3 ms·

Voting without information is like air conditioning without a thermometer, or self-driving cars without LIDAR, or regular cars with a blind driver: It just does

Voting without information is like air conditioning without a thermometer, or self-driving cars without LIDAR, or regular cars with a blind driver: It just doesn't work. Because the information flow needs to be circular to allow the actuator (voter) to react to the results of previous actions. There used to be this fantasy that hobbyist bloggers would fill in where professional journalism fails. Here's a map "news deserts" where the latter has happened: https://www.usnewsdeserts.com https://www.usnewsdeserts.com. There is no map of the former, because bloggers tend to get up too late to attend boring 9am meetings of the residential refuse working group. You might be under the impression that relevant news will somehow "diffuse" to get to you. That's a common idea among what's called "low-information voters", who tend to never read any news themselves and extrapolate from there. It's wrong because they miss that the information that gets to them is simply second-hand journalism: It's full of holes and sometimes has (brown) stains. But the parts of it that are accurate almost invariably originate from professional news sources.

remarkEon 7y ago
So voting "didn't work" until very very recently? The idea that there was this golden age where people all knew what they were talking about, and the citizens of a democracy dutifully read their newspaper and carefully considered their options, went to the polls etc, is a fantasy. The map of "news deserts" is really a map of "population density" - it tells me nothing about information consumption (or retention) in those areas. >You might be under the impression that relevant news will somehow "diffuse" to get to you. I am under no such impression. I am challenging the idea that "journalism" is "critical" for a democracy to function. It only seems critical to me insofar as "function" is defined as "people vote in the way journalists expect them to".
- KarlKemp 7y ago
  > So voting "didn't work" until very very recently? The time from about 1740 to 1800 was for newspapers what the 2000s was for the internet. 1787: US Constitution (first democracy) 1789: French Revolution (2nd) 1832 (to 192x): British Reform Act (expanding right to vote) > I am under no such impression. Then how does information about, say, laws being passed, or viruses going around, or wars being lost or won get to you? And if it doesn't get to you, how do you decide whom to vote for? > It only seems critical to me insofar as "function" is defined as "people vote in the way journalists expect them to". This is just superficial, cynical, contrarian ignorance. Power in the US has been flipping between the parties quite freely, so the press either changes their opinion just as often as the electorate, or their influence is rather limited. Unless you watch C-SPAN all day and read every law yourself, you'll neither not be informed, or you'll get your information from people who do some of that reading for you (and, if you're lucky, also ask questions, send & litigate FOIA requests, call experts, speak foreign languages etc). Professional journalism is the closest you can get to the source of information unless you do it all yourself. Your 4chan pals or that YouTube bro yelling at his webcam can't and won't do that legwork, either. So what you like about them isn't that they are better informed––they add one step of transmission and can therefore only decrease information content, never increase. What you like is their capability to pre-digest the news, remove anything that might challenge you, and regurgitate the rest in a form that doesn't conflict with your conspiratorial mindset.
  - remarkEon 7y ago
    I'm not sure what those three events have to do with my question, which is related to how critical journalism is to the functioning of a democracy. Is your belief that "the news" was widely read and, perhaps more importantly, accurate during those periods? This requires a certain suspension of disbelief I'm not willing to grant the professional journalist class, because it implies that only recently have they been bad at what they do and this period is, somehow, unique. >This is just superficial, cynical, contrarian ignorance. Power in the US has been flipping between the parties quite freely, so the press either changes their opinion just as often as the electorate, or their influence is rather limited. No, I'm merely pointing out that when one party wins professional journalism recoils into a state of utter confusion. Recall the famous quote from a writer for The New Yorker about knowing only one person who voted for Richard Nixon in 1972. >What you like is their capability to pre-digest the news, remove anything that might challenge you, and regurgitate the rest in a form that doesn't conflict with your conspiratorial mindset. I actually very much dislike the journalist who tries to tell me what to think about a certain topic or event, though I see that you're attempting to attribute this behavior only to the "4chan youtube bro", which is a little strange since most journalists today - especially, it seems, mainstream ones - have explicit online personae that reflect a certain worldview and work for news orgs who attempt to "explain" the news to you. This isn't reporting - it's advocacy and opinion journalism where they attempt to inoculate "opinion" by claiming they're just "explaining".

remarkEon 7y ago

So voting "didn't work" until very very recently? The idea that there was this golden age where people all knew what they were talking about, and the citizens of a democracy dutifully read their newspaper and carefully considered their options, went to the polls etc, is a fantasy. The map of "news deserts" is really a map of "population density" - it tells me nothing about information consumption (or retention) in those areas. >You might be under the impression that relevant news will somehow "diffuse" to get to you. I am under no such impression. I am challenging the idea that "journalism" is "critical" for a democracy to function. It only seems critical to me insofar as "function" is defined as "people vote in the way journalists expect them to".

KarlKemp 7y ago
> So voting "didn't work" until very very recently? The time from about 1740 to 1800 was for newspapers what the 2000s was for the internet. 1787: US Constitution (first democracy) 1789: French Revolution (2nd) 1832 (to 192x): British Reform Act (expanding right to vote) > I am under no such impression. Then how does information about, say, laws being passed, or viruses going around, or wars being lost or won get to you? And if it doesn't get to you, how do you decide whom to vote for? > It only seems critical to me insofar as "function" is defined as "people vote in the way journalists expect them to". This is just superficial, cynical, contrarian ignorance. Power in the US has been flipping between the parties quite freely, so the press either changes their opinion just as often as the electorate, or their influence is rather limited. Unless you watch C-SPAN all day and read every law yourself, you'll neither not be informed, or you'll get your information from people who do some of that reading for you (and, if you're lucky, also ask questions, send & litigate FOIA requests, call experts, speak foreign languages etc). Professional journalism is the closest you can get to the source of information unless you do it all yourself. Your 4chan pals or that YouTube bro yelling at his webcam can't and won't do that legwork, either. So what you like about them isn't that they are better informed––they add one step of transmission and can therefore only decrease information content, never increase. What you like is their capability to pre-digest the news, remove anything that might challenge you, and regurgitate the rest in a form that doesn't conflict with your conspiratorial mindset.
- remarkEon 7y ago
  I'm not sure what those three events have to do with my question, which is related to how critical journalism is to the functioning of a democracy. Is your belief that "the news" was widely read and, perhaps more importantly, accurate during those periods? This requires a certain suspension of disbelief I'm not willing to grant the professional journalist class, because it implies that only recently have they been bad at what they do and this period is, somehow, unique. >This is just superficial, cynical, contrarian ignorance. Power in the US has been flipping between the parties quite freely, so the press either changes their opinion just as often as the electorate, or their influence is rather limited. No, I'm merely pointing out that when one party wins professional journalism recoils into a state of utter confusion. Recall the famous quote from a writer for The New Yorker about knowing only one person who voted for Richard Nixon in 1972. >What you like is their capability to pre-digest the news, remove anything that might challenge you, and regurgitate the rest in a form that doesn't conflict with your conspiratorial mindset. I actually very much dislike the journalist who tries to tell me what to think about a certain topic or event, though I see that you're attempting to attribute this behavior only to the "4chan youtube bro", which is a little strange since most journalists today - especially, it seems, mainstream ones - have explicit online personae that reflect a certain worldview and work for news orgs who attempt to "explain" the news to you. This isn't reporting - it's advocacy and opinion journalism where they attempt to inoculate "opinion" by claiming they're just "explaining".