Sounds like it’s time for that Sartre quote again:
“Never believe that [they] are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. [They] have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.”
So, the societal problem is created when bad faith actors are given a platform, right? But bad faith actors tend to be great at generating outrage and division and thus drive engagement and clicks - which makes money for the platforms.
Democracy solves it. If people don’t vote in these people, they don’t get the platform.
Now, how do we get people to not vote in bigots and idiots? By not being bigots and idiots themselves. I.e. education and free thinking.
How do we protect education from budget cuts and protect free thinking from corporate and foreign interests that seek to undermine it, especially while the bigots still have a tenuous hold on the population? Now, that is the real question.
Sounds like it’s time for that Sartre quote again:
So, the societal problem is created when bad faith actors are given a platform, right? But bad faith actors tend to be great at generating outrage and division and thus drive engagement and clicks - which makes money for the platforms.
How do we solve this?
Democracy solves it. If people don’t vote in these people, they don’t get the platform.
Now, how do we get people to not vote in bigots and idiots? By not being bigots and idiots themselves. I.e. education and free thinking.
How do we protect education from budget cuts and protect free thinking from corporate and foreign interests that seek to undermine it, especially while the bigots still have a tenuous hold on the population? Now, that is the real question.
That’s not really true, unfortunately. People don’t need to be in an elected position to be given a platform by media.
That’s true, but at least those people don’t have direct political power.
But the end result is the platform influences voters leading to election of those or similar individuals.
Bounties.
Just vote for the lesser-bad-faith actor.
That will surely solve the problem.
I think what’s sad is this can be applied to pretty much all nations when it comes to acknowledging war.