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523 points mhga | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.207s | source
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hliyan ◴[] 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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atq2119 ◴[] 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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1. guelo ◴[] 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.