BF2S Forums Presidential Election 2016

I don't think the government should have control over social media to the point of censorship, but I do think regulation should be in place for political social media and broadcasts. Fact-checking should be required for advertising and presenting conflicting viewpoints should be encouraged.

New ideas around sexuality, gender, race, and religion that we all take for granted were someone's "conspiracy theory" at some point. America had periods where the government was focused on regulating the acceptable confines of speech and those periods never worked out well for liberals.

Liberals should talk less about trying to change the rules of discourse and instead focusing on winning on ideas. If you can't articulate those ideas well or find the right people to do so then that's entirely a you problem.

I think there is a lot tied up in opposition to taking COVID seriously that people don't want to accept since those issues are bigger than just Chinese bat flu. There is a moral/spiritual element to the COVID debate in the fact that the people who most oppose doing anything about it almost always have pessimistic views of the value of human life. They don't value the lives of others or even their own.

It is entirely possible that a lot of the post-World War 2 culture debates are not yet settled no matter how much you may think you have won them or are in the right. It is unlikely early 20th century fascism is what society wants or needs. But it is likely that multiculturalism and globalism needs at least retooling and reformulation instead of total acceptance as is.

I've seen plenty of multiculturalism proponents who don't preach absolute tolerance and bending over backwards. That's the description used by "absolute assimilationists." But like maybe don't freak out when a waitress speaks Spanish in a Mexican restaurant.

I don't think Sharia law should be used in place of court justice any more than Christian and quasi-christian wack-jobs should be able to run their own compound communities with their own laws in defiance of outside laws. No issues shopping for groceries in Korea town, though.

Larssen wrote:

That is true and not a point I contest. But the trend towards an open and tolerant society is clear, whereas there are many frantically engaged in trying to prevent or otherwise destroy that. Not to say that history can't go backwards, but the long term is looking decent.

Ha ha the long term is looking like Mogadishu.

hard disagree that the future is inevitably one of slow progress towards a liberal middle-class utopia. that's called liberal meliorism. i am not in support of this view, it reeks a little too much of the late 20th century self-assurance of people like fukuyama et al. 'if only we can tuck the communists into bed, history is over, it's liberalism forever!'

i think history has shown, time and time again, that civilization is never very far away from its discontents, that history can undergo sudden snaps and reversals, that seismic shifts and domino effects can topple great nations (pick your cliche), etc. we are never far away from barbarism: that is the underlying theme of most 20th century political theory and cultural critique, from the frankfurt school on. frankly, the two world wars and the holocaust should do enough to put pay to any complacency about the 'natural goodness' and 'desirability' of western liberal-capitalism. things can go very wrong, and very quickly.

i'd agree it's probably desirable that we turn our best efforts and tune our liberal institutions to create this outcome. but it's a struggle that has to be re-won, and very frequently. society is only on a steady path to liberal reform and gradual improvement so long as the money/prosperity keeps on coming in: capitalism is only useful so long as its furnace energies are controlled and directed in the right way (what is fascism but unrestrained capitalism expressing itself in national uniform?): people will only believe in its institutions so long as they remain relevant and keep on delivering on its banner-head promises of freedom, equality, self-expression, etc: and generations will only continue buying into it so long as they can reasonably expect to be richer, not poorer, than their grandparents (a basic prerequisite that is foundering in recent generations in the post-industrial West, and which has produced much instability and straying from the 'sensible' centre, whether it's a renewed interest in socialism or the usual nativist-protectionist schtick).

against all this we have to navigate the profound challenge of climate change and accommodating the global south/a truly global population. the 'slow and steady' entropic liberal heat-death scenario that you propose as 'the best outcome' has, up to now, taken a capitalist presupposition of near-infinite growth, ever more accumulation, ever new diversification and novel markets, etc. that entire logic has to come to an end, or be arrested at least, in some way, and very soon. the 'stable liberal middle-class', with a semi-detached house on a nice plot of greenbelt land, 2 cars on the driveway, and groceries, clothes, and luxury goods sourced from all over the world delivered via van on a weekly basis, is not exportable to 4 billion people.

uziq wrote:

hard disagree that the future is inevitably one of slow progress towards a liberal middle-class utopia. that's called liberal meliorism. i am not in support of this view, it reeks a little too much of the late 20th century self-assurance of people like fukuyama et al. 'if only we can tuck the communists into bed, history is over, it's liberalism forever!'

i think history has shown, time and time again, that civilization is never very far away from its discontents, that history can undergo sudden snaps and reversals, that seismic shifts and domino effects can topple great nations (pick your cliche), etc. we are never far away from barbarism: that is the underlying theme of most 20th century political theory and cultural critique, from the frankfurt school on. frankly, the two world wars and the holocaust should do enough to put pay to any complacency about the 'natural goodness' and 'desirability' of western liberal-capitalism. things can go very wrong, and very quickly.

i'd agree it's probably desirable that we turn our best efforts and tune our liberal institutions to create this outcome. but it's a struggle that has to be re-won, and very frequently. society is only on a steady path to liberal reform and gradual improvement so long as the money/prosperity keeps on coming in: capitalism is only useful so long as its furnace energies are controlled and directed in the right way (what is fascism but unrestrained capitalism expressing itself in national uniform?): people will only believe in its institutions so long as they remain relevant and keep on delivering on its banner-head promises of freedom, equality, self-expression, etc: and generations will only continue buying into it so long as they can reasonably expect to be richer, not poorer, than their grandparents (a basic prerequisite that is foundering in recent generations in the post-industrial West, and which has produced much instability and straying from the 'sensible' centre, whether it's a renewed interest in socialism or the usual nativist-protectionist schtick).

against all this we have to navigate the profound challenge of climate change and accommodating the global south/a truly global population. the 'slow and steady' entropic liberal heat-death scenario that you propose as 'the best outcome' has, up to now, taken a capitalist presupposition of near-infinite growth, ever more accumulation, ever new diversification and novel markets, etc. that entire logic has to come to an end, or be arrested at least, in some way, and very soon. the 'stable liberal middle-class', with a semi-detached house on a nice plot of greenbelt land, 2 cars on the driveway, and groceries, clothes, and luxury goods sourced from all over the world delivered via van on a weekly basis, is not exportable to 4 billion people.

LMAO The middle class is being hollowed out in western countries, it soon won't exist.

You're somewhat behind the curve, the middle class started collapsing in the 70s, there's barely any 'stable liberal middle-class' to export as it is.

No-one aspires to be middle-class anyway, everyone expects to be rich, thats why get upset when taxes are raised on millionaires.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-11-11 04:27:47)

I'd argue that from the renaissance to now there have been moments of setbacks but none were permanent. As I said, history can go backwards, but in the last few hundred years none of those reversals lasted. Society has become less tolerant of waves of violence, more open to dialogue across classes and cultures and the governance structures we have built have only become more robust whilst the political arena is more accessible than ever. The United States is now an example, as it's an enormous testament to its governance structures that Trump, despite trying his absolute hardest, was not able to actually unroot and destroy national and international agreements, governance and society. In Western countries power seems to have been distributed and checked to an extent that the same fascists of old can't hope to achieve much in the near term. This is not a premature victory lap, I know the ills that gave rise to Trump are not gone, but the constitution, democratic institutions and bureaucratic apparatus have proven themselves to be  resilient. Dismantling them is not easy, even in 2 party states with relatively large concentration of executive power in the presidency.

Since the 1990s we've also entered a fundamentally transformative age through the increased technologisation of society (for lack of a better term). I'm not sure to what extent philosophy has picked up on that, but there's several things to consider. First, the internet has made it so that we are no longer restricted to our direct social-political-intellectual frameworks or even social classes in our interaction with the world. This is huge: not only can you consume media from all over the world, you can strike up a conversation with anyone, anywhere, anytime, even participate in global communities of various sizes (of which this is one) only limited by the languages you speak. You have the entirety of human knowledge at your fingertips and information can flow across national & cultural barriers freely, seemlessly and instantly. Even though as we've seen this freedom of interaction/information can be chaotic, can certainly be abused, the positives are enormous. Not only does it humanise people across barriers we never could cross before & lift everyone to a higher educational standard, the linking up of every human being to this worldwide network and its complete incorporation in the way we function in our daily lives, work and private, has also strongly increased interdependence within and among societies in all aspects of their basic functioning. Real social upheaval is much less likely in such a connected & interconnected environment, even though we clearly see anti-globalist movements (which I believe are bound to fail in an overpowering global network).

A second aspect is the increased technological complexity, alongside the fact that every individual is subjected to technological necessity & dependency. This is a bit of a harder topic to tackle because it's not at all limited to just the period since the 90s. Let's look at it from a perspective on organised violence: it's commonly understood that the invention of firearms and explosives was one of the great equalisers in history. Heavily armoured knights on horseback no longer ruled the battlefield, and the commoners could through their numbers and with only modest means easily rise up against the elite structures that had dominated their lives for hundreds if not thousands of years. The age of the musket was certainly the age of democratic reform and individual rights, but it also made for a very volatile time of revolutions and uprisings. The 20th century saw a partial reversal of this trend, through mechanisation demanding much more organisation against an adversary, but there still was a necessity of fielding large (conscript) armies. The scale and brutality of violence increased to such an extent and affected so many the experience of wars gave impetus to a very strong push in further stabilising governance and securing individual rights. M.A.D. also continues to help enforce some manner of peace among great powers.

In the 21st century digitalisation, while some argued it as a new equaliser of sorts through examples like the Arab Spring, actually more firmly than ever allows for concentration of power in state hands and peace between states. This may not be as bad as it seems: in a society built firmly on democratic institutions and individual rights it is more difficult than ever to organise (violent) dissent, which is a powerful catalyst for fascist/ultranationalist movements etc. Any group that engages in terror activity or wishes to foment an uprising will have a very hard time hiding themselves and their intent from authorities. Despite having experienced some terror attacks recently, hundreds more have been prevented. The ones that do succeed are minimally organised and often lone wolves or small networks. This increase in control is again a double edged sword in a sense, as you can see the Chinese surveillance state being built with a very different purpose in mind, but here it can help safeguard the liberalism and democratic principles entrenched in our laws and institutions. As for peace between states: as most of our critical infrastructure and lives now depend on digital means, destroying communication networks, the digital processes that run energy & water supply or any other number of critical functions, would absolutely cause collapse. Beyond the argument of interconnectedness, our collective fragility has in a sense increased and highly developed powers should be wary of engaging in any sort of conflict with eachother, even if they don't have nukes.

My argument is different, I simply state that western societies in a sense have become very politically stable. It does not mean that economically all is well. Just that violent revolution of the 18th century or massive violent wars of the last century, or a breakdown in individual & democratic rights seem unlikely.

Much of the rest of the world, particularly less developed, more economically disadvantaged countries have different dynamics.

uziq wrote:

i like your argument about technology, although many critics would point out that it has done just as much to foster animosity, fear, hatred, etc. the internet as you talk about it is almost its naive-utopian 1990s version, not the internet of today in which 'dialogue' is kept to a minimum and 'echochamber amplification' is kept at a steady boil.

That's where regulation should come in, on the whole though positives outweigh negatives.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-11-11 05:33:58)

I support regulating social media and the internet as an information space. But that's a different topic from breaking up tech giants.

What I don't want to see is the internet transformed to a very tribalist space. It also seems counterintuitive, I assume most people will naturally gravitate to the most popular platforms for many of their online interactions, precisely because it allows for interactions across cultures or any other divide. Besides the public at large, in business and software development you also see a tendency towards standardisation to facilitate information exchange. We like the fact that everything is written in a few programming languages, or in terms of applications that most businesses use excel or word for example. It would be a pain if there were a 1000 different types of the same programs. While governments seem to approach this in the same way as the oil industry and are afraid of the economic/political power of tech giants, I feel that ignores the purpose of their services and nature of the internet.

It is also a space that can require absolutely massive financial investment: small players do not have the necessary capital to develop and run platforms that see users in the hundreds of millions. It is harder to regulate small players as well because of the cost associated with building in privacy and security assurances, not to mention the amount of auditors you're going to need to check up on that large field of companies. Lastly, in a space of small players big new tech and software is unlikely to be pushed - stuff like cloud services for example, or think of your iphone. Those things could not have been made without enormous budgets.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-11-11 06:03:37)