Comment by dahwolf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dahwolf | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Very insightful and I'd say this is true for the internet at large.

Vocal internet is overly tech, overly American, overly progressive, overly academic, overly LGBTQ+, overly neuro-atypical, overly "misfit/alternative", overly chronically online. This interesting umbrella of demographics shapes internet culture with of course the sizable counter force of the right. This sub culture has somehow bled into media and institutions, becoming THE culture, but not really.

Quite a lot of it makes zero sense to "normies".

I once read a fascinating account of a campaign activist for the Democrats. She would do home visits to get a reading of people's political leaning and try to persuade them to vote for them.

She was in for a shock. She found that people had no answer when probed for their position on seemingly important topics. They had simply never thought about it. Sometimes they do answer yet when probed for a "why", it soon turned out that they made it all up on the spot. And more often than not, the few answers given were contradicting and all over the place.

Turns out it's all bread and games. People know and care about their immediate circles and don't do politics for the sake of politics unless their local lives are drastically impacted.

Even "superior" online characters don't care about politics. They know what is the outrage of the day but wouldn't able to correctly answer the most basic of questions about politics. Yet the strength of their opinion seems inverse to that.

"People know and care about their immediate circles and don't do politics for the sake of politics unless their local lives are drastically impacted.

Even "superior" online characters don't care about politics."

This is evidence that democracy is dysfunctional and we need to fix and or change how it works.

There are many important issues of a 'specialist' nature and or of minority interest or that only affect a small percentage of the population that government should address but has either failed to do so or done so inadequately.

If these issues only affect a few citizens or there are only a few pushing government to address them then there's less chance they will be dealt with in a fair and equitable manner. That 'disinterest' of the majority means there is no general oversight of these minority issues no matter how important they are. Thus government decisions about these issues will usually be influenced by the protagonists and lobbyists who have the most power and influence—their wishes prevail and win out even if not in the best interest of the citizenry as a whole.

There are thousands of issues that fall into this category—treaties signed on request of big business, regulations changed or weakened to benefit the few, etc. Take copyright law for instance, in the digital age it needs a gross overhaul but is resisted by vested interests, big publishers etc., also it's protected by international treaties which adds further resistance to change.

The majority of the population couldn't give a damn about copyright so the powerful get their way despite that the majority of citizens would benefit from its reform.

This is just one indictment of democracy's failure, there are thousands more. Moreover, as society becomes more complex and the needs of people become even more diversified, the failure will become even more evident.

When we look at the dysfunctional nature of current politics it's clear we urgently need to rethink how we are governed. A dysfunctional democracy has high potential to morph into totalitarianism.

Many people are politically disinterested even to the point of not bothering to vote. And like you said, even those that are engaged are still not qualified to comment on the more complicated issues, of which there is a growing amount.

It's an odd contrast with the perception that everything has become hyper-political, intersectional and everyone is an activist now.

Obama once had an insightful remark about it. Sending a mean tweet is not activism. Political activism means reading legislation, learning how the political system works, learning law, and doing a huge amount of work on the ground. It's a lot of work, often unrewarding.

Hence the Tweet. Zero effort. Immediate reward. Nothing changes.

"It's an odd contrast with the perception that everything has become hyper-political, intersectional and everyone is an activist now."

We know this has been exacerbated by biased and poor media reporting, social media etc. but it seems to me that with the complexities of modern life many don't stop to think about issues, nuances are lost thus views polarize to extremes.

I wonder how much better things would be if we taught kids about politics and how they are likely to be manipulated later in life, and that before arriving at a position it was incumbent on citizens to consider the issues carefully.

Obama's point would be half solved if kids left primary school primed with these notions, even though views were not fully developed they'd be easier to reinforce later.

None of that stuff was drummed into me as a kid and I now wish it had been.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com