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Me too. I find it inexplicable that while our species has progressed so much after 6000 years of civilization, one thing that doesn't seem to have changed is th

Me too. I find it inexplicable that while our species has progressed so much after 6000 years of civilization, one thing that doesn't seem to have changed is the desire of large sections of people to be led by oppressive maniacs. It's almost like many of us just love handing away our freedoms. Have sociologists studied this phenomenon?

legacynl 9y ago
low quality education.
- joosters 9y ago
  I doubt that the people involved are stupid, or are trying to punish their opponents because of a lack of education. Better education might lead to more effective attacks, it won't stop them.
skocznymroczny 9y ago
It seems that both sides of the political scene want to control others, it's just one side does it to "maintain order and morals", while the other side does it to "fight hate speech and combat fake news".
simonh 9y ago
I think it’s that many of us just love handing away other people’s freedoms. ‘They’ are the ones we’re oppressing, ‘they’ deserve it. It’s seen as an easy shortcut to oppress ‘them’. Then you get the Syrian Christians who voted for Trump in droves because if his anti-Muslim stance, but who’s communities are being gutted by deportations because it turns out all the laws being used against Syrian Muslim immigrants apply just as well to Syrian Christians. Oops.
- ythn 9y ago
  How many people have been deported under Trump? I'm having trouble finding any statistics on it
- nasredin 9y ago
  I get amusement from these people, the people who voted against their interest WRT Trump and now reap the consequences. What is a proper term for this? I don't want to use "schadenfreude", the "enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others". That is way too broad. I only "enjoy" the suffering of Trump supporters. (And only if it's not serious. And "enjoy" is probably not the right word.)
gazorpazorpaway 9y ago
In Turkey as in many other countries it's a case of a person takes control over the country through populistic propaganda, then censor all news. The only news available is the government approved news about how great the great leader is. The population doesn't speak English so even if they could get a hold of uncensored news from the outside, they couldn't read it. Absolutely everything that has to do with trying to protest the government or critique them, or being connected to anyone that do, will lead to prison on terrorist charges. It's not that people want to live under oppressive maniacs, it's that the oppressive maniac is depicted as a wonderful great leader that fights for the small people like them and will make their country great again. So even if you hold fair elections, a huge chunk of people think the oppressive maniac seems like a pretty okay guy and will vote for him again.
- gazorpazorpaway 9y ago
  This is what excites me about the future. As technology develops it will hopefully be harder to control information in a whole country. Imagine if it was impossible for any government to block or censor anything.
  - mamon 9y ago
    No, exactly the opposite. Technology, especially Big Data and Machine Learning enable more strict information censorship by government. Take Facebook ML algorithms blocking accounts for "hate speech" as an example and extrapolate.
    - gazorpzorpaway 9y ago
      Unfortunately I also agree with you completely on this. Automatic processing (blocking) of information will be much easier if you are a government. But what I mean is that we got more transparency into the world as we have started using the Internet. Before I had to rely on the travel agencies promising words about an hotel. Now I can read hundreds of reviews from past visitors. This isn't to say that this data is not open to manipulation. But at least in a lot of ways the floodgates are open and we are not going to go back to a world where zero transparency exists in a lot of areas. Hopefully this can expand to how you were treated by the police, the sources of income of scientists releasing papers about how sugar is great for kids and so on. You get the point. Getting reliable news is obviously one of the big hard problems, as we have seen in last years and as in the example you mentioned. I guess it's another discussion (but relevant to oppressive regimes).
nielsole 9y ago
While I do not know the reasoning behind it, the term that describes that is Democratic Backsliding https://muse.jhu.edu/article/607612 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/607612
- lovelearning 9y ago
  Thank you very much for introducing me to the term and this great site! This article was very informative, and the rest of the site looks like a great reference to learn such issues.
nasredin 9y ago
>Have sociologists studied this phenomenon? There's research into authoritarianism (think Germans in WWII) and RWA personality type (Right Wing Authoritarian). Most of it is not very "accessible" to the average person. From what I understand, RWA are just born this way, i.e. some people are naturally critical thinkers, others will say "how high" if a man in an uniform says "jump". Sad. This is one of the few decent "explainers" that Vox did: https://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism https://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism
- lovelearning 9y ago
  That was an excellent read. Thank you!

legacynl 9y ago

low quality education.

joosters 9y ago
I doubt that the people involved are stupid, or are trying to punish their opponents because of a lack of education. Better education might lead to more effective attacks, it won't stop them.

skocznymroczny 9y ago

It seems that both sides of the political scene want to control others, it's just one side does it to "maintain order and morals", while the other side does it to "fight hate speech and combat fake news".

simonh 9y ago

I think it’s that many of us just love handing away other people’s freedoms. ‘They’ are the ones we’re oppressing, ‘they’ deserve it. It’s seen as an easy shortcut to oppress ‘them’. Then you get the Syrian Christians who voted for Trump in droves because if his anti-Muslim stance, but who’s communities are being gutted by deportations because it turns out all the laws being used against Syrian Muslim immigrants apply just as well to Syrian Christians. Oops.

ythn 9y ago
How many people have been deported under Trump? I'm having trouble finding any statistics on it
nasredin 9y ago
I get amusement from these people, the people who voted against their interest WRT Trump and now reap the consequences. What is a proper term for this? I don't want to use "schadenfreude", the "enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others". That is way too broad. I only "enjoy" the suffering of Trump supporters. (And only if it's not serious. And "enjoy" is probably not the right word.)

gazorpazorpaway 9y ago

In Turkey as in many other countries it's a case of a person takes control over the country through populistic propaganda, then censor all news. The only news available is the government approved news about how great the great leader is. The population doesn't speak English so even if they could get a hold of uncensored news from the outside, they couldn't read it. Absolutely everything that has to do with trying to protest the government or critique them, or being connected to anyone that do, will lead to prison on terrorist charges. It's not that people want to live under oppressive maniacs, it's that the oppressive maniac is depicted as a wonderful great leader that fights for the small people like them and will make their country great again. So even if you hold fair elections, a huge chunk of people think the oppressive maniac seems like a pretty okay guy and will vote for him again.

gazorpazorpaway 9y ago
This is what excites me about the future. As technology develops it will hopefully be harder to control information in a whole country. Imagine if it was impossible for any government to block or censor anything.
- mamon 9y ago
  No, exactly the opposite. Technology, especially Big Data and Machine Learning enable more strict information censorship by government. Take Facebook ML algorithms blocking accounts for "hate speech" as an example and extrapolate.
  - gazorpzorpaway 9y ago
    Unfortunately I also agree with you completely on this. Automatic processing (blocking) of information will be much easier if you are a government. But what I mean is that we got more transparency into the world as we have started using the Internet. Before I had to rely on the travel agencies promising words about an hotel. Now I can read hundreds of reviews from past visitors. This isn't to say that this data is not open to manipulation. But at least in a lot of ways the floodgates are open and we are not going to go back to a world where zero transparency exists in a lot of areas. Hopefully this can expand to how you were treated by the police, the sources of income of scientists releasing papers about how sugar is great for kids and so on. You get the point. Getting reliable news is obviously one of the big hard problems, as we have seen in last years and as in the example you mentioned. I guess it's another discussion (but relevant to oppressive regimes).

nielsole 9y ago

While I do not know the reasoning behind it, the term that describes that is Democratic Backsliding https://muse.jhu.edu/article/607612 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/607612

lovelearning 9y ago
Thank you very much for introducing me to the term and this great site! This article was very informative, and the rest of the site looks like a great reference to learn such issues.

nasredin 9y ago

>Have sociologists studied this phenomenon? There's research into authoritarianism (think Germans in WWII) and RWA personality type (Right Wing Authoritarian). Most of it is not very "accessible" to the average person. From what I understand, RWA are just born this way, i.e. some people are naturally critical thinkers, others will say "how high" if a man in an uniform says "jump". Sad. This is one of the few decent "explainers" that Vox did: https://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism https://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism

lovelearning 9y ago
That was an excellent read. Thank you!