In an age of increasing misinformation and division, I've found that it's increasingly easy to find yourself in an echo chamber of opinions (of people and/or bots). And when I go searching outside that echo chamber, I usually don't find well reasoned discussion, but a different echo chamber with the opposite opinion.

This is especially true on sites like Reddit and Twitter, but also applies to pretty much every website (including Tildes) to some extent. Even newspapers aren't helpful as they are all largely owned by a handful of billionaires with an agenda. And real life isn't much better. My friends and family all share similar values and ideals, which is great for getting along, but it doesn't help me figure out how many people actually support something in particular.

The closest thing I've found to objective polling are elections. Unfortunately, they largely group everything into one of two buckets and don't have room for nuance on individual topics. Also, a lot of people don't even vote, which doesn't necessarily muddy the data, but it does leave out the opinions of a lot of people.

Is it even possible to determine this without an individual referendum on each topic? Am I worrying too much about something unknowable?

This question was inspired by a question from a US immigrant citizen who came from a country that had been under Soviet political hegemony. They said that in their experience authoritarianism and corruption were kept camoflauged for fear of political backlash, but our new US government is shameless.

I'll put my tentative answer in the comments. I'm very interested to hear your thoughts if you care to share.

I would like to hear your opinions. 1MM eur is not a lot; how do you spend it most efficiently? Do you use it as a lever to raise more money? Do you tackle grassroots efforts?

This is a “how do we fight back” question.

My requirement is that the suggestions are practical and relevant for today’s world, not an idealised version of it. But nothing is off limits, be creative.

If you have suggestions for different amounts I’ll also hear them.

Succinctly as possible, what is the purpose of government? And with genuine effort to avoid condescension or disparagement, what do you think someone politically opposite to you would say if they were to thoughtfully articulate an answer to the same question?

Obvious bit of a shitshow over here. Seems to be drowning out the typical international news I see with even "international" news stories being about how the US is doing something stupid in reference to another country.

I'm increasingly bothered in the last few years in the crisis of ethics in the United States government. It isn't very important to the leaders, and it isn't very important to the voters. I don't think it is a "conservative vs liberal" issue. It isn't about religion. It is about basic morality and doing what is best for a functioning society.

I think about ethics more about once a year when my job has everyone take a small course on ethics. There is a lot of basic and obvious stuff in the course, but a big part of it is that even the appearance of conflicts of interest should be avoided. And I'm sure if this is important for the general workforce, it should be even more important for public figures.

I'm well aware that the government has done unethical things in the past, and some of them were horrific. But I don't remember a time when unethical behavior has been flaunted so openly. The president is fundamentally unethical. He constantly lies and takes open bribes and enriches himself at the expense of the proper functioning of the government. The supreme court is fundamentally unethical and barely tries to conceal taking bribes. The president's political party openly ignores their duty to hold the president accountable for crimes, and participates in them, including sedition. The top leaders of businesses and the press have been obviously captured by money and corruption.

For years we were concerned about "dark money" and who was funding the propaganda and disinformation. Well now we have the richest person in the world openly buying an election and taking over fundamental functions of the government.

This crisis of political ethics is a direct result of a crisis of ethics in all parts of society. I think it flows back and forth like a disease. The voters do not hold the leaders accountable because the voters themselves are not ethical. I don't think supporters of Trump are completely the victims of propaganda. I think they made an unethical choice for selfish reasons. Part of ethics is taking responsibility for making sure you have the correct information when you make a choice. I'm not sure that most are capable of learning that the price of eggs is worth the collapse of being able to trust each other and make progress as a society.

By the way, I think a lot of us are hoping that this open feeding frenzy of greed and dishonesty is part of a pendulum that swings back and forth. But I'm reminded that in 1977 Jimmy Carter was elected to help restore ethics to the presidency. He only served one term as president and was replaced by a highly unethical person who was supported by highly unethical people who created a right-wing propaganda network of talk radio and Fox News.

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