So at this point what is the difference between being manipulated and being informed? (Under your context, I know the difference.)
It’s a very nice broadly brushed application of personality types. While useful in many circumstances, including writing characters in stories, it suffers from a little bit of over simplification. Which is a consistent problem when attempting to codify such things, might as well be the alignment system at times… For instance, I float between three different types, partially because all of the different dichotomies for me are near the middle, except thinking…
Multiple reasons. It’s easier to blame the person out front, than people behind the scenes. The biggest though, is that people don’t hate their individual congress peoples, they hate other people’s congress people. Check out the Econpop link to House of Cards in my sig, it’s a good, funny explanation of public choice theory. Additionally, the executive branch has to enforce the policy, and can do so to the levels they wish, so they can be responsible.
You'd have to have read the history behind the rule, not just the synopsis. Suffice to say, psychiatrists have been sufficiently politicized in this country they aren't going to be trusted as the sacred deliverers of truth that they would need to be in order to make a difference to the political process.
I think you're missing my point. The heroic psychiatrist who ruined his reputation for life in order to deliver the truth about this or that political candidate would only be trusted/believed by people who were predisposed to believe what he said, and nothing much would change.
Adam Smith gets the credit, but thanks!
I didn’t mean to say that we ought to be trying to distribute power equally. I meant to say that, since it is manifestly impossible to do so, our real goal is to manage power groups and make sure they are as in line with the will of the people as possible.
Yeah. A number of factors contribute to that- the Government not being transparent, not following the Constitution, unelected judges and czars gaining more power, and the corporate and government worlds becoming more and more intertwined.
Or creating a situation where the right people get that power. So for example, in a monarchy the aristocracy would be just those who can manipulate the king- warlords, the king's immediate family, and the kings of other empires. With the introduction of the vote, the aristocracy becomes those who can manipulate us all- that sounds very cynical, but it's still better to be ruled by academics, corporations, entertainers, and politicians that have to pander to us and give us things we think we want than through pure force. What's more, a major point of the Constitution and the bicameral Legislature is to place limits on what such aristocrats can accomplish.
Sure. As I formulate it, though, it’s important to note that ‘the aristocracy’ is only rarely going to be punished by ‘the people’- it’s going to be aristocrats calling out and punishing one another. The important thing is that each such actor is acting in the name of interests that represent some segment of the population, and not pure selfishness. You and me make a difference through gathering our voices to advocate for some interest, and that group will have organizers, major cash providers, and visible advocates.
So sins of omission would not be unconstitutional nor violate any rights. But overt lying could be consider unconstitutional or a violation of rights if we didn’t consider it a form of expression.
Yes, and I suddenly recall something else they questioned: how often is this correlation determined by the people themselves and how often by the corporations? I mean, I can see how such a correlation would naturally arise in a capitalist system: businesses are always trying to gauge what their customer base wants. All that business really is is trying to figure out what’s in demand and trying to figure out how to supply it. Huge chunks of corporations’ budgets go into market research for just this purpose. So of course, the things they lobby government for are things that will allow them to supply more of what their customers demand (you can imagine some corporation lobbying government to repeal some environmental act so that they can produce more or produce at a cheaper rate or something even though it may harm the environment).
But with marketing agencies now learning the art of manufacturing demand, it may work the other way around. Corporations, in an attempt to sell something that may not at first be highly demanded, may higher marketing experts to raise the demand for that product and thereby allow them to sell it more easily. This too would keep corporate interests and the people’s interests correlated.
Do be careful with this line of argument: I think we’re always going to be manipulated by the messages and information streaming all around us–even if there was no corruption anywhere–but the question is, who’s controlling it. You see, it would be one thing if we were all mutually affected by this flow of information, if information affected us all in a cyclical manner–like how natural resources are cyclically passed through the environment: carnivores eat herbivores, which in turn eat plants, which in turn eat the soil, which in turn gets fertilized by animal waste, which in turn comes from the herbivore that the carnivore ate–but if information affects us in a hierarchical manner–like the clergy affecting the masses with religion–then there is the danger of corruption growing within the unchecked head of the hierarchy.
What do you mean by “agree” with it? You mean, do I think it’s valid/reliable? I skimmed through the wikipedia article, and although I think it has potential to measure something objectively real about personalities and human psychology, what it purports to measure is questionable in my mind.
The wikipedia article had these criticism to cite about the test:
Idunno. Like I said, I chose the legislature more or less on a whim. I hadn’t really thought much on the matter. Why don’t you tell me which branch of government is more important, and why? Or if you think the legislature is more important, why does the executive always get blamed for failed policies?
I think you’re thinking of this too much as psychiatrist oriented. Although I imagine a psychiatrist being present, it would really be test oriented. Like I said, you could administer the test through a computer, and all the psychiatrist would do would be to be present, just as an overseer to make sure everything proceeding as expected. The results wouldn’t be delivered by the psychiatrist–they’d be crunched by the computer program itself and automatically delivered to some web site. The psychiatrist’s roll would be so minimal that unless the people were seriously misinformed about how the process works, they wouldn’t care about who he/she was, what his/her background was, what political orientation he/she held–he/she would be a nobody. The people would have to understand that even if they distrusted the psychiatrist, replacing him/her with someone else they did trust would make not one iota of difference to how the process works. Hell, I’m not sure the position would even require a professional psychiatrist or someone with an MD–you could conceivably hire a stay-at-home mom to do the job. I mean, the most involved I imagine the test administrator being is perhaps someone who reads the questions off a hardcopy of the test and marks the answers he/she gets back into boxes. But even this I don’t think requires the credentials of a professional psychiatrist–I think you’d want someone more qualified than, say, a drunk or a homeless person, but any average Joe can do it. (But I’d still recommend passing the hardcopy version of the test through a scanner so that a computer can crunch the results).
Ok, Uccisore, I think I get your point. You’re saying that it’s not really a matter of whether this process would work or not–it’s a matter of whether the people would trust that it works. In other words, even if we somehow managed to find absolutely incorruptible test administrators and the tests were 100% accurate in screening out the kinds of politicians we wanted, that would be neither here nor there if the people are habitually distrustful of politicians and those who speak in support of them.
If that’s what you’re saying, then point taken.
I don’t think this is a quintessentially American trend, but I suspect it might be especially rooted in the American psyche. But if so, how would you describe the manner in which this trend expresses itself: would you say 1) that the American people are skeptical and cynical about any politician being presented in a positive light, or 2) only when it’s not their preferred politician being presented in a positive light. For example, let’s say that before Obama won the election, he took my proposed test. Let’s say he came out favorably. Are you saying that 1) no American would trust the results of the test, or 2) only those who favored Obama to begin with would trust the test, but those who were opposed would be skeptical/cynical about the test (or the test administrator)?
Also, would you say that this skepticism/cynicism would go so far as to be directed at the test designers themselves, or perhaps the programmer would implemented it on the computer? In the latter case, even if the test administrator was a nobody (as I described above), I could see how Americans might displace their distrust somewhere else–on the original test designers or computer programmers–but here I would have to say that this level of distrust verges on the ridiculous: for one thing, you’d be distrustful of people who had no way of knowing in advance who’d be taking the test or what their results would be.
I’m not going to respond to the other points you made because 1) I don’t have time, and 2) I don’t really have much to add–but they were good points and I’ll surely remember them as this discussion goes on.
First of all, Eric, you’ve answered a post I wrote to gib. I’d like to read his response to what I wrote.
However, since you took the time to write, I’ll take the time to respond.
The law/rule of Unintended Consequences: You say no one ever considers that. Shouldn’t a whole bunch of people do so, however? Shouldn’t engineers, architects, city planners, manufacturers, law makers, policy makers–shouldn’t everyone at least try to think of unintended consequences? The reason I brought the subject up is because of biased interest groups, which, statistically, make up a large percent of people who influence policy even though they may not represent the ‘majority’ view. I used the NRA as an example.
In taking the stance of protecting the II Amendment, the NRA has been able to reach beyond the average gun owner to include anyone who wants to see the Constitution unblemished in any way. In so doing, it has created ‘unintended consequences’ and has actually hindered the right of the majority to remain safe in every aspect of their lives. Anyone can own a weapon. In doing so, the NRA is also supporting an industry that arms the world. Since the US is the major producer of arms, it can be assumed that that industry will always back the NRA.
What’s the difference between being ‘manipulated’ and being ‘informed?’ I’d say that neither the ‘manipulated’ nor the ‘informed’ voter realizes that their thoughts are, in fact, controlled in some way. After all, what is ‘truth?’ What is ‘reality’ other than what any individual has been taught and wants to believe, either in reaction or in compliance. Once the individual has decided what s/he believes, confirmation bias goes into effect–all that’s believed is nothing other than what the individual already believes. You say you know the difference; tell us, please.
Briggs Myers personality types: I don’t really know enough about this method of ‘labeling’ to be able to give a thoughtful response. I dislike labeling while realizing that languages are formed by labeling and ‘codification.’ If, for example, you read or hear the word ‘tree’ in the English language, what image does that create in your mind–without adjectives or other modifiers? The Briggs Myers personality grouping is, to me, just as broad, plus it’s dependent on how one group analyzes their interpretations of what’s known about another group or individual. Do you understand the confusion factor?
Blaming the Executive branch of our Federal government for the ‘failures’ of the Federal Legislative branch, in my mind, has little to do with ‘hating’ one group of Congressmen over another–except when it comes as the result of which state gets the most tax money for things such as the Bridge to Nowhere. The Federal Legislature shouldn’t be concerned with such issues. The Federal Senate is responsible for creating the Law of the Land and not for the allocation of funds to one state or another.
If a policy fails, however, the Executive will be blamed. Is that because it’s easier to pin blame on one person rather than on all of the forces that have led to that policy decision?
I’m going to try to get back on track here while also trying to answer some questions that arose as the result of all of your responses–Okay? I’m going to start with economics, as I understand the study to be and as it pertains to US democracy.
The US, and most of the developed Western World, followed a laissez-faire form of market economy until the turn of the 20th century. This allowed the market to set its own prices for trade. That’s what laissez-faire means. And it was fine, until the market started to expand beyond just the European market; however, things change. I think our involvement in WWI, late though it was and for whatever reasons it was, started the change to a more ‘controlled’ market–the Keynesian theory, which says that there are times when the government needs to step in and put controls on market pricing. (FDR, apparently, got around some of this with the Lend/Lease Act with Great Britain. Please remember that I’m educating myself without the direction of a ‘teacher.’)
Then came world trade which threw the kibosh on all previous theories. We really can’t go back.
Wall Street (the US ‘financial industry’) policies of lending and trading are the ‘norm’ for ‘world trade’ as Wall Street defines world trade. When Wall Street malfunctioned, the entire trading world which followed those policies also malfunctioned.
Beyond Wall Street, however, is global trade. There are no economic theories that encompass world/global trade. None!
There are three remaining nations that are large in size–Russia, China, and the US. China’s manufacturing power has overtaken US manufacturing because of its population and because, economically, it’s still an emerging nation. Russia seems to be the dowager, waiting to see how it all works out in the general scheme of things. Is it interested in becoming an economic world leader? I don’t know. Perhaps the time isn’t ‘right,’ yet.
What I’m trying to get at is the world is in a state of flux in terms of economic/financial/trade policies. It’s time to come up with new theories.
I would very much like them to do so, but we, as humans, have a lot of trouble thinking beyond stage one. It takes special training to even start in some ways. It is made harder by the unintended part, people don’t think about the unintended part, they only want to consider the intended part.
With a little bit of hyperbole, I respond, but they don’t, they often have no reason to try.
Just remember, everyone technically belongs to an interest group. If you think you don’t, you are wrong. I can point to several things just in your response that indicate an interest group that you would “belong” to.
I’m not sure they would consider that unintended… But that’s fine, no reason to argue that here. I understand what you mean.
It is a rare person, I’ve encountered very very few, that understands how much their thoughts are manipulated. Partially because, so few understand how deep it goes. I know I get my sense of right and wrong from my Catholic upbringing. I was raised in the more modern ideal of treating women as equals, only to grow up and find out, women really don’t want that. They want a dominant alpha… The manipulation starts young…
You asked a question, that I know somethings about. You don’t have to give a response. Read and take with a grain of salt. I understand why someone would not like things like the Briggs/Myers types, but, I have never really had a problem with labels. I think of them as an attempt to pass information along simply, with needed expansion on the labeled thing as necessary. For example, I call my self a Conservative, but there are a lot of different types of Conservative, so when more information is needed it can be expanded on, but just the simple Conservative is enough for most people to understand where most of my opinions are going to land. If we have more time I could go into, I’m not anti-Gay Marriage, while still not quite being pro. The older I get the more I hate abortion, but half of that comes not from the act, but the fools that support it with such gusto… ETC… (No reply is needed to each thing, I’m just trying to explain my lack of worry about labels.) Briggs/Myers was created during WWII, to help better assign jobs to women… It is a basic codification for such an application. It has been upgraded since that time, but it is still almost a little to rigid. I know about it, because it is a great tool for writing characters for books, and because I have a friend that went nuts over it and I had to write a program to give it as a test.
Ok, I think I failed to explain what I’m saying. Generally, the public just blames politicians, but, because we vote for our congressmen directly, and they have more interaction with their constituents directly, we like them better. So, we blame everyone else instead, and because everyone does this, the result is less applied blame. Like laying on a bed of nails, if we laid on one, it would penetrate, but because it’s a bed the weight is distributed among lots of different points. The President gets blamed more, because he is one person, where as blaming congress, except for “our guy” spread the blame thin.
It’s a simple response, but I would suggest is reading more economic books. They actually have quite a few theories surrounding all the things you touched on. The entirety of Macroeconomics is about government trading and such, and it is were most of the battles of economics is fought. Keynesian economics is almost all about this, it is what FDR used in his response to “the great depression.” The Austrian response is more complicated and so many jumped on the simple Keynesian band wagon, that and it told them what they wanted to hear… But, there is quite a bit out there, and it is a lot to read…
I’m currently making my way through The Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle and Other Essays, which goes into exactly what you are talking about. It has essays from the 18xx’s to 2014… This issue has been covered in detail… It’s just that not everyone agree’s on every little thing.
I think it’s time, perhaps, to have each of us go through our posts in this thread and see where we’ve actually come up with some good ideas about reforming democracy–in this country and elsewhere–although we may not have realized we’ve done so. There are good ideas from everyone but they’re sometimes not realized.
I’ll start with my own reform #1; get rid of voting restrictions (including having only one candidate.) While this may apply to countries outside the US, the US has certainly had voting restrictions in it’s history that didn’t disappear until 1920, when the 19th Amendment giving women nationwide suffrage was ratified. I think it still goes on in the US, it’s just more hidden. Gerrymandering could be an example.
Campaign finance reform: Either make campaign financing Campaign Financing, rather than Candidate financing, or cap the amount of money that can be given to any single candidate. There should be a way to provide for a more level financial playing field so as to allow ‘equal time’ for all–at least in the initial stages of any level of election; city, county, state, federal.
Redefine “corruption in government” so that sins of omission are as illegal as are sins of commission. Broaden the definition of ‘bribery’ when it comes to influencing votes, whether that influence comes from lobbying or from individuals.
Get the average voter to understand how economic policies and practices really work and how much they influence how governance works.
Any leader should be a ‘wise’ leader, as Sanjay has said; however, age doesn’t guarantee wisdom. In the US, the President is surrounded by supposedly wise people working as the Cabinet. As the Chief Executive, s/he can also delegate areas of responsibility to what the media calls ‘czars.’ No one person can know everything about all areas of governing; however, does the Federal Government need to take on so much responsibility?
Should the Federal government contract rather than continually expand? I’ve thought about this a lot. Could individual states take on the safety of citizens anywhere other than in their own state? Some might be willing to form a consortium with their surrounding states, but safety rules need to be uniform, imm, and apply to the nation as a whole.
Would individual states be able to afford a lot of the research needed to guarantee consumer safety? Or is the research and testing not needed? Given interstate trade, I think it is.
But I also think the Federal government can eliminate certain offices (and staffs) and certain responsibilities by turning them over to the states or to offices that already exist. Look at the list of ‘czars’ and decide which ones can/should be eliminated. I see a lot–at first glance.
This post needs to be broken up into smaller segments. I keep forgetting the attention span of readers.
This is true. It reminds me of being in grade school and being yelled at by our teacher. There were times when I personally was yelled out (for being disruptive in class or whatever) and then there were times when everyone was being yelled at collectively. During those times, I didn’t feel as put on the spot as I did when I was being yelled at personally. I took it relatively seriously, of course, as it was obvious the teacher was upset, but I felt as though I could shrug it off saying “oh well”.
What does this say about blaming congressmen collectively?
I don’t know, and neither do you.
Ah, that’s what you were getting at. I hesitated on that interpretation because I can’t imagine for the life of me how we would enforce that. But perhaps if we focus on making it into law first and worry about enforcement later, it might still have some effect.
Hell, yeah, it’s needed. The question is, how do we prevent corruption even here? And whether it should be run by the feds or the states, I’m not sure. Maybe they can be run independently, like an insurance company.
It’s ineffectual. That when someone says “Congress Approval is at an all time low.” That the statement means far less, because people approve of their congressmen individually. That the statement is Hyperbole, in part because of the time frame that has been placed on it. That we should move on beyond approval ratings.
It might, but it is dangerous set a precedent for laws that are not enforceable. It gives power to the enforcers, a lot of power. Turns us even more into a banana republic. An example, using the sin of omission. Many have claimed that President Obama knew that many would lose their insurance, suppose this is proven, does he go to jail? (I put it the way I did, because the argument is over the application of such a law, not what President Obama knew.) Such a law would turn into political theater, and that’s about it… You know, except people would go to jail for what they fail to prove, but it the current belief of 50.00000000005% of the government officials… Can you prove you didn’t know something and that’s why you didn’t say it verses that you knew it and didn’t say something.
Further, passing laws that are impossible to enforce, results in a undermining of the law. In much the same way as acting stupid undermines attempting to prove intelligence.
But it might cause only the effect desired, that people would tell everything they know, so that people can make a judgement based off that… I would think the law of unintended consequences would kick it’s ass though.
The open market does a better job, much better that the government, at consumer safety. The safety magazines rely on respect for their thoroughness and truth to sale. If they start to fail this, they sale worse. Their incentives lay with doing the best they can. Government has no reason to understand the problems that might be involved, so passes regulations off to the richest companies, the ones that do actually understand what is involved, the result is Crony Capitalism. The regulations are tailor made for the richer companies, and the little companies are killed…
What I’m saying is that, one their is no reason to believe that passing regulation off to states will increase it’s effectiveness. Because their is no proof that regulation has accomplished anything the private market wouldn’t have.
We have a least one thing in common–an RC background! There are probably more, but…
I may not have been clear when I wrote ‘sins of omission and sins of commission.’ First of all, I was talking about lobbyists and other large interest groups, not Congress people. Mainly, I was using lying only as an example. There is such a concept as ‘legal’ corruption, a fairly young study. (see the paper, Legal Corruption, Daniel Kaufmann and Pedro C. Vicente) I believe the SCOTUS recently determined that lobbying was not a form of bribery; it was, rather, an exercise of free speech. Question: Does that make lobbying a form of ‘legal’ corruption as opposed to corruption?
There are anti-corruption groups; the World Bank, for example, has such a department, but they examine and try to set up rules against corruption within emerging nations. It will be interesting to see if any of those guidelines are applicable to established nations.
As for enforcement, I think the media frenzy and notoriety of being discovered would be a hindrance to a lot of political corruption. Would the ‘sin’ have benefits greater than being caught and probably having your career ruined? Look at the number of Congress people who have been caught out for having mistresses or being gay. It depends on the time. Look at Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings vs Strom Thurmond and Cassie Butler.
Should the US President–or any President–always tell everything they know? Probably not; trying to explain the ‘whys’ of so doing would take too long and be misunderstood most of the time. Did President Obama really know about the 2012 attack in Benghazi early enough to have prevented the massacre? Would it have been politically prudent, if he did, to have admitted it?
Would an open market really do a better job at researching and testing new drugs, than does the FDA? How? Would the open market have been able to get automobile manufacturers to put seat belt in their cars and trucks? (Didn’t the car companies put up a tremendous fight against making seat belts a standard rather than an option?) How many people would have to have died before the market caught up? Would this nebulous concept you call the “open market” have any legislative authority whatsoever?
Please explain how consumer safety magazines and an open market would lead to industry-wide regulation of food, medication, transportation, etc. on both an interstate and a world market.
How so? At first glance, this statement almost seems like a contradiction: establishing unenforceable laws gives a lot of power to the enforcers? I would think if the law was unenforceable, anyone wishing to enforce it would be pretty powerless.
Yes, this is one of the reasons I figured it would be unenforceable.
Agreed. In cases like this, what you want to do is conduct smaller scale experiments, or watch out for real-world applications of the model that have already been put into place, and take note on what the effects are, including unintended ones.
It’s a bit confusing what you’re saying here. You seem to be saying two things: that 1) good consumer safety companies need to “know what’s involved” (and that’s something the government would be doing right because they’d be looking for the richest companies that “know what’s involved”) and that 2) good consumer safety companies depend on the respect and trust of the consumer and are thereby motivated to “try their best”. Are you saying that government appointed companies, although knowing what’s involved, would be picked not so much because they try their best out of a desire to maintain the trust and respect of the consumer base but merely because they are rich. But wouldn’t you say that there would be a correlation between trying one’s best and becoming rich? At the same time, however, I can see how being selected by the government might actually replace that basis for becoming rich–i.e. when your pay check comes from the government, the results usually turn out like they do in communism: a severe degradation of productivity and quality. Is that what you’re saying?
Liz, I’m not sure lobbying is a form of corruption at all. It’s a right. Not everyone is motivated, or has the wherewithal, to exercise that right, and this may result in lopsidedness in how well the lobbying groups represent the interests of the people overall, but I would call this a shortcoming of the democratic process, not corruption.
Yes.
Enforcing the law is not just about catching the true positives, but about avoiding the false ones too. It would be so easy, to bring up charges against a politician who by mistake omitted to divulge some pertinent piece of information, or perhaps didn’t understand it’s relevance to the case at hand (for example, I might omit to mention that I had eggs and toast for breakfast, but not because I’m purposefully hiding it, but because in my estimation, it isn’t relevant)–and the media would have a field day with it regardless of whether or not it was a mistake or a poor judgment, as would the people.
What do you mean “never mind”–that’s exactly what we’re focusing on.
Let me explain something to you about this thread, Joker: while I can’t speak for everyone else participating in this thread, my own motives are to get at the truth about the state of affairs in politics (mainly, American politics and more broadly, politics as they go on in modern democracies around the world). I figure, if you’re going to solve a problem, you need to be devoted to understanding the truth about the problem you’re trying to solve. This is different from whining and complaining. If the goal of a cynic (or a nihilist, if you think that’s relevant) is to invent whatever “truth” serves his/her gloomy purpose–namely, to paint the worst, most abysmal, depressing, and hopeless picture one can imagine–then the cynic (and nihilist) doesn’t share my goal or my definition of “truth”.
It seems to me that most cynics and nihilists on this board determine the truth according to the following criteria:
he/she can imagine it.
it would be bad.
If those two conditions are met, then it passes as “truth” in the cynic’s or nihilist’s mind.
For my own part, I don’t really consider my worst nightmares to be real–primarily because I recognize them as first and foremost being rooted in my own imagination–and therefore I need some other set of criteria for determining what’s real and what isn’t. I know of no better criteria than the scientific method–history seems to have proven this–so when it comes to problems of this magnitude, I feel the best approach to take in solving them is to think scientifically, not cynically. To put aside one’s own biases and emotional baggage and get serious about the issue: serious, that is, in the sense of questioning what one really knows and what one is simply being cynical or pessimistic about. When it comes to conspiracy theories, one can either believe everything ones hears or imagines, in which case it is nothing over and above plain paranoia, or one can attempt to sift through the details of the conspiracy theory and try to determines what is known to be fact and what is ungrounded hearsay being passed around society like a bad rumor.
The former approach is pathological–it is indeed a symptom of the corruption that exists in politics–but it represents one of the ways the human psyche falls apart and destroys itself in response to it (much like an allergic reaction can, in moderation, be a healthy response to pathogens invading the body, but in extreme cases, such as with peanut allergies, can be an over-reaction that harms, even kills, the body rather than defends it). It is the same reaction that accounts for racism and religious intolerance. I heard it once be described as an analogy to “signal detection theory.” The story behind this, as I heard it, comes from missile detector stations along the Alaskan coastline positioned to watch out for Soviet missiles aimed at American soil. According to the story, they had trouble differentiating between actual missiles and other airborne objects, such as ducks or other large birds. The solution was rather simple: who gives a shit about birds! Shoot down whatever your detection systems detect. If it’s a bird, oh well. We’ll all shed a tear for our feathered friends. But if it’s a missile, and we shoot it down, then we’re safe. This is the most sure-fire way to guarantee our safety. The other approach–the one in which we hold some concern about the birds–might save a few ducks, which would be a good thing I suppose, but if we ever made a mistake and mistook a missile for a duck, we’d all be dead–not the best approach. Paranoia and racism and religious intolerance are based on this same strategy–the strategy of assuming that everyone is an enemy, and thereby, even if you are wrong in some cases, at least you’ve maximized the likelihood that you will be safe (and who cares for the innocent victims who you mistook for a threat). It’s simply a defense mechanism, a survival strategy. But don’t ever convince yourself that it is also a vista to truth. You sacrifice truth for self-protection with this strategy, and this is what makes it pathological. You delude yourself out of fear. And although it may work for self-defense, it is a terrible strategy when it comes to uncovering the truth, and thereby really solving the problem.
Oh, and by the way (to all), I believe this widespread cynicism originated from the Watergate scandal. I’m not as brushed up on my American history trivia to say this with any confidence, but I get the impression that before the 60s, the American people had full confidence in the purity of their political system–many, I’m sure, even going so far as to boast that their form of government was incorruptible (much like Edward Smith thought of his ship as unsinkable). I think the Watergate scandal was more of a blow to American pride than the rest of the world realizes, and to this day is an embarrassment to the American people. But you Americans always swing from one pole to the opposite. If there were some before the 60s who honestly believed their system could not be corrupted, then there are those today who honestly believe that their system, or any political system, can never become uncorrupted. But these are wild and unrealistic extremes. If the American people simply took a more realistic view from the beginning that of course there’s always going to be some level of corruption in politics–even in a system that has a proven track record for working (I mean even if corruption did go on in government before the 60s, immigrants from all over the world continued desperately to escape the horrors of their own nations and to find shelter and a better life in your country)–then it probably wouldn’t have been as much of a shock to find Nixon involved in such secret and illegal activities, and the people probably would not have succumb to such a sickness as this widespread cynicism out of which they don’t seem able to escape.
But again, it is my hope that I can, to some degree, wake some people up. This cynicism is like a dream–you’re walking zombies–complaining yet enjoying your butter soaked pop corn while being entertained by Hollywood’s latest productions. I’d like to slap some of you in the face: wake up!
Complaining while enjoying your SUVs and your beer nights and your McDonald’s Big Macs is clearly a symptom of an attempt to revive some of your dignity you used to own before the 60s–an attempt to feel that, so long as you complain and claim to believe the government is seeped in corruption, you won’t be duped–you’re still smart, you’re still intelligent. But if this is your strategy, it proves (to me) just the opposite.
I’d like to wake you up from this and get you to recognize what your own mind is doing–everything is a missile to you, there are no ducks–and that makes you feel safe. But you’re not. So long as you continue to be zombified by the media in their attempts to passify and distract you, the problem will grow more and more sinister, and you will slowly lose your grip on freedom. Not even your Superbowl Sundays will be able to deliver the comfort it now does. There will be a day when you will desperately strive to immigrate to another country.
I think there’s still a chance now. I don’t think it’s too late. But you need to start thinking scientifically about the problem, not cynically. Get the facts, don’t invent them, and for God’s sake, don’t look for them out of an attempt to prove to yourself why you have a right to complain, but to figure out how to actually fix the problem.
We both drink liquids and eat solids. So that’s a start!
It’ll take me some time to read through the paper. My initial thoughts though are, that this is just a way to place a negative spin on a legal thing someone doesn’t like. It’s like social darwinism, an insult thrown at people so they don’t have to treat people as equals. Instead they are bad people engaging in legal corruption. It’s wordplay for political manipulation. Much as the progressives change their name, but not their ideas every couple of years, and Global climate change started off as global freezing.
But I’ll read it and see if I can come up with a better, non-instinctual response.
And largely they fail. Possibly because they are a naturally corrupt organization. They are a small group of people given undescribed power with no oversight. Might as well call it CorruptionЯus.
Using the politically driven media as an enforcer is an incredible risk. There is no reason to believe they will not be every bit as corrupt as the politicians, or just plain politically driven. The Anthony Weiner case is the best example. When Breitbart “exposed” what was going on, most people missed the point of what he was attempting to do. It did not matter that Anthony sent a pic to someone, what mattered is that he lied about it, then covered it up, then covered it up, and the media to his word every single time. Breitbart was exposing the bias of the media, the dick pic was unimportant. This is not an aberration either. Benghazi is another great example.
All important, but irrelevant to this discussion questions/answers to each.
People choosing for themselves and not relying on an nanny tend to be better informed. Though yes, there is great risk, but there is equal reward. I’ll point to my sig again, check out Dallas Buyers Club. It’s a great/funny explanation of the problems. Though it is simplified, which I do not think you need, it is easier than attempting to go into every little bit.
Your base assumption is the problem I’m having here. yes, the government did a great job of forcing the companies to place seat belts in cars. My response is, that, should a seat belt truly be worth the costs, the eventual consequence is that companies would find they always put them in, then one company would put them in automatically, and would sell better. Then it would be a selling feature, instead of a demand, etc… Instead a forced cost is passed on to the buyers, and a group of government people get to claim credit. Which is then used as a reason to pass more “safety” laws. Yes, there might have been people who died, I obviously could not give you a number, but I’ll fall back on the old line. Those that would trade safety for liberty usually end up with neither. That line is talking about personal responsibility, in order to have freedom, we must require personal responsibility. If you don’t like personal responsibility, I have a place you can go, 24/7 guards, 3 square meals a day, and you don’t have to worry about a thing being provided for you. Hell I think they’ll even provide you with college. It’s called prison…
Gods, I hope not.
It would be open information for the public. It would pay for itself via sponsorship, and as I said, would require truth and clarity to continue to have readership. It is already in effect, the internets is a great wide place, and covers far more that just the local market.
By leaving things undefined, it allows opinion to step in, in places that would otherwise be wrong. And, while ultimately, we might let the person go, because they are not guilty of those laws, the time and money spent defending themselves is a cost put on the individuals. The enforcers can force anyone to pay these costs, regardless of the costs to themselves. This is how Al Sharpton made his money, sue a couple people, with limited costs to self but great costs to them… Sue enough and people just pay you to go away. It costs to deal with the legal system… Paying the Lawyers, bribing the judges, fucking expensive! (JK)
But open to the interpretation of the enforcers… This is the reason that while I agree with the reasons, I do not support an “English is the official American language” law. It looks pretty on a glance, but it would be a bug in our system…
Oh, see, now you’re pulling me to my wishful place. I would love to do this, but if all the participants aren’t willing, the destruction caused to their lives could be significant, and it steps on the problems with playing God. Realize that the Nazis did exactly this, with the same reasoning… Simultaneously, the willing participants would skew the results to people that would be willing to participate in such things…
There is strong correlation between doing your best and getting rich. There is, however, no correlation between the incentives to show flaws in all the products of an industry and showing the flaws in your own products. Despite my love of free market economics, do not for a second think that I am pro handing anything over to big companies. Antitrust laws are important, though stupidly enforced…
That is an aspect, yes, but the real problem here is in giving companies the ability to shape legislation around themselves, cutting out innovation and creativity. The degradation of productivity and quality is a partial aspect though…
So then there’s room for improvement, right? I think the idea in principle is an excellent idea–make the study of corruption into a science–even though in practice, as you point out, it is anything but.
I disagree: I think almost anything remotely related to the thread topic is relevant. As far as I’m concerned, the atmosphere of this thread ought to be condusive to brain storming: anything that even remotely might have a chance of bringing potential solutions to the table ought to be put on the table. I don’t think we should go off on such a tangent as to forget the point of the thread, but sometimes it requires going off into seemingly irrelevant tangents just because that’s how far out one must go in order to bring back the solutions, or the ideas that can be put towards solutions.
This sounds like a very deep insight, ETP, and I think it needs further unwrapping. First of all, it sounds like you’re talking about a trade-off.
I think the key phrase here is this:
That’s a very interesting point, and I think we ought to pause on it for a moment.
This too.
There is a great drama series on Netflix called Black is the New Orange which exemplifies just this point, couple with the slogan you so aptly brought up: Those that would trade safety for liberty usually end up with neither.
…which brings up an interesting question: I agree that the internet is a great wide place–open and accessible to almost anyone in the world–but how much regulator power do government agencies have over the flow of information within this medium? I already see it on youtube: certain videos (i.e. certain packets of information within this flow we call the “internet”) are inaccessible to me because I reside in a part of the world where this information has been blocked from entering. Not the government (I don’t think), but certainly patterns of regulation emerging within the flow of information across the world wide web.
What does this mean? Are there certain things that are undefined in which opinion should not step in? Are there things that ought to remain undefined?
IOW, it gives the law enforcers a different job: pay us to figure out how to enforce this law.
Just kidding??? I don’t think you’re kidding. I think you know this is a fact of modern life. Aren’t the people in the American republic supposed to have the right to fair and affordable legal defense? I would think this is a basic human right. And you’re telling me that not only do the people have to pay through the nose to get this basic right, but they are being forced to pay through he nose to stop it from working against them?
And would you say it’s for the same reasons? I mean, when I think of enforcing laws that prevent sins of omission and sins of commission on the part of politicians under oath to divulge the truth, it certainly sounds good to me because I like to think of my leaders as open and honest with me. That is, I have a personal bias. But the question is: would it be good for the system–the entire collection of individuals working together, some appointed as politicians and some as citizens? That is, would it be good for things beyond myself, but which could come back and affect me in the long run. In other words, what might at first seem like an approach that would benefit you, in reality it’s more of a bug that infects the entire system (despite that you might actually benefit from it personally), and that everyone, including yourself, will eventually feel the bite of this bug as it results in the corruption of the system.
Yes, I know. But this does leave us with willing participants–and though the budgets aren’t great and the availability of volunteers is not exactly overflowing, we can conduct small scale experiments that do uncover basic principle of sociopolitical dynamics. For example, you could gather a base of participants willing to be involved in an experiment of, let’s say, 3 or 4 groups of about 100 people each–not really large enough to be fairly claimed as representative of society at large, but not too small either to say that any patterns that result from the experiment are insignificant. Then you come up with a few different designs for political systems which you expect to be able to implement upon each group (being volunteers, it’s easy to imagine how the participants would simply go along with it–you just explain the design to them and you expect them to conform–a whole other can of worms, I realize, but you’ve got to start somewhere and you can work out the details as you go along). Then you sit back and watch. What’s happens to each group? Which systems seem to work better than others? Which systems seem to be most susceptible to corruption? Which to the highest rates of crime (where “crime” can be operationally defined to meet the appropriate ethical standards)? Which to the most economic flourishing? You conduct a whole range of variations on studies like these–over and over again, perhaps needing hundred of years of accumulated results–but in the end, you can get results–ethically and scientifically.
Then again, there’s the other playing field in which natural sociopolitical experiments go on all the time–at the monolithic scale of real world politics. Here, the ethical ramifications of experimentation do not come into consideration, but experimentation nevertheless goes on regardless. I’ve heard of the foundation of the United States of America described as an experiment. It was an attempt to see if a democratic republic based on laissez-fair economics and libertarian principles of justice could fair better than the series of autocratic monarchs European society had been used to. Then in the beginning of the 20th century, the experiment took an interesting economic turn–it became a test to see which between two economic system worked better: capitalism or communism–almost as if while the two super-powers played off each other as antagonists when in the lime light, they actually conspired together in a common goal while behind the curtains: to see this experiment through in order to know scientifically which economic systems works better–whoever wins, the world then has a deeper understanding of how economic forces work and which would work better for everyone.
Then there’s also a sort of middle playing ground: I’ve always thought of the businesses and corporations that thrive in a free capitalist market as “mini-nations”–each one’s got a CEO (the boss, the President,…), a management staff (the senate, the aristocracy,…), individual laborers and employees (the professionals, artisans, trades workers, etc.)–basically, a mini-society. Some of them headed by cruel and tyrannical management, others with a more fun and worker-friendly atmosphere–some that draw a strict line between the executive powers and the employed, others that want everyone, even the janitorial staff, to be involved in the decisions of the company. This is a true rough and ready environment to study sociopolitical dynamics–not necessarily to conduct deliberate experiments (those would be expensive), but to watch and observe. The only difference between this environment and what we call true sociopolitical environments is that the former has a higher power looming over it prepared to impose regulations and laws in order to control it to a certain degree, whereas in the latter case, it is free from higher powers (unless you believe in aliens or the gods).
Yes, a problem with any social science practiced ethically.
I would think there is an inverse correlation.
But how does a company being subsidized by the government result in that company having more leverage in shaping legislation?
