Taiwan has found a way to use a carefully designed social network constructively.
As stated in the Tyee,
Taiwan Is Crowdsourcing an Everybody-Wins Democracy
They had to do something. In 2014,
Opponents to the bill felt not just defeated, but invisible. The government had promised to listen to their concerns, but simply hadn't done so, rushing the bill onto the parliament floor. They had the votes; they could get it through. So that evening, protesters scaled the fence, kicked the door open and streamed onto the floor of Taiwan's parliament, the Legislative Yuan.
Sound familiar from recent history?
Well, the government found a way to listen.
They set up vTaiwan, a social network where prominence is given to posts that further concord instead of discord. And they're using it to craft proposals for legislation. Anyone can contribute.
The article doesn't state how the social network determines which posts promote consensus. I'd like to know.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @04:31PM (25 children)
Remind me again why putrid bags of pus like anonymous, 4chan et al should be given a voice instead of being hunted down, rounded up, and shot ?
Probably for the same reason someone has the right to yell "Fire !" in a crowded theater.
Oh, wait...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @04:34PM (15 children)
so to be clear, you're in favor of people with the wrong opinions being rounded up and shot? that's what america was founded on right
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @05:02PM (13 children)
No, I'm in favor of people deliberately wanting to "watch the world burn" being rounded up and shot.
Tell me: Are the cancer cells eating at your insides simply cells with the "wrong opinion" to you ? Is someone telling you that he wished he could rape and murder your daughter simply of the "wrong opinion" ?
And BTW: America was "founded" on invasion, bloodbath, genocide of indigenous people to steal their land, and slavery.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 12 2021, @05:51PM (1 child)
Very true, and as long ago as the 1960s we started turning that legacy around with awareness of its inappropriateness and counter-productivity in the modern world. Well, a slim majority is aware and willing to do something to correct it, sometimes at least.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @07:18PM
Which country hasn't been ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @05:53PM
You're the Athenians who gave Socrates hemlock.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @06:00PM (1 child)
I'm in favor of people deliberately wanting to "watch the world burn" being rounded up and shot.
No, fuck you... You round up and shoot the people that are lighting the fires, you fucking moron!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @07:43PM
I guess you missed the "The Dark Knight" reference...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @06:21PM (6 children)
Native American chiefdoms were "founded" on invasion, bloodbath, genocide of indigenous people to steal their land, and slavery.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @07:46PM (5 children)
So what's your point ? That because people have been barbaric savages for eons we should all continue to be barbaric savages ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @08:19PM (4 children)
My point: It is dishonest or ignorant to place blame on America as being somehow uniquely horrible for that time in history. Get over your *presentism* and *selective* outrage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @08:52PM
nobody said america was unique in that regard
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @10:21PM (2 children)
Your point is that you are completely ignorant of Native American politics, or inter-tribal relations. This "slave" thing is a white European obsession.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @10:46PM (1 child)
American Indians enslaved other tribes. They also stole white women and children in raids on white settlements. The more organized civilizations such as the Aztecs in Mexico not only enslaved other tribes, they skinned them alive and cut out their beating hearts. In the region of North America taken by the Europeans, alliances were formed by Indian tribes and Europeans against other tribes and Europeans. The Indians were not a united happy family.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2021, @12:13PM
+1 for truth. Slavery has been a worldwide institution for all of recorded history. It is only in the last several centuries, where technological advance has cheapened the value of basic human labor to such a point that slavery is not economical. Government/political slavery, as in US prisons or Chinese Uighur camps, is outside the bounds of economics, as modern sovereign governments control fiat currency and don't need cash reserves to pay for anything.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday January 12 2021, @07:56PM
There are not analogous situations. The former is a thing actively happening, while the latter is Wrongthink that hurts no one until action is taken on it.
I wish lots of things. That doesn't make me a rapist or a murderer.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @07:47PM
This but unironically. The Redcoats and Tories had the wrong opinions, so we rounded them up and shot them until the Redcoats went home and the Tories sat down and shut up.
And we'll do it again, so don't let me hear you britlovers talking any monarchist crap.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by fakefuck39 on Tuesday January 12 2021, @07:41PM (8 children)
Ah, a guy who probably proclaims to be a patriot, yet does not support or know the constitution.
Because freedom of speech. And btw, you do have a right to yell fire in a crowded theater. Only idiots like yourself think we don't, because they read some blog post by... another idiot like themselves.
no one is giving those people a voice. they have a voice, and you're trying to silence it. apparently by making things you disagree with a crime punishable by death.
here on planet earth, it's you and some tiny loud rounding error minority of the population storming the capitol. because you're literally too dumb to do anything else. and in the real world, it's you who gets shot. but mostly laughed at, because despite what cnn says, people like you are just dumb goofy clowns, and not a threat. more of a skidmark on the underwear. just something that's a little shitty and a lot embarrassing. no one takes you, or anything you say seriously. because you are literally nothing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @08:02PM (2 children)
was all ready to upvote this until the second half of your post turned into repeatedly insulting the parent rather than saying anything constructive or useful
would be great if you turned down this tendency of yours
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by fakefuck39 on Tuesday January 12 2021, @09:56PM (1 child)
there are two possibilities here. the first is you have an account, and anything that can be downvoted - like your comment here, you post as AC so you save your magic internet points, which you collect because you have nothing else to do with your life. Or you want good karma so you get points to vote politically instead of based on content of comments, for some reason thinking voting does something. All that time you spend counting and manipulating your internet points does nothing - everyone reads at -1 here, since they don't want what they read selected by retards like yourself.
second, is you can't even comment from your account, because you've been downvoted to hell for being a retard, and now have to post as AC, and actually aren't able to upvote or downvote jack.
Hey retard - no one gives a flying fuck about what you upvote or downvote. You and your magic internet points aren't some power you have. They are literally nothing. It takes a complete and total loser for them to mean something to a person.
I love insulting complete losers - both the parent, and you. Now go ahead and downvote my posts with your magic internet points to feel empowered. Loser. Big L.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday January 17 2021, @09:51PM
Well, I do, at least.
-- hendrik
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @08:32PM
Fun fact: this quote originated from a US Supreme Court judge making the argument that speaking against the US joining WWI was dangerous speech.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater#The_Schenck_case [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @10:12PM (2 children)
For fuck's sake, do you mentally defective autistic nerds have to have everything spelled out to you ?!
The fucktards who stormed the capitol building are exactly the kind of people I want to see rounded up and shot. But do you think these morons just appeared out of thin air ? They are the product of years of misinformation, endoctrination and conspiracy theories coined and spread by the likes of 4chan, 8chan, QAnon, etc. The thugs in Washington were just the intellectually inferior, gullible, desperate, easily manipulable arms of the real puppet masters who never showed up in Washington and never put themselves in harm's way. They let their well brainwashed minions do the dirty work.
What kind of people do you think create conspiracies like QAnon ? Kids doing it just for the lulz ? No, these people are foreign agents trying to create chaos to destroy what they believe to be an ennemy nation, and also pure psychopaths who take their pleasure in lighting fires everywhere and watching the world burn. In all cases, they are pure evil and must be eliminated.
Sorry if my "wrong opinion" pisses you off, snowflake, but if freedom of speech is absolute as you claim, it also applies to everyone. Deal with it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2021, @01:46AM
"4chan, 8chan, QAnon"
These have fairly shallow reach. Quantitatively no where near as much damage as the MSM. Some nuts are a statistical inenvitability. However the reason that nothing real ever gets discussed, (which is what makes people resort to fringe groups to begin with) is because generations of people have been indoctrinated into to thinking the broadcast media (a simplex communication) is normal. Today this is far from true.
What changed from 20 years ago to today, was that communications became full duplex over long distances. So now people ask questions, and the boomers on the hill have this broadcast era mentality where they think that they can get away with refusing to engage the public on real topics because "where else are they going to get information?". The public has a higher expectation of engagement now. The fringes are successful because congress failed to recognize the totality of its current role.
Of course, they mostly seem to believe their own legend. So it couldn't possibly be their failure. /s
Which is why they will respond by trying to crack down on civil rights, instead of realizing that they need to ease off, and become more engaged, and more transparent.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2021, @05:13AM
Many of those protesting at the capital were former military. Their "indoctrination" comes from an oath: "I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
You are definitely correct that we're under attack by a foreign nation who are seeking to create chaos and destroy what they believe to be an enemy nation. But you're not noticing who they're targeting. When China sent a female spy to sleep around for power, she bee-lined straight to San Francisco. And succeeded. The US House Intelligence Committee is the primary oversight body of the CIA. And the man who was chairing that committee, Representative Eric Swalwell, was literally fucking a Chinese spy while overseeing the CIA. Swalwell, as an aside, is (and was at the time) married - with children. Similarly Diane Feinstein employed, presumably unknowingly, a Chinese spy for more than 2 decades who worked in her office, was her personal chauffeur, and also her liaison to the Asian American electorate.
The Chinese seem to believe that the DNC can be easily controlled and infiltrated, and they seem to be correct. And this is not even getting into the relationship between Hunter Biden and China. Interestingly, doing a quick search on Swalwell to ensure I spelled his name correctly, Pelosi *just* named him as an impeachment manager. Why I'm just shocked...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2021, @03:17AM
"It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt." That quote seems fitting here.