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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Once the Trust is Gone |
| 2019-09-25 |
| [AccordingToHoyt] What do you do after you lose trust in your institutions? All your institutions? What happens to a civilization when every public institution, everything we are supposed to trust and believe has provably lied to us? From the media with their increasingly crazy and public lying and insanity, to professional associations ("gun epidemic"), to our schools (really, really, children walking out to protest climate change? Because yes, children know things you didn’t tell them), to our scientific studies that no one can actually reproduced, to our contaminated, cheating elections (really, Arizona? We’ll keep the polls open till the leftist wins?) to the fact that one party in the US is fronting candidates that no one can actually believe and who seem to be living in a parallel universe, to our corrupted statistics for both census and production and cost of living, to the frigging polls, to‐ Look, all "elites" lie to the people, and arguably our institutions lied a lot more to us in the past. Or if not more, at least as much. Now for the first time, though, there are ways to verify and to question what we’re being told, and again, I must ask: What happens when the people lose all trust in their institutions? Weimar Republic? |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #12 What happens when the people lose all trust in their institutions? Actually we have lots of evidence from other societies to tell us what will happen. First, you will see people create two selves: a public self that seeks to avoid any kind of attention or scrutiny by those who have the power to ruin you - be it superiors or colleagues or neighbors - and the real self that is exposed only to immediate family and a handful of friends. The social media, let-it-all-hang-out model will quickly expire in this environment. Second, along with the underground self, you will see a lot of economic activity go underground. People will naturally turn to off-market transactions, to cash under the table, to all manner of ruses, shelters, scams. Third, as a consequence of #1 and #2, public confidence in rule of law, impartial justice, free and fair elections, an independent press and all the other core institutions of representative democracy will collapse. Demagogues and radical parties will surge. The habits of compromise, conciliation, seeing things through another's eyes: all of these habits will wither. Finally, and this is a big unknown--it depends on the efficiency of state surveillance and control--radicalized, in many cases violent, fringe movements will spread and gain many adherents. The above pattern happened before every modern revolution, including the Nazi revolution, and mostt of them flourished under communism in the late 20th century. It can happen here. Smart money says that at least a few of these will happen in coming years. |
| Posted by: Lex 2019-09-25 18:34 |
| #11 by providing competition Until the competition is all shut down. |
| Posted by: charger 2019-09-25 17:15 |
| #10 Publicize unpopular and unpublished studies on sites like WattsUpWithThat and the skeptical scientists Facebook page. Need affiliation and grants for studies. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2019-09-25 12:15 |
| #9 Quillette.com is another excellent source of high-quality, dissenting academic discussion. |
| Posted by: Lex 2019-09-25 12:05 |
| #8 Should cattle trust the farmer? |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2019-09-25 11:39 |
| #7 ^ This. TW nails it. There is no other path. |
| Posted by: Lex 2019-09-25 10:40 |
| #6 Distrusted media? Websites like Rantburg and producing original reportage and op-eds like Michael Yon, Sharyl Attkisson, and Sarah Hoyt. Distrusted schools? Private schools or school at home. Distrusted science? Publicize unpopular and unpublished studies on sites like WattsUpWithThat and the skeptical scientists Facebook page. Cheating elections? Volunteer with groups working to clean up the voter rolls, volunteer to work at the polls during the elections. In other words, by providing competition and/or supervision, force all those untrustworthy institutions to either do better or die. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2019-09-25 10:26 |
| #5 The Spoils System. Sometimes the only cure is amputation followed by cauterizing with fire when a limb becomes rotten. |
| Posted by: magpie 2019-09-25 09:45 |
| #4 The time I don't spend watching network news or reading the newspaper + the $99 / yr. they want for the rag here is all mine to spend otherwise. I'm good with that. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2019-09-25 09:02 |
| #3 Extortion funding corrupt. Governments have a product (title) that they should charge for and would keep them honest. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2019-09-25 08:41 |
| #2 Trust in your institutions? I'm afraid that bus has already left the station. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2019-09-25 08:37 |
| #1 ...1776. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2019-09-25 08:16 |