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Political actors have massive incentives to be dishonest and manipulate information to be favourable so it's a bit of an outlier... but it can also leak into a

• DoreenMichele 7y ago
  I think it's more complicated than that. Studies I have seen and first-hand experience suggests that people in positions of power are typically fairly competent and got to where they are because of their competence, so they often genuinely feel that people disagreeing with their position are just stupid or simply don't understand the problem adequately. Their first-hand experience backs up this assumption in most cases and fosters habits that end up de facto being "asshole behavior" in many situations. As they accrue power, they get surrounded by yes men who massage their ego, either to curry favor or out of genuine fear or because they are sincere fans who recognize their leader's competence and aren't competent enough themselves to poke holes in anything their leader says. It's inherently hard to figure out how to avoid that outcome. Powerful people often keep long-standing associations with people who knew them back in the day because those people may be the only ones who have any hope of giving them pushback that is actually constructive and not politically motivated (in an "office politics" sense of the word). The world hasn't solved this problem yet.
  • pintxo 7y ago
    I'd say the usual fix we apply for this is limiting term times. Maybe we should be more rigorous with that.
    • DoreenMichele 7y ago
      I mean we haven't found a fix more generally. We still have sayings like "Power corrupts" because we still don't have a terrific handle on how to avoid such outcomes for powerful people generally, having nothing to do with politics per se.
      • rapind 7y ago
        Probably mandatory, easy, and ranked voting plus improved education. To be honest I don't think even that's going to push people to care about their government. I think the average person sees it as too complex, too corrupt, and overall meaningless for them to be bothered to vote for, let alone learn about policies. For example, you could ask 10 people on the street if they would like to get rid of corruption in government and most (probably all) would say emphatically "yes". I don't know how we translate that into action though and deal with the spin and whirlwind news cycle.
        • DoreenMichele 7y ago
          There are some rubrics that seem to be helpful, such as "Nothing about us without us." AKA representation matters. But I'm not actually interested in discussing politics in this thread. I'm interested in social phenomenon, which politics happens to be a good example of. Edit: Though I will go on record as saying I am not for mandatory voting. I have mostly not voted in my life because I have been overwhelmed by events and I am not comfortable randomly picking names at random when that act helps determine who holds positions of very real power in the world. I don't think forcing people like me to pick random names at random in any way improves anything in the world.
          • rapind 7y ago
            I think that's the problem though. It's too acceptable to say "I don't vote because it's too complicated, I'm too busy, or it's too hard". The reality is, in the U.S. at least, your country is involved in policing the world, subsidizing fossil fuels, and increasing the class gap globally (and some positive things too :)). It should be seen as a responsibility to express an opinion, even in private, by voting for or against your countries / states / regions policies to the best of your ability. If you're working 2 jobs and barely making rent and voting is on a work day miles away... then OK. But if it's just "I can't be bothered to learn a little bit about really important shit" then you get to shoulder responsibility for your elected officials whether you like it or not.