@clacke I think we can incrementally introduce the idea of personal responsibility for filtering. I don’t think any kind of entrance exam is required.

There is also an extent to which it’s not really important for democracy to make good decisions. Just not terrible ones. But that requires strong constitutional limits that don’t get systematically and irrevocably eroded over time so that certain things are permanently outside the scope of voting.

I think that having a population that cannot filter information is a tremendous threat to democracy, if not the largest. And I don’t see how we get to the point where people can filter information if we filter it for them. It seems to me that we need to go completely the opposite direction and remove nearly all filters aside from those that are effective in protecting the most vulnerable. Note that I didn’t say intended to; they must actually work.

How do folks reconcile the idea that fake news must be censored or deplatformed with the notion of democracy? If we're too stupid to filter fake news, how can we be smart enough to vote?

I *think* most people's answer will be something related to the wisdom of crowds and systematic bias, but if that is the case doesn't that mean the real power that matters is the power to filter what information people see?

@cjd Looking at western news about the Chinese stock market crash makes me physically ill. Plenty on Wall Street are applauding the CCP's intervention in the market and calling for more of it. STEAL MOAR FROM YOUR PEOPLE TO FUND INVESTOR WELFARE PLEASE!

@cjd This Bloomberg article disagrees about the ghost cities, but it appears to be flat out propaganda, because the fact that there's SOME activity in SOME of these cities doesn't change the fact that a huge fraction of the buildings won't ever be able to be occupied.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-01/chinese-ghost-cities-2021-binhai-zhengdong-new-districts-fill-up

@cjd A friend of mine with PSYOP experience recommends consuming a broad cross section of media including "that trash" (and for example RT) because it's all SOMEBODY'S truth. It's pretty easy to read between the lines once you get an idea of what the different biases are, and it's useful to learn what people are telling themselves about it.

@cjd I have just seen one other video from this guy and know nothing about him but he confirms all my biases so he must be right.

@niko @SuricrasiaOnline That has not been true for a long time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nginx

@cjd The main relationship I see between these things is tracking. Your smartphone tracks you everywhere in multiple ways. Have you thought about ways to be able to turn it off without giving up too much convenience?

@Jetengineweasel On the bright side maybe we’ll end up in a new space race with the PRC.

@Jetengineweasel And then there are people like me who had people on the moon just before they were born and have been waiting our entire lives to see humans get back out of low Earth orbit again.

@cjd @sean Which is the very definition of "rule of men" as opposed to "rule of law." In China, the law exists solely as a tool of the Party.

@cjd @sean If by that you mean they have multiple sets of laws, the laws that apply to regular people and the laws that apply to people who are in bed with the government, I agree.

@cjd @sean I could not disagree more that the West is not significantly different on this. Yes, we pass laws that are excessively specific, and yes, we have laws that are selectively enforced, but in China they just make up violations on a regular basis, and it's standard practice to investigate and jail your political opponents on vague charges of "corruption."

@cjd @sean I think it goes well beyond that, though. I think there's a tendency among left-leaning white dudes to underestimate how law-abiding Westerners are compared to most of the world, but living with rule of law for a long time has a HUGE impact on culture. In Russia, for example, people enter into contracts and then just ignore them. Getting people to abide by contracts there will take more than just enforcing them.

@cjd @sean Absolutely! Though I think there’s a big risk of throwing the baby out with the bath water, because acknowledging the existence of the baby can feel like white nationalism. Which shouldn’t be too surprising since white nationalists have started talking about culture rather than race. But there is a huge space between cultural relativism and nationalism.

@cjd @sean (it will take enforcing them consistently for a couple of generations).

@cjd @sean I have never had my Irishness impact me in any negative way, so I don’t think that way about myself.

@sean @cjd One can say things like “people behave lawfully when they expect others to do the same”.

@sean @cjd My great grandfather on my mom’s side always insisted that he was pure blood English, but he was a redhead and my mom suspects he was half Irish.

The genocide claim seems a bit dodgy to me. It appears to have little credence in Ireland. https://whistlinginthewind.org/2013/03/05/was-the-irish-famine-genocide/