The Road to Unfreedom - Timothy Snyder

Global Empowerment Meeting (GEM18), April 17-18, 2018
Keynote Session: The Road to Unfreedom: How our Intuitive Sense of Us and Them Makes us Vulnerable to Tyranny
The world seems to be in a path of de-democratization. But this is not the first but the third time this happens. What can be learned from previous experiences? What are the connections between today’s authoritarianism and those of the past? Does democracy require shared factuality -a shared understanding of the facts of objective reality within epistemic communities - and is this now being challenged? Are these epistemic communities breaking down? If so, what are the fault lines of that breakdown? Are new technologies making us more vulnerable to psychological manipulation relative to the propaganda of previous decades? And how does this manipulation work?
Speaker: Timothy Snyder, Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and Permanent Fellow at the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna

[@awuma]

Timothy Snyder is perhaps the most important public intellectual today, whose enormous knowledge and experience lies at the heart of the greatest conundrum of our time, and whose understanding may point the way out of danger. Thanks to him, Anne Applebaum, Norman and Christian Davies, Chrystia Freeland, David Frum, and others, we can see what is really happening and hopefully enough people in many countries will organise and push back the forces of darkness.

[@sirlordhenrymortimer6620]

awuma are you for real????.....is your statement a genuine feeling of admiration or satire because all the people have listed are not more than poor man's intellectual.

[@manatee2500]

To further understand the forces of darkness, I'd suggest David Satter & Marlene Laruelle. p.s. I still dearly miss the late Tony Judt

[@clachanachoin3127]

Agreed. i've bought many copies of On Tyranny and sent them out into the ether.

[@marionfrische4507]

, ,,,,

[@Saber23]

No he isn’t fuck democracy and it’s mob ruling horse shit

[@Anna-tj7mp]

i wolfing down everything this humane, decent but above all brilliant man has written. Or broadcast. You might not agree with every aspect of his analysis but I feel better for reflecting on his warnings from history: His warnings are urgent and compelling.

[@billheughan637]

the flattering image of ourselves persists, unfortunately.

[@DConner]

He has been proven true.

[@normbabbitt4325]

Wow, this is really an important lecture! Thank you for posting this!

[@teresafbrooks]

Thank you. p.s. I wish I were in the room with other humans listening to this profoundly important talk by Prof. Snyder, rather than watching/listening via the internet!

[@StevenSeagull123]

The bit about treating internet as a public space was really good. Good analogy!

[@acebilbo]

I like listening to him, because my thinking brain kicks in. I'm going outside to cook some food. It might snow, but good practice to spend time thinking. Maybe listen to him again to clarify my arguments for or against. Just wish these moderators had the balls to tell questioners to speak into the mic. Or say the question again.

[@kristjanpeil]

37:00 yeah, exactly! If professional journalism is a job, ie earning a living, then fake news is stealing a living. That's what's always got me so riled about people who say "if you don't like propaganda, then ignore it." And I am always at a loss of words to express, "Ignore thieves. Are you serious?" And they're like "... weell yeah but freedom of speech, man..." And I don't have the words to say: "We have freedom of action as well. That doesn't mean you can STEAL stuff!!"

[@johnanderson3700]

What a wonderful way of framing the issues involved in what is happening today. Helpful descriptions to help make sense of what’s going on

[@cjohnson784]

I don't agree with the "you know less" if you read the info on the Internet. It really depends on where you get your info. You can end up learning nothing all because of where you get your content at. When you say no one can get their good info on the Internet, that is a slap in the face to the Libraries, encyclopedias, Harvard even the Smithsonian Institute. They are all online too.

[@JB-pd3ir]

Yes!

[@Yasinversity]

Watching this on the internet.

[@davidskeffington1269]

Intellectuals must start qualifying, when they talk about liberal democracy, the use of the word 'liberal'. From what I understand in the US civics has not been taught in primary and secondary school since the 70s. To part of the general population 'liberal' is a bad word. They, on the internet who call everyone, who doesn't agree with Mr. Trump, Republicans or conservatives, libtards do not understand what liberal democracy means. Those Americans who believe that the US is still a liberal democracy as are all other developed countries which are democracies, understand that a healthy democracy has a political spectrum that consists of progressives vs conservatives. Both sides are necessary and part of a functioning liberal democracy. The words liberal and conservative must be defined to the general public to avoid knee-jerk reactions. Conservatism should be the force that tends to resist and slow down those who want to make massive changes and instead progressively make change cautiously when possible within a functioning liberal democracy. It is hard right now to identify those conservatives.

[@incognitotorpedo42]

Those conservatives barely exist. Most so-called conservatives today are radicals.

[@davidskeffington1269]

@@incognitotorpedo42, I agree they are the radicals because it is they who don't believe in democracy while the progressives are asking for more democracy, not less.

[@extanegautham8950]

yet to hear a lecture by TN that has not had me on the edge of my seat....

[@rcwlson1]

I loved that black mirror discussion at the end.

[@serseniucst]

You don't have any good feedback if you have only us. You need them too to watch you and give the feedback as much they need us for the same reason.

[@Cisssana]

"They" who we are made to refer to by the bots and memes and tropes - are our own fears, so cunningly activated by the machines. The machines are sinless, but they reflect the sinful - divided - world of the humans, The other ones - are fears, the idols whom we worship.

[@auntroachkiller6086]

Covid lockdown has brought my creative artistic capabilities to another level. I have a new relationship with my brushes and canvases.

[@Johnconno]

Is that legal?

[@myhappyskin3093]

And here we go here go, we have chtgpt now. We will never (need) to think on our own again ….

[@sharonmoon5319]

OK - time to unplug. And Facebook's refusal to self-regulate (which never works) combined with no realistic chance of federal regulation is not a good sign.

[@DannyLHarleEuphoric]

Snyder Lens

[@haroldellis9721]

To be honest, I rather have five bowls of ice cream than fruit salad, starting with Ashley's butter cream. So that would be perhaps the second time I have ever disagreed with Timothy Snyder. That said, I take his point, and I might add, I have a flip phone I prefer to ignore, and I don't do Facebook.

[@ireneuszpyc6684]

Pitu, ignoring Facebook & Twitter means that a smaller number of people & bots waste my time

[@VickiBee]

It's not a Bot if you're using web cams that are showing real people, is it? That's how I do my German lessons. With a web cam, chat software and so I'm actually looking at real people & interacting with them. I certainly hope they're NOT Bots.

[@tahwsisiht]

23:45

[@tahwsisiht]

18:52

[@schylerreis5227]

Seems like Timothy Snyder likes Adam Curtis

[@Isaac-is4li]

Haha yeah I noticed that too

[@douglasfur3808]

I will let others laud Professor Snyder's genius but the suit... Maybe he's just rocking the old absent minded professor shtick and it's his fave. However I couldn't ignore the collar turned up in the back and the fabric and interfacing parting ways. Maybe the dry cleaner was looking at his phone instead of his ironing, or is that irony...😁.

[@uweburger]

I would never have noticed that, i was listening to what he was saying

[@rodneytrynor7374]

look for other sources to find out who is telling the truth.

[@HeWhoFlewFromInwood]

So internet research makes you less knowledgeable? Just learned that!

[@FaithflNdscreet]

On the internet!

[@HeWhoFlewFromInwood]

DS thus so many are convinced climate change is fake news

[@douglassczygelski8667]

Snyder is not addressing the main issue. People voted for Trump because they think blacks are inferior. Therefore, obviously, we must convince people that blacks are not inferior. How can we do that, Professor Snyder? He never addresses that question. Hillary never did either. In three debates with Trump, she never once explained why she thinks blacks are not inferior.

[@robertcece6972]

Robots are as human as the humans who make them.

[@TomsTomTomdotcom]

So much fast and loose transitive knowledge from a smart guy in the past. Absolutely blind to the us-them reasons and not looking at the fertile soil but who and what is being seeded as the problem. Who tore out the past plants and left the hole and kept ripping and tilling if people tried to replant what they had planted there before? But maybe the professor is self diagnosing his own "us" accurately not realizing that doctors and nurses and electricians and chefs and well a heck of a lot of other people who bathe and feed their own kids and wash their own cars etc.... their screen time isn't 11 hours a day but their speech and habits are getting policed by those people.... who more resources go towards serving ... net consumers of hours of labor . They dont need to live next to a newcomer or intellectual to see that the celebration of ancestors their kids are getting in their history books are changing or that tje "us" who doesn't see them changes laws to make it so they can buy things from people halfway around the world who will give them the products of their labor at a many to one ratio because those us make a lot more than the 1 $ an hour it takes to exploit

[@grahamgibson4669]

I lost this guy when he talked about Brexit. He has this completely wrong and fails to understand the issues. To say that those that have immigrants in their population did not vote for Brexit and those that didn't have immigrants voted for Brexit is totally false. Go to the Midlands and West Yorkshire and tell me there are no immigrants and these were the places that voted for Brexit. The industrial north was starting to die, as the midwest in America is and any challenge to more immigrants, reducing wages and using welfare services to these localities undermines what little they have. Yes, there are lots of immigrants in London, and when I visit London I wonder what we have become as a nation, but everyone is pretty well off. Not so in the North.

[@incognitotorpedo42]

I suspect the data would show that there is a higher percentage of immigrants in areas that voted remain, and a lower percentage of immigrants in areas that voted leave. We see similar things in the states, where the people who are the most agitated about immigration live in areas with the fewest immigrants, as a general rule.

[@grahamgibson4669]

@@incognitotorpedo42 Do you think that those that have less immigration see what's happened to those states with greater immigration and don't want to get to the same result. Those states that encourage immigration, particularly sanctuary states, are those that have deep economic issues. On the surface they look good but fiscally they are a mess.

[@incognitotorpedo42]

@@grahamgibson4669 I don't know, California has really gotten back into shape economically. I'm not pro immigration though, we need better control of it.

[@grahamgibson4669]

@@incognitotorpedo42 I also think that there's some backlash from immigrants that are already here. If we had more the cost of labor would go down and they don't want to see that. If you also believe the Dems, the jobs in the mid-west have gone because the jobs have been done by high productivity automation technology, remember Clinton's comments? If that's the case why do we need more unskilled workers entering the country? Shouldn't we be selective on who comes in and what their skill sets are?

[@incognitotorpedo42]

@@grahamgibson4669 Yes, I think we should be far more selective. Our current"system" is broken.

[@jasonsmith1155]

Like all serious academics, he's a fan of Harry Potter novels. Not the great classics, not historical texts, not philosophy, definitely not War and Peace (RUSSIAN BAD!) no.... Harry Potter novels. Novels written for children. He actually made a video about Harry Potter novels comparing them to Ukraine or something, I couldn't bother to watch a grown man and academic lecture captured students on Harry Potter, but wow. Jesus tap-dancing-christ, the man is a fifty some year Yale professor who helped to send a half a million working class men to be slaughtered for the Arms Industry, you think out of all the literature out there, he might be able to promote something a bit more cerebral than a fking HARRY POTTER NOVEL. I guess he could never promote anti-war literature, or his handlers wouldn't cut him anymore checks, but even his handlers want people to take him seriously, right? I mean, c'mon CIA, can't your boy do a little better?

[@sirlordhenrymortimer6620]

Timothy Snyder the great charlatan and an elitist apologist.

[@magnubeido8832]

Hanky is that you?

[@Arthur4597]

Sir Lord, you whimper weakly.

[@sirlordhenrymortimer6620]

magnuB Endo who's hanky????

[@sirlordhenrymortimer6620]

Wallis Petruk no, you have nothing interesting to say.

[@pfflam]

Coming from what appears to be nobody-very-interesting that says as much nothing as could be expected.