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Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

(www.theguardian.com)
523 points mhga | 15 comments | 08 Jul 25 02:18 UTC | HN request time: 1.652s | source | bottom
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hliyan ◴[08 Jul 25 03:07 UTC] No.44496589[source]▶
I'm starting to realize, very belatedly in life, that we suffer from an end-of-history illusion in politics and political economy. I used to think we live in a golden age because a hundred years ago, democracy broadly replaced monarchies, market economies replaced feudalism and other coercive systems, and with it went many of the old, indirect mechanisms of subjugating large populations (e.g. moral imperatives through the Church, legitimization of rule through concepts such as the divine right of kings, control of education etc).

But it seems we've only replaced those mechanisms with more refined versions (manufacturing consent through mass media, surveillance and indirect indentured servitude through student debt, rent and health insurance).

We probably have another century of socioeconomic and political evolution to go before we reach a decent end state.

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1. atq2119 ◴[08 Jul 25 03:10 UTC] No.44496602[source]▶
I like your optimism that a decent end state can be reached at all.

There are so many ideas that sound good on paper but are bad in practice, and that happen to be convenient for the goals of unscrupulous powerful people.

The notion that society as a whole will at some point stop falling for such ideas seems very optimistic to me.

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2. Aeolun ◴[08 Jul 25 03:43 UTC] No.44496852[source]▶
Well, we have been improving. I don’t consider it too optimistic we’ll continue to do so.
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3. Wickedflickr ◴[08 Jul 25 03:44 UTC] No.44496860[source]▶
Society came very close to realizing the beginnings of a decent state in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. George Orwell faught in it, and wrote about what he saw that society achieving in his book, Homage to Catalonia.
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4. guelo ◴[08 Jul 25 03:55 UTC] No.44496917[source]▶
I felt a glimmer hope from Grok believe it not. On X it has been showing the potential of an AI being seen as a trusted authority to cut through a lot of propaganda based on facts. But then elon didn't like the "facts are liberal" vibes and nerfed it and now it can't be trusted, it's just another propaganda mouthpiece.

This points to what I think is the missing amendment to the US constitution, when a media company gets big enough to influence significant portions of the electorate it should not be allowed to be owned by a single billionaire or a small family. Large media ownership should be distributed as widely as possible across society so that one rich guy isn't able to force his opinions on everyone.

5. smaudet ◴[08 Jul 25 03:56 UTC] No.44496919[source]▶
Improving at...what exactly?

Please don't give some tripe about medecine or something...sure we have some fancy new techniques and the like, but that doesn't matter if those systems aren't generally available or rejected on pseudo-religious grounds.

It might be true we have been living longer for a while, but that's a trend of the past 50 years in some areas, not some inexorable progress towards longer lives...

Maybe we have lots of food and entertainment. I suppose that is good, in theory. But again, not something of recent history, that has more to do with the availability of large shipping vessels and TV production...

The part people may find optimistic is continuing to improve in any appreciable manner, versus some gains made decades ago...

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6. ertian ◴[08 Jul 25 03:57 UTC] No.44496924[source]▶
It's not that hard for a new idea to look good for a couple short months/years. Building an ongoing, self-sustaining society that doesn't go completely off the rails is a whole other thing. There's a reason all these idyllic examples people give (Catalonia, Pre-USSR Ukrainian socialism, Paris Commune) were short-lived. If the Bolshevist revolution had been quashed in 1919, it would be idealized today.
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7. Aeolun ◴[08 Jul 25 04:09 UTC] No.44496995{3}[source]▶
Well, for one thing, neither me nor my son work in coal mines. We don’t have to breathe any of the sooty gases that coal burning spews forth, and can turn on airconditioning in summer when it’s hot. Also, heated toilet seats in winter.
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8. Wickedflickr ◴[08 Jul 25 04:12 UTC] No.44497016{3}[source]▶
They never collapsed from anything innate, though. They were always destroyed from outside forces. When your society represents actual freedom, you become the enemy of everyone, from capital to stalinism.

Centralization of power has so far made every society deeply flawed or even hellish. The three societies you mentioned are the only ones where power was purposefully decentralized, and that seems to be the most promising path forward that was never allowed to stretch its legs.

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9. Animats ◴[08 Jul 25 04:38 UTC] No.44497121[source]▶
> I like your optimism that a decent end state can be reached at all.

For a few brief years, it looked like we were there.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Las...

10. int_19h ◴[08 Jul 25 05:04 UTC] No.44497250{3}[source]▶
> If the Bolshevist revolution had been quashed in 1919, it would be idealized today.

I don't think so. Pretty much all the negative things about Bolsheviks were already prominently there by 1919. Anti-democracy, mass terror, torture, concentration camps, you name it.

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11. int_19h ◴[08 Jul 25 05:06 UTC] No.44497264{4}[source]▶
I would argue that Rojava is one modern case that still shows hope. Although not as decentralized as those other examples, perhaps this is also why they're still there 11 years later.
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12. smaudet ◴[08 Jul 25 14:43 UTC] No.44500462{4}[source]▶
Both of which are improvements not unique to even the past 10 years - even if you only recently experienced these improvements, that merely makes you "late adopters".

You can have personal improvement, and you can continue to reap the benefits of existing systems, this is not the same as general progress or, progress made by society, much less any sort of indication that progress will continue...

13. Wickedflickr ◴[08 Jul 25 23:27 UTC] No.44504936{5}[source]▶
I agree. Though unfortunately there have been reports of them slowly centralizing power away from community councils toward the military over time. Even still, it's offering far more freedom and diversity than any of the surrounding countries. I'm rooting for them to succeed.
14. ertian ◴[11 Jul 25 00:44 UTC] No.44527323{4}[source]▶
I guess 1919 is a bit late for rose colored glasses--though there's a shocking number of people who are still nostalgic for Bolshevism after _everything_.

You get my point, though. It's one thing to propose an idyllic society. It's another thing to try to implement it. In all cases where there's been a serious attempt at implementation on any scale above local and short-lived, we view the results with horror.

15. ertian ◴[11 Jul 25 00:52 UTC] No.44527370{4}[source]▶
Ehh, I would put it differently: purposefully decentralized societies are ineffective, and create a power vacuum that tends to be quickly filled. Assuming they would have worked requires a view of human nature that I just don't buy. Along comes a Lenin, or a Mao, or a Trump, or a Robespierre, who starts giving rousing speeches about how dangerous forces are rising against the movement, and next thing you know you've got concentration camps, guillotines, mass shootings, and so on. And that environment rewards authority and tyranny.