[liberationtech] Would you like to put the list under permanent moderation?

[Charles M. Ess]

I would also suggest spending a few years in Scandinavia.  The distance 
to power is not anything like it is in the States; there is a strong and 
independent press that does a very good job of uncovering the occasional 
scandal and corruption; all of which is bolstered by highest literacy 
rates and an astonishingly civil "debate climate" as it is called here 
among the _nine_ significant political parties.  Materially supported by 
strong social-welfare systems that keeps inequalities to a minimum while 
maintaining strong economies (contra the anti-tax dogmas of those in the 
US).
It is probably also necessary, however, to have a relatively small 
population - 5 million or so each in Norway and Denmark, the countries 
of my primary experience - who also enjoy the highest levels of mutual 
trust on the planet: 71% of Norwegians say yes to questions like "do you 
think you can trust most people to do the right thing," starting with 
fulfilling their promises and obligations to others - vs. 38% in the US.

This should not be a surprise.  James Carey (1989) has pointed out that 
the US has been shaped by an emphasis on communication since the 
Federalist Papers' discussion of Plato's problem of "the natural limits 
of democracy" - i.e., participation in deliberation and debate required 
physical co-presence; establish a travel limit of one day by foot or 
animal to get to the places of deliberation and it rounds out to a state 
of some 50 square miles (if memory serves). Government-funded roads and 
canals were argued to be solutions to the problem - communication 
technologies followed suite. (This is also part of the source of our 
shared optimism in "liberation technology" - starting with communication 
technologies, as having the potential for enhancing democracy, 
emancipation, etc.)
Whatever the advantages and disadvantages of such technologies - thank 
you, Cambridge Analytica - these countries and peoples enjoy far more of 
a sense of physical co-presence than is possible in the US: "Denmark is 
not a country, it's a tribe," one US anthropologist determined after 
some 20 years there.

As well, there is a different sense of what it means to be a human 
being.  "Mature human beings" are understood to be both individual and 
relational. The atomistic senses of individualism in the US - resting 
ultimately on Hobbes, Adam Smith, and their shared presumptions from 
Augustine that Original Sin has made each of us desire-driven and 
utterly selfish - see relationship with others as a threat to one's own 
possible freedom: we can only be free _from_ the constraints others 
impose - leading, without an authoritarian state to keep us under 
control, to the war of each against all.  Here, there are many ways in 
which we are more free _through_ our relationships with one another, 
rather than against one another.
The latter is understood at some sort of theoretical level in the States 
- and instinctively attacked and rejected by many, of course, first of 
all as it goes against their enculturation, whatever their political 
views may be.
Sorry, such relational selfhood is real and, here at least, it works in 
ways fully consistent with individual freedom and flourishing.  (Free - 
and usually excellent - public education, including university education 
is especially helpful, contra the highly class-dependent systems in the 
US.)
But you'll likely have to live here for some years to come to fully 
experience it "on your own body" as it is said in the Germanic languages 
to get a good sense of it beyond the theoretical outlines.

Hope this is helpful -
- charles

On 08/01/2020 04:37, Rand Strauss wrote:
>  > The Great Scam known as Democracy... its trick, lure, fraud, and 
> forever unfixable...
> 
> Democracy isn’t a scam. So far, it’s a theory and a myth.
> We don’t have a democracy.  Humanity has never had a true representative 
> democracy of any large number of people.
> And the US political system is less democratic than most.
> 
> In a true democracy, the people have power.  For that to happen in a 
> representative democracy, the representatives must be accountable to the 
> people. Very, very few people know what accountability is, so it’s not 
> surprising that most don’t realize it’s missing.
> 
> Ever since the founding of the US, many have had an idea about 
> accountability. Democracy works pretty well when representatives and 
> voters believe representatives are accountable and when they make 
> efforts to /be/ accountable, even though at best they deliver very 
> little accountability. Without accountability, democracy becomes 
> increasingly unstable, and representatives are increasingly accountable 
> to others, to ideologies, to the wealthy and to the parties. This 
> fake-democracy is where we find ourselves today.
> 
> "Political Science" isn’t really a science.  It tries to study the 
> political organizations that exist, but with the myth that it’s somewhat 
> representative of what’s possible.  It’s not.  When sciences are 
> fruitful at all, they give rise to engineering disciplines.  This hasn’t 
> happened with politics.  Political Science is in its infancy, like 
> medicine was 200 years ago.  The "engineers" are charlatans, brandishing 
> snake-oil such as marketing slogans and advertising campaigns. At best, 
> they’re pollsters, pretending that the fast answers of surprised, 
> non-responsible people to much-too simplistic questions are indicative 
> of people’s desires.
> 
> Much more is possible.  Plus, the political system can be pretty easily 
> fixed.  But most people are deeply resigned— usually much more than they 
> realize— and would rather complain about their supposed insights into 
> the most shallow observations of the system’s problems than peer into 
> its depths where the clues to real solutions lie.
> 
> The claim that it’s "unfixable" is simply more shallow, cynical 
> guessing.  If you think a problem isn’t fixable, it mostly tells you 
> that you haven’t thought deeply enough.  It’s probably also true that 
> you’re thinking "inside the box," in the terms the status quo uses to 
> ensure it’s continuation.  Try getting outside the box.
> 
> For instance, try thinking:
> 
>   * Political campaigns are expensive because they use inefficient
>     communication.
>   * Representatives continually push messages to voters, which doesn’t
>     work. What happens if you reverse this paradigm?
>   * What’s a rigorous definition of accountability?
>   * What’s a rigorous /functional/ definition?
>   * Many voters are apathetic and ignorant because caring and learning
>     result in frustration.
>   * The media market doesn’t offer good, concise information because
>     people don’t need it.
>   * The shape of our /whole /political system- voters, elections, voter
>     registration, campaigns, polls, media, parties, incumbents,
>     representation, congress and the presidency- not the /fact/ that we
>     have these, but their separate and combined shapes and organizations
>     are a /perfect/ fit for the results we have, the lying, the
>     corruption, the lack of competition, all of it
> 
> What effects the shape of things most is its foundation.  When a system 
> is so broadly broken, you’re not going to get very far fixing the 
> symptoms or complaining about the effects.  Yes, this "car" goes 1 mile 
> an hour tops and guzzles tons of gas.  Instead of complaining, you need 
> to look under and behind all of it to find the true cause or causes.  A 
> "true" cause is one that a true solution can be applied to.
> 
> Get to the bottom of all of these, and a new possibility emerges.  But 
> you’re not going to get there from an hour or two of thinking, much less 
> the ten minutes you’ll take reading this.  Talking to people, it takes a 
> good 2-15 hours to reveal what’s hidden behind these statements.
> 
> -r
> 
> 
>> On Jan 7, 2020, at 12:48 PM, grarpamp <grarpamp at gmail.com 
>> <mailto:grarpamp at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Many here use libtech that blocks all the javascript garbage
>> on such sites making them inoperable. Any results will be
>> skewed, for that and other reasons, in various unknowable ways.
>>
>> The Great Scam known as Democracy... its trick, lure, fraud,
>> and forever unfixable failure... abuses "voting" to wage immoral
>> force up to and including death against others.
>>
>> Some of the truths democracy does not want you to know and liberate...
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wclLGlSWwYI
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbekNG6Azq4
>> magnet:?xt=urn:btih:7342aa7b328abec8c5f54fc84907b90b3944c9f8&dn=The_Most_Dangerous_Superstition
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6b70TUbdfs
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy8S2xOKiwY
>>
>> -- 
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> 
> 

-- 
Professor in Media Studies
Department of Media and Communication
University of Oslo
<http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/people/aca/charlees/index.html>

Co-chair & Editor, Internet Research Ethics 3.0
<https://aoir.org/reports/ethics3.pdf>

3rd edition of Digital Media Ethics out soon!
<http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509533428>

Postboks 1093
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Oslo, Norway
c.m.ess at media.uio.no