Strypey
Just listening to David Runciman and Gary Gerstle discuss the history of televised leadership debates;
I suspect we will look back on 2024 as a watershed year, where the net replacing television as the dominant media. Just as television did with radio.
(1/2)
#podcasts #PastPresentFuture #HistoryOfBadIdeas #media #television #DavidRunciman #GaryGerstle
Aaron Wolf
If slaves had some minimal freedom to vote for which slavemaster they work under, pointing out that they are still slaves doesn't erase the difference between one slavemaster who cares about keeping them relatively healthy and another slavemaster who is a sadistic abuser.
And the slaves could still have their preferences without any illusions about the injustice of the whole situation.
And better to be healthy if you're going to fight for real freedom later anyway
Colin from Edinburgh, Oklahoma
The oligarchy were the only people running.
https://medium.com/@colingajewski/the-oligarchic-transformation-of-american-democracy-9828441207d4
Strypey
Harris is widely considered to have beaten Orange Stalin in their one television debate. But IMHO Harris lost the election by refusing to appear on the Rogan podcast.
According to Runciman and Gerstle, the audience for the two were pretty similar. Not only did Harris miss an opportunity to speak directly to a huge audience, many of whom wouldn't have been planning to votes for her (if at all), but she also came across as hiding behind the skirts of legacy media that obviously backed her.
(2/2)
Colin from Edinburgh, Oklahoma
Both parties were chosen by, and are beholden to the ruling oligarchy.
Overall, the trend over the last fifty years has been toward the reduction of freedoms irrespective of which party was in power.
Underneath the claimed differences, they share a common agenda of seeking more power, more wealth, and more control.
How are you planning to fight for "real freedom?"
When?
Aaron Wolf
I don't disagree with any of that, and awareness of big context is, in general, worth keeping in mind.
I just think it's ironically *similarly* narrow-minded *either* to be (A) lost in the little details of the system without questioning the whole thing *or* (B) ignoring all the little details and blurring everything together just because the whole system is corrupt.
Healthy understanding admits seeing *multiple* perspectives and scales.
Aaron Wolf
It's possible and healthy enough to BOTH care about all the political differences *within* a system that lead to meaningfully different outcomes and more or less suffering and harms AND to do so while *fully* aware of the big context.
So, when you see any individual discussing particular details within the system, don't make assumptions about whether they are or aren't aware of the overall context or are or aren't doing anything broader.
Aaron Wolf
As an example of details: Lina Khan as FTC chair under Biden did more for true public good and holding the oligarchs to account than any other political figure in 50 years. If there were no other differences between two directions except having or not having Lina Khan, the difference is still massive. And there are tons of other differences.
Personally, most of my time is focused on the bigger-picture issues, but those are also the hardest to change.
Aaron Wolf
I suggest reading https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system
And my own note:
This isn't worst to best focus. Leverage points that need less effort also need greater movement to have an effect. Small movement at the greater leverage points does a lot.
But where to focus depends. The answer isn't always just to focus on the hardest-to-move points simply because any movement really has a major effect.
Aaron Wolf
@strypey yeah, my view has been that both Biden and Harris *avoiding* celebrating and highlighting Lina Khan was itself a key feature of the failure of Democratic reelection. They took the most substantial and important work of the administration and shied away from it out of some stupid deference to the oligarchs.
It fits how Harris focused on traditional rich-investor and pop-star endorsements over appealing to regular citizens
Strypey
(2/2)
Then I saw the articles about Harris palling it up with Reid Hoffman and a bunch of other SillyCon Valley billionaires, and panhandling for campaign donations from them : /
Strypey
(1/2)
@wolftune
> Lina Khan as FTC chair under Biden did more for true public good and holding the oligarchs to account than any other political figure in 50 years
Totally agree. Along with whoever I'm the Justice Department launched all those antitrust cases against DataFarming corporations. I wrote a long thread encouraging people to vote for Harris over Drumpf, on the assumption that the only thing that would change in the administration was the spokesmouth.
GNU social JP is a social network, courtesy of GNU social JP管理人. It runs on GNU social, version 2.0.2-dev, available under the GNU Affero General Public License.
All GNU social JP content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.