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Comment by SapphireSun | Hacker News Reader

I love Asimov, and he's right that we should educate our population better, but why would anyone pay attention to the papers when it seems completely remote and irrelevant to people's lives? People pay close attention to stuff that they feels significant to them and that they can control. People read the sports section because they can talk about that with their friends and are invested in the outcome. You and I read the politics section for the same reason even though without popular mobilization, we have basically the same effect on outcomes as a sports game.

If policies are promoted that people actually like as opposed to barely resent, they'll start reading and talking and you won't hear the end of it.

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"why would anyone pay attention to the papers when it seems completely remote and irrelevant to people's lives?"

Local elections directly affect people. Local boards and councils set tax rates and allocate money to schools, police, fire and other public services. Local elections often are covered extensively by local newspapers. Yet voter turnout often is quite low. Why?

I live in Boston and I don't see much local coverage unless I look for it explicitly. Unless I subscribe to a local paper I don't really see much of their reporting. I did see some local papers with great stories in grocery store, but they were positioned poorly. It took me literally years of going to that store before I noticed them. Secondly, I feel powerless as my elected officials are basically doing what I already want them to do. A little while ago, I got a newsletter from my state senator with a photo of her hanging out in a marijuana greenhouse wearing a bunny suit. I didn't know how to respond for a moment and started laughing. It's a pretty dumb thing, and I'm certainly not one of the overly oppressed people in this country, but it felt like a crack in the door where my representatives were pushing for more civic freedom and tamping down on calls for repression and state violence.

I think people get more interested if there are ways for them to have an effect on outcomes or if they can see people they know doing things. I'm sort of embarrassed, but I joined an organization pushing for instant runoff voting in MA thanks to a friend convincing me to try it out (and I want it to happen!), but I hadn't heard from them since that introduction. Without a friend there, it's difficult for me to work up the courage to go time and time again as I'm kind of introverted.

So, in other words, it doesn't quite have more to do with what affects you as you claim in your earlier comment, but it has to do with what is accessible and available? Or some linear combination of the two?

I think it has something to do primarily with things feeling like you can have an effect on them. Accessibility and policy both matter. This is something I'm still figuring out like everyone else, but I think pure disinterest and laziness is not good explanation in light of the energy that can be seen in other political campaigns throughout history, like the new deal.

People are lazy.

I saw firsthand the affect that engagement has. A group of self interested people were going to build a library in a way that was bad for the community. We mobilized a small group of neighbors and were able to get a much better outcome.

Calling people lazy is pretty lazy. :)

Generally, there's a reason people don't do things you expect them to do: they may be occupied with something else, don't see the point, etc.

This (mostly) isn't laziness. Voter turnout is falling because people are increasingly disaffected.

As people realize the majority does not rule[1], they are choosing to not waste their time. When someone has spent the last 30+ years watching politicians sell their future so so business and the rich can concentrate even more wealth, why should they bother participating in Democracy Theater?

Call these people lazy at your own risk. Far too many people are sitting right at the homeless/hungry threshold that can trigger rebellions/uprisings. We are dangerously close a critical mass of people deciding that "The Hamptons are not a defensible position."[3]

[1] Actual policy changes correlate well with the preferences of the economic elite[2]. The average citizen's preferences have almost no correlation to the same policy changes.

[2] http://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fil...

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwK0jeJ8wxg

> As people realize the majority does not rule[1], they are choosing to not waste their time.

That points to a particularly brittle concept of democracy that needs to change.

Voters shouldn't have to gain a national consensus to feel like their party or idea actually matters.

Does the concept have to change, or the democracy? From where I sit, no one's party or idea does matter, it is all theater.

> We are dangerously close a critical mass of people deciding that "The Hamptons are not a defensible position.

I think this may be right, but the question is, will the US military shoot its own citizens? If a few things go the wrong way in the next decade or two, I think we're going to find out. Rather than stocking up on more guns and ammo, I think enthusiasts should make sure they have helmets, body armor, and some sort of a means of communication.

> will the US military shoot its own citizens?

There is actually evidence[1] that they wouldn't. Soldiers tend to actually take things like their oath to defend the constitution seriously. They also tend to get actual training... unlike the police, who already shoot a disgusting number of people each year.

Stocking up on guns is a somewhat[2] outdated tactic, and everybody loses if this turns into a shooting war. We are far too interdependent; loss of even "insignificant" amounts of infrastructure can easily have a "trigger effect"[3] that cascades across the remaining infrastructure.

> party

That's a significant part of the problem. We need to learn to avoid tribalism/factionalism asap. Most people can discuss specific issues, but when a group identification becomes part of the foundation for your identity, disagreement becomes an insult. We're seeing a lot of this now, unfortunately.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10752635#10753894

[2] individual circumstances will vary

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKELMR6wACw

> We need to learn to avoid tribalism/factionalism asap.

100% agree, but good luck when a multibillion dollar media machine pushes exactly that. Most of the "enlightened" people I know get their news from The Daily Show and comparable sources.

Soldiers tend to follow orders. And the crazy gun people are also loading up on body armor.

That doesn't really matter, organized soldiers always slaughter an untrained rabble. The armed wacko thing is all about intimidating the police and their fellow citizen in a time of disorder.

> The armed wacko thing is all about intimidating the police and their fellow citizen in a time of disorder.

How do you know? I'm not an armed wacko, but I am generally of the belief that the US government primarily serves corporate interests and the upper class and that democracy is mostly theater.

Talk to a prepper, they'll tell you.

A not-insignificant number of people that I grew up are in that worldview. It's incredibly frightening.

Well, if you are a prepper (you have prepared for the breakdown of society), and society does indeed break down, intimidating anyone coming for your supplies would probably be necessary.

> Does the concept have to change, or the democracy? From where I sit, no one's party or idea does matter, it is all theater.

I was responding to what I thought was a conception of democracy as "majority rules", which is a simplistic and dangerous notion of democracy.

What you are describing is something I do not understand. For example, how is Education Secretary Betsy Devos' advocacy for for-profit charter schools and vouchers not a direct representation of the ideas held by a large majority in her party?

This is dangerously close to what I perceive to be a french revolution type situation. Whatever problems we have now are much better than mob rule. Considering an automation and AI future likely many of the people here would be targeted by these disaffected masses. Can tech keep people connected and on the right path without it backfiring? We're going to find out!

I'm talking local politics not national. Your local alderman is voting for stupid parking rules or not paying for park maintenance because people are lazy and disinterested.

I don't say that with any malice. I'm among the ranks of the lazy too unless I'm pissed off about something! Try sitting through a city council or school board meeting -- it's awful.

There is an opportunity cost associated with becoming informed about local government. If that is greater than the value of your vote, which it almost certainly is, then it's not rational to keep up with local news.

Government is also often as convoluted as possible, artificially increasing the cost. I just don't see how this argument makes sense.

> I just don't see how this argument makes sense.

Perhaps in that the alternative is even worse, but then that's not a great argument either, in part because even if people are paying attention, I don't think most people have the intelligence to understand the complexity of the world, especially when the government is lying to them.

> Yet voter turnout often is quite low. Why?

The idea is that only the knowledgeable vote. If you do not feel confident that you have a good grasp on political issues, your vote dilutes the signal sent by those less ignorant.

Encouraging ignorant voters to vote is often the visible part of the propaganda iceberg, the kind of politics we have increasingly witnessed in most of the Western world in the last two decades and that used to be the preserve of third world dictatorships.

You then see elections via mud-slinging and highly visible non-issues taking on most of the mindshare, and the media is captured by interest groups who need it to hijack a larger percentage of the vote. It is harmful to the fabric of society as all sides of the political debate become vote harvesting machines and the citizenry is radicalised and encouraged not to reason about issues [1] [2].

"A free society gives its citizens the right to vote but that right should come with the responsibility to not abuse that right by voting ignorantly." [3]

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1qffh9/vot...

[2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-me-care/ - "the research [...] found that college students’ self-reported empathy has declined since 1980, with an especially steep drop in the past 10 years. [...] during this same period students’ self-reported narcissism has reached new heights"

[3] https://www.quora.com/Is-this-reason-for-not-voting-valid-or...

The mobilization of the ignorant doesn't really matter. If they vote randomly and both sides are equally mobilized, the ignorant votes cancel out and the biased (hopefully knowledgable) participants actually determine policy. This becomes harmful when particular factions are mobilized in isolation.... thus US politics.

The culture of outrage we see in TV news is carefully crafted to capture and cultivate these votes.

Central to the character of ignorance is the ignorance of it.

Because as an individual, my vote doesn't matter. I know we like to tell ourselves that our vote counts, and voting is important, but mathematically, it just doesn't (again, as an individual)

Elections in cities are never decided by exactly one vote; if they were, they would certainly go to a court and the court would decide anyway.

That means that I know whether I choose to go to the polls or not, it won't affect the outcome. Now, of course, if a whole demographic realizes this and doesn't vote, it does swing the election. However, when I am sitting at home deciding whether to vote or not, I am not deciding for a whole demographic; I am just deciding whether I as an individual will vote.

I might get downvoted, because the idea that our individual vote doesn't really matter goes against everything we are taught in democracies. We REALLY want to believe our vote matters, and as a whole, it DOES. We want everyone to vote, it allows our democracy to function. So we tell ourselves little lies that our vote AS AN INDIVIDUAL matters.

Deep down, though, we know it doesn't, so many people decide to stay home.

I'm sorry but I don't buy it. The problem is that a lot of people think like that, so they don't do anything. It's sort of self-fulfilling.

It's like people who say that their individual choices won't help fight climate change, so they won't change their habits. A lot of people do that, then nothing happens and the problem just gets worse.

"People read the sports section because they can talk about that with their friends"

Well why not have them read the "Science and Technology" section and talk about that with their friends? How is sports, which has a negligible direct impact on your life, seen as more relevant than reading the "Health" section? And the problem isn't just sports. The crime section is just as guilty, reading about most crimes in no one serves to keep me safe.

Because sports are more accessible and universally entertaining. The population of commenters on Hackernews tends strongly to the extremely curious, people who are always seeking new knowledge and ideas to play with. Not everyone is like that!

When I was a kid I asked my dad why people like sports talk radio. He told me it was because it was basically pointless so even without the effort of thinking your opinions were valid and relevant.

The sport is to relax and socialize. If you are tired and stressed, it helps. It also helps when you dont know what to say in social situation, have nothing to say but still have that human need to talk and socialize.

Health section is about what you should do, about learning that one more of your favorite food is unhealty, about one ml ore expensive healthy food you should buy to cleans yourself. So it is nagging combined with incinsitent half-science.

Aside from allergies and special cases (lactose intolerance for instance and other problems down to genetics) there are no unhealthy foods in the sense in which you put it. There is the question of a balanced diet whereby some foods should be eaten in very moderate amounts and with attention to one's own body chemistry.

"If policies are promoted that people actually like as opposed to barely resent, they'll start reading and talking and you won't hear the end of it."

I like the sound of that but at the same time it gets tricky when you have a legal system that stands up for the rights of everyone, including people that you, they or I don't like. Look at the civil rights movement in the 1950's and 1960's, the current LGBT rights movements or the debates about civil rights as they pertain to Muslims. There's a plurality of citizens that would gladly chastise these groups or violate their rights in other ways such as putting them under constant surveillance or restrictions due to their religion, race or sexuality but that is incongruous with a society that holds all individuals are to be treated the same and only held to account when their actions violate a law, not before.

I'm a bigger believer that the problem is cultural when, especially in American society, we started to hold that feelings mattered far more than thought. Debate began to get watered down and the winner was not the person who could show their position reflected what was objectively true and morally correct but instead who could virtue signal the loudest and express their grievance in the most emotional manner possible. It's always 'dream this', 'dream that', 'as an American it is your God-given right to' or 'America is the best nation in the world and there's nothing we can't do' but almost never 'here are the facts about issues the Americans are facing and here are some reasonable ideas about what we can do about it. Let's discuss what you think about it'.

Politicians are very in-tuned with what people want to hear and they do tell them what they want to hear. Even worse, pundits know what people want to hear and actually have an influence on the opinions of their listeners and they'll be damned if they'll let facts and honesty get in the way of their ratings, wealth and access.

America needs to start fostering a culture where they stop equating feelings and sense of self-worth with reality before we can really start discussing how giving primers on good policy will make a difference. Until that happens it's just a waste of oxygen, ink or electricity.

I would turn this around: the people on the intellectual side seem to think that being in touch with the emotions of the people they're addressing is below them, and often even make it worse by treating the people they're addressing poorly (if emotions don't matter, why do this at all?).

Emotions matter for most people, including the people who claim they don't, that's just the reality. I don't know why it's fashionable among folk who prefer intellectual pursuits to discard emotions so much.

I agree with you that they matter but there has to be balance. Right now the pendulum is stuck so far to the emotional side that people are willing to eschew facts that would make them challenge their own biases and actively look for material that would only reinforce it.

Emotion is the root of all action and social interaction. It's also why I or anyone else chooses to pursue anything intellectual. But that doesn't justify manipulating the emotions for destructive and self-serving purposes. I consider deliberately flattering people and dealing in overly simplistic platitudes to foresake intellectual honesty and reinforce their bias because they consider it comfortable to qualify as destructive and self-serving.

I don't know if there's just one pendulum (I would at least say there's a chunk of people who are too emotional, and a chunk of people who are ignoring emotions too much), but none of what you are mentioning sounds new or unusual in regards to human nature.

People are generally fairly reluctant to challenge their own biases. There are some reasons for that, but this doesn't represent some abnormal pendulum swing.

Same for manipulating emotions for self-serving purposes.

This isn't a problem with emotions, it's a problem with incentives, and, well, corruption. Something like this can actually be very, very rational.

If people are acting in self-serving and self-preserving ways that's a fairly clear message that they do not feel terribly safe and do not trust the systems around them to accept their mistakes.

I don't think they're wrong.

I wouldn't think there's just one pendulum that governs how people view an issue either but there's certainly a continuum for how emotional people will get over certain issues. Obviously if you have no emotion over an issue you won't care one way or the other but if anyone gets too emotional they're much more likely to be irrational, cave to bias and tune out altering view points.

Most people on this site are aware that objectivity and not caving to their own bias isn't easy and, more or less, requires constant effort and that is the same kind of effort that should be promoted amongst the public at large. As almost anybody here could tell you, just because something feels true certainly does not make it true but we seem to relish a culture that seems to believe that person's emotions should never be challenged and doing so is merely cruel rather than, at times, necessary.

Just because confronting bias is hard to do, and may hurt someone's feelings, doesn't mean that that bias should be ignored, or worse promoted. I'm not talking about whether or not conservatives, liberals, libertarians or whoever else is right but instead challenging the notion that what we need to promote more civic engagement is to tell people what is going on in the country and the world in a manner they want to hear it. What we should be doing is telling people what is going in the world and country in a manner that actually is and at the same time the public needs to be calling out demagogues for what they are and understanding why they are dangerous.

Dismissing the arguments of others as mere "virtue signaling" is not debating with them.

Edit: autocorrect

Apologies, I meant 'virtue signalling.'

Disparaging others with the intention of trying to show your own value and grandstanding with no intention of actually refuting someone else's argument, isn't debate either.

Examples:

"Goddamned priveleged white males will never understand oppression like us."

"Liberalism is a mental disease amongst emotionally unstable snowflakes who can't think clearly like conservatives."

I know many people are above talking like that but it's not uncommon. If someone is willing to talk like that to you because you disagree with them do you really think they're going to take any interest in what you have to say that would contradict their views?

You appear to be blaming your own bad behavior on others.

How so?

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