I don't think it's "people these days;" I think it was the norm that has been disrupted by modern technology.
Network broadcast television operates under standards and practices, where certain things are not allowed for broadcast. That includes the news---even news stories are subject to S&P constraint.
Does network broadcast television "police political opinion" if it doesn't give a pedophile a half-hour of air time to plead their case?
The world of decentralized bidirectional near-lightspeed mass-communication, where there is often not a gatekeeper, is relatively new.
It's still an open question whether it's a net positive for society. I would say there have been a lot of positive consequences. Negative consequences are also stacking up quickly.
The problem is that facebook has partially replaced both broadcast television and private conversations people would have in person or on the phone.
Historically, nobody would batt and eye about a network policing the opinions represented in its programing. However, there would be uproar if a phone company controlled what was said in a call.
Facebook fills so many roles that a single solution does not exist.
In the past, the effects of freedom of speech were bounded by the cost of communication. Very few people could afford a soapbox with which to reach the world, so only certain messages were broadcast widely. Now everyone can send (and even amplify) messages quickly and easily.
Previously celebrities, politicians, the media, and advertisers had a wide channel. Now interest groups, state actors, echo chambers, and individuals with access to technology such as GPT-3 can do the same.
There's a lot of good, but also a lot of bad. We're now testing how humans respond to this deluge. It's fascinating (and somewhat worrying) to watch unfold.
My biggest fear is that state actors will inject information designed to polarize us, and that we'll respond exactly as they want.
I think it's worth noting that the wave of fascism that swept the world during the early 20th century coincided with radio and television being widely deployed.
This may be correlation that does not imply causation. But demagogues had, for the first time, a way to reach into people's homes directly with their messages all the time, if they had access to microphones, video cameras, and broadcast towers. And it was a mechanism that excluded the ability of any antithesis messages to reach people on those same channels (once the government had control of the channels). Mussolini and his ilk certainly knew how to take advantage of these tools.
Going further back, the Protestant Reformation was enabled by the spread of the printing press. In its wake, the 30 Years War. Upon utter exhaustion of the parties involved, the Peace of Westphalia set the stage for the modern nation states.
And an often passed over part of the Protestant Reformation is that it was fueled by rabid anti-Semitism and scapegoating. Martin Luther wrote a 65,000 word treatise called “On the Jews and their Lies” that’s widely considered to have been the basis for Nazi ideology:
> "I think it's worth noting that the wave of fascism that swept the world during the early 20th century coincided with radio and television being widely deployed."
Most modern states with the necessary capabilities spread disinformation to other countries for their own political gain or the political gain of their allies, Russia is far from the only one.
Fair, but Russia is the most direct example of the specific fears mentioned in spreading disinformation with the goal of polarization as opposed to a different specific goal. When the US spreads propaganda in a foreign country, it is usually to get the people to align with US values as opposed to a goal of destabilization.
>The US has engineered and provided support for coups around the world
With the goal of allies gaining power. That is fundamentally different than Russian's initial goal of simply knocking the US out of their superpower role by causing polarization, internal strife, loss of faith in institutions, and just general chaos. I think people associate Russian disinformation as purely a right wing phenomenon because that is where they have had more success, but there is plenty of Russian disinformation targeted at and supporting the left wing too.
> With the goal of allies gaining power. That is fundamentally different than Russian's initial goal of simply knocking the US out of their superpower role
Why do you think Russia is trying to knock the US out of its superpower of its superpower role? They’re not doing it just to be petty.
Who said they were doing it to be petty? They are doing it because we have a hostile relationship, not because they want to eventually be allies.
There is a fundamental difference between let's interfere with this country to install a friendly government and let's interfere with this country so it rips itself apart.
I think there can be a difference in goals, but history strongly suggests no country has mastered the difference in outcomes, so regardless of which goal, attempts to do either should be held to the highest suspicion and probably censured by the international community.
America learned a bloody and horrible lesson trying to install a friendly government in Afghanistan after Russia diminished their influence in the region.
The people of Iran and Chile were collateral damage of the US. Our government did not care one way or another about them.
The people of the US are the primary target of Russia. Their government is actively trying to do us harm.
It is indifference versus malice. This isn't a defense of US foreign policy. We have a history of doing awful things. It is simply recognizing differences between the two countries approaches and noting that the fears that initially sparked this tangent match up nearly perfectly with Russia's goals and actions.
How have you gained so much insight into Russia’s long-term geopolitical strategy and deduced that their primary goal is malice against American people? Through US media? Why do you think they’d invest considerable national resources into this malice for the powerless citizenry?
And why do you think this supposed intent matters so much? Do you think outcomes will be worse for the people of the US than living under Pinochet or in modern-day Fallujah? Or do you think polarization and misinformation are not the least of the strategies the US uses in its foreign interventions?
Intent matters in society. There is a difference between murder and manslaughter. We don't know the ultimate result of all this on the US since we are right in the middle of it. It is possible things turn out relatively fine, but the US democracy right now is on the edge of collapse. The most recent example of such is that we have generals worried about a coup. [1] Also the US isn't the only target of this type of behavior. Russia is doing it to numerous other countries and it is being reported in both foreign media and by various academics.
I have explained my viewpoint numerous times. I don't think I need to explain it any more. I am legitimately confused on what you are trying to achieve by repeatedly questioning that viewpoint. I already admitted the US does bad things. I am not making a value judgement of US versus Russia. I am stating that the specific situation outlined matches closer to Russia's behavior than the US's.
My point is simply that on the level of geopolitics there isn’t a difference between murder and manslaughter. You keep asserting that there is without articulating the material ramifications of that difference for the actual people who live in a country.
And I fail to see how the US fits into the category of manslaughter anyway. For instance, there has been plenty of strong and well-documented anti-communist malice at the highest levels of power in US government and intelligence. But even so, imperialist histories like to portray this country as somehow stumbling into the atrocities it has committed.
> the US democracy right now is on the edge of collapse
How so?
The elections are happening, legislature legislates, judicial system is adjudicating, the military is following the constitution. What are the signs of the collapse?
The sole link you provided has nothing to do with a coup - it talks about Trump potentially deploying military to quell riots. It is his constitutional right to do, however the generals are of course free to resign from this. Is this a coup on your book?
>The elections are happening, legislature legislates, judicial system is adjudicating, the military is following the constitution. What are the signs of the collapse?
The signs? The words of the president and the people around him. The article I linked is one example in which people are having to seriously consider dangerous situations that were thought impossible during all recent presidential elections.
The edge of collapse also doesn't mean it has collapsed yet. I wouldn't even say it is a likelihood that it will collapse, but there is some non-trivial chance that the US democracy fails between now and the end of the year. It has been at least decades since anyone would have said something like that previous sentence. The cold war might have been the last time in which there was this high of a chance of catastrophe.
>The sole link you provided has nothing to do with a coup - it talks about Trump potentially deploying military to quell riots. It is his constitutional right to do, however the generals are of course free to resign from this. Is this a coup on your book?
It is talking about Trump potentially deploying military in either the lead up to the election, on election day, or in the wake of election day. This can be done for any number of reasons. It can be done to rile up his base like he did with his photo-op at St John's. It can be done to intimidate people away from voting. I can be done in the wake of the election to challenge it's legitimacy or to quell protests and civil unrest in response to him challenging the election's legitimacy. The first example is clearly not a coup. The second probably doesn't qualify either even though it would be illegal. The third one is using military violence or the threat of it to illegally seize power from rightful leaders. Isn't that a text book definition of a coup?
The New York Times is stating "senior leaders at the Pentagon, speaking on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that they were talking among themselves about what to do if Mr. Trump, who will still be president from Election Day to Inauguration Day, invokes the Insurrection Act and tries to send troops into the streets".
This is only "completely made up" in the sense that every hypothetical the military prepares for is a made up scenario.
> every hypothetical the military prepares for is a made up scenario
Trump is within his authority to send the troops into the streets to quell an insurrection against constitutional order. This being an unusual situation naturally the generals should be getting prepared. Where's the coup?
We aren't talking about an insurrection against constitutional order. The hypothetical is that Trump loses the election, he cites some bogus case of fraud like he has spent the last several months building, he refuses to concede just like he said he wouldn't concede if their was fraud, large protests pop up in response to these moves as would obviously happen, Trump declares them riots just like he has been calling the largely peaceful protests of the last several months riots, and he orders in the troops to squash dissent just like he said he would when he refused to agree to a peaceful transfer of power. All of this is based off Trumps own words and prior behavior. It isn't the most likely scenario, but it can't be completely dismissed. It is a situation that the other branches of government and the military need to seriously consider.
> All of this is based off Trumps own words and prior behavior.
Which behavior is that?
>he refuses to concede
This is not supported by the NYT quote re Pentagon officials you have provided. Do you have a quote where Pentagon officials discuss actions in case of Trump's failure to concede?
Are you just being willfully obtuse? The words and behaviors that I described in the previous comment. I give up trying to explain this to you. Congrats, you win the debate through sheer exhaustion.
> The elections are happening, legislature legislates, judicial system is adjudicating, the military is following the constitution.
"Collapse of democracy" doesn't impute lawlessness. The attempt to cripple the USPS under DeJoy was legal, for example. If the US continues its slide into authoritarianism, you can bet it will happen with the pretense of legality.
But that aside, Trump has indicated that he won't honor the election result [1]. GP's link mentions that as well, and links to the article:
> “Get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation,” the president said.
There are also many scenarios in which the election result leads us into Constitutionally uncharted territory. The Atlantic painted some plausible pictures recently [2], including a quote from a Trump campaign legal advisor about appointing electors that don't match a state's popular vote result:
> According to sources in the Republican Party at the state and national levels, the Trump campaign is discussing contingency plans to bypass election results and appoint loyal electors in battleground states where Republicans hold the legislative majority. With a justification based on claims of rampant fraud, Trump would ask state legislators to set aside the popular vote and exercise their power to choose a slate of electors directly.
> If the US continues its slide into authoritarianism, you can bet it will happen with the pretense of legality
And how is this going to happen? The Constitution puts firm limits on the President's power, the Supreme court will not approve of anything contrary to that (no matter who appointed the justices), and the Congress is not going to change the constitution by a vote of 2/3rd. What is the mechanism of usurping power that you see?
Trump gets re-elected, by hook or by crook, and spends the next four years continuing to dismantle political infrastructure? Republican congresspeople continue to rubber stamp his agenda and Democrats offer only token resistance? The courts that Trump and McConnell have spent the past four years packing only rule against the most flagrant of Constitutional violations?
Trump has spent the last four years flagrantly breaking the law and suffered no real consequences. It strains credulity that he wouldn’t accelerate this with another four years and a solid Supreme Court majority.
> Trump gets re-elected, by hook or by crook, and spends the next four years continuing to dismantle political infrastructure?
He already had four years. What exactly did he dismantle? The courts, the congress, the senate, the elections, the state rights? Did anything change at all in the "political infrastructure"?
> courts that Trump and McConnell have spent the past four years packing only rule against the most flagrant of Constitutional violations
This trope is getting old. Justices are not puppets of their presidents. Sometime a conservative appointee turns out liberal and serves out their term long after the president is gone and forgotten. The terms "conservative" and "liberal" apply to justices only very loosely. I invite you to read opinions of, say, Justice Scalia [1] - he's not the freedom-crusher you imagine them to be.
> The courts, the congress, the senate, the elections, the state rights? Did anything change at all in the "political infrastructure"?
He and the Senate have aggressively confirmed judges at all levels. He’s purged all but the most obsequious members of the executive branch. He started to gut the USPS and will continue after the election. He’s attempted in multiple ways to undermine the census, specifically to undercount minority residents. He’s sown misinformation about voting. He’s encouraged police and private citizens to intimidate voters at the polls. While not his own doing, he will take advantage of the 1982 consent decree that expired in 2018.
> This trope is getting old. Justices are not puppets of their presidents.
I never said they were “puppets”. But they’re obviously biased — otherwise, why would Mitch McConnell try to block so many of Obama’s nominees and confirm so many of Trump’s? A case in which the conservative bloc of the court voted to uphold a law prohibiting gay sex in a private residence does not support your assertion.
True, but Justices are extremely consistent with their appointing President’s preferences on political issues that are salient at the time of their appointment.
I think the issue of political polarization is multifaceted, and social media and decentralized technological mediums are part of the cause.
Another one that may be worth mentioning is the elimination of the FCC fairness doctrine in 1987. This doctrine used to hold news companies with a broadcast license to a certain standard which is now gone - effectively allowing them to report on things with whatever amount of slant and bias they choose.
> The fairness doctrine had two basic elements: It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters. Stations were given wide latitude as to how to provide contrasting views: It could be done through news segments, public affairs shows, or editorials. The doctrine did not require equal time for opposing views but required that contrasting viewpoints be presented. The demise of this FCC rule has been considered by some to be a contributing factor for the rising level of party polarization in the United States.
The main agenda for the doctrine was to ensure that viewers were exposed to a diversity of viewpoints. In 1969 the United States Supreme Court, in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, upheld the FCC's general right to enforce the fairness doctrine where channels were limited. However, the Court did not rule that the FCC was obliged to do so. The courts reasoned that the scarcity of the broadcast spectrum, which limited the opportunity for access to the airwaves, created a need for the doctrine.
So effectively, we have echo chambers on TV and social media fed by algorithms and analytics, wherein people can participate to confirm their biases and preconceptions without having them challenged.
Network broadcast television operates under standards and practices, where certain things are not allowed for broadcast. That includes the news---even news stories are subject to S&P constraint.
Does network broadcast television "police political opinion" if it doesn't give a pedophile a half-hour of air time to plead their case?
The world of decentralized bidirectional near-lightspeed mass-communication, where there is often not a gatekeeper, is relatively new.
It's still an open question whether it's a net positive for society. I would say there have been a lot of positive consequences. Negative consequences are also stacking up quickly.