This guy is staggeringly authoritarian. He doesn't stop at "correcting" the views of radicalized nutjobs. He wants the bulk of US political speech actively managed, regulated:
He outlines six specific reform possibilities to improve exposure to diverse points of view on the Internet: 1) creation of "deliberative domains" where diverse exchange of views can occur online; 2) disclosure of relevant conduct by Web producers; 3) voluntary self-regulation by Web producers; 4) publicly subsidized programming and Web sites; 5) government-imposed rules that would require the most popular Web sites to provide links to sites with diverse views; and 6) government-imposed rules that would require highly partisan Web sites to provide links to sites with opposing views.
"Without taxes, there would be no liberty. Without taxes there would be no property. Without taxes, few of us would have any assets worth defending. [It is] a dim fiction that some people enjoy and exercise their rights without placing any burden whatsoever on the public… There is no liberty without dependency."
Sunstein has a deep-seated belief in the power of government to improve society. He would point to something like the Civil Rights movement, where Congress pushed racial equality down the throats of the states and banned private conduct that discriminated on the basis of race, as a archetypal example of how government can force society to overcome its own failings.
It's the total opposite of the anarchist/libertarian viewpoint, but it's a self-consistent view of the world that he holds in good faith.
Is it fair to label this "extremely authoritarian" though? I tend to agree with Sustein's views as described in your comment (not the views described in OP's comment) but I don't consider myself authoritarian...
I'm not using "authoritarian" in a pejorative sense, but rather a descriptive sense. Anarchist versus authoritarian is a spectrum, depending on how much you believe government is necessary to prevent negative social activity. Most liberals and most conservatives are pretty far on the authoritarian side of the scale. E.g. a liberal might think government is necessary to prevent racial discrimination, and a conservative might think government is necessary to prevent deviant sexual behavior. In contrast traditional libertarians are somewhere in the middle. They believe the government is necessary to prevent things like classic property rights, but not say gender discrimination. Anarcho-libertarians mostly reject the use of government to protect even things like classic property rights.
Sunstein endorses using the government to do things like increase the amount and diversity of political discussion in society, or decreasing how much people buy fast food and soda, which is pretty far on the authoritarian side of things.
It's not an inherently pejorative label. For example, it's authoritarian to argue that the government should interfere with private real estate transactions by preventing people from discriminating against potential buyers based on race. But most people support laws of that nature.
That is actually quite a reasonable viewpoint. Taxes clearly benefited America's economy greatly when we were the only nation with near-universal education provided mostly by government schools. One could also argue that the township model, federal post offices, and federal marine hospitals (legislated by our Founding Fathers) resulted in strong national growth.
That is a far cry from the anti-liberty sentiments demonstrated by the OP's quotes.
It's fine to marshal public money to spur greater debate, but 6) is a tax on free speech.
In other words, he's proposing that you can only speak your mind if you also cite opposing views. Once you allow that, then you can go further and restrict speech on the quality/quantity of opposition presented. It's reckless to even consider such restrictions.
Anyway, I'll concede that force is probably the wrong way to go about it... the government could provide incentives for exposing people to diverse viewpoints, but forcing people to do so is a bit extreme.
Ah, so you consider yourself an anarchist then? (Not asking this pejoratively; it's a legitimate political philosophy, just one I don't happen to subscribe to.) I feel like coercion is kind of inevitable in some circumstances; I don't think anyone is opposed to forcing a rapist to submit to punishment.
Anyway, that's a different discussion altogether. While I think force may be necessary in some aspects of society, I concede that applying force to the realm of discourse is probably a bad idea.
I leave it to others to apply labels. I just despise criminality and sociopathic assumptions, especially in government.
When someone, such as a rapist or a politician, has proven that they're incapable of peaceful behavior in society, we have the right to defend ourselves from them.
IOW, self-defense isn't coercion. The coercion has already been committed by the criminal. If you're walking down the street and I mug you, I'm applying the force. You, in self-defense, aren't being "violent" in your intent to protect yourself. You're trying to stop the violence I'm committing against you.
I guess what I'm saying is I wish people would worry less about labels and more about principles.
To get back on topic a little, the government using the tactics as laid out by Sunstein is a fraud being perpetrated by the force of government so it rings all kinds of bells.
I won't touch the value of exposing people to diverse views, but such a system would limit the views to only what's vetted by people and institutions regulating that system. The conspiracy theorists of Sunstein's paper have a term for this: controlled opposition.
So you have a website espousing a political view. You'd have to put a section listing other views... but what views do you put in that section? How would you go about deciding what views are opposite to yours? What about less known views?
Soon you'd get something like an AdSense For Opinions; an ad area with three views, each with a short description. "DRUGS FOR A BETTER LIFE. We believe every human should use more drugs and medicines daily. betterlifethroughdrugs.org", "US DOLLAR: ROOT OF ALL EVIL. US Dollar proven root of all evil, Bible proof inside. See our proposed alternative currencies. dollar-evil-get-saved.com", "EVERYTHING IS NICE. Life is pretty much swell, man. Chill out. whatareyouevenworriedabout.net"
Every possible political position and opinion would have to be considered if you want to show diverse views.
Right, but it seems like such a policy would be additive rather than subtractive. In other words, it would not prevent people from voicing their opinions, it would merely force them to include other opinions alongside their own.
You're right that such a policy isn't really feasible in terms of real-world implementation. But I do worry that the Internet has problems with polarization and filter-bubbling, and I appreciate suggestions for trying to mitigate those issues.
Do you figure he'd insert opposing viewpoints into feminist "safe spaces?" Maybe people worried about the government exerting "cognitive infiltration" want a safe space free of government cognitive infiltrators.
>such a policy would be additive rather than subtractive.
Yes, but it still seems an infringement on the First as it, in effect, requires people to also "say" things that they don't want to say, even if only by referencing the words of others.
Also, if a person found the opposing viewpoint morally repugnant to the point where referencing it would be objectionable then he may opt to stifle his own speech in order to avoid such a reference.
Free speech, of course, provides no requirement for noble motives of engaging opposing ideas, etc. as this guy proposes.
I read that as "lots of people in the media and in Internet discussions disagree with what we're doing and they need to be exposed to at least some content that supports us."
Purely authoritarian would be "everyone needs to just talk about our point of view." That wouldn't fly too well on the Internet, so this seems like the next best thing. "No one is saying anything good about what we're doing and we need to change that. Not by changing what we do, but by coercing them to be exposed to things that support us."
For context, Cass Sunstein is a prominent law professor (formerly at U Chicago, now at Harvard). He writes a lot about law and economics and also about the mechanics of democracy.
He writes a lot about behavioral economics and is a proponent of government mechanics to get people to do the right thing when they would ordinarily fall prey to fallacious reasoning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_%28book%29.
The referenced article arises from the intersection of his interest in democracy and his interest in behavioral irrationalities. Essentially, it asks: "how do you have democracy when lots of people believe nutty irrational things?" E.g. most people, when polled, regularly believe that the U.S. spends > 5% of its budget on foreign aid. They also think that something like half the U.S. population is black and the other half is Hispanic. How do these ideas impact democracy?
The article tries to paint him as some scary pro-surveillance type, but he's not. He's no anarco-libertarian--he has a very strong belief in the ability of the state to improve society. But he is a professor and likes to throw out ideas and the paper should be viewed in that context.
You see no irony that, last year, thinking the NSA had implemented a comprehensive surveillance state would be an irrational belief that should be suppressed by active management of public discussion?
I think it's an awful idea, but then again, most ideas that come out of academia are awful. My point is that it should be viewed as what it is: a professor toying with a concept under a certain set of premises, not the sinister thing the article is trying to make it out to be.
Sunnstein is no lover of government suppression of speech. He has written at length about the importance of vigorous debate to democracy. I think he fails to appreciate the ways in which many of his proposals could backfire, but that's hardly a failing unique to him (how many people on this very chatblog opposed Citizens United, and think its a good idea to let the government prosecute companies for airing unauthorized political movies critical of a front running Presidential candidate?).
The Guardian doesn't give a citation so there is no way to evaluate the claim.
I don't think Sunnstein's views on speech are in general inconsistent with what you typically find on say HN: http://mtprof.msun.edu/fall1994/TrRev.html ("Sunstein's focus is on the relationship between the media--newspapers, television, radio--and political culture. For him, the media, increasingly owned and controlled by a dwindling number of privately owned conglomerates, are in the propaganda and bread-and-circuses business. They make sure that the American public is not exposed to radically new viewpoints and that it is distracted from serious issues by an endless array of tabloid topics, from Nancy Kerrigan's knee to John Bobbitt's penis.") See: http://mtprof.msun.edu/fall1994/TrRev.html.
He favors restrictions on e.g. hate speech and political speech by corporations, which is not inconsistent with what many (most?) liberals believe. But he's also made it clear he thinks such restrictions should generally be based on harm, not ideas. http://www.gvpt.umd.edu/lpbr/subpages/reviews/sunstei2.htm ("A subject matter restriction on unprotected speech should probably be upheld if the legislature can plausibly argue that it is counteracting harms rather than ideas."). I don't agree with him on any of these points, but his views are not outside the mainstream, and are consistent with those of say European countries that have outright bans on hate speech.
At this point, doesn't every every comment that supports, in even the slightest way, government positions, become suspect? Including your comments of course.
Conspiracy theorists have suddenly gained vast new powers.
"He ... is a proponent of government mechanics to get people to do the right thing"
Sounds like the last person I want anywhere near my government.
"when they would ordinarily fall prey to fallacious reasoning"
The first problem here is that the idea of a "fallacy" only makes sense in the context of logic, and politics often diverges from logic. Even if we could have a political system that was logically consistent, there would need to be some set of axioms on which that system is based, and the approach of "protecting" people from fallacious reasoning would only serve to prevent those axioms from being changed.
Put in less polite terms, he is proposing that the government protect itself from political dissent. I believe there is a name for such a system...
First, your point doesn't make sense. Why would protecting people from fallacious reasoning prevent the axioms of the system from being changed? Fallacious reasoning is not reasoning that is incorrect under one set of axioms that may be correct under a different set of axioms. It's reasoning that draws illogical inferences from available evidence. An argument that is fallacious under one set of axioms will still be fallacious under a different set.
Second, you're taking his argument wildly out of context. There is a well-established literature on the fact that human behavior often deviates from the rational actor model, as a result of cognitive bias and fallacious reasoning, and that results in economic inefficiency: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_economics. He's not talking about political dissent. He's talking about things like people not saving enough because of hyperbolic discounting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_discounting. So we pass laws that force people to save (e.g. Australia's superannuation). That sort of thing.
I don't think his solutions are practical. I'm just pointing out that they're not sinister.
"Fallacious reasoning is not reasoning that is incorrect under one set of axioms that may be correct under a different set of axioms"
In fact it is reasoning that might be correct under a different sent of axioms. The very basic fallacy involving division by zero to show that 1=2 is illustrative: you can certainly set up a system of axioms where 1=2 is not a false statement (it may be a boring system, but it does exist).
"He's not talking about political dissent"
Unless you are arguing against economically rational laws and policies, which quite a lot of political groups and dissenters do.
"He's no anarco-libertarian--he has a very strong belief
in the ability of the state to improve society."
And herein lies the problem, whose definition of "improve" are we working with?
The definition of improve is so wholly subjective as to be useless. To me improve means more freedom. To someone else, it may mean more security. Two different definitions of improve can be totally at odds with one another.
The other word there that is very subjective, enough so to be downright dangerous, is "society". Is society defined as just the United States and it's citizens and to a much lesser extent our allies? Or is it defined as all of humanity, regardless of your citizenship or country of domicile?
For me, society === humanity. I fear the actions of those who define society more narrowly than that because it almost always means the improvements to the in-group they consider "society" come at the expense of the well-being of the groups not included in their definition of "society".
My experience has been that people with a narrower definition of "society" tend to think of solutions in terms of a pareto optimality and not seek out solutions that maximize welfare via a nash equilibrium.
So his assumption would be that politicians do not believe in "nutty irrational things" or less so than the general public. A questionable assumption for which he himself provides the counter example:
Here's a government boffin who seriously believes that it would be a great idea for the government to behave exactly like conspiracy theorists expect it to behave in order to convince them that the government would never behave like that.
"He writes a lot about behavioral economics and is a proponent of government mechanics to get people to do the right thing..."
As we see from recent events, the government's idea of "the right thing to do" is questioned by many intelligent people on HN and elsewhere. I'd prefer that our government stay out of the propaganda business.
Again, you have to understand that Sunstein is an academic. When he says "the right thing to do" he means "what an economically rational actor" would do, not "what the government thinks an economically rational actor would do." The step from the former to the latter is the difference between academia and reality. The fact that the latter might make certain ideas unworkable does not mean that its sinister to consider the former in an academic context.
"When he says "the right thing to do" he means "what an economically rational actor" would do"
Which is not even remotely close to how the majority of healthy adults live their lives. If our society consisted of people who only made economically rational decisions, we would live in a society of psychopaths (if such a society were even possible).
Authors Cass R. Sunstein (proposed member of a panel to review the surveillance practices of the National Security Agency) and Adrian Vermeule, dated January 15, 2008
Abstract: Many millions of people hold conspiracy theories; they believe that powerful people have worked together in order to withhold the truth about some important practice or some terrible event. A recent example is the belief, widespread in some parts of the world, that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out not by Al Qaeda, but by Israel or the United States. Those who subscribe to conspiracy theories may create serious risks, including risks of violence, and the existence of such theories raises significant challenges for policy and law. The first challenge is to understand the mechanisms by which conspiracy theories prosper; the second challenge is to understand how such theories might be undermined. Such theories typically spread as a result of identifiable cognitive blunders, operating in conjunction with informational and reputational influences. A distinctive feature of conspiracy theories is their self-sealing quality. Conspiracy theorists are not likely to be persuaded by an attempt to dispel their theories; they may even characterize that very attempt as further proof of the conspiracy. Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories, the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups. Various policy dilemmas, such as the question whether it is better for government to rebut conspiracy theories or to ignore them, are explored in this light.
> Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories
"Crippled epistemology" is an interesting name for being unable to distinguish opinion from fact. What is the name for being unable to distinguish the essence of a fact from its doublespeak explanation?
While I agree that conspiracy theories aren't an apocalyptic danger, I tend to think that misinformation and unjustified paranoia can have detrimental effects on discourse in the public sphere.
Considering that his proposal is geared towards defusing their anger as opposed to entrapment or proactive punishment, this seems like a pretty decent idea. And it's not like conspiracy theorists don't foment criminal and even deadly behavior sometimes.
Sometimes people need to be angry at their government. When the army is knowingly and deliberately irradiating a town in secret, people need to get angry. When the President is part of a conspiracy to break into the offices of his political opponents during an election, people need to get angry. When the director of national intelligence is lying to Congress about the intelligence community's violation of civil rights, people need to get angry.
If we silence conspiracy theorists, we ensure that conspiracies will never be unraveled because nobody will be allowed to bring them to light.
Yeah, but this one doesn't really make me mad. Also, I still don't respect conspiracy theorists because they seem to just live finding conspiracies to be mad at. The Iraq invasion happened on live TV and was trumpeted as a patriotic success . It was worse than every conspiracy real or imagined during the Obama administration.
What if the conspiracy is actually true, and their anger is justified? For example, if a couple of years ago you started writing about how the NSA is reading everyone's e-mail, many people might have thought you were a nutjob. If in 2006 you would have predicted that there would soon be an global economic collapse caused by the excesses of Wall Street, you would have been laughed at by most people. I think it's very dangerous if the government gets to decide which "conspiracy theories" are false, especially if they concern something that the government is trying to hide.
Once again, the US Government takes a page from the Stasi:
> By the 1970s, the Stasi had decided that methods of overt persecution which had been employed up to that time, such as arrest and torture, were too crude and obvious. It was realised that psychological harassment was far less likely to be recognised for what it was, so its victims, and their supporters, were less likely to be provoked into active resistance, given that they would often not be aware of the source of their problems, or even its exact nature. Zersetzung was designed to side-track and "switch off" perceived enemies so that they would lose the will to continue any "inappropriate" activities.
Don't get confused, it's an inevitability that these techniques for attacking subversive groups will instead be used on innocent people not suspected of any crime.
While the headline is a bit over the top, I agree with the general sentiment. The idea that the government will infiltrate these groups, but limit themselves to just influencing the discourse in positive, truthful ways, without creating dossiers on the parties involved seems fantasy to me.
I get that. You're lying about your identity to help influence people to know the truth. If you're already willing to lie about who you are, then you're already more willing to do things that might not be so ethical in the first place, which means you probably can't be trusted to limit yourself to only steering people towards the truth.
It's ok. I'm just a paid government shill that's steering you towards the truth. Trust me. <sleazy smile/>
The fantasy is not that this couldn't happen or is not happening. The fantasy is that if such a program were initiated that it would remain within the 'ethical' boundaries that he specified.
It's like saying that if we create a national Internet filter to block known child porn URLs that the mechanisms to do this would be used only for blocking child porn. The reality is that people would be busting down the door to knock their favourite-thing-to-hate off of the Internet.
I am guessing his objection is that the title does not mention that the targets would be conspiracy theorists. That is a fairly reasonable objection but on the other hand, how many online discussion venues don't have discussions about conspiracies? HN sure as shit does, as does reddit, slashdot, facebook, 4chan, twitter, IRC, bodybuilding.com's forums...
The title is a truthful statement. The change I would make would be to call them "'ethical' pro-government shills," with the scare-quotes intentionally around the word ethical. The guy was promoting the idea that we would put these shills in place, but they would basically only be steering people away from false assumptions and towards the truth. While this might be a nice idea, it's more fantasy than reality.
Sunstein is an effective argument for the limited powers of government. Would you really want a guy like this having enough power to enforce his arrogance upon the rest of us?
Cass Sunstein wrote an op-ed a few weeks ago saying Larry Summers should be considered a candidate for Fed Chairman because he has been pushing for regulation all along, the problem is we just haven't heard about it. This is about the guy who pushed for repealing Glass-Steagall and also pushed for allowing commercial banks to use governement- insured deposits to speculate in derivatives.
He outlines six specific reform possibilities to improve exposure to diverse points of view on the Internet: 1) creation of "deliberative domains" where diverse exchange of views can occur online; 2) disclosure of relevant conduct by Web producers; 3) voluntary self-regulation by Web producers; 4) publicly subsidized programming and Web sites; 5) government-imposed rules that would require the most popular Web sites to provide links to sites with diverse views; and 6) government-imposed rules that would require highly partisan Web sites to provide links to sites with opposing views.
http://www.scottlondon.com/reviews/sunstein2.html