CharonY

I don't see how that relates to democracies or to the thesis stated in OP. This is the overarching effect of capitalist economies and is usually amplified under authoritarian rule. There is a progressive point of view, which suggests that inequality might contribute to erosion of democracy but that is perhaps a different point. More importantly, the quote suggest and incredibly American-centric view, whereas the title of this thread is about Western countries, which are emphatically not the same. Using the Gini coefficient as a measure of inequality, the USA is somewhere at the top among high income countries, with much of Europe placing significantly lower. But as OP tends to mix up different thoughts almost randomly, it is really hard to tell what the overarching point is supposed to be. Is it to suggest that the US is inherently more authoritarian, than, say Germany, UK or France? And then are the Netherlands, Iceland and Norway even less so?

Well, obviously he didn't got crowned to God-Emperor. That is quite a loss.

Absolutely, and we have come up with none, as far as I can tell. The adage of it being the worst system except for every other one ever tried. One issue is that I think many of us still have the cold war thinking that authoritarianism will ultimately collapse on its own and that democracy will be the state that most will default to. And ultimately I am not so sure about that. Technocratic authoritarianism has shown to be frighteningly effective in keeping the population in check. I.e. my point is that democracy has its weaknesses, but because of that (not despite) it is important to keep improving and fighting for it. For sure. And also the free market thinking might put blinders on younger ones. The tech is not just a simple product, it has the double-whammy of changing elements of human nature as well as making some folks very rich, and hence powerful, who have then a vested interest in keeping things going that way.

But the issue is that in a democracy the people are the system. It cannot exist or safeguard itself without involving them. If they collectively decide to go for authoritarianism, there is (generally) no separate mechanism to prevent them from doing so. This is why democracy as a system cannot just use system defences to safeguard itself. It requires a constant from the population/voters to fight against authoritarianism. This, to a lesser degree is also true for authoritarian systems, which essentially would need to clamp down the desire for self-determination within the population. Yet here the mechanism would involve cutting out the people out of relevant parts of the system. Moreover, with modern technology the balance makes it easier for an authoritarian system to fight against democracy vs a democractic system fighting against authoritarianism.

The most artful thing of all that is that it gets treated as joke while being one of the most visible acts of bribery since.... well, with this administration I guess... Wednesday? Edit: my apologies. After reading the newspaper, it seems that I should have said Thursday (https://apnews.com/article/trump-treasury-irs-tax-records-e3a79e1bfdc94a663504754af80ce183?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share)

In my mind, democracies inherently have a built-in weakness against authoritarianism as the key tenants includes freedoms that make can be exploited to move society towards authoritarianism. Examples include elements of the freedom of expression, which allowed social media to be used as a very powerful propaganda tool. This freedom cannot be eliminated as it would undermine the principles of democracy itself and is therefore (again, IMO) inherent to the system. Now, this is not to say that this not say that there isn't a compromise that we haven't found yet, to balance these elements. But it the weakness in itself cannot be fundamentally removed or fixed without undermining the system itself. That is why in my reading, democracy is a system that ultimately needs to constantly address this struggle to survive authoritarian overreach. Fully agreed. The issue is that those agencies were given wide-ranging powers (which have been soundly criticized when they were formed, as well as the Patriot act as a whole). However, they were mostly kept in check by the executive and congress. While they have clearly overstepped in some instances (as indicated by court rulings), much of what they are doing and which upsets people is, unfortunately, fully legal. And more power is handed to them via the supreme courts, which have expanded their abilities to deploy certain tactics, such as racial profiling, as long as they pretend it wasn't racial.

I don't think they are going rogue, they are doing as intended. I disagree somewhat. I think you are right regarding the intention of the system having accountability as well as checks and balances. However, when it comes to the rules, there are loop holes, intentional or not, that allows certain types of transgressions. For example, there are very few legal paths to hold federal law enforcement (or even state law enforcement). Qualified immunity in the US system is such an element. In essence, it provides government officials performing discretionary functions with immunity, unless the official 1) violated clearly established constitutional rights and 2) only if the those rights were clearly established at the time of the incident. Courts have increasingly narrowed those definitions making it exceedingly difficult to hold authorities accountable via the judicial system. Thus, it often becomes the discretion of the executive to create rules, protocols and other mechanisms to reign in the likelihood of government officials to overstep or to be hold accountable. This, in my mind then becomes a hidden lever that an authoritarian administration, such as the current one, can use in order to insulate itself from accountability. They may or may not breaking the rules as such, but first and foremost they are "just" breaking the norms. Of course, in other areas they are actively defying court orders, which adds another dimension to it but. But it also means that means to force the executive to follow laws or rules are weak (essentially the job of congress). Edit: the point I tried to make in a convoluted way is that the system has to have rules and accountability firmly established to ensure that rules are followed. Yet if there are weaknesses in it, they can be "hidden" as long as norms are followed, but can be ignored without triggering consequences under certain circumstances. Not sure whether that is clearer though, probably need another coffee or six. I think the perspective of OP is wrong though. It seems that they see imperfection in democracies the same as a fully autocratic system, which is basically just confusing a potential slippery slope with the end of the road. Fundamentally, any democratic system, in fact, any rules-based systems will have weaknesses as ensuring freedom for the population requires compromises. These weaknesses might or might be hidden, but they do need safeguarding to ensure that they will stop a slide towards illiberalism. There is an interesting book on that matter (the light that failed) which outlines why this is so difficult. One fitting quote that I heard from that author was something to the effect of: "the border between authoritarianism and democracy is the least protected border in the world." And each democracy has its owns strengths and weaknesses in protecting this border. But again, it is not like OP seems to make it out that there is none. The US system, in part due how historically it has been formed, puts a high premium on individualism as well as norms and conventions to as safeguards. The current administration demonstrates that this is not enough. Only the most explicit rights and laws are currently holding up in court and just barely so. Just another thought going back to OP: while one can be critical of the powers of rich folks, ultimately in a democracy the power still flows from the population. Autocracies work because ultimately folks let them. This is both, strength and weakness in a democracy. If too many folks are fine with autocracy, that is what is going to happen. But if there is enough resistance to those movements, these tendencies can be stopped or reversed, this in part is unfolding right now in Minnesota. But ultimately, democracy is not a settled system, it is a constant struggle for balance.

That is my broader point though, hidden authoritarianism can be exemplified by arbitrary application of rules to certain people. That is what we are seeing in the US, where ICE and border control seemingly arbitrarily accept or reject various levels of proof of citizenship. In a broader sense, this arbitrariness has always existed at borders as the agents there can legally deny you entry except when you are a citizen, I believe. I.e. you do not need a full-on gestapo moment, but there built-in vulnerabilities, even in not fully autocratic systems. The main difference in my mind is how these vulnerabilities are being exploited. After all, in the US in theory you always had to prove your legal status if you are not a citizen. But generally you wouldn't be stopped on a random basis. But it was always fully in their power to do so in public places. Edit: with regard to OP and this point here specifically, the broader issue is that authoritarianism is not binary. Even in an otherwise liberal (as in free) system, there are necessary restrictions as well as vulnerabilities. How free a given society is depends not only on whether the whole structure is authoritarian or not, but rather on how the many individual components, ranging from the bureaucracy, law enforcement, judiciary, but also voter decisions decide to run things and what restrictions and safeguards we put into place and how we decided to enforce those. The slide in authoritarianism in Weimar, but also many other countries in recent times was often not after a coup and a massive restructuring of the system. Instead, they are characterized by continuous undermining of safeguards on all levels. In the given example, offline paperwork would only provide benefits, if they are robust safeguards forcing for example law enforcement to accept them. Yet much of it still lies in the discretion of the officer. And again, in the US we can see how fast the discretion can change.

I mean, you could, but if there is malice involved, what they will say (and have been saying) is that they suspect it is fake and take you in anyway. I think my broader point is that the mechanism of compliance is largely irrelevant if there is malicious intent involved. I.e. if the system is inherently untrustworthy, any part of it becomes a liability and protections are merely illusion. It might help folks to sleep at night, but it won't offer objective protection.

I haven't read the mentioned papers so cannot comment on that, but I have been looking at the lit regarding blue light and to me it looks like that (again) popular messaging has taken a tidbit and overhyped it by a massive amount. There were initial studies showing that blue light had negative effects on eyestrain, focus and sleep. However, the effect size was fairly small. Since then follow-up using more sensitive methods (including EEG) have largely failed to replicate that effect at scale. Moreover, metastudies looking at e.g. use of blue-light filtering lenses basically found no impact eye strain measures. In other words, the link between blue light and eye health is not very strong based on current knowledge.

Generally speaking, the filter is not on the lens, but in front of the sensor. Modern CMOS (or CCD) sensors are able to capture IR light. But the capacity is directly dependent on the precise sensor and can vary a lot. Also, if you still want to take images, you still need an (IR permissive) filter, otherwise it tends to be a blurry mess. I just happen to have a brochure where you can see examples of the spectral response of some sensors and the impact of filters (not an endorsement of that company). https://www.hamamatsu.com/content/dam/hamamatsu-photonics/sites/documents/99_SALES_LIBRARY/ssd/image_sensor_kmpd0002e.pdf

There is a lot of contradicting information in lit, and it mostly depends on what you measure. The few things where most studies agree is that digital reading is different from paper, so lessons are not easily transferable. There are some studies on screen use, but the papers cover a lot of ground and include e.g. simulating driving and measures other than fatigue. A recent study has combined ambient lighting mode with screen color temperature and dark vs light mode. Generally speaking, they found that indicators of fatigue were higher when reading in light mode and with screen color temps in the lower (warmer) range. Other studies have looked at alertness and onscreen tasks it seemed that blue was advantageous for folks to find stuff effectively. Whether that plays into fatigue was not tested.

Offline papers are just as easily revoked as the respective administrations typically have broad powers about them. In that particular area I am more worried about the ability of powerful entities with access to sufficient computing power (and help of AI) to wholesale alter digital records, especially if more data is either being centralized or made online accessible. There is a more conspiratorial but increasingly possible extension of this thought to a general vulnerability to all digital records including video, photo, GPS and other information. The possibilities for creating unfalsifiable alternative realities are problematic, to say the least. The fact that this is happening with little to no oversight over companies as well as governmental institutions doesn't make it better.

I think the police did feel endangered, some suffered severe injuries. In fact, some police officers offered testimony to that effect during the inquiries. In other situations it would most likely have ended in bloodshed (in the US, that is). There was some deliberate intention not to further escalate. IIRC there were orders from leadership not to e.g. use teargas or other means to use tear gas and other means. As a whole the situation appeared to have set up to support Jan 6 rioters and one might also add that quite a few in the police force might have felt sympathetic to them (before they were being pummeled that is). Ultimately, they only opened fire once and there have been quite a few discussions regarding police actions against, say, black folks or BLM protesters in comparison.

They couldn't have used the same tactic, as the tactic involves ganging up on a single person who is not resisting. In deference to OP, I'd also like to ask a question to the president. If the administration dislikes getting compared to Nazis, why can't they stop using Nazi lingo and reasoning for their actions?