[HN Gopher] How to Subvert a Democracy, Stage 2: Condition the M...
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How to Subvert a Democracy, Stage 2: Condition the Masses
Author : yamrzou
Score : 68 points
Date : 2023-04-28 20:31 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (narratively.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (narratively.com)
| sufehmi wrote:
| The easiest way to subvert democracy is by
|
| (1) creating political parties, then
|
| (2) claim that its party members represent the people, while
|
| (3) they actually represent its political party, and therefore,
| of course, prioritize its interests.
|
| In my country, every major oligarchs have its own / is a member
| of a political party.
|
| So our "Council of People's Representatives" actually works as
| "Council of Party's Representative" - and therefore work very
| diligently to fight for the interests of our oligarchs.
|
| And yet no one is upset, not even our "democracy activists" -
| because they're already conditioned / believe that, political
| parties are a requirement for a proper democracy.
|
| Nope, they're not - and they're actually the way to subvert
| democracy, and enabled the oligarchs to create massive profits
| AND control the people at the same time.
| int_19h wrote:
| Parties are an inevitable feature of any representative
| democracy for the simple reason that MPs who pool their votes
| will consistently beat those who do not. Even council democracy
| - where the delegates vote according to instructions of their
| electorate and can be instantly recalled - is not immune to
| this.
| digging wrote:
| It's a pretty simple equation if you abstract voting into a
| competition. One can think of political parties as miniature
| states themselves. In a world of individuals trying to
| survive - the ones who survive will not remain individuals.
| They will form alliances and have power over those who are
| alone. A small state has little power, but a stateless
| individual has orders of magnitude less, roundable to zero.
| Likewise an independent member of a voting body will control
| the discussion among large parties.
|
| Parties could only be avoided by explicitly outlawing them -
| and not just by name, but by proscribing specific behaviors
| which could create de facto parties. Sounds incredibly
| difficult and would be amazing to watch attempted.
| Etrnl_President wrote:
| [dead]
| imiric wrote:
| It's patently evident that the current social and political
| instability in the West is caused by ideological subversion
| carried out by their political enemies. The internet and social
| media have provided the perfect weapon to deliver disinformation
| and propaganda to manipulate the masses, and create a state of
| internal conflict and confusion. Modern warfare is no longer
| carried out by soldiers and artillery, but by words, videos and
| troll farms. Why waste resources investing in physical offense,
| when you can undermine your enemy via ideological means, using
| the same tools they built for you, and watch their political and
| social systems crumble from within? If nothing else, it makes the
| eventual physical offensive much cheaper and more effective.
|
| This has been known for decades[1], yet the West has done little
| to stop it from happening. They engage in the same psyops, but
| information in the countries of their enemies is much more
| strictly controlled, so it has much less of an impact.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1EA2ohrt5Q
| UberFly wrote:
| I was going to post this exact interview. What's crazy is that
| the tools to do this are now so much more powerful and far-
| reaching. Worth a watch.
| 8note wrote:
| I think without the adversarial subversion, the states would be
| in just as bad of a place. It would be less clear in policies
| implemented, but the root cause is a lack of engagement in
| politics and use of the tools from modernity and the
| enlightenment.
|
| People aren't sold on debate and discussion, and aren't aligned
| on goals, and don't have a way to align on goals
| tcbawo wrote:
| The middle of both parties are getting older and older. Newly
| elected politicians tend to be populistic culture warriors.
| Consequently, we're not able to elect anyone that gets
| anything done. Gone are the days of electing the most serious
| and responsible public servants. We're not able to replace
| aging incumbent politicians with grownups. Or so it seems.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| > The internet and social media have provided the perfect
| weapon to deliver disinformation and propaganda to manipulate
| the masses, and create a state of internal conflict and
| confusion.
|
| Yes, unlike the good old day when legacy media
| (tv/newspapers/radio) served the people and told them the
| truth, without trying to manipulate the masses.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Ideological subversion has been happening since the Frankfurt
| school fled to the US: "critical theories" festered in
| academia for generations until they could permeate and rot
| society.
|
| Social media, however, accelerated that by allowing
| individual manipulation of vulnerable young people with that
| messaging by both foreign adversaries and subverted citizens.
| Boosted by things like economic warfare, where China funds
| these radical groups and promotes their agendas.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| That wouldn't have happened if the legacy media and local
| state actors didn't discredit themselves with blatant lies,
| open bias and non-stop propaganda. Foreign adversaries have
| gained some meaningful ground only because local sources of
| information stopped even pretending to be an objective
| source of information.
| imiric wrote:
| Big difference: legacy media was far less accessible to
| foreign enemies. Not that disinformation didn't happen from
| within, but certainly not with the force we've seen in the
| last two decades, and without the intent to destabilize their
| own democracies.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Does criminally charging your leading opposition candidate count?
| youngNed wrote:
| It's a well written path in those trying: "Lock her up"
| certainly was attempting it
| Alupis wrote:
| There's quite a difference between saying something, and
| doing something, no?
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| Definitely. The difference is extant vs. invented evidence
| of criminal activity.
| krapp wrote:
| Not when they actually commit crimes, no.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| as determined by the ruling party?
| krapp wrote:
| If you refuse to see the system investigating your chosen
| candidate as legitimate, then I suppose you could describe
| the process of the rule of law in hostile and bad faith
| terms, yes.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Does criminally charging your leading opposition candidate
| count?
|
| If it is on the same standards (or a higher bar) than that
| under which someone who was a political ally or uninvolved
| would be charged, no.
|
| If it is on a basis on which someone differently politically
| situated with the same degree of evidence of the same kind of
| crime would otherwise not be charged, than yes.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| So if one party doesn't face charges despite documented
| foreign influence pedaling, selling classified documents, and
| subverting national constitution, but the other is charged on
| a campaign finance violation similar to those regularly
| committed by the first party -- that would be a problem?
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| No one has been charged under such circumstances before. Non
| disclosure agreements are legal. Billing to pay fees for them
| is legal too. Trump was financing his own campaign. A
| candidate can contribute to their own campaign as much as
| they want.
| hedora wrote:
| Ironically, I just got downvoted in another thread for saying
| science advisors should have relevant education or practical
| experience.
| hdiwhxisjshs wrote:
| for that we all must drop the pretense that a centralized
| government is not for the preservation of status quo, i.e.
| maintaining existing privilege.
|
| all ministerial positions are about positioning, not
| effectiveness.
|
| china has this spelled out in some laws and govt practices.
| e.g. they assume rural resources will be abused by a central
| group until they can get a stronger state law presence. but
| accept it and keep dumping resource till then and then work
| with those corrupt entities to ease the region absorption into
| proper state mechanics instead of "fighting corruption" or some
| other grand but disconnected goal
|
| for and older but more comprehensive view on the article
| points, there's: Coup d'Etat: A Practical Handbook
| xg15 wrote:
| > _...and that potentially meant that the government might force
| United Fruit to make costly changes, like raising wages.
|
| [...] Ideally, Guatemala would back down and start praising
| United Fruit for being a job creator instead of a foreign
| plunderer._
|
| Somewhat OT, but one of the feats of propaganda that impresses me
| the most is how "jobs" were successfully established as an end in
| itself instead of a means.
|
| As a politician, you can easily run on the platform of "creating
| jobs" without ever discussing wages.
|
| As an employee, it doesn't matter if the job is wrecking your
| health, making you neglect your family and pays less than living
| wage, just _having a job_ on its own is something to be grateful
| of.
|
| An employer is not needing services that employees provide, no,
| an employer is _creating jobs_ and then in infinite grace
| _giving_ them to the employees.
|
| It's crazy, but it works.
| carabiner wrote:
| Once you get down to it, everything in the US seems to be
| designed to benefit big business / oligarchs. Culture wars
| topics are intended to distract from things like healthcare,
| raising the minimum wage, solving the housing crisis in cities,
| taxing the rich, and so on. They create our pain, then dangle
| "jobs" as a salve.
| mrangle wrote:
| Everything in the US is designed to feed you the exact frame
| of mind that you are reflecting.
|
| Which aside from entertainment messaging and your educational
| curriculum, should be obvious by the fact that its largely
| the marginal social tier that thinks as you do.
|
| To see the edge of the actual discussion: think about the
| dissonance of a worldview that simultaneously sees the
| nation's problems to be inherent in enforced hierarchy as
| mediated by the government, as you state, and the solution to
| that problem being the same government's enforcement of
| taxation.
|
| There's only room for one of those views in anyone's mind.
| They cannot logically exist simultaneously. The government
| will never be simultaneously a marauder and a beneficent tax
| collector. And nothing changes its stripes.
|
| Culture war topics aren't intended to distract from any of
| the things that you mention. Your list is a litany of topics
| barely adjacent to the culture war.
|
| The culture war is about legal control of people whose
| natural habits and views would otherwise preclude it. When
| control has reached its limit working through the channel of
| temptation, then the only avenue left is the one that legally
| forces norms that are so distasteful to the natural senses
| that they oppress most normal people.
| cawest11 wrote:
| Instead of relying on a caricature mixing and matching
| every theory/ ideology left of liberalism to advance a non
| argument against a non-entity, maybe do something useful,
| like read a book. You sound like an idiot.
| ss108 wrote:
| I think this line of thinking is unrealistic and rather
| unempathetic.
|
| People on both sides of culture war issues really do care
| about them. I agree that there are a number of more important
| issues, but the ordering of political priorities is basically
| subjective and nobody needs share anyone else's.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _People on both sides of culture war issues really do
| care about them._
|
| That's the goal of every diversion. Sports fans really care
| about their teams too (in some cases to the point of mass
| hysteria, or beating other people other them).
|
| > _but the ordering of political priorities is basically
| subjective and nobody needs share anyone else 's._
|
| Not so subjective, since conveniently almost everybody ends
| up sharing the ordering of one of the two sides they are
| conditioned to pick among.
|
| That's like saying "fashion is subjective" and then 90% of
| the people wearing the same shit for the season, the very
| thing advertised to death 24/7.
| rco8786 wrote:
| Yea more or less. Things that benefit the standard of living
| for the population but cut into corporate profits are
| basically DOA.
| [deleted]
| RobotToaster wrote:
| It isn't a coincidence that most of these culture war topics
| gained prominence after the occupy movement.
| parineum wrote:
| Jobs are better than no jobs, across the board.
|
| More jobs increase the wealth of the employed.
|
| More jobs improves the job market for the employees (more
| demand for their services).
|
| More jobs helps (small and large) business owners (more wealth
| in the hands of customers).
|
| If there are 10,000 coal mining jobs and 9,000 coal miners,
| coal mining conditions will improve.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| > Jobs are better than no jobs, across the board.
|
| What about slavery? What if there is a spectrum between
| chattel slavery and owning the means of production? How would
| you determine where "job" exists on that spectrum?
|
| Slaves still get fed and housed. If _the only_ thing that a
| job offers is food and housing, how different is that from
| slavery? How free is a person who can _only_ afford to house
| and feed themselves?
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| That was the precondition for the two worldwars in germany.
| Lots of "farmhands" with food and shelter, nothing to be
| proud of, no future, no family, so they got there whole
| pride from nationalism and race, and the farm owners talked
| themselves into believing they were basically nobility.
|
| Then the whole situation spiraled out of hand, because
| everything was better then socialism. Turns out in the end,
| it was not.
|
| Blockades used against "rival" empires made drastic
| measures rationalizable, like for example mass murdering
| populations to provide for your own population, that could
| not be fed without oil imports aka fertilizers. This whole
| madness we today remember, started out rational.
|
| I thought we already went down this road and remembered
| were it leads.
| Claudus wrote:
| More free than a person who can not afford to house
| themselves, and less free than a person who cannot feed
| themselves (because they are dead).
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| What does it _mean_ to not be able to afford to house
| yourself?
| pastacacioepepe wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_housing
| Alupis wrote:
| Few, if any slaves felt purpose, belonging, responsibility,
| and personal discipline - all generally positive feelings
| that are associated with working on something for a reason.
| digging wrote:
| But jobs don't offer any of those things.
|
| _Good_ jobs might. Ideally, at no cost to your health or
| relationships, but no guarantee.
| [deleted]
| pastacacioepepe wrote:
| > purpose, belonging, responsibility, and personal
| discipline - all generally positive feelings that are
| associated with working on something for a reason
|
| If you think this statement reflects in any way the
| reality of the majority of the global workforce then you
| have no idea what work is like for most people.
| gameman144 wrote:
| I think one big difference is that a job is something you
| have a choice in. A person who can only afford to house and
| feed themselves isn't free to have _no_ job, but they are
| free to choose _which_ job they do. In such cases, the
| parent 's point of "more jobs are better" definitely
| applies, as it gives workers a lot more choice (even
| disregarding the bargaining power).
| elecush wrote:
| Germane: there can be no green new deal without a robust
| manufacturing sector in America. Some sort of higher-tech
| revolution could be possible, though.
| johnea wrote:
| This whole 7 part series is really an eye opener.
|
| Most people have heard about Allende/Pinochet, and Regan's
| illegal war in Nicaragua, but I don't think that many people in
| the US have heard about this. I certainly hadn't.
|
| This series is excellent, especially in the many references to
| decassified documents. Agencies denying operations for decades,
| only to have those operations confirmed after declassification is
| a repeating pattern.
|
| Seeing how powerful this media based campaign was in the 1950s
| also sheds some perspective on how overwhelmingly powerful modern
| fake-video can be in persuading a population.
|
| All rolled up, this really spells a very hard road ahead for
| democratic government. How are ordinary people supposed to pull
| back the deception and understandd the truth, in the face of
| highly-funded media campaigns to deceive them? It becomes less
| and less possible with every new technical development.
| GreedClarifies wrote:
| "Regan's illegal war in Nicaragua"
|
| Ok, huffingtonpost.
| sammalloy wrote:
| > Similarly, much of the Russian disinformation campaign of 2016
| -- especially in the beginning -- was not about convincing people
| of falsehoods. It was about sowing seeds of discredit and doubt
| about Hillary Clinton, and about the U.S. electoral system
| generally. It didn't matter what was actually on Clinton's email
| server, so long as talking about it cast doubt on her integrity.
|
| This tactic of fear, uncertainty and doubt has been addressed by
| numerous authors in recent decades. Science historian Naomi
| Oreskes pointed to the deliberate cultivation of uncertainty
| about climate change by Bill Nierenberg, Fred Seitz, and Fred
| Singer to slow down and stop regulations on fossil fuel
| companies.
|
| In 2012, Jay Rosen, journalism professor at NYU, described this
| cultivation of uncertainty on the right as a process of "reverse
| verification", with the example of the question, "Was Obama born
| in the United States?"
|
| Rosen: "Verification is taking something that might be true, and
| trying to nail it down with facts. In reverse verification, you
| take something that's been nailed down and try to introduce doubt
| about it."
|
| This is the primary way that American democracy is being
| subverted now, in 2023.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| > Russian disinformation campaign of 2016
|
| Are you referring to the disinformation campaign that promoted
| the conspiracy theory that Russia somehow influenced the 2016
| presidential elections, or the conspiracy theory itself?
| sammalloy wrote:
| I'm referring directly to a quote from the article under
| discussion, and the topic of using doubt as propaganda, which
| is, ironically, /exactly/ what you are doing.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20.
| ..
|
| > The Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S.
| presidential election with the goals of harming the campaign
| of Hillary Clinton, boosting the candidacy of Donald Trump,
| and increasing political and social discord in the United
| States. According to the U.S. intelligence community, the
| operation--code named Project Lakhta --was ordered directly
| by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The Special Counsel's
| report, made public in April 2019, examined numerous contacts
| between the Trump campaign and Russian officials but
| concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring any
| conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his
| associates.
| [deleted]
| davidw wrote:
| > Jay Rosen
|
| Very interesting to follow on twitter in that he picks apart
| bad journalism and explains why it doesn't work.
| justinzollars wrote:
| Hacker News commenters are definitely 'conditioned masses'.
| carabiner wrote:
| no u
| justinzollars wrote:
| "distract from things like healthcare, raising the minimum
| wage"
|
| Good luck funding healthcare with 130% debt to GDP. ngmi.
| elecush wrote:
| Very interesting take. In order to keep a democracy functioning
| properly, education is required. The lines between education and
| propagandalf wizardry become blurry when economic incentives and
| dearths of ethics enter the field.
| avodonosov wrote:
| TLDR anyone?
|
| This style of writing is so unfriendly to readers. The text could
| have been 3 times shorter. The first paragraph where he is
| standing with wavy hair could just be thrown away. It does not
| continue anyways.
|
| IMHO
| avodonosov wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| I wonder if strict and short term limits would inhibit the
| ability (for any entity) to condition the masses.
| hedora wrote:
| The US used to have media ownership rules for this purpose. On
| balance, they worked well until they were repealed (at each
| step, the politicians responsible for repealing them had ties
| to the companies that directly benefited).
| hayst4ck wrote:
| Term limits seem like the type of thing that would not
| necessarily create positive or negative results, but modulate
| the system.
|
| I think it is a thing that feels right to a lot of people, but
| if you ask "What will term limits achieve, and what are
| possible unintended consequences of term limits?" I think most
| proponents of it would have a very hard time coming up with a
| satisfying answer.
|
| I would prefer age limits before term limits.
|
| I think the real question to ask is: "If corruption were
| against the law, would people still want term limits?" or "Will
| term limits reduce corruption?"
|
| I think the answer is no and I think it is obviously no for the
| latter (revolving door).
| HybridCurve wrote:
| No. Term limits have nothing to do with the overall strategies
| being used by subversive non-government organizations. They
| function in the background and direct the party to steer policy
| in their favor. All of the deep research required to apply
| stress to the weak points of an institution is done at NGOs and
| the execution plan is essentially handed over to the party
| members and officials.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| For which office are you suggesting shorter term limits?
| Analemma_ wrote:
| > I wonder if strict and short term limits would inhibit the
| ability (for any entity) to condition the masses.
|
| No, it would do exactly the opposite. Short term limits mean
| you perpetually have a revolving door of inexperienced and
| naive legislators who are much more prone to a) manipulation by
| experienced and cut-throat lobbyists and b) grabbing everything
| they can for their district with no regard for long-term
| sustainability, because they'll be gone before they can see any
| consequences.
|
| I'm not picking on you in particular because I see this all
| over the place, but it really makes me crazy when people
| default to their gut emotions and desire to punish, and so come
| up with non-solutions like "shorter term limits!" which
| actually make the problem so much worse.
| GreedClarifies wrote:
| "which actually make the problem so much worse"
|
| I'm sorry you haven't made that case at all. All you have
| done is listed the costs of the "term limits" side, you
| haven't listed any of the benefits. A couple off of the top
| of my head:
|
| 1. Seats would be up for effective election more often
| allowing for democracy to perhaps function more effectively.
| Perhaps there would be more of a market of ideas instead of
| cults of personality.
|
| 2. Less time for legislators to establish "ties" (corruption)
| with regulators, business leaders, party leaders, and others
| in power.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| 1) This assumes that long-serving politicians are a major
| driver of this activity. Doesn't seem right to me, but hey,
| maybe I'm wrong.
|
| 2) The main downside to term limits is that it tends to put
| more power into the hands of actors who are not subject to
| elections--professional bureaucrats, lobbyists, interest
| groups, and party machines, basically. My perception is that
| those latter three groups, especially, are behind a lot of this
| kind of thing--if true, term limits would make things worse,
| not better.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| Does this assumption still hold if the term limits are
| somewhat generous? For instance, 18 years (3 senate terms or
| 9 house terms)?
|
| Almost all of the evidence detracting from legislative term
| limits centers around attempts to allow only 1-2 terms. But
| there's very little about medium to longer term restrictions.
| FpUser wrote:
| Would be taken over by big corporations. Already happening to a
| good degree
| LegitShady wrote:
| unfortunately political parties are machines to continue
| influence and power. It would change how influence was applied,
| but the team sport that is politics would continue with
| different spokepeople in office and the same people running the
| machinery of party in the back.
| macintux wrote:
| I expect lobbyists would be winners if short term limits were
| imposed. Inexperienced legislators would tend to rely
| extensively on party apparatus and lobbyists.
| peyton wrote:
| Interesting, I would expect the opposite: tenured
| legislators rely more on lobbyists and party apparatus. You
| don't really see increasing independence over time; rather,
| wayward legislators get primaried by the party.
| LegitShady wrote:
| the party doesn't necessarily lose any power in this
| case, so their ability to control elections by choosing
| who runs might be undiminished.
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