Oddbean

I'm not an anarchist. I think we can have a sane and effective "establishment". But the establishment is going to need to learn some new tricks; they are very slow on the uptake. It used to be they could lie to us, they could "control the narrative". That is no longer possible due to the Internet and our "back channel" communications. However, their techniques have not changed. They continue to try to deceive and to control the narrative. This is not working anymore and just causes massive lost of trust and social cohesion. It is not working for them (we see through the bullshit, and/or we start believing in buillshit because we don't trust them) and it is not working for us (we lose trust in them and cannot work together to save our lives). They will never achieve control of the narrative again. That world is strictly in the past. That assumption should be abandoned. The new reality requires any effective establishment to be up front and honest with it's constituents. Shocker, I know, but it turns out that this actually works better in the long run as trust can be reestablished, and conversations (under the rubric of free speech) and edify all parties once again. The larger the establishment, the slower they are to change.

Sadly the narratives still work. Even intelligent people read the garbage that they call “narrative” and then try to argue against it by devoting attention in the first place. Yes, more people are waking up but the vast majority is still controlled by minority narratives

we're moving to the Soviet / China / North Korea / Cuba model where everybody knows what is up and you simply have two options - deal with it, or die in a gulag nobody tried to control the narrative in Soviet Union - you simply accepted the tyranny - and you couldn't talk about it - if anybody didn't like you they could simply report you for talking about the government and you were done

The problem with your stance is that it is oxymoronic. The terms “establishment” and “government” are just a fancy way to distract people. The “establishment” and “government” are just a group of individuals. That is all they are. And all human individuals are motivated by self interest. Asking any group of self interested individuals to act on behalf of the self interest of others will always fail. If you asked me to dedicate my life to the city of New York, I’d ask “what’s in it for me?” It doesn’t matter if the internet exposes their lies. They’ll always find a new way to deceive stupid people. From doctors to scientists to activists to celebrities. The problem lies with the incentives.