美国政治的根本问题是什么(三)
What is the root problem in US politics?译文简介
网友:解决我们政治中的党派之争最简单直接的方法就是建立一个不会直接导致党派之争的投票制度。在我看来,那些认为党派之争(正如我们在美国看到的那样)只是“人性”,因此认为其是无法解决的人被严重误导了。相反,这是我们当前投票制度导致的直接结果......
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What is the root problem in US politics?
美国政治的根本问题是什么?
美国政治的根本问题是什么?
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The simple, straightforward way to fix the partisanship in our politics is to have a voting system that does not directly cause it. Those who think that partisanship, as we see it in the US, is simply "human nature" and therefore unsolvable are severely misguided, in my opinion. Instead, it is a direct consequence of our current voting system.
Any system that gives an advantage to those candidates that form alliances with ideological similar candidates, will result in parties forming and becoming dominant. Parties form so that similar candidates can gain strategic advantage by agreeing to put only one candidate on the ballot. Over time things tend to stabilize into two dominant parties. With even more time, the public themselves become polarized, with more falling on one side or the other . The center becomes a very lonely place.
解决我们政治中的党派之争最简单直接的方法就是建立一个不会直接导致党派之争的投票制度。在我看来,那些认为党派之争(正如我们在美国看到的那样)只是“人性”,因此认为其是无法解决的人被严重误导了。相反,这是我们当前投票制度导致的直接结果。
任何给那些与意识形态相似的候选人结盟的候选人带来优势的制度,都将导致政党的形成并占据主导地位。政党的形成使得相似的候选人可以通过同意只让一名候选人参加投票而获得战略优势。随着时间的推移,事情趋向于稳定为两个占主导地位的政党。随着时间的推移,公众本身也变得两极分化,越来越多的人站在一边或另一边。中间地带变成了一个非常孤独的地方。
Write amazingly persuasive prose that convinces lots of people that a relatively simple change will make a dramatic, positive change -- and post it on Quora. :)
Make beautiful and elegant videos and interactive sites to demonstrate how this happens, in a way that can be grasped in a few seconds.
Build free web services that do internet polling and elections in these better ways, letting more people warm up to the idea on things that aren't as important as real elections. Make them good enough that they get used all over the web.
Build sophisticated game theory based computer models where you can run simulations to demonstrate how this problem manifests itself, and how easy it would be to fix it. Use these models to convince the rest of the holdouts.
With the public thoroughly behind it, push representatives to change the election laws. We've already changed them here in San Francisco, and although the system here is not perfect, it is a move in the right direction.
编辑:根据要求,这里有一些解决问题的步骤(所有这些基本上都归结为“我们应该做出这个改变以说服很多人”
写一篇非常有说服力的文章,让很多人相信一个相对简单的改变会带来戏剧性的、积极的变化——然后把它发布在Quora上。
制作出色、简练的视频和交互式网站,以一种几秒钟就能掌握的方式展示这种情况是如何发生的。
建立免费的网络服务,以更好的方式进行网络投票和选举,让更多的人对那些不如真正的选举那么重要的事情感兴趣。让它们足够好,可以在整个网络上使用。
建立复杂的基于博弈论的计算机模型,在那里你可以运行模拟来展示这个问题是如何表现出来的,以及展示解决它有多容易,用这些模型来说服其余的反对者。
在公众的全力支持下,推动议员们修改选举法。我们已经在旧金山改变了它们,尽管这里的体制并不完美,但这是朝着正确方向迈出的一步。
There’s always been a divide. It’s just gotten a lot worse in the last 20–30 years. Here’s what I think deserves the blame:
The fall of the Soviet unx and the end of the Cold War. Having a real threat beyond your borders really unites a populace that would otherwise hate each other. Once the Cold War was over and Americans realized the “Commies” weren’t going to be parachuting in anytime soon, it made it that much easier to bicker amongst ourselves.
The rise and availability of alternative media. Many people now live in echo chambers, hearing only the news that already reflects their point of view. Conservatives usually get criticized for this the most, but I know a lot of liberals that do it too. That’s because I think the mainstream media has a decidedly liberal narrative. If you watch just ABC or CBS or NBC News, you’re not getting the whole story any more than someone who watches just Fox News.
Hedonism and a rejection of culturally or legally-imposed self control. If it feels good and doesn’t hurt anyone except yourself, why shouldn’t you be able to do it, right? If there’s a law or cultural norm against it, that’s because of some old patriarchal religion or something. We don’t need that anymore. Just do it.
一直都有分歧。在过去的20-30年里,情况变得更糟了。以下是我认为应该受到指责的地方:
苏联的解体和冷战的结束。在你的边界之外有一个真正的威胁真的团结了一个本来会互相仇恨的民众,一旦冷战结束,美国人意识到“共产主义者”不会很快空降进来,这让我们之间爆发争吵变得容易得多。
另类媒体的兴起和可用性。许多人现在住在回声室里,只听得到已经反映他们观点的消息。保守派通常会因此受到最多的批评,但我知道很多自由派也会这样做。这是因为我认为主流媒体有一种明显的自由主义叙事。如果你只看ABC、CBS或NBC新闻,你不会比只看福克斯新闻的人得到更多的消息。
享乐主义和拒绝接受文化或法律强加的自我控制。如果感觉很好,除了你自己不会伤害任何人,为什么你不能这样做,对吧?如果有法律或文化规范反对它,那是因为一些古老的父权宗教或其他东西,我们不再需要这些了,就这么干吧。
There is nothing new under the Sun.
We’ve always been deeply divided, but we were never really quite so ignorant to the fact until very recently. For example, A Conflict of Visions is a book by Thomas Sowell originally published in 1987. It outlines two vastly differing world views, the constrained and the unconstrained view of human nature, which sees the world through dramatically different filters.
In short, Sowell explains that, while there are many different forms under each one, there are really only two primary ways to look at human nature. He calls the first the constrained view. It is constrained because it sees human nature as permanently flawed: fixed and incapable of change. Thus, those who hold a constrained view of humanity try to make the best of things by taking the failings of our nature into account when they organize human activities. On the other hand, the unconstrained view holds that man’s nature is malleable: it can be purposely directed. In short, those holding the unconstrained view of human nature believe that man is capable of perfecting himself. For these people, there are no boundaries to what man can make himself to be. Some have even boasted that man can be and even is his own god.
太阳底下没有什么新鲜事。
我们一直存在严重的分歧,但直到最近,我们才真正意识到这一点。例如,托马斯·索威尔(Thomas Sowell )于1987年出版的《愿景的冲突》一书——它概述了两种截然不同的世界观,即受约束的人性观和不受约束的人性观,这两种观点通过截然不同的过滤器看待世界。
简而言之,托马斯·索威尔(Thomas Sowell )解释说,虽然每种形式下都有许多不同的形式,但看待人性的主要方式实际上只有两种。他称第一个视图为约束视图。它之所以受到限制,是因为它认为人性是永久性的缺陷:固定的,无法改变。因此,那些对人性持限制观点的人在组织人类活动时,试图通过考虑到我们本性的缺点来尽量做到最好。另一方面,不受约束的观点认为人的本性是可塑的:它可以被有意地引导。简言之,那些持有不受约束的人性观的人认为人有能力完善自己。对这些人来说,人能使自己成为什么样的人是没有界限的。有些人甚至夸口说,人可以成为上帝,甚至自己就是上帝。
This isn’t so much to say this is why conservatives are one way and liberals another. The dichotomy appears again and again, though no modern ideology is completely one or completely the other. This is true of conservatives and liberals, Labour and Tory, Communism vs Nazism, or even those worldviews far removed from Western tradition .
Of course, when looking at how the two align, their views on individualism, justice, liberty, and so forth, it is clear to see which side liberals (more distinctly progressives) in America are influenced by and which conservatives gravitate towards. That said, Sowell’s 1987 work clearly spells out a prediction of the conflict existing some thirty years later. It isn’t, of course, a prediction, so much as looking at mentalities defined by history. All this has happened before. It will all happen again.
But it certainly feels unique and severe at the moment, doesn’t it?
我也花了一段时间去理解,但这两种愿景的逻辑结果创造了截然不同的、往往相互排斥的整个世界观。列出这两种观点的各种假设,就可以清楚地说明为什么在每一场意识形态辩论中,无论是堕胎、刑事司法、退伍军人待遇还是私有财产,同样的角色总是出现在相反的立场上。
这并不是说这就是为什么保守派是一种方式,自由派是另一种方式。这种二分法一次又一次地出现,不过没有一种现代意识形态完全是其中一种或完全是另一种。保守派和自由派、工党和保守党、共产主义与纳粹主义,甚至那些与西方传统相去甚远的世界观都是如此。
当然,当观察双方人员是如何结盟的,他们对个人主义、正义、自由等的看法时,可以清楚地看到美国的自由主义者(更明显的是进步主义者)受到了哪一方的影响,保守主义者倾向于哪一方。也就是说,索威尔1987年的作品清楚地预测了大约30年后存在的冲突。当然,这不是一种预测,而是对历史定义的心态的观察。这一切以前都发生过。一切都会再次发生。
但现在确实感觉很独特和严重,不是吗?
你想知道为什么吗?你正在读它。不是特别指这篇文章,而是指技术的发展,它使传播信息变得如此简单和廉价,以至于任何人都可以做到。这有一些根本性的变化,即主流媒体在非传统来源的竞争下遭受了严重的损失,它们必须提高效率。高效的投放广告,也就是说,不是更高效的投放信息。他们关闭了许多当地办事处,并将当地记者转移到更集中的城市总部。在这样做的过程中,他们失去了与农村人口、保守派和数千万人的联系。他们不再了解自己的需求、恐惧、动机,以及他们这样做的原因。
这产生了后果,因为当媒体不再倾听农村中心地带的声音时,城市居民也失去了理解他们的资源。他们变得神秘而奇怪,看起来,诋毁这些人比听他们的话更容易。这是人们卷入冲突却不知道对方动机的本性。然而,这使温文尔雅的人处于不利地位。这不是一个双向的问题。农村保守派并不愚蠢。他们仍然可以收看《纽约时报》、《华盛顿邮报》和CNN。他们仍然可以接触到所有的媒体,这些媒体只关注与大多数城市,大多数自由主义,大多数富裕阶层有关的问题。然而,他们也有自己的现实需要面对,这至少起到了核查事实的作用。当有人犯错时他们是知道的,但媒体从不认为有必要检查自己的消息来源,因为他们是第一个认为那些不是出生在城市的人并不重要的人。他们的观众对此一无所知。
其中包括大学,它们也被困住了,尽管它们的进化比博客要早得多。虽然工程学和其他硬科学仍然忠于其经验根源,但历史、哲学、英语和社会科学却被单方面和教条主义的做法所严重腐化,这种做法任性固执地和故意地迫使人们发表不同的观点,这些观点是对理论进行批判性分析所必需的,以及其他人羞辱周围文化的基础。因此,他们继续盲目无知地认为,他们关于世界不公正的每一种理论都因缺乏批判性分析而被无可救药地腐化了,一种理论凌驾于其他理论之上。任何一个有好奇心、能上互联网的人都可以用几分钟时间上谷歌搜索,当其搜索结果推翻他们根深蒂固的假设时,一切都崩溃了。
然而,他们进一步强化了自己的观点,在校园里创造了一种有毒的环境,在这种环境中,思想本身就被认为是暴力的,因此,任何与大祭司的法令不一致的东西都被视为种族主义、性别歧视、伊斯兰恐惧症、同性恋恐惧症、变性恐惧症或其他偏执的东西而被取缔。除了少数给予言论自由特权的人之外,现在所有人都犯了仇恨言论罪,而仇恨言论是无法忍受的,所以能容忍的人拒绝容忍那些让人无法忍受的人,因此变得无法容忍。
But… there were the bloggers and YouTubers, anyone could make a site really. Anyone could get their word out and make it known for others. More so than that, they could connect with other disparate groups, something which the rural poor have always found to their disadvantage. This made their views something undeniable. They were out there and the mainstream media couldn’t react to something they were now incapable of dealing with.
但随着媒体的衰落,它也发生了变化,它变成了社交化。现在,信息不再是从几个来源发布,而是从任何地方被发布,并通过由志同道合的人组成的巴尔干部落进行汇总、审查和分享,这些人讨厌被告知他们错了。他们没有被激励去分享和教育他们的部落同胞,而是被内啡肽激励,用“赞”和“分享”让我们大脑的快乐中心陶醉,就像狗对巴甫洛夫的哨子垂涎三尺一样。
但是,还有博客和油管博主,任何人都可以创建网站,任何人都可以把他们的话传出去,让别人知道。更重要的是,他们可以与其他不同的群体建立联系,而农村的穷人总是处于不利地位。这使他们的观点变得不可否认。他们就在那里,主流媒体无法对他们现在无力处理的事情做出反应。
因此,他们基于经验的框架,即世界是一个充满好人的好地方,由于意识到对大多数人来说是多么严重的错误,他们的框架受到了挑战,实际上被打破了。最重要的是,他们在某种程度上对这种不平等负有责任;请注意,这种世界观是建立在一系列社会理论的基础上的,而这些理论与批判性分析本身是隔绝的;所以大多数情况下这是错误的,但是当你的整个文化,新闻,你的学校,甚至你最喜欢的电影和在其中扮演角色的名人都在重复同样的有害主题时,那这就是你现在的全部现实。当你根本无法接触到不同的观点,当你在听到这些观点之前就被教导“这些观点是邪恶的”,你凭什么质疑现实?