3 ms·

What fantasy are you living in? Have you seen the formation of any countries? Even one? Have you ever seen representative anarchy? Please tell me where - I'

What fantasy are you living in? Have you seen the formation of any countries? Even one? Have you ever seen representative anarchy? Please tell me where - I'll be there like a shot! > embedded journalism to figure out what issues "the people" are beginning to care about Afaik, journalists are there to tell the people what to think - what do you think propaganda is? Do you think that propaganda is something the Russians do, but your country doesn't?!?

derefr 3y ago
> Have you ever seen representative anarchy? Please tell me where - I'll be there like a shot! "Representative anarchy" was my shorthand for the concept of "whoever can stand up with a megaphone and get the largest mob behind them wins." To do this, the person with the megaphone needs to understand what hot-button issues will make the mob follow them in their coup or secession attempt. In that sense of understanding the public, they are acting as a kind of representative. Not a democratic representative — but the same kind of representative that you get when someone stands up and shouts something in a bar and everyone else shouts "yeah!" Yes, the mob can be manipulated. But the nice thing about the breakdown of law and order, is that it stays broken until someone who's good at governing actively re-establishes it. If the mob that the new guy used to depose the old guy, doesn't appreciate the new guy's first few acts in power, then said mob will still usually be riled-up enough — and the new guy's hold on power will still usually be tenuous enough — that the mob will just turn around and depose the new guy, too. (Look at the War of the Roses for many small examples of this; or for a perfect example, at Burkina Faso's two coups in one year last year, where the second one was driven precisely by the public's lack of faith in the guy who did the first coup.) > Afaik, journalists are there to tell the people what to think Maybe I chose the wrong word? I suppose I meant intelligence operatives — but not the secret kind. Just, people who are paid to go and watch things and talk to people, and tell their government department what they found out. Census workers, for example! Or the people who go into retail stores to get the pricing data for the central banks to calculate the Consumer Price Index.
- verisimi 3y ago
  I think we have had royalty and "democracy". I think you have been watching too many films. I don't think people act as a mob, overthrowing anyone. The governance structure doesn't really accept any real inputs from you and I. They are a bloodline. You get to vote in a 'representative democracy' where your vote every 5 years is aggregated with 100k+ of other to choose one of 2 candidates, who then purports to represent you in the thousands of decisions he makes over his term.
  - derefr 3y ago
    I get the sense that you just aren't familiar with any nations that actually have coups. Here, a list — it's very, very long, and most entries are from the last 50 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coups_and_coup_attempts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coups_and_coup_attempt...
    - verisimi 3y ago
      Which ones of those do you think are ones where the anarchic mob attempts to 'found a new country'?

derefr 3y ago

> Have you ever seen representative anarchy? Please tell me where - I'll be there like a shot! "Representative anarchy" was my shorthand for the concept of "whoever can stand up with a megaphone and get the largest mob behind them wins." To do this, the person with the megaphone needs to understand what hot-button issues will make the mob follow them in their coup or secession attempt. In that sense of understanding the public, they are acting as a kind of representative. Not a democratic representative — but the same kind of representative that you get when someone stands up and shouts something in a bar and everyone else shouts "yeah!" Yes, the mob can be manipulated. But the nice thing about the breakdown of law and order, is that it stays broken until someone who's good at governing actively re-establishes it. If the mob that the new guy used to depose the old guy, doesn't appreciate the new guy's first few acts in power, then said mob will still usually be riled-up enough — and the new guy's hold on power will still usually be tenuous enough — that the mob will just turn around and depose the new guy, too. (Look at the War of the Roses for many small examples of this; or for a perfect example, at Burkina Faso's two coups in one year last year, where the second one was driven precisely by the public's lack of faith in the guy who did the first coup.) > Afaik, journalists are there to tell the people what to think Maybe I chose the wrong word? I suppose I meant intelligence operatives — but not the secret kind. Just, people who are paid to go and watch things and talk to people, and tell their government department what they found out. Census workers, for example! Or the people who go into retail stores to get the pricing data for the central banks to calculate the Consumer Price Index.

verisimi 3y ago
I think we have had royalty and "democracy". I think you have been watching too many films. I don't think people act as a mob, overthrowing anyone. The governance structure doesn't really accept any real inputs from you and I. They are a bloodline. You get to vote in a 'representative democracy' where your vote every 5 years is aggregated with 100k+ of other to choose one of 2 candidates, who then purports to represent you in the thousands of decisions he makes over his term.
- derefr 3y ago
  I get the sense that you just aren't familiar with any nations that actually have coups. Here, a list — it's very, very long, and most entries are from the last 50 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coups_and_coup_attempts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coups_and_coup_attempt...
  - verisimi 3y ago
    Which ones of those do you think are ones where the anarchic mob attempts to 'found a new country'?