IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2022 - 9

surveillance capitalism, rentier capitalism, social
media influence, and non-fungible tokens, where
Foucault's knowledge-power relation is implicit,
anonymized and unacknowledged.
8. Accessible education. As indicated previously,
one of the most critical features of civic education
is accessibility. There are initiatives to realign
the U.S. University system to meet changing
cultural, demographic, and socioeconomic factors
[27]. Open access is not a notable feature of
the U.K. educational system, for all that they call
themselves " public " schools, with corresponding
predictable consequences of inward-looking
self-entitlement and lack of empathy for others
[28]. It is therefore essential that access should
not be restricted or denied by privatization, delivery
should not be metricated [29], the curriculum
should not be centrally and politically predetermined
[30], and the gatekeepers should not be
implicated in iron triangles of mutual convenience
[31]. In addition, there should be diverse
ownership and regulation of information sources
and social media, given the way that social influence
works, especially online (i.e., targets seek
sources by whom to be influenced, as well as
sources seeking targets to influence [32]).
9. Self-governance defined and delimited by the
value of human dignity. This is the essential quality
of Ober's program of Basic Democracy [1].
This is dignity both in choice and in office. Following
[33], the core problem of democracy is
that ability and expertise can be subordinate to
numbers, and numbers can be manipulated by
distortion and trickery, especially if compounded
by the denigration of civic education. As previously
discussed, civic dignity is undermined if the
people are tricked into making choices that are
not in the public interest or common good. On
the other hand, the problem of alternative forms
of governance to democracy, such as aristocracy
and meritocracy, is that ability and expertise can
be subordinate to wealth, and wealth can be used
to secure office solely for the power and prestige,
without actually being interested in, knowledgeable
of, or responsible for the duties and obligations
that come with holding political office.
Those so ill-equipped will diminish both the dignity
of office, and by extension civic dignity, as
their dishonorable deeds encourage imitation
by others.
March 2022
10. The prevention of " othering. " The dominance of
social media and the ruthless exploitation of confirmation
bias has led to polarization of opinion.
Polarization causes " othering, " i.e., the consideration
of people with a different opinion, preference
or allegiance as not-people, and therefore
not worthy of the same rights and treatment as
" real people, " to use the populist parlance. In a
polarized society with numerically more guns
than people, a historical propensity to violence,
a tendentious media, lax gun control, and an
education system that does not prioritize critical
thinking, this tenet might be considered something
of a priority.
one alternative to cyber-anarcho-socialism
is the status quo. But in this context, we might consider
the question " how does a collectivity dispose
of a 'bad' ruler? " The evaluation of " badness " might
give consideration to any ruler lacking in legitimacy
because of a broken or gerrymandered voting system;
who has no respect for the triadic values of security,
prosperity, and liberty for all, or for any other fundamental
precondition of democratic governance;
who tramples over mutual conventions, institutions,
human rights, the public interest, the common good
and civic dignity, while wilfully " othering " anyone
who does not support him (it is usually a " him " ).
Lack of accountability leads to increasingly authoritarian
and tyrannical behavior; and a continual lack
of accountability leads them to act more recklessly
and contemptuously until they do something so
egregious that the mirror cracks and their true policies,
personalities, and intentions are revealed. At
this point, were they to get away with such behavior,
there would subsequently be no stopping them. We
are left with a choice between their incrimination or
their revenge, and it is too late for anything else. 
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to numerous colleagues who commented
extensively and encouragingly on this work.
This article is much improved as a result, but any
residual misjudgements are the author's alone.
 References
[1] J. Ober, Demopolis: Democracy before Liberalism in
Theory and Practice. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge
Univ. Press, 2017.
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