Twitter rant

Eli: Mostly you don't get the time to expound bcs people get off the elevator

Me: This gets me off on quite a tangent... Why don't people pay attention to the future of their own world? Busy, stressed, scared, angry, mean

One reason for the buckling of democracy is the stealing of people's time and emotional energy in high stakes marketplace hypercompetition.

 Democracy can be preserved or restored only if & when daily life is secure. A key reason to support Universal Basic Income or similar ideas.

 A calm and confident people can learn, absorb ideas, weigh strategies. A hassled population buffeted by competing shallow ideas cannot.

Kevin Leahy: Not to mention the dumbing down of news via infotainment +robust for profit propaganda/outrage machine.

These go together. A society with the time to think wouldn't tolerate this bullshit. I'm old enough to remember when we didn't.

Scott Wahlstrom: If this is true, how does democracy emerge out of discontent and oppression?  I'm not a master of history, so the premise may be flawed...

For one thing, in US, UK, and Canada at least, democracy emerged gradually from comfortable oligarchy.  In France many false starts.

But my point is more how democracies fail than how they emerge. I think it's clear that the end of the Weimar Republic is hugely instructive

I'm old enough to remember intelligent, respectful, intellectually challenging debate on television. The idea seems almost unimaginable now!

In those days, the standard was one job per household of four to six. Now it's every adult must work. Jobs are more stressful, less reliable

Given that machines are more capable & there is supposedly much more wealth to go around, it's hard to understand this urgent need for jobs!

Meanwhile the decisions facing the democracy are at least as complicated, perhaps more so. But there isn't the public attention available.

Most people eschew politics altogether. Those who are engaged are not only polarized but professionalized. Discourse replaced by team sport.

The people who even bother to vote are then faced with a choice between a few heavily advertised but obviously defective brands.

Little resembling public discourse occurs. Little resembling leadership is possible. A formerly remarkable system goes on autopilot.

Democracy depends on engagement from the voting class. We have set things up so most voters cannot afford the time or emotion to engage.

Time is what we need. Time for calm reflection. I think a lot of people can't even imagine what that would be like anymore.

Given that people are disengaged, politics boils down to competing advertising agencies pitching packages of half-truths.

Recently it's been discovered that unmitigated lies have advantages in a marketplace of ideas where buyers don't have time to shop carefully

I think we are well on our way to incapacitating ourselves wrt not just climate change but even maintaining what had been a robust peace.

If we descend into barbarism nobody will be able to care enough for the future to work hard enough to replace fossil fuels.

So whether we go all the way to genocide or not, the 21st century now looks likely to be even more disastrous and stupid than the 20th.

The 20th century totalitarians made a horror of their own time. We, more powerful, stand to make a horror of many generations to come.

I'm not eager to abandon democracy as an ideal, but it demands participation & engagement. That won't come from a frantic, stressed society.

Everyone on earth should be guaranteed food and shelter. This would be much cheaper than means-tested programs, very much cheaper than war! But also that kind of security would free up attention that is now bottled up in scheming and striving and jealousy and fear. We might still pull a decent future out if we address our idiotic commitment to a policy of maximum employment at minimum wage. A long shot. But I am starting to think it's the only shot we've got.