Obviously this will never happen, but what do you think about a system where there's a "media" fund from the government that gets distributed to several independent media outlets?
The decision on who and how much to fund gets decided by a randomised group in the population, like jury duty, maybe every 2 years?
I don't know if this could potentially make the media companies worse at reporting facts as they would try and raise money by appealing to people, but with enough competition it should sort its self out as long as there's no outside funding?
> Obviously this will never happen, but what do you think about a system where there's a "media" fund from the government that gets distributed to several independent media outlets?
This is how German system works actually. So, it DID HAPPEN. The German government has only some control over the budget but the actual media companies control the content themselves. Every resident has to pay a monthly contribution. This is a contribution to an independent account / budget for media only. It is not a tax that goes into a common pot that politics can decide to take out.
There are national outlets like ZDF, Tagesschau, Deutschlandradio and regional ones like Norddeutscher Rundfunk and Bayerischer Rundfunk. Each design and present their own programmes.
> There are national outlets like ZDF, Tagesschau, Deutschlandradio and regional ones like Norddeutscher Rundfunk and Bayerischer Rundfunk. Each design and present their own programmes.
Well yes, but calling them politically independent is a bit of a stretch. A 2024 study found 52% of board members (Rundfunkrat) have a party membership (~2% of the general population is part of a party). [0]
To take one example you mention, the ZDF-Fernsehrat is dominated by party members (33/60).Notably only by the conservative party (CDU/CSU) and the SocDems (SPD), with 2 green members and 1 member of the SSW. Neither the left party, nor the far right AfD have any representation, despite accounting for roughly 30% of the national vote. Religious communities have signifigantly more representation (9), than the scientific community (0). [1]
Public media was always a tool to help create and maintain a societal overton window of shared truth and identity, and as such very helpful in keeping Germany united and democratic. There was however also always clearly immoral and untrue directions taken for ideological reasons or political convenience, for example the support of Apartheid South Africa til its fall, and the recent biased coverage of Israel. Many other topics as well, like immigration, covid and the war in Russia, are presented in a way that does not align with significant amounts of the german population: We are currently witnessing this overton window breaking apart completely, in other words, German public media has failed in its primary purpose.
Maybe I'm biased as an American, but if this were to be proposed here, who decides which outlets are blessed with the government money and the corresponding air of legitimacy of being an official public broadcaster?
> The decision on who and how much to fund gets decided by a randomised group in the population, like jury duty, maybe every 2 years?
Why not fill all government positions via random selection? The ancient Athenians thought that if your government officials were chosen by a process other than sortition, you don't have a democracy.
I would like to see a system like New York's campaign finance vouchers, where individual citizens get to decide where the public funds are directed. That way you have to have an audience and you have to appeal to people's sense of what's truly valuable, rather than just trying to farm views.
I mean, in theory I like this. But look what happened to NPR and PBS; it was ultimately at the behest of the president. They lost their revenue for not saying the "right" things.
The CPB, the legal entity that the government actually funded (and which in turn supplied some of the funding for PBS/NPR and its stations) had its funding rescinded by Congress (under HR4 last year), and has since shuttered.
It's not clear how, even under that recent ruling, that rescission will be undone.
Reincorporate? You can just do things. Direct a human to take the required meatspace actions as the judiciary to recreate whatever legal entity previously existed, open a bank account, fund it, and start distributing funds.
If you need the Treasury to initiate the EFT and they refuse to, send law enforcement to effectuate the funds transfer.
In this case, you cannot simply force Congress to appropriate money to a reincorporated CPB -- unless you were to get a second ruling from a judge that the rescission was unconstitutional.
The Trump EO was deemed unconstitutional because he specifically called out that it didn't like the "left-wing propaganda" (his words) in PBS/NPR programming. Congress's rescission is ostensibly for budgetary reasons -- even if we all know in our heart that they were following Trump's orders.
What we can do is elect a Congress that will revive the CPB. Here's hoping.
PBS brings on Brooks Capehart to discuss politics. Having two partisan players from opposite sides of spectrum is a good way to get some balance. The fact that they agree so often on the fundamentals tells me the US is cooked.
Ahem, their reporting on nuclear power was often non-scientific and just plain wrong. In fact anything having to do with the environment was generally pretty poor from a factual and scientific basis. Their reporting on politics was consistently rated as one of the most extreme in the US media.
I do wish they could do a 'just the facts' reporting as I think that is worth some taxpayer money to support. But by any measure, from any media watchdog, they were one of the most extreme and least accurate media source. That you can't see that says a lot more about you than PBS/NPR. Hell, there are 20 year old SNL skits mocking their coverage for its very narrow POV.
This is partially the case in Italy, though it changed over the years.
The assignment of funds is based on refunding prints/sales, so money goes to help newspapers that do print "something" of interest to the public.
The problem is that people don't want "independent" journalism, they want "my ideas" journalism.
Which.. still good somehow? Italy had plenty of newspapers which were the literal extension of political parties and a few independent ones in the past and still does.
I also think this could be a symptom of an economically unequal society (which creates a higher range of x), and is a big reason why it's important to fix it, on top of the extra money to the state.
So thats essentially communism right? Is human nature incompatible with communism or is capitalism incompatible with human nature?
Communism doesn't eliminate power relationships, it just papers them over with politics and bureaucracy instead of having them legible with prices and wages.
In the American golden age of capitalism from ~1950-1970, the top marginal tax rate was 90%, and so you didn't have CEOs get paid more than about 3x the median worker, because the government would get it all. Instead, they got perks. Private jets. Positions at the company for their kids. Debaucherous holiday parties. Casual sexual harassment of secretaries.
In Soviet communism, all production was centrally planned by government bureau run by party members. It was not uncommon for these bureaus to make mistakes, leading to severe shortages for the population. Nevertheless, these shortages never seemed to really hit the party members responsible for making the plans. Power has its perks.
And that's also why reforms attempting to reduce economic inequality need to focus on power rather than money. There have been a number of policies that do meaningfully raise standards of living for the poor: they're things like the 13th amendment to the (US) Constitution, the 1st amendment, the jury trial system, free markets, anti-monopoly statutes, bans on non-competes, etc. What they all have in common is that they preserve economic freedom and the power to make your own living against people who would seek to restrict that freedom and otherwise keep you in bondage.
I was coming out of Barcelona on a train to France on the 18th, and through the window spotted a blacked-out quadcopter just hovering quite high over the tracks. No incidents happened in that area of Spain though so I'm wondering why it was there, I suppose it could be civilian or police?
Anyone can fly a quadcopter though? You can buy one right now for a couple hundred bucks off Amazon (and strap explosives to it if you wanted to).
If anything, the fact we’re not seeing random drones carrying explosives and diving into groups of people on a daily basis shows the vast, vast (99.999%) majority of people is actually well-meaning and has no desire to kill or hurt anyone.
If you’re legitimately baffled by a random guy being able to fly a quadcopter around without any kind of government approval or oversight, I encourage you to buy one and play around (without explosives please!), just make sure to not fly it over places where people could be standing - terminal velocity is real and even a light one could cause serious injury if it were to lose control and fall on someone’s head.
Here in the USA quad-copter drones are used to inspect powerlines and other infrastructure; I see them a few times per year in my area. I don’t see why they wouldn’t use drones to visually inspect train tracks as well. Very cost effective and energy efficient alternative to manual inspection in a vehicle of some kind.
That's kinda ridiculous to think we're not animals anymore, our nature is to use intellect for survival (and though we know we can reduce suffering further we choose not to).
Your argument, written here and As far as I understand it at the moment, goes along with the other argument that everything is a simulation, or that everything that we do is preordained based upon physics. All mindbenders.
I want to believe that I have the ability to make an educated decision when faced e.g. with impulses to suppress or oppress others, I do know that I can consider ramifications and benefits outside of those which directly impact me.
So, perhaps it's better to say, we can be unanimal like rather than simply not animal, at all? What do you think?
We don't have the capacity to act "unanimal" at all. Deprive anyone of food or sincerely try and harm their children. You'll get the fall of Rome and French Revolution every time.
You eat, sleep, procreate, go to the grocery store (hunt). You honk at others they are preventing you from getting where you're going. You size up other males if you're male, females if you're female. Your favorite food is your favorite food and not mine because YOUR biology dictates that to you based on your experience. You consider ramifications as a self-preserving defense mechanism, not as some social cordiality.
I see what you mean by being able to consider the worth of harming something for your own gain. But doesn't this apply to all animals? If a bear was hungry I'm sure they would happily eat you, but they would probably think twice if they weren't. Same for early humans, it's just we have our technologies (which our intellectual nature has enabled) now to prop us up and not have to really think about survival.
The main thing I'm curious to hear your thoughts on is what are we if not animals? Gods? That's surely completely relative, like an anteater to an ant.
If you hop off the modern treadmill ... you'll very quickly be thinking about survival. I once ate a salad off the ground, I was so hungry. It only takes a few days and we regress to degenerate animals.
I'm pretty sure governments know this and want to prevent it at all costs beyond a certain point.
> Your argument, written here and As far as I understand it at the moment, goes along with the other argument that everything is a simulation,
What?
This isn't a mindbender. You're just drawing lines.
Edit: I slightly misread your comment as advocating that we're not animals. However, whether one describes us as not animals or able to be "unanimal like" is still a matter of drawing lines.
The decision on who and how much to fund gets decided by a randomised group in the population, like jury duty, maybe every 2 years?
I don't know if this could potentially make the media companies worse at reporting facts as they would try and raise money by appealing to people, but with enough competition it should sort its self out as long as there's no outside funding?
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