Is "might is right" right or mighty?

#kenmogi #thinktokyo episode 9

[@JF_76]

Agree with many things you say, including that social media nowadays has a lot of negative influence on the quality of the political discourse but I would be careful with framing it as reflecting „might is right“. As a counterpoint, I would argue that in international politics, we factually always had a might is right situation, where bigger/aggressive countries only could be held in check by smaller ones organizing themselves and confronting them, one might say that the United Nations was an attempt at that. But bigger countries such as the United States, Russia and China, often are tempted to ignore these institutions and enact their own agenda, as is reflected by the lacking support for certain UN bodies by them, including the international court of justice. Furthermore, social media has to the contrary the potential to a real democratization of political decision making, which is the opposite of „might is right“. The existing gate keepers and opinion makers such as the mainstream media cannot control and manipulate the narrative anymore and arguably they have not been fulfilling any corrective function to governments anymore, as their compliance with government gag orders shows. This can easily be seen by the fact that it took online platforms such as Wikileaks and whistleblowers such as Snowden to reveal the greatest scandals, and it was not journalists of these newspapers that uncovered it and newspapers were only (oftentimes rather reluctantly) reporting it. In case of Snowden, the guardian and other newspapers were also „cleansed“ and brought in line with the government standpoint (cp. how the UK government went and destroyed evidence and records there and Glen Greenwald had to leave and found „the intercept“ to still be able to report objectively). For social media, I see the main problem in their wrong incentive to monetize contents by pushing the most controversial topics and content to users. But otherwise, their role in allowing a reporting from all viewpoints and a real free discourse without much gatekeeping, has the potential to work against centralized actors who try to consolidate power and thereby govern via „might is right“. Anything that goes towards a decentralization and allows universal participation and influence by all people without gate keepers, should work in favor of democracy and counteract „might is right“. The crucial point is of course that these social media platforms are as much as possible freed from corporate or government influence and manipulation…

[@FrancisGo.]

I'm a dominican/black American. I found out recently why Haiti, that shares a border with the Dominican Republic, is poor: Because Citi Bank made Haiti pay reparations for freeing the slaves. Citi bank is owned by BlackRock. BlackRock benefits from the conflicts taking place in the world. They adhere to might makes right.

[@FrancisGo.]

BlackRock didn't exist when Citi Bank did that to Haiti, but my point still stands. They profit from human suffering.

[@FrancisGo.]

I think this election in the U.S.A. actually proved that might does not equal right. We were out spent. They had celebrities. They had BlackRock, which is the architect behind the forever wars. We had nothing but God and Musk. 😂