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There was an insurrection last week. What caused it? If you took the beliefs of the people involved in the insurrection to be true, you probably would join an

There was an insurrection last week. What caused it? If you took the beliefs of the people involved in the insurrection to be true, you probably would join an insurrection as well. They believe that an election was stolen and that democracy has been destroyed in the United States and replaced with some form of a deep state dictatorship. Trump supporters believe this because they have been lied to repeatedly for years without corrections they found to be believable. How do we correct these firmly held (but false) beliefs? We need to hold people who lie accountable. If a talk show host makes a claim that an election was fraudulently stolen, that host needs to be able to provide real evidence to support that claim in a court of law or face civil / criminal penalties for disseminating false information. Many people on HN hate the removal of Trump from Twitter and Facebook, and the removal of Parler from AWS... but private companies always have the right to choose who they do business with, barring a very limited set of protected classes. "Big Tech" are private businesses that most conservatives would support being able to exercise their freedom to choose who to do business with, and Big Tech made the right decision in removing people and organizations from their platforms who have repeatedly tried to promote harmful lies. Beyond holding liars accountable, we do need to do a better job of making the truth more easily accessed. Perhaps holding elections in some sort of open source / public format would help... then you could look up your own vote and the votes of your friends to confirm, and also double check the counts across the nation.

majormajor 6y ago
> Beyond holding liars accountable, we do need to do a better job of making the truth more easily accessed. Perhaps holding elections in some sort of open source / public format would help... then you could look up your own vote and the votes of your friends to confirm, and also double check the counts across the nation. Private votes is itself a practice with very strong reasoning behind it, to prevent coercion and such. So I can't really get behind this. But yes, it points directly at the problem right now: if recounts and audits overseen by agencies run by members of their own political party aren't enough for these people, what would be? How far should we be asked to go to appease these people? Could we even reasonably appease them? When others are constantly shouting from their TV that they're being abused?
- chii 6y ago
  > appease these people? appeasement should not be the goal. You do not appease people, or they will just push for a mile given an inch. There needs to be ground rules set, and punishment for crossing the line. I think the line has been crossed. Society, at least, in the majority, will agree that the line has been crossed, and that those who crossed it shall be punished.
jude- 6y ago
> If you took the beliefs of the people involved in the insurrection to be true, you probably would join an insurrection as well. This is not an excuse. See below. > Trump supporters believe this because they have been lied to repeatedly for years without corrections they found to be believable. How do we correct these firmly held (but false) beliefs? The reason these beliefs don't excuse anything is because they arguably do not believe them in the first place. These people are not stupid -- they do not have a problem thinking things through when it suits them. The problem here is a culture of impunity. These people thought they could do this and face no consequences. Look no further than their shock and dismay at the (very light) treatment they're getting right now. Yes, we should hold the liars accountable. But we should be just as harsh on the people who actually stormed the Capitol. We need to break this culture of impunity now -- by meting out harsh consequences -- before they try it again.
- camjohnson26 6y ago
  It’s naive to think that most of these people don’t actually believe the election was stolen, a huge number of them do.
nullsense 6y ago
>If you took the beliefs of the people involved in the insurrection to be true, you probably would join an insurrection as well. They believe that an election was stolen and that democracy has been destroyed in the United States and replaced with some form of a deep state dictatorship Oh the irony
camjohnson26 6y ago
Another fact that’s quickly forgotten is the media’s role in Trump’s rise. Trump benefitted from millions of dollars of free publicity by being outrageous and creating stories. The media fed that frenzy through the primaries and even into the general election. They should have done a better job of not giving liars a platform to lie from and of not being bated by every manufactured drama.
- silexia 6y ago
  We already have a mechanism for harm from lies - libel and slander laws. Just expand these laws to make lying to the public about something that if they believe it could cause them harm a tort.
  - camjohnson26 6y ago
    The problem is always who decides what’s a lie and what isn’t. Fake news was a mantra for the left before Trump coopted it and started calling everything he disagreed with fake news. Elon Musk used his powerful Twitter account to call a cave diving hero a pedophile last summer. The man lost the libel suit and Musk walked free, ironically with L Lin Wood as acting prosecutor.
- orangecat 6y ago
  Trump benefitted from millions of dollars of free publicity Billions: https://www.thestreet.com/politics/donald-trump-rode-5-billion-in-free-media-to-the-white-house-13896916 https://www.thestreet.com/politics/donald-trump-rode-5-billi... In 2016 most of the left-leaning media saw this as a win-win. Promoting Trump's antics would both boost their ratings and cause the Republican party to lose. Unfortunately they were half right.
jlokier 6y ago
> you could look up your own vote and the votes of your friends to confirm You can't do that because visibility causes voting fraud. By coercion. If votes can be checked by other people, a very large number of people (enough to change the result) will be forced under threat by someone else to "vote correctly". The same happens if you can check your own vote, because any mechanism that lets you do that can usually be used by someone else - "give me your phone so I can check you voted for X like I told you to" (while holding a gun). That's why free & fair elections have secret ballots, without personal identification on the ballots. To prevent coercion fraud.

majormajor 6y ago

> Beyond holding liars accountable, we do need to do a better job of making the truth more easily accessed. Perhaps holding elections in some sort of open source / public format would help... then you could look up your own vote and the votes of your friends to confirm, and also double check the counts across the nation. Private votes is itself a practice with very strong reasoning behind it, to prevent coercion and such. So I can't really get behind this. But yes, it points directly at the problem right now: if recounts and audits overseen by agencies run by members of their own political party aren't enough for these people, what would be? How far should we be asked to go to appease these people? Could we even reasonably appease them? When others are constantly shouting from their TV that they're being abused?

chii 6y ago
> appease these people? appeasement should not be the goal. You do not appease people, or they will just push for a mile given an inch. There needs to be ground rules set, and punishment for crossing the line. I think the line has been crossed. Society, at least, in the majority, will agree that the line has been crossed, and that those who crossed it shall be punished.

jude- 6y ago

> If you took the beliefs of the people involved in the insurrection to be true, you probably would join an insurrection as well. This is not an excuse. See below. > Trump supporters believe this because they have been lied to repeatedly for years without corrections they found to be believable. How do we correct these firmly held (but false) beliefs? The reason these beliefs don't excuse anything is because they arguably do not believe them in the first place. These people are not stupid -- they do not have a problem thinking things through when it suits them. The problem here is a culture of impunity. These people thought they could do this and face no consequences. Look no further than their shock and dismay at the (very light) treatment they're getting right now. Yes, we should hold the liars accountable. But we should be just as harsh on the people who actually stormed the Capitol. We need to break this culture of impunity now -- by meting out harsh consequences -- before they try it again.

camjohnson26 6y ago
It’s naive to think that most of these people don’t actually believe the election was stolen, a huge number of them do.

nullsense 6y ago

>If you took the beliefs of the people involved in the insurrection to be true, you probably would join an insurrection as well. They believe that an election was stolen and that democracy has been destroyed in the United States and replaced with some form of a deep state dictatorship Oh the irony

camjohnson26 6y ago

Another fact that’s quickly forgotten is the media’s role in Trump’s rise. Trump benefitted from millions of dollars of free publicity by being outrageous and creating stories. The media fed that frenzy through the primaries and even into the general election. They should have done a better job of not giving liars a platform to lie from and of not being bated by every manufactured drama.

silexia 6y ago
We already have a mechanism for harm from lies - libel and slander laws. Just expand these laws to make lying to the public about something that if they believe it could cause them harm a tort.
- camjohnson26 6y ago
  The problem is always who decides what’s a lie and what isn’t. Fake news was a mantra for the left before Trump coopted it and started calling everything he disagreed with fake news. Elon Musk used his powerful Twitter account to call a cave diving hero a pedophile last summer. The man lost the libel suit and Musk walked free, ironically with L Lin Wood as acting prosecutor.
orangecat 6y ago
Trump benefitted from millions of dollars of free publicity Billions: https://www.thestreet.com/politics/donald-trump-rode-5-billion-in-free-media-to-the-white-house-13896916 https://www.thestreet.com/politics/donald-trump-rode-5-billi... In 2016 most of the left-leaning media saw this as a win-win. Promoting Trump's antics would both boost their ratings and cause the Republican party to lose. Unfortunately they were half right.

jlokier 6y ago

> you could look up your own vote and the votes of your friends to confirm You can't do that because visibility causes voting fraud. By coercion. If votes can be checked by other people, a very large number of people (enough to change the result) will be forced under threat by someone else to "vote correctly". The same happens if you can check your own vote, because any mechanism that lets you do that can usually be used by someone else - "give me your phone so I can check you voted for X like I told you to" (while holding a gun). That's why free & fair elections have secret ballots, without personal identification on the ballots. To prevent coercion fraud.