May We Live In Boring Times
Reminds me of a line in SPYS, an inept attempt by Gould and Sutherland to recreate the magic in MASH. They’re a couple CIA agents and are marked for death after botching a defection. A car bomb meant for them blows up the neighborhood instead, leaving them unharmed.
“That was a sloppy bomb. The Chinese are quiet, right? The Russians are quick, and we’re sloppy.”
It’s always been that way. People complained about gossips spreading lies, about minstrels spreading lies, about printing presses spreading lies, about the yellow journalism and the tabloids, etc. There was a slight hiccup in that pattern with government controlling from the start media using the broadcast spectrum. It gave us respite, but at the cost of giving us a false sense of security. We’re reverting to the historical norm in terms of quality of information.
You’re right that we need media (and I include social platforms on the internet in that category) to do a better job. But the people need to do a better job discriminating the quality of information as well.
The old solutions to this problem were oligarchy and censorship. Those in power controlled the flow of information to the masses. Even if the masses did get information that was unhelpful, they didn’t have enough power to act on it. There’s a reason our founders disdained direct democracy and universal voting, even if we don’t like their choices.
We’ve unravelled the old system by giving more power to the masses and more control of information to them as well. And we’re reaping what we’ve sown, both disorder and propaganda.
The new solution, if we can earn it, is to have more unfettered speech and more power to the masses. We’re currently in an unstable zone where too many people do not have a voice in either the government or the media. And the oligarchs have too much. That means more responsibility falls on the media and the masses, or the oligarchs will find a way to preserve their control over both power and media.
It’s no coincidence that fascism flourished during a time in which mass communication technology made considerable leaps forward. And it was utilized and mastered by fringe movements, just as they are now. These fringe movements are highly motivated to grow and metastisize, and new media platforms give them that capability.
I think what you’re saying is that we need to be better educated. I agree.
Democracy will always be challenged in this way. Even in your stablest democracies, there is a percentage of people - probably as high as 30% or greater in some cases - who have no use for democracy, and this cuts across all demographics, I would say. When shit hits the fan, I’d say that number goes much higher.
Democracy is hard. It’s sloppy and inefficient. We have high hopes that the person we elect will validate our decision. When they don’t, we not only don’t feel validated, we subconsciously begin to question the wisdom of the process altogether even if we never express our concerns in those terms. People can simultaneously show contempt and disregard for democracy while still believing in principle that we reserve the right to self govern when we want, as we want.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Once you sub-let democracy to those who are not that democratically-minded, they tend not to let you back in.
Well THAT’S not gonna happen.
I don’t imagine this will be used to allow tampering to go unnoticed although it might. A more likely scenario is that they’ll use this self-imposed lack of oversight to point at vote by mail and say “See how insecure it is? There isn’t anyone preventing the tampering of ballots!”
Yes, that is a component, that’s necessary but not sufficient. People need to be able to use their education, in particular to have their voices heard in the media, to have their voices heard in the government, but also in all aspects of contributing to and benefitting from society.
(In case it’s not clear, I agree with your comments.)
Whoever controls the media will control the government and vice versa. If it’s not the people, then it’ll be an oligarchy.
Perfectly stated, Pleonast. The fact is, someone will control the machine - either it’s us collectively and the media works for the common good, or it will be owned by the few, and for the few.
Cheato accidentally tells the truth:
Indeed, the famous quip that goes something like a lie will be halfway around the world before the truth can even get its knickers on seems to originate (attested) with Jonathan Swift, albeit worded quite differently.
Everybody screws up once in a while. This is a mistake he won’t repeat.
It’s the equivalent of a manipulative, insecure significant other saying “you don’t really love me” to solicit an affirmation of the opposite.
Which makes me very circumspect about regulating the internet and other media. We need to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to express themselves, while at the same time discouraging disinformation. A difficult needle to thread.
(By the way, I love how nuanced discussions can break out in pit threads. Have we no standards? 
)
"The President then said that he was headed out to the Rose Garden to eat worms. "
I see lots of Biden signs around, including a Bye Don one. yesterday, I saw one that said Everybody Sucks 2020
This is a thread about the administration’s fuckups. Not a “random signs I’ve seen” thread.
Why would he be rueful over China and Iran not liking him? Was he disappointed he didn’t win over more dictators?
Uh, guys?
Spoiler alert for the new Borat film, I guess. Don’t yell at me…
In a sane world, an admission like this would have sunk any chances of re-election he had.
It’s a measure of his mindset that he thinks that the 220,000+ US deaths are the best anyone could have done, and he’ll defend his actions to the end. It’s not just that he can’t accept making a mistake – it’s that he still thinks that what he did was the best thing to do.Despite the evidence of the rest of the world, and of science (none of which he accepts).
And that alone ought to show that, even in the absence of malice or the motive of self-profit, his judgment is appallingly and unacceptably abysmal.