It is interesting that WhatsApp is credited with so much of the fake news and disinformation in the recent Brazilian election as opposed to Twitter. Do you have an idea of why this is? I read this article [1] which mentions that while most Brazilians have mobile phones, their data plans only include free access to Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp and ordinary data is expensive (i.e. no net neutrality). That means that information is spread more often through these apps rather than by people reading news websites.

However, WhatsApp seems a very inefficient method to spread propaganda. You have to share each message either with an individual or a group and there is no "news feed" curated by some algorithm to target your interests specifically. Also, given that Twitter is also free for most Brazilians, I would expect that to be a more effective method to find and spread propaganda. One explanation given by the article is that "Since WhatsApp text messages are forwarded and reforwarded by friends and family, the information seems more credible." This makes sense but it doesn't explain why this phenomenon would happen more in Brazil than in the US.

[1] https://theconversation.com/whatsapp-skewed-brazilian-electi...

I think you are forgetting about six degrees of separation. It doesn’t take many shares/forwards to reach every one. As for the news feed part, I think people would more readily believe something their friend/family sent in the group chat as opposed to on a news feed. But that second point is just my opinion.

Friends and family sharing things that pertain to a field I know they're knowledgeable in sure. However I've got plenty of family (thankfully not too many friends) that are happy to amplify the signal of things that they're not qualified to speak to. Aunt Anti-vaxx if anything gets more scepticism about anything she tries to tell me.

Simply pretty much everyone here uses WhatsApp, including people who have no other contact with the internet.

How many people even use Twitter compared to services like Facebook and WhatsApp? Twitter gets endless media attention for some reason, but it's direct reach is severely limited by the fact that it's a niche service, at least compared to its largest competitors.

It’s always astonishing to me how many Americans support “direct democracy” as opposed to representative. Mob rule plays out time and time again without representative democracy

> Mob rule plays out time and time again without representative democracy

No, mob rule plays out time and again without limited government. Whether legislation is direct or representative doesn't really matter, but in either direct or indirect democracy, election timing and structure (e.g., staggered six-year terms in the Senate for representative democracy, and supermajority or pass-twice-with-specified-interval rules for certain major changes in direct democracy) can.

I do think that building in checks and delays can help stabilize government, but I am somewhat concerned by how to keep it up to date with the rapidly changing world. We're still trying to figure out how to regulate the internet and that's been around for ~30 years.

> Mob rule plays out time and time again without representative democracy

Mob rule plays out with representative democracy too. Disinformation can get a mob boss elected and that mob can trample on minority groups freedoms.

It's the disinformation that is the issue. In both cases, the distortions will manifest.

Yep, the only reliable difference between functional democracy and dysfunctional is the level of education, both generally and politically.

I recently had a thought about democracy (in any form), being a societal form of bullying on those that voted for the losing parties.

Compared to a dictatorship, democracy is 'better', as at least you get the opportunity every few years to have your views acted on by the politicians. But then, sometimes you don't. And if your views are on the fringes, your views will never be acted on.

Either way, a definition of bullying is someone using their power of consequences (whether it's a beating or emotional blackmail, blackmail, or fines or prison et al) to make others do what they want - which is what democracy delivers to the victors.

Still pondering and wondering about better ways....

Switzerland has the most direct democracy and it works really quite well. We can overrule things representatives do with a 50000 signatures and a popular vote. We can introduce new laws with 100000 signatures and a popular vote.

That sort of system has many flaws but I would take it much rather then the US system.

In fact the Swiss system is based on the US, just with more direct democracy and a far less powerful president.

I would actually argue that the removal of presidential powers is the most important thing. Having all your top ministers be selected by the one popular vote for president is pretty insane when you think about it.

In Switzerland the top ministers are from 4-5 different parties and they have to work together every day. The departments are not fixed and switch about between people and parties.

Sometimes there are unpopular decisions that are nevertheless the right decisions. When you elect a representative, you're basically putting your faith in that person, rather than a particular policy.

Yes, we have representatives to and its a nice theory. But at least in the Swiss experience the population often makes pretty tough choices.

We voted on 6 weeks mandatory vacation and the people voted against it.

The parliament wanted to join the EU in the 1990, the people rejected it.

Also, often you end up putting your faith into parties rather then people and the people are compromised by party policy anyway. That you are voting for free thinking individual is mostly a fantasy.

This leads to anti-minority laws like Minarett-Verbot (minarets can no longer be built due to this law) etc.

Yes, people love to talk about that one law and bring it up at every opportunity as if we were stoning muslims to death.

It was really mostly because people didn't like the architecture. Muslims in Switzerland are freer then in many other countries in Europe and for every 'evil populist' law that Switzerland made you will find that 10 populist proposals have been rejected (left and right wing).

Also, lets remember that Minarett are something people like, they are not required or in any way limit religious freedom of Muslims.

So yes, we had like 4 Minaret and they wanted to build 2 more and can't. Populism has truly made live hell.

That's very interesting, thanks for sharing.

What is the mechanism for creating or disbanding ministries?

The ministries are always the same. Sorry if I implied differently.

The 7 Top Minister (Bundesrat elected by Parliament) pick a ministry and the select based on how long they have been in.

So in the beginning you might get something unpopular like military but after a couple years you can switch to interior minister.

Because they don't get replaced as often as US presidents they can have a much longer term view. In fact they hardly get replaced at all, mostly they just retire.

Representative democracy devolves into elitist managerialism that abstracts away whom they manage.

I prefer to be governed by a lottery system with checks to insure loyalty and capability.

And like the Chinese historically did, ensure these people are not local to the constituency they represent/rule over to eliminate favoritism.

Sortition now!

Every system has failure modes. It is possible but not completely obvious that mob rule is a worse failure mode than corruption amongst the representatives in a Republic. Any one can imagine a direct democracy where the quorum is, say, 60% instead of 50.01%, leading to greater stability.

Purely out of interest, do you see yourself as more part of the mob, or more part of the representatives?

The problem is less the form of elections and representations, but how they come about. In representative democracy, you need to bribe just the representative. In direct democracy, you need to bribe/trick some majority.

If the US switched to direct democracy tomorrow, I'd bet the same issues would pop up, just in a different form.

One mans mob rule is another mans will of the people. Just like a politician is a demagogue if you don't like them, but have they speak to the people if you do like them.

Tyranny of the majority. Suppose 51% of the population is in group X and 49% in group Y. Should group X be allowed to vote for more benefits and lower taxes for themselves, while balancing the budget by increasing taxes and slashing benefits for group Y?

> Suppose 51% of the population is in group X and 49% in group Y. Should group X be allowed to vote for more benefits and lower taxes for themselves, while balancing the budget by increasing taxes and slashing benefits for group Y?

Representative government does nothing to stop that, except insofar as representation is non-proportional, and allows Y to do that instead of X, giving tyranny of the minority instead of tyranny of the majority.

The solution you are looking for is limited (either absolutely or procedurally) government, not representative over direct democracy.

Well, to begin with the first thing one should note: middle age people living of welfare do not use Tviter, neither are the inner city demographics.

See the demographics of protesters, they are all but the two groups above.

Being unfortunate to live 13 years in Russia, I can tell the trick: the initial "ignition source" might've been the middle age welfare receivers, but later on it was pivoted towards the usual malcontents under the cover of commotion.

Simple as hell trick, but yeah, it gave France hell.

The threat of mob rule you described, is only there if you allow it to be forcefully/artificially instated through psyops/political technologists/disinformation

> middle age people living of welfare do not use Tviter, neither are the inner city demographics.

Both of those demographics do in fact use Twitter, quite a bit actually.

Are the Vietnam and Iraq Wars strong arguments for representative democracy?

We're tired of representatives abusing their power.

Sure, because that's the problem we have. We forget that the problem we don't have may be worse.

What gives you the impression a significant number of Americans support direct democracy?

The fact that California is nearly ungovernable due to it?

California is perfectly governable. There used to be a perennial budgeting problem due to a supermajority requirement which, like all of the CA Constitution, was directly adopted, but that was solved by the people withdrawing the requirement.

Whether that's a fact or not, it doesn't seem to have much to do with whether lots of Americans support direct democracy. The California process itself is well over a century old.

can you elaborate, please?

> What gives you the impression a significant number of Americans support direct democracy?

The fact that most states have at least some degree of it, and the people don't use it to abolish itself in favor of purely representative democracy.

These all tend to be from the Progressive Era. By the same argument, we can conclude most Americans are deeply paranoid about the dangers of direct democracy because the founders of the US were. Neither is terribly convincing.

Support for this stuff tends to ebb and flow - not surprisingly, depending on whether any particular party or force thinks it can gain advantage from it, or it thwarts its plans.

This can be seen especially well with the Supreme Court, which is arguably the single most undemocratic American institution. In the Progressive Era, SCOTUS was castigated by the left for slowing down the reforms, and eventually adopted the "judicial restraint" stance. Then the Civil Rights era came, with SCOTUS often the driving force - and now it was a good thing that it was forcing the hand of state legislatures regardless of popular support or lack thereof. Similarly, when you look at it from the right, the positions were essentially reversed - under FDR the right expected the courts to fight back against populism, in the Civil Rights era the right expected those same courts to defer to state legislatures.

More recently, in the 90s-10s period, it has been on full display - just take any op-ed with obvious partisan bias about any major Supreme Court decision. If the author agrees with it, they will usually exalt the wonders of an unelected body keeping the mob in check. If the author disagrees, then they will rant about how SCOTUS is undemocratic and thwarts the will of the people. Sometimes, the same author will write several op-eds over time, with varying position depending on the case.

> These all tend to be from the Progressive Era.

And they all contain the mechanisms by which, if people didn't like them, they could be undone.

> By the same argument, we can conclude most Americans are deeply paranoid about the dangers of direct democracy because the founders of the US were.

No, you can't, because to be “by the same argument”, you'd have to. show that, in a case where it was procedurally possible for the people directly to institute or remove direct democracy, they generally choose to avoid it entirely. Which is exactly the opposite of reality.

I don't because I'm not asking what is procedurally possible. I'm asking what is the evidence that right now, piles and piles of Americans support direct democracy. There are zillions of aspects of government that exist and that alone (or the fact that they haven't been reformed away) doesn't indicate widespread support or non-support of them. This is about as weak an indication as the historical arguments which tell you something about how some Americans felt at the time.

> I'm asking what is the evidence that right now, piles and piles of Americans support direct democracy.

And the evidence is that they have it and choose to keep it, since its existence allows them to remove or further limit it should they wish to.

The United States has been on a long bend toward more direct democracy because it’s self reinforcing. How would you “remove” direct democracy? Put it to a “vote of the people”? Okay. Now you have to convince them that they should give up their “power” to directly inform their governance. Who is going to vote for this? As more and more people become accustomed to voting on more and more issues that were previously the exclusive purview of their elected representatives, of course they’re going to want more of that same structure. You get to a point where you’re putting enormously complex issues to a vote, which is just kind of mind boggling to me.

Not sure if we’re agreeing or disagreeing, but to state my position explicitly direct democracy is the final form of decline for civil republican government. After that you’re headed for authoritarianism, be it left or right.

“Should they wish to” is frankly wishful thinking.

> Now you have to convince them that they should give up their “power” to directly inform their governance. Who is going to vote for this?

You so realize that you are literally making my point that direct democracy has significant support?

> “Should they wish to” is frankly wishful thinking.

I think you are confused about the subject: that they manifestly don't wish to is my entire point.

I know I’m making your point. I was trying to. I’m in total agreement that direct democracy is an unstoppable force.

The last sentence I wrote was perhaps me misunderstanding your phrasing. I’m operating from a prior that direct democracy is very bad, and should be avoided.

Rhetorically what I meant was that “should they wish to” is not a meaningful distinction, since they would never wish not to [operate via direct democracy once that Pandora’s box is opened].

Ballot measures, initiatives are an example of this tendency.

Because of WhatsApp? That's like blaming the telephone or the printing press. WhatsApp is just a communication channel. If your democracy depends on people being unable to communicate, it's no democracy at all.

> After the horrible very bad choices we made on last election here, thanks to WhatsApp

For those of us unfamiliar, can you share info on what WhatsApp did? Also curious how results are attributed to it. In the US many found big-web tech as a convenient scapegoat but evidence of its overarching effect is tenuous.

It is a public bus with a steering wheel fitted to the back of every seat, that is sold as an improvement to the terrible oppression of having bus drivers.

edit, to be fair, I should have clarified this with 'the majority of implementations appear to be', I am not philosophically against direct democracy in principle, just most of the ways it is generally attempted.

I'm pretty sure WhatsApp didn't cast any votes.

The big thing nobody talks about with Bolsonaro though is the geopolitical implications with China. US and Brazil could starve China into compliance as they produce around 80% of the worlds soy and corn. Nobody is talking about that aspect,the fact that brazil has non-socialist anti-China leader for the first time in decades, although Trump must be aware because he sent Bolton down to Brazil and invited Bolsonaro to the white house

It applies beyond China as well. They could just become OPEC for food and both countries would benefit from being able to jack up prices on crops and livestock.

Well, Brazil had to sell those soybeans somewhere. Their economy is half bankrupt already anyway. If not China, where are going to send all the natural resources to, with its current price? Presumably not US, who is also desperate trying to sell its own gases/agricultural products to the world. They are competitors, not friends.

In worst case, China can just reduce the consumption of livestock, after all that is what soybeans had been used for, while finding replacements somewhere else. As long as they have enough rice, China will be fine.

China is fishing in all the planet and can exert a lot of influence over many countries in Africa. Chinese investors had spent more than $23 billion in Brazil in the last three years investing in energy and entering in the development of infrastructures. Would not be a wise move for the brazilian government.

Bolsonaro's big quote is that "China isn't investing in Brazil, it's buying brazil". If Trump offers Bolsonaro a good trade deal I wouldn't be surprised to see him take it to get away from China's influence

That is the accusation regarding the one belt one road. Some Africans are making the same accusations regarding their investments.

If there is a buyer, then there is a seller also.

>US and Brazil could starve China into compliance

Into compliance with what, exactly?

Trade blockade, and food in particular.

Russian farmers will be happy, once in a blue moon.

They are not too unhappy even now.

https://agfax.com/2018/10/12/global-markets-wheat-robust-rus...

American interests

And those are?

Money, keeping China out

Here's a snippet about Africa, I'm sure South America is much more important for the US.

“We will make certain that ALL aid to the region - whether for security, humanitarian, or development needs - advances U.S. interests,” he said, adding that Washington will also re-evaluate its support for U.N. peacekeeping missions.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-africa/u-s-to-c...

trade, IP, muslim concentration camps, illegal island creation in south China sea, the list goes on.

Xi's power grab is only accepted because life is pretty good right now in China. He won't be able to maintain power over a billion hungry, angry chinese

I have a feeling that Muslim concentration camps is not on top of the list of issues that Trump or Bolsonaro are worried about...

Maybe if MBS starts to care about Uyghurs?

MBS doesn't care about Arabs in Yemen. Why would he start caring about Uyghurs half a continenet away?

Some of them form Salafist militias in Syria.

realpolitik, anything Trump can use to turn the international community against China will be used

I don't recall any "horrible very bad choices". The country voted against corruption, against being like Venezuela, against being bought by China, against letting criminals have defenseless prey, and against being pointlessly hostile to the USA. IMHO, things are really looking up for Brazil.

Mussolini made the trains run on time, but that didn't make him a "good choice". Things may be looking up for Brazil if you're a corporation (especially one looking for unrestrained exploitation of natural resources) or a member of the ethnic majority. Otherwise you're fucked[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jair_Bolsonaro#Views_on_the_Br...

I know very little about Brazil or Bolsonaro but one thing I read which shocked me was the statistic that 30% of the citizens of Rio were caught in cross fire in the last year [1]. If that's accurate it's mind blowing and really helps me to understand why Brazilians want a political change and somebody (perceived to be) tough on crime. It's like there are problems with the lower levels of the hierarchy of needs, and only after safety and stability are established will people care about the environment, liberal ideals, or fair treatment of people.

1 - https://www.presstv.com/DetailFr/2018/04/02/557207/Brazil-Ri...

> If that's accurate it's mind blowing and really helps me to understand why Brazilians want a political change and somebody (perceived to be) tough on crime.

That's understandable, and I'm certainly in no position to judge the people of Brazil. However it's possible for both of these to be true:

* Brazil is facing a public safety crisis that requires immediate, drastic action.

* Bolsanaro is a proto-fascist opportunist capitalizing on the crisis to rise to power.

I agree, and, knowing little about Brazil, that's what I think is happening. The thought behind my response was that I wanted to stress that the motivation behind electing Bolsonaro may be more serious than making trains run on time.

Mussolini was a better choice then many socialist back then. His power was massively checked and only because of development in Germany did it end up as it did.

The new guy is of course a major asshat, but government before was making lots of really bad choices as well and Brazil was not going in a good direction.

The important thing is to not let anybody get enough power to remove the whole institutional machinery.

Being bought by China? I wonder what the ultraliberal minister of the economy Paulo Guedes thinks about not doing deals with China.

Could you explain how voting a criminal into power is going to prevent him from having defenseless prey?

You've got to be joking... He's a genocidal, homophobic, racist piece of shit, borderline dictator. Read this: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jair_Bolsonaro, if you agree with anything on there, you really have to rethink your entire life

I wonder how one can be genocidal without having killed anyone, homophobic without having persecuted LGBT, racist without having defended racial thesis. Has Bolsonaro said ugly reprehensible things ? Yes he did. But that is his opinion at best.

Bringing these empty accusations wont prove your point neither add to the discussion.

> Yes he did. But that is his opinion at best.

What does this mean? We're not talking about a random Youtuber here. He's the leader of the country. Presumably his opinion will influence his policy decisions (in fact he's promised as much)[1].

When somebody tells you they're going to kill you and they're holding a gun - it's wise to believe them even if they've never murdered before.

[1] https://globalnews.ca/news/4606489/jair-bolsonaro-beliefs-br...

Have you read his quotes? This guy really does not shy from calling for blood. That's pure Nazi shit. "empty accusations" is quite dishonest as he literally calls for death of _thousands_ of his fellow citizens.

It is convenient that those are all in English, but that casts suspicion on them. FWIW though, I don't object to everything on that list.

There are no perfect politicians, and they are always presented in the worst possible light by their opponents. Times change; you could look back at old quotes and then conclude that our Hillary Clinton hates same-sex marriage and immigrants.

Picking from the non-ideal choices actually available, Brazil did very well.

> Picking from the non-ideal choices actually available, Brazil did very well.

Do you honestly believe that there will be another democratic election in Brazil under Bolsonaro's rule?

> "We're going to shoot all the PT (Workers' Party) supporters in Acre." - Jair Bolsonaro (1 September 2018)

I'm not so sure.

Do you know the context for that, or if the translation is any good?

Sarcasm is a thing.

Are you for real? I don't care about other "non-ideal" choices, once you (repeatedly!) call for someone's death in public you should be (at least!) banned from running for any public office, period. The false equivalence with HRC when the other side does pure Nazi lets-kill-some-people-to-solve-our-problems shit paints you in reaally bad light.