How to Put Out Democracy’s Dumpster Fire

[Swammerdami]

An article in The Atlantic with the ambitious title:

How to Put Out Democracy’s Dumpster Fire
Our democratic habits have been killed off by an internet kleptocracy that profits from disinformation, polarization, and rage. Here’s how to fix that.​

discusses the joyous history of American democracy, and helps explain why it has recently "gone off the rails."

The authors, Anne Applebaum and Peter Pomerantsev, offer specific remedies. (I won't excerpt from this important article in OP: It will be better to read and debate the whole article than to discuss just whatever excerpt(s) I might choose. You may need to clear your atlantic cookies before accessing the article.)

 

[ZiprHead]

I haven't read the article yet, and I do intend to, but as long as we have a significant number of the population that are willing to believe things that are stupidly false I don't know that there is hope for defeating this.

 

[steve_bank]

The mistake is thinking it was ever on the rails. Divios begab immediately.

One side accusing the other of being weak on defense started right off the bat.

Jefferson was accused of being a Francophile, French lover, who would sell out the country to France.

Fake news was common. Poical operatives in the early 19th century wrote fake articles.

 

[Jayjay]

What we need is a platform that is neutral, gives the users the power to choose their algorithms, and is non-commercial. While remaining useful and entertaining. The trick is making the development and maintenance of such platforms economically feasible. It's a tough nut to crack.

An example of a user-empowering technology is ad blockers: they give me the power to filter out garbage, but I don't have to worry about how it's done. It just works. But I don't understand why Youtube for example let's them do it... it would be technically feasible for Youtube to splice the ads in their videos in a way that simple filters couldn't catch them, or just not work at all when an ad blocker is detected, like many other sites do.

 

[Trausti]

The mistake is thinking it was ever on the rails. Divios begab immediately.

One side accusing the other of being weak on defense started right off the bat.

Jefferson was accused of being a Francophile, French lover, who would sell out the country to France.

Fake news was common. Poical operatives in the early 19th century wrote fake articles.

The important thing to remember is that your political side never falls for misinformation and conspiracy; it's always your opponents who are the dumb-dumbs.

 

[BH]

Could the argument be made the country was just one big mistake from the get go?

 

[Trausti]

Could the argument be made the country was just one big mistake from the get go?

Compared to ...?

 

[bilby]

Could the argument be made the country was just one big mistake from the get go?

Yes.

If you want to know how it could have been, look at Canada.

 

[bilby]

Could the argument be made the country was just one big mistake from the get go?

Compared to ...?

Remaining a collection of British Imperial colonies until gaining independence in stages at the end of the age of European empires, likely somewhere between 1840 and 1950.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

What we need is a platform that is neutral, gives the users the power to choose their algorithms, and is non-commercial. While remaining useful and entertaining. The trick is making the development and maintenance of such platforms economically feasible. It's a tough nut to crack.

An example of a user-empowering technology is ad blockers: they give me the power to filter out garbage, but I don't have to worry about how it's done. It just works. But I don't understand why Youtube for example let's them do it... it would be technically feasible for Youtube to splice the ads in their videos in a way that simple filters couldn't catch them, or just not work at all when an ad blocker is detected, like many other sites do.

There are numerous ways to deal with Youtube. Freetube, Youtube Vanced and other ways. More advanced ad blocker systems at the router level such as Pihole. Kodi behind a VPN etc.

 

[TV and credit cards]

So apply this Front Porch model to all social media. Build on it. Work toward emulating actual community within social media. No one drives around town with a pixelated license plate. No one gets to make comment at a town meeting without standing and being recognized. We introduce ourselves, slowly divulge details of our lives to friends, invite others into our homes. Remove the anonymity of social media. Stand by what you say. We are not funny pics and user names. This is no violation of your privacy. No one is asking anymore than what you are or are willing to be within your actual community.
And all the rest of that stuff about going all Teddy Roosevelt on these motherfuckers too. Do that.

 

[Jayjay]

What we need is a platform that is neutral, gives the users the power to choose their algorithms, and is non-commercial. While remaining useful and entertaining. The trick is making the development and maintenance of such platforms economically feasible. It's a tough nut to crack.

An example of a user-empowering technology is ad blockers: they give me the power to filter out garbage, but I don't have to worry about how it's done. It just works. But I don't understand why Youtube for example let's them do it... it would be technically feasible for Youtube to splice the ads in their videos in a way that simple filters couldn't catch them, or just not work at all when an ad blocker is detected, like many other sites do.

There are numerous ways to deal with Youtube. Freetube, Youtube Vanced and other ways. More advanced ad blocker systems at the router level such as Pihole. Kodi behind a VPN etc.

But all of them contingent on Youtube not aggressively fighting back. Basically, anyone who doesn't want ads on Youtube doesn't see them. But how is this sensible for a company based on ad revenue? Are there really that many people who don't know or care about blocking ads?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

What we need is a platform that is neutral, gives the users the power to choose their algorithms, and is non-commercial. While remaining useful and entertaining. The trick is making the development and maintenance of such platforms economically feasible. It's a tough nut to crack.

An example of a user-empowering technology is ad blockers: they give me the power to filter out garbage, but I don't have to worry about how it's done. It just works. But I don't understand why Youtube for example let's them do it... it would be technically feasible for Youtube to splice the ads in their videos in a way that simple filters couldn't catch them, or just not work at all when an ad blocker is detected, like many other sites do.

There are numerous ways to deal with Youtube. Freetube, Youtube Vanced and other ways. More advanced ad blocker systems at the router level such as Pihole. Kodi behind a VPN etc.

But all of them contingent on Youtube not aggressively fighting back. Basically, anyone who doesn't want ads on Youtube doesn't see them. But how is this sensible for a company based on ad revenue? Are there really that many people who don't know or care about blocking ads?

For a lot of people, Youtube is about downloading music. Youtube-dl is all they need or some similar. I can watch Rachel Maddow on MSNBC's streaming channel. For a lot of people, as long as they can access the porn channels, that is all they need.

 

[Bomb#20]

Could the argument be made the country was just one big mistake from the get go?

Yes, of course it was. The American Revolution was a catastrophe. Never mind the 50,000 people it killed directly; if the colonies had stayed in the British Empire then the slaves could have gone free peacefully in the 1830s when Britain abolished slavery and we wouldn't have needed to kill 600,000 people to free them.

The thing to keep in mind, though, was that the country wasn't America's mistake; it was Britain's mistake. If Parliament hadn't been so bloody intransigent about making reasonable concessions to address the colonists' legitimate grievances, the whole ugly divorce could have been avoided.

 

[fromderinside]

I believe there is a principle here. You are either my neighbor or you are my subject/enemy. The principle of nearness association.

 

[James Brown]

The important thing to remember is that your political side never falls for misinformation and conspiracy; it's always your opponents who are the dumb-dumbs.

True indeed. That's what I've learned watching Fox News.

 

[Shadowy Man]

The important thing to remember is that your political side never falls for misinformation and conspiracy; it's always your opponents who are the dumb-dumbs.

True indeed. That's what I've learned watching Fox News.

And this attitude leads ultimately to the inability to admit one is wrong in instances when one is indeed wrong. So the dive deeper into the hole continues. Trump was the poster boy for this effect.

 

[Trausti]

The important thing to remember is that your political side never falls for misinformation and conspiracy; it's always your opponents who are the dumb-dumbs.

True indeed. That's what I've learned watching Fox News.

And MSNBC.

 

[steve_bank]

The mistake is thinking it was ever on the rails. Divios begab immediately.

One side accusing the other of being weak on defense started right off the bat.

Jefferson was accused of being a Francophile, French lover, who would sell out the country to France.

Fake news was common. Poical operatives in the early 19th century wrote fake articles.

The important thing to remember is that your political side never falls for misinformation and conspiracy; it's always your opponents who are the dumb-dumbs.

Of course, point being it is not new. As old as the hills so to speak.

 

[steve_bank]

COTUS and the beginnings of the country wee a compromise at best.

If the issue of slavery had been forced they not have been a COTUS and a country.

The PC ide today is the founders were bad and immoral, and today we are enlightened making absolute moral decisions and positions.

The idea we can have a perfect system with cranky and emotional and flawed humans is fantasy.

The current thinking is what all generations of politics think. If we make the right choices, pass the right laws, create the right govt programs, and do what we think is the right thing society will be perfect. The USA will be a happy all the time Disney park for all.

'...give a home where the buffalo roam...nd never was heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day...'

The old cowboy song.

We lurched from Bush to Obama, Obama to Trump, Trump to Biden. Extremes.

In electronics we call that bang-bang control. Your home thermostat turns the heat full on or full off with no medium. Imagine driving a car where the throttle is either full on or full off. Or without a flywheel on the engine to smooth out the piston detonations.

The system was developed for a simple rural agrarian society with power held by a somewhat monolithic white Christian male group in power.

We are trying to shoehorn that into modern complexity and it is not working.

The states run reasonably well. Most or all states have referendums where people can get issues on the ballot. It is the federal system in particular congress that is failing. Immigration is under congress and they have failed to resolve the problems for who knows how long. Congresses has ceded war making power to the president.

Part of the chaos is the 1st and 2nd Amendments. Media, individual citizens, and religion push a wide interpretation that maximize their sense of freedom. Hence a wide open media ripe with fake news and ad hom attacks on all sides.

Constant bickering and little useful information on which we can base decisions.

The USA was and is an experiment in self rule without a European type of priviledged ruling class. W act as if it is a done deal.

We are looking more like the Titanic. People especially politicians seem to think we have an infinite capacity to tolerate dissention and division, we do not. They wave the flag shouting America is great and unsinkable.

Trump tried to deal the border, Biden blows a whistle to come. Chaos with no workable medium.