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Comment by the_gipsy | Hacker News Reader

Weird way to frame this argument as a question.

The domestic government holding a monopoly on information is a threat, and foreign information can be a relief, yes.

Foreign misinformation is also a threat, and domestic government shutting it out can also be a relief.

So you have to ask yourself, where are we? Is Spain (or any European country that is not currently bootlicking, for that matter) a dictatorship that needs Freedom messages in a bottle from the USA, or is the USA directly subverting their democracies with espionage?

Why did the USA give millions to Morocco earlier this summer? Why did the Dept. of Homeland (so espionage) produce decade old evidence of corruption in a former administration that would be linked to the current one, at this precise time? Just asking questions here.

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All nations are under pressure to hide information from their citizens, whether it’s for covering up political scandals or suppressing political opposition. If you give them the tools, they will eventually use them. So you can’t give them the tools.

The democratic way to fight misinformation is with public trust, a well educated population, and by publishing true information to counter misinformation. Anything less treats citizens as children who can’t be trusted to form their own opinions.

Beautiful on paper, in practice you surrender national security to foreign actors.

I agree on the philosophical part, letting our governments act opaquely under the veil of national security, inevitably leads them to turn on their citizens. But total transparency will be exploited by foreign powers (likely with domestic cooperation), until those that once defended it are removed from power.

Who decides what is allowed to be covered up? Surely not the public, if your goal is to hide those same “dangerous” things from the public.

Historically, this kind of control has always been a favored tool of the corrupt. If you build an apparatus of censorship, it will be used to harm the public.

Yes. But if you give up all intel, then you have no intel at all, and soon this model of government will be undermined by the foreign actors.

There is a gray line somewhere between surveillance state and revealing all intel, which can serve national security and also diplomacy.

Traditionally military, diplomacy, and intelligence are the three areas where it may be okay to keep some things hidden.

The problem is that this typically ends up shifting corruption towards these sectors, which ends up hollowing out national security.

Things like overclassification are a serious problem.

> Beautiful on paper, in practice you surrender national security to foreign actors. > But total transparency will be exploited by foreign powers (likely with domestic cooperation), until those that once defended it are removed from power.

You know, democracy obviously has its downsides. Should we abolish democracy because of that?

We already have. These foreign misinformation actors we're talking about have already convinced a majority of the voting population that democracy is bad, and they have voted to end democracy, and now democracy is in the process of ending.

This could have been prevented by blocking foreign misinformation.

So basically your solution to foreign interests undermining democracy is to undermine it yourself first.

You misunderstood. I'm not arguing for authoritarianism.

How so? Aren't you advocating for the state censorship that literally intended to prevent citizens to vote "wrong"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

> "the essential democratic freedom – freedom of expression – is both ingrained in and potentially harmful to democracy."

But in case of the democracy there is no paradox. Democracy is about will of people defining the government. When it is the other way around (the government defines the will of people), it is called authoritarianism.

So basically you are arguing for the authoritarianism against the democracy. It is just so you seemingly does not like the word authoritarianism and like the word democracy, and are trying to justify the discrepancy by some kind of paradox (which there is none).

Even IF you are right about people will destroy the democracy by their will if that will does not formed by the government, there is still no paradox and that is still called the authoritarianism. By that, you simply point out one of the weakness of the democracy, and suggest the authoritarianism as a better alternative (even if you are refusing to use the correct definitions).

> When it is the other way around (the government defines the will of people), it is called authoritarianism.

Not the definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism

You should really read those Wikipedia articles. Creating and explaining your own definitions and circular logic make you sound like a fool.

Right now, there are foreign actors helping right-extremist campaigns in Europe. Those parties' goal is ultimately converting to Authoritarianism. You can connect the dots yourself now.

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