💾 Archived View for dioskouroi.xyz › thread › 24926996 captured on 2020-10-31 at 00:49:49. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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It feels insanely presumptuous to hear this stuff.
Democracy? Since when are we a democracy? Oh, because it's a popular term used in media and vernacular? So are Fruit Loops, who cares?
Let me try an alternate framing: democracy is a brand, a feel-good term for political rhetoric. This is what democracy looks like:
https://media2.s-nbcnews.com/j/msnbc/Components/ArtAndPhoto-...
What is _actually_ (though unpopularly) valuable in our society is not democracy, but the Bill of Rights, high trust, and rule of law. Democracy gets the applause, but they do the heavy lifting.
By all means, cover elections, blow the whistle on crap. But if you're scratching your head wondering why the media's popularity is at an all-time low, maybe it's because there's this onanistic self-regard that places the media above the citizen.
Tucker Carlson just broke the record for most-watched month of _any cable news show ever_. If that offends you as a journalist, it's probably time for some introspection.
Election of representatives via an accurate count of cast ballots is the Law of the land. Undermining that would erode both the rule of law and societal trust. And without those two things, your bill of rights is just a scrap of paper and your court is just a set of 9 frail people with no army to back them.
Small-d democracy -- the orderly selection of representatives via a vote of the enfranchised citizens -- is absolutely the bedrock of the American political system and its best bulwark against political violence.
Tbh I thought the article's autocratic fear-mongering was overblown bullshit, but the top comment on this story lauds a pro-Trump commentary show and insists that ending democracy isn't really such a big deal after all. So, here we are, I guess.
"What is actually (though unpopularly) valuable in our society is not democracy, but the Bill of Rights, high trust, and rule of law"
All of these mean nothing if the people in charge are not held accountable for their actions/policies. And people who stay in power for long periods of time, tend to not be huge fans of accountability when it comes to their practices.
47 years is pretty long.
How is “the Bill of Rights, high trust, and rule of law” doing any lifting? You have to vote for people to implement those things.
Ideally you’d have a well educated populace and a functional media to make sure the best people get elected though... Is there a better system for making politicians accountable to citizens?
> You have to vote for people to implement those things.
Not really. We didn't vote for Amy Coney Barrett, or anyone else on the supreme court, but ultimately, they -- and the myriad other judges -- are the ones who protect the populace, via rule of law, from a government of any political party interfering in the fundamental rights -- as outlined in the Constitution -- over which the government has no authority to legislate over.
EDIT: That is to say, I am not someone who feels super-well-represented by any political party or candidate. Despite the fact that I prefer Trump over Biden, I don't like everything about the man, by any means. But honestly, whether he wins or not, I don't really care, because I trust our Constitution via the judiciary (and legislation, when necessary) to guarantee to me what I care most about... the freedom to practice my religion and to speak what I think.
The Supreme Court and what army/purse? Brown v Board wouldn't have had teeth if Wallace was the president, for example.
I'm not sure I understand what changes you are advocating. Can you explain?
It seems to me that people like Tucker Carlson are precisely those who are a threat to rights and trust.
Those things you mentioned are pieces of paper and phantasms. Only an engaged populace can hold elites in check. Why would they do anything except what benefits them otherwise?
> Tucker Carlson just broke the record for most-watched month of any cable news show ever. If that offends you as a journalist, it's probably time for some introspection.
I admire your optimism, but there won't be introspection. They will and already have labeled Carlson far-right, bigot, racist, sexist, liar, and you name it. His show broke the record because more than half of American population are basket of deplorables, least educated, and white supremacists.
The problem is that Carlson is a far right, bigot, racist, and liar (I don't know that I've personally heard of sexism on his part).
The fact that half the population agrees with him doesn't change any of that.
Tucker Carlson thinks marijuana legalization is a massive conspiracy to pacify the youth and make them more compliant. I dont particularly give a damn about the mainstream media, but I'm not going to pretend Carlson is a paragon of intelligent political analysis either.
It's not that Tucker's an oracle. It's that sometime in the last 30 years the tenets of the journalistic priesthood have changed. In the past the (aspirational) goal was to provide the public with the facts; now it's to provide the (interpreted) Truth.
Biased media is nothing new. It just used to be biased in different, opposing directions. What's new is that journalists finally found something they could all agree on: pro-journalism!
Thank you Ronald Reagan
Fox News literally argued in court that Tucker Carlson is exempt from slander accusations because the show is purely entertainment and no reasonable person would believe that the claims he makes are factual.
Similar arguments were made in defense of the Daily Show and Colbert Report (e.g. "just comedy shows"), yet those shows also often touched on big issues neglected by mainstream news.
If there was any confusion: Fox _"News"_, _Comedy_ Central
Isn't he mainstream media?
Most people don't agree fully with any person they respect politically. That doesn't mean you toss the baby out with the bathwater. Tucker Carlson's views on Marijuana may seem odd on Hacker News, but (1) they're fairly typical and mainstream and (2) they really don't matter when Tucker is reporting on things like the Joe Biden allegations.
Oh noooes not my heckin weederinos. The kiddos should be allowed to get 420 blazed up my dudes! Marijuana makes children smarter, it’s important we get them started early to expand their minds maaan. Did you know Carl Sagan also toked up? We are all star dust my friend, light one up for my homie Sagan. Alright, Reddit out. The bacon narwhals at midnight.
Thanks for sharing. I didn't know about that. I watched a few episodes of Carlson on rioting and critical race theory with blatant racism against white people in Seattle city government. Those were shocking news, and Carlson's attack was forceful yet followed common sense.
> His show broke the record because more than half of American population are basket of deplorables, least educated, and white supremacists.
In another word, mainstream.
?
Sure, america isn't very democratic compared to other democracies, but what are you actually saying?
That since the american democracy is already weak, it should be abandoned?
Sure, more people watch some crazy person on fox rather than actual news, but is that a reason to stop with news altogether?
The TLDR of this would be: this is a call to action for people who value democracy to stand up for it. If you dislike democracy, then this is obviously not for you...
Journalists need to learn the basic ethics. Take sides when you analyze, don't take sides when you seek facts. Edit to write sharper articles, don't edit to take people's words out of context. Be creative to find truth, don't be creative to fit everything into your own narrative, and certainly don't fabricate history to win Pulitzer.
Not only is learning ethics essential for them but also we have to pay journalists in ways other than having them work for media organizations whose income is based on ratings. Chasing ratings has ruined many news organizations over the past 50 or so years.
Given the structure of reporting today, I don't see how that can be achieved in any easy way.
We have journalists. Then we have sponsored news outlets. We have websites sponsored by different groups. What about an average person? he is not equipped with money and technology to publish his opinion in a very meaningful and informative way. We can solve this problem. I am looking to have something like a WordPress for news, where we can use open source technology to curate news, do news analytics and publish. If you believe the majority of people are kind and trustworthy, and if they are able to express themselves to compete with sponsored outlets, we may be able to do it.
koi bat ni
I've always thought hackers/security folks have better politics (in both directions) because they're used to thinking in terms of systems.
I would love if journalists also took the time to think about how the parties use the equivalent of social engineering to control the news cycle and bring about changes that aren't healthy for journalism or democracy
I think they already do.
But they have to convince management to publish important stories instead of the stories that pay their bills. Is it really that surprising that it's an uphill battle?
The question we need to answer is "how are we going to pay the salaries of investigative journalists?"
On the other hand, if journalists thought more about how the news cycle/public is nefariously manipulated, journalists might just get better at nefariously manipulating it. It's certainly within their economic interest.
Seems to me there's much discussion not related at all to the substance of the article. I was hoping for better than this.
_The recommendation: the big national news providers – ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, NPR, PBS, AP, Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post – should have threat modelling teams, just as they all have pollsters. These teams would try to identify the most serious threats to a free and fair election and to US democracy over the next three months, so that their newsrooms can take appropriate action._
Great point. The recommendation of the article seems pretty straightforward and uncontentious.
Not that I'm a fan of the major national news media but anything they can do to up their game I'd not be against.
I'm assuming it's because of the time the article was posted. Comments are always pretty garbage in the early morning on anything remotely political. They will get better and upvotes will adjust to represent substantive discussion as we enter the waking hours in the USA.
Same here...
But what can you do when a large part of commenters are arguing against democracy?
Fwiw at the time this article was posted it was like 3am in the us. Comments on optical stories are always low-quality flame bait this time of day, either because they're from non-Americans because of the sort of people who tend to comment in the early morning in their own time zone. Give it a few more hours.
Or they could become journalist again, because if you look at the trust in this journalist lately they are at a alltime low and these arrogant articles are why.
Are you willing to pay them for that?
Market-based solutions to news and journalism are the problem and always have been.
Nope and I guess this why they changed business tactics
What journalism is actually for, and how capitalism actually works, are completely at odds.
I have no answers on how this can be squared.
I'm too young to recall the past in rose tinted glasses, but recently I've started to be more skeptical by day if "objective journalism" or even "journalism", as the third check of balance of power that is usually taught in schools, was ever a thing.
On another HN post about fast.ai CoC debacle someone pointed out that media before the 20th century was not much more different than twitter today; a lot of rumours, unchecked facts, misinformation, you name it.
More and more it seems like the high paragon of journalism that most journalists claims as an excuse is just that; an idealized excuse. It reminds me of old religious zealots shoving some holy texts in front of you to show how "good" they are, but if you dare peek behind their back, you'd see a mountain of bodies. Point that out and you can see truly how remarkably fast an human brain can compute hundreds of excuses.
Studying media history and theory is useful, all the more so when you realise that a major component of the high (information) technology sector is really just the current leading edge of a long history of media and communications.[1] I've compiled a bibliography (and am still working through it myself):
https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/7k7l4m/media_a...
The technology both affects and interoperates with social and individual dynamics --- characteristics and limitations of understanding and processing information, distortions and manipulations.
The era of principled professional journalism began afteer Walter Lippmann published _Public Opinion_ in 1922 and arguably peaked in the 1970s in the U.S. Its decline has been accelerating through the Internet era, notably following the 2007-8 Global Financial Crisis, and possibly facing its death knell with the Covid Depression.
Humans are story-generating systems. Some stories are simple entertainment, some tribe-building, some sense-making, some rationalisation, the last often including denial.
________________________________
Notes:
1. Other major divisions are control systems, business and financial systems, and scientific sensing and processing.
Title should read “To protect a republic ...”
But then again, pure democracy is a tyranny over minority so it could also be that instead.
I first only saw part of the title until the word "think" and it made perfect sense to me without the rest.
"For Trump as a threat to US democracy, ..."
If you read the article, it's badly-edited.
But it veers into nonsense when a democratically-elected President is used as an example of a threat to democracy.
It's actually the Democratic party, who refused to accept Trump as President, and have been actively involved in burning our cities, who are not only anti-democratic but in fact Marxist. Proof of this is that Pelosi, one of our highest-ranking politicians, took over 2 months to denounce the riots.
If you want to learn more, you can watch many Youtube videos by Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, Dr. Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, Dave Rubin or Douglas Murray.
Please peddle this chickenshit somewhere else.
Trump is the only leader of a proper democracy of our days that denied to commit to a safe transition of power, or even to recognize the legitimacy of the upcoming election process.
Tyrants can be elected as well.
That's not true. The democratic party has not committed to a safe transition of power. Clinton has told Biden to not concede, even if he loses. The Atlantic has pieces saying that the Democrats should not concede:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/democrats-...
. Biden, as far as I know, has not said anything specific on the matter.
> The Atlantic has pieces saying that the Democrats should not concede
You should really read the article. Because a couple of words in the headline are playing into your confirmation bias and misleading you.
FTA: "I find myself truly worried about only one scenario: that Trump will win reelection and Democrats and others on the left will be unwilling, even unable, to accept the result."
Not really the same thing as "The Atlantic told Democrats not to concede".
> Clinton has told Biden to not concede, even if he loses
Citation needed. Did she say not to concede ever at all, or not to concede if on election night things look to not be going his way? With the number of mail-in ballots, the latter is entirely reasonable.
Here's some more in-depth coverage of Podesta's war gaming, Clinton's suggestion that Biden should not concede and the resulting media spin.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/09/11/the-left-is-setting-the...
https://spectator.us/top-democrats-contemplate-civil-war-bid...
The Atlantic is a left-leaning publication. They posted the article as if not conceding would be an appropriate reaction. I have read the article (multiple times at this point), and I have come to the same conclusion: while not outright instructing them not to concede, it is normalizing not conceding.
And yes, the title is incredibly leading. If it were an article about how some _republicans_ may choose to not concede, the article would be titled 'Why the GOP won't concede the election'. It should have been similarly titled for the Dems, but of course, it's not, because it's being normalized.
With regards to clinton... Another commenter posted articles linking to the tweet. And you're giving her more benefit of the doubt than trump. Trump has said he will concede if fair. You are now wondering if Clinton's call to not concede is really just a call to not concede until the election is fairly settled while attempting to draw a difference between the two.
> it is normalizing not conceding.
That's not what I got at all. I believe the article can be summarized as "If Democrats lose, where do they go from there? They'll have to concede that everything they've been saying for the last 4 years doesn't matter to the electorate. That would be a crushing blow and very hard to come to terms with". Which is obviously true when someone's entire worldview is shattered. That statement could apply to anyone.
Not once does it say "They mustn't concede" or "It would be totally fine if they didn't concede."
> The Atlantic is a left-leaning publication
I feel like you're letting your biases creep into your interpretation.
>I feel like you're letting your biases creep into your interpretation.
You're letting yours creep into your interpretation of Trump's statements? Should anyone accept the results of an election whose integrity is not clear? Without any context surrounding his statements, they are hard to really condemn. Of course, if we examine the context, the President's statements are clearly condemnable. The same is true of the Atlantic.
I didn't say anything about Trump's statements. Are you confusing me with someone else?
"Trump has said he will concede if fair."
Sorry for the bad language, but What The Hell does this mean in a well established democracy? Is this a statement that a leader of a well-governed state can put out for his own country?
We are talking about the USA not a banana republic. And somehow this behavior has been normalized.
It means that regardless of the results on election night, there's a reasonable probability that lawyers and possibly the supreme court will become involved.
>What does this mean in a well established democracy?
As the established democratic institutions declined in Rome, the cesar was selected by the praetorian guard. Similarly in the US's we see intelligence agencies and Federal law enforcement agencies conspiring to undermine the legitimacy of the Presidency. This was most visible in the failed attempt to impeach him for alleged connections to Russia.
From this perspective, it is possible to understand an unwillingness to accept an "unfair" outcome resulting from fraud or other interference as preservation of the republic. The decline of democratic government was foretold by Plato.
Of course for those who are prone to compare the President to an autocrat, ignoring this decline or blaming Trump for it may seem reasonable. However, it is possible to interpret the unwillingness to concede with good faith.
Even better, let’s ask Russia to send us a delegation to oversee our election and ensure the validity of the results.
"International Election Monitors Arrive in the US for the Nov. 3 Poll"
https://www.passblue.com/2020/10/07/international-election-m...
>The OSCE, based in Vienna, is an intergovernmental body of 57 countries from Europe, North America and Central Asia. It has been monitoring elections in the US since 2002, most recently the 2018 midterm elections.
https://www.osce.org/participating-states
>Russian Federation
Do you know _anything_ about marxism or are you just repeating words you heard someone say on the internet. Id be interested to hear you explain how the Democratic party, who's politicians range from center right neoliberals to vaguely leftist progressives as a Marxist organization.
Actually, I know more than you do. Let me explain.
The goal of the US left today is to replace our bottom-up democracy with a top-down system where people are not unique, but malleable social constructs that can be manipulated (ie. communism/marxism.) The left is basically copying what the CCP has implemented in China.
If you don't understand what that means, and what the impact is, then you really should find out.
Do you have any evidence for that?
Between voter suppression, gerrymandering, the electoral college, and Citizens United the Republicans seem much more hostile to bottom up democracy than the Democrats.
hjknkjf
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24926996
As long as journalists continue to pretend the entire Steele dossier wasn’t fabricated, as long as they continue to push false narratives about Russian interference, I’m willing to turn a blind eye should anything bad happen to them.