Representative Democracy ultra. History & economics-related posts. Also film/TV policy, workplace & unions. Some posts = conversational gambits. Views mine only. NFFC & Mayo GAA. (Banner quote: Nein Quarterly). Substack: https://pauliewaulie.substack.com
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The big picture is a confected impression of chaos and an aloof callous govt. You don’t need to be a mindless Labour drone to see the unfairness of this. But our information economy has changed to a point where this is now the everyday reality of politics. Change that economy or get used to it.
Reform are announcing callous unworkable policies on this, because it signals a determination to respond to public concerns. Trying to peel away Reform’s growing support by picking off the less red-pilled people in their poling numbers may, instead, amplify the message we hope to counter.
Voters aren’t keeping a tally of policies in their heads. They’re registering a view that public opinion cares about migration, and Labour looks like it’s scrambling to address an issue it privately disagrees with public opinion on.
One other thing. Some may think I'm saying "Labour should pander to every flag-shagging whim that right-wing cranks throw at them." I'm saying "treating this as a triangulation problem" is like bringing a knife to a gun-fight. By all means use the knife if it's all you've brought. But get the gun!
I agree. To stretch the metaphor to breaking point, the government don't believe us. They don't think that determining the shape, and the role of the media is the government's business. However, most governments have kinda pretended it isn't while subtly acknowledging that they need to do it.
This is good.. What I don’t see - almost anywhere on the left - is anything other than a superficial faith-based optimism that solving collective action problems is an existing skill that could be invested in. (Conservatives, OTOH, have whole universities teaching Business Administration)
I genuinely think one thing that trips up folks on the left is that they can't imagine not sharing certain core values. Lemme explain. Here's an intuition pump: Say you're in negotiations with counterparty X. And there are two possible deals on the table ...
Speaking as someone who studied and taught at US universities for over a decade, that KB has been telling this story for so long, without anyone in the UK previously questioning it is kind of amazing. It reflects total credulity about how the US works from the Spectator/Ashcroft etc.
Sadly, I think the current government share my pessimism on point one, and not to wear that point two is even an option.
Summarising an argument I got into over the weekend here: 1) others are more optimistic than me about pushing back on racism using debate in our v disrupted media landscape. 2) I’m *much* more optimistic than most that this media landscape can be changed to make discourse ’civic’ once more.
Bye.
I’ve told you why I’m not responding to your point. I’ve responded to it elsewhere, to people who don’t talk to me like a dickhead.
“Literally” = 🚩
That's not a point that is made in good faith and I won't be responding to it.
You mean ‘enshrined’ in Magna Carta, surely?
I turn on my TV and a TV presenter is asking a Govt minister why they are talking about rolling out free childcare when the big issue is asylum hotels. This is objectively insane.
I’d agree that, if you’re in a gunfight and the only weapon you’ve left the house with is a knife, you should try using the knife. But I’d prefer it if the government went back home to get a gun.
I was watching’Reds’ (Warren Beatty film) on one of the other UK tv channels when a similar newsflash interrupted it.
The Morning Star now openly supports Trump’s moves to sideline Ukraine in bilateral talks with Putin. workersliberty.org/index.php/st...
Another appeal I co-signed to close Ukrainian skies: my stance from the outset. European and US leaders' inaction has resulted in thousands of Ukrainian casualties. Some talk about the risks. But not taking action against russia now would mean taking a much greater risk tomorrow. #SkyShieldNow
Sorry - I thought I’d included a link to this thread in my reply. bsky.app/profile/paul...
On the contrary. I’m arguing that he needs to be attacked properly, not in the way that is visibly failing at the moment. bsky.app/profile/paul...
Fair point. What I’m trying to convey is that we’re discussing this in terms of triangulation. The next election may just be chaos. Industrial quantities of shit thrown in all directions- less to boost Reform than to wreck Labour. We say “you’re mates with the Taliban and they say “you’re pro-paedo”
Surely we’ll know fairly quickly if his polling is hit by what he said about women and children? He said it, he rowed back on it, in aggregate he will be (I suspect) forgiven. I’d love to be wrong about this, obvs.
I just think that we’re in a world where traditional methods of triangulation are a bit like sending out horse-cavalry against tanks.
Under normal circs, of course I’d agree with you. But the public discourse in the months leading up to a general election will be v like the 2nd half of July ’24, or this month. Chaos. Govt floundering. Centre & left in disarray. £millions in undeclared dark money disrupting the info economy.
I agree that New Labour were very good at news media management. However, there were critics *at the time* (I was one) of their failure to challenge Murdoch, carrying on with the Faustian pact that the Tories had started with the 1990 Broadcasting Act. Many of today’s problems started there.
You will be proved right if such a suggestion (one that would end the career of most politicians) seriously damages Farage, once he’s … er… ‘clarified’ it.
And yet experience shows that he will be forgiven in a way others wouldn’t be. The core of my argument, Sunder, is it we can’t keep ignoring the changed shape of the information economy here. IMHO, the centre-left have always been unaware that policy is even a tool here.
Seriously, I’m rooting for you dude. I’m not betting my house on you tho!
Honestly, do you really think Farage is likely to get swiftboated like Miliband was?
My guess is that he will simply row back on the Taliban thing like he did on the ‘women and children’ thing, and he will get away with it. Plainly I think this is a much *much* bigger problem than anyone else does tho. I hope I’m wrong.
Sorry - here: bsky.app/profile/sund...
Sorry - I’m in a few divergent threads now. I don’t want to ignore your point but I think it’s the same one as @sundersays.bsky.social point and I’ve replied to it.
Rethreading this: bsky.app/profile/paul...
The UK has never had a less purposeful supply-side approach to the information economy, or media regulation as it has now. We’ve always been a bit complacent about it because we had the BBC (which was all of that in one nice box). But that is no longer the case.
I don’t. But I think that there has been a fundamental shift in the way many of those people consume information and that many of the old certainties about ‘winning the debate’ are no longer ones to bet the farm on.
And how is that working out at the moment? It’s the complacency that worries me here.
Ok, I have not had any intention of, or being aware that I’ve treated you with contempt at any point in this conversation. Tbh, I feel it’s been coming in the other direction. I mean, I *am* contemptuous of the people who are monetising divisive and hateful reportage and commentary.
It’s less important, at the moment, than addressing the way that the consumption of information has changed so radically. If you think this is just a to-and-fro of debate you may want to explain why the radical right is in the rise everywhere (unless you think their arguments are sensible, that is)
I’m afraid I don’t understand your analogy. And also, I Do Not Hold Swing Voters Or Reform Voters In Contempt. I’ve no idea why you are saying this.
He will row back on it. He will get the benefit of the doubt. I mean, it may sow some small doubts but the traffic is v much in the other direction. Again, to think there is an equivalence with Salisbury is a mistake.
Ffs they have no traction with those channels. And if they do take your advice, Farage will simply row back on it and will get the benefit of the doubt - not only from those channels, but also all of the others.
My point is that this is less about debate and more about the territorial war for eyeballs - a war which the radical right realises it is in, and, it seems, that everyone else doesn’t.
I’m not as clever as you so I think they’re all very pro-Taliban. Ffs. Comparing this and Salisbury is a false equivalence.
Ok. I think I know what you’re arguing against, but not what you’re arguing for. I think political biases are only a small part of this, but do you think, in aggregate, the news & commentary consumed by the public judge Labour politicians/policies by the same standards as they treat conservatives?
Wait… what? “There isn’t a Public Sphere any more”? I didn’t have that argument on my bingo card!
And yet one who disagrees with both the current leader and the last one on so much, it seems. I’m absolutely someone who will need a very strong reason to not treat a social-democratic option as the least worst one. Tell anyone who knows me that I’m some pro-Labour dalek and they’d laugh at you.
I said “I believe, obvious reasons”. In our replies I offered the the point which I believe to be obvious: that The Public Sphere gives a huge benefit of the doubt to right-wing populism at the moment. Do you think it doesn’t?
To be clear, I have not ‘caricatured your view’. Calm down ffs. Not sure which tribe you think I’m being tribal in favour either.
Ok, for some reason you’ve decided to go ad-hom on me twice already, treating it as open-&-shut that I don’t know how Reform voters consume media & that I hold them (ie a substantial portion of my own family who I’m very fond of) in contempt, so I’ll leave it there until you calm down.
If you think Reform’s opponents are in a ‘debate’ with Reform’s prospective voters, it’s like bringing a knife to a gun fight. They’re not being shown information that challenges their support for Farage. Corbyn’s prospective supporters absolutely were. In spades.
There’s not a direct equivalence. In 2017 Corbyn picked up a v large block of votes that didn’t vote *for* him but were v annoyed about Brexit + a v incompetent Tory election campaign. Salisbury resurfaced their worst doubts. Reform voters aren’t even seeing the media that makes the Taliban link.
This view is mistaken for, I believe, obvious reasons. Politics is more tribal than a product of debate. Is it really realistic that a large slice of Reform supporters will say “paying the Taliban? Terrible idea! I will change my vote accordingly!” They’ll get the benefit of the doubt, as always.
I would caveat with the point that, whilst I agree on your assessment of elite vs popular radicalisation, the growing disengagement between the public and politics camouflages the radicalisation of the bubble.
So many leading Brexit voices have gone full racist and fascist that it’s hard to believe in « elite radicalisation » and a lot easier to believe in « finally saying what they always thought ».
📌
Wow. Check this out. Politicians actually trying to solve problems can achieve a lot! www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solu...
Not necessarily. Governments can manufacture demand. They do it every day for education, healthcare, etc. They treat them as merit goods. open.substack.com/pub/pauliewa...
You’ll never get perfection tho. The problem is the vast majority of us don’t directly pay for most of the media we consume, or even slightly-directly fund it by shopping with known advertisers. That’s the thing that has changed and got worse.
Can’t imagine there’s any financial upside to this behaviour.
But even using very commonly features (bullet points, ffs!) can be a minefield. I liked the way the early-1990s wysiwyg DTP program Ventura gave you separate stylesheet and text files that you could marry up.
Being a spectator on this, did Turings view take account of the possibility that processing speed and power would grow?
I mean, yes, some software companies have been allowed to indulge in monopolistic or oligopolistic behaviour (how the most invested-in software ever - word processing - is still so buggy is a sin that cries to heaven for vengeance), but even so, its a very accountable industry.
Actually I've just re-read what I've said there and it's incredibly glib and ahistorical. I'd have to admit that the existence of billions of generally stable computers capably of performing a vast variety of different tasks in the world may be the single greatest feat of human invention.
This is the question that I'm probably more interested in than any other. Here's a counterintuitive way of looking at it: medium.com/@pauliewauli...
I probably owe everyone in this thread an apology - I'm not intending to troll you here - my argument (scroll up the thread) is one of those "what if everything we've understood about democracy since the franchise was expanded has been wrong" arguments. medium.com/@pauliewauli...
This is normal.
Making Tax Digital has been coming for some time. I think they assumed that the accounting software market would evolve to meet all of the demands MTD would create. They're a very starry-eyed and utopian bunch at HMRC. They think the software industry is accountable to it's users 😂😂😂😂
Wait... what?
For about 3/4s of the population (who can't name their MP, never mind have a well-founded and undeceived understanding of what their values or morality is) it certainly does.
I think most of the people who live around you primarily want economic prosperity, a good welfare state and health service and the trains to run on time. Go canvassing with an MP one Saturday. Bins and potholes. Politics is all about whipping people up about abstractions.
Ok. But the practical truth is that politics is all about conning lots of people on that scrore. But you're also kinda redefining 'democracy' as government that panders to the interests of the minority who take an interest in politics. Most people only notice outcomes.
No - that's the point of electoral politics which is not the same thing as democracy. Do you want a govt that a) uses tactics and strategies you like? Or b) that achieves the outcome that you want? Remember, the vast majority of people in a democracy don't have the capacity to think about a).
'Politics' selects for people who communicate abstract moral virtues (either the sort that appeals to a liberal education, or the tougher morality of the lynch-mob). We need to rethink this and ask "how do we get the best representatives?" They don't have to share our worldview.
I don't want good-hearted public-spirited representatives. I want people who are competent and well-incentivised. Your approach inevitably results in *our* representatives earning less then people who represent private interests.
I think it's fundamentally mistaken to expect people to be good representatives if they do it out of a sense of public service. In no other area of our lives do we hire nice good-hearted people to represent us. We need to change the incentives - then we will get representatives, not politicians.
They've predicted thirty of the last two mini-riots.
I think there are ways to fix the information economy. Recognise that The Public Sphere is also a economic sector & take steps to increase the amount of information people purchase for themselves, directly, while reducing the amount that is paid for by people who don't share the users' interests.
I wrote a ('modest proposal'-type) book called "Save Democracy - Abolish Voting" a few years ago that looked at how it is bad design to use ballots to choose representatives, and that using other types of currency would fix the incentive problems.
But there have been political movements that have improved democracy. The promotion of Representative Democracy can be a political end in itself. I mean, I've been saying this for decades and not succeeded in convincing many people yet, but who knows... ;-)
Sure. But - for example - if most of the market for information has failed and most of the info most people consume is of unknown provenance (a problem that has got *much* worse) then Representative Democracy can't work. So fix the information economy.
The thing is, when you design a system imperfectly, it unravels eventually. We implemented 'representative democracy' as 'electoral politics' and they're not quite the same thing. The former is sustainable, the latter isn't. It's taken many decades to fall apart (but it is doing so now).
“Elements of the past and the future combining to make something not quite as good as either.” ‘Eels up inside ya’ - The Mighty Boosh.
Yer dad's taken a day off from shouting at dog walkers to go to that London
Here’s another #advocacism proposal for you. bsky.app/profile/paul...
€25 per person. Give €5 of that profit to every Irish citizen to spend on privacy protections and other campaign priorities that protect people from the harms inflicted by social media. #advocacism
In fairness, one crank-narcissist and one pseudo-leftist with a big TikTok following.
Will be mostly spending the weekend hanging union flags upside down from lampposts as a way of uniting the left and right of our country.
Doesn't matter. The mud has stuck. And this is perfectly OK, it seems.
In fairness my Shazam search called it ‘Giu’la testa’ - pretty sure it’s the same film. Really loving the whole mix - Durutti Column tune a happy memory and D’Angelo too - thought for a second it was some late Terry Callier tune.
At least 23 dead in overnight Kyiv attack as UK and EU summon Russian envoys Missile strikes on Ukrainian capital hit EU and British Council offices in deadliest assault in months
Loving it. Was unaware of ‘A Fistful of Dynamite’ - gorgeous.
Scammers producing AI slop Holocaust images, monetised by FB 🤢 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Conservative digital ads going on the attack today. One on tax, trying to get the nickname "Rachel Thieves" to stick, another on the government's attempt to appeal the Epping hotel ruling in the High Court.
Again, I think this shows a mistaken belief in the potency of law when The Public Sphere is overwhelmingly owned by right-wing cranks. Post-Brexit Britain, outside the ECHR may not do all of it - but at best, it will derail all of government to pursue an inhumane and stupid policy.
Argh, not now, Atlantic meridional overturning circulation tipping point... www.theguardian.com/environment/...
In case you were wondering if it was actually a good idea...
NEW The UK constitution is even more vulnerable than the US constitution In the face of an illiberal radical assault, what has happened politically in America could easily happen in the UK By me, at @prospectmagazine.co.uk www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...
She loves using her iPad to watch videos and get Facebook messages so I can't persuade her not to use it but Facebook is unrepentantly full of scams that are reasonably obvious to me but not to her. Facebook do nothing about it because they don't care and regulators are scared of them.