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Your post hurts because it's so true. There was a time when I was hopeful that the internet would make it easier to cut out bullshit and false arguments, leavi

Your post hurts because it's so true. There was a time when I was hopeful that the internet would make it easier to cut out bullshit and false arguments, leaving us with substantial disagreements over meaningful tradeoffs, improving public discourse in general. Now I just feel horribly naive. The internet is the world's most powerful tool for marketing, not a tool for knowledge.

dalbasal 6y ago
Ah... well... I feel it's both at the same time. My optimism about the internet has soured over the years too, but I do still see potential. I have come around to the conclusion that big money, and amoral actors like Zuck have made a monster. One is probably bad enough though. I don't think Jack Dorsey is amoral, for example. Twitter's not that much better than facebook in this regard though. The hope wasn't just naive though. It was in response to what the internet was like. Wikipedia was (is) an incredible tool for knowledge. I believe it's run by moral people, and I now think that they're noncommercial structure is a very effective shield. A Steve Bannon has no use for a wikipedia, and it's existence moderates the effectiveness of propaganda somewhat.(1) (1) Please don't bring deltionism into this.
- DoctorOetker 6y ago
  > My optimism about the internet has soured over the years too, but I do still see potential. I believe the problem are our current conceptions of democracy. There is a huge discrepancy between what civilians are aware of and what "the system" (or high level actors, or academia, ...) is aware of. The problem seems educational. Any form of governance can be viewed as a big social experiment. One way to view (idealized) democracy is that it is about the population (supposedly) choosing directions, and then learning from the ensuing results. A feedback system of lessons. The problem is educational. The facet of democracy that consults the public (voting), supposedly polls our choice. Is an uninformed choice even a choice? If a person has the "free choice" to press a purple button or pink one, is it really a choice if one is not informed about the pro's or con's? The problem is educational. We regularly complain about increasing polarization, but I believe polarization or taking a stance in a dilemma is good. The problem aren't dilemmas but false dilemma's. What we call polarization is really tribalism along the fracture lines of false dilemma's. When is a dilemma not a false dilemma? When the 2 options are each others mathematical negation. For example: either a law shall hold or it shall not hold, either a patch that changes the laws will be accepted or it will not be accepted by the democracy, either we vote that an ideal system must satisfy some property or we don't. Those aren't false dilemmas, but dilemma's proper. If democracy is about learning from a never ending series of social experiments. Then democracy should very much be related to learning and education. If democracy is a social experiment, then it should be a scientific one. If learning is a change in one's belief system, through experience, discussion, ... then a necessary requirement to participating in democracy is being open to the idea that one's belief system may need change. To not believe one's own belief system may need improvement, is to believe one's belief system to not be falsifiable, but to believe one's belief system to be non falsifiable is to admit not adhering to the principles of science, and hence to bring no intellectual nourishment to the scientific social experiment that is democracy. If one demands their vote (resulting from one's belief system) counts, without being open to the idea of taking into account the belief system of others, is thus not really compatible with democracy. Can we devise a new form of democracy, such that democracy becomes an educational structure ? (i.e. it becomes a kind of school, without necessarily invalidating usual schooling). Education is often associated with students and masters in a class room. How do we turn democracy into an educational system, without the potentially frivolous beliefs of the masters or the democratic state affecting the students? How can we educate the public in a neutral way? How can we prevent the structure of democracy to be biased? How do we prevent the new democratic structure from becoming a new oppressive structure through this new power of being the main fall-back educational system? How do we design this new democratic structure such that it doesn't hold a "monopoly on Truth" or a "Ministry of Truth"? Is it possible for an educational system to be educational without having some ultimate say on whart is true or what isn't? I believe it can. An example: suppose I think it's not necessary to repair the dam, and you think it's necessary to repair the dam, then after hearing each other's opinions we have both learned, without knowing if the dam will break next year. But when next year comes around, I will remember you warned me it could break. So let me define the following new form of educational informed democracy: - Binary proposals (otherwise we get false dilemma's and tribalism) for changing the law (directly, or through requirements, ...) => there is always a PRO and CON side. - Everyone can explore proposals online, The discussions are shaped like trees, one main branch is for the PRO side, other for the CON side. - PRO voters need to study and be able to reproduce (in person) the top X CON arguments, CON voters need to study and reproduce the top X PRO arguments. No more blind voting. - Within say the PRO branch only the PRO camp can vote on proposals to up- or down-vote arguments the CON camp must study and conversely for the CON branch. (in reality you are free to spend say 30% of your voting power on the PRO branch and 70% on the CON branch, if you study the top x arguments of both sides, but your voting power within each branch for say up and down voting arguments will be proportional to your actual PRO or CON voting percentage) - No fighting about when and where we discuss what next term agenda points we agree on, like in current democracies. The vote doesn't have any date or deadline, its whatever the current voting state of the group indicates (perhaps with a Schmitt Trigger say 45%, 55%) to prevent the law from toggling back and forth at high rates as the public is on the verge of possibly changing its mind. - As nobody has the time to check each and every change in the law and consult their feelings, at least this system guarantees that everyone who participated in voting was able to reproduce the top X arguments of the counterparty, so we can individually focus on those issues that worry us the most or affect us the most or traumatized us the most. In order to participate the public is learning.

dalbasal 6y ago

Ah... well... I feel it's both at the same time. My optimism about the internet has soured over the years too, but I do still see potential. I have come around to the conclusion that big money, and amoral actors like Zuck have made a monster. One is probably bad enough though. I don't think Jack Dorsey is amoral, for example. Twitter's not that much better than facebook in this regard though. The hope wasn't just naive though. It was in response to what the internet was like. Wikipedia was (is) an incredible tool for knowledge. I believe it's run by moral people, and I now think that they're noncommercial structure is a very effective shield. A Steve Bannon has no use for a wikipedia, and it's existence moderates the effectiveness of propaganda somewhat.(1) (1) Please don't bring deltionism into this.

DoctorOetker 6y ago
> My optimism about the internet has soured over the years too, but I do still see potential. I believe the problem are our current conceptions of democracy. There is a huge discrepancy between what civilians are aware of and what "the system" (or high level actors, or academia, ...) is aware of. The problem seems educational. Any form of governance can be viewed as a big social experiment. One way to view (idealized) democracy is that it is about the population (supposedly) choosing directions, and then learning from the ensuing results. A feedback system of lessons. The problem is educational. The facet of democracy that consults the public (voting), supposedly polls our choice. Is an uninformed choice even a choice? If a person has the "free choice" to press a purple button or pink one, is it really a choice if one is not informed about the pro's or con's? The problem is educational. We regularly complain about increasing polarization, but I believe polarization or taking a stance in a dilemma is good. The problem aren't dilemmas but false dilemma's. What we call polarization is really tribalism along the fracture lines of false dilemma's. When is a dilemma not a false dilemma? When the 2 options are each others mathematical negation. For example: either a law shall hold or it shall not hold, either a patch that changes the laws will be accepted or it will not be accepted by the democracy, either we vote that an ideal system must satisfy some property or we don't. Those aren't false dilemmas, but dilemma's proper. If democracy is about learning from a never ending series of social experiments. Then democracy should very much be related to learning and education. If democracy is a social experiment, then it should be a scientific one. If learning is a change in one's belief system, through experience, discussion, ... then a necessary requirement to participating in democracy is being open to the idea that one's belief system may need change. To not believe one's own belief system may need improvement, is to believe one's belief system to not be falsifiable, but to believe one's belief system to be non falsifiable is to admit not adhering to the principles of science, and hence to bring no intellectual nourishment to the scientific social experiment that is democracy. If one demands their vote (resulting from one's belief system) counts, without being open to the idea of taking into account the belief system of others, is thus not really compatible with democracy. Can we devise a new form of democracy, such that democracy becomes an educational structure ? (i.e. it becomes a kind of school, without necessarily invalidating usual schooling). Education is often associated with students and masters in a class room. How do we turn democracy into an educational system, without the potentially frivolous beliefs of the masters or the democratic state affecting the students? How can we educate the public in a neutral way? How can we prevent the structure of democracy to be biased? How do we prevent the new democratic structure from becoming a new oppressive structure through this new power of being the main fall-back educational system? How do we design this new democratic structure such that it doesn't hold a "monopoly on Truth" or a "Ministry of Truth"? Is it possible for an educational system to be educational without having some ultimate say on whart is true or what isn't? I believe it can. An example: suppose I think it's not necessary to repair the dam, and you think it's necessary to repair the dam, then after hearing each other's opinions we have both learned, without knowing if the dam will break next year. But when next year comes around, I will remember you warned me it could break. So let me define the following new form of educational informed democracy: - Binary proposals (otherwise we get false dilemma's and tribalism) for changing the law (directly, or through requirements, ...) => there is always a PRO and CON side. - Everyone can explore proposals online, The discussions are shaped like trees, one main branch is for the PRO side, other for the CON side. - PRO voters need to study and be able to reproduce (in person) the top X CON arguments, CON voters need to study and reproduce the top X PRO arguments. No more blind voting. - Within say the PRO branch only the PRO camp can vote on proposals to up- or down-vote arguments the CON camp must study and conversely for the CON branch. (in reality you are free to spend say 30% of your voting power on the PRO branch and 70% on the CON branch, if you study the top x arguments of both sides, but your voting power within each branch for say up and down voting arguments will be proportional to your actual PRO or CON voting percentage) - No fighting about when and where we discuss what next term agenda points we agree on, like in current democracies. The vote doesn't have any date or deadline, its whatever the current voting state of the group indicates (perhaps with a Schmitt Trigger say 45%, 55%) to prevent the law from toggling back and forth at high rates as the public is on the verge of possibly changing its mind. - As nobody has the time to check each and every change in the law and consult their feelings, at least this system guarantees that everyone who participated in voting was able to reproduce the top X arguments of the counterparty, so we can individually focus on those issues that worry us the most or affect us the most or traumatized us the most. In order to participate the public is learning.