I mean.. he's not wrong about the public's increasingly short memory. In other news, Trump is now proclaiming to be an abortion moderate.

losthighway wrote: Tue Nov 28, 2023 10:57 am It's weird to see the far right "Jews in Zion will bring on the second coming according to Revelations" evangelists, and the "Jewish space lasers will not replace me" Neo-Nazis (ahem, Mr. Musk) both just kind of existing. I'm sure they must be crossing rhetorical swords in some backwater of the internet I don't want to go to, but it's surprising that it hasn't turned into a louder GOP congressional boxing match like so many other things have.

Remember Option A for the Nazi regime was mass forced migration of Europe’s Jewish population to a third country, Madagascar. Nazis have no problem with Jews once they’re somewhere else and will happily team up with the Jewish right for common Shitfuckery.

I believe his response was that he was "tricked," and something about being courteous because he was asked for a photo.

I'm low-key fiending for the opportunity to snap on the likes of a Boebert in public and Chappelle's out in these streets being tricked and gallant.

I mean, when a far-right politician asks a celebrity for a photo op, you'd never suspect that they would use that photo to advance their far-right agenda, would you? "Gee, I thought she was just a fan - I feel so betrayed", laments Chapelle.

Well, my country's fucked now too, predictably. Another domino falls. Lies are truth now, you see. Facts are lies.

2+2=5, get over it losers cry-laugh emoji cry-laugh emoji

I've been thinking about bots, lately. AI bots, youtube bots, propaganda bots. Not worrying about them, thinking we should be using them. The other side already fucking are, this is information warfare for the future of humanity, maybe we should stop with the Walter Cronkite act and get our hands dirty.

Anthony Flack wrote: Fri Dec 01, 2023 8:27 pm I've been thinking about bots, lately. AI bots, youtube bots, propaganda bots. Not worrying about them, thinking we should be using them. The other side already fucking are, this is information warfare for the future of humanity, maybe we should stop with the Walter Cronkite act and get our hands dirty.

Sure, but who's gonna fund it?

The 'other side' only get as far as they do because Koch, Mercer, Murdoch etc. spend lots of money on propaganda. That's why it's so prevalent, so insidious, so all encompassing. They have deeper pockets.

The embarrassing thing is I just watched my country sell itself out over a few single-digit million dollars in propaganda, tops.

rsmurphy wrote: Fri Dec 01, 2023 6:22 pm

I believe his response was that he was "tricked," and something about being courteous because he was asked for a photo.

I'm low-key fiending for the opportunity to snap on the likes of a Boebert in public and Chappelle's out in these streets being tricked and gallant.

It’s a huge mistake for the left to even engage with this non-issue. It affects less than 0.5% of the population. There are more model train enthusiasts. While I appreciate this issue is a defining issue for very small group of people the idea the left should put this in front of intersectional issues such as labour rights, increased unionisation and other economically focused matters is ludicrous.

Let these fools look like cranks and weirdos. Because that how they appear if you just shrug your shoulders and say “just be nice to people”

"There's only two genders" - High school dropout Boebert flashing her grammar skills while playacting as a credentialed expert in gender psychology.

It gives me no pleasure to report that this woman is hot.

Anthony Flack wrote: Fri Dec 01, 2023 8:27 pm I've been thinking about bots, lately. AI bots, youtube bots, propaganda bots. Not worrying about them, thinking we should be using them. The other side already fucking are, this is information warfare for the future of humanity, maybe we should stop with the Walter Cronkite act and get our hands dirty.

The issue though of communication, information, messaging, is that the environment into which signs are released determines how the signs are received and taken up. The originator of a message cannot control the full meaning of a message, since that meaning will take shape in the environment and between the different receivers, and that environment is not alterable by the effort of a single actor (which is not to say that it is entirely unalterable either, there's just a limit to what can be effected).

The environment is precisely the problem here, since the effect of the environment is to turn information into means for interpersonal competition and the building of social capital. Messages of any quality or character can be equalized in that manner.

Like I said I don't think individual actors are powerless in relation to this, there is always some kind of interplay, but the way the environment modifies the nature of messages, and how the inertia of that environment encourages and condones certain behaviours and ways of handling information (what you are expected to take seriously and not, how it is acceptable for you to act toward certain people and certain ways of presentation, etc.), are undeniable. Worse still, sometimes this is even self-conscious - "since I know that it is socially acceptable for me to interpret this message in this way, I will do it even though I know it is false". There are many ways in which dissemination of information right now functions in the same manner. Fake news work, and as more people catch on to the fact that it works, we'll see more of it.

I'm not trying to discourage exploring novel fields and figuring out how to work with them and the role they play in relation to other fields. Experiment away. But there are problems besides simply getting the message out. It's what happens to the message once it is out. And the problem might not be a lack of information, but an overabundance of information which, together with how that information is treated socially and the attitudes spontaneously taken toward it, can make information seem like merely means for some self-serving agenda, or weapons for use of one actor against another, thereby making people apathetic and distrustful toward information. Dumping a bunch of counter-messaging into the ether, by itself, is just adding more noise.

But the mere showing of presence can also act as an inspiration on people so... idk.