5 ms·

> Civic institutions - the rule of law, universities, and a free press - are the backbone of democratic life It probably was in 1850-1950s, but not in the worl

> Civic institutions - the rule of law, universities, and a free press - are the backbone of democratic life It probably was in 1850-1950s, but not in the world I live today. Press is not free - full of propaganda. I don't know any journalist today I can trust, I need to check their affiliations before reading the content, because they might be pushing the narrative of press owners or lobbies Rule of law? don't make me laugh, this sounds so funny, look what happened in Venezuela, US couldn't take its oil, so it was heavily sanctioned for so many years, then it still couldn't resist the urge to steal it, and just took the head of the state. Universities - do not want to say anything bad about universities, but recently they are also not good guys we can trust, remember Varsity Blues scandal? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varsity_Blues_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varsity_Blues_scandal - is this the backbone of democratic life?

freejazz 9mo ago
> Press is not free - full of propaganda Did you think that was different from 1850-1950?
- throwaw12 9mo ago
  I don't think, but I feel like situation was slightly better for some reasons: * there were no internet, so local communities strived to inform things happening around more objectively. Later on, there were no need for local newspapers * capitalism was on the rise and on its infancy, but families with a single person working could afford some of the things (e.g. house, car) hence there were no urgent need to selling out all your principles * people relied on books to consume information, since books were difficult to publish and not easy to revert (like removing a blog post), people gave an attention to what they're producing in the form of books, hence consumers of those books were also slightly demanding in what to expect from other sources * less power of lobby groups * not too many super-rich / billionaires, who can just buy anything they want anytime, or ruin the careers of people going against them, hence people probably acted more freely. But again, can't tell exactly what happened at that time, but in my time press is not free. That's why I said "probably"
  - ClarityJones 9mo ago
    I would disagree about capitalism being on the rise. Marx and his views grew after the 1850s and communist / socialist revolutions spread throughout Europe. There may have been more discussion of "capitalism" and an increase in industrialization, but "capital" had existed and operated for centuries before that. What changed was who owned the capital and how it was managed, specifically there has been a vast increase in central / government control. I think this centralization of authority over capital is what has allowed for the power of lobbying, etc. A billionaire could previously only control his farms, tenant farmers, etc. Now their reach is international, and they can influence the taxing / spending the occurs across the entire economy. Similarly, local communities were probably equally (likely far more) mislead by propaganda / lies. However, that influence tended to be more local and aligned with their own interests. The town paper may be full of lies, but the company that owned the town and the workers that lived there both wanted the town to succeed.
    - mghackerlady 9mo ago
      He predicted capitalisms fall, (which happened in the 1930s) but didn't predict that instead of the workers uniting and rising against the bourgeoisie that the bourgeoisie would just rebuild it and continue oppressing the masses
      - ClarityJones 9mo ago
        Capital continued to function just fine through the 1930s. Crops still grew on land. Dams produced electricity. Factories produced cars. What exactly failed?
        NoGravitas 9mo ago
        Capitalism is subject to periodic crises; the Great Depression of the 30s beginning with the stock market crash of 1929 was the largest of those at the time it happened.
  - biophysboy 9mo ago
- zdc1 9mo ago
  My (non-authoritative) understanding was that after Vietnam there was a more recognised need to control what the media published, resulting in Operation Mockingbird and such. However, given how centralised the media has always been, I could see it being influenced before this. Did you have any examples or reading to share?
  - jcranmer 9mo ago
    I really shouldn't be so gobsmacked by people's ignorance of history, but it is astounding to me the number of replies here that seem to believe that the press really was well-behaved in this time period. When learning about the Spanish-American War, pretty much the most important bullet point covered in history class is the role of the press in essentially inventing the cause of the war, as exemplified by the infamous quote from a newspaper baron: "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war." The general term to look up is "yellow journalism."
- YetAnotherNick 9mo ago
  Yes, at the very least there wasn't strong polarization, so the return on propaganda content is lower. Now a newspaper risk losing their consumer more if they publish anything contrarian. [1]: https://www.vox.com/2015/4/23/8485443/polarization-congress-visualization https://www.vox.com/2015/4/23/8485443/polarization-congress-...
  - b40d-48b2-979e 9mo ago
    if they publish anything contrarian Publishing something to the contrary of popular belief is not being contrarian. It is not a virtue to be contrarian and forcing a dichotomy for the sake of arguing with people.
biophysboy 9mo ago
The alternative to all of these institutions is currently social media, which is worse by any metric: accuracy, fairness, curiosity, etc. I am more optimistic about AI than this post simply because I think it is a better substitute than social media. In some ways, I think AI and institutions are symbiotic
- qcnguy 9mo ago
  It's better in all those metrics. Go on X. Claims are being fact checked and annotated in real time by an algorithm that finds cases where ideologically opposed people still agree on the fact check. People can summon a cutting edge LLM to evaluate claims on demand. There is almost no gatekeeping so discussions show every point of view, which is fair and curious. Compare to, I dunno, the BBC. The video you see might not even be real. If you're watching a conservative politician maybe 50 minutes were spliced out of the middle of a sentence and the splice was hidden. You hear only what they want you to hear and they gatekeep aggressively. Facts are not checked in real time by a distributed vote, LLMs are not on hand to double check their claims. AI and social media are working well together. The biggest problem is synthetic video. But TV news has that problem too, it turns out. Just because you hear someone say some words doesn't mean that was what they actually said. So they're doing equally badly in that regard.
  - biophysboy 9mo ago
    As I said, AI is better than social media. AI is trained on and references original sources, which makes it better than reading and believing random posts.
    - chrisjj 9mo ago
      Original sources include random posts.
    - johnnyanmac 9mo ago
      AI is also trained on "random posts". Google made an 11 figure deal with Reddit for this sake. The biggest factor of social media is being able to curate personalities you go to for whatever reason. If you care about reason you will find the reasonable writers. This also enables disinformation, but people looking for anything to fit what they want to hear wouldn' fo towards the reasonable writers anyway.
techblueberry 9mo ago
Paradoxically, these institutions are probably the best they've ever been. We trusted them more 100 years ago because we didn't know better, but we're now letting perfect be the the enemy of good. Wise men once said: "In prison, I learned that everything in this world, including money, operates not on reality..." "But the perception of reality..." Our distrust of institutions is a prison of our own making.
- mitthrowaway2 9mo ago
  I can't speak for the other institutions but I'd be shocked if the press, as an institution, is the best it's ever been. I know a lot of people who left that industry because of the way that the Internet and social media eroded the profitability of reporting while pushing on virality, articles were tuned to declining attention spans, outlets leaned more on centralized newswire services, and local reporting collapsed nearly to zero.
  - NoGravitas 9mo ago
    I think the press, as an institution, was at its peak post-Watergate, and pre- ... something. I don't know when exactly the press began to decay; possibly with the rise of 24-hour cable news in the 1990s; maybe the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, maybe the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The media landscape was certainly severely decayed by 2003, and has not gotten any better.
    - johnnyanmac 9mo ago
      pre-24 hour news cycle. When you need to generate news around the clock at any and all times, you quickly run out of interesting topics. So the best solution is to report on every tiny morsel of information you can grab on whatever story gets the most eyeballs.
mbesto 9mo ago
If this is all true (I don't disagree) than what is or should be the backbone of democratic life?
wongarsu 9mo ago
They are (part of) the backbone of democratic life. But democratic life hasn't been doing well in the US in the last decades. The broken backbone is both cause and symptom of this in a vicious cycle
raw_anon_1111 9mo ago
The press has never been believable. How many innocent people were beat, framed and shot and the press just took the word of the police? Rappers in the 80s were talking about police brutality. But no one believed them until the Rodney King video in 1992. Now many don’t instinctively trust the police because everyone has a camera in their pocket and publish video on social media. On the other side of the coin, the press and both parties ignored what was going on in rural America until the rise of Trump
mghackerlady 9mo ago
These are all supposed to be the backbone of democratic life, yes, but won't someone PLEASE think of the shareholders?!?
ranger207 9mo ago
The press has always been full of propaganda, it's just that in the time period 1850-1950 there weren't any dissenting media outlets so it was impossible for anyone to recognize that there was anything different from the propaganda Every society is going to have problems. Democracy's benefit is that it allows those problems to be freely discussed and resolved
mrfumier 9mo ago
> Venezuela, US couldn't take its oil, so it was heavily sanctioned for so many years, then it still couldn't resist the urge to steal it, and just took the head of the state. Could you provide supporting evidence for your statement?
johnnyanmac 9mo ago
>do not want to say anything bad about universities I'll make a slightly warm take: Co-opting our higher education institutions to be used as an extended job pipelne was a huge mistake. Your primary goal for attending college should not be to prepare for a job unless you are aiming for a highly specialized position. Hotter take: jobs above a certain size should require a 3 month onboarding pipeline that is demonstrably used if they want to make the argument of hiring H1-B's. If you can learn the job in that period, it's clear that there is domestic talent.

freejazz 9mo ago

> Press is not free - full of propaganda Did you think that was different from 1850-1950?

throwaw12 9mo ago
I don't think, but I feel like situation was slightly better for some reasons: * there were no internet, so local communities strived to inform things happening around more objectively. Later on, there were no need for local newspapers * capitalism was on the rise and on its infancy, but families with a single person working could afford some of the things (e.g. house, car) hence there were no urgent need to selling out all your principles * people relied on books to consume information, since books were difficult to publish and not easy to revert (like removing a blog post), people gave an attention to what they're producing in the form of books, hence consumers of those books were also slightly demanding in what to expect from other sources * less power of lobby groups * not too many super-rich / billionaires, who can just buy anything they want anytime, or ruin the careers of people going against them, hence people probably acted more freely. But again, can't tell exactly what happened at that time, but in my time press is not free. That's why I said "probably"
- ClarityJones 9mo ago
  I would disagree about capitalism being on the rise. Marx and his views grew after the 1850s and communist / socialist revolutions spread throughout Europe. There may have been more discussion of "capitalism" and an increase in industrialization, but "capital" had existed and operated for centuries before that. What changed was who owned the capital and how it was managed, specifically there has been a vast increase in central / government control. I think this centralization of authority over capital is what has allowed for the power of lobbying, etc. A billionaire could previously only control his farms, tenant farmers, etc. Now their reach is international, and they can influence the taxing / spending the occurs across the entire economy. Similarly, local communities were probably equally (likely far more) mislead by propaganda / lies. However, that influence tended to be more local and aligned with their own interests. The town paper may be full of lies, but the company that owned the town and the workers that lived there both wanted the town to succeed.
  - mghackerlady 9mo ago
    He predicted capitalisms fall, (which happened in the 1930s) but didn't predict that instead of the workers uniting and rising against the bourgeoisie that the bourgeoisie would just rebuild it and continue oppressing the masses
    - ClarityJones 9mo ago
      Capital continued to function just fine through the 1930s. Crops still grew on land. Dams produced electricity. Factories produced cars. What exactly failed?
      - NoGravitas 9mo ago
        Capitalism is subject to periodic crises; the Great Depression of the 30s beginning with the stock market crash of 1929 was the largest of those at the time it happened.
- biophysboy 9mo ago
zdc1 9mo ago
My (non-authoritative) understanding was that after Vietnam there was a more recognised need to control what the media published, resulting in Operation Mockingbird and such. However, given how centralised the media has always been, I could see it being influenced before this. Did you have any examples or reading to share?
- jcranmer 9mo ago
  I really shouldn't be so gobsmacked by people's ignorance of history, but it is astounding to me the number of replies here that seem to believe that the press really was well-behaved in this time period. When learning about the Spanish-American War, pretty much the most important bullet point covered in history class is the role of the press in essentially inventing the cause of the war, as exemplified by the infamous quote from a newspaper baron: "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war." The general term to look up is "yellow journalism."
YetAnotherNick 9mo ago
Yes, at the very least there wasn't strong polarization, so the return on propaganda content is lower. Now a newspaper risk losing their consumer more if they publish anything contrarian. [1]: https://www.vox.com/2015/4/23/8485443/polarization-congress-visualization https://www.vox.com/2015/4/23/8485443/polarization-congress-...
- b40d-48b2-979e 9mo ago
  if they publish anything contrarian Publishing something to the contrary of popular belief is not being contrarian. It is not a virtue to be contrarian and forcing a dichotomy for the sake of arguing with people.

biophysboy 9mo ago

The alternative to all of these institutions is currently social media, which is worse by any metric: accuracy, fairness, curiosity, etc. I am more optimistic about AI than this post simply because I think it is a better substitute than social media. In some ways, I think AI and institutions are symbiotic

qcnguy 9mo ago
It's better in all those metrics. Go on X. Claims are being fact checked and annotated in real time by an algorithm that finds cases where ideologically opposed people still agree on the fact check. People can summon a cutting edge LLM to evaluate claims on demand. There is almost no gatekeeping so discussions show every point of view, which is fair and curious. Compare to, I dunno, the BBC. The video you see might not even be real. If you're watching a conservative politician maybe 50 minutes were spliced out of the middle of a sentence and the splice was hidden. You hear only what they want you to hear and they gatekeep aggressively. Facts are not checked in real time by a distributed vote, LLMs are not on hand to double check their claims. AI and social media are working well together. The biggest problem is synthetic video. But TV news has that problem too, it turns out. Just because you hear someone say some words doesn't mean that was what they actually said. So they're doing equally badly in that regard.
- biophysboy 9mo ago
  As I said, AI is better than social media. AI is trained on and references original sources, which makes it better than reading and believing random posts.
  - chrisjj 9mo ago
    Original sources include random posts.
  - johnnyanmac 9mo ago
    AI is also trained on "random posts". Google made an 11 figure deal with Reddit for this sake. The biggest factor of social media is being able to curate personalities you go to for whatever reason. If you care about reason you will find the reasonable writers. This also enables disinformation, but people looking for anything to fit what they want to hear wouldn' fo towards the reasonable writers anyway.

techblueberry 9mo ago

Paradoxically, these institutions are probably the best they've ever been. We trusted them more 100 years ago because we didn't know better, but we're now letting perfect be the the enemy of good. Wise men once said: "In prison, I learned that everything in this world, including money, operates not on reality..." "But the perception of reality..." Our distrust of institutions is a prison of our own making.

mitthrowaway2 9mo ago
I can't speak for the other institutions but I'd be shocked if the press, as an institution, is the best it's ever been. I know a lot of people who left that industry because of the way that the Internet and social media eroded the profitability of reporting while pushing on virality, articles were tuned to declining attention spans, outlets leaned more on centralized newswire services, and local reporting collapsed nearly to zero.
- NoGravitas 9mo ago
  I think the press, as an institution, was at its peak post-Watergate, and pre- ... something. I don't know when exactly the press began to decay; possibly with the rise of 24-hour cable news in the 1990s; maybe the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, maybe the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The media landscape was certainly severely decayed by 2003, and has not gotten any better.
  - johnnyanmac 9mo ago
    pre-24 hour news cycle. When you need to generate news around the clock at any and all times, you quickly run out of interesting topics. So the best solution is to report on every tiny morsel of information you can grab on whatever story gets the most eyeballs.

mbesto 9mo ago

If this is all true (I don't disagree) than what is or should be the backbone of democratic life?

wongarsu 9mo ago

They are (part of) the backbone of democratic life. But democratic life hasn't been doing well in the US in the last decades. The broken backbone is both cause and symptom of this in a vicious cycle

raw_anon_1111 9mo ago

The press has never been believable. How many innocent people were beat, framed and shot and the press just took the word of the police? Rappers in the 80s were talking about police brutality. But no one believed them until the Rodney King video in 1992. Now many don’t instinctively trust the police because everyone has a camera in their pocket and publish video on social media. On the other side of the coin, the press and both parties ignored what was going on in rural America until the rise of Trump

mghackerlady 9mo ago

These are all supposed to be the backbone of democratic life, yes, but won't someone PLEASE think of the shareholders?!?

ranger207 9mo ago

The press has always been full of propaganda, it's just that in the time period 1850-1950 there weren't any dissenting media outlets so it was impossible for anyone to recognize that there was anything different from the propaganda Every society is going to have problems. Democracy's benefit is that it allows those problems to be freely discussed and resolved

mrfumier 9mo ago

> Venezuela, US couldn't take its oil, so it was heavily sanctioned for so many years, then it still couldn't resist the urge to steal it, and just took the head of the state. Could you provide supporting evidence for your statement?

johnnyanmac 9mo ago

>do not want to say anything bad about universities I'll make a slightly warm take: Co-opting our higher education institutions to be used as an extended job pipelne was a huge mistake. Your primary goal for attending college should not be to prepare for a job unless you are aiming for a highly specialized position. Hotter take: jobs above a certain size should require a 3 month onboarding pipeline that is demonstrably used if they want to make the argument of hiring H1-B's. If you can learn the job in that period, it's clear that there is domestic talent.