Democracy is broken

[TagliatelliMonster]

Democracy is broken and in need of fixing.

In today's landscape of "social" media and the perverse delusional idea that "everybody" and their mothers are unbiased "reporters" on these platforms, we have hit a dangerous wall. Internet companies are only aggravating an already bad situation.

Companies like google, even companies like Netflix, are no longer serving you with actual news or a proper view of all info or media available. What they serve you with, is a BUBBLE view of the world in all its aspect, based on your "preferences". Aka, based on the data they gathered on you (which a lot of times, if not most of the time, is gathered and stored ILLEGALLY btw) and which they collect into "super profiles" on you in their giant data centers.

From your newsfeeds in "apps" to the (political) advertisements you see. Today's internet is accomplishing the exact opposite of what common sense would have expected it would accomplish.

In the 90s, when the internet was spreading into every living room and creeping unto every device, we figured that it would OPEN UP the world. That any and all information would be at our fingertips. That (actual) news would be able to spread faster. That people would no longer have to rely on gossip and hearsay, or just a handfull of news outlets.

The exact opposite is true today. The vast majority of people is put into an ever shrinking "bubble". The shape of the bubble is determined by what these people ALREADY believe, what their opinions ALREADY are. The more data the facebooks and googles of this world have on you, the smaller the bubble of information becomes.

This means that if you are a YEC and do google searches or whatever, then pro-YEC sites will be more dominantly featured in the result list. Meaning that while you started out engulfed in scientific ignorance, the googles of this world will push you in even deeper then you already were, in some kind of ultimate confirmation bias.

This is extremely worrying. It means that people's ideas and beliefs are challenged less and lessm or even not at all.

If we then look at various elections of the last several years, we see quite some impact of all this. More and more people have no clue what they are voting for, because they are terribly misinformed or quite simply "manipulated" by fake news, propaganda and populistic compaigning on social media.

We saw it with Brexit, we saw it with Trump and now we see it with the push to the populistic extreme right in the various european elections.

This is an absolutely detrimental situation for a democracy. Worst of all: countries like china and russia are taking notice. They have been caught red handed several times with lobbying / hacking on social media to get the people they want elected. Through such practices, they are actively trying (and succeeding) in destablizing western democracies from the inside out.

By electing terrible people based on ignorance or just plain false information, we are collectively destroying our secular nations through implosion.


I say it is very much time to take a step back and re-evaluate how a democracy should work, how the voting should be organized and how treatment of politicians themselves needs to change.

As a disclaimer, I have no idea of how practical this would be, or if it would be even managebly possible at all... But as far as I see, there are 3 major problems that need to be addressed:

1. Today, literally ANYONE can get elected into office. ANYONE. All it takes, is enough popularity. This is a terrible situation to be in, by itself. ESPECIALLY coupled with an ignorant collective of voters. To me, it makes no sense that ANYONE is able to take on such responsability. I say that we need a system where politicians first need to take some kind of test or exam, by which they first have to prove that they are actually qualified and capable to take on such a responsability. And additionally, a test of "specialisation" in context of the department where they would end up. For example, a lawyer has NO BUSINESS being the minister of health. Try someone who actually did some medical studies instead...

2. Today, literally ANYONE can vote as long as they aren't minors. This too, makes no sense to me. The vast majority of people that vote for some party, actually have no idea what they are really voting for. They think they should vote for party A, because party A has been spamming them about a single issue they agree with (which is easy to do on social media through "trends" and data analytics). So they think that A is the party for them. But they aren't aware that on that particular point, party B has the exact same stance. They also don't know that party A, has dozens more points - many of which they do NOT agree with. So the people are led by misinformation, incomplete information, populistic manipulation and social media advertisements / marketing campaigns. I say that we should reform this as well. Yes, ANYONE should be able to vote, just like ANYONE should be able to become an electable politician. HOWEVER.... I say, you first need to demonstrate that you are a responsible voter and that you KNOW and UNDERSTAND what it is exactly that you are voting for. Perhaps some sort of test a month before the elections, where you need to prove that you actually know and understand what the different parties stand for, what their policy points are, etc. Only if you pass, you get the ticket that allows you to vote.
Another option might be to stop letting people vote directly for a party. Instead, serve like 100 general statements concerning current issues where you get 5 options from "completely disagree" to "completely agree". After your 100 answers, the software matches you with a party that most closely matches your answers and boom, your vote automatically goes to them.

3. Politicians get away with FAR to much. Consider politicians being members of a board of directors at a private company. Consider how little room for mistake they'ld have there. Consider what happens to these directors when they make mistakes. Consider what happens to these directors if they are caught lying to the public to protect their seat or to manipulate any kind of data point. In a private company, this is "rewarded" with getting immediately fired. In politicis however, it seems that this behaviour is actually rewarded with promotion and/or golden handshakes. Isn't that right, Nigel Farage?
It's disgusting. There needs to be some law in place that allows for proper prosecution of politicians who deliberatly lie in order to manipulate public opinion. There need to be swift and correct consequences attached to misinformation, manipulation, lying, boycotting, etc.



So, that's how I see it.
Sorry if it turned out a bit of a rant..... But I had to. I see our secular democratic world being destroyed from within by lying, manipulating, populist pricks and there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about that. And it's only getting worse.

And if I am right (and I'm fairly certain that I am) that this is heavily connected to "social media" and all the nasty crap that comes with that, then this isn't going to change any time soon. In fact, it's only going to get much much worse.

Wake up, people from the west. Wake up.

Put that phone away.
Delete that failbook account.
Delete that instagram.
Stop using whatsapp.
Stop with all that nonsense and start thinking for yourself again.

INFORM and EDUCATE yourselves as well as your fellow citizens.

We can still turn this around.
But I fear that the "point of no return" is closing in on us very very fast.

 

[Revoltingest]

I wouldn't worry.
Democracy has always been broken.
Its flaws are fundamental.
And yet it endures.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

I wouldn't worry.
Democracy has always been broken.
Its flaws are fundamental.
And yet it endures.

It endures soundly in my heart.

 

[Augustus]

2. Today, literally ANYONE can vote as long as they aren't minors. This too, makes no sense to me. The vast majority of people that vote for some party, actually have no idea what they are really voting for. They think they should vote for party A, because party A has been spamming them about a single issue they agree with (which is easy to do on social media through "trends" and data analytics). So they think that A is the party for them. But they aren't aware that on that particular point, party B has the exact same stance. They also don't know that party A, has dozens more points - many of which they do NOT agree with. So the people are led by misinformation, incomplete information, populistic manipulation and social media advertisements / marketing campaigns. I say that we should reform this as well. Yes, ANYONE should be able to vote, just like ANYONE should be able to become an electable politician. HOWEVER.... I say, you first need to demonstrate that you are a responsible voter and that you KNOW and UNDERSTAND what it is exactly that you are voting for. Perhaps some sort of test a month before the elections, where you need to prove that you actually know and understand what the different parties stand for, what their policy points are, etc. Only if you pass, you get the ticket that allows you to vote.

"People who aren't educated enough to agree with me shouldn't be allowed to vote."

 

[Brickjectivity]

We can still turn this around.

What has changed is the appearance of Statistics and computers. They are taking the chaos out of elections. What you need is some way to put the chaos back in, so that the parties can't tell ahead of time who will win. To start with the voting borders could be randomized. You could also add a computerized number of random votes in on policy and election decisions. That would safeguard voting by making it guaranteed to have some chaotic element.

You could also outlaw political surveys.

 

[Stevicus]

Democracy is broken and in need of fixing.

In today's landscape of "social" media and the perverse delusional idea that "everybody" and their mothers are unbiased "reporters" on these platforms, we have hit a dangerous wall. Internet companies are only aggravating an already bad situation.

Companies like google, even companies like Netflix, are no longer serving you with actual news or a proper view of all info or media available. What they serve you with, is a BUBBLE view of the world in all its aspect, based on your "preferences". Aka, based on the data they gathered on you (which a lot of times, if not most of the time, is gathered and stored ILLEGALLY btw) and which they collect into "super profiles" on you in their giant data centers.

From your newsfeeds in "apps" to the (political) advertisements you see. Today's internet is accomplishing the exact opposite of what common sense would have expected it would accomplish.

In the 90s, when the internet was spreading into every living room and creeping unto every device, we figured that it would OPEN UP the world. That any and all information would be at our fingertips. That (actual) news would be able to spread faster. That people would no longer have to rely on gossip and hearsay, or just a handfull of news outlets.

The exact opposite is true today. The vast majority of people is put into an ever shrinking "bubble". The shape of the bubble is determined by what these people ALREADY believe, what their opinions ALREADY are. The more data the facebooks and googles of this world have on you, the smaller the bubble of information becomes.

This means that if you are a YEC and do google searches or whatever, then pro-YEC sites will be more dominantly featured in the result list. Meaning that while you started out engulfed in scientific ignorance, the googles of this world will push you in even deeper then you already were, in some kind of ultimate confirmation bias.

This is extremely worrying. It means that people's ideas and beliefs are challenged less and lessm or even not at all.

If we then look at various elections of the last several years, we see quite some impact of all this. More and more people have no clue what they are voting for, because they are terribly misinformed or quite simply "manipulated" by fake news, propaganda and populistic compaigning on social media.

We saw it with Brexit, we saw it with Trump and now we see it with the push to the populistic extreme right in the various european elections.

This is an absolutely detrimental situation for a democracy. Worst of all: countries like china and russia are taking notice. They have been caught red handed several times with lobbying / hacking on social media to get the people they want elected. Through such practices, they are actively trying (and succeeding) in destablizing western democracies from the inside out.

By electing terrible people based on ignorance or just plain false information, we are collectively destroying our secular nations through implosion.


I say it is very much time to take a step back and re-evaluate how a democracy should work, how the voting should be organized and how treatment of politicians themselves needs to change.

As a disclaimer, I have no idea of how practical this would be, or if it would be even managebly possible at all... But as far as I see, there are 3 major problems that need to be addressed:

1. Today, literally ANYONE can get elected into office. ANYONE. All it takes, is enough popularity. This is a terrible situation to be in, by itself. ESPECIALLY coupled with an ignorant collective of voters. To me, it makes no sense that ANYONE is able to take on such responsability. I say that we need a system where politicians first need to take some kind of test or exam, by which they first have to prove that they are actually qualified and capable to take on such a responsability. And additionally, a test of "specialisation" in context of the department where they would end up. For example, a lawyer has NO BUSINESS being the minister of health. Try someone who actually did some medical studies instead...

2. Today, literally ANYONE can vote as long as they aren't minors. This too, makes no sense to me. The vast majority of people that vote for some party, actually have no idea what they are really voting for. They think they should vote for party A, because party A has been spamming them about a single issue they agree with (which is easy to do on social media through "trends" and data analytics). So they think that A is the party for them. But they aren't aware that on that particular point, party B has the exact same stance. They also don't know that party A, has dozens more points - many of which they do NOT agree with. So the people are led by misinformation, incomplete information, populistic manipulation and social media advertisements / marketing campaigns. I say that we should reform this as well. Yes, ANYONE should be able to vote, just like ANYONE should be able to become an electable politician. HOWEVER.... I say, you first need to demonstrate that you are a responsible voter and that you KNOW and UNDERSTAND what it is exactly that you are voting for. Perhaps some sort of test a month before the elections, where you need to prove that you actually know and understand what the different parties stand for, what their policy points are, etc. Only if you pass, you get the ticket that allows you to vote.
Another option might be to stop letting people vote directly for a party. Instead, serve like 100 general statements concerning current issues where you get 5 options from "completely disagree" to "completely agree". After your 100 answers, the software matches you with a party that most closely matches your answers and boom, your vote automatically goes to them.

3. Politicians get away with FAR to much. Consider politicians being members of a board of directors at a private company. Consider how little room for mistake they'ld have there. Consider what happens to these directors when they make mistakes. Consider what happens to these directors if they are caught lying to the public to protect their seat or to manipulate any kind of data point. In a private company, this is "rewarded" with getting immediately fired. In politicis however, it seems that this behaviour is actually rewarded with promotion and/or golden handshakes. Isn't that right, Nigel Farage?
It's disgusting. There needs to be some law in place that allows for proper prosecution of politicians who deliberatly lie in order to manipulate public opinion. There need to be swift and correct consequences attached to misinformation, manipulation, lying, boycotting, etc.



So, that's how I see it.
Sorry if it turned out a bit of a rant..... But I had to. I see our secular democratic world being destroyed from within by lying, manipulating, populist pricks and there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about that. And it's only getting worse.

And if I am right (and I'm fairly certain that I am) that this is heavily connected to "social media" and all the nasty crap that comes with that, then this isn't going to change any time soon. In fact, it's only going to get much much worse.

Wake up, people from the west. Wake up.

Put that phone away.
Delete that failbook account.
Delete that instagram.
Stop using whatsapp.
Stop with all that nonsense and start thinking for yourself again.

INFORM and EDUCATE yourselves as well as your fellow citizens.

We can still turn this around.
But I fear that the "point of no return" is closing in on us very very fast.

Well, there's nothing that actually prevents people from accessing information from a variety of sources which see things differently. If they choose to get their news from the same sources all the time (while ignoring the wealth of information which is easily accessible across the information superhighway), then that's on them.

However, there are those who seek to censor the web or try to keep it under the control of the few. And then there are those for whom the dissemination of information is their bread and butter - and they don't like competition. If democracy seems broken, it may be related to that. That is, the Fourth Estate has been more focused on trying to protect its own institutions (as business entities), and as a result, they forgot their function within the role of maintaining checks and balances in our political system.

If we want to save democracy, we have to be willing to use it.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Of course democracy is broken, since it's rather unrealistic. Humans are not primarily rational animals. We're instinctually pleasure-seeking and tribalistic, too. Social media and advertising, and consumer "culture" overall, just milks it all for all it's worth. They have psychologists working with them. It's not a new thing. It's been going on since about the '50s. There's documentary about it called The Century of the Self that I recommend. It's just gotten worse. Corporate news is mostly nonsense made for ratings, too. We don't have a real public media in America. There's NPR but that's it, and it's not listened to much since it's listeners are stereotyped as liberal snobs. But still, they are just giving us what we think we want.

Countries with more authoritarian countries don't have the same issues because they block or censor the Internet and have state-run media.

 

[Nakosis]

I wouldn't worry.
Democracy has always been broken.
Its flaws are fundamental.
And yet it endures.

I don't see this as anything new. We are, some of us, more aware of it because of the multitude of media outlets.

I see politics as rooting for a sports team. The only thing that matters is if your team wins.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

The only thing that matters is if your team wins.

Unless you're a Browns fan.

 

[Nimos]

Democracy is broken and in need of fixing.

1. Today, literally ANYONE can get elected into office. ANYONE. All it takes, is enough popularity. This is a terrible situation to be in, by itself. ESPECIALLY coupled with an ignorant collective of voters. To me, it makes no sense that ANYONE is able to take on such responsability. I say that we need a system where politicians first need to take some kind of test or exam, by which they first have to prove that they are actually qualified and capable to take on such a responsability. And additionally, a test of "specialisation" in context of the department where they would end up. For example, a lawyer has NO BUSINESS being the minister of health. Try someone who actually did some medical studies instead...

2. Today, literally ANYONE can vote as long as they aren't minors. This too, makes no sense to me. The vast majority of people that vote for some party, actually have no idea what they are really voting for. They think they should vote for party A, because party A has been spamming them about a single issue they agree with (which is easy to do on social media through "trends" and data analytics). So they think that A is the party for them. But they aren't aware that on that particular point, party B has the exact same stance. They also don't know that party A, has dozens more points - many of which they do NOT agree with. So the people are led by misinformation, incomplete information, populistic manipulation and social media advertisements / marketing campaigns. I say that we should reform this as well. Yes, ANYONE should be able to vote, just like ANYONE should be able to become an electable politician. HOWEVER.... I say, you first need to demonstrate that you are a responsible voter and that you KNOW and UNDERSTAND what it is exactly that you are voting for. Perhaps some sort of test a month before the elections, where you need to prove that you actually know and understand what the different parties stand for, what their policy points are, etc. Only if you pass, you get the ticket that allows you to vote.
Another option might be to stop letting people vote directly for a party. Instead, serve like 100 general statements concerning current issues where you get 5 options from "completely disagree" to "completely agree". After your 100 answers, the software matches you with a party that most closely matches your answers and boom, your vote automatically goes to them.

3. Politicians get away with FAR to much. Consider politicians being members of a board of directors at a private company. Consider how little room for mistake they'ld have there. Consider what happens to these directors when they make mistakes. Consider what happens to these directors if they are caught lying to the public to protect their seat or to manipulate any kind of data point. In a private company, this is "rewarded" with getting immediately fired. In politicis however, it seems that this behaviour is actually rewarded with promotion and/or golden handshakes. Isn't that right, Nigel Farage?
It's disgusting. There needs to be some law in place that allows for proper prosecution of politicians who deliberatly lie in order to manipulate public opinion. There need to be swift and correct consequences attached to misinformation, manipulation, lying, boycotting, etc.



So, that's how I see it.
Sorry if it turned out a bit of a rant..... But I had to. I see our secular democratic world being destroyed from within by lying, manipulating, populist pricks and there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about that. And it's only getting worse.

And if I am right (and I'm fairly certain that I am) that this is heavily connected to "social media" and all the nasty crap that comes with that, then this isn't going to change any time soon. In fact, it's only going to get much much worse.

Wake up, people from the west. Wake up.

Put that phone away.
Delete that failbook account.
Delete that instagram.
Stop using whatsapp.
Stop with all that nonsense and start thinking for yourself again.

INFORM and EDUCATE yourselves as well as your fellow citizens.

We can still turn this around.
But I fear that the "point of no return" is closing in on us very very fast.

I do agree with most of your concerns, you actually don't even need fake news and all the others things, in order to receive misinformations. As far as I know even the journalists and News stations know about this problem, which is closely related to how news and people receive informations today. Everyone have heard of breaking news, which essentially is to get news out there as fast as possible, but since the speed that these news need to be available also means that often journalists won't have time to actually verify the information, I mean having to investigate and examine the informations takes time, which would ruin the "breaking news", so if misinformation is part of the breaking news, they have to later go back and correct it. And it is well known that once a piece of news is first out there and starts to spread on it owns from person to person, its quite difficult to then afterwards correct the mistakes, and think most people if they read a paper or whatever, know how little time correction of misinformation gets compared to the news in the first place. If your lucky it will be mentioned on page 7 at the very bottom and hopefully people will read it. This is as far as I know a known problem that they are aware of. So adding fake news and all the others in there and you have a lot of misinformation going around.

Then you have the issue of for instant scientific news, which is a common problem in regular news media, that this is often presented wrong, because people don't want to read scientific stuff. A good example of this is if you have ever read a headline saying something like "The gene for evil have been found" or something like that, anyone that knows anything about genetic knows that it is not how it works. But it gives the impression that there is like a string of genes with labels on, that we just haven't decoded yet. But the headline sell news, whereas a correct explanation doesn't.

Also it is now possible for anyone to create there own information and spread them through youtube and even make it sound like they know what they are talking about, because they can put in a lot of fancy theories that may seem to support what they are saying. So even people that might not deliberately try to cause misinformation might end up doing it. I mean you have people that believe the Earth is flat, what the... happen? I mean its like starting from scratch

In regards to democracy, I agree with you. Its basically just a majority dictatorship, hoping that the majority knows best, which is not necessarily based on logic or reason, simply what most people believe is best. Now I do however disagree with all the 3 points you list.

Since what you suggest is an elite system, which again is not prooven to be good or work either, remember that most of the people in office around the world have high educations and correctly as you mention not necessarily in the fields in which the work in, but most of them do get information from people that have, so they don't simply make choices based on what they think, at least not completely. My point is that a high education or even knowledge about a given area, is not enough to secure a higher standard, one of the reasons we are in the situation we are in has occurred with these people at the steering wheel the whole time, its not the uneducated people making all the important choices, at least for the most part.

So encouraging a system as you do, would only as I see it, make it easier for these people to get in control and remove people that even though they might not know everything about politics, at least vote with their "heart" and therefore vote on a party that cares about healthcare for instance. So imagine a poor person, which doesn't have money to buy decent healthcare and one of the political parties, suggest improvements to this, that person for whatever reason, might not pass the voting test that you mentioned and therefore just have to accept what those that can, think is best. And they might have enough money for decent healthcare so that would matter little to them.

The only way as I see it, is to create a global standard of human values that we can agree on is important for every human and that works for everyone regardless of the situation they are in. And any policy should work towards improving on these values, not for some people but for all. Said in another way, if poor healthcare is found acceptable for a poor person, its equally acceptable for a rich person and they should receive equal healthcare, if the rich person can't accept that, well then they should vote for better healthcare. Next you need to get as many personal opinions out of politics as possible and things need to be based on reason and evidences rather than ignorance and politics that favors some over others. The reason for this is, is that evidence and reason do not favor a specific group of people when it comes to human well being. Last we should always aim at lifting the weakest people in society to a higher standard and based on their condition we judge how successful things are actually going. If there are people forced to live on the street, that should be fixed, before figuring out how someone can afford a bigger house.

 

[Mindmaster]

Democracy is broken and in need of fixing.

The plebs are always in the bubble reality, but truth be told if they weren't they'd lose their ****.

Secondly, the content providers/platforms are serving their needs and generating the garbage that they want to see/hear. It's really nothing more than "junk food" for the mind...

 

[Augustus]

Many of the major problems with modern democracy could be mitigated rather easily.

1. Localism
2. Sortition

 

[Wandering Monk]

Don't know if you saw this, but Facebook recently removed 3 billion fake accounts in the last six months.

Facebook: Fake account removal doubles in 6 months to 3 billion

 

[Revoltingest]

I don't see this as anything new. We are, some of us, more aware of it because of the multitude of media outlets.

I see politics as rooting for a sports team. The only thing that matters is if your team wins.

For my team, it's how we can lose to a lesser extent.

 

[Stanyon]

authoritarian countries don't have the same issues because they block or censor the Internet and have state-run media.

It's coming, in fact I would say it is already here to a degree but not through the government but through social pressure, privately owned companies censoring certain materiel, and censorship through omission.
Candace Owens is being labeled as an "agent of hate"

 

[Revoltingest]

Of course democracy is broken, since it's rather unrealistic. Humans are not primarily rational animals. We're instinctually pleasure-seeking and tribalistic, too. Social media and advertising, and consumer "culture" overall, just milks it all for all it's worth. They have psychologists working with them. It's not a new thing. It's been going on since about the '50s. There's documentary about it called The Century of the Self that I recommend. It's just gotten worse. Corporate news is mostly nonsense made for ratings, too. We don't have a real public media in America. There's NPR but that's it, and it's not listened to much since it's listeners are stereotyped as liberal snobs. But still, they are just giving us what we think we want.

Countries with more authoritarian countries don't have the same issues because they block or censor the Internet and have state-run media.

Hey!
I'm one of those liberal snobs.

 

[sun rise]

I wouldn't worry.
Democracy has always been broken.
Its flaws are fundamental.
And yet it endures.

For now. Nothing is eternal.

Countries with more authoritarian countries don't have the same issues because they block or censor the Internet and have state-run media.

Until there is an explosion.

 

[sun rise]

Hey!
I'm one of those liberal snobs.

Using a classic, not current, definition of "liberal", of course.

 

[Revoltingest]

Using a classic, not current, definition of "liberal", of course.

Of course!
But note that it's not the RF staff definition of "classical liberal" either.
(Those bozos think it's the same as "conservative". It's not.)

 

[Nakosis]

Candace Owens is being labeled as an "agent of hate"

Should we censor that?