Jump to content

ndawg

Certifiably Surly
  • Posts

    849
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by ndawg

  1. 2 hours ago, Aphelion said:

    Allow me to rephrase:

    What rules & regulations (that are not currently in place) would you like for the US government to enforce for social media and/or any other type of internet based communication? 

    Just spitballing here, but here's how I would start. If someone chooses to associate a personal identity with a social media account, they should be required to either:

    1. Verify their identity
    2. Use the site from a US based IP (no VPNs allowed)
    3. Label their account as parody

    This is just me taking about five minutes to think about it, though.

  2. 14 minutes ago, Aphelion said:

    Putin is a true mastermind.  He’s so advanced that he’s not advanced.   Apparently he’s even above the law of non-contradiction.  

    No, I was wrong for declaring your assessment of the claim absurd on the basis of it not being actually "advanced." But whether it's advanced or not advanced has no bearing on the relative importance of Russia's propaganda efforts, and the influence of US based media companies. So, there's no contradiction, just a mistake on my part. You're still advancing a line of thinking that is complete horseshit.

  3. So? Your position hinges on the notion that Putin's methods are less advanced than has been characterized (I'll get to that in a second), and therefore we should be more worried about American news organizations, who employ a far much more effective PR campaign on the American people than the Kremlin. Number one, it's preposterous to suggest that we should calibrate our estimation of the severity of a threat by how "advanced" it appears. Second, the "advanced" part about what Russia is doing is using analytics to target and tailor propaganda. This is actually quite significant, and I regret that my response didn't highlight this. And yes, of course American media could target Americans too, but they'd either have to start legally collected massive amounts of data they don't presently possess, or they'd have to illegally use data that someone else collected. And until ABC starts actually promoting political messages to specific people in key electoral districts, it really isn't going to matter to this discussion.

    Probably wouldn't hurt to think through what you're saying.

    • Like 1
  4. 24 minutes ago, Aphelion said:

    The statement you quoted is true.  "Advertisements" are not confined to simply car ads.  Political messages are often given with the intent to influence the public in the form of advertisements.  This was the point of my initial response to your post.  The fact that you infer "car ads" from "advertisements" in a thread about political influencers is a fault of yours, not mine.  It's interesting that you left off the very next sentence of the quote which said "And beyond advertisements, more subtle influencing messages are also proliferated via various other US controlled media."

    By US controlled media, I obviously meant media controlled by US companies and organizations.  I don't believe that you really think I meant or believe that the media is controlled by the US state.

    I didn't infer "car ads," I simply plucked them out as an example of how broad the stroke of that brush you're painting lies with really is. And if you really understood PR and Noam Chomsky, you'll understand how critical your repeated error really was.

    24 minutes ago, Aphelion said:

    Claim:  Russian is using very advanced weaponized psy-ops mass manipulation techniques on the American public that are having significant effect on views American public.  

    My counter point:  They Russians are using well-known garden variety manipulation techniques through the limited media conduits they have into the US (the messages of which are not very good quality).  These methods have had relatively insignificant effect compared to what we do ourselves.  The actual incredibly powerful manipulation organizations, which is our own American PR machines, are strongly pushing this story to generate fear and outrage to prompt certain behavior.  Russian influence on US public manipulation is analogous to the West Nile virus on public disease concern.  Our own PR organizations are a far bigger concern and if the country gets torn apart it will be from within.

    Your assessment of the present claim is ridiculous. There's nothing notably "advanced" about what Putin is doing. In fact, it's all pretty basic. The magic that makes it all work is a combination of politicians maintaining plausible deniability, Fox News blasting propaganda out to their devoted audience, the Trump administration repeatedly and pathologically lying, and fundamentally broken education system.

    Indeed, I can also argue that Fox News, an American media company, is a necessary part of what's making Putin's utterly obvious campaign succeed out in the open. You're attempting to drive a wedge in the discussion by implying that our focus on Russia's attacks comes at the expense of cleaning up our own house. You're flat out wrong there, too, champ.

    • Like 1
  5. 18 minutes ago, F250 said:

    It's not about that.

    I was just making fun of the post where you were blaming social media for feeding a guy craziness because social media feeds your compulsive nature to unhealthy levels.

    You are an example of an unhealthy ingestion of social media.

    Side note, I wonder sometimes if OCD actually serves a purpose for humanity. The higher functioning ones are often people who just cannot let things go and seem to have this endless supply of energy to fight injustice. We sort of need that, I think. (I'm not suggesting Hugo specifically is OCD or anything, your comment just provoked that thought)

  6. Read what you wrote, @Aphelion:

    Quote

    Our society is filled with messages based on psychological analysis & studies, the intent of which is to persuade or motivate the public to some specific action.  We call them "advertisements," and Americans are the world leaders in constructing effective ad campaigns and we have by far the most powerful PR machines on the planet.

    Sure, you can narrow the scope after the fact, but that would be a pretty stupid road to travel down, too. First, there is no such thing as "US controlled media." The US government doesn't control the media here (at least not yet). Second, imposing the Fairness Doctrine on our media companies would be a great idea, and in no way conflicts with demanding that our government hold Russia accountable for their actions. Third, you are asserting that the influence of US controlled media is greater than that of Russia, but that is both immeasurable and completely irrelevant. Putin's guy won the election, he's shown no signs of discontinuing his influence in our elections, and Trump's given him every reason to escalate his efforts. And, uh, as we've seen in the news recently, our election process is quite easily tampered with.

    But, yeah, continue your preposterous equivalencies, by all means.

    • Like 1
  7. 18 minutes ago, Dertyberd said:

    I have come to realize their defense strategy is have his attorneys admit to the crimes one by one so we just get overwhelmed and don't care anymore.  It has worked with propaganda and getting people to believe the policy lies, but I have pray it doesn't work with the law.  I love following this stuff, but the "wow! this is unbelievable!" shock at admitting to crimes has worn off.  The case is so massive I forget some of the shit that happened.   

    That might work with their base, but once Mueller's report drops, and the fullness of the crimes are laid out together, I bet the middle of the political spectrum snaps out of it.

  8. 14 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

    Jesus Christ. Any one who was gonna vote for Hillary was not going to switch their vote to Trump.  The ignorance in your suggestion is staggering.

    Dude, think for a moment.

    Did Putin need Hillary voters to switch to Trump in order to help Trump win? He could convince Hillary voters to do any of the following, and still help Trump:

    1. Not show up and vote at all

    2. Cast a vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson

    3. Write in Bernie Sanders

  9. 16 minutes ago, EMAWesome said:

    Okay, last post in this thread for a while.   Before this thread turned into a demonstration of how little I know about how imgur fucks up posts here the original intent of this thread was to show how progressives react when anyone votes for any candidate other than the one progressives support.  How dare people vote their conscious and not yours. 

    It is the political party's duty to put forth the superior candidate.  It is not the voters' duty to vote for a candidate they consider to be inferior to another candidate whether that candidate has a "chance" to win or not.  You can't bitch and moan about how limiting the two party system is and then bitch and moan about people voting for third party candidates.  The idea is to vote for who you consider to be the best candidate for the job, not to vote to keep who you consider to be the worst candidate for the job from winning.  If Green Party voters would rather vote for a member of the Green Party than for a Democrat then it is on the Democrats to come up with a candidate that will sway more Green Party voters (while preferably also swaying as many Democrat, Republican, Independent, Libertarian and any other party of voters as possible too).  It is not on the voters to compromise their beliefs or positions just because not doing so is going to upset other voters.

    TL;DR reductive rambling that doesn't recognize that voters do have to choose between preventing an undesirable outcome and causing a desirable outcome.

  10. ANTIFA are a bunch of crazies, aren't they? They literally believe in something just as bad as using violence in order to advance white supremacy. Both sides are just equally shitty, right?

    (Conservatives, am I doing it right? This is my first attempt at establishing a false equivalence. Critiques welcome).

    • Like 3
  11. So, basically QAnon is a bunch of 9.95 recruiting bullshitters turned propagandists.

    "Either next week Mueller could reveal himself as working for Donald Trump, or their plans could be postponed for a while. The situation is fluid, y'all."

    The only thing that would make it better is the preposterous back-and-forth "dialog" between the author and some "Big Cigar."

  12. 14 minutes ago, Smax said:

    I find it alarming that the 3 largest media companies conspired to silence him, we are well on our way to the message err news being in the hands a small number of companies and their ability to shape it to fit their narrative is terrifying .

     

    Interestingly enough, I used to find completely ignorant posts like this alarming, at least until their sheer abundance left me numb. Here's to being terrified for our future!

    • Like 2
    • Haha 1
  13. 7 minutes ago, markstanco said:
    22 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:
    not a big deal to miss 6 to 8.5, but he didn't make a mistake in that direction, did he. 

    He's a lying motherfucker and he needs to be called out 9 times a day for the 9 outright lies that he tells in public EVERY FUCKING DAY.   Demand the fucking truth from the fucking POTUS whoever he or she is.   

    You can keep your doctor.

    Oh, right, I guess Trump and Obama are both the same.

  14. On 7/11/2018 at 4:51 PM, GRHorn said:

    It’s funny you think that a photo op legitimizes a country more than having nuclear weapons.

    It’s also almost like you’ve never negotiated anything more complex than getting your WiFi bill reduced by a phone bank lady in the Philippines.  In most bigger negotiations there’s starts and stops, points when you think you’re not getting further, then circumstances or offers change and stuff happens.  Or not.  But to think it’s dead now given everything that’s happened shows your naïveté.  I guess the screen name Chad Fuck should’ve been a good hint. 

    As far as Syria goes, we are not on the ground involved in attempted regime change vs both Assad and Putin. 

    Do you know how insecure you sound? Because you sound really insecure.

  15. 14 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:


    She’s more of a loyal American than the president is. Deport him. Keep her. We all win.

    One thing I noticed last time I hung out with Republican relatives that finally swore off Trump... expelling undocumented immigrants from the military was the last straw for them, and honestly it might have been the only straw needed. For much of the GOP base, the adoration of anyone who wears the uniform supersedes their stance on illegal immigration. And she isn't the first undocumented immigrant to be discharged from the military. Trump is an idiot for allowing this. It's the kind of move that can sour him with at least part of his base.

×
×
  • Create New...