[ben_w]

That’s a bad way of phrasing it. Democracy requires a well-informed electorate to function. If the electorate is badly informed or misinformed then it doesn’t function as a democracy, but as a (Propaganda-ocracy?). The complexity of the world that leads to economic specialisation also precludes informed decision making by a conventional electorate. I don’t have a solution to this yet. I don’t even know if there is a solution — I’ve heard that humanity has swung from democracy to aristocracy and back over the ages for this exact reason, but the very specialisation that has me concerned is also making me unsure about that.

One of the modifications of democracy we discussed in A-level philosophy was getting one vote for existing, another for having a degree, another for being a parent, etc.

[karmenblack]

So only propaganda peddled by the state is valid? These days every outlet has an agenda and blocking one just because it is coming from Russia is a false economy. Either block all propaganda or none and let people figure out the truth.

[ben_w]

By what chain of reasoning did you go from what I wrote to that response?

Of course state propaganda is as invalid as anyone else’s! And all states equally, too!

Neither attempting to block nor failing to block solves the problem of discovering what the truth is. The former because it presupposes you already know the answer, the latter because it’s trivial to algorithmically create endless variations and combinations of lies and truths so that there literally isn’t enough time to decide what to believe.

Even intelligence agencies fall for fabrications. What hope do the rest of us have?