Utopia Talk / Politics / The dangerous Internet in Society

Aeros Member	Mon Aug 17 13:33:30 I was listening to a program on NPR yesterday that I thought was very relevant. The discussion was one how the Internet was effecting our society, and most of the commentators were he key fairly negative. The key problems they had mainly focused on the effect the Internet had on a persons mental abilities. Problem 1: Constant Interrupt. Many Internet users do "multi-tasking" as they call it. Write a reply on face book, do a tweet, read a new article while playing a game now and then. This is not really multi-tasking though, but serial-tasking. Studies have shown people who are contantly interrupted from one project to focus on another over extended periods of time begin to suffer from decreased attention spans, and gain an irritation with drawn out and complex argumentation. Problem 2: The Echo Chamber. Studies by various media research groups found interesting findings about internet use and political perceptions. Most heavy use internet denizens tend to be increadibly knowledgable about world events and aware in great detail about opposing viewpoints to different disputes that are playing out in the public realm. However, casual internet users tend to be the exact opposit, gravitating towards clusters of like minded individuals, they are clueless of opposing viewpoints and suffer from an "Echo Chamber" effect that glorifies the most extreem ideologies while vilifying moderate or opposing views. Living inside this echo chamber also permits these individuals to ultimately subscribe to an alternative realit where they become convinced they are a majority due to an abscence of opposing views in their internet community. Thought it was interesting, so I share
Aeros Member	Mon Aug 17 13:34:24 And sorry, I was typing on a computer with an annoying touch pad. Looks like a Sentence got deleted somewhere along the way...
saiko Member	Mon Aug 17 14:59:35 I only read the first five words anyway.
MurdeR Member	Mon Aug 17 16:46:43 "I only read the first five words anyway." That's all you're capable of anymore ... thanks to the internet. :o)
Hot Rod Member	Mon Aug 17 16:47:55 I think it may be more attitude than internet.
Asgard Member	Mon Aug 17 17:09:51 I read the only 5 words, and they were the title. There is no such thing as dangerous internet. There are only dangerous people - whether they work with a gun, a knife, or the internet. You gonna ban guns and knives now? don't think so. So why attack the net?
Hot Rod Member	Mon Aug 17 17:16:00 Because it truly is more dangerous than knives or guns. You can communicate with it.
Asgard Member	Mon Aug 17 17:17:12 then you should also force people to wear a muzzle and handcuff them so they wouldn't be able to neither speak nor signal to each other
Hot Rod Member	Mon Aug 17 17:18:23 There are some who would like to do that too.
USAian Member	Mon Aug 17 17:20:22 Only a freedom of speech hating fascist would think communicating is more dangerous than killing.
Hot Rod Member	Mon Aug 17 17:21:55 Do you have any idea what you just said?
USAian Member	Mon Aug 17 17:25:19 See, whats funny is, do YOU have any idea what YOU said? You said tools of comunication are more dangerous than tools of killing...And you STILL havent got it...wow
Hot Rod Member	Mon Aug 17 17:31:17 You accused me of being, "a freedom of speech hating fascist." If I hated freedom of speech would I be raising the warning that *others* consider communicating is dangerous to their plans?
USAian Member	Mon Aug 17 17:37:17 YOU clearly think its dangerous to your plans, not just *others* HR - "Because it truly is more dangerous than knives or guns. You can communicate with it."
Aeros Member	Mon Aug 17 17:37:51 The dangers are not in freedom of speech. The danger is in having capable of only understanding complex issues in short sound bites and suffering from a lack of understanding about highly divisive political issues.
Aeros Member	Mon Aug 17 17:38:56 Damn it, another phrase got deleted. The dangers are not in freedom of speech. The danger is in having a population capable of only understanding complex issues in short sound bites and suffering from a lack of understanding about highly divisive political issues.
Hot Rod Member	Mon Aug 17 17:52:13 My plan is to give the country back to the people and get the government out of our lives. You Sir, are a waste of time. Please go away.
USAian Member	Mon Aug 17 17:56:05 Ding ding ding! HR wins a cigar and a free trip including a tour of a euthanasia home in Austria for suing the line: "You Sir, are a waste of time. Please go away" for the 1,000th time! *Confetti, balloons, music*
pillz Member	Mon Aug 17 17:56:12 I've always had a relatively short attention span to most thing. Argumentation not withstanding. I will write fifteen 800 word posts in a day when arguing.
kargen Member	Mon Aug 17 19:24:06 "You said tools of comunication are more dangerous than tools of killing...And you STILL havent got it...wow " It is that whole pen is mighter than the sword thing that people have been saying since Hot Rod was just a young pup. Problem 1 isn't a cause, it is a result of a cause. People with short attention spans (grew up on MTV and all that crap) use the internet in the way described in problem 1. The internet didn't cause the short attention spans, it just allows for people with short attention spans an easier way to jump about. Problem 2 you are basically describing a clique. People even before the internet would surround themselves with a few like minded friends and fail to see anything outside their little circle. The internet just allows for that little circle to be if nothing else at least geographically diverse.
Hot Rod Member	Mon Aug 17 20:02:28 USAian, I've been thinking about your earlier response and I don't think I made myself clear. I was *NOT* talking about dangerous in terms of the subject of this thread. There are those who want to silence Americans and who would like to prevent them from knowing the truth about what they are doing to our country. They would like nothing better than to prevent us from communicating with each other. There are those who keep track of The Tea Parties and let those interested know over the internet. Look at China and Iran. They have problems, the first thing they do is try to shut down the internet.
roland Member	Mon Aug 17 21:12:01 "There are those who want to silence Americans and who would like to prevent them from knowing the truth about what they are doing to our country. " Hi Kreel, or RoB.
Seb Member	Tue Aug 18 09:08:29 Kargen: It turns the entire of society into fractured cliques that no longer need to share ideas or reality in a common space. Aeros: I've been saying this for years! Glad the idea is getting into the mainstream. It's not so much that the internet is dangerous, but that people are flawed. The best antidote is to always set time aside to try and see the other point of view.
Hot Rod Member	Tue Aug 18 09:17:15 I agree with Seb. These people have a compulsive behavior disorder. If it wasn't the internet it could just as be gambling or something else.
Seb Member	Tue Aug 18 10:17:18 Not "these people", people in general. As a species we have psychological defects that are amplified in the kind of information environments we create. Hot Rod, the manner in which you post suggests you are pretty much a textbook case of someone who subscribes to a particular brand of reality and therefore suffers an extreme case of selection bias when constructing a world view, which only reinforces your selection bias. We have an essential problem, in a very real sense we are not on the same planet, or rather, we are not experiencing the same planet.
Hot Rod Member	Tue Aug 18 10:38:46 These people = compulsive behavior = anyone that exhibits compulsive behavior whether it be internet, gambling or any of a myriad other behaviors. Of course there are degrees. I am compulsive about UP, and when I go shopping at the grocers. But, do not go totally insane at either. While I have only been to the gambling boats twice in the 15 years since I returned from Hawaii. Once I lost $20, the other was for lunch. Compulsive Behavior is just that. Compulsive Behavior. It is a matter of degree. The subject of this thread seems to be about those who are extreme. Do you have another term for it?
Seb Member	Tue Aug 18 11:35:28 Hot Rod: I wouldn't describe it remotely as compulsive. What the OP was describing was the impact the internet (I would call it high bandwidth communications, it's not just the internet, but also cable TV etc.). If you found a previously undiscovered tribe on some island with deeply bizarre beliefs about the nature of the world, you would not conclude they were obsessive compulsive, merely that they did not have access to the information you have. The problem we have as a society is that we filter information through a system that is riddled with feedback loops: 1. Selection bias of the audience. Humans understand the world by simplifying information about the world into a narrative structure. We tell stories, in other words, and there are a particular set of templates we use when doing this. We are far too good at recognising these patterns and often see them where they are not there, like a face in a cloud. We tend to assimilate facts that support those that we already accept or fit into the narrative of the world we already adopt. We also tend to trust more information and sources of information that conform to our suspicions and existing narrative of events, and distrust those that conflicts with them. 2. An adversarial political system that requires a degree of conflict and argument to derive a synthesis so that political discourse is naturally framed as a conflict between ideas with one emerging triumphant and another as totally discredited; rather than consensus building operation. This has benefits: consensus based systems tend to cling to demonstrably false idea. However adversarial systems can polarise, and the conflict of ideas can turn into a conflict of motivations: the opposition is no longer seen as a loyal opposition acting in good faith, but acting in bad faith. This stifles debate. 3. Fragmented and heavily commercialised media, which caters to a target audience and tailors it's editorial commentary and content to match the interest and beliefs of the target audience, and has a huge vested interest in discrediting other media organisations. It is screamingly obvious what is going to happen: people will chose the media that conform to their world view, their initial suspicions will be confirmed by the media, the media, which panders to it's audience for commercial reasons, will serve up what it's market research shows that their target audience want to hear plus a bit of sensationalism. This will be most virulent for issues of civil society which are naturally couched in terms of a conflict. Supporting views are amplified, the world view you and your media shares becomes more and more self evident and reinforcing, those dissenting seem more and more perverse so that it becomes impossible to see that they could hold their views and also be intelligent, so in turn the motivations of those dissenters come into question, and with it the ideas they advocate. The whole thing rapidly disappears down the rabbit hole. In extremis, the fact that other media organisations catering for other markets present a different interpretation of facts (or do not cover the same events at all) will be seen as corroborating proof of their inherent untrustworthiness and intent to mislead. Thus the fracturing of the media into specialist organisations with specific editorial agenda inevitably leads to the fragmenting of civil society, and the fragmenting of civil society in this way only encourages further specialisation of the media. It's not a few compulsive people, rather it is a deep rooted facet of basic Human psychology. We are primed for this kind of tribalism and the information environment we have created not only caters to that, it exacerbates it. Birthers and Truthers are not way out fringes of society, they are just the vanguard of a society that is already deeply polarised on political issues. If they seem irrational, it is only because the psychological methods for comprehending the universe are at their route, pretty irrational. Other than that, all they do is construct a world view in the same way you or I do, but from a filtered set of information.
eds Member	Tue Aug 18 11:54:08 Just imagine, the future president of the USA may one day be a 4Chan Random regular. God help us all.
kargen Member	Tue Aug 18 12:13:49 "It turns the entire of society into fractured cliques that no longer need to share ideas or reality in a common space." I look at it from the opposite side. Society is for the most part fractured cliques and uses the internet accordingly. As an example go back to around the 1950s-60s. People were getting National Geographic magazine to learn about the world, but most people judged what they saw by their own beliefs and morals. In the late 1600s up to late 1800s missionaries were intent on teaching native americans to read and write. They also attempted to convert them to Christianity. Even today when (some) charities feed the hungry in Africa and other places it includes a healthy dose of Western education and /or Christian teaching. Ten years ago we were puzzled as to why African males so dispised condoms. The internet provides us the opportunity to access more information than any time in history, but we still for the most part treat that information as we always have. "3. Fragmented and heavily commercialised media, which caters to a target audience and tailors it's editorial commentary and content to match the interest and beliefs of the target audience, and has a huge vested interest in discrediting other media organisations." I think this is a huge, and mostly unrelated problem. In the US the problem started somewhat with 60 Minutes and really took off with CNN. For a few years CNN was pretty good about reporting news and had some filler (talking head shows) around the news. Then it became more a business than a news agency and everything really went to hell. Even the network stations started looking at the numbers instead of providing the news. This brought about more opinion pieces and less hard news. Opinion pieces of course need opinionated people and that is where the news bias comes in. Now even when they provide news most give it a slant blurring the line between fact and opinion. Is a real problem across the spectrum and a main reason why you should never count on one source for information. It amazes me how much time MSNBC and FOX use to show what the other is saying and why they are idiots for saying it. Sure they keep it mostly to the talking head shows, but it does sometimes runout into what should be news. "It's not a few compulsive people, rather it is a deep rooted facet of basic Human psychology. We are primed for this kind of tribalism and the information environment we have created not only caters to that, it exacerbates it." I agree with this. That is in part why I feel the internet is not a cause of the behavior, but a result of the behavior. The good thing about the internet is if you ever want to go outside that comfort zone it is easy to do so. Very hard to determine what is fact and what is opinion sometimes, but still easy enough to go snooping around in some other persons beliefs.
Seb Member	Tue Aug 18 13:08:02 kargen: Not the route cause, certainly, but perhaps a better way of saying it is that the it enables a particularly corrosive and destructive mode of group behaviour that has profound implications for democratic civil societies, and the combination of adversarial political discorse, human psychology, the economics of running a new network and the sufficient market and bandwidth to cater to small groups is avery vicious circle. I belive with consential politics often seen in multi-party democratic systems will in most cases limit the problem to a manageble level of dissfunctionality largely contained within the legislative system. Limited bandwidth or economy to support such narrowly siloed broadcasting also breaks the loop. And of course, if we were really rational beings, then it would never arrise as an issue. However, this problem really does need serious thought in the medium run. Democracy is good for two main reasons. Firstly, it provides the basis for the consential pooling of individual sovereignty while protecting individual liberty. It's basically the only ethical and moral way of constructing a state when starting from the basis of clasiscal Liberal ideas about the liberty of the individual. But the other reason democracy is succesful is that it has historically incorporated crowd inteligence (when it works). Rather than being dumb, the masses can often be very smart, what they want can often be what is best for the country. But this works mostly when individuals in the crowd are informed, interested and their opinions are independent. This last part is critical. Prior to the expansion of broadband media (either internet, the impact of which we have hardly started to see yet in my opinion, and cable TV, people were restricted to only a few local or national channels of media. We could view them all, or only some, but in the end we all shared the same basis of information and in that sense we were all making basically independent decisions, constructing independent naratives from a shared set of facts. The fragmentation of the media means that often now you have tribes that are not independent, but sharing a particular narrative, and rather than weighing facts against each other, weighing them against the percieved intentions of others. This is bad for democracy in the current model of the nation state. Either we need to change the nature of the state, change the nature we conduct politics, or find some means of creating a shared informational space. The latter rings alarm bells, but most of all this is screamed by the partisan media as it dammages their business model: telling people what they "want" to hear. If they can't provide the differentiated product (a synthetic and partial narrative of world events) then they have to compete with other broadcasters to a much greter degree. It is not beyond the power of man to create a system that isn't the orwellian censorship by the Government some proclaim it to be. Political impartiality regulations is only one way, but would need to be handled carefuly, independent comissions that oversees national statistics that has the power to force broadcasters and print to issue corrections if they present incorrect or misleading statistics is an idea I always thought cute. Other ways are to have at least one broadcaster with a statutory requirement for impartiality. The UK, which like the US has a highly adversarial political system, two party politics (the third party never has much sway in the legislature or much scope for affecting elections) and a similar culture has avoided the wholesale schism of the US culturewars to some extent, in that the majority of visits to the broad band media are generally to TV news broadcasters that are kept impartial by the likes of the BBC, which can not endorse a party line to the degree of say, Fox or the Demorat equivalents, with partisanship restricted to the print media, which can never be so all encompassing as the TV or internet equivalents. The real fracturing comes in Blogs, which so far do not represent a sufficiently large sphere of the informational space that the electorate inhabits... yet. However, I think this is only a matter of time. The UK is a smaller economy, and the economic limitations of manufacturing something like a cable network that caters only to UKIP types or Old Labour types (hah! you Americans have no idea what a real socialist looks like!) are the limiting factor rather than bandwidth, while the BBC remains the gorilla in the room that forces a shared information space. That may change, if you could get individual cable channels to cater for inidividual narratives of society, then I imagine each tribe would view the BBC as unacceptably biased to one or all of the other tribes. Ultimately though, something has to give: Either the US has to either accept much weaker federal government and become more like a coalition of independent states, with the implications that has globally (China and Russia will incresaingly run rings around you, like they run rings around Europe), outright divorce of the union, some unprecedent change in the nature of democracy or the state, or a change in political discorse. What you can't have is a situation where you end in permanent pralysis with one tribe frustrating the ability of the other to govern in perpetuity... you'll end up like Brussels.
Seb Member	Tue Aug 18 13:08:52 I think, by the way, the US is just the first democratic country to encounter this problem. I think it will effect others as time goes on.
hoER Member	Tue Aug 18 13:28:27 You're forgetting this political division that fetches so much from the internet is largely a US phenomenon. US is by far the most divided and polarized western country politically atm.
Seb Member	Tue Aug 18 15:25:50 No, I am not forgetting at all. I think you have missed the point. I am saying this is WHY the US has the divided and polarized civil society in the Western World. It is unique in having all three elements at the moment: 1. A highly commercialised media with no state broadcaster or sufficiently strong regulator requiring political neutrality of news broadcasters. 2. An economy and population large enough to support vertically siloed media organisations to offer the option for viewers to subscribe and follow only one particular partisan account. 3. A strongly adversarial political culture with only two parties. All three elements are necessary to complete the circle. If you have all three elements, I believe you will develop the political division you see in the US, whatever language you speak.
hoER Member	Tue Aug 18 15:31:16 Basically, the US has allowed big money into places that in the rest of the west are regulated and retain basically a non or low profit philosophy for a damn good reason. Education. Health care. The media. Politics.
kargen Member	Tue Aug 18 16:24:31 "Ultimately though, something has to give: Either the US has to either accept much weaker federal government and become more like a coalition of independent states," Actually I think this would be a good thing in most areas. I would like to see the federal government return to what the constitution desired, but that is a different topic all together. In the areas the federal government should be involved yes it should be strong, and yes more than ever small groups can have much more influence than their numbers would have previously garnered. basically you are saying the internet allows for a small group of nuts in Idaho to hook up with a small group of nuts in North Carolina and more deeply confirm their beliefs with one another ignoring othre points of view. Beyond that because of the internet they are able to project that belief more effectively than possible without the internet. I'm not sure yet if that is good or bad for the country. We have always had extreems and the center always seems to reel them in. If the center gets blase' (can't put the little ' where it goes) then all those fringe groupd running amok could be a real problem. Right now the middle keeps them in check, but in the US that could change. The baby boomers (and older) tend to turn out the largest percentage of voters. As their numbers get less and less I'm not sure another group is going to step up and pay attention to politics like they do. This divide we have now might create a whole new block of concerned voters though and in that case the fringe will remain the fringe. I like when a third party shakes things up some. Keeps people on their toes. I thnk the internet helps in that reguard, though take to far it can also hurt. Like when the FCC overreacted to what amounted to just a few phonecalls by one irrate group during the superbowl a while back. I think we are undecide yet as to how the internet will shape politics and society. There is a chance the concerns above could prove to be true and a problem. There is also a chance that curiocity (another strong human trait) takes over some and people take advantage of the easy access to other views and actually consider them. I'm not to keen on a government broadcaster, we kind of have that with public radio and tv and those are among the most biased programs out there. Something needs to be done though.
Seb Member	Tue Aug 18 22:35:21 Kargen: "basically you are saying the internet allows for a small group of nuts in Idaho to hook up with a small group of nuts in North Carolina" No, I am saying it allows ordinary joe who votes republican and all his republican friends, who believes in free markets to only read news and listen to people who agree with him. That media will be sensationalist, and demonise those opposing views. Equally it allows sam who votes democrat and all his democrat friends who believe in some degree of social welfare to do the same. Pretty soon, the left wing and right wing media and editorial diverge, taking joe and sam with them. Gradually, Joe comes to beleive that basically Sam is a treacherous SOB intent on turning America into a communist dictatorship. Meanwhile, Sam has come to believe that Joe is, essentially wanting America to turn into some kind of feudal theocratic plutocracy. In other words, it doesn't just allow nuts in Idaho and nuts in Carolina to talk to each other... high bandwidth (not just the net) turns lots of people into nuts by depriving civil society of a shared national forum, or lots of local shared forums at various levels, but instead creates lots of segregated of vertical silos of what proport to be national forums, but which provide radically different and totally divergent narratives of events. I would not use historical national trends as a guide, I don't think it adequately models what high bandwidth does to civil society. Rather, I would look to the impact of isolate (physically and culturally) societies and their propensity to foster nutty cults and deeply wierd pereptions of the outside world. What high bandwidth allows is for a greater degree of connectedness within "tribes", and less reliance on connections between tribes, whereas the older low bandwidth informational space meant certain services could be provided only to all tribes.
kargen Member	Wed Aug 19 00:05:24 "In other words, it doesn't just allow nuts in Idaho and nuts in Carolina to talk to each other... high bandwidth (not just the net) turns lots of people into nuts by depriving civil society of a shared national forum," I'm not sure we have ever really had a shared national forum. There was of course the evening news, but that was pretty much thirty minutes a day and real quick bits of top stories only. Veitnam did get a lot of news coverage and that was really polar in how people viewed the war. Not sure if the internet would have made that better or worse. I do see your point in the potential for the left and right to drift farther apart, but I think they will always be the fringe. For the most part decisions and policy will be dictated by those in the middle. healthcare seems to be setting itself up as a good example. The far right is shouting there should be no national healthcare at all. The far left is shouting there can be no national healthcare without 100% government coverage. When the dust settles there will be some kind of coverage and both extreems will be upset about it. If the fringe gets to a size that competes with the middle (and it could with internet help) then what you are suggesting can and probably will happen. For the foreseeable future though I think those in the middle will keep the fringe in check. Personally I am pulling for one of the fringe groups to someday have more say. I am mostly libertarian when it comes to the federal government and hope to see the federal government shrink drastically in its scope. But for that to happen you gotta start in your own backyard and move out from there. I do understand what you are saying. It goes two ways though. Not only is it easier to connect with like tribes, it is also easier to see the views of many diverse tribes. How we run with all that info has yet to be determined. Human nature says we split farther, but common social beliefs may keep the splits from happening.
freaky boy Member	Wed Aug 19 00:14:31 hmm, yea, sure, I see. cant say I disagree, but the big problem with the internet, is too many assholes, with too much time on their hands. like eikey for instance.
kargen Member	Wed Aug 19 01:50:45 Where the internet gets really dangerous is when my dad decides to go to some cooking site, grab a recipe, then improvise a little with it. Sometimes a pleasant surprise and sometimes pure evil. You just don't know until that first bite.
Seb Member	Wed Aug 19 09:45:18 Kargen: You are focusing on the internet, I don't actually think the internet has had it's effect yet, I think the explosion in bandwidth has had it's biggest effect in supporting lots of specialised national cable channels. The interent is only part of that, and is still developing. "but I think they will always be the fringe." I think if you look at the last presidential campaign you can see that this really isn't the case. Also look at the discussion on nearly every issue as it is conducted. On Healthcare, there are all sorts of issues that are basically being shouted down by this so called fringe. It's easier to see the views of the other tribes, but mostly, people don't want to. That's not the way we work. Rather, people know what the other tribe thinks because the pubdits for their own tribe are only to ready to inform them precisely what evil motivations and deeds the enemy is scheming on.
kargen Member	Wed Aug 19 13:32:46 "On Healthcare, there are all sorts of issues that are basically being shouted down by this so called fringe." Yeah, that is why I think fringe elements on both sides will be dissappointed. The bill can't pass if the fringe on the left gets their way, and the entire idea will not be scrapped like the fringe right wants to happen. There will be a lot of compromise and something will come out of congress (good or bad who is to say) that placates the masses in the middle. "I think if you look at the last presidential campaign you can see that this really isn't the case." Presidential elections have become kind of funny to me. During the primaries the canidates run to the left or right to be sure to shore up that vote, then after getting the party nod run back to the center as quick as they can. I think that is why we have not had an effective president in a very long time. We are not always getting the best canidates out of the primaries. Now this is where I agree with you a bit more. After elected the president spends so much political power on trying to placate the fringe that got heim through the primaries that he gets his ass handed to him on what should be simple battles with congress. Congress now has way more power than it should. Congress is also the place where more and more the fringe is showing up. For now though things get done somewhere in the middle. It is almost like we have four or five parties in congress instead of just two. I actually see that as a good thing though. Nothing worse than someone that just tows the party line no matter what. "It's easier to see the views of the other tribes, but mostly, people don't want to." That is probably true. I'm lucky to have friends and family that are curious about the world and for the most part open minded. I can see your point though, and have witnessed it as well. I have an aunt that is extreemly conservative and kind of old school Christian. She gets and then passes on several E-mails almost daily that support her positions. When I pointed out that one of them was filled with lies she took me off her E-mail list. So I got that going for me. So yeah it is easy to see what you are saying, and that is a direction more people could go, but I am hoping (and kinda think it will happen) we go the other way and at least consider other points of view before dismissing them as wrong.
Seb Member	Wed Aug 19 14:29:11 kargen: Well, I hope it goes the other way too, but from the outside it already looks like you've kind of arrived at the destination. Partisanship in the US has gone too far, and while you are right that some kind of compromise will emerge from the health care, I doubt it will represent a constructive compromise based on a synthesis of the two positions, but rather whatever is left after both sides have randomly attacked various components that they turned into totemic issues to bash the other side with. The debate seems to be conducted purely in terms of rhetoric used to dress the essentially partisan attacks rather than any kind of actual analysis (ideological, economic or otherwise) of the proposals. The bits left will likely be anodyne, ineffective or cosmetic, like trying to design a sports car by taking an SUV and randomly lopping bits off.
kargen Member	Wed Aug 19 15:11:14 "The bits left will likely be anodyne, ineffective or cosmetic, like trying to design a sports car by taking an SUV and randomly lopping bits off." That is kind of how I feel about any massive project the federal government takes on. I think in most areas the US would be better off if things were paid for and monitored at the state (or lower) level. While we need government involvement and funds for things like education, social programs, conservation programs, and health/safety issues coming from the federal government we get way to much waste and usually a cookie cutter approach that doesn't fit most areas needs or wants. Going off on a tangent, but a perfect example is federal minimum wages. They do not take into account cost of living. Cost of living in SE Colorado is nowhere near as high as cost of living in Denver or Boulder. It doesn't make sense for the federal government to set the same minimum wage for those areas. Instead let the state decide and base it more on local economy. Education, healthcare, social programs, infrastructure (to a degree) and all kinds of other things would be better served if the federal government were less involved and the state government more involved. I think another big problem in the US is for a long time we let congress and the president get away with all kinds of things they had no business doing. We let them keep secrets, sneak pet projects in on essential bills and all kinds of things. Starting late in the Bush administration and going on into Obamas time in office I think we are beginning to see a backlash. More people waking up and paying attention. If it isn't just the hotheads that are now awake we might end up okay. If it is just the fringe element then yeah we are going to be shooting the rapids real soon.
Seb Member	Wed Aug 19 16:12:18 Kargen: Your response to the h1n1 flu is a good example of the benefits of a wider system. Your states are mostly too small to have the resources to do everything a big industrial state needs, which is a big problem for this idea. You need to develop more of a sort of OEM model of federalisation. Again this is a technology/systems engineering issue that you are running up against to a great degree: the enormous multipliers gained from wide complex systems can only be gained in a unified environment. Basically, if you devolve power to states, things will only get better if you can ensure that the states all come to an agreement to enact common protocols on certain issues, from trade, communication, transport, finance, economics... which of course they don't. I suspect the modern version of a federal state would look less like the parallel vertical power structures with a small top level that classical libertarians desire, and more like a vast thick roof covering critical services, with a core set of mandatory federal services that state governments must provide, and local branding on key services provided a la carte to tried and tested recipies, and a few things done locally either to taste or as pioneering development. You can of course decide that classical localism is an ideal worth sacraficing reaping the full value of increased complexity that requires a more uniform common space. For example, I would strongly argue that some kind of federal medical infrastructure is necessary for solid approaches to epidemiology and coping with pandemics. That's just one example. The US response was pretty poor by European standards, with a really poor ability to keep track of the spread. In the event of a real killer virus, you'd be pretty much screwed until the body bags piled high enough (at which point it is too late) to trigger a real federal response.
kargen Member	Wed Aug 19 23:53:07 "For example, I would strongly argue that some kind of federal medical infrastructure is necessary for solid approaches to epidemiology and coping with pandemics." I agree with that. I would like a lot less of the federal government and would like to see them not involved at all in some things, but I understand the need for them to be involved at some level. Another example of where we need fedeeral government is standards for safe food. They are going overboard though with the regulations. They basically pass general regulations across the board not taking into account the differences in producing a tomato and an orange. They have regulations that cover both the same and that is silly. Preparing for the upcoming flu season I agree is something the federal government is better set up to do than most states. Running and funding local health clinics is something much better run at the state or district level. Water rights and usage is becoming a huge federal and even international issue. Protecting wetlands though needs more of a local mandate. You can't manage the everglades like you do the water flats in Nebraska. Until President Clinton diversified the forest regulations (and President Bush diversified them even farther) there was a problem with every wilderness area being treated the same. Deserts had the same fire prevention regulations that dense forests had. Education is a real mess at every level, but the federal government really screws it up. I don't mind some guidelines for a core curriculum, but schools should be funded at the state level, and the burocracy needs to really be cut down. It is stupid that one of the worst school districts in the nation pays half a million dollars for a short list of perspective superentendents just to have the one they select turn around and embezelle (my spelling sucks) over $50,000 in funds that was set aside to decorate her office. Hell it is stupid there was $50,000 available to decorate an office. That is what happens with federal money though. So basically I am a Libertarian that suffers from a bit of realism. I want a weaker federal government, but realize the need for strength in some areas. What I think we need more than anything is a shake-up in the way congress works, but that is for another thread.
iii Member	Thu Aug 20 03:27:13 murderers were never a problem for state only communication murderers are a menace only for individuals so, for the political system murderers have no relevance, only communication
Seb Member	Thu Aug 20 11:10:28 kargen: "but schools should be funded at the state level" But that is manifestly going to lead to a massive difference in resources available in sparesly populated states with smaller economies and densely populated rich states. The net result will be a profound skew in equality of opportunity and severely undermine the idea of a common country. I think the way congress works is a reflection of the way the electoral system works.
kargen Member	Fri Aug 21 02:03:15 "But that is manifestly going to lead to a massive difference in resources available in sparesly populated states with smaller economies and densely populated rich states." It kind of depends really. Schools are already funded in part by local school taxes. You are right there may be a problem, but wrong as to where that problem would be I think. Just like now it will be inner city schools that will be neglected. Rural areas tend to take care of themselves for the most part. School needs a new roof, have a raffle or a bake sale. There would have to be some federal funding unless federal income tax was lowered significantly so states could raise taxes. The problem with having the federal government fund these things is all the rules and regulations that go along with the funds. There are layers upon layers of buaucracy (somebody spell that damn word for me) that waste the money long before it ever reaches the school. Some guy in Washington decides a printing company in his district needs to hire a few more people and all of a sudden we have an amendment demanding a new (and specific) sixth grade history book be required secretly attached to some unrelated bill. Here is a fairly good example of how federal law can bite some schools in the ass even though the law sounds like a good one. I live in a town of about 800 people. There are around 100 students total K through 12 that attend the school. The no child left behind act says every child has the right to go to school. That sounds great, but attached to it are several regulations. Children with certain mental disabilities must have access to a special counceler while attending school. A couple of years ago a family decided to send their 2nd grade age child to school. She will never develope much beyond what a three year old would develope mentally, but it was decided being around children her age would benefit. It does benefit her actually quite a bit and no one here would deny her the right to attend school. Where the first problem begins though is because of regualtions three additional people had to be hired. The specialist as you might guess is very expensive, and because of the size of the school here she has only the one child to teach. Now we are getting to the real kicker. Government funding through the no child left behind act is based on how the school performs. Every child that attends the school must take the test. This girl is unable to hold a pencil yet she is given the test just like everybody else. The class she is in has eight to eleven children in the class depending on the year. In third grade they had nine children. Third grade is important because that is one of the grades they look at when determining school performance. They do not consider every grade. When the test is done they do not look at individual scores, but instead just look at the average. When you have nine students and one is going to get a zero percent you can pretty much guess it will look like school performance has dropped. This means a cut in funds because of a child that demands more funds than almost the entire rest of the gradeschool. Again, I think the girl has every right to be in school, and know it has helped her some with not always being super angry. There are obvious problems though when a single policy is put in place for every school across the nation. Policy really needs to be state level. Any federal funds should probably just go straight to the state agencies skipping all the federal layers that just suck money out of the system. Plenty of money is allocated for education each year, it just never gets to the places it needs to go. "The net result will be a profound skew in equality of opportunity and severely undermine the idea of a common country." I probably still think of the US more of fifty individual states than most people do. Really I do not have a problem with some states fairing better than others. Already there is a good amount of competition among states. California has been losing companies and jobs to Texas because Texas has no state income tax and is a right to work state. If California wants to thrive they need to smarten up and bring that state spending under control. Probably they wouldn't be in the mess they are in now if they hadn't thought the federal government would just bail them out like they have states in the past. All I am trying to point out is what works in Detroit or Atlanta isn't going to work in Billings or Cheyenne. Federal government seems to concentrate only on about 10 different cities and leaves everybody else out when it comes to these regulations and laws.
nhill Member	Fri Oct 15 22:27:36 Some classic Hot Rod material here.
murder Member	Sat Oct 16 09:19:55 Not just Hot Rod. From the OP on down. It turns out the internet IS dangerous. It has rotted the brains of 1/2 the US and god knows how much of the rest of the world. I wonder if the current Aeros even recognizes the one who started this thread ... and whether the one who started this thread would end it all if he knew how he would turn out.
murder Member	Sat Oct 16 09:22:51 -------------------------------------- eds Member Tue Aug 18 11:54:08 Just imagine, the future president of the USA may one day be a 4Chan Random regular. God help us all. -------------------------------------- eds for the win! We can shut down the internet now. No one will ever beat that post. :o)
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