I sincerely hope you are joking. But if you are not, are you against democracy in undeveloped or developing countries, then? Do you think apartheid was right to not give black people votes because they weren't "developed" enough? Do you think British colonialism was right because the "savages" weren't capable of ruling themselves well?
> But if you are not, are you against democracy in undeveloped or developing countries, then?
Not more than I am against it in developed countries.
> Do you think apartheid was right to not give black people votes because they weren't "developed" enough?
No, I think that was racist. You can not determine enlightenment by skin colour.
> Do you think British colonialism was right because the "savages" weren't capable of ruling themselves well?
No I think that was an invasion.
I was referring to people being able to know what is going on and what effects the acts politicians propose might have on them and others and being able to know if the person they vote for is trustworthy.
My immediate thought is who decides what a good media diet is if we were to fix it, but anyway..
You don't have to agree with what you watch. Sure, propaganda immunity does not exist but I'm more mellow in my beliefs because I know I'm getting into echochambers. Even people under regimes with media consisting of 100% propaganda can see the real picture. of course at that point you don't have a good vote because you'll end up in a camp but that has little to do with media diet.
> My immediate thought is who decides what a good media diet is
Which is a valid but separate concern. If we’re only using words like “good” and “bad“ we don’t really need to agree on what those point to for a consensus.
I don’t think it’s controversial to say your health suffers if you eat poorly. In other words, it’s harder to be in good health if your diet is bad. Same thing with media diet and voting: it doesn’t seem controversial to say if your media diet is bad your vote is misinformed.
> I know I'm getting into echochambers.
Good for you. I don’t think that’s true of most people, though. And I’m certain there are people who believe they see the truth when they don’t (false conspiracies).
> Even people under regimes with media consisting of 100% propaganda can see the real picture.
I don’t think that’s true at all. What’s your basis for that opinion?
People trying to escape North Korea since it's the only place at that level mostly.
However, during communism in Bulgaria people didn't openly talk about the issues of the system due to fear of essentially snitches and there was a whole lot of propaganda going around in the form of the little TV access they had, radio, local events, etc. In spite of that, practically everyone knew that despite the marketing of everyone being equal, some were "more equal".
From there you had a split of people who knew how to play the game, and those who didn't.
The grandfather of a friend used to be one of the top people in National Security and was privately against communism despite benefiting from it greatly (warehouse full of western cars, properties, etc), helping good people with big mouths whenever he could. He had the right vote ready but wasn't suicidal about using that right.
My grandfather was incarcerated for not being subtle about disliking communism and fear of retaliation for the regime killing his grandfather without judge or jury and incarcerating his father. Later he learnt to play the game and got pretty far career wise, passing a couple luck roll checks since his big mouth sometimes got him in trouble. Luckily there were quite a few people willing to help good people in spite of their opinions on "the party". That's someone who was punished, drilled with communism propaganda non stop in prison and still maintained his beliefs. He also read a LOT of the books sold at the time (colored to fit in with the beliefs of the regime whenever appropriate). We have an entire library at home since he bought every book he could.
My grandmother also had a big mouth on her but she was stationed as a special needs teacher by the turkish border so she mostly avoided trouble by being in bumfuck nowhere around a disliked by the regime minority.
Mentioning the particular examples because those are actual people, who, if you went to as a tourist in Bulgaria 40 years ago and asked "Do you like communism/Zhivkov" would most likely nod and go on despite being aware the situation is shit and would only give you their actual opinion if they trusted you to a certain degree which makes it very difficult to go to a place with no freedom of speech/opinion and get an actual picture of the political opinions of people.
> In spite of that, practically everyone knew that despite the marketing of everyone being equal, some were "more equal".
It’s the “practically everyone” that I question. Some people, sure, but “practically everyone” seems like a stretch. Your previous claim (which is consistent with that one) was:
> Even people under regimes with media consisting of 100% propaganda can see the real picture.
But what we can see is that even under regimes where media is not 100% propaganda it is not true that “practically everyone” “can see the real picture”. You need only look at the USA right now. Regardless of what you think the real picture is, about half the country believes the opposite of the other half. By definition, that cannot be “practically everyone”.
Unless you mean that specifically in countries where media is 100% propaganda, practically everyone can see the real picture. Which I don’t think is true either, and I’m close with people who lived in a dictatorship which can attest to that.
It's a stretch in the sense that I exclude people who don't see/accept/care for the situation even if it's provided to them with scientific proof. After all quite a few people simply don't give a shit about politics or are just illogical.
In the US the picture is generally unclear. You have a big direction change in maybe the most influential country in the world and I believe everyone without learning difficulty realizes the situation is unpredictable since it's changing significantly on a weekly basis.
The confidence in comments is not people being convinced they can read the future but positions of confusion being unworthy of sharing causing everyone to present theories as facts.
Also hyperboles. Plenty of hyperboles going around to push the needle further in the direction you want it to go. You'll see topics about muslims "conquering" Europe and calling for a race cleansing written by people who fucking hang with the homie Mahmood but want to display their dissatisfaction with the general situation online and hence say some dumb shit.
Anyway, I believe the US is a bad example at the moment because the situation is very volatile and I believe no one can tell what will happen. I believe a situation being unknown is viable and that a lot of the discussion on it mentions how unpredictable it all is with a side note on confident extreme predictions IMO being a cry for a stronger move of the needle in a certain direction via either propaganda botting, irrational people or, most often, hyperboles.
It is neither a fallacy nor a contradiction, you completely misunderstood the point. What I am saying is precisely that you can defined those however you see fit and your definitions don’t even need to match the other person’s for a consensus.
To pull it to an extreme of simplicity, we can all agree that good things are good and bad things are bad without having to agree on which specific things are which.
Democracy is not founded on the principle that ordinary men should vote because a mob is smarter than a man — that a mob can make a hypothetically [1] better choice than a man — because it is quite simply not true.
The democratic faith, this: that a choice made regarding the governance of a mob is categorically [2] better when made by the mob itself than by one man. Or phased differently: A choice, pertaining to the governance of a mob, is right if made democratically and wrong otherwise.
"Democracy is not founded on pity for the common man; democracy is founded on reverence for the common man, or, if you will, even on fear of him. It does not champion man because man is so miserable, but because man is so sublime. It does not object so much to the ordinary man being a slave as to his not being a king, for its dream is always the dream of the first Roman republic, a nation of kings."
"This is the first principle of democracy: that the essential things in men are the things they hold in common, not the things they hold separately. And the second principle is merely this: that the political instinct or desire is one of these things which they hold in common. Falling in love is more poetical than dropping into poetry. The democratic contention is that government (helping to rule the tribe) is a thing like falling in love, and not a thing like dropping into poetry. It is not something analogous to playing the church organ, painting on vellum, discovering the North Pole (that insidious habit), looping the loop, being Astronomer Royal, and so on. For these things we do not wish a man to do at all unless he does them well. It is, on the contrary, a thing analogous to writing one's own love-letters or blowing one's own nose. These things we want a man to do for himself, even if he does them badly. I am not here arguing the truth of any of these conceptions; I know that some moderns are asking to have their wives chosen by scientists, and they may soon be asking, for all I know, to have their noses blown by nurses. I merely say that mankind does recognize these universal human functions, and that democracy classes government among them. In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important things must be left to ordinary men themselves—the mating of the sexes, the rearing of the young, the laws of the state."
"The mere machinery of voting is not democracy, though at present it is not easy to effect any simpler democratic method. But even the machinery of voting is profoundly Christian in this practical sense—that it is an attempt to get at the opinion of those who would be too modest to offer it. It is a mystical adventure; it is specially trusting those who do not trust themselves. That enigma is strictly peculiar to Christendom. There is nothing really humble about the abnegation of the Buddhist; the mild Hindoo is mild, but he is not meek. But there is something psychologically Christian about the idea of seeking for the opinion of the obscure rather than taking the obvious course of accepting the opinion of the prominent. To say that voting is particularly Christian may seem somewhat curious. To say that canvassing is Christian may seem quite crazy. But canvassing is very Christian in its primary idea. It is encouraging the humble; it is saying to the modest man, "Friend, go up higher." Or if there is some slight defect in canvassing, that is in its perfect and rounded piety, it is only because it may possibly neglect to encourage the modesty of the canvasser."
