Transcript for the Politics: The Management of Mistrust? discussion.
Please note that transcript has only been spell-checked, the grammar has not been edited.
Also the transcript may only be for part of the discussion.
impediment = a block
impede = to block
pede = latin for foot
millipede
complexity, but not ambiguity
—after watching the video, I felt sad. it’s a sad topic, but it’s so real. I feel sad because our country is in this situation too. you’re talking about us!
—I agree with him on some points, some points may be too difficult to understand, because maybe a real example is more acceptable for the audience. too much explanation, not enough showing. I lost my focus 5-6 minutes in.
—after all this last 100 years, and our revolutions, we want democracy, to get rid of china, and the Chinese empire stuff, our country fathers did the revolutions and fighting the communists, but within a few decades we just have to think about, it feels like people will use some political way to manipulate it, to make it like it’s, it lost its true meaning, of democracy.
—What is the true meaning of democracy? What were you thinking of when you said that
—I was thinking about how the policies are supposed to do good for our own people, but some people will use it to manipulate it, to do it another way, looks like it’s good, but turns out not to be. So what is the really good one? He talks about transparency, it’s based on mistrust, we want to trust each other, we want the transparency to see if the gvt is working for us.
—I don’t know what’s transparency in politics. he mentioned how only 15% of Italians and Greeks, they only believe voting/democracy can change society.
—this time around he said, “can change gvts but not change policies?” I was like, holy shit.
—it’s hilarious
—why
—we tend to vote for the right person, but it’s hard to vote for the right policy
—we’re voting for people not policy
—referendums
—they’re tricky because it’s all about the language. you can trick people with the language
—so Italians and Greeks, they have the ideal system,
==they do?
—because they vote for their policy
—really
—2000-3000 years ago
—oh not modern
—they had smaller societies, and only property-owning men could vote. they basically all knew each other. it was like a bunch of neighbors, not millions of people
—articulating the policy so that people can vote on it properly.
—Basically, look at Bruit.
—yeah, everyone things nobody will decide that way, so I’ll express my opinion.
—and now they’re fucked
—they didn’t think their vote mattered
—but it mattered so fucking much
it’s just a head*desk moment.
we should have this slogan: “so voting: it fukken matters, okay?”
the problem with democracy is that it’s so easy to persuade people to do the wrong thing.
wrong thing = against their best interests.
because it’s so hard to determine everyone’s best interests, first of all
channel tunnel = Chunnel
Final Statements:
Today’s topic makes me surprised, because I don’t think we would have such a fruitful discussion today. because we have a lot of topics, and we have the head*desk. I love this word! Actually, back to the politics. I think it is not the best way to make everyone live well, but still it is a better way
—what is a better way
—democracy! Because you never thought you want to go back to empire. dynasties, whatever. it looks not very friendly for us the common people. So in this way, actually I still think democracy has its advantages and brings us a better life than previously. But still it has a lot of disadvantages. It can be handled by some emotional way. for example Donald. It’s a very good example for the very emotional control of the people. when Donald was elected as the US President, I just had the training at that time. and we all looked at the TV outside, and we cared about who’s going to be the president, because they play such an important role in the national community. but still we live well enough, we can judge him still.
—what was the people in the training’s reaction.
—they were all like, nooooooo, impossible. I looked at cnn on the internet, and it was just impossible, the percentage of the votes. but it’s a special system in the US
— a stupid system
—it was impossible, and not reliable, but still it was the system, everyone agrees and then Donald was the president. but I think it’s fine, because we will find a way to get better
—if he doesn’t turn us into a Nazi empire meanwhile.
—but I think today’s discussion is so interesting. so thank you!
So when I studied this video and article at home, I was thinking about, I came up with Taiwan’s professors, he was quoting Plato about politics. “one of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is you end up being governed by your inferiors. “ yeah, that’s the key point, before I didn’t care about politics, but in recent years, I feel calmly, try not to do something stupid
—like run for office?
—like how the wars to become like this, even china or Vietnam these countries have the communism system, they tend to be more like capitalism now. and before
—economically
—and before our idea of communist, poor bad evil, that’s our concept of them when we were little. our education made them evil, like Hitler-bad, if you asked why, they were like, look at how poor they are, they can’t speak for themselves, they can’t do whatever they want. so we’re like cool we’re democratic and we’re fine, we should be glad. but in recent years, we feel like people are manipulating to trick people. and we start looking at china and Vietnam, they’re growing and living better than us, they’re stronger. so I’m starting thinking about what is the point of democracy or being communist. and the whole point is that the people should be safe and have a better life. but our education was confusing, that democracy is good, we respect each other, we say what we want, but saying what we want has some negative effect, and it doesn’t end up well. so that is kind of an idea I was thinking in recent years, especially how china is growing, actually it really frightens me
—me too
—and after our discussion, and the talking about history, and democracy development. and I realize everyone has kind of a different definition of democracy, I mean, it’s power to the people, people’s rights, speak what you want, but it also related to culture and also other factors, it turns out like different kinds of democracy. and I also think about technology is one of the very important issues. because of tech that we start to know more, not just ourselves, but also others. like oh, that’s how western people live, maybe we should do like that, and western people learn from Asia, because if you see something that’s good, you wanna get it.
and now I’m thinking about AI, and it’s crazy, and people are talking about the negative effect of AI systems, that humans eventually don’t have work, we’ll be replaced. and I just remembered that mark Z, and Elon Musk, they were talking about the future of AI, that every body should have a basic income. even if you don’t have a job. but when I heard this, it sounds ok, but I don’t think that it’s ok, you still have the problem that some people have the power, like Musk controls the AI so he’ll always be rich and also have the power. everyone wants to get rich, not just you. minimum wage is not enough, is it fair enough? I think about this because I think about democracy, people have this idea of trying to make things fair. equal rights. but somehow it’s still not fair.
—we should talk about that, what’s fair.
—so the speaker was saying, even though we think we’re doing what’s right, we still have the negative side. I don’t think there’s one answer, I think I’m right, but other people might not think so.
I’m just still stuck on how young European democracy really is. And Asian democracy. It’s like, we’re just starting to figure this shit out, we’re only at the beginning.
This is the thing tho: “because democracy is about people changing their views based on rational arguments and discussions”
and his argument against transparency is that on one level it doesn’t allow people to change their view. and I think this is a problem with the state of discourse on the internet, I see this all the time on tumblr. they go, 5 years ago, you said this asshole thing, so you’re still an asshole, here’s the receipts, and they post the post. It doesn’t acknowledge that people can change and grow. and we all need to be able to change and grow to make democracy work. Because it’s the only form of government that we can have right now. we don’t have anything better.
