This is not about phones. The same argument can (and has been) made about non-uniformed police officers, photography of crowds, video of demonstrations, wiretaps, postal inspection etc.
Yes, democracy can be threatened by the actions of governments and big business. Can be, has been.
The solution is nothing to do with phones, or cameras.
It is about good laws, enforced vigorously.
And that requires us to vote, to become engaged and perhaps enraged.
If anything is breaking democracy perhaps it is the realisation by government that they can get away with things that previously were unthinkable - that breaking the basic rules of democracy does not lead to destruction.
And the only solution is our vote. But enough of us need to be engaged and outraged.
The fault dear brutus is not in our stars, but in our selves.
Voting is such a weak control system, that it is obviously not enough. Regular elections pack together so many decision points into so few options that it's barely worth participating.
If we really want to influence politics, we need to get rid of this idea that voting is all that democracy means, and try to get people more organized, try to get many more people to participate directly in politics, get them to talk to their representatives regularly, get them to organize and pool resources together for important causes and so on.
If you can convince 2 people to vote your way in an election, you've had a more meaningful impact on the election than if you voted yourself. If you can convince an elected representative to change their stance on some issue, you've had probably a hundred or a thousand times more impact on policy than your vote alone has.
Until we recognize these things, the people who already do (mostly, but not exclusively, lobbyists and industry groups; and some religious organizations) will continue to effectively control policy.
Would anyone ever imagine that, if say Mark Zuckerberg wanted a particular policy, he would do nothing until the next elections, and then would go to the polling station and vote for the candidate who seems to promise that policy?
There is a whole existing structure to influence government decisions and policies.
First, there is are the Democratic and Republican party organizations which range from precinct workers up to the national committees. Typically, the only way to get elected to political office is to join and work your way up in the organization of whichever party is dominant in your area. Occasionally talented people join the non dominant party and win office, but it is rare.
Second are the numerous groups dedicated to advancing this or that policy. They have members, collect money, organize, and influence elected officials at the local, state and federal level.
Third are the various NGOs that work to influence policies in Washington. These include lobbying groups, think tanks, etc.
Fourth, money talks. If you aren't contributing to the political organizations and causes you believe in, you have very little influence in a democracy.
Agreed. Working democracy is not individual opinion poll.
In representative democracy voting in general elections is just small part of political activity. Surprisingly small amount of participation can have huge influence. Within political parties there are many influential positions where things are prepared and organized. When you get your say in the local chapter or some nationwide internal interest group, it really matters.
I joined a party in my country. While I participate very little I do it steadily. I have probably 5000x to 10000x more influence in politics than average voter who only votes. Maybe 3-5 times a year I vote online or go to meeting where representative are selected or agendas are set and vote for someone or propose someone to some position. I don't do any work myself. I just find out the people I want to do the work for me. I donate little bit or send a encouraging email to someone who I want to become more active.
Surprisingly small amount of grassroots political activity could completely change politics. It's just that people like to spend hours in the internet complaining about politics instead of taking part of it.
Democracy as it is designed in America doesn’t express the will of the majority, partially it was designed that way by the Constitution and partially because of corruption of the process via voter suppression and gerrymandering.
Because the states with the smallest population have two Senators just like the most populous states and the electoral college. People in the Midwest have far more voting power federally than someone in California.
It’s been shown time and time again in American politics that people will vote against their interest as long as the politicians can scare them with whatever the boogie man of the day is.
As much as it pains me to suggest this, the only answer is more states rights and taking power and funding out of the hands of the federal government and let the free market decide by having states compete with each other about what type of state they want. Yes, I’m acutely aware of what “states rights” means in the south. My (Black) parents grew up in the segregated south. If the federal government wasn’t “subsidizing” the same states that vote against “socialism” they would have to have more economically (not politically) progressive policies.
> If the federal government wasn’t “subsidizing” the same states that vote against “socialism” they would have to have more economically (not politically) progressive policies.
Restating, is this what you mean?:
Federal "subsidies" allow states that vote against "socially" oriented policies to avoid implementing more economically progressive policies.
(Hopefully this comes off as even handed. There are policies championed by the left and right that I don’t like).
No, what happens is that the federal government ends up subsidizing more conservative states in ways that benefit them - farm subsidies, “disability payments” for people who could work, but can’t do manual labor and would need job training, make-work military bases and other military spending that the military themselves are trying to get rid of but can’t because the civilian government doesn’t want to lose the jobs, etc.
Would states that are more welcoming of LGBTQ (who have higher income and education), have state provided health care (meaning a company could set up shop without paying for health care), taxpayer funded college/vocational education - attracting businesses and educated families, etc be more attractive than states that don’t?
On the other hand, what would happen in states that wanted to pull companies out of California (like Texas) that made it easier to build houses? More recently, if you are an independent trucker, the last place you want to live is California. The new law that passed has made it almost impossible for people who want to stay freelance/contract to do so. (http://www.dailynews.com/truckers-file-suit-challenge-states...)
Can you imagine a country where each state had to compete more vigorously for people?
Agreed, I didn't mean to imply that this would be revolutionary. But people who care about policy shouldn't be told to just vote, they should be told about the other mechanisms of influence as well, which are much more rarely discussed or brought up in this way.
If you don't mind, could you elaborate on your opinion further ?
IMO power users in democracy (lobbyists, influencers and special interest groups) will always have more leverage unless the population is educated and informed enough to be skeptical to not associate with an identity or ideology.
The recurrence of such groups throughout history seems to indicate that this hasn't become part of our collective knowledge yet and I doubt if we will ever learn. Maybe the sense of collective identity is part of human nature.
> This feels like a Unix poweruser telling grandma why she doesn’t need Dropbox.
If you meant to imply that the "Unix poweruser" is likely to make a weak argument through misapplication their own narrow expertise to a domain outside of that expertise, I agree. If you mean that Unix powerusers as a group so regularly missapply their narrow expertise that I can't even take on faith that they're picturing a human being when they utter the word "grandma", I agree.
But then I don't understand the analogy to what you call a "fairly strong" case against the desirability of democracy. If you're unfamiliar with U.S. democracy from local to federal level, you should instead be assuming the OP wrote potentially true but incomplete (and, therefore, misleading) set of statements about a domain outside of whatever their narrow expertise happens to be.
For example, there are a lot of local and municipal governments in the U.S. where elections are non-partisan. That is, elected officials don't belong to or get funding from political parties. Further, the "advocacy" groups in these areas are ones that typically organize citizens on the local or regional level to serve the community's needs.
If you run the numbers on those voting districts you'll quickly realize that individual citizens there have a considerable amount of power to affect the conditions of the town or county where they live. A lot of those decisions aren't subject to outside manipulation and are mostly bound by a citizen's time, energy, and ability to persuade others of their position.
What I just wrote is completely compatible with what Merrill wrote. But the important point is that you didn't intuit it from reading their post.
> Regular elections pack together so many decision points into so few options that it's barely worth participating.
> If we really want to influence politics, we need to get rid of this idea that voting is all that democracy means, and try to get people more organized, try to get many more people to participate directly in politics, get them to talk to their representatives regularly, get them to organize and pool resources together for important causes and so on.
>> get them to talk to their representatives regularly
The average US representative represents more than 700,000 people. If people talked to their representatives regularly, representatives wouldn't be able to vote -- or sleep. Assuming "regularly" means "once a year", the poor representatives would be meeting upwards of 2,000 people per day.
I think this is related to the problem you identify in your first paragraph, that a US election packs too many decisions into too few options. The main issue is size: at the scale of the US, there are too many decisions for democracy to be able to resolve them. Democracy is a high-involvement, high-consensus approach that works on a small scale.
Which, I believe, is why states rights and autonomy are so important. The federal government wasn’t intended to be a behemoth overseeing half a billion people. It wasn’t to have any authority other than that afforded by the constitution. The balance was intended to be controlled locally at the state level.
When recently reading about the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the individual mandate I saw that 26 or so states were in support. That sounds great: to enforce at the state level. When it’s not a violation of human rights issue, I’d love for states to pursue these goals, then document and communicate them, build communities of ownership around them, and if/when they fail, provide experimental data to other states interested in pursuing that path.
Some states are better at this than others, but I would like to see increasingly liberal policies at the local level and more conservative policies at the federal level (personally).
Well, that's the problem with states' rights. The states then can do abhorrent stuff cause it's their right.
It's one thing if the state doesn't want people to be on the cell while driving. It's a whole 'nother issue when you have "blacks-only water fountains"... And having rights means you can do horrible things cause it's your right.
I'm not sure whom I trust more: the state or the feds. At a state level I see elected officials' religion seeping in everywhere, and that frankly terrifies me.
>It's a whole 'nother issue when you have "blacks-only water fountains"... And having rights means you can do horrible things cause it's your right.
The idea would be that the federal constitution would be amended when two thirds of the states agree to something, only with that larger majority would it then be ok to force all other states to honor the new will of the people.
Let's look at civil rights as a first example. The 14th amendment gives equal protection to all and served as the legal basis for the federal government to overrule those states that didn't agree, passing supporting legislation and even sending in troops where necessary.
Let's also look at national health care. This should be a state issue until enough states agree to pass an amendment, which would happen eventually. The constitution was never intended to allow transitory slim majorities in the federal government to make such drastic changes. Look at the mess created when every couple years that slim majority changes their mind and the law of the land.
If they had not capped the number, we would have over 10,000 Representatives now. This would, of course cause problems, but when the house became too large to function, we should have added a third level of representation. But that would require Congress to relenquish some power, which will never happen voluntarily. Instead, Congress decided to solidify the power in the hands of the few, and to ensure that the voices of the many would be drowned out.
> If they had not capped the number, we would have over 10,000 Representatives now. This would, of course cause problems, but when the house became too large to function, we should have added a third level of representation.
This doesn't solve anything; assuming the top layer has the same 435 seats, you just see -- again -- that each seat is representing more than 700,000 people. Those people aren't represented better because of a layer of middle management between themselves and the top level.
Give it some more thought. By having a third level, your representative is only shared with another few hundred people, and you talk to him/her semi-regularly. And the 2nd level rep talks to that person regularly. And your concerns and values get heard and acted on.
Instead, in the current system, whoever has enough income or clout gets to talk to the Congress reps, and everyone else doesn't matter that much, because their vote can be bought with some well targeted political ads exposing the opponent as [insert unacceptable description here].
voting becomes weaker as the government gets bigger because you end up with an enormous not elected bureaucracy that in many cases is answerable to no one, especially the voting public.
worse it is self perpetuating , growing with each cycle, and siphoning off a lot of wealth and energy that could be used to make things better. in the US there are nearly eight million full time employees of federal, state, city, and local, governments. A good number wield no real power but you get into the administrative levels and then you find those who do wield it.
voting is like choosing what flavor icing you want on your cake but you have no guarantee of a cake. to truly make voting impactful more of the administrative state needs to turn over each cycle as well. hell some government agencies have their own courts
> Voting is such a weak control system, that it is obviously not enough. Regular elections pack together so many decision points into so few options that it's barely worth participating.
Yes, and then there is populism, which is in many places the biggest threat to democracy.
What is happening in the space of phones/social media looks a lot like populism.
> Yes, and then there is populism, which is in many places the biggest threat to democracy.
You think that a political movement defined by its emphasis on the people is a threat to the system of government whereby the government is chosen by the people?
I mean, just breaking down the two words etymologically should suggest a link between the two.
Populism is a form of government of catering to the whims of the majority, often by hurting some non-majority group (immigrants, etc). Like letting a board of directors loot a companies coffers, it is only a short term strategy that leaves a country poor and broken.
I don't like it any more than you do, but 'catering to the whims of the majority' seems more like an inevitable consequence of democracy than a threat to it. It's practically written into its definition.
This is why we don't typically practice direct democracy and instead have safeguards. The idea you're getting at is typically called "The Tyranny of the Majority" and is something the US founders were very cognizant of. It's why we have a split congress (house/senate), why we have the rights in the way we do (not given by the government but granted a priori to the government) and so on.
Populism can be a result of democracy, but is often times a way to subvert democracy and instead install a dictator. Thus why it's derided (on top of it's direct consequences) and why we should have safeguards in democracy.
It would be interesting to have something like a non-binding direct democracy where people vote on very low level issues. This way, the true "will of the people" could actually be known, rather the the current situation where the government and media pretends that it's known.
Even direct voting wouldn’t reveal the will of the people, because the issues are generally vastly more complex than the information supplied about them.
If my desire is to, say, eliminate the homeless problem, I wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to implement that as government policy, and anything up for a vote would almost certainly have intended and unintended consequences that are far beyond my ability to anticipate them.
E.g., California’s experimentation with direct voting. The long-term consequences of some of their votes have been tragic and definitely not what the voters would have thought they were voting for.
> Even direct voting wouldn’t reveal the will of the people, because the issues are generally vastly more complex than the information supplied about them.
Well sure, it wouldn't be perfect, but it would be a hell of a lot more accurate than the currently popular belief that who you vote for is necessarily substantially reflective of your actual beliefs.
> If my desire is to, say, eliminate the homeless problem...
Sure, but wouldn't it be potentially useful to know the degree to which people consider addressing homelessness a priority, or their beliefs in what the underlying causes are?
> E.g., California’s experimentation with direct voting. The long-term consequences of some of their votes have been tragic and definitely not what the voters would have thought they were voting for.
Are you suggesting that because one specific implementation was unsuccessful, it proves the idea cannot be successful?
That is a definition of unchecked democracy. It's the reason the U.S. government, for example, positions different powers at varying degrees of separation from the immediate will of the people: to protect the rights of groups that form a minority of voters.
I don't understand why so many people conflate democracy and freedom (as the headline of TFA seems to do). Real democracy only protects the freedom of the majority.
Us Americans have an impractical revulsion to lobbying and industry groups. Most Americans simply do not have the time and, at least until recently, are not too concerned what someone a state away does. Unfortunately, like you pointed out, voting isn't a frequent enough control mechanism on the authoritarians or simply narcissistic politicians ready to hand out favors. So, what do we do if lobbying and industrial groups are automatically not an option?
Agreed on voting. The Dem + GOP cartel has a stranglehold on the process, the market if you will. Their collusion (e.g., gerrymandering) has resulted in a system that perpetrates their lens and their power.
Put another way, just because you get to vote doesn't mean it was a true democratic process.
I've been thinking about this for some time. What if:
- we vote on topics instead of for parties
- party affiliation ceases to exist at the national level (might still be useful for city counsils)
- we vote for representatives standing for specific topics & solutions. After elections those representatives form working groups
What this would avoid:
- huge senates voting on topics they're unequipped to understand
- voting the party line
Obviously establishing such a system would require a massive overhaul of our governments, but I'd like to think there's something better than the currently existing democratic systems.
Having separate working groups make decisions on a single topic each doesn't work due to overlap. If the Committee of Environmental Protection and the Committee of Energy Production disagree about the correct amount to subsidize installation of solar panels, you need some way to arbitrate between them. Even if there's no overlap in topics, they'll still compete for their share of the total budget.
It's not like parliamentary systems don't have topical working groups already. If all members of a working group agree on a proposal and it fits within budget constraints, they can get it passed without much friction.
Huge senates voting the party line on topics they're unequipped to understand are the conflict-resolution process for when there's disagreement on a topic. Being affiliated with a party is a compromise where you vote with the bloc on topics you don't particularly care about in exchange for having the bloc vote your way on topics you do care about, but they don't.
Working democracy is not solved only by voting. You have to discuss, negotiate, learn and organize with other people. You need political people who learn the things under consideration, and what other people think. How to get a compromise that satisfies most.
If you vote for X and 60% votes yes, 40% no, those 40% are unsatisfied. Ideally you want negotiate and get a solution where X+b gets more than 60% of the votes.
What makes you think most people want this? I don't think it's coincidence that most people vote the party line consistently throughout their lives. I think they identify with a party and it becomes a part of who they are.
It sounds like you want something that encourages critical thinking. Call me cynical, but I don't think most people want to think critically.
>If we really want to influence politics, we need to get rid of this idea that voting is all that democracy means, and try to get people more organized, try to get many more people to participate directly in politics, get them to talk to their representatives regularly, get them to organize and pool resources together for important causes and so on.
You think people have time and energy for this? If they did they could already do it.
Usually you take the good with the bad and vote for the candidate that agrees with you on the issues that you care about the most, or the one that seems more reasonable overall.
Not all people, obviously. But I'm tired of hearing that everything would be better if only people voted. People feel, correctly, that voting is not always an efficient way of influencing public policy. However, instead of hearing about all the other mechanisms which exist, they simply conclude that they can't influence public policy and abandon the stage completely. If we want to get more people involved in political matters, helping them find ways to influence what they care about with less effort than it takes right now would be the best way (not that I know what would be a real solution to that).
> Usually you take the good with the bad and vote for the candidate that agrees with you on the issues that you care about the most, or the one that seems more reasonable overall.
How is that working out in the US?
I don't want to make an analysis of what's wrong or right in american politics. If someone got elected with the message they will burn down the house and everything and he doesn't care... I hope you read this message that after this presidency, you cannot go back to business as usual.
Even if "you" win in the next election, it's going to be more brutal in the election after that one. The EU countries know this and are already planning for an exit of the US on the global stage.
We now know pretty well addiction has little to do with the specifics of the substances we abuse: one can be addicted to gambling or sex just as well as to various chemicals. However that argument doesn't mean heroin is safe or that one should approach opiates without care.
I think the same can be said of smartphones: if the government or a company wants to track you they will find other ways to do that, but we're making it the game far too easy for them. Another issue is that smartphones are so pervasive that 1) it has become increasingly difficult and sometimes impossible to do some things without one; 2) the sole fact of choosing not to use or own one is suspect.
So, yeah surveillance is not just about phones, but we need to have a serious discussions about whether it is at all an option to opt out and lead a normal life.
- Yes voting is weak, but it is what counts. Please write to your MP / congresswoman, please join your local party, or volunteer at a refugee centre. All those things are vital life blood of democracy and I tip my hat to you if you have done any of those things. But the final thing is voting - it's what counts, what adds up.
- We still need good laws. We still need them enforced. It would be lovely if we had a law that put politicians in jail if they lied. But just as Twitter and Facebook are finding, defining "political", "lie" and "truth"
are hard problems. Like making NP-hard a walk in the park hard.
- A new battlefront has opened. In the same way in the 1900s armed forces started saying, "Well I guess we are gonna need some pilots", we need "some coders". HN is probably the highest density of new pilots on the planets - and we are going to need the skills. Once I could read ten newspapers and know what information had been fed to millions of people - today that needs a university level observatory monitoring twitter and facebook firehouses. It will only get worse and the best we can hope for is to fight for the idea of objective truth agreed upon by millions. It's a fight well
worth the coding. See you on the frontline.
And you’ll be fed outrage on subject that the source want you to outrage on. And you will be outraged.
An entire country will be. Just think about how many time you’ve experienced outrage over positive human experience some online content has? You’re already there, you want more outrage because you’re addicted to this mess.
I agree that technology itself is not the problem. The problem imo is humans themselves, the natural and biological tendency to identify with a group and behave hostilely against another group.
The problem with that logic is that it completely ignores the effectiveness of the surveillance. You can't really dispatch non-uniformed police officer for every demonstrator to find out where they live. With location data you can.
> [The solution] is about good laws, enforced vigorously.
This I agree with, but I think it does have to be more than just "good laws". It has to also be a constitution, or some check on the government that is outside the "regular" powers of government to overcome.
I think of the US-style bill of rights as having the correct idea - make it clear that the government is a servant of the people, that the people have given it power over some things, but certainly not everything, and that there are some things which are completely off-limits for the government.
> The solution is nothing to do with phones, or cameras. It is about good laws, enforced vigorously.
I think this rationale is exactly what got us into this mess. Laws are sufficiently complex that navigating them successfully is only realistic with a lot of resources. Laws have become an instrument of power for wealthy people.
In order to have unbiased enforcement we need to clean up and simplify the laws we already have.
Phones are merely one of the common and accurate ways to track people. We clearly need legislation for everything related to this, but phones provide a good and visceral example of the dangers.
Snowden shared a chilling video today of smartphone surveillance at play in China. Its a real wake up call- what happens when there is no privacy from the state. Please share.
https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1208469511051075585
They also used taser on her as she was already on the chair: "Did you see this? (tazzzap) (she cries from pain) It will happen again, so sit down and stop resisting."
At least there's a difference: there's no record of her being interrogated later while bound to the chair.
Or, maybe a bit more relevant, surveillance in action in the U.S. of A (2012):
Claiming these issues are not systematic [0] and institutionalized [1], is willfully ignoring a very apparent problem.
This isn't even reserved to US police, the whole system is flawed to the root due to being based on retribution and vengeance, instead of actual rehabilitation, which feeds exactly the kind of straight-up sadism showcased so often by US police and the US justice system.
Case in point: Tazzing a restrained woman is justified with her having been "argumentative" [2].
Just follow the orders, be obedient, lick some boots, and then this will supposedly never happen to you, is a very common reply to these "news-worthy odd cases".
But these "news-worthy odd cases" are merely the tip of an iceberg that is the US justice system boasting the highest incarceration rate and the largest prisoner population on the planet. Many of them working in for-profit forced labor prisons [3] or being imprisoned under circumstances that some would rate as torture [4].
It's all extremely authoritarian [5], deeply embedded into the country and culture, but regularly overshadowed by the chants of "Land of the free!" distracting from the crass actual reality.
Just to be clear, if you were in China and made these kinds of comments about Chinese police online, more likely then not you would end up in a much worse situation, if you didn't use appropriate counter measures.
China having worse systematic problems than the US inn this area doesn't change the fact that the US problems are systematic and (from the perspective of value systems around individual rights commonly espoused in America) serious.
Duh this should be common knowledge by now and it s only getting worse. Yes you should be freaked out about living in a world without privacy, but no, democracy is not in danger, freedom is in danger. In fact, democratic people voted for this shit and they keep voting for more regulation/spying because "think of the children/terrorists". Authoritarian control has gotten hold of both democracies and non-democracies and people are fine with it. So, maybe blame the majority along with the phones.
> Authoritarian control has gotten hold of both democracies and non-democracies and people are fine with it.
And how is democracy doing in places where authoritation control has gotten out of hand? After all, you are claiming that democracy is not in danger. So, have people who noticed that they weren't that keen on authoritarianism after all regularly voted the authoritarians out of office successfully, then?
> So, have people who noticed that they weren't that keen on authoritarianism after all regularly voted the authoritarians out of office successfully, then?
A big problem today is that people can be very keen on authoritarian measures used against people they don't like. Or can be persuaded to hate by a media campaign.
Surveillance democracy is a thing, as is surveillance communism/putinism/erdoganism. The difference is that democracies have found a way to manufacture the consent of the majority, while in autocracies it's easier to pin the blame to one person.
> have people who noticed that they weren't that keen on authoritarianism after all regularly voted the authoritarians out of office successfully, then?
There are relatively few people who aren't keen on surveillance. most people are on board with UK level surveillance and most americans still think badly of Snowden. Don't expect it to be voted out soon
> Surveillance democracy is a thing, as is surveillance communism/putinism/erdoganism. The difference is that democracies have found a way to manufacture the consent of the majority, while in autocracies it's easier to pin the blame to one person.
Well, is it really, though? I mean, no doubt there is a thing that people call "surveillance democracy", and I would agree that it's actually a distinguishable thing.
But for one, just because something is called "democracy", doesn't make it a democracy, so the question would be: What makes a democracy a democracy, and would a "surveillance democracy" fit those criteria?
But also: Is a "surveillance democracy" even a place where authoritarian control has gotten out of hand yet? Maybe as long as you could still vote the authoritarians out of office, it's not out of hand yet? But then, what if there is actually no real way to achieve this, for whatever reason, and those places are destined for a situation where it is generally accepted that the authoritarians can not be voted out of office, even when people might ultimately change their mind about that whole authoritarianism thing? Maybe then it is out of hand after all? But then, is democracy actually fine if it is unavoidably destined for a place where it is impossible for a majority to elect a new government?
Your analysis so far seems not too far from a line of thought that would conclude that the GDR was a democracy (they had elections, and they even called themselves democratic!)--not sure whether you would agree with that, but the GDR sure was and is not considered a democracy by many.
> most people are on board with UK level surveillance
But are they really? My impression is rather that people simply have no fucking clue what surveillance does or what the risks are. So, while it might well be true that most people don't think of surveillance as a problem right now, that doesn't answer the question of whether people are actually OK with it, as in what their opinion would be once they might be directly confronted with the consequences.
And that was my point: There sure are and have been plenty of places where people are not happy with authoritarianism anymore, and those do not tend to be the places where people just vote the authoritarianism out. Authoritarianism is not compatible with democracy, by its definition: It is kindof fine just as long as there is still enough democracy left to potentially remove the authoritarians, so people don't realize the danger they are in, but it becomes unbearable exatly at the point where that power does not exist anymore, because that is also the point at which the authoritarians don't have to care about public opinion much anymore.
> something is called "democracy", doesn't make it a democracy,
Right. We used to call them "liberal democracies" in the west, at some point we dropped the adjective. Obviously democracies like russia, GDR, even Turkey are not liberal, but that bar is pretty low for the west.
> Is a "surveillance democracy" even a place where authoritarian control has gotten out of hand yet?
> Maybe as long as you could still vote the authoritarians out of office, it's not out of hand yet?
No it hasn't. Yet again, the concentration of power is more visible and pervasive than ever (eg. surveillance, border controls, police brutality, incarceration, monetary controls). It's fair to say that both left and right agree with large scale, everpresent state surveillance. We are content with doing relative comparisons between western democracies and illiberal authoritarian governments, but that is wrong, we should instead be measuring democracies against objective measures of liberty.
> But are they really? My impression is rather that people simply have no fucking clue what surveillance does or what the risks are.
Yes, i think they are at this point. "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" is the dominant ideology. The world's most expensive, desireable cities are also the most surveilled. This might be taken as a sign of democracies sliding into illiberalism, as has happened many times in the past.
> Authoritarianism is not compatible with democracy, by its definition
Ostensibly, democracies help to avoid fascism and complete concentration of power , but democracy itself is not enough to guarantee freedom. Democracies have voted in the world's worst fascists. There is a case to be made about the abandonment of Enlightenment ideas of reason, liberty, fraternity in place of Democracy (which comes parceled with populism and was not even an Enlightenment ideal).
> Yes, i think they are at this point. "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" is the dominant ideology. The world's most expensive, desireable cities are also the most surveilled. This might be taken as a sign of democracies sliding into illiberalism, as has happened many times in the past.
How is that a response to my suspicion that people don't understand the risks of authoritarianism? You are just repeating that people do not object to living under surveillance, which is exactly what I said, while you are not responding at all to me pointing out that that may well be because they don't understand what is happening, rather than because they understand what is coming and are fine with it.
> Ostensibly, democracies help to avoid fascism and complete concentration of power , but democracy itself is not enough to guarantee freedom. Democracies have voted in the world's worst fascists.
How is that a response to authoritarianism not being compatible with democracy? It's like if I said that fire is not compatible with structural integritry, and you are countering that many a structurally sound building has burned down. Yeah, they have, and I very much doubt many of them were structurally sound afterwards.
> rather than because they understand what is coming and are fine with it.
Sorry if it wasn't clear, i do believe people know the consequences of surveillance and are OK with it. An Authoritarian state does not let its citizens know they are living in an authoritarian state. It oppresses or annihilates minorities to create a golden cage for the rest. Thankfully, liberal democracies are free enough so audiences in the west are informed of the consequences of surveilance (humiliating border controls, incarceration, police brutality), and they are largely OK with it. I don't see evidence to the contrary.
> How is that a response to authoritarianism not being compatible with democracy?
Authoritarianism has gradations and is not incompatible with democracy. Democracy may protect from extreme authoritarianism but it doesn't guarantee liberalism.
> Thankfully, liberal democracies are free enough so audiences in the west are informed of the consequences of surveilance (humiliating border controls, incarceration, police brutality), and they are largely OK with it. I don't see evidence to the contrary.
So, you think that the general public understands what it is like to live in a police state, how corruption wastes resources that they otherwise could benefit from, what negative consequences they themselves can expect further down the road?
If you ask me, most people are not even really aware of the things you list. Most people believe those things are a small necessary evil that you need to ensure safety, or individual mistakes that happen, and and it's not something they would ever experience themselves, because they believe that the state is fair and friendly and would only ever do such things to people who really did bad things, which they themselves obviously aren't, as any officer would immediately recognize. People have no fucking clue how power structures work, how their data is actually being used, how bad corruption can get, how inhuman governments can act against them. They have no fucking clue right up to the moment where they are the victim and they are totally surprised what is happening to them.
> Authoritarianism has gradations and is not incompatible with democracy. Democracy may protect from extreme authoritarianism but it doesn't guarantee liberalism.
How isn't that the exact same "but structurally sound buildings have burned down!" response as before? Nobody is claiming that democracy guarantees liberalism, rather this is all about the fact that you can not have democracy without liberalism. Democracies are perfectly capable of ending liberalism, and have done so many times, but with it they necessarily end democracy. Either people can make free decision in their own best interest, or they have to follow what the authority dictates. A democracy in which authoritarianism rules is only a democracy in name, but not in function, just as the GDR was. If the dictator tells you who you have to vote for, that is not a democracy, no matter how much you get to vote.
> Most people believe those things are a small necessary evil that you need to ensure safety,
I believe the same too, but not that people are clueless. People are quite aware (imperfectly , but still pretty well) of what can go wrong, and they 've decided that losing some liberties is a small price to pay. It's been too many years of revelations and media campaigns. I think at this point we just have to admit that most people don't mind, not that they don't know. That's what leads many people to say that true freedom is not compatible with democracy.
> A democracy in which authoritarianism rules is only a democracy in name, but not in function, just as the GDR was.
Right, but where do you draw the line. Did the germans in 1933 think they have a democracy? Do Turks or Russians today think they have a democracy? It's easy to tell post-facto, or from the outside, not so easy when it's happening in real time. Do the UK or US think they have a liberal democracy ? absolutely. Is that 100% true? less clear
> People are quite aware (imperfectly , but still pretty well) of what can go wrong, and they 've decided that losing some liberties is a small price to pay.
In other words: They do not understand that they are losing all liberties?
> It's been too many years of revelations and media campaigns. I think at this point we just have to admit that most people don't mind, not that they don't know.
I very much disagree. Do you have an idea what media people consume? What absolute bullshit they are being fed? Do you really think that people on that basis have an accurate understanding of where all of this will lead?
> Right, but where do you draw the line.
You don't, there is no need to, it's not a binary matter. You might for pragmatic reasons in order to have terms to use for effective communication, but there is no actual line between "dictatorship" and "democracy", between "libertarianism" and "totalitarianism", it's a scale with many steps in between the two extremes. The point is that just because something might be considered a democracy under some pragmatic definition, doesn't mean it's therefore equivalent to everything else that you might label a democracy.
> Did the germans in 1933 think they have a democracy? Do Turks or Russians today think they have a democracy?
I think that's somewhat the wrong question to ask, in that it assumes "the Germans", "the Turks", or "the Russians" to be homogeneous groups. There most definitely were and are lots of people in all of those societies who would not consider their political system a functional democracy.
> It's easy to tell post-facto, or from the outside, not so easy when it's happening in real time.
Well, but is that actually true? If you understand power structures somewhat, it's not really that hard to see, is it? It seems to me this is much more a matter of competence than of your location in time or space. While it may be hard to get the full picture of what is going on, it's not really that hard to see whether you are free to say whatever you want, to inform yourself about whatever you want, to vote securely, i.e., whether the structural prerequesites for a democracy are there. It's just that a lot of people are not competent at recognizing what authoritarianism looks like and are more than willing to accept any authoritarian apologetics they are presented with.
> Do the UK or US think they have a liberal democracy ? absolutely. Is that 100% true? less clear
But do they? As above: I am pretty sure a significant proportion of people don't think that, at least not without reservations. And a large section of the public wouldn't even know what you mean by "liberal democracy" as opposed to just "democracy", so you can not really meaningfully say that they think they live in a liberal democracy. They would understand your question to mean "can you vote?", which they would, correctly so based on their understanding of the question, answer with "yes".
I think it might be helpful to draw an analogy with religion: Many religious people have a very warped understanding of reality and in particular of how to understand reality. They simply lack the competence to understand the failures in their reasoning. They think they do understand the world in terms of their preferred fictional story, but they don't realize it's all fictional. So, based on their rather confused understanding of the world, they then demand that slavery should be upheld, or that gay people should be oppressed, or that women must not be allowed to control their own bodies, or whatever the case may be, because they think that those are the right things to do. But then, there is a not insignificant group of people who overcome their religion, who come to understand how reality actually works and how it can actually be understood. And with that understanding usually comes a rejection of their previous political stance, because they now understand the actual consequences of their former ideas. These are not people who are actually fundamentally OK with the damage they were doing before, they simply were lacking an understanding of how their actions were damaging, because based on their previous fictional world view, they were doing the right thing to prevent bad things from happening.
You have to consider that people might just be incompetent at this democracy thing, rather than that they all have an understanding that reflects all the things that they could know if they were paying attention to the right sources that you might be paying attention to.
It's not just phones. And you don't need GPS to get GPS-level location accuracy. All that you need is WiFi capability.
Because WiFi devices scan for APs. And there are databases of GPS-located APs. Located by other GPS-enabled pawns, as it happens. So if you're using anything Google related, or other apps that access such data, you can be tracked. Just from WiFi. Without a cellular radio, or GPS.
To add to this, if an AP has monitor mode capabilities then our device's don't even need to be connected to the AP via WiFi to be tracked. They just need to have WiFi turned on and sending out probes.
Yes, but that's just about being tracked by the WiFi AP itself. But as I understand it, being tracked by apps on your device doesn't depend on the AP having monitor mode capability. APs get geolocated primarily by GPS-capable smartphones. And then devices get geolocated based on proximity to such APs. Basically, through latency-based triangulation.
Simple triangulation of any dumb phone that hasn't even got a sim card inserted is enough tracking for most surveillance governments. Unless of course we move to a world where people without sim cards become a significant minority or registering a sim card isn't so invasive.
I don't get why people confuse Democracy with Constitutional Republic. The first is run by "mob rule" where personal rights can be swept away with the popular sentiment. The second (which is what the United States has) is where the Constitution protects personal rights despite popular sentiment.
Generally because someone was failed by a civics lesson that was excessively dogmatic in its definitions. This can lead to strange situations, where compatible descriptors are mis-parsed into mutually exclusive claims.
The United States is a Symmetric Federalist Constitutional Representative Democratic Republic.
The first is a philosophical principle that says that a government must serve the governed people, the second is an actual form of government that tries to implement the first.
> n. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
> n. A political or social unit that has such a government.
> n. The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.
But better, where outside of some ancient history book did you ever see somebody use that word describing exclusively a government like the one in ancient Greece? (Not to say that republic comes from the exact same concepts, just in a different language.)
> these definitions are not the same as the one you stated previously.
"Government by the people" vs "The common people, considered as the primary source of political power" vs. "government must serve the governed people". Oh, I see, I have used different words!
> All these 3 definitions of democracy may apply to a democracy that uses allotment instead of elections.
Where did I say it doesn't apply?
> You are correct that modern usage of democracy is restricted to "election based majority government".
Wait, what? I didn't say that, and it is not correct.
Latest Firefox here, takes a few minutes to load and all I get is a mostly black top half of the screen and a few seconds of 'video' stuttering along in the bottom half.
> Phones can be tracked? So can anything if the interested party is rich enough, powerful enough or dedicated enough.
In other words: Nothing is dangerous, because there is always another way to achieve the same thing if your resources are unlimited. Seriously?
> There are apps on phone with full encryption, there are mesh app that require no setup. There are custom roms for android with 100% focus security and privacy.
In other words: There are ways for individuals who understand the situation to limit their participation, therefore what is actually happening is of no concern, no matter where it actually leads. Seriously?
> Also is tracking bad? If we ignore the privacy fanatics, all the good that location tracking has given us far outways all the bad stuff.
Could you substantiate that, maybe?
> Also everyone seems to love the idea giving people a voice but does a 360 when they realize other people can have completely opposite radical ideas too.
In other words: People who want people to have a voice should be happy when people who want to shut up everyone who isn't like them are promoting their ideas? Seriously?
If there's one thing you can count on the Times for, it is ragging on about everything under the sun being a threat to democracy. They don't ever want to place the blame a little closer to home, though.
This is not about phones. The same argument can (and has been) made about non-uniformed police officers, photography of crowds, video of demonstrations, wiretaps, postal inspection etc.
Yes, democracy can be threatened by the actions of governments and big business. Can be, has been.
The solution is nothing to do with phones, or cameras.
It is about good laws, enforced vigorously.
And that requires us to vote, to become engaged and perhaps enraged.
If anything is breaking democracy perhaps it is the realisation by government that they can get away with things that previously were unthinkable - that breaking the basic rules of democracy does not lead to destruction.
And the only solution is our vote. But enough of us need to be engaged and outraged.
The fault dear brutus is not in our stars, but in our selves.