clever, but I don't think it's true. Otherwise people when they get drunk wouldn't start to get argumentative and dissatisfied with life.
Perhaps it's more a normal distribution, at the beginning with a light buzz the ways of God seem to be more OK, at its height in the middle everything God ever did is GREAT, and then the fall and the eventual conclusion that everything is unjust and then vomiting.
>at best it helped them express their dissatisfaction.
Which is good. All roads start with a single step and to make this step you have to realize where are you now. And expressing this dissatisfaction verbally can be a very goods first step as long as you are not just drinking it away.
Not trying to say that this is as good as therapy or something and alcohol my lead to some bad results but still.
Interesting how our leaders see their role not as representing our interests, but in shaping our interests. There exists an entire subject in political science dealing with how to increase compliance with the schemes of regulators (see Nudge Theory).
The mistake they make is a classic short-run vs. long-run miscalculation. In the short-run, you can get away with these kinds of tactics to increase compliance. For example, running talking points on the MSM works well. They run the talking points and in the next days, everyone is parroting what they heard on the news, as if it's their own views.
But in the long-run, people will become more familiar with these tactics, such that they will become less effective (e.g. waning trust in the media). They are burning through the cultural & social capital which sustain these institutions (like the MSM or academia), and don't realize that once it runs out, they will no longer have these levers and buttons at their disposal.
At that point, the only way to increase compliance is with force. And once you go down that road, it becomes extremely clear to those wielding that force, just how precarious their situation is (e.g. Maduro assassination attempts). That is how totalitarianism takes root, fear of the people.
"Manifacturing Consent" is a book written by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. They discuss the propaganda model of communication in much broader sense.
Simulacra and Simulation. And other works by Jean Baudrillard. His philosophy focuses on the unreal nature of contemporary culture due to mass communication and mass consumption.
Richard David Precht is a poor caricature of a French public intellectual figure and loves to create outrage to stay relevant. He lives off the same mainstream media that he criticizes.
Precht doesn't seem particularly French to me. He is a solid craftsman. I associate French intellectuals more with esprit and a certain craziness.
His earlier books had a slightly penetrating American style, popular science peppered with human interest stories.
Precht, however, is willing to make himself unpopular, but he is also one of the few intellectuals who can afford to do so. Many media workers probably don't like to read how strong the pressure to conform is, they prefer to suppress that.
> What these politicians do not seem to underestand is that those law may turn against them at a later point in time.
Those laws are incredibly unlikely to be turned against elites and former elites, and if a situation[1] ever arose where they would be, a lack of these laws on the books would not save them.
Populist uprisings are about the only things that elites are scared of, and these kinds of laws help prevent them[2].
[1] That kind of situation would require a complete and utter breakdown of the elite social contract. Things would have to get unrecognizably bad before we are at that point.
[2] Ever notice how, say, pro-gun politicians tend to want guns to be everywhere except near them? As a class, they aren't interested in dealing with the consequences of their policies.
> Ever notice how, say, pro-gun politicians tend to want guns to be everywhere except near them? As a class, they aren't interested in dealing with the consequences of their policies.
I’ve also noticed that anti-gun politicians tend to have armed security teams with them.
You're assuming that your guns will protect you from random acts of gun violence, which they won't. It's why those politicians have security teams, as opposed to personal guns. What they are doing is completely rational in a country where it happens, frequently.
Unlike their counterparts, they are actually trying to solve the problem, instead of hypocritically exacerbating it.
If you're going to hold someone accountable, why not make your support of the pro-gun ones conditional on them providing you with a security team?
> You're assuming that your guns will protect you from random acts of gun violence, which they won't.
You’re assuming gun control laws will protect you from random acts of gun violence, which they won’t. Criminals get their hands on guns they can’t legally possess every day. There are more than enough gun control laws on the books and most Americans aren’t voluntarily turning theirs in no matter what the law says.
You’re also making the false assumption that I only support the personal right to bear arms for self defense against criminals. I also support it to defend against tyranny, which to me is far more likely to be a threat than a random act of gun violence.
> You’re assuming gun control laws will protect you from random acts of gun violence, which they won’t.
"No way to prevent this", says only nation where this regularly happens.
> Criminals get their hands on guns they can’t legally possess every day.
They get their hands on guns because the country is flooded with them. Because people in states with next to no private sale restrictions sell guns to them. Because people aren't held liable for selling a gun without running a background check.
Not to mention all the gun violence performed by 'law-abiding gun owners'. (Who, after performing it, are, of course, labeled criminals.)
> There are more than enough gun control laws on the books
In some states. They get flooded by illegal guns from neighboring states, which have no such controls.
> I also support it to defend against tyranny, which to me is far more likely to be a threat than a random act of gun violence.
Why is it, then, that the militias and their friends seem to roll out to defend tyranny, not oppose it? Why are the 2A advocates deafeningly silent on police killing POC in their homes/vehicles? Why does a cop thinking that 'He may have had a gun' a death sentence for the person they are apprehending? Why does this group intersect so much with the Jan 6 attempt to overthrow the results of an election?
I hear 'guns will protect us from tyrrany' a lot, but in practice, I see the opposite.
On the other hand, technical capabilities are highly likely to be used against elites and former elites; there often are situations where a country's police or intelligence communities are opposed to some political parties, so if there are backdoors in everyone's (including politicians) communications, they should rightly fear that their phones will be abused by their political opponents.
or instantly. politicians are people and I'm pretty sure they use phones. if a backdoor is added it will almost instantly be used against them I'm sure. even well meaning apps are hacked.
This is where you’re wrong. Inconvenient rules don’t apply to them. They can engage in insider training and enrich themselves. They can disarm the public while they are protected by armed security. They will lay our secrets bare while maintaining theirs.
They will use national security as an excuse to keep their encryption while taking ours away.
oh they understand that. They are just scheming to make sure they are on the right side. Politicians are hated all around but most of the time, they are people who are willing to take massive personal risks.
For a case study in this phenomenon the UK made use of nudge theory during the covid pandemic and I think one of the outcomes is some people distrusting the organs of state in a way they didn't before. I think people remember the 'look them in the eyes' campaign along with other 'nudges' and associate it with a time they not only felt miserable and scared but also felt taken for mugs by the very politicians who were trying to increase compliance when things like Partygate and shady government contracts to friends of ministers came to light.
I think anything that's not completely candid with the public is eventually seen as dishonest whether rightly or wrongly. Personally I think no matter how well-intended it's hard to see nudge theory as anything other than 'shady behavioural psychology tactics to induce compliance with government policy without personal consent or a democratic mandate' which is something I believe fundamentally breaks the social contract.
> Interesting how our leaders see their role not as representing our interests, but in shaping our interests.
I mean that's what "leader" means at the end of the day. Of course, though, leader isn't the only way to refer to politicians. In German leader translates literally to Führer ... which isn't really used since the ultimate demise of Herr Schickelgruber. We also use "Repräsentant" whose English counterpart is obvious. Also some people believe that politicians are supposed to know what's going on and what to do - even me - question is where a line is crossed.
> But in the long-run, people will become more familiar with these tactics, such that they will become less effective
I doubt that given those tactics have been continuously applied since ever.
> e.g. waning trust in the media
yes, but the result is simply new media channels and outlets which are supposedly more trustworthy. those abusive politicians we are talking about here will play those media entities like an instrument and simply switch where ever they expect to get the most attention.
> They are burning through the cultural & social capital which sustain these institutions (like the MSM or academia), and don't realize that once it runs out, they will no longer have these levers and buttons at their disposal.
They won't need those levers and button anymore. Abusive power hungry politicians belong to an elite whose end game is a totalitarian state for them to parasitize. At that point everybody has to believe or at least shut up ... or men will come and take them away.
> At that point, the only way to increase compliance is with force.
Exactly.
> And once you go down that road, it becomes extremely clear to those wielding that force, just how precarious their situation is (e.g. Maduro assassination attempts).
One can argue that most totalitarian states end badly but that can take a while. Criminals also do criminal things despite bleak prospects. One might argue they are statistically stupid for being criminal just to have a good time for a while. But that's just your sane point of view. For people who _are_ of criminal mindset (and I consider politicians with totalitarian inclination effectively to that group) really enjoy their life style.
> That is how totalitarianism takes root, fear of the people.
>> Interesting how our leaders see their role not as representing our interests, but in shaping our interests.
> I mean that's what "leader" means at the end of the day.
I disagree with this sentence.
Many minor leadership positions and a generation of parenting taught me that leadership is an act of service. My purpose is to help coordinate the fulfillment of others' needs. If I ever forget that, I will have lost my way.
Historically once people recognize the media is not trustworthy they discount it. You see this in the former USSR countries. People don't take the media seriously like they do in the west.
Yes, and this is very exploitable by dictators and those wanting to become such. If you can't get people to buy into your propaganda paper you can at least get them to buy into nothing at all, detach themselves from any notion of objective reality, and accept all complicity with whatever war crimes the regime wishes you to commit.
The most dangerous situation for a dictator is to be faced with multiple independent and competing sources of truth that all disagree with you, because they will propagandize your subjects away from you quite quickly.
>You see this in the former USSR countries. People don't take the media seriously like they do in the west.
They certainly do in Russia. People there (esp. older people) absolutely believe all the propaganda that's fed to them about the war in Ukraine by Russian state-owned media.
Martin Gurri in The Revolt of the Public had a pretty good explanation of this. Leaders used to be the gatekeepers of information, and thus maintained control. Now the Internet has lifted the curtain and opened the floodgates of information, causing a loss of control, thus pushing many leaders to double down on attempts at controlling the narrative. When control gets too strong, we see revolts.
I too love Gurri, but I don't think this is at all what he is saying. The Internet and particularly the social media have certainly something to do with it, but to my understanding he is talking about the erosion of knowledge-creation and the collapse of "elites". (Note also that everyone in this forum probably belongs to the latter category in a way or another.) His takes correlate with those from political scientists who talk about institutional decay and such things.
> And the legitimacy of that model [traditional institutions] absolutely depends on having a semi-monopoly over information in every domain, which they had in the 20th century. There was no internet and there was a fairly limited number of information sources for the public. So our ruling institutions had authority because they had a very valuable commodity: information. [1]
I really don't think that's necessary. So far there has never been a lack of people willing to commit atrocities when ordered to under the right conditions.
The more educated you are, the more you realize people don't know that much. If everyone could see the consequences of their beliefs and actions, governments wouldn't need to exist. Public education/shaping interests can be a good thing.
Shaping someone's opinion of sugary food or smoking cigarettes, or the negative effects of various drugs or any other number of things can be good. Informing the public of foreign adversaries fomenting and supporting fascism via bot networks promoting hatred and division is a national security issue. Good faith information from places of intellectual authority is positive for society.
The problem is not the government shaping interests, the problem is who is the government shaping interests for.
In a democracy supposedly the government acts on behalf of the people, but we do not live in a democracy, the west is largely plutocratic. Governments represent billionaires (not literally billionaires, but the wealthy). That's why our government promotes socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. Because the government works on behalf of those with money.
This is not a casual statement. This is the product of our voting system. Before anyone gets to vote on any candidates, candidates must fund raise to win a primary. Before any person votes on candidates, money votes on candidates. So our government is responsive to money, because money votes first.
So it is not the government shaping interests, but the government using force on behalf of the wealthy that is problematic.
All political roads lead to a central problem: The rich are too rich and therefore cannot be bound by law and are able to coerce the government to act on their behalf.
The more educated you think you are, the more you look down on people and deny their ability to think for themselves.
Informing people of facts is different from shaping opinions - the former tries to give people what they need to make their own decisions while the latter starts out with a conclusion and seeks to make the general public arrive at it too. Manufacturing consent is as much about omitting information or outright preventing it from spreading as it is about providing information that would support your conclusion.
Sugary food, smoking cigarettes, and legal drugs are interesting examples here because there is a third party that benefits from them and is actually engaging in similar tactics to shape the public's consent. Perhaps the most obvious part of this is advertisement. Ideally the government would recognize this and severly limit how corporations can manipulate people.
I do agree with your point that the root cause of all of this is that the government is representing the people as you would expect from an ideal democracy.
Most people don't like littering and pollution. So we've passed laws against it.
Yet if you don't have any trashcans or other ways of disposing waste around, and you don't have much social pressure against it, many people will eventually leave their waste behind somewhere.
Much better to nudge them towards complying in specific with the laws that they want in general
That's not even nudging, that's just providing a necessary option. There is no coercion between "I want to throw something away" and "There's a trash can on the curb".
You're just trying to redefine the concept of the nudge. What a nudge is, really, is a thing whose purpose is to influence a choice, not to constrain it so that there is no choice.
Their role is neither representing nor shaping interests.
Their role is managing while being accountable. And doing said managing by the least amount of coercion and the maximal amount of convincing.
There's no such thing as "represent". It's a political dead end meant to draw votes and political power to those who are presented as "representing" the current social division magnified by the media, whether it's race, religion, or the usual liberal conservative division.
You're supposed to hold them accountable even and especially if it goes against your "representation" or interests. But so long as the majority are playing the "representation" politics meta game, there's no hope for accountability.
> The mistake they make is a classic short-run vs. long-run miscalculation. In the short-run, you can get away with these kinds of tactics to increase compliance.
...
> But in the long-run, people will become more familiar with these tactics, such that they will become less effective (e.g. waning trust in the media).
I though that too ~20 years ago. I live in a small country with elections every few years (usually less than the full term of the government) and a "one supposedly rightwing party" vs. "a bunch of supposedly left wing parties"... the mix of left wing parties also slowly turned to "a new face + a bunch of old parties" recently.
Every pre-election period we get a bunch of people advocating online and in person, that if "party X" got elected, they'd solve the "problem Y", because they can do it, and "current party" is blocking them... somehow those same people (and not just fresh 18yo going for their first election) forget, that party X has been in the government 3 years ago, and the government before that, and before that, and that the "problem Y" has existed for atleast 20 years (healthcare, housing,...), and they did nothing.
People either forget or are gaslighted by the media.
> assassination attempts
This happens when problems get unsolved and worse and worse for years... bad healthcare, especially mental health, depression, drugs, save 10k, but the apartment you wanted is now 30k more expensive, average rent higher than average pension, etc., create more and more people with nothing left to lose.
> There exists an entire subject in political science dealing with how to increase compliance with the schemes of regulators (see Nudge Theory).
It’s a very cynical view of the potential for human government that believes there is no way that the democratic will of the people affects what goals ‘regulators’ pursue.
Consider the possibility perhaps that the point of government is to overcome the prisoner’s dilemma and move people into a better collective equilibrium than they will naturally settle into. Nudges can be a useful tool for creating better outcomes for everyone.
I read this as “The government’s role is to nudge people into what the government determines is better than the people’s natural inclination.”
Did I understand that correctly? If I did, I don’t think anyone would disagree… in theory. The problem is there’s no standard way to measure and certainly no agreement on what that collective equilibrium should be.
Until we figure that out—no thanks. I’ll take my naturally not-as-optimized freedom without the government’s input.
I've had similar criticisms to nudging, that it's basically just the same as advertising exploiting human biases, and that it's not really conducive to insight and a better political culture. It is kind of paternalistic. However, most real-world applications of nudging I've seen were uncontroversially beneficial. As a typical example, markings on roads can be spaced and designed in ways that make drivers slow down in danger zones, thereby reducing accidents. I've been to a number of talks about nudging over the years and know people working in that area, and have never seen an example where the term was used for "shaping public opinions", let alone shaping political opinions.
Guess the problem is, there is a whole other group of parties how are manipulating us to act towards their interests. And I would say it’s clear that they are winning (see for example obesity, opioids).
So I don’t think we should handle this as a yes no question.
Your point of view falls apart when crime enters the picture.
Criminal law is just another form of regulation. Somehow we decided that taking cocaine is a crime. And that pedophiles are criminals. And then government tries to ensure compliance with criminal law.
People generally agree that it is fit and proper for government to act, through education and other means, to ensure most people aren't criminals.
You might say: "well criminal law is different - but is it?
Someone spent 8 years in jail for sending lobster in an incorrect container. Not a live lobster, a dead one.
I think the difference is criminal law seeks compliance with the laws as they are, but this manufacturing of consent seeks compliance on bills when the elecorate may well note vote in their favour otherwise. Does that make sense? In one case they do what the public has told them and in the other they're telling the public what to do. As public servants the first should be acceptable but the latter now.
Not everyone wants to follow criminal laws 100% of the time.
If someone wants to punch you in the face just how "optimized" do you want their freedom to do so, without legal consequences, be? Aka how many "nudges" should be in place to make that harder to get away with? If you don't want to get punched, you want people to think there'd be consequences, that bystanders would tell on them, etc. All those "nudges" need to be stronger than the "snitches get stitches" and similar nudges from the other side.
> Someone spent 8 years in jail for sending lobster in an incorrect container. Not a live lobster, a dead one.
I feel this isn't a terrific example as it doesn't seem to be true.
"The notion the case was about packaging is incorrect,' [the prosecutor] said. 'Packaging was the means by which the crime was concealed. It was the mechanism to conceal the extent of overharvesting."
US Gov's overzealous prosecution of Aaron Swartz on behalf of major publishers (and major donors) might work better. That involves creating law and the exercise of gov power, both of which were granted to the copyright interests behind influential lobbyists.
Eh, not really. Criminal law is by-and-large generally consented upon.
A vast majority of the population agrees that sexually violating a child is morally reprehensible and fit for a wide range of punishments. And that’s been a social standard for most of the world, for a REALLY long time.
I’m not sure about the number of people who agree or disagree with cocaine being illegal. But everyone knows it’s self-destructive behavior that can easily boil into destructive behavior for others. Therefore, most people I know understand why it’s illegal and agree with it.
So my original point still stands. It’s largely not-optimized, and largely consented upon on the large points that matter concerning violence and preservation of life. That doesn’t make it without flaws which, by nature makes it unoptimized.
It’s roughly the same thing with currency. The trick is to call it modern monetary theory instead of the printing press. of course, who doesn’t want modern?
But surely it can only run so long. The problem is that most people believe that their countries can’t fall into authoritarianism because they are a democracy.
I agree with you, but nudging can be a good thing if it's meritorious. Lincoln, for instance, had to manipulate people to some extent to achieve his goal of emancipation.
Similarly, I'd say some nudging is in order to tackle the obesity epidemic in the US and other places.
Would be great if it's was that simple, but for every person who wakes up, two younglings replace him. It's a cycle from birth to "education" to wokester to actually opportunity your eyes. Welcome to the real world, Neo.
>Interesting how our leaders see their role not as representing our interests, but in shaping our interests.
That's the very definition of "leader". It's exactly what leaders are supposed to do: "lead". They're supposed to have a vision, and get other people to follow them to achieve that vision.
What you're advocating for is a "manager" or an "administrator", not a "leader".
I had a nice dialog with GPT (davinci) that made me reconsider very similar reticence I felt about nudging. I think nudges can be done in ways that are transparent, ethical and long run net positive. But clearly it’s a very complicated subject.
Well, our leaders serve two goals: The voters' will and the fairness of the law.
Nothing requires to vox populi of some issue to agree with its own opinion of five minutes ago, or its own current opinion in a similar issue. Your opinion as voter can be as fickle as it pleases you. The law requires fairness, though, and our leaders are the unfortunates whose job it is to tell the voters about the longer-term principles and try to shape people's opinions. To make them less fickle and more principled.
Now, which principle? I don't mind if a particular politician or party tries to shape voters' opinions around the principles in that politician's or party's program.
A population of ignorant and illiterate peasants is great for maximizing political capital. They are receptive to propaganda. They are an energetic bloc of voters. They know something is wrong, but are too ineffective to correctly identify the problem, which means politicians will continually entice them with "solutions" that solve nothing but increase the political or financial capital of interested parties.
We're headed toward a medieval "Three Estates" type system reupholstered with a post-modern aesthetic: the ruling class (brokers of power), the intelligentsia (white collars), and the peasants (everyone else).
You really think the school system is bad because the entire cadre of school administrators are taking secret orders from shadowy politicians to keep kids dumb? I recommend you rethink the logical process that brought you to this conclusion.
Macroscopic politics is a phenomenon in its own right. Something that should be studied like one would study chemistry or physics. No one person or party controls the course of events.
I don't believe there is a grand conspiracy with shadowy bond-villainesque bad guys. It's simply that there is positive pressure in one direction (to have an easier-to-manage populace) and negative pressure in the other (to have a virtuous populace (harder to manage)).
It is quite bond-villainesque if one tries to make the population easier to manage.
I think it's simpler than that. It's memetics. Bad/wrong ideas infect brains, and propagate themselves by making believing those ideas fashionable. People then act according to the incentives. Some borrow the occult concept "egregore" describe the emergent behaviour.
I fail to see the difference between your arguments.
Making the population easier to manage doesn't need to be an explicit goal, it's an emergent outcome of many many different policies that target other things and are incentivized.
Making money from mass populations works better with more homogeneity of demand, and social media in particular provides a lot of effective levers to promote that homogeneity.
It is many people's jobs to influence memetics, and they're succeeding.
Although I don't agree with the conspiracy, it's more that the politicians can achieve the outcome by misdirecting funds (free iPads!) to achieve the "supposed" end goal (producing sheeple) while looking like they are achieving a nobler goal (educating the lesser off). This can be achieved with very few people interested in the former with the majority of the politicians believing they are accomplishing the latter.
It's not the administrators. It is the politicians and some rich donors funding things like banning books, banning sex ed, changing curriculum standards i.e. not teaching about slavery because of political pressure or the threat of prosecution or defunding.
You know, all the stuff that's been in the news for all time as pushed by the conservative agenda?
> We're headed toward a medieval "Three Estates" type system reupholstered with a post-modern aesthetic: the ruling class (brokers of power), the intelligentsia (white collars), and the peasants (everyone else).
We already have it, and it's nothing new. See: Fussell's Class : a guide through the American status system (1983).
I agree that education is extremely important to fight against social attacks. I would still add that I know a LOT of very intelligent people who are also extremely intolerant (think racism, antisemitism, homophobic, etc.)
I’ve yet to understand how this phenomena continues to persist in spite of education levels continuing to grow.
One of my current theory is that face to face interaction, especially between different types of people, is a requirement. And the wave of fascism that we see is due to face-to-face interaction going to an ATL during covid.
All that brilliance and knowledge, used to get vulnerable, suggestible teenagers addicted to mind-numbing, anxiety-inducing media. The shame of software engineers is that we have been used to create 1000s of these inhuman products.
The problem is not just with the addiction, and it doesn't affect only teenagers.
These systems show paid content mixed with user-generated content, promoting harmful advertisements, political propaganda, or any other ideology anyone with enough resources and desire to influence large segments of society is able to take advantage of.
Let's not forget the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and not doubt that there are _many_ more such companies operating without public knowledge. This is all done legally, and within the terms of service.
This is even without mentioning the rampant data siphoning and shady multi-billion dollar data markets that exist in the background, that generate most of their revenue. After all, all this technology and optimization is serving this end goal.
These platforms are not just harmful to individuals, but to society as a whole. I hope one day governments catch up to the harms they're doing, and regulate them just as they did for Big Tobacco and many other truly evil industries.
>I hope one day governments catch up to the harms they're doing, and regulate them just as they did for Big Tobacco and many other truly evil industries.
But how does that happen when our government officials (at least in North America) seem technologically illiterate, and rely on Silicon Valley for their re-elections and donations (therefore becoming more susceptible to lobbying)?
My feed is full of mostly educational content, lawyers and other professionals telling stories, language lessons, old computers and tech, and old commercials.
My question is why teenagers gravitate to horrendous content en masse.
Young girls have feeds full of eating-disorder content, and young boys have feeds mixed with misogyny like Tate.
Not all teenagers watch either, but these recommendations are a disease plaguing the platform.
They don't gravitate towards it. The algorithm inches them towards that. It starts with exercise videos and healthy eating, which is fine, but eventually goes towards eating-disorder content. Similar for boys.
Here's an analogy to understand ad-driven social media apps:
Imagine a world where there are thousands of companies out there that produce these strange little unpleasant pellets of food that they want people to eat. They don't want people to buy them—the company is happy to send out pellets for free because they make money when the pellets get eaten. (Let's not worry about how that could make economic sense. Maybe the pellets are made of sequestered carbon and the company is selling carbon credits.)
So all these companies want to get millions of people eating their pellets, but people don't want to. They don't taste very good and they've got, like, better shit to do with their lives.
But people do like eating other food. And usually they have to pay for it, which kind of sucks.
An opportunity exists here, and "social eating" companies pop up. These companies will ship you food for free, and you can eat as much as you want. What joy! The only catch is they've mixed some of these not-very-tasty pellets in with the food they send you. The social eating companies get paid by the pellet companies, which is how they're able to make and send you food for free.
Here is the interesting question: What kind of food do the social eating companies make? You might think that since they want to get as many people eating their food mixed-with-pellets as possible, they would make the best food they can. And, indeed, they do want to make food that is scrumptious, compelling, and mouth-watering. But what they don't want it to be is satisfying. Because once you're sated, you stop eating. That's the last thing they want because the more pellets you choke down, the more they get paid.
So what they make is junk food like chips and cookies. Each serving is a single tiny delicious bite, but as soon as it goes down, you're even hungrier than before. Its high in anticipation and desire, but low is satisfaction and satiety. You crave it, but once you have it, you don't actually feel any better. If anything, the craving is even more intense.
Now apply that metaphor to information. The most junk-food-like content is the stuff that triggers anxiety and anticipation if you don't watch it: fear of missing out, question-inducing "You won't believe...", alarming "You're doing ___ wrong...", etc. The content doesn't make you feel good if you do watch it, it makes you feel bad if you don't. Because that way, when you do watch it, the nagging anxiety goes away a bit, but you still don't feel "done" and still want more.
that which inflames or causes controversy gets sent around or reposted.
clicks == money.
as does "sponsored content" aka "post this to everyone who meets demographic groups X and Y". just so happens that some of those people want folks angry about some topic.
I guess that makes sense. Just following the user's preference gets only positive content, which is great, but carefully steering them to something darker is even better.
Agreed, but I don't want to excuse anybody. I think every one of those engineers signed up to do it in exchange for money. They used their talents, they weren't forced into it.
I wonder what may happen in the future. I'm sure neither Purdue Pharmaceuticals nor the Sackler family expected to be seen as criminal in what they were doing (opioid epidemic). But when the outcomes were shown to be a result of their actions, they were convicted— or at least forced into settlement.
This is reductionist. Why does anyone want you to click ads? Because they want you to see what they shared with the world. The best minds are trying to get people to pay attention to those who wish to pay for that.
A video game programmer might sat.. "all of the best minds are working on silly games" Why are so many bright minds wasting trying to get us into space when we have problems that need to be solved here.
The best minds solving problems is only part of any solution anyways. You need the best salesmen, best leader and right moment to bring in change that mat make lives better.
> Why does anyone want you to click ads? Because they want you to see what they shared with the world. The best minds are trying to get people to pay attention to those who wish to pay for that.
Framing advertising as "people trying to share beautiful things with you" is some hell of a newspeak.
The logo looks competently drawn and is better at bigger scales where the details are clearer, but from a distance it caused me a visceral rejection reaction.
Some constructive advice to the author, if they're lurking: "Good" logos economize on details to maximize impression and versatility. Use fewer and simpler shapes to communicate better. Or maybe let an AI tool have at it?
Another note to the author if they see this. I don’t find the logo offensive like the sibling commenters. I love the creative process and wasted days making logos which other people found unpalatable. People have visceral responses to logos for better or worse, which is why logos have become so boring over time - it’s just safer. But I do not hate the sloth
Not sure if it still works, but on macOS previously you could Command-I (Info) on two files, click the icon in one info window (highlighting it), and copy-paste on the other.
Agreed. The style looks nice and idea clear. But the details make this look unsettling, like early versions of AI generated human faces, resulting in creepy output
> If there is not enough of a flow of cooling water, the rods can overheat, and the entire facility is at risk for a nuclear meltdown.
This is not true. Water is the moderator in a light-water reactor. Without water the reaction will stop. Water is both the coolant and the moderator, unlike the Chernobyl reactors, which used graphite as the moderator.
> > If there is not enough of a flow of cooling water, the rods can overheat, and the entire facility is at risk for a nuclear meltdown.
> This is not true. Water is the moderator in a light-water reactor. Without water the reaction will stop. Water is both the coolant and the moderator, unlike the Chernobyl reactors, which used graphite as the moderator.
If what you're saying is true then the Fukushima reactors would not have melted down. It's important to remember that there's not just one nuclear reaction going on there's the initial fission of the uranium fuel, and then there's several following radioactive decays that generate heat as well.
Even spent fuel rods that have been removed from reactors for years still have to be kept in a chilled storage pool.
What you say is technically true but you're forgetting decay heat. The fission chain reaction stops if you remove the moderator in any sane LWR design, but the fission products in the fuel will continue to generate a very large amount of heat for quite a while. This is exactly what happened at Fukushima and TMI.
Some reactor designs can dissipate this decay heat with passive circulation, while most require active pumps to circulate for a while after shutdown. But a total loss of coolant is probably going to result in fuel melt to some extent.
Which is equally a problem for a molten salt cooled reactor. If molten salt leaks or pumping stops, you're gonna get a melt down in your molten salt reactor. That is unless it's running at super low power density - like these guys: https://www.usnc.com/mmr/, in which case no cooling fluid or pumps or even natural circulation apparently are needed to keep it from melting.
MSRs have an advantage though, which is that a) fuel melt is obviously not a problem and b) if something goes out of control you can pull the drain plug and drain the entire core into multiple crit-safe storage pools. Dividing the core up makes it easier to handle the decay heat, though I'm not sure exactly what any of the current designs do in detail. Fission product gasses are also not soluble in most of the fuels for MSRs which makes it easy to filter them out, which reduces the decay heat to an extent and also mitigates the reactivity feedback effect from xenon that caused the Chernobyl disaster.
Not that it's all sunshine and roses, hot salts are awfully corrosive and that's been the primary engineering challenge on every MSR design I'm aware of.
Yeah. Decay heat is still an issue but MSRs are inherently able to handle it without the need for active circulation. Plus if shit hits the fan like I said you can drain it out just with gravity into a configuration that is inherently unable to continue fissioning without the need for reactivity control. So, no need for active circulation pumps nor a reliance on the ability to ram in control rods... plus you don't have to worry about hydrogen buildup either.
The idea with molten salt reactors is that they aren't under pressure. Unlike a PWR, which will experience more and more pressure until it pops, a molten salt reactor can handle much higher temperatures before failing. This enables designs that can be passively cooled in the event of coolant system failures.
> Goldman Sachs partners had something to say about this law
Don't you think it's absurd that an investment bank has influence over a country's social policy? For all the cheerleading we do about democracy, we also don't seem to care that behemoth US companies exert their influence over other countries, thus diluting the value of a citizen's vote. No one is concerned that there is no wall of separation between business and politics.
Singapore’s parliamentary political system has been dominated by the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) and the family of current prime minister Lee Hsien Loong since 1959. The electoral and legal framework that the PAP has constructed allows for some political pluralism, but it constrains the growth of opposition parties and limits freedoms of expression, assembly, and association.
Or to put another way, the risk is in the "Republic" aspects like the Senate and Electoral College overwhelming the "Democracy" aspects like proportional representation and popular vote.
No, "republic" simply means that governance is a public matter, not the private concern of a sovereign. It has more to do with the government's theory of legitimacy than how it is actually governed.
The UK is non-republican because it's governed by Her Majesty's Government, but democratic because the actual power to choose the government belongs to the common people.
The US is republican because the government is constituted by We The People. If it became non-democratic, it would likely remain republican because changing a government's theory of legitimacy is harder than changing how the government actually works.
You stop having a republic when rulers start picking their replacements. You'd lose the republicanism if say, Joe Biden appointed Hunter Biden to be the next president or if it became tradition that the next Trump always gets voted in as president.
Things like democracy and the electoral college tend to protect republicanism, but both can exist without maintaining the republic
Threats to our republic are filed under states rights, a fundamental construct of a republic.
This itself is viewed as a threat to our democracy by those who either think it should not be a republic or are ignorant of the fact it was intended to be. For reference, see debates about a non proportional senate and the power of minority population electoral power.
Many republics (including Singapore) do not have "states", so clearly "states rights" is not "a fundamental construct of a republic".
Nobody sane has ever cared about "states' rights" consistently - it's a silly concerpt. It was invented as part of the Lost Cause mythology to justify secession. (Fugitive slave laws, which are pretty antithetical to 'states rights," were very much something the antebellum South pushed for.)
you are correct that I should have stated "our republic" not all republics.
That said, the idea that "states rights" originated after the civil war is absurd on face vale. Powers and autonomy left to the states are evident in our founding documentation, and obviously present in the lead up to the civil war as well.
The idea that a centralized government leaves no powers to the state and local level is a silly concept and counterfactual. It is obvious in the interstate commerce clause and many other parts of the constitution.
That the US started out as a federation of independent states is a given. My point is that "states' rights" as a political-moral philosophy doesn't make much sense, and almost nobody has pushed for states's rights consistently or when it goes against what they otherwise want. One might argue that decisions should be made at the smallest (most local) level that makes sense, but the idea that "state" means "local decision-making" is pretty dubious. Furthermore, "states' rights" as a political rallying cry in the US came after the Civil War and was used to justify segregation.
That’s because they’re the same thing in different languages. I learned the same propaganda as you; the distinction taught to us was basically made up.
Per google search ".. etymology"
demos: the people; -cratia: power, rule; Greek.
res: entity, concern; publicus: of the people, public; Latin
"Rule of the People" and "Concern of the People" sound SIMILAR, sure!
Just because a mechanic is concerned for your car, does not mean he owns it...
I think it's lazy of you to call this dichotomy "propoganda" without offering any definitions or etymology.
English etymology doesn’t get you there and encourages exactly the kind of distinction without a difference that I’m pointing out.
One is Roman. One is Greek. They describe the same concept, but it’s a concept that has been implemented differently both in their time and in ours: self-government. The forms and institutions are distinguishable as “Roman-style” or “Athenian-style”, but the same is true in 2022 of “American-style” and “French-style” republics.
Sure it did, but with explanations in English most likely from etymonline.com which, I like the website, but is as much a point of view source as any other. A dictionary is not a source of truth, it’s an editorialized compilation of points of view staffed by people who write the words on the page. The definitions you cited also leave plenty of room for interpretation but the part you want to look at are the mechanics of their society and in particular how power was wielded and the maximum extent of a voter’s power, not a dictionary.
Singapore is free to enact draconian laws. Expat workers, and the multinational corporations who employ them, are also free to criticise or, ultimately, to leave the country in response to those draconian laws. This would be very bad for Singapore, given the contribution those workers and corporations make to its economy, so Singapore will weigh its desire for draconian laws against its desire for a strong economy and make its own decision.
So many people confuse the freedom to do something with the freedom to do something and force the rest of the world to act as if you didn't do it.
There is always influence. One can never separate it and become a truly, wholly non-influenced person, society, or country. Muslim traders in the 1400s spread their religion throughout Southeast Asia because they wanted to influence their customers, and customers converted because they wanted better deals from those who would deem them of a similar faith. That is the same process here. If a country doesn't like such influence, such as Japan with the Dutch, they can ban it.
On the flip side of the coin, one of the most vocal opponents to repeal has been the Singapore branch of the Christian American organisation Focus of the Family [1], which counts the current Singapore foreign minister (among other politicians) as one of its patrons [2].
I don't think organisations can avoid foreign influence these days, but it'll be absurd to think that only one side was affected by it.
Indeed, just because a country wants to close down does not mean they will be successful at doing so. That is also a part of influence, when influence turns into violence.
Singapore is a giant company, that is how the country is run. Fiscal policy plays a major role in the life of everyone in the country, and that is why the country has made such improvements. Foreign investments are very important to Singapore, and do carry weight on decision making.
There is a trade off in every situation, and I believe that for most Singaporeans they are more focused on getting a HDB and $300K car and living in safe, prosperous environment, thus they allow for this type of interference. Right or wrong, it does work to provide the needs to the people.
That's... a stretch. China has "reeducation" camps for dissidents and a Great Firewall; Singapore has opposition MPs and overzealous use of libel laws against critics. The two are not particularly alike.
I have heard and seen some stupid takes on Singapore, but this takes the cake.
In the 2020 general elections, the incumbent PAP had its worst showing ever, with ~60% of the votes. There are 5+ other opposition parties that Singaporeans can and do vote for in free and fair elections.
In the PRC, there are no meaningful elections whatsoever.
>> we also don't seem to care that behemoth US companies exert their influence over other countries
In the case of United Fruit fomenting military coups all over LatAm, I agree. But in this case we're simply exporting our values through soft power, money and influence. I don't see a problem with it. Some countries outright ban our social media and films - many like Iran or China citing American corporate support for gay rights (which for most conservative dictatorships is a convenient way to redirect popular anger toward an outgroup and to clamp down on free speech).
American values as relate to what you can say and who you can love are better[0] than the values of countries which dictate who can sleep with and arrest people in their beds (e.g. Malaysia). I'm glad our corporations uphold our values overseas. What is particularly offensive is when they don't, when they cave in to the whims of totalitarian governments, e.g. Disney and the NBA kowtowing to China.
Would it be bad if our corporations were going into free democracies and spreading values that align with dictatorship and the abrogation of freedoms? Yes. That's what Chinese companies are doing here.
Good for Goldman, and all other US companies that put pressure on countries they do business with to uphold universal human rights.
[0] I don't just mean morally better, although I do believe in universal rights and ethics. I mean that American-style personal liberty has outcompeted other systems in the marketplace of ideas, in economics and development, and is a more fit model for generating broad societal wealth than totalitarianism is. This explains why it's both utilitarian for Goldman to support LGBTQ rights, and for Singapore to agree to those terms from foreign companies.
> But in this case we're simply exporting our values through soft power, money and influence
What if that shoe was on the other foot?
If people would not trade with USA because of racism?
If people would not trade with USA because of treatment if indigenous peoples? (Genocide, use plain words for that one)
The treatment of poor people? Making them live in the streets.
The treatment of poor people, leaving them to die in agony of preventable diseases?
Because of representation and exploitation of sexuality in commerce? Especially of women?
The treatment of asylum seekers and refugees?
The USA is no shining light on the hill spreading goodness with soft power. It is a huge imperialistic monster spreading its tentacles and world view with a huge military. Soft power (Goldman Sachs included) is under that military umbrella.
> If people would not trade with USA because of racism?
The US no longer has institutionalized racism and is illegal. Most of the racism of today is of a different nature, primarily among particular groups of individuals.
> If people would not trade with USA because of treatment if indigenous peoples? (Genocide, use plain words for that one)
There is no longer an attempted genocide of Native Americans occurring. But if you want to talk about Native land rights, reservations, etc. then that is something worth talking about.
> The treatment of poor people? Making them live in the streets.
> The treatment of poor people, leaving them to die in agony of preventable diseases?
Don't know what you're getting at with this. Are you implying the US is the only country that has homelessness? Homelessness is a problem in just about everywhere. You're going to have to elaborate on the 'leaving them to die in agony'.
> Because of representation and exploitation of sexuality in commerce? Especially of women?
You're going to have to elaborate and give some examples. This seems like a pretty subjective topic.
> The treatment of asylum seekers and refugees?
Again, elaborate. The US accepts a huge number asylum seekers and refugees. More than most countries.
>> If people would not trade with USA because of racism?
Are you trying to make a consistent argument that no one should use trade to pressure other countries to change policies they disagree with?
So you're okay with buying goods made by Israeli companies in the West Bank, right? And buying Russian oil? How about sneakers made by Uighur slaves in Chinese concentration camps? How about buying blood diamonds? Should companies not pressure countries they do business with to prevent child labor, or enforce minimal worker safety regulations?
If people didn't trade with us because our policies were abhorrent to them, then maybe our policies are abhorrent and that would put pressure on us to stop those policies, which would be good. For example, if Europe passed a law banning the import of goods made in US for-profit prisons, that would be good.
This tired argument that "US is evil, everything it does must be bad" is absurd if you have any knowledge of what goes on in the rest of the world. The US can be flawed without making it as flawed as a country that hangs homosexuals from cranes (Iran), or as flawed as one that prohibits all forms of speech against the government (China, Vietnam, Russia, and on, and on).
So if you don't think it's a problem to trade with anyone, you aren't really standing up for the moral position you claim to hold against the US.
My point, which you missed, is that the USA is one of the bad ones not one of the good ones.
I am not sure there are any good ones, a tangential point.
This in the context of:
> But in this case we're simply exporting our values through soft power, money and influence
To Singapore. There are values from Singapore that the USA could do with, so the fact that Goldman Sachs gets to tell Singapore what laws to make - what if that shoe was on the other foot? What of "your values" need up dating - but wait. Never mind soft power. The USA has the Pacific Fleet (and another half dozen fleets) so fuck you and you values.
>> I am not sure there are any good ones, a tangential point.
I agree, but it's not tangential at all. In fact, it is the whole point. As Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."
There are plenty of things which are not perfect, but are preferable to the other options. You might consider what position Singapore or the Philippines would be in without the US Navy sailing regularly through the South China Sea. Most likely they would be territories or dependencies of China. If Chinese Communist Party values are something you prefer to American values, then feel free to enumerate which, exactly, make it a system you would prefer to live under. (And note that this is a freedom you wouldn't have if you were posting on a Chinese message board).
Other countries can, and do, influence US policy as well as culture, in positive ways. This is also for the good. It is precisely why there is a powerful Pacific Fleet composed of people from over 100 nationalities under the US flag. When and if the Han empire begins to utilize the full capabilities of all its citizens by granting them freedom of thought, speech and movement, perhaps it will outcompete the US - other ethno-nationalist states with wise leaders have done so in the past. Even Singapore has done a fairly remarkable job of balancing speech and numerous ethnicities. Certainly better than the larger, equally strategic and yet doomed UAE.
But which values exactly do you wish to see imposed on the US which actually are practiced somewhere, and where are they practiced? That's a more interesting and fertile ground for discussion than simply "you're the bad guys"... and again, the bad guys in world history don't normally ask or care, whereas this is an intense and open topic of public debate in the US.
What you're saying is effectively: "But we're right and they're wrong, so I don't care."
Everyone thinks they're right about what they believe in, especially moral beliefs. The purpose of political systems is to provide a non-violent, transparent medium by which disagreements can be resolved.
In public health, the protocol is to maximize trust in the people you are serving. For example, if a female doctor is turned away by a sick misogynist, the correct reaction is to say, "Ok, let me find you a male doctor." The incorrect reaction is to become offended and attempt to use public health as a political chess piece to "make them more inclusive."
Global trade cannot flourish if every business attempts to install the moral values of its stakeholders in whatever country they're doing business in. There has to exist a level of professionalism where business people understand that they are not there to judge or influence other peoples and their governments.
> In public health, the protocol is to maximize trust in the people you are serving. For example, if a female doctor is turned away by a sick misogynist, the correct reaction is to say, "Ok, let me find you a male doctor." The incorrect reaction is to become offended and attempt to use public health as a political chess piece to "make them more inclusive."
People trying to demand that they be provided doctors who fit their political views would be the ones turning it into a chess piece IMO; you can't simultaneously demand that the public health system accommodate your non-public health related concerns while complaining that the public health system is now dealing with areas outside their purview.
So a private company has to do business in Singapore - and isn't allowed to complain if the Singaporean government restricts the rights of its own employees? They're just supposed to shut up and take whatever insane dictat exists in whatever jurisdiction they do business with? Why? If they're powerful enough to move the needle by threatening to withdraw from the country, then good for them! It's not that "whatever I like" is right, it's that there are universal human rights, and guess what, if enough stakeholders in these companies believe that no one should be doing business in countries or states that don't respect those rights, that's a good thing for the world.
Who should influence the affairs of a country? Take Russia now as an example. Should western countries stop Russia? Do you think western companies who pulled out of Russia are morally reprehensible because they were attempting to influence with business?
Yeah, the people who draw equivalence between US companies pulling out of Russia and Russia attempting to influence US elections are morally bankrupt and can't see that one of these things is trying to stop a war of aggression, or at least punish the murder of civilians. To even pretend not to be able to make that distinction is repugnant.
"If Gay patients are uncomfortable with Bigoted doctors, these patients deserve Compassionate doctors" is, I believe, a better summary of their comment.
Safetyism in regards to nuclear power is nothing more than the environmental lobby attempting to derail the only viable solution to climate change. They will lose an excellent source of political capital if climate change is solved, so they will always fearmonger nuclear power.
Fewer than 50 people have died from nuclear power in its entire history, meanwhile an estimated 8.7 million people die each year from fossil fuels [0].
The renewable industry is still incredibly nascent and does not wield (much) power (yet). In the future, that may not be the case, but to compare this with the existing fossil fuel industries is really quite disingenuous. There's orders of magnitude difference between the two as of yet. Will they become similarly corrupt? Perhaps. Likely, even. But it will shift the profit from massive, world-changing effects to something different, and we're already more tuned into the issue that energy production, consumption, and use has serious side effects.
they already conspired with the fossil industry to kill nuclear power in germany. their minister for energy is "Green" and they're busy reopening coal plants and opening new coal mines to make up for the shortfall of russian gas. they wield immense, malign power.
Does political lobbying have to be done by business, or do the efforts of religious groups to influence policy count as lobbying? If there is a Green lobby then it has more in common with the, I dunno, "Christian lobby" than lobbying from big business.
Ah yes, it’s a sinister plot by the evil “environmental lobby”…
No, it’s just that the roots of the green movement are mixed with the nuclear disarmament movement, and the rejection of nuclear unfortunately got carried on to civilian power plants :(
This is an important point. The green movement agenda is obviously mixed with something other than environmental concerns, or they would embrace nuclear.
the environment doesn't have any money to lobby with. we make money out of it.
fossil fuel lobby though... they have billions of reasons to lobby against nuclear, to the point that they may give eco-terrorists money to do their work for them. can't say this happened, but see Germany - it's the least effort rational explanation.
One bit of feedback I want to give is: when I'm answering questions on the iPhone app, there's a dialog that shoots up from the bottom... this is too much motion and I don't like it. Especially since there are multiple questions back-to-back, it feels a bit nauseating to see that dialog shoot up over and over.
I think a quick fade in (or no transition at all) may be better suited for that part of the app.
Thanks, we'll take a look. Do you remember what that dialog was specifically? I think the one you're referring to is only supposed to appear once, but if it's appearing multiple times we'll fix it.
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert th’ Eternal Providence,
And justifie the wayes of God to men.