private anti-vax groups are of course another huge issue right now. They often have hundreds of thousands of members. On a designated fediverse instance there is no possibility to shut this down.
I see no evidence or reason at all how the decentralised internet stops radicalisation or misinformation. It honestly to me seems like it would make it worse.
[1]https://www.thedailybeast.com/she-wanted-a-freebirth-at-home...
Think about extremists as any other organization wanting to advertise. Is it easier on a centralized platform or across thousands of federated instances, each with their own moderator?
You can also think of it like a terrorist wanting to bomb people, would you have more success in a dense area or if everyone is spread out?
With more small sites, instead of a few large sites it spreads out communities and insulates them. With centralized networks, it create a "mother vein" where it's easier to plug into a large stream of users with little effort. No doubt capitalist extremists want centralized services too because they can convert everyone to their ideology, consumerism.
You can also think of it like a terrorist wanting to bomb people, would you have more success in a dense area or if everyone is spread out?
With more small sites, instead of a few large sites it spreads out communities and insulates them. With centralized networks, it create a "mother vein" where it's easier to plug into a large stream of users with little effort. No doubt capitalist extremists want centralized services too because they can convert everyone to their ideology, consumerism.
Recruiting in backyard mosques and on fringe internet sites where isolated vulnerable people hang out is exactly how terrorists recruit. Extremists don't advertise like normal people, extremists advertise in echo chambers. If a terrorist tries to create converts in Walmart it takes 10 minutes until the police shows up.
When extremists plan attacks they go to the central spots, when extremists recruit and build up followers they go to the places that aren't under surveillance. The latter is relevant for social media.
A decentralised internet would be a dream for extremist recruitment. It's equivalent to having an ungovernable community of millions sitting in your country.
When extremists plan attacks they go to the central spots, when extremists recruit and build up followers they go to the places that aren't under surveillance. The latter is relevant for social media.
A decentralised internet would be a dream for extremist recruitment. It's equivalent to having an ungovernable community of millions sitting in your country.
Unsuccessful extremists do their recruitment in backyards and echo chambers. If those are the only places they can get new converts, they are not going to be wildly successful.
Successful extremists do it in the light of day, out in the open. When you broadcast an idea that one in a hundred people will latch on to, and you broadcast it to five people at a time, you're not going to get much traction. When you broadcast it to five million people, you're going to get fifty thousand converts.
Notice how we are not having to seriously deal with a domestic ISIS insurgency (Because it has been very effectively driven into the fringe, where it has very limited reach), but we are currently having to seriously deal with... A lot of other ugly stuff, that has been very successfully spreading through mainstream networks.
Successful extremists do it in the light of day, out in the open. When you broadcast an idea that one in a hundred people will latch on to, and you broadcast it to five people at a time, you're not going to get much traction. When you broadcast it to five million people, you're going to get fifty thousand converts.
Notice how we are not having to seriously deal with a domestic ISIS insurgency (Because it has been very effectively driven into the fringe, where it has very limited reach), but we are currently having to seriously deal with... A lot of other ugly stuff, that has been very successfully spreading through mainstream networks.
Please, QAnon is overhyped and promoted by centralized media. On presidential debates corruption was not even mentioned (biggest scandal since watergate), but some crazy fringe group gets 15 minutes.
It is 2016 election all over again, media chooses their favorite "evil" and promote it to death.
Decentralization stops radicalisation, because it allows free discussion.
It is 2016 election all over again, media chooses their favorite "evil" and promote it to death.
Decentralization stops radicalisation, because it allows free discussion.
Free discussion does not axiomatically stop radicalization. There is a reasonable argument to be made that as we've seen communication get easier, it's made radicalization more possible rather than less.
That said, I'd invite you to continue your line of reasoning: decentralization leads to free discussion. Free discussion leads to X. X leads to the reduction in radicalization. What is the X you see?
That said, I'd invite you to continue your line of reasoning: decentralization leads to free discussion. Free discussion leads to X. X leads to the reduction in radicalization. What is the X you see?
There are studies, just google "free speech". Your way does not work, unless you go full China. Then it sort of works fpr couple of decades.
For example I converted several hard antivaxers by explaining importance of each vaccine one by one. They agreed that at least some of them are important. They went to less radical position.
Another example was Brexit referendum. Populists had stupid arguments like 350 million/week for NHS, or about stoping immigration (UK was not in Schengen). It would be very easy for media to discus it, and debung those arguments. But instead of discussion and deescalating situation, they called oposition racist.
For example I converted several hard antivaxers by explaining importance of each vaccine one by one. They agreed that at least some of them are important. They went to less radical position.
Another example was Brexit referendum. Populists had stupid arguments like 350 million/week for NHS, or about stoping immigration (UK was not in Schengen). It would be very easy for media to discus it, and debung those arguments. But instead of discussion and deescalating situation, they called oposition racist.
The idea that you can just debate every point with every person is frankly absurd. It doesn't scale, it's always easier to produce more garbage that will appeal to folks on the fringe than to meticulously debunk it all point by point.
And even if you could keep up, not everyone will even engage. Folks don't want their beliefs challenged point by point -- it feels bad. It takes energy and commitment to be willing to hear challenges to ones own beliefs and not everyone has that ability.
And there's clearly positions that effectively reduce radicalization between fully open and "full China". There are also studies that say deplatforming is effective.
And even if you could keep up, not everyone will even engage. Folks don't want their beliefs challenged point by point -- it feels bad. It takes energy and commitment to be willing to hear challenges to ones own beliefs and not everyone has that ability.
And there's clearly positions that effectively reduce radicalization between fully open and "full China". There are also studies that say deplatforming is effective.
QAnon has made it into the halls of congress, literally in the form of the now infamous 'Q Shaman' but also in the form of elected representatives[1], it's made it to Harvard educated now socially isolated loners who are part of groups that encompass hundreds of thousands[2], and it has even made it to my homecountry[3], where it is co-mingling with anti-vaxers and covid-deniers. It is not a joke at all. That's how far crazy ideas go if they can spread unopposed.
[1]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-twitter/twit...
[2]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/technology/qanon-meme-que...
[3]https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/11/world/europe/qanon-is-thr...
[1]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-twitter/twit...
[2]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/technology/qanon-meme-que...
[3]https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/11/world/europe/qanon-is-thr...
The problem, I feel, is that both centralisation and decentralisation are a danger to democracy.
Centralisation because it enables elites within the tech/media/state to conspire together to wield much more power within a "democracy" than such a system needs to run equitably.
Decentralisation because it allows foreign actors to more-or-less do military manouvres within social media in order to cause particular outcomes (e.g. polarisation, destabilisation, regime change, forming opinions within a population that are economically beneficial to the attacking country, etc).
Centralisation because it enables elites within the tech/media/state to conspire together to wield much more power within a "democracy" than such a system needs to run equitably.
Decentralisation because it allows foreign actors to more-or-less do military manouvres within social media in order to cause particular outcomes (e.g. polarisation, destabilisation, regime change, forming opinions within a population that are economically beneficial to the attacking country, etc).
Centralisation is completely compatible with Democracy. There is no plausible mechanism by which federation would prevent the kinds of issues we’ve seen when giving everyone in the world the ability to publish whatever they like at no cost.
There are many reasons to want a diffusion of power, but defending democracy is not one of them.
There are many reasons to want a diffusion of power, but defending democracy is not one of them.
Isn't diffusion of power more-or-less the point of democracy?
Absolutely not. Western liberal democracy relies on centralised power; it’s not clear that it could function without it.
As an extension of that, getting “power to the people” is usually the rallying cry of someone who wants to weaken the government enough to overpower it in some way.
As an extension of that, getting “power to the people” is usually the rallying cry of someone who wants to weaken the government enough to overpower it in some way.
While most democratic governments currently involve some form of centralization, a pure democracy is one where every person has equal power.
I believe that it's possible, and preferable for everyone to have the same amount of power. A democracy where every citizen has equal power would try to do what's best for as many people as possible.
I believe that it's possible, and preferable for everyone to have the same amount of power. A democracy where every citizen has equal power would try to do what's best for as many people as possible.
In that system, how do you care for folks who experience rare but serious difficulties. The tyranny of the majority gets real complex when dealing with massive populations.
Empathy works as long as you don't create a us vs them situation.
> The tyranny of the majority
Has that ever happened or is that just an argument to let politicians keep their power?
> The tyranny of the majority
Has that ever happened or is that just an argument to let politicians keep their power?
Sure, lots of places. Ask the Kurds how much say they used to have in Turkish elections. Or ask the Welsh what they think about Westminster.
> Has that ever happened or is that just an argument to let politicians keep their power?
Yes? American history is full of situations like Jim Crow, redlining, anti lgbtq legislation, lack of support for people with disabilities, criminalization of people experiencing homelessness, etc.
Yes? American history is full of situations like Jim Crow, redlining, anti lgbtq legislation, lack of support for people with disabilities, criminalization of people experiencing homelessness, etc.
All of those were done by representatives and not the electorate though?
That's a pretty thin technicality. In many places those were majority opinions and the representatives were doing exactly what their electorate wanted them to do.
If you'd like, I'm sure there are referendums and initiatives that are directly voted on that I could dig up. A quick search in my local area says WA initiative 192 was a case where the majority chose to deplete a shared resource (salmon) and failed to protect minority interests.
If you'd like, I'm sure there are referendums and initiatives that are directly voted on that I could dig up. A quick search in my local area says WA initiative 192 was a case where the majority chose to deplete a shared resource (salmon) and failed to protect minority interests.
Are you asking if minorities have ever been oppressed by majorities?
Does the Holocaust or Jim Crow count?
Does the Holocaust or Jim Crow count?
Germany's power was centralized - Hitler was its dictator. I doubt that Germans would've voted to commit the atrocities Hitler commanded.
Americans never voted on segregation. So we'll never know how much sooner black Americans would've been welcomed into society if all Americans had equal power.
Americans never voted on segregation. So we'll never know how much sooner black Americans would've been welcomed into society if all Americans had equal power.
I guess I should have said: what's the advantage of democracy over some more authoritarian scheme, if not a higher degree of "power to the people" as you put it?
If diffusion of power isn't fundamentally worthwhile (and there's certainly a defensible position that it isn't) it seems the important question is whether Western liberal democracy is worth the trouble in the first place.
If diffusion of power isn't fundamentally worthwhile (and there's certainly a defensible position that it isn't) it seems the important question is whether Western liberal democracy is worth the trouble in the first place.
Oversight.
So who performs the oversight over the tech monopolies?
The government, should they choose to take it up.
Centralization is a danger in an environment where there are a handful of individuals 100,000x more wealthy than everyone else.
It is extremely easy to take control of a centralized system when you have enough wealth; and unfortunately, our system has produced more than a few of these edge cases.
It is extremely easy to take control of a centralized system when you have enough wealth; and unfortunately, our system has produced more than a few of these edge cases.
I started to try to understand this debate through a political lens, since it seems so many political people are interested in it's answer.
Centralization is a key tenant to progressivism, largely in the name of efficiency: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism_in_the_United_...
> The progressives' quest for efficiency was sometimes at odds with the progressives' quest for democracy. Taking power out of the hands of elected officials and placing that power in the hands of professional administrators reduced the voice of the politicians and in turn reduced the voice of the people. Centralized decision-making by trained experts and reduced power for local wards made government less corrupt but more distant and isolated from the people it served. Progressives who emphasized the need for efficiency typically argued that trained independent experts could make better decisions than the local politicians. In his influential Drift and Mastery (1914) stressing the "scientific spirit" and "discipline of democracy", Walter Lippmann called for a strong central government guided by experts rather than public opinion.
At first I thought, well hell, of course these people are constantly at odds with each other. Then I discovered this on the dangers of decentralization:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralization#Criticism
> Other challenges, and even dangers, include the possibility that corrupt local elites can capture regional or local power centers, while constituents lose representation; patronage politics will become rampant and civil servants feel compromised; further necessary decentralization can be stymied; incomplete information and hidden decision-making can occur up and down the hierarchies; centralized power centers can find reasons to frustrate decentralization and bring power back to themselves
It turns out the answer to this has been studied and sounds like it's somewhere in the middle:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150211220702/http://mpra.ub.un...
1. Social Preparedness and Mechanisms to Prevent Elite Capture
2. Strong Administrative and Technical Capacity at the Higher Levels
3. Strong Political Commitment at the Higher Levels
4. Sustained Initiatives for Capacity-Building at the Local Level
5. Strong Legal Framework for Transparency and Accountability
6. Transformation of Local Government Organizations into High Performing Organizations
7. Appropriate Reasons to Decentralize: Intentions Matter
8. Effective Judicial System, Citizens' Oversight and Anticorruption Bodies to prevent Decentralization of Corruption
How this translates to Fediverse hosts likely matters and is probably worth reading for anyone interested in hosting.
My takeaway from this is that the web does need to go back to being decentralized, but a loose yet robust framework, like the one described above, should be in place for providers and community maintainers alike.
Centralization is a key tenant to progressivism, largely in the name of efficiency: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism_in_the_United_...
> The progressives' quest for efficiency was sometimes at odds with the progressives' quest for democracy. Taking power out of the hands of elected officials and placing that power in the hands of professional administrators reduced the voice of the politicians and in turn reduced the voice of the people. Centralized decision-making by trained experts and reduced power for local wards made government less corrupt but more distant and isolated from the people it served. Progressives who emphasized the need for efficiency typically argued that trained independent experts could make better decisions than the local politicians. In his influential Drift and Mastery (1914) stressing the "scientific spirit" and "discipline of democracy", Walter Lippmann called for a strong central government guided by experts rather than public opinion.
At first I thought, well hell, of course these people are constantly at odds with each other. Then I discovered this on the dangers of decentralization:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralization#Criticism
> Other challenges, and even dangers, include the possibility that corrupt local elites can capture regional or local power centers, while constituents lose representation; patronage politics will become rampant and civil servants feel compromised; further necessary decentralization can be stymied; incomplete information and hidden decision-making can occur up and down the hierarchies; centralized power centers can find reasons to frustrate decentralization and bring power back to themselves
It turns out the answer to this has been studied and sounds like it's somewhere in the middle:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150211220702/http://mpra.ub.un...
1. Social Preparedness and Mechanisms to Prevent Elite Capture
2. Strong Administrative and Technical Capacity at the Higher Levels
3. Strong Political Commitment at the Higher Levels
4. Sustained Initiatives for Capacity-Building at the Local Level
5. Strong Legal Framework for Transparency and Accountability
6. Transformation of Local Government Organizations into High Performing Organizations
7. Appropriate Reasons to Decentralize: Intentions Matter
8. Effective Judicial System, Citizens' Oversight and Anticorruption Bodies to prevent Decentralization of Corruption
How this translates to Fediverse hosts likely matters and is probably worth reading for anyone interested in hosting.
My takeaway from this is that the web does need to go back to being decentralized, but a loose yet robust framework, like the one described above, should be in place for providers and community maintainers alike.
I also don’t agree with this and might even argue the opposite. Nevertheless, I think in general de/centralization is orthogonal to censoring inflammatory actors. That always comes back to who are the moderators and what are their stances on censorship.
> Nevertheless, I think in general de/centralization is orthogonal to censoring inflammatory actors.
It's really not. The most perfidious thing centralized platforms do is promote controversial content to increase engagement. This is a double fail of centralization because, first, that's their business model, and second, everything they screw up happens at scale.
Decentralizing things would create, let's call it, algorithm diversity. Not everybody is finding things the same way as everybody else, so esoteric garbage mistakenly promoted by somebody's bad code doesn't have as much reach.
And the business model could be different. Or at least there could be more than one.
It's really not. The most perfidious thing centralized platforms do is promote controversial content to increase engagement. This is a double fail of centralization because, first, that's their business model, and second, everything they screw up happens at scale.
Decentralizing things would create, let's call it, algorithm diversity. Not everybody is finding things the same way as everybody else, so esoteric garbage mistakenly promoted by somebody's bad code doesn't have as much reach.
And the business model could be different. Or at least there could be more than one.
The fact a centralized system profits from engagement isn’t inherent to the fact it’s centralized, decentralized platforms are likely to do the same.
As for your second point that their mistakes happen at scale, that is true. But also the things they do right happen at scale as well. All of the automated moderating and disinformation detection that has been in the works happens at scale too. It would be much harder to do similar in a decentralized system because of the partitioning of user data.
Can you please elaborate on what you mean by “inflammatory actors” a bit? Thanks.
refurb(2)
Seems to me he means Trump and Qanon.
swader999(1)
I was hoping this would be about the centralization of the power to govern in the federal government and the need to transfer much power back to the states.
Hmm feels like a great tool to create echo chambers
Maybe, but centralized services seem to have that problem too in practice.
Yup. Instead of having multiple echo chambers on one centralized network, let's now have multiple echo chambers on a decentralized service where it's even harder to hear opposing viewpoints!
The sad reality is that humanity is not ready for something like the Internet. If you said dumb shit in your town's square, you'd get hit upside your head. Say it on the Internet, your little numbers go up and you get a dopamine hit.
The sad reality is that humanity is not ready for something like the Internet. If you said dumb shit in your town's square, you'd get hit upside your head. Say it on the Internet, your little numbers go up and you get a dopamine hit.
There was a debate (not a formal debate but a theme I saw in numerous articles) in the 90's (or maybe early 2000's) among Middle East experts who were involved in pro-democracy movements, about whether or not cracking-down on radical Islamist movements was counter-productive even when they were close to, but not directly involved with, violent extremists.
The idea was that by including such violent-adjacent (but not directly violent) people into the political mainstream, they would be over time deradicalized even if they might praise violence abstractly, they would eventually become invested in the political process and participate.
Many of the articles discussing this talked about how socialist movements of the early 20th century often started out radical but then became centrist.
On the other hand, cracking down on the violent-adjacent would just further radicalize them and push them into the violent underground.
The debate became something of a moot point eventually, in the 90's it looked like democracy advocates in many Middle Eastern countries would gradually gain power and would need to make decisions about whether or not to crack down, of course that did not happen (except in Tunisia, where I think this debate still has some significance).
Anyways the current discussions about whether or not to "deplatform" the far-right remind me a little of these debates in the 90's. Of course, deciding whether or not to "deplatform" is very different than deciding whether or not to round-up and jail everyone, and so the parallels are strictly limited.
The idea was that by including such violent-adjacent (but not directly violent) people into the political mainstream, they would be over time deradicalized even if they might praise violence abstractly, they would eventually become invested in the political process and participate.
Many of the articles discussing this talked about how socialist movements of the early 20th century often started out radical but then became centrist.
On the other hand, cracking down on the violent-adjacent would just further radicalize them and push them into the violent underground.
The debate became something of a moot point eventually, in the 90's it looked like democracy advocates in many Middle Eastern countries would gradually gain power and would need to make decisions about whether or not to crack down, of course that did not happen (except in Tunisia, where I think this debate still has some significance).
Anyways the current discussions about whether or not to "deplatform" the far-right remind me a little of these debates in the 90's. Of course, deciding whether or not to "deplatform" is very different than deciding whether or not to round-up and jail everyone, and so the parallels are strictly limited.
> After all the very reason they are in this “difficult position” is their business decision to insist on providing centrally-controlled global social media platforms, trying to push the round peg of a myriad of cultures into a square hole of a single moderation policy.
Facebook does have decentralized moderation. Every facebook group could in theory individually decide that Qanon conspiracies are unacceptable and remove them, and indeed most do. The problem is a minority won't, and the crazies just aggregate there. And the same principle applies whether the decentralized authorities are subreddit moderators or small site admins or what have you.
Moderation is fundamentally forced upon people against their individual will for the sake of the larger community. If the "baddies" self-censored, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Decentralized authority can work in situations where people can't freely associate, for example if my town forbids me from putting a "Hail Satan" sign on my lawn, it's a significant burden to move to a town of satanists, and even if I did, it would no longer be a problem for the town I left. But online it's trivial to find some place that will let me post "hail satan" and ignoring its existence will just have to be good enough for those who don't like it. There is no "local" on the internet - there is no distance nor natural barriers over which the actions of others lose potency. You are never more than a few keystrokes away from the deepest darkest pits of the internet, and there is no way of ensuring any concept stays in those pits.
I am not in favor of global censorship as I feel the harm outweighs the good. Unfortunately, local censorship is not a way to have our cake and eat it too.
Facebook does have decentralized moderation. Every facebook group could in theory individually decide that Qanon conspiracies are unacceptable and remove them, and indeed most do. The problem is a minority won't, and the crazies just aggregate there. And the same principle applies whether the decentralized authorities are subreddit moderators or small site admins or what have you.
Moderation is fundamentally forced upon people against their individual will for the sake of the larger community. If the "baddies" self-censored, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Decentralized authority can work in situations where people can't freely associate, for example if my town forbids me from putting a "Hail Satan" sign on my lawn, it's a significant burden to move to a town of satanists, and even if I did, it would no longer be a problem for the town I left. But online it's trivial to find some place that will let me post "hail satan" and ignoring its existence will just have to be good enough for those who don't like it. There is no "local" on the internet - there is no distance nor natural barriers over which the actions of others lose potency. You are never more than a few keystrokes away from the deepest darkest pits of the internet, and there is no way of ensuring any concept stays in those pits.
I am not in favor of global censorship as I feel the harm outweighs the good. Unfortunately, local censorship is not a way to have our cake and eat it too.
[deleted]
isnt this what india china kazhakistan and other places are doing?
Centralization without decentralized failsafes is a danger to democracy; FTFU.
kortilla(1)
TL;DR: Centralization is a danger to democracy because we can more effectively silence people if we have decentralization.
Too bad the deplatforming did not stop the insurrection at the US Capitol. But I'm sure if you just do it harder it will work.
Too bad the deplatforming did not stop the insurrection at the US Capitol. But I'm sure if you just do it harder it will work.
Yes, but nobody cares about democracy and has power.
For politicians and corporations and pundits it's just fine.
For politicians and corporations and pundits it's just fine.
>After all, nothing really changed in President Trump’s rhetoric, or in the wild substance of QAnon conspiracy theories
What "rhetoric"? A sitting politician complained for fraud. Such complaints are a dime a dozen in elections all around the world. Heck, that's what the other side complained about too, in 2016, and has a long history in US politics.
And if he "orchestrated" a walk-in into the Capitol (where nothing much happened, and politicians were up to business as usual the very same day), the other side has organized and lauded dozens of protests, including some with looting and even burning of police departments and areas of cities, throughout 4 years.
As a European, I see a lot of cant on both sides, and a lot of pearl clutching by the side that gets all the legitimacy offered by the mainstream media and the "polite society". In other words, it's partisanship 101.
Downvote freely, it's a partisan country anyway
What "rhetoric"? A sitting politician complained for fraud. Such complaints are a dime a dozen in elections all around the world. Heck, that's what the other side complained about too, in 2016, and has a long history in US politics.
And if he "orchestrated" a walk-in into the Capitol (where nothing much happened, and politicians were up to business as usual the very same day), the other side has organized and lauded dozens of protests, including some with looting and even burning of police departments and areas of cities, throughout 4 years.
As a European, I see a lot of cant on both sides, and a lot of pearl clutching by the side that gets all the legitimacy offered by the mainstream media and the "polite society". In other words, it's partisanship 101.
Downvote freely, it's a partisan country anyway
Comparing a deadly coup attempt and a direct attack against the representatives and the VP himself in the US capitol the day that the election results were certified by the Houses with random protests?
>Comparing a deadly coup attempt and a direct attack against the representatives and the VP himself in the US capitol the day that the election results were certified by the Houses with random protests?
No, comparing some random people getting into a government building in protest, being basically tame inside, and business continuing as usual the very next day (or same?).
That was a "coup"? What was the plan to establish the new government? Who was the leader? The guy with the horns? The ex-president who didn't care less about the incident, and called for people going home?
And it was only deadly because in the US people are trigger happy, and even getting out of your car, unarmed, to a traffic cop, can be deadly. Even so, from what I read a guard was killed in an altercation with the mob, and a protestor was shot by police. A few others had "medical emergencies".
Pearl clutching aside, I wouldn't even call it a "violent protest", much less a coup...
No, comparing some random people getting into a government building in protest, being basically tame inside, and business continuing as usual the very next day (or same?).
That was a "coup"? What was the plan to establish the new government? Who was the leader? The guy with the horns? The ex-president who didn't care less about the incident, and called for people going home?
And it was only deadly because in the US people are trigger happy, and even getting out of your car, unarmed, to a traffic cop, can be deadly. Even so, from what I read a guard was killed in an altercation with the mob, and a protestor was shot by police. A few others had "medical emergencies".
Pearl clutching aside, I wouldn't even call it a "violent protest", much less a coup...
You do realize a laptop was stolen to give to Russian intelligence, right?
>Pearl clutching aside, I wouldn't even call it a "violent protest", much less a coup...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhjRXO72v1s
Coup? Meh, agreed, it wasn't organized by the military. Violent protest? Absolutely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfwbhC2Un2Y
>Pearl clutching aside, I wouldn't even call it a "violent protest", much less a coup...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhjRXO72v1s
Coup? Meh, agreed, it wasn't organized by the military. Violent protest? Absolutely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfwbhC2Un2Y
>You do realize a laptop was stolen to give to Russian intelligence
No, but I do realize that the same tired "RussiaGate" trite zero-content faux-panic (with 0 actual results and proof, based on a dossier of random accusations made by a guy on behalf of the Dems [1]), was reheated when some "Burn After Reading (the Coen movie)" IQ-level person that was into the Capitol tried to sell a laptop they stole to the russians.
[1] https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-mill...
>Coup? Meh, agreed, it wasn't organized by the military. Violent protest? Absolutely.
I'll meet you halfway, and admit it was a protest. As protests go, it was hardly that violent - especially for a protest that got into a government building.
Then again, globally such protests are a dime a dozen. We had a couple in mine here parts...
No, but I do realize that the same tired "RussiaGate" trite zero-content faux-panic (with 0 actual results and proof, based on a dossier of random accusations made by a guy on behalf of the Dems [1]), was reheated when some "Burn After Reading (the Coen movie)" IQ-level person that was into the Capitol tried to sell a laptop they stole to the russians.
[1] https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-mill...
>Coup? Meh, agreed, it wasn't organized by the military. Violent protest? Absolutely.
I'll meet you halfway, and admit it was a protest. As protests go, it was hardly that violent - especially for a protest that got into a government building.
Then again, globally such protests are a dime a dozen. We had a couple in mine here parts...
In the unlikely event that your post isn't immediately removed by the moderators, I just want to add that it is obvious that nobody on the left actually honestly believe the over-the-top hysterical nonsense they have been spouting the past 2 weeks.
Ask them to explain, if these were organized far right militants trying to overthrow the government in the most heavily guarded city in the world, in a building that has it's own heavily armed police force, how come they didn't bring guns?
The left are the ones actually carrying out a coup against democracy, by using the chaos and confusion caused by a pointless protest that spiraled out of control.
Ask them to explain, if these were organized far right militants trying to overthrow the government in the most heavily guarded city in the world, in a building that has it's own heavily armed police force, how come they didn't bring guns?
The left are the ones actually carrying out a coup against democracy, by using the chaos and confusion caused by a pointless protest that spiraled out of control.
Like the comment said, pearl clutching all of the sudden.
Decentralization and deinstitutionalization is dangerous to Democracy. Uncheck conspiracy theories, QAnon bullshit, Parler boys, 4chan anonymity are all dangerous to public, intellectual discourse.
Convince me. Your body has cancer, swift removal of it before it “decentralizes” is the only option.
I would be in favor of actual decentralization: Being able to broadcast 50km radius on the internet and improving communities, thriving local newspapers and localization of concerns. If you want to broadcast to state level, you must have education, journalism rigor, and standup to scrutiny, have to explain inconsistencies or your role is revoked.
“Decentralization”, the widely used term is a congregation of ill which cannot survive the scrutiny of public IMO.
Before you go touting for decentralization, ask yourself when was the last time you checked city news and county affairs? What happens at the National level has little effect on you locally. What Ted Cruz and AOC exchanged on Twitter has no bearing to your county. Internet gave everybody a centralized platform in the first place. Some good aspects (Wikipedia) and some horrifying consequences.
Convince me. Your body has cancer, swift removal of it before it “decentralizes” is the only option.
I would be in favor of actual decentralization: Being able to broadcast 50km radius on the internet and improving communities, thriving local newspapers and localization of concerns. If you want to broadcast to state level, you must have education, journalism rigor, and standup to scrutiny, have to explain inconsistencies or your role is revoked.
“Decentralization”, the widely used term is a congregation of ill which cannot survive the scrutiny of public IMO.
Before you go touting for decentralization, ask yourself when was the last time you checked city news and county affairs? What happens at the National level has little effect on you locally. What Ted Cruz and AOC exchanged on Twitter has no bearing to your county. Internet gave everybody a centralized platform in the first place. Some good aspects (Wikipedia) and some horrifying consequences.
I think your cancer metaphor is backwards. The way that a single genome is processed by myriad cells throughout the body is a miracle of decentralization. Each node is free to deviate and improvise and yet for the most part they work together for the greater good of the overall network. Cancer is what happens when a small group of cells deviates from the protocol and starts consuming resources to the exclusion of their neighbor. What is a tumor if not a centralized drive towards growth at any cost? Sounds like many modern tech companies to me.
You also seem to think that decentralization would lead to less emphasis on local happenings. Why? If we moved away from a handful of services for the whole planet, wouldn't the logical next phase be a service or two per city? A decentralized web means knowing the guy who runs the server you're connecting to. A decentralizalized internet means configuring your router to peer with routers in the houses that you can see from your house. Relocalization seems like an obvious consequence of decentralizalization to me.
You also seem to think that decentralization would lead to less emphasis on local happenings. Why? If we moved away from a handful of services for the whole planet, wouldn't the logical next phase be a service or two per city? A decentralized web means knowing the guy who runs the server you're connecting to. A decentralizalized internet means configuring your router to peer with routers in the houses that you can see from your house. Relocalization seems like an obvious consequence of decentralizalization to me.
It's a very unpopular sentiment here on HN, but I agree with the gist of what you are saying.
I have a slight different idea that is also very unpopular. I don't think you should be able to "broadcast" anonymously. When you say things that are illegal, like death threats and hate speech, you should be held responsible.
I think privacy is important, and I think you should be able to consume content anonymously, but I don't think you should be able to "post" anonymously.
I have a slight different idea that is also very unpopular. I don't think you should be able to "broadcast" anonymously. When you say things that are illegal, like death threats and hate speech, you should be held responsible.
I think privacy is important, and I think you should be able to consume content anonymously, but I don't think you should be able to "post" anonymously.
Thousands of people everyday post "anonymously" via pseudo accounts/names, more so on the heavily surveiled big social sites. Does this mean that the contents of their posts are unwanted? No. The algorithms are designed to give prominence to the most relevant posts, whether you as an individual agree with them or not. It is up to how many likes/shares these posts get.
I think we should stop running away from the fact that we are human. And we all have some quirky deep-rooted tendencies & desires that may not be socially viewed as moral.
Most of the times, these pseudo accounts provide amplification to that whispering inner voice harboring inside. Am certain we've all had experience with a peculiar post and go - "If it weren't for my boss following me back on my feeds I would have shared controversial view X, but hey am glad someone else said it."
Then proceed to share the screenshot of said view in a more private setting such as group channels/chats etc.
I think we should stop running away from the fact that we are human. And we all have some quirky deep-rooted tendencies & desires that may not be socially viewed as moral.
Most of the times, these pseudo accounts provide amplification to that whispering inner voice harboring inside. Am certain we've all had experience with a peculiar post and go - "If it weren't for my boss following me back on my feeds I would have shared controversial view X, but hey am glad someone else said it."
Then proceed to share the screenshot of said view in a more private setting such as group channels/chats etc.
> If you want to broadcast to state level, you must have education, journalism rigor, and standup to scrutiny, have to explain inconsistencies or your role is revoked.
And make no mistake, what they mean in reality by the above is always the same, namely that "free speech" will mean you are freely allowed to repeat the talking points of the Party.
And make no mistake, what they mean in reality by the above is always the same, namely that "free speech" will mean you are freely allowed to repeat the talking points of the Party.
I have told people they must remember whatever they put in place will be available to the next government/president/administration.
Allow politicians to censor? Well it will be available for for both Joe Biden as well as the next Republican president.
This is why one needs to be careful.
Allow politicians to censor? Well it will be available for for both Joe Biden as well as the next Republican president.
This is why one needs to be careful.
From the looks of it, their plan seem to be to institute enough political repression that they won't have to worry about any next government/president/administration.
I thought the article made a reasonably convincing case that decentralized networks provide better tools for good actors to control the spread of disinformation.
What does it mean to "remove the cancer before it decentralizes" in this context?
What does it mean to "remove the cancer before it decentralizes" in this context?
I'm not sure it's a great idea to just let "the angry mob" decide either.
Twitter, FB, Google all benefited from QAnon and bunch of violence that thrives on it. Election misinformation should have been removed. We have proper channels for this - ie courts.
Sure, but that wouldn't have prevented the "cancer" from moving to decentralized networks. If anything it'd probably accelerate the process.
I think the important point is that most operators of nodes on a federated network are not in a position to benefit from this kind of garbage content, and have every reason (and the tools they need) to keep it away from their portion of the network.
I think the important point is that most operators of nodes on a federated network are not in a position to benefit from this kind of garbage content, and have every reason (and the tools they need) to keep it away from their portion of the network.
The Internet used to be decentralized and only after communication centralized via social media companies did the likes of QAnon become particularly problematic. There was always a fringe, but we had the norms and tools to keep it marginalized. Something has changed and arguments that we can fix the problem by doubling down on changing our norms/ideals (e.g., free speech, equality, tolerance, etc) don’t seem likely at all to pan out. We made a bad turn, but rather than continue to jeopardize our social fabric for pride or dunk costs, we should figure out how we can get back on course. Of course, that requires good faith, honesty, integrity, courage, etc., which are in short supply these days.
[deleted]
Decentralization describes my polticial philosophy pretty well. The challenge is: how?
Laissez-faire is a decent default, though obviously companies can cetralize power a lot.
Regulation seems reasonable, but it implicitly requires you to give some government power, and they tend to expand the scope of that power over time.
I think it's best when government is decentralized, and the smaller units of government can do what they want; while something as big as the US givernment would be highly constrained.
Allowing individual, smaller governments to regulate makes it harder for companies to take over. But if the government amasses too much power, you just move a few towns over.
Laissez-faire is a decent default, though obviously companies can cetralize power a lot.
Regulation seems reasonable, but it implicitly requires you to give some government power, and they tend to expand the scope of that power over time.
I think it's best when government is decentralized, and the smaller units of government can do what they want; while something as big as the US givernment would be highly constrained.
Allowing individual, smaller governments to regulate makes it harder for companies to take over. But if the government amasses too much power, you just move a few towns over.
I think the reason why centralization is a danger to democracy, is because of lobbying. Lobbying is much easier in a centralized power structure. See how much lobbying goes on in and around the power centers of this world: DC, Brussels, London. Lobby is power for money, democracy is power for votes (at least it should be). Currently lobbies have more power in the decision process than voters (any political sciences professor will agree). So democracy is a hollow word, or worse: a facade, a lie.
Lobbies basically work in favour of the super rich. If we see the gap widening we see that they get what they pay for, and the for-sure-not-super-rich masses dont get what they vote for.