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Last weekend, I was amazed of how the debates were taken in the past. More of this, I was reading the Lincoln-Douglas debate about slavery mostly. Imagine being in one of those debates where each one spoke for ~2.5 hours and people gathered all the concepts about that, being documented as we know so far is evidence enough to state that people listened each other.

No more books

The main node of democracy is the book, not one book but books, about everything. People these days don't read anymore, we're fewer readers, people prefer their 1-minute-resume of news with his favorite influencer. In the modern era, democracy didn't upgrade well because technology is faster, algorithms now close each other with their political preferences. We don't talk about anything, we share each other our visions just for ensure that we believe the right choice.
The ideas in other days borned from creativity. They stopped working, bored themselfs and then..a new fresh idea. In those days, when you had a new dangerous idea, the state will come for you and your idea. Everything is censored and our ancestor had to fight in order to gain some terrain in human rights. Now? Politics confuse the free speech with speech that's free..of everything. Democracy gave them the power and will to say something with no danger of being censored, today the censorship comes in different ways: consumer protection, macroeconomic BS to balance the economy and my favorite one: speak.
Most people just talk and create nonsense in social media. Since Facebook, X, Reddit, Snapchat and other social media posts need you to create something, they're on the mission of telling you: what's happening?, tell something... and other ads; they don't care about freedom, that's blatantly BS, they need to sell ads and how can they sell if you're not talking? The speech is a product, you words are keywords in order to place this new thing that's good for you.

The politic is the product

The political speech right now has a new brand: political marketing. See the difference? The objective of marketing according to dictionary is individuals and groups obtain what they need and want by exchanging products and services with other parties. And what's wrong to obtain what I want? Politics is talk with people you disagree, mostly you don't get what you want which should be normal, should be fine but we don't do that anymore because algorithms tought us to create content that won't offend anything or anyone. Don't get me wrong, I'm not telling you to tell everyone to offend. Otherwise, I encourage people to read the other part and try to understand from their point of view and offer alternatives with quality content, today the political debate ends with ad hominem attacks and communities reinforcing their visions without even consider if their ideas are wrong.
One reason I find Stacker News as a way to protect free speech is because authors can earn money for their content. And yes, people can come, disagree with what they're reading but in order to put your perspective, there's economic motivation of state something rational. This is why most users here don't like shitcoins and altcoins. These kind of shitcoinery don't attach with this place because here, your words have consequences.
Political instrumentation of bitcoin is normal. As a matter of fact, the whole internet is a political state. I'm not talking about your political-party-party bs that you watch in your deceased-state-supported TV station, I'm talking about real fighters, our community. They recently tried to censor Samourai for writing code through some money-laundering-scheme. And they can't, Ginger Wallet is the proof that our community will fight every inch of illogical prosecution.
I can go further but my main message to you is: fren, remember you're not a democracy anymore, social media companies and their grandparents (crap TV and radio shows) killed that long time ago. Now, where data is oil, for them you're just a tiny excell cell, a drop in the ocean. This is the infocracy, this enemy is fought with knowledge, real knowledge that come from books and forums where think is the rule, not the optionality. Social medias companies put the what do you think? in the end of each post just for the numbers, they want to sell that people put words in their news. They don't listen, they don't see you.

Stacker News against infocracy

Stacker News is the antidote (I hope) against that marketing instrumentation. Here you can post share your agreement/disagreement and these words will have consequences. It's not free (accountability) to say stupid things but it's free (speech) to write. Keep writing folks, we need more signals and less noise.
Make long format great again!
We are already living in IDIOCRACY...
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120 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 3 Jun
My thoughts are here. Ignore the masses. Focus on those that want to learn.
Democracy is an illusion as well. I doubt anywhere close to a majority participated intellectually even during the Lincoln era. I agree it is likely worse but even then it was an illusion. I give no consent to these rulers.
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I completely agree with many of your observations. It's truly impressive how public discourse has changed over the years, especially with the advent of social media and technology.
Also there is a tendency to stop at headlines and not explore the full content of news is also a widespread problem, leading to a superficial understanding of the issues.
It's frustrating to see how easily social media can spread partial or even false information, fueling divisions and conflicts rather than constructive dialogue.
Not to mention the power of virtual distance, turning people into psychopaths who bully others, pushing people to behave in ways they would never do in person.
I also find Stacker.news to be a breath of fresh air where a more in-depth, responsible, and respectful debate is possible for everyone.
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Writing and expressing oneself is very important to combat idiocracy, the problem is as you say, that fewer and fewer people read and are looking for other ideas, I hope that more sites like SN arrive where free expression and quality and uncensored content are the priority.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @MANI 3 Jun
More like Decocrazy than Democracy to be honest.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @om 3 Jun
The plan for SN seems to be:
  1. outdo substack in content quality and the number of users
  2. unfuck worldwide democracy and media
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Most people just talk and create nonsense in social media.
I wonder how much surveillance and threat of surveillance encourage people to self-censor and find and attach themselves to "right" opinions and behaviors to avoid group abandonment.
I think sometimes that humans as a species have self-domesticated to prefer pro-social behavior over individual expression; what if looming surveillance and the threat of punishment encourage us to continue our self-domestication even in private?
I notice sometimes people (myself included) prefer to be polite to even just expressing their personal preferences.
people prefer their 1-minute-resume of news with his favorite influencer.
I wonder how much this has to do with a lack of trust. With our distrust of the government/state and a growing distrust in academia, if you're not numbed into a state of apathy, where do you go for information? How do you know how to form an opinion? It's more or less an open secret that most people are not raised to think independently and reason through information to come to conclusions ("opinions").
Further, I'm going to venture to guess there are people who don't even know what's important enough to them to go out and seek information in order to develop an opinion. They get socially reactive - scared of the judgment of others - and try to barricade themselves with "right" opinions and information to save face instead of developing their identities - working toward something - through the information they consume.
I'm not super informed on what's going on in war zones. I know I'm ignorant by choice. Sometimes I feel "bad" (socially guilty) for not being "informed" but then I just admit to myself, I have my own stuff going on, I only have so many hours in the day, and what on earth would I do with such information anyway? How does it inform my life in a super practical, real-time manner?
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