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There are some very interesting posts being flagged and killed in this thread that I feel raise some very valid points. My chief contention with allowing Facebo

by ajxs 7y ago

There are some very interesting posts being flagged and killed in this thread that I feel raise some very valid points. My chief contention with allowing Facebook and ilk the ability to expand their influence and authority is that the motivations of such entities are, at best, amoral. There seems to be a troublingly significant movement of people who seem to think that Facebook, Google et al are doing god's work when it comes to their political involvement. But these companies ultimately will only serve their own interests. Democracy has its obvious pitfalls. You may often feel like you as an individual are not well served by the democratic process, as I often do not, but the democratic process _is_ there. It provides a mechanism that is fundamentally egalitarian for society to steer the direction of its governing bodies by voting. FAANG is not bound to such a restrictive system, their motivations concede no moral imperative. There is no incentive for them to suffer the inconveniences of egalitarian principles any further than it serves their agenda.

dang 7y ago
What posts are being flagged and killed in this thread? I don't see any. If you a [dead] post that shouldn't be dead, you should vouch for it by clicking on its timestamp, then clicking 'vouch' at the top of its page. This is precisely why we added that feature.
- ajxs 7y ago
  There was one in particular post I was referring to, it looks like someone has vouched for it since my noting it. Thanks for pointing that out, I was unaware. I'm not sure I have the rep necessary however.
  - dang 7y ago
    If by rep you mean karma, the threshold is 30, so you're fine.
- mrguyorama 7y ago
  That's an bit undiscoverable. I was wondering how people accomplished that
chillacy 7y ago
I can’t say it’s been a particularly good time for democracy in America. We’ve elected a narcissist reality tv star to the highest office, we have mass political gridlock, more political games than actually getting things done (infrastructure, healthcare, etc), and we’re feeling the heat from a rising billion person economy run under a non democratic system.
- ajxs 7y ago
  Be that as it may, none of this is a good justification for moving further towards oligarchy or totalitarianism. There has been much talk about how support of big-tech censorship is skewing left, which I consider to be quite ironic since I had always associated the left, at least historically, with egalitarianism.
  - chillacy 7y ago
    Those are a lot of big conceptual ideas, I think at the end of the day people just want to know what will make their lives better. And if the big conceptual idea of democracy starts to lose its shiny appeal then fewer people will jump in to defend it as an inherent good. Or to put it another way, what would be good justification to reconsider our political system? If the answer is nothing then we're just following our system like a religion. We ought to be able to discuss the upsides (there are some pretty great ones) and downsides (everything has tradeoffs).
    - ajxs 7y ago
      Of course we should question our political beliefs, I would never advocate for anything else. I like to employ a rhetorical device against myself sometimes to question my more hard-line stances: I ask myself "What evidence would convince me that I'm wrong?". It's quite an interesting question to ask, I think it helps you come to a better understand of your beliefs. I disagree with your dismissal of my point, with your saying that " Those are a lot of big conceptual ideas". These are big, but _important_ ideas. Abstract as they may be, they describe tangible concepts that have a lot of importance. "I think at the end of the day people just want to know what will make their lives better" - Yes, therein lies the unfortunate complexity of politics. As I said in my original post ( way up there ), I don't defend democracy because I believe that it best serves me ( I've felt for a long time that it serves other people's needs far better than mine ). I defend it because it's the best system I'm aware of for egalitarianism at scale.

by ajxs 7y ago

dang 7y ago

What posts are being flagged and killed in this thread? I don't see any. If you a [dead] post that shouldn't be dead, you should vouch for it by clicking on its timestamp, then clicking 'vouch' at the top of its page. This is precisely why we added that feature.

ajxs 7y ago
There was one in particular post I was referring to, it looks like someone has vouched for it since my noting it. Thanks for pointing that out, I was unaware. I'm not sure I have the rep necessary however.
- dang 7y ago
  If by rep you mean karma, the threshold is 30, so you're fine.
mrguyorama 7y ago
That's an bit undiscoverable. I was wondering how people accomplished that

chillacy 7y ago

I can’t say it’s been a particularly good time for democracy in America. We’ve elected a narcissist reality tv star to the highest office, we have mass political gridlock, more political games than actually getting things done (infrastructure, healthcare, etc), and we’re feeling the heat from a rising billion person economy run under a non democratic system.

ajxs 7y ago
Be that as it may, none of this is a good justification for moving further towards oligarchy or totalitarianism. There has been much talk about how support of big-tech censorship is skewing left, which I consider to be quite ironic since I had always associated the left, at least historically, with egalitarianism.
- chillacy 7y ago
  Those are a lot of big conceptual ideas, I think at the end of the day people just want to know what will make their lives better. And if the big conceptual idea of democracy starts to lose its shiny appeal then fewer people will jump in to defend it as an inherent good. Or to put it another way, what would be good justification to reconsider our political system? If the answer is nothing then we're just following our system like a religion. We ought to be able to discuss the upsides (there are some pretty great ones) and downsides (everything has tradeoffs).
  - ajxs 7y ago
    Of course we should question our political beliefs, I would never advocate for anything else. I like to employ a rhetorical device against myself sometimes to question my more hard-line stances: I ask myself "What evidence would convince me that I'm wrong?". It's quite an interesting question to ask, I think it helps you come to a better understand of your beliefs. I disagree with your dismissal of my point, with your saying that " Those are a lot of big conceptual ideas". These are big, but _important_ ideas. Abstract as they may be, they describe tangible concepts that have a lot of importance. "I think at the end of the day people just want to know what will make their lives better" - Yes, therein lies the unfortunate complexity of politics. As I said in my original post ( way up there ), I don't defend democracy because I believe that it best serves me ( I've felt for a long time that it serves other people's needs far better than mine ). I defend it because it's the best system I'm aware of for egalitarianism at scale.