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Comment by throwaway_yy2Di | Hacker News Reader

This guy is staggeringly authoritarian. He doesn't stop at "correcting" the views of radicalized nutjobs. He wants the bulk of US political speech actively managed, regulated:

He outlines six specific reform possibilities to improve exposure to diverse points of view on the Internet: 1) creation of "deliberative domains" where diverse exchange of views can occur online; 2) disclosure of relevant conduct by Web producers; 3) voluntary self-regulation by Web producers; 4) publicly subsidized programming and Web sites; 5) government-imposed rules that would require the most popular Web sites to provide links to sites with diverse views; and 6) government-imposed rules that would require highly partisan Web sites to provide links to sites with opposing views.

http://www.scottlondon.com/reviews/sunstein2.html

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He is in fact extremely authoritarian.

E.g. he has written:

"Without taxes, there would be no liberty. Without taxes there would be no property. Without taxes, few of us would have any assets worth defending. [It is] a dim fiction that some people enjoy and exercise their rights without placing any burden whatsoever on the public… There is no liberty without dependency."

Sunstein has a deep-seated belief in the power of government to improve society. He would point to something like the Civil Rights movement, where Congress pushed racial equality down the throats of the states and banned private conduct that discriminated on the basis of race, as a archetypal example of how government can force society to overcome its own failings.

It's the total opposite of the anarchist/libertarian viewpoint, but it's a self-consistent view of the world that he holds in good faith.

Is it fair to label this "extremely authoritarian" though? I tend to agree with Sustein's views as described in your comment (not the views described in OP's comment) but I don't consider myself authoritarian...

I'm not using "authoritarian" in a pejorative sense, but rather a descriptive sense. Anarchist versus authoritarian is a spectrum, depending on how much you believe government is necessary to prevent negative social activity. Most liberals and most conservatives are pretty far on the authoritarian side of the scale. E.g. a liberal might think government is necessary to prevent racial discrimination, and a conservative might think government is necessary to prevent deviant sexual behavior. In contrast traditional libertarians are somewhere in the middle. They believe the government is necessary to prevent things like classic property rights, but not say gender discrimination. Anarcho-libertarians mostly reject the use of government to protect even things like classic property rights.

Sunstein endorses using the government to do things like increase the amount and diversity of political discussion in society, or decreasing how much people buy fast food and soda, which is pretty far on the authoritarian side of things.

It's not an inherently pejorative label. For example, it's authoritarian to argue that the government should interfere with private real estate transactions by preventing people from discriminating against potential buyers based on race. But most people support laws of that nature.

Thanks for clarifying, that makes a lot of sense.

That is actually quite a reasonable viewpoint. Taxes clearly benefited America's economy greatly when we were the only nation with near-universal education provided mostly by government schools. One could also argue that the township model, federal post offices, and federal marine hospitals (legislated by our Founding Fathers) resulted in strong national growth.

That is a far cry from the anti-liberty sentiments demonstrated by the OP's quotes.

It's fine to marshal public money to spur greater debate, but 6) is a tax on free speech.

In other words, he's proposing that you can only speak your mind if you also cite opposing views. Once you allow that, then you can go further and restrict speech on the quality/quantity of opposition presented. It's reckless to even consider such restrictions.

> It's reckless to even consider such restrictions.

Ironically, you're criticizing a professor as being reckless simply for proposing certain ideas in an academic paper...

I am commenting on a potential candidate to oversee NSA abuses. In this context his research papers are fair game.

Criticism is one thing, legislation is another...

He would love living in China.

It seems like he wants to force people to be exposed to diverse/opposing views... isn't that kind of the opposite of authoritarian?

In the same way that an NSA surveillance state built to defend the democratic way of life is the opposite of totalitarian.

I read that as "lots of people in the media and in Internet discussions disagree with what we're doing and they need to be exposed to at least some content that supports us."

Purely authoritarian would be "everyone needs to just talk about our point of view." That wouldn't fly too well on the Internet, so this seems like the next best thing. "No one is saying anything good about what we're doing and we need to change that. Not by changing what we do, but by coercing them to be exposed to things that support us."

I won't touch the value of exposing people to diverse views, but such a system would limit the views to only what's vetted by people and institutions regulating that system. The conspiracy theorists of Sunstein's paper have a term for this: controlled opposition.

So you have a website espousing a political view. You'd have to put a section listing other views... but what views do you put in that section? How would you go about deciding what views are opposite to yours? What about less known views?

Soon you'd get something like an AdSense For Opinions; an ad area with three views, each with a short description. "DRUGS FOR A BETTER LIFE. We believe every human should use more drugs and medicines daily. betterlifethroughdrugs.org", "US DOLLAR: ROOT OF ALL EVIL. US Dollar proven root of all evil, Bible proof inside. See our proposed alternative currencies. dollar-evil-get-saved.com", "EVERYTHING IS NICE. Life is pretty much swell, man. Chill out. whatareyouevenworriedabout.net"

Every possible political position and opinion would have to be considered if you want to show diverse views.

Right, but it seems like such a policy would be additive rather than subtractive. In other words, it would not prevent people from voicing their opinions, it would merely force them to include other opinions alongside their own.

You're right that such a policy isn't really feasible in terms of real-world implementation. But I do worry that the Internet has problems with polarization and filter-bubbling, and I appreciate suggestions for trying to mitigate those issues.

Do you figure he'd insert opposing viewpoints into feminist "safe spaces?" Maybe people worried about the government exerting "cognitive infiltration" want a safe space free of government cognitive infiltrators.

>such a policy would be additive rather than subtractive.

Yes, but it still seems an infringement on the First as it, in effect, requires people to also "say" things that they don't want to say, even if only by referencing the words of others.

Also, if a person found the opposing viewpoint morally repugnant to the point where referencing it would be objectionable then he may opt to stifle his own speech in order to avoid such a reference.

Free speech, of course, provides no requirement for noble motives of engaging opposing ideas, etc. as this guy proposes.

> It seems like he wants to force people to be exposed to diverse/opposing views... isn't that kind of the opposite of authoritarian?

Force = authoritarian.

> Force = authoritarian

Are you opposed to all forms of coercion?

Anyway, I'll concede that force is probably the wrong way to go about it... the government could provide incentives for exposing people to diverse viewpoints, but forcing people to do so is a bit extreme.

Force and fraud are the basis of all anti-social thinking and behavior, so yes, I'm opposed to coercion in all forms.

Ah, so you consider yourself an anarchist then? (Not asking this pejoratively; it's a legitimate political philosophy, just one I don't happen to subscribe to.) I feel like coercion is kind of inevitable in some circumstances; I don't think anyone is opposed to forcing a rapist to submit to punishment.

Anyway, that's a different discussion altogether. While I think force may be necessary in some aspects of society, I concede that applying force to the realm of discourse is probably a bad idea.

I leave it to others to apply labels. I just despise criminality and sociopathic assumptions, especially in government.

When someone, such as a rapist or a politician, has proven that they're incapable of peaceful behavior in society, we have the right to defend ourselves from them.

IOW, self-defense isn't coercion. The coercion has already been committed by the criminal. If you're walking down the street and I mug you, I'm applying the force. You, in self-defense, aren't being "violent" in your intent to protect yourself. You're trying to stop the violence I'm committing against you.

I guess what I'm saying is I wish people would worry less about labels and more about principles.

To get back on topic a little, the government using the tactics as laid out by Sunstein is a fraud being perpetrated by the force of government so it rings all kinds of bells.

Rest assured it would be officially authorized diverse/opposing views only.

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