General Politics Thread

Silas, Alley, are you two responding to my post? Just so to be clear, I didn't specifically say that liberal democracies in and of themselves inherently lead to fascism. After all, some of the social and political conditions that fed into the fascist background come from the days of old/tired/declining empires (as well its decaying social structures).

But, some also come from events and conditions that either happened during said unstable democracies, or fed into the overall decay and/or polarization of said democracies that led to conflicts.

I could even extend my point above to republics in general, when they're too young and/or too unstable. There was a lot of shit going on during the Second Spanish Republic (the "two black years", which directly precede the Civil War). Not to mention the sheer instability of the first Portuguese Republic here that led to the military coup d'état (this rectangle's armed forces back then had a certain amount of power and influence), which in turn led to the Estado Novo.

Italy's background back then is different from liberal democracies, but I wasn't thinking of Italy when I wrote that. I was admittedly thinking more about Portugal and Spain, specifically.

Edited by Quag15 on Sep 24th 2018 at 3:10:43 PM

Well with Democracy it's worth noting that they don't shift into totalitarianism spontaneously. There's usually some other factor at work. Same goes for the reverse, actually.

For example, if the vast majority of a nation-state's economy is held up by coal mines then it's pretty likely to be a dictatorship. One of the more profitable ways to run a coal mine is in fact to use oppressed, uneducated slaves. Indeed, being anything but oppressive can be actively harmful to such a regime. This is part of why you get full-circle revolutions, in fact: The regime may have needed to be oppressive to survive (and quite possibly sowed its own destruction by being too nice), and the rebels who overthrow them inherit the exact same issue (and either become just as oppressive or are overthrown themselves).

@Daze: You’ll note that the author’s solution isn’t to ban AI research; that’s absurd, in no small part because countries that tried to do that would be outcompeted by those than didn’t. In fact even trying to impose meaningful ethical regulations is probably just going to result in China leapfrogging the west on A.I. implementation and research.

It might not even be a “bad thing” in the fullness of time if liberal democracy dies in favor of some sort of A.I. run manigerial state; people typically imagine a dystopia (or a “false” utopia), but I would imagine the overall quality of life would actually be significantly higher than our modern day society.

Many of our ancestors (nearly all of them I suspect) would probably find our modern day society to be strange, frightening and profundly immoral. We in turn would see their societies as backwards and barbaric and their moral values to be twisted and downright evil. I see every reason for that dynamic to remain true for future societies.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Sep 25th 2018 at 5:44:02 AM

I'm responding to the point raised by the person Polar Phantom was talking with. I assume Silas is doing the same.

Quag I was responding to the conversation and expanding upon your point, following the thread of conversation more that directly disagreeing with or refuting anyone.

/ Alright, carry on.

Well the AI article fell very far into the category of "TL;DR" for me, but my general thoughts:

AI is a good thing in general. AI running society is probably a good idea, but it still doesn't get around the human equation. An AI would essentially need to have the same sorts of checks and balances democratic leaders have. In essence, a benevolent AI-run society would just be a democracy except the White House is just a big computer that changes software every few years.

AI is something to approach with caution, though a lot of the fear surrounding it is just knee-jerk reactionary impulse. A lot of discussion of technology comes from sci-fi works. This isn't in and of itself a bad thing, but the problem is that Mary Shelley's works are what really got the ball rolling for the sci-fi genre.

...It's a bit like 1984 and security cameras, but much worse.

Edited by Protagonist506 on Sep 25th 2018 at 4:43:18 AM

Science fiction, particularly hard science fiction is very much a relevant genre when it comes to discussing these ethical quandaries, with each work being something of a thought experiment guessing at how a particular change could impact people and society.

The shortcoming of many works of science fiction though, is that, as you pointed out, they tend towards the negative and in many cases dystopian implications of emerging technology, because it makes for a more compelling narrative. The best science fiction tends to give a balanced assessment of the benefits and drawbacks of a technology.

One popular work that explores some of these questions in regards to artificial intelligence is the celebrated Video Game Deus Ex, with one scene in particular, the conversation with the prototype data-mining system Morpheus being one of the most topical to our present situation with the ubiquitous data gathering and surveillance of the age of "Big Data".

While this portrayal is often deliberately disturbing or unflattering, the game's arguably best ending involves essentially giving over control of society to the god-like AI contrast known as Helios in tandem with the Player Character, in contrast to the Illuminati ending in which humanity (or rather a small elitist clique of humans) remains in control of the mass surveillance systems they have built, or the Dark Age ending in which the technology that enables mass surveillance and AI is outright destroyed in the name of liberating humankind from these mechanisms of social control.

This presents a fairly good analogue for our present situation. Many of the benefits of machine learning and artificial intelligence are contingent on being able to gather and process data from virtually every member of society, and the more viable it is for people to "opt-out" in the name of privacy or self-determination, the more this potential is curtailed. The enlightenment era values of universal individual rights, particularly when it comes to privacy, may not be able to survive the social transformation brought on by AI; with those nations most willing to violate those rights (ie Authoritarian states like China) being best situated to take full advantage of these technologies, which could make their political and economic systems more competitive than analogous systems in the west.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Sep 26th 2018 at 10:04:09 AM

Big Data is such a stupid field name, I wish they'd pick something else.

It's an annoying buzzword, but it's here to stay for better or worse.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Sep 26th 2018 at 9:58:14 AM

I'm sure you could fit the word scalable in there somewhere. Or at least include a verb.

So... this is a little embarrassing considering all the discourse, but I managed to find the original quote:

"fascism emerges out of a decaying liberal democracy"

Which is less... you know, stupid, but may be worth some discourse.

I apologise for my faulty memory.

They had some weird things to say about Thanos and Killmonger as well which confused me and likely contributed to my distortion of what they wrote. Because I was, at the time, a little steamed.

Still, we got some cool conversation out of it please don't hate me I'm very sorry.

Nobody's going to hate you over starting a conversation.

In favor or against? Because that would say a lot about the person. Especially if we talk about something as a Killmonger apologist...

It's... weird. See, they say Killmonger was the true hero but the writers botched him and that he is, in fact, a symbol of the "evil" left that wants liberation being destroyed by the "good" and "conservative" T'Challa.

I believe their politics has led to certain biases, but I don't know if I'd say they are entirely wrong to think that. I think they're missing the point about violence and being willing to kill for a bloody revolution. How you become as bad as those you wish to depose. There's other stuff they took ubrage with that I raise eyebrows at.

As for Thanos, the big purple dude is apparently a symbol of Leftist Populism. I think they even called him a Communist despite him fitting Malthusan ideals more. This is also something I disagree on. This person is very... passionate.

I don't see how a guy named Killmonger, who I know nothing else about, could be seen as a hero.

He's more a "villain" who was actually a "hero". One who sought to destroy his oppressors.

But the writers were sure to give him enough Kick the Dog moments so that we hate him and thus hate the idea of rising up.

That was the point that person was making, I think.

Again, missing the point I think, but it's not... invalid. Just a weird position to have.

No, he was a villain who had good points but was ultimately a villain.

Yes, Wakanda needed to stop being isolationist and start interacting with the world for the benefit of all but instead of liberal interventionism to fight imperialism, his desire was to use imperialism to replace imperialism. Thus simply replacing the old masters with new ones.

His criticisms were right but his end-goal directly mimicked the people he hated, which was almost certainly the point considering that he was a Navy Seal and thus trained by one of the entities responsible for the world order he despised.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Sep 27th 2018 at 7:54:25 AM

To be fair, there is something to said about the fact that Wakanda is pretty much a privilage first world country with all that it implies: is indolent to the suffering of other and more concern with itself, is a very batman moment(which is fitting consider a lot of people said T´challa is african batman) of a wealthy leader of state fighting and kicking a man who survive of is own.

Certainly, that's why I said that he was right that Wakanda morally (and practically considering the series of escalating threats in the MCU) couldn't afford to remain Isolationist.

The problem is that his goals were little more than "the white man's burden" but replace White with Wakandan. Thus making him more or less identical to the colonizers he despised.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Sep 27th 2018 at 8:00:38 AM

Draco in Leather Pants. Simple as that.

Killmonger is sympathetic as a troubled individual. But his plan is absolute nuts. The sheer amount of death that it would left is enought to destroy any sympathy for his ideals.

remembers progressive youtuber that called Thanos a fascist.

Ok. This is hilarious

The whole race stuff with Killmonger is personally interesting to me because, well...Uh, my race is pretty screwed too, but because we're a ethnic group that isn't notorious outside South America, I'm never going to see Big Mediatic Booms about it.

Being Andean is suffering.

...but we're not going to fund the Ethno-nationalists. They are ultra nuts.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 27th 2018 at 8:44:31 AM

Thanos is more of a cult leader with a private army of followers who has no political views beyond "Everything will be better once half the universe is dead."

Pretty much. Albeit, the Jump from Cult Leader to Dictator is not really that far...

Except MCU Thanos does not want to rule anything. He just fucks off to his farm confident that he made everything better by killing half the universe.

Oh. I know that, I mean that the Dictator mindset is Not So Different from a Cult Leader. It wasn't about Thanos but rather about the attitudes surrounding dictators.

A dictatorship is always shaped for it's leadership. Any issue or emotional complex of the dictator will affect the entire nation.