Illing: Let’s return to the “competence principle.” Why does the right to competent government trump other fundamental rights, like the right to participate in the democratic process? Brennan: I think the real question is why should we assume there’s a right to participate in democratic process? It’s actually quite weird and different from a lot of other rights we seem to have. We have the right to choose our partner, to choose our religion, to choose what we’re going to eat, where we live, what job we’ll do, etc. While some of these things do impose costs on others, they’re primarily about carving out a sphere of autonomy for the individual, and about preventing other people from having control over you. A right to participate in politics seems fundamentally different because it involves imposing your will upon other people. So I’m not sure that any of us should have that kind of right, at least not without any responsibilities. So how do we create an epistocracy? Brennan: Here’s what I propose we do: Everyone can vote, even children. No one gets excluded. But when you vote, you do 3 things. First, you tell us what you want. You cast your vote for a politician, or for a party, or you take a position on a referendum, whatever it might be. Second, you tell us who you are. We get your demographic information, which is anonymously coded, because that stuff affects how you vote and what you support. And the third thing you do is take a quiz of very basic political knowledge. When we have those 3 bits of information, we can then statistically estimate what the public would have wanted if it was fully informed. Under this system, it’s not really the case that you have more power than I do. We can’t really point to any individual and say you were excluded, or your vote counted for more. The idea is to gauge what the public would actually want if it had all the information it needed.
Tag: politics
4.5 hours silent staring
In 1969, United Nations Command negotiator and US Maj. Gen. James B. Kapp and North Korean Maj. Gen. Ri Choon-Sun sat across the table from one another for 11.5 hours without eating or using the restroom. The delegates were only permitted to leave the room if the person who called the meeting proposes a recess. Ri never did. In fact, the 2 men spent the last 4.5 hours of the meeting silently staring at one another. At 22:30, Ri stood up and walked out.
On Brexit
Brexit was a classic example of a collusion conspiracy. Many of the named politicians and businessmen above stand to gain millions of pounds from a hard Brexit that causes the British stock market to fall. Others stand to make millions from juicy investment opportunities they were offered in Russia. We cannot know for certain what the quid pro quo for those investment deals were at this time, but I strongly suspect that support for Brexit (and more general socially-authoritarian right-wing policies) was part of it. And now we’re seeing a rival collusion conspiracy surface. Not all billionaires stand to profit from seeing the remains of British industry sink beneath the waves, and not all of them are in the pocket of the Kremlin’s financial backers. There are a bunch of very rich, rather reclusive men (and a handful of women) who probably thought, “well, let’s sit back and see where this thing leads, for now” about 18 months ago. And now they can see it leading right over a cliff, and they are unhappy, and they have made their displeasure known on the golf course and in the smoke-filled rooms, and the quiet whispering campaign has finally turned heads at the top of the media empires. If I’m right, then over the next 4-8 weeks the wrath of the British press is going to fall on the heads of the Brexit lobby with a force and a fury we haven’t seen in a generation.
Happy 21st Century!
Here’s the shape of a 21st century I don’t want to see. Unfortunately it looks like it’s the one we’re going to get, unless we’re very lucky.
Shorter version is: there will be much dying: even more so than during the worst conflicts of the 20th century. But rather than conventional wars (“nation vs nation”) it’ll be “us vs them”, where “us” and “them” will be defined by whichever dehumanized enemy your network filter bubble points you at—Orwell was ahead of the game with the 2 Minute Hate, something with which all of us who use social media are now uncomfortably, intimately, familiar.
Trump Lawyers
The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had consulted with one of his divorce lawyers, Jay Goldberg, who is also a former prosecutor, about the question of whether Cohen, who seems to be facing a raft of charges for financial crimes, might flip, and become a witness against him. The idea that Trump would consult someone who was also his divorce lawyer on this point is another sign of how much his concept of the law centers on him and his personal needs. Goldberg had advised Trump not to trust Cohen, or almost anyone facing a long jail sentence. The “attorney-client dynamic, to use Comey’s phrase, between Trump and Cohen may, for the President, turn out to be explosive. And Cohen isn’t the President’s only lawyer, or his only problem.
FB rent extraction
the Facebook hearings are easily understood. Facebook is a very profitable monopoly that doesn’t benefit politicians very much. Although consumers aren’t upset by high prices (since Facebook is free), they can be made to be upset about loss of privacy or other such scandal. That’s enough to threaten regulation. The regulatory outcome will be that Facebook diverts some of its profits to campaign funds and to subsidize important political constituents.
Who will be subsidized? Be sure to watch the key players as there is plenty to go around and the money has only begun to flow but aside from campaign funds look for rules, especially in the political sphere, that will raise the costs of advertising to challengers relative to incumbents. Incumbents love incumbency advantage. Also watch out for a deal where the government limits profit regulation in return for greater government access to Facebook data including by the NSA, ICE, local and even foreign police. Keep in mind that politicians don’t really want privacy–remember that in 2016 Congress also held hearings on privacy and technology. Only those hearings were about how technology companies kept their user data too private.
Incompetent entrapment
if you’re a clown like james o’keefe, and you’re trying to entrap the media, perhaps use a more competent person?
Alice Crites, a Post researcher who was looking into Phillips’s background, found the document that strongly reinforced the reporters’ suspicions: a GoFundMe.com under the name Jaime Phillips. “I’m moving to New York!. I’ve accepted a job to work in the conservative media movement to combat the lies and deceit of the liberal MSM. I’ll be using my skills as a researcher and fact-checker to help our movement.
Fixing gerrymandering
A computer projection of how the law would work showed that in all states with at least 3 House seats, there would be no single-party districts. That means there would be rural Democrats and urban Republicans. Members of both major parties would share districts, with new incentives to collaborate on legislation addressing their shared constituents’ needs. Candidates would be forced to reflect a greater mix of views and voters would have real choices, including third party and independent candidates. A more representative and functional Congress would regain legitimacy.
Everyone is retarded
political views can experience overflow and do wrap around
many of the alternative-medicine ingredients in her products are sold on the Infowars store. Moon Juice is frequently recommended by Goop; it’s a favorite of Hollywood celebrities and others who can afford things like $25 “activated cashews.” Infowars, on the other hand, is a dark corner of the American right, heavy on guns, light on government intervention, and still very mad at Obama.
Firing Trump
Oscillating between the America of Kenosha and the America of Mar-a-Lago, Trump is neither fully a revolutionary nor an establishmentarian. He is ideologically indebted to both Patrick Buchanan and Goldman Sachs. He is what the political scientist Stephen Skowronek calls a “disjunctive” President, one “who reigns over the end of his party’s own orthodoxy.” Trump knows that Reaganite ideology is no longer politically viable, but he has yet to create a new conservatism beyond white-nationalist nostalgia. For the moment, all he can think to do is rekindle the embers of the campaign, to bathe, once more, in the stage light. It lifts him up. But what of the public? Does he understand that all citizens will have a hand in his fate?
Gregor J. Rothfuss 