Democracy is broken

[Kangaroo Feathers]

Yes it did. Unless you can show me how the UK still is divided and everybody...and I do mean everybody...still speaks Anglo-Saxon, and how the British Parliament debates are held in Gaelic, Cornish or Welsh?

there hasn't been a nation formed YET that wasn't conquered by another group, speaking another language, killing off the rebellious and forcing their culture upon the losers.

This not me saying that this is a good thing. It's just how it was done. By everybody...and nobody apologized for it until the USA got so strong that it figured it could apologize for the way it became a nation.

Great Britain was a prime example of that. ....or have you noticed that India, South Africa and Australia all speak English, and that wholesale destruction of the indigenous peoples was just SOP?

Spain did it. Portugal did it. Germany, the Netherlands and France did it. Certainly Rome did it, in Latin spades.

..................and the winners wrote the histories. I'm not claiming that the USA is the 'best' at anything. I'm just giving easily provable (or if I'm wrong, easily disproven) FACTS.

Whitewashing human history so that you can feel all virtuous about your own history while you criticize the USA doesn't help.

Hypocrisy bugs me. It's one thing to point out that you don't like America or Americans. It's quite another to pretend that America is 'artificial,' and that somehow all virtue belongs to everybody ELSE.



And so was Great Britain, and France, and pretty much every other nation. America has been around now for nearly half a millennium. Just how long do you think it TAKES to become a nation where families who have been there for four hundred years can claim to be 'native?"

the FACT is, we're here. We've been here for centuries. We got here exactly the same way all the European and Asian nations got here, by colonization, conquest and assimilation. Some of that was 'good,' most wasn't...just like everybody else. The winners imposed their culture on the losers. Just like everybody else.

I HOPE that humans are growing up and realizing that this isn't all that good a method of nation building, but when I look at the world around me, I see that no....everybody is still doing it that way.

and everybody but America has had major changes in their forms of government SINCE the USA was founded as a government. Everybody else.

Do not pretend that Europe and Great Britain and China and all of the other nations of the world are somehow exempt from this. You aren't. We are still here. YOUR forms of government are newer....and most of 'em have attempted to emulate ours, with greater and lesser success.

Just get over it. Your effluvium is just as odorific as ours. More so. WE didn't start the slave trade, for instance.

And until we came along, nobody, but NOBODY, was apologizing to the losers in any conquest.

Iceland meets most of your requirements, but anyway.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

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

No.

Rather:

"People who have no clue what they are voting for shouldn't be allowed to vote".

It goes for myself as well.
I too, shouldn't be allowed to vote if I have no clue what I am voting for.

It is a proven fact that social media platforms are extremely powerfull tools to manipulate public opinion with false / incomplete information. When that translates into voting people into power who otherwise wouldn't be in power, then that is a problem.

And even ignoring the manipulation that is happening in cyberspace... Why should people indeed be allowed to vote if they have no clue what is going on or what they are really voting for?

After all, isn't it quite serious business? Why wouldn't you want an informed collective of voters?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Well, there's nothing that actually prevents people from accessing information from a variety of sources which see things differently.

Online, you'll find this quite hard - especially if you aren't that interent / computer savvy.
Online, you'll likely have to go out of your way / change your routine, to end up on "other" sources.

That's also the thing about social media... these platforms are build from the ground up to encourage their users to stay within the confines of the platform, to spend as much time as possible on it. And they abuse human psychology to accomplish that. Companies like facebook literally have psychologist consultants on their dev and design teams, to help with designing UIs and features that will abuse human psychological weaknesses to make the user's eyes stick to the screen like glue. Literally, the goal is to create "addictions".

The point is that while indeed not impossible to look for other sources, the platforms make it difficult and actively try to prevent it.

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.

Through newsfeeds, the illusion of multiple sources is created.
It's not really the sources that are filtered / tailored in the "social bubble". It's the content.
Algortims that analyse your superprofile and serves you with content tailored to that profile and even generated specifically for that profile.

When someone wants to abuse this data to manipulate your vote, then based on that data, they can find out exactly what they need to tell you in order to get you to vote for the person/party they have in mind.

The potential of what you can do with these profiles is quite scary, as demonstrated by Cambridge Analytica. These are huge psychological profiles. People put their entire lives on it. The more they "share" (or hand over), the easier they become as a target.

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.

I'ld be all for crippling these companies with proper enforcement of privacy laws. We don't even need new privacy laws. The ones we have are fine. And they are being raped by "social" media. But indeed, nobody seems to dare touch these multi-billion dollar empires.

Nevertheless, even if that were to happen, I think that it would still be a good idea to put some safeguards in place in the voting process. Why would you want people who have no clue, deciding how your future will look like?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Of course democracy is broken, since it's rather unrealistic. Humans are not primarily rational animals.

Yup.

All the more reason to "impose" some rationality on the entire thing.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

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

Sorry, no.

There is no precedent of having AI algoritms scan billions of gigantic psychological profiles to determine what exactly needs to be said or shown to any particular person to manipulate and literally mentally force him or her into having a certain specific opinion or preference.

 

[Augustus]

Yes it did. Unless you can show me how the UK still is divided and everybody...and I do mean everybody...still speaks Anglo-Saxon, and how the British Parliament debates are held in Gaelic, Cornish or Welsh?

there hasn't been a nation formed YET that wasn't conquered by another group, speaking another language, killing off the rebellious and forcing their culture upon the losers.

This not me saying that this is a good thing. It's just how it was done. By everybody...and nobody apologized for it until the USA got so strong that it figured it could apologize for the way it became a nation.

The general process, as supported by genetic evidence, is that a dominant power spreads their culture to an area acquired by force but the population remains largely the same. For example Levantine "Arabs", "Turks", and "Greeks" are pretty much the same people, it's just that some got conquered at various points at stopped being cultural Hellenes/Romans.

America (and its antecedents) differed in this regard as the dominant group didn't simply replace the culture, they replaced the people.

I'm not one for applying modern ethical concerns to the past, history is what it is. But the establishment of America was atypical regarding nation building.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

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.

I think I have to agree with your concerns. We don't want to end up in an "elite" system.
At the same time though.... I don't really see why a poor person wouldn't be able to get a voting ticket. Come election time, I get all program pamflets from all parties in my mailbox. If I subscribe online, I'ld get them digitally too. All it takes, is picking them up and actually reading them. This could also easily be standardized that every party has to make a complete program available with everything they wish to do the next legislation. Free of charge, off course.

But I sure get what you are saying.

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.

Hear, hear.
Couldn't agree more.

The problem is that every time I explore such an utopian world... I end up with Plato's famous idea:
"The absolute best form of rule is a dictatorship where the dictator is genuinely a good person that only wants what's best for the the world and its people, that safeguards humans values for all humans and who isn't actually interested in holding that seat of power. Sadly, such a person will likely never exist."


But I agree very much.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

So you want the government to tell private businesses what they can and can't do?

Isn't it exactly the government's job to tell companies (and people) what they can and can not do?

 

[Augustus]

"People who have no clue what they are voting for shouldn't be allowed to vote".

Who gets to decide who is smart enough to vote?

Would the highly educated intellectuals who still supported the USSR in the late 80s because they still believed in the theory, even when the reality was quite clear?

What about the people who crashed the world economy a decade ago? They'd get a vote, but many people paying to clean up their mess would not.

Humans are not objectively rational, and frequently believe very stupid things precisely because of their (mis)education.

People who are educated and consider themselves "Rationalists" also do not change their mind when presented with contradictory evidence any more frequently than "stupid people" (some research actually suggests they do so less, and are more conformist to their chosen political party)

After all, isn't it quite serious business? Why wouldn't you want an informed collective of voters?

Because you can't actually get one that is sufficiently informed. It's a pipe dream.

Making some rudimentary quiz to pass wouldn't change this, and elites disenfranchising large sections of the population based on arbitrary criteria set by the elites is morally awful.

I'd use sortition, random selection of (some of) the representatives. You get a representative sample of the population, and these people would become informed o the issues they were deciding upon.

Far more democratic than the current system which disproportionately favours elites.

Also I'd decentralise almost all decision making to the municipal level. It's much harder to BS people on a small scale than a large one. Problems are also much easier to solve when they are simplified by reducing their scale and people actually crae about their locality. Also, seeing as decision makers would actually live in the areas they are administering, it reduces the distance between the 'ruler' and the 'ruled'. Nowadays, they are almost completely isolated from the consequences of their decisions.

 

[Augustus]

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.

If the "only solution" requires everyone to agree on something, then we are royally ****ed.

People always look the wrong way for a 'solution' which is more centralisation and conformity (i.e. bigger scale). A system based on the exact opposite, decentralisation, is far more realistic.

It's exponentially easier to get 10,000 people who live in the same town to agree on commonalities than 10 billion people with massively different cultures, values, interests and experiences.

 

[Glaurung]

English is weird. It is actually descended from German...high German. That's where we get our grammar and a lot of our vocabulary. English kept that, as well as a great deal of Latin, from the wars back and forth between the Celts and Rome. Then, of course, came William the Conquerer, who brought Norman French over, and we got most of our vocabulary from them; though we kept the Germanic grammar. English is the ultimate 'creole' language, and it is so because of all the back and forth conquering everybody did.

Just one nitpick because I'm going to be that guy. English doesn't descend from High German. High German became High German due to a sound shift that occurred later. (English, Dutch and Low German were not affected). High German is a sibling, rather than a parent in the West Germanic Family. Ingvaeonic and Irminonic.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Who gets to decide who is smart enough to vote?

I didn't mention anything about being smart or educated.
I merely said to demonstrate that they understand what they are voting for.

Would the highly educated intellectuals who still supported the USSR in the late 80s because they still believed in the theory, even when the reality was quite clear?

What about the people who crashed the world economy a decade ago? They'd get a vote, but many people paying to clean up their mess would not.

This is just building on the strawman of the first quote.
It's not about being smart or educated or whatever.
It's about knowing what you vote for (or against).

It's about preventing people to vote out of habbit or based on inaccurate / incomplete information.
If anything, it's not about only allowing the educated to vote... it's about encouraging people to get educated so that they can vote. It might seem as if that's the same thing, but it isn't.

I want everybody to vote. Everybody. But I also want them to vote with knowledge. I want them to actually think about their vote. I don't want them to "agree with me" or "vote as I do". I literally don't. A party gaining 50%+ of votes wouldn't be healthy imo. No matter if it's the party i'm voting for as well.

It's purely about information and making informed decisions.
When people get voted into power based on misinformation, then that is a big problem.

And yes, I am absolutely of the opinion that certain elections these past years would have had much different outcomes, if it wasn't for such manipulation through misinformation.

Western democracies are currently literally an easy target for election manipulation by outside forces. This is literally a cyber threat to national sovereignity. Russia is literally actively engaging in such manipulations.

Why are so little people caring about this?
Where are all the patriots that are otherwise so loud when it comes to perceived threats to their sovereignity?

Because you can't actually get one that is sufficiently informed. It's a pipe dream.

So therefor, you shouldn't even try and let foreign or domestic powers just do their manipulation thing while hoping everything will be fine?

I'm not saying that what I said is "the only solution" - or even a solution at all. I noted the disclaimer that I didn't even think about practical implications. It's just some (unrealistic, I know) idea I toy with just to get discussion going and to get people to think about stuff.

However, I do think that something should absolutely be done in order to at least prevent some of this damage. And what I proposed is just an idea. I'ld be fine with something else, if it achieves the goal.

Making some rudimentary quiz to pass wouldn't change this, and elites disenfranchising large sections of the population based on arbitrary criteria set by the elites is morally awful.

There's nothing arbitrary about what I suggested.
Political parties have a program. They have standpoints on various issues which they will defend and try and get implemented while in office.

All this quiz is, is to show that you are aware of what these standpoints are. That's it.
You are still completely free to vote for whoever you please.

If there is a party that has as a standpoint that all black people should be deported (regardless of legality here, for the sake of example) and you show in the test that you are aware of that, you get to vote. And you are free to vote on the racist party.

There's nothing elitist or disenfranchising about this.
It's just a way to make sure that voters vote responsibly.
Nobody is being left behind. Everyone has access to these program documents. Everyone can read them.

What is wrong with demanding from voters that they should know what they are voting for or against?

I'd use sortition, random selection of (some of) the representatives. You get a representative sample of the population, and these people would become informed o the issues they were deciding upon.

Far more democratic than the current system which disproportionately favours elites.

Sounds good too.
As long as it filters out votes based on ignorance, I'm fine.

Also I'd decentralise almost all decision making to the municipal level. It's much harder to BS people on a small scale than a large one. Problems are also much easier to solve when they are simplified by reducing their scale and people actually crae about their locality. Also, seeing as decision makers would actually live in the areas they are administering, it reduces the distance between the 'ruler' and the 'ruled'. Nowadays, they are almost completely isolated from the consequences of their decisions.

True. Though many problems require a more "big picture" solution.
Oftenly, it's also just a lot more efficient and less costly to go for 1 "big picture" nation-wide solution instead of many seperate small implementations in smaller communities.

 

[Augustus]

It's about preventing people to vote out of habbit or based on inaccurate / incomplete information.
If anything, it's not about only allowing the educated to vote... it's about encouraging people to get educated so that they can vote. It might seem as if that's the same thing, but it isn't.

Anyone who consumes large quantities of the daily news media ('quality' or tabloid) is exposed to large quantities of inaccurate information.

Being ignorant can often be better than being misinformed.

Anyway, some studies have shown, 'educated' people are less open to belief revision based on evidence than 'ignorant' people.

So therefor, you shouldn't even try and let foreign or domestic powers just do their manipulation thing while hoping everything will be fine?

I've already said what I'd do, and it largely solves this problem. Manipulating 1 election is a lot easier than manipulating 1000. Same applies to lobbying, manipulating one legislature is much easier than manipulating 1000.

There's nothing arbitrary about what I suggested.
Political parties have a program. They have standpoints on various issues which they will defend and try and get implemented while in office.

All this quiz is, is to show that you are aware of what these standpoints are. That's it.
You are still completely free to vote for whoever you please.

So to vote you need to memorise the manifesto of every party? Quizzing people only on the main parties is tantamount to promoting them.

Even if people memorise the manifestos, it doesn't mean they actually understand them or the consequences. Most people can't make informed decisions on these issues anyway and are massively influenced by the media and prior ideological allegiances.

A more engaged electorate actually makes the media more powerful rather than less as information seeking will largely be media consumption.

Sounds good too.
As long as it filters out votes based on ignorance, I'm fine.

Nope. Basic mental competence only.

Random selection from all who put their names forward will give a fair enough balance.

True. Though many problems require a more "big picture" solution.
Oftenly, it's also just a lot more efficient and less costly to go for 1 "big picture" nation-wide solution instead of many seperate small implementations in smaller communities.

Defence and foreign policy would be the main things done at the federal level if I were making the rules. Certain key infrastructure too perhaps. Not much else.

 

[Nimos]

I think I have to agree with your concerns. We don't want to end up in an "elite" system.
At the same time though.... I don't really see why a poor person wouldn't be able to get a voting ticket. Come election time, I get all program pamflets from all parties in my mailbox. If I subscribe online, I'ld get them digitally too. All it takes, is picking them up and actually reading them. This could also easily be standardized that every party has to make a complete program available with everything they wish to do the next legislation. Free of charge, off course.

But I sure get what you are saying.

There might be many reasons why poor people don't tend to vote as much, depending on how poor they are, so I think its a mixture. If you live on the street its probably not your greatest concern how to get a digital voting ticket living day in and out on the street. Psychological issues could cause someone to not really be able to take the time to go through a "voting test", if you are an alcoholic, drug addict etc. There are many reasons I think that some might not vote.

I found this article which give some reasons as well.
How poverty makes people less likely to vote | Ruth Patrick

What I think is important to remember is that not all people are in equal situations or at the same stage in life. Nothing say that they will vote anyway. But putting them through a voting test, would make it really difficult for lets say those living on the street to get enough information to pass such test.

Hear, hear.
Couldn't agree more.

The problem is that every time I explore such an utopian world... I end up with Plato's famous idea:
"The absolute best form of rule is a dictatorship where the dictator is genuinely a good person that only wants what's best for the the world and its people, that safeguards humans values for all humans and who isn't actually interested in holding that seat of power. Sadly, such a person will likely never exist."


But I agree very much.

I don't believe in a utopia, I think what will most likely happen is that we will end up with something like the Venus project. Even though it obvious have some issues, I think the overall idea and aim is correct and needed if we are to create a sustainable world with an ever exploding stream of new technology. For some it might sound stupid, but if we don't change how things are being done, the difference between rich an poor is going to cause a complete collapse at some point.

You can explore this more, but just try to read this and how insane that is, and then think how many people in America that, might be able to get a slightly better life if they had just a little more :

According to PolitiFact and others, in 2011 the 400 wealthiest Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined

My guess is that when robotics and advance computers starts to invaded jobs which people thought were save and suddenly find themselves unable to get a new one, that things are going to come crashing down rather fast. Humans for most things can't compete with something that can work day and night, that is never sick, doesn't need a wage, never complain, never go on vacation. There is no way for the majority of jobs that this is possible. So either we calculate for that in how we want a future society to be or things will become really bad, I think. Then you have some people that might say, but it will create lots of new jobs, like designing robots, repairing them etc. How many do you actually need to do that? If we remove all taxi, truck and train drivers. which is already in the process of happening now. How many of them are first of all qualified to work with robotics? and looking at ones computer or car whatever, how often do you actually have to repair it? And what makes one think that you won't get robots to repair other robots reducing the amount of people needed for that. To me this is something we ought to take very serious and prepare our societies for, because a lot of people are going to suffer under this.

 

[Nimos]

If the "only solution" requires everyone to agree on something, then we are royally ****ed.

People always look the wrong way for a 'solution' which is more centralisation and conformity (i.e. bigger scale). A system based on the exact opposite, decentralisation, is far more realistic.

It's exponentially easier to get 10,000 people who live in the same town to agree on commonalities than 10 billion people with massively different cultures, values, interests and experiences.

Its definitely not easy I completely agree, but I don't think its impossible, but it requires a lot things and compromises to come together and across borders. And it has to start with reason, it doesn't need to be especially based on evidence in the beginning I think, but simply some overall ideas. So lets say equal healthcare for all.

1. So every human need to have access to the highest possible healthcare available regardless of wealth. So no private hospital or if we want that, anyone will be able to go there and the bill will be picked up by the state. (Now this is basically how it is in Denmark, so it does work in practice )

So if we agree that we think this is good for all humans, what we could do is for instance to say to China since a lot of our stuff is made there, that we demand that their workers are offered this as well or we will not produce our stuff there. I think that could work as a global strategy.

And we could do that with lots of things, education, work conditions (which is already done, at least to some degree) But to start creating some equal values and rules, so it could for instance suddenly make it just as good to make a factory in the US as it would in China, so as more and more common values are agreed on, we eventually could make a more cooperative world with greater understanding between human needs and rights etc. As I said, I don't think there is an easy way, but its not impossible either.

Edit..
I forgot about the decentralized issue.

I agree with you that it would be easier, but I don't think its effective enough, I might obviously be mistaken. But the problem as I see it with such approach is that, it also allow for individual "corruption" or what to say.

Imagine you have 4 groups, with very decent names.

1. Red
2. Green
3. Nature
4. Pollution

So Red cares a lot about the environment and decide to get things produced by the Nature group. However the Green see a great opportunity, as the Pollution group can make things cheap, as they don't really care about how they treat people or the environment, so straight away you run into problems.

Which doesn't really work as we know that pollution affects the whole world, but if we cant "force" others to not pollute then we are pretty much stuck. Also I think we have a moral responsibility to the population of the Pollution group and not simply exploit them, which is pretty much what happens now with poor people in these countries. Im pretty sure that a worker at a Chinese factory is not treated all that good and work under the best conditions, at least not conditions that a person from my country would accept. So I think its more about taking a global responsibility for humans as a whole and look at it, like what would you accept? Would you like to be treated as a Chinese worker and if not, then we should not accept it.

 

[dianaiad]

The UK is made up of different countries (while the UK itself could be considered a country, oddly). They speak different languages because they're different ethnic groups. I'm not sure why you mentioned that.

British colonialism is related to but not quite the same thing as what I'm talking about. I never said that America was the only one that did it, either. I'm not going to repeat myself.

No, and I notice that you aren't responding to the fact or points mentioned in my post, either.

Because you can't.

 

[Stevicus]

Online, you'll find this quite hard - especially if you aren't that interent / computer savvy.
Online, you'll likely have to go out of your way / change your routine, to end up on "other" sources.

It's still a lot easier than it was in the old days, when one typically only had access to local media and network news. If one wanted to read news from other parts of the country or other parts of the world, one would have to go down to the library or find a store that specialized in out-of-town newspapers. Few people would ever make the effort to do that.

That's also the thing about social media... these platforms are build from the ground up to encourage their users to stay within the confines of the platform, to spend as much time as possible on it. And they abuse human psychology to accomplish that. Companies like facebook literally have psychologist consultants on their dev and design teams, to help with designing UIs and features that will abuse human psychological weaknesses to make the user's eyes stick to the screen like glue. Literally, the goal is to create "addictions".

The point is that while indeed not impossible to look for other sources, the platforms make it difficult and actively try to prevent it.

Well, again, I would put that on those who get suckered in to social media in the first place.

But another difficulty also has to do with media organizations that have paywalls and other barriers to access. I've also found this on some academic sites, where there might be some article or publication with limited access. I don't understand this practice at all.

If the goal is to disseminate information to as wide a group as possible, then they should make it freely available and accessible. If their only goal is to make money, then therein lies the problem.

I used to buy and read the local paper from cover to cover (sometimes 2 or 3 newspapers in one day), and that was a near daily thing. It was also back when the paper was only 25¢ or 35¢ per copy. Now, it's over a dollar and a lot thinner than it used to be, with a lot more advertisements, too. I eventually got to the point where I had to ask myself "What am I paying for?" (Not only that, but they kept messing with the comics page, removing my favorite comics and replacing them with garbage.)

Through newsfeeds, the illusion of multiple sources is created.
It's not really the sources that are filtered / tailored in the "social bubble". It's the content.
Algortims that analyse your superprofile and serves you with content tailored to that profile and even generated specifically for that profile.

When someone wants to abuse this data to manipulate your vote, then based on that data, they can find out exactly what they need to tell you in order to get you to vote for the person/party they have in mind.

The potential of what you can do with these profiles is quite scary, as demonstrated by Cambridge Analytica. These are huge psychological profiles. People put their entire lives on it. The more they "share" (or hand over), the easier they become as a target.

It's still the same principle of the marketplace of ideas. Theoretically, as long as it's a level playing field and everyone has equal access, it should all balance out. The problem here is that it's not balanced and access is not equal.

The reason why they can manipulate your vote is because people, by and large, have no backbone and no real principles. People tend to have short attention spans and vote for frivolous, whimsical reasons which only have to do with their mood at the moment. This is really nothing new.

The impression I get from the powers that be in media and social media is that they're actually frightened by what they're finding out about people. This is why Facebook and other platforms are in a panic and furiously deleting/blocking certain sites due to their content. You seem to be suggesting that they're gaining control over hearts and minds, yet their actions demonstrate just the opposite.

I'ld be all for crippling these companies with proper enforcement of privacy laws. We don't even need new privacy laws. The ones we have are fine. And they are being raped by "social" media. But indeed, nobody seems to dare touch these multi-billion dollar empires.

Trump attacks them on a regular basis, and these multi-billion dollar empires are fighting back tooth and nail. It's been an interesting spectacle these past three years.

Nevertheless, even if that were to happen, I think that it would still be a good idea to put some safeguards in place in the voting process. Why would you want people who have no clue, deciding how your future will look like?

I don't particularly want that, but that's what we've already had for a long time - even before social media and internet. Of course, there have been those who wanted safeguards in the voting process. At first, they only wanted white men who owned property to vote. Then they opened it up to all white men, whether they owned property or not. Then they allowed black men to vote, yet put in barriers such as grandfather clauses and literacy tests - later declared unconstitutional. Same for poll taxes, which are also unconstitutional. Then they allowed women to vote, and even lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.

Universal suffrage and the idea that "everyone gets a say" (and that means everyone) are considered democracy's greatest strengths. Trying to put any safeguards in the voting process seems almost un-American at this point. The electoral college is considered a safeguard, but that's been quite unpopular lately. The principle of having an unelected judiciary (so they wouldn't be subject to popular whimsy) is also considered a safeguard, but that too has come under fire lately with so-called "activist judges" legislating from the bench.

However, there might be ways of altering the structure somewhat. It occurs to me that a lot of functions of the electoral process were put in place back in a time when there was no electricity, no internet, no telephones or telegraphs, and a limited mail system. In some counties, it would take a day or longer for people to travel to their county seats to vote. It was a big deal.

Interestingly, it seems that state and local governments do democracy better than we do at the national level. That might be worth exploring, since states often have ballot propositions which are non-existent at the federal level. Some states elect judges, as well as cabinet posts, such as state attorney general, state treasurer, etc.

 

[dianaiad]

Can you stop the reflexive defensive tapdancing for just one post?

A. I didn't say you made any claim, I was commenting on American exceptionalism and when it's bad.

2. As for "Oldest government still existing", it isn't. IIRC Egypt claims the title as the world's oldest continuous political entity, and Iceland claims the title for world's longest unbroken government.

Oldest Democratic government? Well that's different to "oldest government" isn't it? But Even so, Iceland and Great Britain beat American Democracy as "oldest".

Iceland didn't become a republic until 1944. Before that it had kings and queens...and was ruled by other nations quite frequently. So Iceland does not count. If it DID, then we, the Americans, can count our existence back to Eric the Red. Great Britain has been, for most of it's existence, a ruling monarchy. As in, the kings and queens RULED, not just reigned, and that did not change until after the USA was founded. As for Egypt...Egypt has been trading governments for millenia. As of 1914, it was a British protectorate. It became independent again under Faud in 1922...a KING. It became a republic, sort of, under Nasser in 1954.

Whatever you want to think about the existence of Egypt as a country (which in the case of Egypt would be confined to geographical borders, and they changed quite a bit), IT has changed everything but it's name and geography from the time of the early Pharoahs, and after Alexander, well...From Greek to Roman to Ottoman to ???

And all those different styles of government failed. Or do I need to mention Mubaric, Morsi and Sisi? And that's just since WWII.

What is the problem here? Is it so horrific to acknowledge actual facts?

It's not a statement of pride. It's not a declaration of superiority. In fact, I don't like it. I would PREFER to have the USA be the 'youngster." I would prefer to be the rebellious teenager, but the more I researched things, the more it hit me between the eyes. What it does, though, is reverse the perceived notion by Europeans and others that the USA is this barbarian nation that is too big for its britches, full of uncouth idiots who don't know how to treat its superiors. We 'don't know our place.'

And it turns out that our 'place,' as far as government goes, is 'older than anybody else.'

Whether anybody else likes that or not.

Unfortunately, what it also does is put us in the same situation that Spain, Portugal, Great Britain and other 'super powers' were in their day in the sun; we CAN be as nasty as anybody else, as full of conviction of our own superiority, as willing to conquer and subdue as any European has ever been.

but we...are the only nation to ever apologize to those it ran over on the way here. We are the only nation to EVER think that building a nation this way might have been unjust to the people we drove over.

Nobody else has ever done that. Indeed, some of you responding to me here are actually pretending that European nation building was bloodless and nobody got hurt; that no culture ever disappeared because the conquerors didn't like it. This 'nationbuilding by melding cultures" thing?

Good grief. Somebody tell the Scotts and the Irish that, will you? You know...those people who may speak their own language in private, but who are "English' (or 'Brits' ) through and through in their daily lives?

Someone tell the Egyptians, who were a very proud people with a well established religion...and who were conquered by Greece, then Rome, then the Ottomans and who are now Muslim...and absolutely chaotically unbalanced now?

Someone tell all the tribes of the 'stans...who keep their traditions in dance, but whose cultures and beliefs were destroyed by the Soviets?

Someone tell all the Germanic tribes of Europe who, after having their OWN time of conquering, were conquered in turn by Germany, France, etc. and who none of 'em remember who they USED to be?

Will someone PLEASE open a history text?

 

[dianaiad]

Iceland meets most of your requirements, but anyway.

Iceland, it turns out, meets none of them. Sorry.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

Iceland didn't become a republic until 1944. Before that it had kings and queens...and was ruled by other nations quite frequently. So Iceland does not count. If it DID, then we, the Americans, can count our existence back to Eric the Red. Great Britain has been, for most of it's existence, a ruling monarchy. As in, the kings and queens RULED, not just reigned, and that did not change until after the USA was founded. As for Egypt...Egypt has been trading governments for millenia. As of 1914, it was a British protectorate. It became independent again under Faud in 1922...a KING. It became a republic, sort of, under Nasser in 1954.

Whatever you want to think about the existence of Egypt as a country (which in the case of Egypt would be confined to geographical borders, and they changed quite a bit), IT has changed everything but it's name and geography from the time of the early Pharoahs, and after Alexander, well...From Greek to Roman to Ottoman to ???

And all those different styles of government failed. Or do I need to mention Mubaric, Morsi and Sisi? And that's just since WWII.

What is the problem here? Is it so horrific to acknowledge actual facts?

It's not a statement of pride. It's not a declaration of superiority. In fact, I don't like it. I would PREFER to have the USA be the 'youngster." I would prefer to be the rebellious teenager, but the more I researched things, the more it hit me between the eyes. What it does, though, is reverse the perceived notion by Europeans and others that the USA is this barbarian nation that is too big for its britches, full of uncouth idiots who don't know how to treat its superiors. We 'don't know our place.'

And it turns out that our 'place,' as far as government goes, is 'older than anybody else.'

Whether anybody else likes that or not.

Unfortunately, what it also does is put us in the same situation that Spain, Portugal, Great Britain and other 'super powers' were in their day in the sun; we CAN be as nasty as anybody else, as full of conviction of our own superiority, as willing to conquer and subdue as any European has ever been.

but we...are the only nation to ever apologize to those it ran over on the way here. We are the only nation to EVER think that building a nation this way might have been unjust to the people we drove over.

Nobody else has ever done that. Indeed, some of you responding to me here are actually pretending that European nation building was bloodless and nobody got hurt; that no culture ever disappeared because the conquerors didn't like it. This 'nationbuilding by melding cultures" thing?

Good grief. Somebody tell the Scotts and the Irish that, will you? You know...those people who may speak their own language in private, but who are "English' (or 'Brits' ) through and through in their daily lives?

Someone tell the Egyptians, who were a very proud people with a well established religion...and who were conquered by Greece, then Rome, then the Ottomans and who are now Muslim...and absolutely chaotically unbalanced now?

Someone tell all the tribes of the 'stans...who keep their traditions in dance, but whose cultures and beliefs were destroyed by the Soviets?

Someone tell all the Germanic tribes of Europe who, after having their OWN time of conquering, were conquered in turn by Germany, France, etc. and who none of 'em remember who they USED to be?

Will someone PLEASE open a history text?

Go look up "constitutional monarchy", then come back and get smug about how much history you think you know. Actually, don't bother. I'm sick of you blasting everyone with supreme confidence in your half factual slanted gibberish.