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THREAD TIME - Decision-making, Covid, Abuse Of Power & Idiots.
"We, the people..."
More importantly, it is more important thinking about what "We" actually means in terms of making decisions.
The fact of the matter is, groups of people don't make decisions, they can't.
"We, the people..."
More importantly, it is more important thinking about what "We" actually means in terms of making decisions.
The fact of the matter is, groups of people don't make decisions, they can't.
They have no brains or agency of their own. This observation is at the heart of a facet of Economics called "Public Choice Theory." It studies the way incentives and individual self-interest affects political decision-making processes.
While groups help us easily categorize communities of people who share one trait or another, what must be kept in mind is that these very groups are comprised of individuals with their own values and goals. Essentially, they're the ones who are actually making decisions.
Remember what I wrote about Public Choice Theory studying how incentives and individual self-interest affects politics? Yes, apply that to the dichotomy between the Tablighi Jamaat fiasco and the Puri Rath Yatra. Now apply this one observation to how a majoritarian regime works.
Even if we're specifically speaking upon democracy, a majority of voters can only share their general preferences by electing individual politicians to make decisions on their behalf. Those people are then granted tremendous power over what happens to millions of other citizens.
Also including all those citizens who didn't vote for them and don't share their values and ideas. Politicians are just individuals who have their own values, good or bad, and respond to incentives just the same as anyone else who isn't a politician.
However, the big difference is that politicians face far fewer direct consequences for their actions, and the cost of their decisions is paid for by other people.
When those very same politicians can imprison or cause physical harm to their detractors, it's easy to see why power is so often abused.
Now, in theory, if enough people are unhappy with their representatives' choices, they can hold another election and try again to do better.
Now, in theory, if enough people are unhappy with their representatives' choices, they can hold another election and try again to do better.
But at the end of the day, no decision is made by a collective hive mind - one that happens to be in complete unity and shares congruence.
So when modern democratic nation states declare,"We, the people." A shorthand that obscures reality comes into play.
So when modern democratic nation states declare,"We, the people." A shorthand that obscures reality comes into play.
What this actually means is that a select few get to play God. Meanwhile, the bunch that disagrees with this doesn't get a say. This isn't to discard the fact that maybe someone among the politicians might be more trustworthy with that kind of power but most can't be trusted.
That's predictable, and we need to keep it in mind when someone demands that we give them massive amounts of power in exchange for "security". We've seen this sort of logic play out in the real world more times than I can count.
Remember 9/11? Or even the rise of Modi!
Remember 9/11? Or even the rise of Modi!
Adam McKay foreshadows and insinuates in Vice that his biggest fear wasn't that there'd be more terrorist attacks all across the US, but the reaction would be a terrifying push for the expansion of power in the name of "National Security". Yes, that - Kashmiris have heard it too
He was accurate in his hypothesis. In just a few months, the US launched a global "war on terror" and US Congress fast tracked a shockingly expansive piece of legislation now known as the USA Patriot Act.
The 342 page bill was passed less than two months after the attack, with little debate or dissent. The final bill was not even available to read for 24 hours before Congress voted to approve it on October 24, 2001. The US Senate followed suit the next day, almost unanimously.
Now where else have we seen something along the lines of this happen? It couldn't be in New Delhi's Lok Sabha on 5 August, 2019, could it?
But I digress. So the Patriot Act was originally supposed to expire in 2005, but each time it's come up for re-authorization, it has sailed through with little opposition. In fact, it was set to expire again in March 2020 and most people probably didn't hear about it.
The name of the bill itself is an acronym, which stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism." Y'know, length words with positive connotations. Example: Africa Reorganization Act. Sounds nice, right?
The 23 year old WH staffer who came up with that name probably felt clever but exactly were those appropriate tools?
The PATRIOT Act gave the US government the power to wiretap and search homes without notification or due process, in direct violation of the 4th Amendment.
The PATRIOT Act gave the US government the power to wiretap and search homes without notification or due process, in direct violation of the 4th Amendment.
It gave them the power to obtain private business and personal records with little more than a rubber stamp from FISA courts that are required to approve the action even if the FBI can't offer any material facts to justify the search.
It created new banking regulations and reporting requirements giving the government access to citizens' financial records and accounts. It gave the Immigration and Naturalization Service more power to detain people at a border and restrict immigration, denying visas or entry to..
anyone they claim has ties to terrorist or criminal organizations. It completely obliterated the due process standards the NSA and FBI used to have to follow in order to obtain digital records, allowing them to go through your ISP and companies like Google or Twitter to gain...
access to your private browsing and e-mail history with something called a National Security Letter. The NSL also prevents companies from notifying you that your records were compromised.
In India, a law that allows all this is called POTA. Indians aren't creative, I know.
In India, a law that allows all this is called POTA. Indians aren't creative, I know.
And the powers conferred upon executives by both the PATRIOT Act and the POTA have been abused. Every one has left a trail of innocent people whose lives were ruined because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time or because creative prosecutors managed to get convictions.
And yet with all this power, there's little evidence that the law has directly prevented a terrorist attack or helped catch a major terrorist.
But repealing a law is much harder than getting it passed to begin with. And so, both of these Orwellian laws remain in force even now.
But repealing a law is much harder than getting it passed to begin with. And so, both of these Orwellian laws remain in force even now.
The real question is: Why do the masses allow this?
When people are afraid, they're much more willing to accept anything that makes the world seem a little safer. This happens because anxiety actually disrupts the functions of the Prefrontal Cortex.
When people are afraid, they're much more willing to accept anything that makes the world seem a little safer. This happens because anxiety actually disrupts the functions of the Prefrontal Cortex.
This is the part of the brain that helps make decisions and solve problems.
When people are stressed, it's much easier to convince them to accept policies without thinking critically. And it is evident that the exact same thing is happening right now.
Fear pushes people to accept policies that they would never accept under less stressful conditions, and it opens the door for unscrupulous leaders to take control over people's lives.
In 2001, the fear of terrorism drove the United States to institute a never-ending global War on Terror that radically expanded state power in defiance of individual rights.
These themes couldn't be more relevant today.
These themes couldn't be more relevant today.
In the midst of a terrifying viral pandemic spreading across the world, politicians are quickly grabbing power, shutting down entire economies and standing in the way of individual choices that could play a major role in finding much-needed solutions to the growing health crisis.
We've seen an explosion of support all over the world for expanding government power. It's easy to understand why people are afraid but if the answer is restricting individual liberty all over the globe on the hope that politicians will use that power for good...
the cure could do far more harm than the disease. Politicians have an incentive to exploit fear to gain more power. And that power won't always be in the hands of people with good intentions or the right ideas.
I'm not going to say the only thing we have to fear is fear itself but whenever life forces us to deal with danger and anxiety, we need to be careful not to let that drive us to overreact and abandon our most important principles.
It's possible to counteract this effect by slowing down, calming ourselves, and waiting to make important decisions until after our strongest emotional reactions subside. Never trade freedom for the false promise of security and protection.
Intuitively, it's easy to think that totalitarianism performs better in a crisis. Dictators can mobilize more resources, they're all too happy to use brutality to force people to do what they want, and citizens who live in fear of their rulers are more compliant.
But as confident as political leaders want to appear, nobody knows what solutions are going to work best. One size doesn't actually fit all.
Freedom doesn't just make us more independent. It also makes us the most flexible and agile when those traits are the most needed.
Freedom doesn't just make us more independent. It also makes us the most flexible and agile when those traits are the most needed.
It allows us to experiment with different ways of helping each other and to communicate what we've learned with everyone else. It allows entrepreneurs to quickly adapt and bring goods & services to people who need them, instead of waiting for corrupt, slow-moving bureaucracies.
Free societies are considerably wealthier, which means that they have way more ability to cushion people from the worst consequences of a disaster.
Throughout history, people who have traded their freedom for promises of security have found out that they wind up with neither.
We're constantly bombarded with alarming news. There's always something to be afraid of and there's always someone willing to sell us a sense of security in exchange for more power. But while that sense of security is usually an illusion, the cost of giving up our freedom is not.
We need to calm ourselves and confront our fear instead of allowing it to hijack our ability to reason and lead us to make decisions on our own, good or bad, that we can't take back.
"The price of freedom is high, it always has been. And it's a price I'm willing to pay. If I'm the only one, then so be it. But I'm willing to bet I'm not."
- General George Washington :3
- General George Washington :3
