Once you lose trust in one institution.....
January 25, 2017 9:11 PM Subscribe
Trump's move to muzzle government departments and clamp down on climate science reminds me of the Harper Conservative government, which did the exact same thing from 2006 to 2015. The exact same thing.
The atmosphere was so dark and heavy that they were booted out of office. I think the same thing will happen to Trump.
posted by My Dad at 10:10 PM on January 25, 2017 [14 favorites]
The atmosphere was so dark and heavy that they were booted out of office. I think the same thing will happen to Trump.
posted by My Dad at 10:10 PM on January 25, 2017 [14 favorites]
in a similar vein, Malaysia stepping up for the rollcall: Everyday Authoritarianism is Boring and Tolerable
Everyday life in the modern authoritarian regime is, in this sense, boring and tolerable. It is not outrageous. Most critics, even vocal ones, are not going to be murdered like Anna Politkovskaya, they are going to be frustrated. Most not-very-vocal critics will live their lives completely unmolested by the security forces. They will enjoy it when the trains run on time, blame the government when they do not, gripe at their taxes, and save for vacation. Elections, when they happen, will serve the “anesthetic function” that Philippe Schmitter attributed to elections in Portugal under Salazar in the greatly underappreciated in 1978 volume Elections without Choice.
Life under authoritarian rule in such situations looks a lot like life in a democracy. As Malaysia’s longtime Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad used to say, “if you don’t like me, defeat me in my district.”
posted by cendawanita at 10:33 PM on January 25, 2017 [25 favorites]
Everyday life in the modern authoritarian regime is, in this sense, boring and tolerable. It is not outrageous. Most critics, even vocal ones, are not going to be murdered like Anna Politkovskaya, they are going to be frustrated. Most not-very-vocal critics will live their lives completely unmolested by the security forces. They will enjoy it when the trains run on time, blame the government when they do not, gripe at their taxes, and save for vacation. Elections, when they happen, will serve the “anesthetic function” that Philippe Schmitter attributed to elections in Portugal under Salazar in the greatly underappreciated in 1978 volume Elections without Choice.
Life under authoritarian rule in such situations looks a lot like life in a democracy. As Malaysia’s longtime Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad used to say, “if you don’t like me, defeat me in my district.”
posted by cendawanita at 10:33 PM on January 25, 2017 [25 favorites]
Good piece, thank you. The way he describes the inevitable, inescapable, corrosive grind of corruption really tallies with my experience when I was doing work in Kenya with a government department.
I had been naive - not about what corruption was, and only a little bit about its prevalence - but about my complicity in it, the way my actions, my very presence perpetuated it.
It was a horrible feeling, and my ambivalence about my time there is directed inwards more than outwards; I was disappointed, and to a degree disgusted, with myself and my reaction - my almost reflexive and helpless accommodation to the system.
Denial and ignoring is very appealing when confronted with feelings like this.
posted by smoke at 11:25 PM on January 25, 2017 [16 favorites]
I had been naive - not about what corruption was, and only a little bit about its prevalence - but about my complicity in it, the way my actions, my very presence perpetuated it.
It was a horrible feeling, and my ambivalence about my time there is directed inwards more than outwards; I was disappointed, and to a degree disgusted, with myself and my reaction - my almost reflexive and helpless accommodation to the system.
Denial and ignoring is very appealing when confronted with feelings like this.
posted by smoke at 11:25 PM on January 25, 2017 [16 favorites]
This is also the premise of Adam Curtis documentary which came out a month or two ago : Hypernormalisation. One of the most brilliant things I've seen in a long time, presciently it talks about Trump and also Russian tactics of seeding disinformation
posted by stevedawg at 1:29 AM on January 26, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by stevedawg at 1:29 AM on January 26, 2017 [5 favorites]
A new study shows American democracy is getting weaker. And not because of Trump.
You’d think, given the timing, that the election of Donald Trump is the reason why. But that’s not it. The report is based on a quantitative metric, linked to survey data and policy, that doesn’t incorporate the election results.
“The decline in the US democracy score reflects an erosion of confidence in government and public institutions over many years,” the report states. “[Trump’s] candidacy was not the cause of the deterioration in trust but rather a consequence of it.”
fwiw, i've had this open in my tabs since December: US Power Will Decline Under Trump, Says Futurist Who Predicted Soviet Collapse
posted by cendawanita at 1:58 AM on January 26, 2017 [10 favorites]
You’d think, given the timing, that the election of Donald Trump is the reason why. But that’s not it. The report is based on a quantitative metric, linked to survey data and policy, that doesn’t incorporate the election results.
“The decline in the US democracy score reflects an erosion of confidence in government and public institutions over many years,” the report states. “[Trump’s] candidacy was not the cause of the deterioration in trust but rather a consequence of it.”
fwiw, i've had this open in my tabs since December: US Power Will Decline Under Trump, Says Futurist Who Predicted Soviet Collapse
posted by cendawanita at 1:58 AM on January 26, 2017 [10 favorites]
It's got aspects of Curtis's "HyperNormalization," yes, but it reminded me more of the analysis of cynicism as late capitalism's ruling affect in Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism. Ambulances that may function as Ubers (who's to say?) are the end games of hyper-capitalism: they're what happens when monetary exchange value effectively replaces all other value systems and every form of cultural and institutional opposition to the rule of money. Bribery and systemic corruption become "realistic" options in such a society when other ethical, legal, and political systems (the principle of equality before the law, human rights) are extinguished by oligarchical rule based on sheer purchasing power.
posted by Sonny Jim at 2:24 AM on January 26, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by Sonny Jim at 2:24 AM on January 26, 2017 [4 favorites]
the Harper Conservative government, which did the exact same thing from 2006 to 2015. The exact same thing. ¶ The atmosphere was so dark and heavy that they were booted out of office
… after nine years and nine months.
posted by stopgap at 3:01 AM on January 26, 2017 [17 favorites]
… after nine years and nine months.
posted by stopgap at 3:01 AM on January 26, 2017 [17 favorites]
I never spent much time in the liberal oases of Russia. In fact, I remember visiting the UK with my (then) girlfriend when the protests were going on at the end of 2011 and because of the long journey (plus arranging a visa and packing) we didn't actually learn of the protests (nothing on the main news channels) until we were in London and could see the BBC in the pub.
So yeah, the TV news is fully controlled by the Kremlin/GazPromMediaHolding — the real story with Dozhd wasn't the advertisers, it was the cable companies refusing to carry it almost as if synchronised — but if you can undermine the idea of reality itself, then it doesn't matter that the kids get their news from VK, Facebook, and the net... as long as they know that everything's fake and all versions of reality are equally (in)valid. Incidentally, when I've discussed this with Russians, quite often the response is a simple "Yeah, it is, of course, all propaganda. We're all zombified. And you're all zombified by your own propaganda". Where do you go after that? Which fake news source will you trust enough to start treating reality as knowable again?
The real trick though, is the word "fake". Show me the black box recordings from MH17, and I'll tell you now: fake. Show me people protesting, and I'll tell you now: Soros' dollars and fancy camera angles to make it look busy. Give me your personal testimony on what you saw, and I'll ask how much money the GosDep* is giving you.
And now in the US, President Holden Caulfield is continuing the effort (with, I must add, a great deal less skill and subtlety) to let us know that everyone's a phoney.
The result to wait for, more than just generalised mistrust, is increased corruption in people you know. I mean, if the President doesn't pay tax, that changes perceptions on whether tax evasion is normal behaviour. If you can bribe some state employees, the others are going to want in on the act. The descriptive norms change. Eventually, your own reluctance to get involved with corruption erodes because you're merely adjusting (late) to the normal condition of society. And anyway, that cop brought it up first by suggesting, "... or we could take care of it here with a small on-the-spot fine".
I don't think it will happen in America though. There's too long a tradition of believing in something. There's a small subset of Republicans that believes in power for power's sake, but the rest of them believe in some kind of objective reality. If the usurper makes it to the end of his four years, he can count himself lucky. It's a lot of effort to maintain a Potemkin state, and I think reality is considerably more durable than DJT.
* The Russian abbreviation for the US Department of State, which (as everyone knows) organises various provocations to attack Russian democracy.
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 3:40 AM on January 26, 2017 [19 favorites]
So yeah, the TV news is fully controlled by the Kremlin/GazPromMediaHolding — the real story with Dozhd wasn't the advertisers, it was the cable companies refusing to carry it almost as if synchronised — but if you can undermine the idea of reality itself, then it doesn't matter that the kids get their news from VK, Facebook, and the net... as long as they know that everything's fake and all versions of reality are equally (in)valid. Incidentally, when I've discussed this with Russians, quite often the response is a simple "Yeah, it is, of course, all propaganda. We're all zombified. And you're all zombified by your own propaganda". Where do you go after that? Which fake news source will you trust enough to start treating reality as knowable again?
The real trick though, is the word "fake". Show me the black box recordings from MH17, and I'll tell you now: fake. Show me people protesting, and I'll tell you now: Soros' dollars and fancy camera angles to make it look busy. Give me your personal testimony on what you saw, and I'll ask how much money the GosDep* is giving you.
And now in the US, President Holden Caulfield is continuing the effort (with, I must add, a great deal less skill and subtlety) to let us know that everyone's a phoney.
The result to wait for, more than just generalised mistrust, is increased corruption in people you know. I mean, if the President doesn't pay tax, that changes perceptions on whether tax evasion is normal behaviour. If you can bribe some state employees, the others are going to want in on the act. The descriptive norms change. Eventually, your own reluctance to get involved with corruption erodes because you're merely adjusting (late) to the normal condition of society. And anyway, that cop brought it up first by suggesting, "... or we could take care of it here with a small on-the-spot fine".
I don't think it will happen in America though. There's too long a tradition of believing in something. There's a small subset of Republicans that believes in power for power's sake, but the rest of them believe in some kind of objective reality. If the usurper makes it to the end of his four years, he can count himself lucky. It's a lot of effort to maintain a Potemkin state, and I think reality is considerably more durable than DJT.
* The Russian abbreviation for the US Department of State, which (as everyone knows) organises various provocations to attack Russian democracy.
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 3:40 AM on January 26, 2017 [19 favorites]
Why Russians watch TV news they don't trust.
posted by misteraitch at 4:21 AM on January 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by misteraitch at 4:21 AM on January 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
This is the most depressing thing I've read in a while, and that is saying something.
posted by Rock Steady at 4:44 AM on January 26, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Rock Steady at 4:44 AM on January 26, 2017 [3 favorites]
The aim of the experiment was to detect those who did not approve of its being carried out and to take appropriate steps. [.pdf]
posted by hawthorne at 4:58 AM on January 26, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by hawthorne at 4:58 AM on January 26, 2017 [2 favorites]
Perhaps these "institutions" should consider becoming trustworthy. They ain't God where it's inherently a problem with the people if the people lack trust.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 5:56 AM on January 26, 2017
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 5:56 AM on January 26, 2017
it takes just one alternate fact to neutralize the truth, two to marginalize it.
30% will believe the lie(s), 30% will stick with opposing them, and the mushy disconnected middle (median idiot) will vacillate.
Perhaps these "institutions" should consider becoming trustworthy
Ryan Avent's new book The Wealth of Humans goes into the idea of "social capital" a lot and it's a useful line of analysis that I've also been working on over the years of internetting.
Institutions don't create this social capital per se, the people working within them do. And what people can create other people can destroy; the "movement conservative" Republicans in government have clearly succeeded in their Job 1, which was destroying our government for their private sector masters -- the Olins, Kochs, and so many other wanna-be dynasts.
Politicians and their appointees can destroy our government because the average person is stupid. It's un-PC to say that, but this was first pointed out a long time ago by the typical frustrated reformist (19th century) liberal:
I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative. I believe that to be so obvious and undeniable a fact that I hardly think any hon. Gentleman will question it.Operationally, "stupidity" to me is deciding on actions (and inactions) you eventually regret. GWB's polling reached 70% support after 9/11 and fell to around 25% as our Iraq adventure and the economy fell apart in 2007-2008, so that shift is basically the size of the stupid contingent in our society.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 6:33 AM on January 26, 2017 [4 favorites]
GWB's polling reached 70% support after 9/11 and fell to around 25% as our Iraq adventure and the economy fell apart in 2007-2008
It's most frustrating to me how long these shifts take.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 7:24 AM on January 26, 2017 [5 favorites]
It's most frustrating to me how long these shifts take.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 7:24 AM on January 26, 2017 [5 favorites]
Good lord, I hope that's not where we're headed. That lack of trust is my idea of hell. It's just so impotent, even for left-wing protestors.
posted by scruffy-looking nerfherder at 7:37 AM on January 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by scruffy-looking nerfherder at 7:37 AM on January 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
>The atmosphere was so dark and heavy that they were booted out of office
… after nine years and nine months.
...By Justin Trudeau, a guy who used the media as a tool as effectively as Trump does now. The late, great Jack Layton also had this skill.
There is a lesson here for the Democrats in the US...
posted by My Dad at 7:37 AM on January 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
… after nine years and nine months.
...By Justin Trudeau, a guy who used the media as a tool as effectively as Trump does now. The late, great Jack Layton also had this skill.
There is a lesson here for the Democrats in the US...
posted by My Dad at 7:37 AM on January 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
God I don't think I've ever read anything that summed up the mindset in which I was raised so accurately. I'm passing this article around to everyone because it says everything I've been trying to communicate to people about how America will be better than I can.
I don't think I have never not believed that "no institution is bigger than the avarice of the person in charge." That's basically my entire approach to politics.
posted by griphus at 7:38 AM on January 26, 2017 [9 favorites]
I don't think I have never not believed that "no institution is bigger than the avarice of the person in charge." That's basically my entire approach to politics.
posted by griphus at 7:38 AM on January 26, 2017 [9 favorites]
I don't think it will happen in America though. There's too long a tradition of believing in something.
I disagree with this part. The people in Russia believe in plenty of stuff: conspiracy theories, extra dimensions, lost time, UFOs, God, Stalin, still, somehow. Any two of those things are waaaaacky until you remember half of this country genuinely believes in Angels.
I think the religious right, who is being almost literally blown on the national stage, will go into overdrive as trust in the economy and government collapses. Not, like, into like a theocracy (beyond the little theocracies of church-dominated small towns we already have) but that's the stuff people will believe in, not the Government.
posted by griphus at 7:43 AM on January 26, 2017 [8 favorites]
I disagree with this part. The people in Russia believe in plenty of stuff: conspiracy theories, extra dimensions, lost time, UFOs, God, Stalin, still, somehow. Any two of those things are waaaaacky until you remember half of this country genuinely believes in Angels.
I think the religious right, who is being almost literally blown on the national stage, will go into overdrive as trust in the economy and government collapses. Not, like, into like a theocracy (beyond the little theocracies of church-dominated small towns we already have) but that's the stuff people will believe in, not the Government.
posted by griphus at 7:43 AM on January 26, 2017 [8 favorites]
As someone born and living in Moscow, I can confirm most of this. However, I didn't stop recycling, and getting a new passport wasn't "institutionalized sadism", it was super easy and took a few hours.
I do recognize the defensive cynicism, but not to the point of thinking of an ambulance as a VIP taxi. Most of the time, I don't even remember that these VIPs exist :D
The two actually concerning things for me are the Internet becoming less free, and officially supported homophobia. (Fun fact, transphobia doesn't seem to be officially supported — in fact, "sex change" is listed as a reason for passport change on the government services website.)
Honestly, as someone who's practically living in the English-speaking Internet, the weirdest thing is this: "Russia" hates "America" for being a military threat to Russia and secretly controlling the world through buying protesters or some crap like that. I absolutely despise that anti-Americanism, but I also dislike "America" for the fascism, racism, sexism, etc. — and for having a huge scary military, but I feel like "NO, it's not a threat to Russia, you're anti-American for the entirely wrong reasons!"
posted by floatboth at 7:44 AM on January 26, 2017 [11 favorites]
I do recognize the defensive cynicism, but not to the point of thinking of an ambulance as a VIP taxi. Most of the time, I don't even remember that these VIPs exist :D
The two actually concerning things for me are the Internet becoming less free, and officially supported homophobia. (Fun fact, transphobia doesn't seem to be officially supported — in fact, "sex change" is listed as a reason for passport change on the government services website.)
Honestly, as someone who's practically living in the English-speaking Internet, the weirdest thing is this: "Russia" hates "America" for being a military threat to Russia and secretly controlling the world through buying protesters or some crap like that. I absolutely despise that anti-Americanism, but I also dislike "America" for the fascism, racism, sexism, etc. — and for having a huge scary military, but I feel like "NO, it's not a threat to Russia, you're anti-American for the entirely wrong reasons!"
posted by floatboth at 7:44 AM on January 26, 2017 [11 favorites]
Yeah, griphus, I'm in exactly the same boat there. The shift started happening when I got my first taste of the bullying of cops. It does something to you when you realize the gang bangers were effectively the same thing as the cops. The betrayal of the state, that realization that you'd have to learn to lie and prevaricate and never participate for your own safety, it does a number.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 7:45 AM on January 26, 2017
posted by Strange_Robinson at 7:45 AM on January 26, 2017
I've been reading Doctor Zhivago, and the Russian mindset was identical during Tsarist times. The Revolutions were a time of great hope that fairness and equality could prevail, but the new state absorbed a lot of the corruption, along with a sometimes fanatical ideology that made it doubly hard to sort out when to offer a bribe or a deal.
The USA's middle class insulated it from open class warfare for a long time (it also insulated us from racial integration and a lot of other things that would have been nice). I really don't want to have to be scavenging for bread crusts only to end up with a military dictatorship in the end (hi there, Egypt!), but the grind of an autocratic oligarchy is unacceptable as a lesser-of-two-evils thing.
I'm still so shocked. It seemed like we were going in the right direction a few months ago and now we're literally trying to avoid devolving into the Hunger Games.
posted by rikschell at 8:01 AM on January 26, 2017
The USA's middle class insulated it from open class warfare for a long time (it also insulated us from racial integration and a lot of other things that would have been nice). I really don't want to have to be scavenging for bread crusts only to end up with a military dictatorship in the end (hi there, Egypt!), but the grind of an autocratic oligarchy is unacceptable as a lesser-of-two-evils thing.
I'm still so shocked. It seemed like we were going in the right direction a few months ago and now we're literally trying to avoid devolving into the Hunger Games.
posted by rikschell at 8:01 AM on January 26, 2017
I don't think it will happen in America though. There's too long a tradition of believing in something. There's a small subset of Republicans that believes in power for power's sake, but the rest of them believe in some kind of objective reality.
Obviously I hope you're right and I'm wrong, Wrinkled Stumpskin, but I don't think that's accurate as to Republican voters and elites.
posted by ibmcginty at 8:04 AM on January 26, 2017 [3 favorites]
Obviously I hope you're right and I'm wrong, Wrinkled Stumpskin, but I don't think that's accurate as to Republican voters and elites.
posted by ibmcginty at 8:04 AM on January 26, 2017 [3 favorites]
I don't think it will happen in America though. There's too long a tradition of believing in something.
You can only really make this sort of statement if you have deep of knowledge (which includes mastery of English and Russian) of *both* Russia and the US. If you don't speak or read Russian, you cannot make this statement. Or, I guess you could, but it doesn't mean anything.
posted by My Dad at 8:05 AM on January 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
You can only really make this sort of statement if you have deep of knowledge (which includes mastery of English and Russian) of *both* Russia and the US. If you don't speak or read Russian, you cannot make this statement. Or, I guess you could, but it doesn't mean anything.
posted by My Dad at 8:05 AM on January 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
I was just pointing out to someone the other day that our new president spent an enormous amount of energy on the campaign trail telling people that America was a decaying, crime-ridden hellhole, a pale shadow of former glories, a bad place to be. Which was both untrue and completely the opposite of patriotic. And yet some people - too many - ate it up.
If one has lived on a steady diet of paranoia-inciting TV news for years, I guess one is primed to to hear justifications for the resulting paranoia. If you're feeling isolated, alone, and low on trust, of course its comforting to hear that it's not you that's crazy, it's the world that's crazy.
The administration's appointments also fit the undermining-trust theme well; put someone at the top who isn't trusted by the couple of layers below him, watch trust erode and corruption set in, watch devotion to the regime become the important currency.
I used to think that "he makes me sick" was just an expression. It isn't always.
posted by Western Infidels at 8:27 AM on January 26, 2017 [5 favorites]
If one has lived on a steady diet of paranoia-inciting TV news for years, I guess one is primed to to hear justifications for the resulting paranoia. If you're feeling isolated, alone, and low on trust, of course its comforting to hear that it's not you that's crazy, it's the world that's crazy.
The administration's appointments also fit the undermining-trust theme well; put someone at the top who isn't trusted by the couple of layers below him, watch trust erode and corruption set in, watch devotion to the regime become the important currency.
I used to think that "he makes me sick" was just an expression. It isn't always.
posted by Western Infidels at 8:27 AM on January 26, 2017 [5 favorites]
Perhaps these "institutions" should consider becoming trustworthy.
why didn't anyone think of that?!
posted by beerperson at 8:39 AM on January 26, 2017 [7 favorites]
why didn't anyone think of that?!
posted by beerperson at 8:39 AM on January 26, 2017 [7 favorites]
It's fnords all the way down.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:21 AM on January 26, 2017
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:21 AM on January 26, 2017
I'm amazed at how much things like
Russian life, I soon found out, was marked less by fear than by cynicism: the all-pervasive idea that no institution is to be trusted, because no institution is bigger than the avarice of the person in charge. This cynicism, coupled with endless conspiracy theories about everything, was at its core defensive (it’s hard to be disappointed if you expect the worst). But it amounted to defeatism.
line up with my experience in the rural Midwest. This is exactly what I run into when I try to talk to my Nebraskan uncles about why I'm so upset. Their basic position is that government (except, for some reason The Troops) is just a hustle trying to screw them, so why should they care one way or another if Trump muzzles the EPA? the EPA was just a scam anyway.
The second layer of that cynicism is this bizarre implacability. They know the hustle, they know how to live with it (they think), so no information you can give them matters. You can wave news articles and books and arguments from history in their faces all day long, and they'll shrug and tell you to calm down.
It's baffling and maddening.
posted by the phlegmatic king at 10:37 AM on January 26, 2017 [26 favorites]
Russian life, I soon found out, was marked less by fear than by cynicism: the all-pervasive idea that no institution is to be trusted, because no institution is bigger than the avarice of the person in charge. This cynicism, coupled with endless conspiracy theories about everything, was at its core defensive (it’s hard to be disappointed if you expect the worst). But it amounted to defeatism.
line up with my experience in the rural Midwest. This is exactly what I run into when I try to talk to my Nebraskan uncles about why I'm so upset. Their basic position is that government (except, for some reason The Troops) is just a hustle trying to screw them, so why should they care one way or another if Trump muzzles the EPA? the EPA was just a scam anyway.
The second layer of that cynicism is this bizarre implacability. They know the hustle, they know how to live with it (they think), so no information you can give them matters. You can wave news articles and books and arguments from history in their faces all day long, and they'll shrug and tell you to calm down.
It's baffling and maddening.
posted by the phlegmatic king at 10:37 AM on January 26, 2017 [26 favorites]
so why should they care one way or another if Trump muzzles the EPA? the EPA was just a scam anyway.
The EPA has become so thoroughly politicized that trust is dependent entirely on partisanship. This is key to the rot stateside. Neither side has made any real effort to deal with environmental issues. All we've managed to do on the left is move it to other countries. Call it National Nimbyism.
There have been openings here and there. Ranching types concerned with fracking, hunting, etc. Fishermen seeing their livelihoods disappear. All to no avail with the left. Their rich won't give up the luxuries that the oil economy has enabled.
So instead we get hero worship of Elon Musk and Google. And a reliance on some magic to save us some time in the future. So yes, folks are skeptical. Rightly so on this particular issue.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 12:29 PM on January 26, 2017 [3 favorites]
The EPA has become so thoroughly politicized that trust is dependent entirely on partisanship. This is key to the rot stateside. Neither side has made any real effort to deal with environmental issues. All we've managed to do on the left is move it to other countries. Call it National Nimbyism.
There have been openings here and there. Ranching types concerned with fracking, hunting, etc. Fishermen seeing their livelihoods disappear. All to no avail with the left. Their rich won't give up the luxuries that the oil economy has enabled.
So instead we get hero worship of Elon Musk and Google. And a reliance on some magic to save us some time in the future. So yes, folks are skeptical. Rightly so on this particular issue.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 12:29 PM on January 26, 2017 [3 favorites]
Yeah, no-one has done ANYTHING at the EPA
look, I'm aware of capitalism and externality shifting ("national nimbyism") and the many sins in this regard.......... but to suggest that the EPA has done nothing for local/national/international pollution or energy standards is falling into exactly the trap that the FPP suggests - "no one does anything real therefore I can believe anything".
FACTS MATTER.
posted by lalochezia at 1:07 PM on January 26, 2017 [10 favorites]
look, I'm aware of capitalism and externality shifting ("national nimbyism") and the many sins in this regard.......... but to suggest that the EPA has done nothing for local/national/international pollution or energy standards is falling into exactly the trap that the FPP suggests - "no one does anything real therefore I can believe anything".
FACTS MATTER.
posted by lalochezia at 1:07 PM on January 26, 2017 [10 favorites]
The EPA helped save all life on earth from a fatal hole we almost accidentally put in our atmosphere a few years back. Anybody remember that? Or was I just delusional when I thought that happened once?
posted by saulgoodman at 1:12 PM on January 26, 2017 [14 favorites]
posted by saulgoodman at 1:12 PM on January 26, 2017 [14 favorites]
I mean, I guess if you don't consider that a valuable thing to do, you might be skeptical, but I'm amazed anyone who claims to care about humanity at all could ever make such suicidally stupid claims about basic historical facts.
posted by saulgoodman at 1:13 PM on January 26, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by saulgoodman at 1:13 PM on January 26, 2017 [2 favorites]
Note how the ozone stuff was done. The chemicals were outright banned. I cannot even imagine that happening now, D or R. Folks, that shit is 40 years ago, way back before Regan happened
Seriously folks? What facts are missing here? The usual public / private partnerships, aka robot cars? Or some magic batteries that somehow obviate the need for strip mining and poisoned water?
posted by Strange_Robinson at 1:45 PM on January 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
Seriously folks? What facts are missing here? The usual public / private partnerships, aka robot cars? Or some magic batteries that somehow obviate the need for strip mining and poisoned water?
posted by Strange_Robinson at 1:45 PM on January 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
I really got a lot out of this piece but I wonder what alternate universe this guy lives in where all-pervasive cynicism has not been a defining feature of American cultural and political life for the last, oh, at least 12 years. Trump didn't originate the cynicism. He tapped into it and rode the wave.
posted by blucevalo at 2:45 PM on January 26, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by blucevalo at 2:45 PM on January 26, 2017 [3 favorites]
I really got a lot out of this piece but I wonder what alternate universe this guy lives in where all-pervasive cynicism has not been a defining feature of American cultural and political life for the last, oh, at least 12 years. Trump didn't originate the cynicism.
No. From Russians I have talked to, it's next level there.
posted by eviemath at 4:34 PM on January 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
No. From Russians I have talked to, it's next level there.
posted by eviemath at 4:34 PM on January 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
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People are being disappeared, reporters have been kicked out, a new internet control bill has just been passed, but people can enjoy michelin star restaurants and handmade messenger bags.
Orwell wasn't ignorant of this. He uses the Chestnut Tree cafe as a similar concept. It's a location where it's acceptable for thought criminals to congregate, because obviously they only express dissent within the boundaries set by the society.
This is a very clever solution to in an era when information has been freed. It's impossible to prevent the truth from escaping. It's much easier to drown out the signal with more noise. Instead of repressing the truth, spread equally plausible falsehoods.
Peter Pomerantsev has given some excellent interviews when he was touring to promote his book, Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible.
I remember being enthralled by this one, though there are many others out there.
posted by Telf at 10:03 PM on January 25, 2017 [12 favorites]