Mob minds could do with some psychological distancing.

I’ve pondered the Thielean anti-democratic turn for a few years now. Trump’s victory in 2016 struck me as both the most democratic and least democratic thing ever.

I’m still firmly for electoral democracy and against authoritarian/monarchical rule. But I’ve updated definitions.

Is the bloc vote of a mass movement in the grips of memetic contagion a democratic mandate? Yes in letter, no in spirit.

Electoral democracy can’t structurally distinguish between mass movements and individual franchise. Should it?

I don’t know but let me try to frame it.

Trump didn’t get 62,984,828 individual votes.

He got 1 vote weighted by 62,984,828 for, and 1 vote weighted by 65,853,514 against. Bloc vs bloc.

Further weighted (some say distorted) by the funhouse mirror of electoral college.

This was arguably a new phenomenon, despite some historical precedent. It was neither like clientelistic democracy a la Jackson, nor like limited mass movements. It was closer to a 51% sibyl attack. Real humans turned into sock puppets by an idea and forged into something.

Two metaphors come to mind:

1. grasshoppers transformed into locusts by scarcity (did you know locusts are not a separate species? They’re grasshoppers in a special state)

2. Meme pandemic. MAGA as a mind-virus that swept through the population.

I’m happy to bothsides this argument. Bernie mob is as much locust swarm/mind virus as Trump mob.

The first metaphor suggests one intervention: return to condition of plenty somehow.

The second metaphor suggests another: media distancing.

Two questions: Can we? Should we?

The first intervention I am going to dismiss. “Return to plenty” is not a political choice. It’s a function of optionality created by new technology. You may not agree. Some think there’s plenty already, hoarded. Separate argument. But I’ll punt. We can’t, so should-we is moot.

The second intervention is interesting. We’ve learned enough in the last few years that we could. I think media distancing to flatten the curve of memetic contagion is possible. We could lower R0 of ideas like MAGA with tech. Question is: Should we? https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1247375660244320258?s=21

Thought experiment: A different kind of constitutional convention is called, not the kind red states have been trying to engineer. One devoted to redesigning democracy to be memetic contagion resistant. What could it ask of Facebook and Twitter to protect Democracy 2.0?

The earliest constitutional democracies had opinions about tech and media. The idea of a “free press” shaped democracy 1.0 and “press” was not an abstraction or metonymy. It referred to literal printing presses. So what is a “free social media”?

A free press is one free of political control. The literal machines have to be controlled by not-the-politicians. A free social media otoh... is one that cannot be captured by mass movements. So I think there’s a moral philosophical case for media distancing.

This case needs to be built robustly. Otherwise Thielean anti-democracy types and monarchists etc will always be able to point to the bad mob to claim good democracy is impossible, just as we point to the bad emperor problem to argue that good monarchies are impossible.

The original problems with monarchy were “solved” with habeas corpus, limitation of monarchs, rejection of divine right of kings etc. Prime Ministers and Presidents ARE how pre-moderns fixed “monarchy”. Modern democracy was part of the solution not something deified in itself.

But “the people” were elevated to divinity just as “the king” and “the law” once were. Both have now been brought down to earth, subject to critical human scrutiny. Governers criticize Presidents as barons once did kings. Lawyers criticize the law. Who criticizes “the people”?

Traditional answer has been “experts” or more generally Straussians.

A subset of self-important humans using privileged control of media to create false consciousnesses based on noble lies. Because “the people” couldn’t handle “the truth”.

That hasn’t gone too well lately.

To refactor democracy, we can only look in one place. Since ”the people” is everybody, it must check itself. More clearly, we need “the people” in grasshopper state to rein in “the people” in locust state, and vice versus.

We’ve already invented technologies that do that. The “market” is really “the people” in a selfish state policing “the people” in selfless state and vice versa. The tech we use to divide and rule ourselves there is money.

It creates many problems but it sorta works.

Media distancing technology should be seen in this light. And do it without violating parts of democracy that work.

One key idea is @noUpside principle that free speech/expression is not free reach.

Reach should cost you.

Yes there are algorithmic ways to slow/arrest media contagion but that creates “Straussian platforms”. It just moves the problems with human Straussianism into algorithms. Algorithmic noble lies. Back to square one.

Let’s... not do that?

But free speech + paid reach.

Now we’re talking. Democracy 2.0 as freemium democracy. One vote, one voice, whatever dollars you earn. You want to infect others with your thoughts? They have to either trust you personally (opt-in audiences) or you pay to reach them.

But not paid reach like the advertising market. Not paid reach as in Putin buying voices to mash like/RT buttons at wholesale prices.

No. Paid reach as in: each of us verified humans has to pay out of pocket to like/RT/share. WoM is no longer free.

I think this will do it. It’s also a mechanism that’s understandable and governable by tech-illiterate politicians assisted by bureaucrats.

Moving “reach prices” around is like setting interest rates. So simple even economists could run it.

Policy goal: no mobs.

That’s it. Not super complex. May not even need constitutional amendments. Does not affect first amendment since we’re not touching speech, only reach. Can include traditional media too somehow. Talk radio, TV, newspapers. They are slaves to RTs and likes too now anyway

Hmm. Wild idea.

You could connect money and reach. Make likes and RTs (“proof of distance”) the *basis* for currency itself somehow. Abuse leads to inflation and makes prices go up. A blockchain based on quality of public life. Both too much and too little talk are costly.