Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Saturday, June 09, 2012

Chris Hayes Needs To Get Better At Disallowing the Freakshow

Because Chris Hayes invited libertopian loudmouth Peter Schiff to participate in his panel this morning -- who interrupted everybody else over and over again, and barked his facile slogans over everybody else -- the show was literally unwatchable for twenty minutes, and everybody who watched was more stupid and less capable of responding reasonably to real danger than they were before the show started. After he left there was damage control, but there was no reason for this to happen at all, this is not the first time something like this has happened and experience should have made the last time happen weeks ago. Unless Hayes gets better at making these kooks behave themselves then he needs to stop inviting them on with some fantasy that he is contributing to open dialogue rather than simply allowing sociopathic fraudsters to commandeer what is one of the few mainstream media spaces in which somewhat entertaining reality-based policy analysis can even hope to take place. These babbling scrums are not enjoyable to listen to, and if I wanted to hear wingnuts give longform vent to their idiot views I would watch Fox.

4 comments:

jimf said...

> Hayes. . . needs to stop inviting [libertopian loudmouths] on with some
> fantasy that he is contributing to open dialogue rather than simply
> allowing sociopathic fraudsters to commandeer [the discussion].

From Charlie Stross' blog:

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/05/meta-comments.html
---------------------
Meta: comments
By Charlie Stross

Much as any artefact exposed to the maw of a small child eventually
becomes soggy and turns brown (after it stops working, if moving parts
are involved), I am coming to the conclusion that any comment thread
on this blog will, between 100 and 200 comments in, circle around to
become a discussion of:

* Space colonization

* Automotive technology

* Things that go fast and explode (rockets, military aircraft)

* Alternative energy (from solar through wind/wave to nuclear)

* Libertarianism (and everything is worse with libertarians)

Am I doing something wrong with the moderation here? Answers on the back of a
postcard, please. . .

-------
Carlos... 13:

. . .

The fifth topic, libertarianism, is the dimethyl mercury of
political discourse. . . There are other places where it can go,
and it's not ever going to add anything to your blog.

-------
Charlie Stross replied... 21:

> The fifth topic, libertarianism, is the dimethyl mercury of
> political discourse

Thank you for that image! Yes, you're right: slips through shields
while nobody's looking and causes a lingering, horrific death.

(Unfortunately, here in the UK, since 1980 libertarianism has succeeded
on the right where trotskyism more or less failed on the left.)

-------
SM... 88:

... Right-libertarians... seem to have a space in the Anglo internet
far greater than their position in general life outside the US, probably
because of their demographics. That said, I don't think it surprising
that an essay on whether the assumtions of Anglo SF from 1940 to 1980
are obsolete should lead to discussions about those assumtions ... and
classic SF did focus on travel and energy technology and contain certain
political currents which those who want rule by money or engineers
find agreeable today.

-------
C... 324:

... Four of those five topics. . . are actually derived from the same
motivation -- the desire to tell others to fuck off.

Space colonization = fuck off, I have my own planet/O'Neill colony.

Fast Cars = fuck off, and eat my dust, slowpoke. Also, screw public transportation,
I have a car.

Military tech = fuck off or I'll kill you.

Libertarianism = just plain fuck off.

-------
Charlie Stross replied... 361:

Excellent analysis! I will have to try out the "fuck off" attractor tag
as a yardstick and see if it measures up in all cases ...

-------
C replied... 452:

"Excellent analysis! ..."

It may also explain why debates between libertarians and the more
social turn acrimonious so rapidly.

The libertarian is expressing his unstated feeling that other people are
somehow threatening and that he thinks that some degree of physical, political,
or economic separation is necessary for his peace of mind.

The more social person perceives this as a threat, because subdividing
the polity is going to shaft those with the short end of the economic stick.
He tells the libertarian that he's stuck with other people whether he wants
to be or not.

And then both sides keep aggressively stabbing at the other's main worry
instead of seeking some way to arrange at a situation that's not a threat
to either.

Barkeron said...

Another argument inspired by something Mr. Stross once said: the only reason Libersociopathism still enjoys a large fandom is that it doesn't (yet) list a failed state in its track record like Leninism does.

Dale Carrico said...

Also, there is the pesky problem that the failure of the state is its desired end state.

Athena Andreadis said...

The status of the US and the EU after they religiously (and I use the term deliberately) obeyed the libertarian "logic" shows that they can most certainly list failed states in their track record. To say nothing of the state of Latin America and Africa after the IMF "remedy" regimes.