Seeing what White House Twitter account is posting is bizarre, and a bit scary. This is a government entity, a superpower, posting extreme and unserious content to the world. It's so ridiculous that I can't barely comprehend it. I don't understand how leaders in other countries can take the current US administration seriously.
Looking at the US from outside, I am starting to wonder how close they are to a societal collapse. Things seem to have gotten so extreme over there the last decade. Or maybe its not like that in reality, and its just the internet siphoning content that gets reactions.
While I think American society definitely has problems, the idea that it's close to collapse is no better than any other online propaganda opinion, and in fact it's a common refrain pushed by foreign state actors.
A better way to think of this nonsensical online content: it's just the form that has been shown to win in the modern democratic political arena. Unfortunately, being a serious professional doesn't connect with voters anymore. Posting lots of goofy memes seems to, or at least it did a few years ago – IMO the media tactics used by current politicians are a few years out of date, culturally.
> Looking at the US from outside, I am starting to wonder how close they are to a societal collapse
We're fine, the trick is to remember to GET OFF THE INTERNET and remember that reality isn't the same as the Internet. Treat the Internet like a highlight reel channel on TV - if you don't like your current 'algorithm', then change 'channels'. Also, remember why tech has always pushed for Adblockers - then filter out the things demanding your attention. Once you realize a lot of news agencies (political, financial, tech, etc) is using the same dark patterns as ads, you start to filter them out of your attention.
I'm enjoying rewatching Supernatural on Amazon Prime right now.
Oh sure. The war isn't happening as long as you don't look at it. In fact, it's not technically a war so we shouldn't care about it.
You are correct in that we must be better about selecting our news sources. But the answer is not about drowning yourself in pleasant fiction on Amazon Prime or ignoring current events.
The answer is to pick non-clickbait / non-doomscrolling news sources that provide more actionable news and stronger analysis. I've picked The Atlantic for this, once a week magazine is fast enough and gives enough time for the writers to provide deep and through analysis on current events.
The fast moving clickbait media of Twitter and Facebook is trash. It's often incorrect, it's full of propaganda, and the people drawn into it seem like idiots (and arguing with them pulls your intelligence down). Find better media, find better people and leave the trash behind.
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Pick your news sources. Otherwise, the news sources will pick you. That's always been true since the early days of Yellow Journalism. The media landscape is harder to figure out today, but there continues to be well written independent media today, if only you went out to support them and reach out.
Sure it is important to be aware, but If being perpetually aware of the current events makes one feel anxious, helpless and fearful of the future then I think it is better to drown in pleasant fiction than read news.
Just being anxious and concerned in your home has not helped any cause except of that of the media that want your perpetual attention, eye balls and clicks.
We are nowhere near fine. The country is being run by incompetent sycophants in thrall to a criminal who is musing about committing crimes against humanity on social media. He's using his own private paramilitary to terrorize anyone he dislikes all while gutting any institutions that may constrain him, working to subvert voting, destroying the economy for anyone that isn't already obscenely rich, destroying the climate at an accelerated rate, gutting international relations, destroying alliances. Congress enables him instead of checking him, as does the Supreme Court.
I think this is normalising the situation a bit too much. You might 'get of the internet' and stop caring about politics, but the politics still cares about you and does in fact affect the real world.
The "realpolitik" is in fact, and almost by definition, not online.
I think a ton of people didn't get the memo during the first Trump term, and are still baffled by it during his second one.
Republicans have never used the media like the Democrats. Conservative values change very slowly and are disseminated through institutions like the military, religion, etc. Trump has taken it to the next level by only ever using the internet to troll the chronically online and anyone else out of the loop. That's radio discipline.
Given that religions are losing members, especially the youth, and that the most people do not join the military, what will keep disseminating the ideas in the future?
For now, the neoconservatives are running the Republican party. They also have a pretty clear game plan that doesn't require constant chatter. I am just stating where the values originate, and of course things can get murky over time without stronger leadership.
The equivalent question for the Democrat party would be where they expect to find new leaders when their voter base is increasingly antisocial and doesn't believe in higher education.
> We're fine, the trick is to remember to GET OFF THE INTERNET and remember that reality isn't the same as the Internet.
That works fine, except in the cases where the bad news reflects reality, or understates how bad the reality is. In that case it's like saying cancer isn't the problem, the problem is that you visited the doctor and listened as he told you bad news.
You can still read print media like WAPO, NYT, or WSJ. Stay away from opinion and editorial sections and you'll still be informed about what matters but not manipulated so much that it gives you anxiety.
While those listed papers may not be outright fabrications, they are very much manipulated by what their billionaire owners want you to know.
Part of the problem here is you can only list a few papers that might tell you the truth at all, when in the past there was far more independent news organizations that would vie against each other. Now they need to check in with their shareholders first.
>We're fine, the trick is to remember to GET OFF THE INTERNET and remember that reality isn't the same as the Internet.
I can understand how somebody could hold onto this comfort: it used to be (mostly) true. Political "scandals" were usually either truly bad but localized (e.g. a politician caught and kicked out for bribery) or performative furor (e.g. a lapel pin).
It's different now. Those times were our "pro wrestling" era: earnest professionals who put in the work but also put on a show to keep the fans. No matter how dirty the script got, everyone made sure the lights stayed on. Now we're in the "teenage street gang" era. The "show" is actually how they see the world, participants literally delight in physical pain, and citizens on the sidelines are only terrorized.
How anyone could think things would be fine after what the childhood vaccine panel tried to do is beyond me. Or Noem withholding relief funds. Or blanket tariffs without any further plan for improving our industries. Those acts have huge negative effects across the population. The vast majority of citizens have been needlessly harmed by those choices.
This might be possible outside the US, but in the US the internet has become reality. Trump tweets and it effects financial markets. People post on X, go viral, get hired by OpenAI. Filtering out news about institutional instability doesn't make institutions more stable, it just makes you less informed about it. And maybe one day you'll find yourself actually facing the consequences of that without knowing how you could have prevented it.
Hell, his tweets affect real world violence in the US. You have to keep an eye on his posts to figure out if there's going to be Nazi marches tomorrow.
There's a stark difference between being Extremely Online and sticking your head in the sand. The US is not fine. The US is waging an illegal war of aggression abroad, committing war crimes and threatening more. The US has invaded its own cities, mine included, with untrained goons who have shot and killed multiple US citizens.
If you're not aware of what's happening, how will that impact your political views? Your spending? Your habits? Your vote?
Edit - A few more:
- The war in Iran is triggering an energy and economic crisis globally. Fuel prices are skyrocketing globally as a result, with some countries mandating that people cannot work (thus, cannot get paid) more than a few days a week to preserve fuel. This is pushing up prices on groceries, materials and other goods that will disproportionately impact the global poor. Many will not be able to survive.
- The US has been intentionally and illegally embargoing oil and gas shipments to Cuba plunging the country into blackouts and instability, also against international law. People can't work, or cook, or refrigerate food, or turn on their lights.
You sure we're fine?
Edit 2: Downvotes already! Amazing. Good to see the right wing slant in Silicon Valley is alive and well. Looking forward to the day the market crashes and all of your RSUs and stock holdings are worth fuck all. You can't eat stocks, but you can eat the rich.
US government does not have a good record. I feel like anyone that thinks it’s particularly bad now needs to read some history books. Obviously I wish it were better but this is the same group that brought you a dozen wars in the 20th century, Japanese internment, forced segregation, price controls, nuclear weapons used on civilians, and so on.
My guess is that it has more to do with reading news sources particularly aligned with one political viewpoint than the actual facts of what the government is doing.
This kind of opinion seems logical only if you don't look at history. I'm struggling to think of a government which is effective today but didn't have some horrible actions in the near past. At best I think you'll get functionally "minor" states like Switzerland or Denmark that weren't really in the powerful position the US was/is in.
And so it's much better to compare the US government's record with the record of other states, and in that comparison I think the US comes out reasonably well. Not the best, but certainly not the worst.
I also find the content distasteful, but it kinda tracks with US history as a country run mostly by cavalier bruisers with antipathy to the have-nots both domestic and abroad. They're just not trying to hide it anymore now that corporate "news" media and social media algorithms have found legal ways to profit by encouraging hatred.
More than one million of young people have been sent to the front line and Russia and Ukraine haven't collapse. But somehow Trump posting memes will collapse the US.
Nowhere near it. There's parts I don't like but it's not like Homesteading, slavery, Chinese exclusion, redlining, Japanese internment, the klan, and Jim Crow were great.
This is American behavior: crude, cruel, hostile, arrogant, and proudly ignorant.
Richard Hofstadter wrote about Americans acting this way in the 1960s.
Look at the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, stood for decades. It's not like those sentiments went away...
And there's no "good states" either - the California Constitution in 1879 set up a racial apartheid system against Chinese people. Even had a second called "The Chinese".
Oregon was admitted to the Union explicitly with a "whites only" clause.
The Declaration of Independence even has wild conspiracy theories about "merciless Indian savages"
No amount of empirical evidence will make Americans realize this because it gives them a frowny face.
The modern world is like Jean Baudrillard's vision of hell. Back in 1991 he wrote "The Gulf War did not take place", commenting on what was at the time a new development of 24/7 live media coverage of the war. Media saturation created a hyperreality where images about the war replaced the thing itself. How far we have come. We are so complacent here that war exists only as stream of symbols and sounds streaming out of our screen. I think many do not truly believe it is real.
I don't know if I would call this the new age of AI propaganda as much as I would call this "unserious, unprofessional, unqualified, authoritarian leaders would rather deceive their support base than offer serious policy solutions to societal problems."
We can notice in this article the conspicuous absence of the mature adults in the room using these tactics. We don't see a whole lot of party-sponsored AI memes trying to sell universal healthcare, enhanced public services and education, ending poverty and homelessness, addressing cost of living crisis, ending gasoline dependency, etc.
It's the age of AI propaganda for people with no good ideas, because AI is a substitute for good ideas.
Maybe AI content velocity will be the thing to finally get people to advocate for media awareness training, rather than the current strat of trying to scold platforms into only showing the manipulative content they side with.
> the most compelling content wins the most reach regardless of its origin or intent.
“Winning” means you have successfully manipulated a person who has so little capacity for reasoning that they will react to and make decisions from propaganda
If the plurality of humans have no ability or desire to actively resist manipulation then they are living in the world they are satisfied with
Propaganda works very well on smart people too. Here's how it often works: smart people like to be well informed. They drink a steady drip of "news" covering a wide range of topics. They therefore have a wide but shallow understanding of current events.
The topics are usually chosen for them (editor or algorithm). The news is packaged up for them to form an opinion at a glance (headline/social media post). They lack a deep understanding and so most things pass as largely believable, if at times a bit of a stretch. Topics they know deeply are almost always "covered poorly," but not the topics they don't know deeply.
All you did was describe the fact that people who present as intelligent aren’t actually intelligent
I’m very well aware of a lot of people who are not subject to propaganda - you wouldn’t consider them particularly “fun “to be around because usually they are dedicated and focused on something that they actually believe in like being a monk
I know literally zero monks especially in the tibetan tradition that cannot clock propaganda immediately - you could make a strong argument that Buddhism itself is propaganda and I would actually largely concur with you there in the broad sense however in the sense that we’re describing it is a context that you find yourself overwhelmed by
Oh and then if you actually are that smart then you would have read the following quote:
“ If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do, you’re misinformed.”
Your bar for “smart people” is probably way lower than it should be if you include people who can’t discriminate between measurable repeatible data and propaganda
Propaganda works on people with all levels of 'capacity for reasoning'. No one is immune to it. Also, a feature of good propaganda is that it gets through a persons bullshit filter so that they are not even aware that they are being manipulated. The article points out the current use of Lego propaganda as examples of governments updating their tools so that they get their message across to more people.
This is important because it lets pluralities build from people who are not aware they are being manipulated. Pluralities can lead to majorities and majorities, in a democratic system, create power. All this to say: I don't think those who have fallen for propaganda are living in a world they are satisfied with but instead that they are living in a world they've been told they are satisfied with and a lack of counter narratives have not shown them a better way. Consider that propaganda gets busted out whenever something isn't naturally popular or beneficial to most people, that is why we see propaganda most used around military efforts.
If someone is continuing to put themselves into situations and contexts where they are overloaded with propaganda, then that indicates they lack a core level of discernment
The idea that people cannot have agency while being subjected to propaganda is totally fucking absurd and demonstrably not true
there are millions of examples of people who can discern propaganda and make decisions based on ground truth data
The analysis of 1960 trends leading to belief that religion and racism divides would diminish is laughable but the post hoc analysis in Jacques Ellul’s book Propaganda makes several compelling arguments that propaganda is omnipresent and difficult for the great part of public to counter and misplaced confidence in one’s own judgment is often the Achilles heel that allows propaganda to insinuate itself in one’s brain. I mentioned this book in another comment today but it’s uncannily relevant.
Looking at the US from outside, I am starting to wonder how close they are to a societal collapse. Things seem to have gotten so extreme over there the last decade. Or maybe its not like that in reality, and its just the internet siphoning content that gets reactions.
A better way to think of this nonsensical online content: it's just the form that has been shown to win in the modern democratic political arena. Unfortunately, being a serious professional doesn't connect with voters anymore. Posting lots of goofy memes seems to, or at least it did a few years ago – IMO the media tactics used by current politicians are a few years out of date, culturally.
We're fine, the trick is to remember to GET OFF THE INTERNET and remember that reality isn't the same as the Internet. Treat the Internet like a highlight reel channel on TV - if you don't like your current 'algorithm', then change 'channels'. Also, remember why tech has always pushed for Adblockers - then filter out the things demanding your attention. Once you realize a lot of news agencies (political, financial, tech, etc) is using the same dark patterns as ads, you start to filter them out of your attention.
I'm enjoying rewatching Supernatural on Amazon Prime right now.
You are correct in that we must be better about selecting our news sources. But the answer is not about drowning yourself in pleasant fiction on Amazon Prime or ignoring current events.
The answer is to pick non-clickbait / non-doomscrolling news sources that provide more actionable news and stronger analysis. I've picked The Atlantic for this, once a week magazine is fast enough and gives enough time for the writers to provide deep and through analysis on current events.
The fast moving clickbait media of Twitter and Facebook is trash. It's often incorrect, it's full of propaganda, and the people drawn into it seem like idiots (and arguing with them pulls your intelligence down). Find better media, find better people and leave the trash behind.
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Pick your news sources. Otherwise, the news sources will pick you. That's always been true since the early days of Yellow Journalism. The media landscape is harder to figure out today, but there continues to be well written independent media today, if only you went out to support them and reach out.
Sure it is important to be aware, but If being perpetually aware of the current events makes one feel anxious, helpless and fearful of the future then I think it is better to drown in pleasant fiction than read news.
Just being anxious and concerned in your home has not helped any cause except of that of the media that want your perpetual attention, eye balls and clicks.
I think a ton of people didn't get the memo during the first Trump term, and are still baffled by it during his second one.
Republicans have never used the media like the Democrats. Conservative values change very slowly and are disseminated through institutions like the military, religion, etc. Trump has taken it to the next level by only ever using the internet to troll the chronically online and anyone else out of the loop. That's radio discipline.
The equivalent question for the Democrat party would be where they expect to find new leaders when their voter base is increasingly antisocial and doesn't believe in higher education.
That works fine, except in the cases where the bad news reflects reality, or understates how bad the reality is. In that case it's like saying cancer isn't the problem, the problem is that you visited the doctor and listened as he told you bad news.
Part of the problem here is you can only list a few papers that might tell you the truth at all, when in the past there was far more independent news organizations that would vie against each other. Now they need to check in with their shareholders first.
I can understand how somebody could hold onto this comfort: it used to be (mostly) true. Political "scandals" were usually either truly bad but localized (e.g. a politician caught and kicked out for bribery) or performative furor (e.g. a lapel pin).
It's different now. Those times were our "pro wrestling" era: earnest professionals who put in the work but also put on a show to keep the fans. No matter how dirty the script got, everyone made sure the lights stayed on. Now we're in the "teenage street gang" era. The "show" is actually how they see the world, participants literally delight in physical pain, and citizens on the sidelines are only terrorized.
How anyone could think things would be fine after what the childhood vaccine panel tried to do is beyond me. Or Noem withholding relief funds. Or blanket tariffs without any further plan for improving our industries. Those acts have huge negative effects across the population. The vast majority of citizens have been needlessly harmed by those choices.
If you're not aware of what's happening, how will that impact your political views? Your spending? Your habits? Your vote?
Edit - A few more:
- The war in Iran is triggering an energy and economic crisis globally. Fuel prices are skyrocketing globally as a result, with some countries mandating that people cannot work (thus, cannot get paid) more than a few days a week to preserve fuel. This is pushing up prices on groceries, materials and other goods that will disproportionately impact the global poor. Many will not be able to survive.
- The US has been intentionally and illegally embargoing oil and gas shipments to Cuba plunging the country into blackouts and instability, also against international law. People can't work, or cook, or refrigerate food, or turn on their lights.
You sure we're fine?
Edit 2: Downvotes already! Amazing. Good to see the right wing slant in Silicon Valley is alive and well. Looking forward to the day the market crashes and all of your RSUs and stock holdings are worth fuck all. You can't eat stocks, but you can eat the rich.
My guess is that it has more to do with reading news sources particularly aligned with one political viewpoint than the actual facts of what the government is doing.
And so it's much better to compare the US government's record with the record of other states, and in that comparison I think the US comes out reasonably well. Not the best, but certainly not the worst.
The best way to figure out what someone's going to do in the future is looking at what they are doing now.
This is American behavior: crude, cruel, hostile, arrogant, and proudly ignorant.
Richard Hofstadter wrote about Americans acting this way in the 1960s.
Look at the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, stood for decades. It's not like those sentiments went away...
And there's no "good states" either - the California Constitution in 1879 set up a racial apartheid system against Chinese people. Even had a second called "The Chinese".
Oregon was admitted to the Union explicitly with a "whites only" clause.
The Declaration of Independence even has wild conspiracy theories about "merciless Indian savages"
No amount of empirical evidence will make Americans realize this because it gives them a frowny face.
So anyways no. This is all business as usual
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3347626/wh... https://files.catbox.moe/jv7tdp.mp4
We can notice in this article the conspicuous absence of the mature adults in the room using these tactics. We don't see a whole lot of party-sponsored AI memes trying to sell universal healthcare, enhanced public services and education, ending poverty and homelessness, addressing cost of living crisis, ending gasoline dependency, etc.
It's the age of AI propaganda for people with no good ideas, because AI is a substitute for good ideas.
“Winning” means you have successfully manipulated a person who has so little capacity for reasoning that they will react to and make decisions from propaganda
If the plurality of humans have no ability or desire to actively resist manipulation then they are living in the world they are satisfied with
The topics are usually chosen for them (editor or algorithm). The news is packaged up for them to form an opinion at a glance (headline/social media post). They lack a deep understanding and so most things pass as largely believable, if at times a bit of a stretch. Topics they know deeply are almost always "covered poorly," but not the topics they don't know deeply.
I’m very well aware of a lot of people who are not subject to propaganda - you wouldn’t consider them particularly “fun “to be around because usually they are dedicated and focused on something that they actually believe in like being a monk
I know literally zero monks especially in the tibetan tradition that cannot clock propaganda immediately - you could make a strong argument that Buddhism itself is propaganda and I would actually largely concur with you there in the broad sense however in the sense that we’re describing it is a context that you find yourself overwhelmed by
Oh and then if you actually are that smart then you would have read the following quote:
“ If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do, you’re misinformed.”
Your bar for “smart people” is probably way lower than it should be if you include people who can’t discriminate between measurable repeatible data and propaganda
https://marktwainstudies.com/the-apocryphal-twain/if-you-don...
This is important because it lets pluralities build from people who are not aware they are being manipulated. Pluralities can lead to majorities and majorities, in a democratic system, create power. All this to say: I don't think those who have fallen for propaganda are living in a world they are satisfied with but instead that they are living in a world they've been told they are satisfied with and a lack of counter narratives have not shown them a better way. Consider that propaganda gets busted out whenever something isn't naturally popular or beneficial to most people, that is why we see propaganda most used around military efforts.
The idea that people cannot have agency while being subjected to propaganda is totally fucking absurd and demonstrably not true
there are millions of examples of people who can discern propaganda and make decisions based on ground truth data