Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate • Hacker News Board

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#101

Post by stcredzero » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 7:43 PM UTC

AngrySkillzz wrote: post #58

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed it, too. It looks like the public has gone mad. (Or perhaps like they're trying to gaslight us.) But if the Chinese are doing this, and the Russians, and maybe the DNC and the RNC... that would explain why the public conversation has become so weird.

They are trying to gaslight us. Foreign powers want to misinform and distract the public in democracies; a misinformed populace puts pressure on elected governments to govern poorly. If democratic governments flounder because of this, that gives authoritarians an opportunity to get more power and influence over world politics. Not to say that western nations aren't engaged in their own information operations. Just th…

a misinformed populace puts pressure on elected governments to govern poorly.

Worse than a misinformed populace is a populace that can't think. The latter might well get real information and dismiss it.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#102

Post by vkou » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 7:46 PM UTC

AngrySkillzz wrote: post #56

analyst74 wrote: post #7

This is really scary, because I do read comments critically, and have seen those sections being flooded with nonsense, or convincing arguments being pushed without evidence. Heck, this even happens on HackerNews, which users are thoughtful hackers and which are secretly trying to push an agenda? Or is there even a line between those? Now some food for thought, does online anonymity ultimately help the powerful more t…

Pushing an agenda is one thing if the person is doing it in good faith, even if I think their ideas are bad or not supported by evidence. In all likelihood there are large scale information operations going on with world powers trying to subvert each other's populations. The really sinister thing is that we have paid, bad faith actors whose full time jobs are to spread misinformation and shape narratives online. Ther…

"Authoritarian regimes have much less to fear from this. If we disrupt public opinion in China, who cares? They don't really need public consent to do anything."

Every government, authoritarian, or not, continues to exist because they have the implicit consent of their subjects. Even in extremely repressive regimes, you'd be surprised at how many people support their leaders. My grandfather remembers people crying upon hearing the news of Stalin's death - and he has strong reasons to doubt that all of them were crocodile tears.

Read Solzhenitzin - even in labour camps, there were people who continued to endorse the state. Them ending up in a camp? That was all just a misunderstanding, that will soon be cleared up, if they make enough appeals to the right people. The GULAG had no shortage of temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#103

Post by pdeuchler » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 7:47 PM UTC

AngrySkillzz wrote: post #58

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed it, too. It looks like the public has gone mad. (Or perhaps like they're trying to gaslight us.) But if the Chinese are doing this, and the Russians, and maybe the DNC and the RNC... that would explain why the public conversation has become so weird.

They are trying to gaslight us. Foreign powers want to misinform and distract the public in democracies; a misinformed populace puts pressure on elected governments to govern poorly. If democratic governments flounder because of this, that gives authoritarians an opportunity to get more power and influence over world politics. Not to say that western nations aren't engaged in their own information operations. Just th…

Statistically over the past 100 years democratic institutions have affected (or is it effected in this case?) the politics of authoritarian regimes dramatically more, as in orders of magnitude more, than the other way around

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#104

Post by pdeuchler » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 7:49 PM UTC

jmcgough wrote: post #89

maxxxxx wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right. Unfortunately the american electorate is easy to manipulate so they will blame their problems on other groups that are suffering the same problems. Instead of asking why salaries don't go up anymore while the company makes record profits people start attacking each other. The last election was a classical example of distraction. there was almost no discussion of things that would make people's lifes be…

Plenty of people on the left were talking about it, but they live in highly populated states (CA, NY) where their vote counts for a lot less.

I think more of it had to do with a systemic and institutional plan of action to prevent any politician who gave voice to those concerns from achieving success in the primaries

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#105

Post by stcredzero » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 7:53 PM UTC

JulianMorrison wrote: post #16

Chickenality wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One major difference is how concentrated the special interests are. In the case of the Chinese government, public opinion is being swayed by a single entity. In the US, a large number of interest groups are all competing to try to sway public opinion. In the latter case, I think it's harder (at least in principle) for any one group to have a large effect on its own.

Except, centralization of wealth means that the opinions of a relatively few people control the seeming surface diversity of "influencers" in the USA by holding the purse strings (when the proles resort to crowd funding they can break out of this to an extent, Bernie being an example).

The elites rig the elections and the public sphere, while the proles use the one election where they can still sway the vote to vote for dangerous populists as a protest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trrqslUpfdw

Old republican values are relegated to the dustbin, and a civilization becomes a shadow of its former self. This has happened before, and will happen again.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#106

Post by Shivetya » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 7:57 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #39

ConfuciusSay02 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the DNC? They openly had whole organizations with budgets in the millions whose sole purpose was to influence opinion online. We also know thanks to Snowden that the US government has long had operational programs to influence and subvert online discussion. At this point I'd estimate a minimum of 30% of all posts online, including HN, are done by people with an agenda whether political or financial.

But that's still the distraction. The question isn't, "How paranoid should I be?" or "Whose agenda is served?". The question is, what is the truth?

whose agenda is easy, the true one percent, the politicians. the people in power. in the US they are very adept at manipulation their base and with the cooperation of the media they have control of about every information source save one, the internet. They certainly are trying their best to limit what can happen there, the primary means will be to convince people that speech there must be limited to protect democracy, the election process, and such.

i know many say the rich/super rich are the one percent but in truth they just have more ability to pay the piper, the politicians. when the people go the wrong way politicians of any side will pile on to demagogue it.

beware anyone stating "polls suggest" because that is pure manipulation.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#107

Post by dfabulich » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 8:00 PM UTC

metaphorm wrote: post #95

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the irony of the term "fake news" is that it creates the false notion that there was once such a thing as "real news". I'm friends with a journalist. He has opinions, slants, lenses, and even biases. However, he lives around here, and the stuff he publishes is based on events he has actually witnessed, live, in real-time. There is no equivalence between my friend the journalist (real news), and some teenager in Mace…

there is such a thing as reporting and investigation. very little of that survives the editorial process. if I want to read some reporting, I'll have to go to a source that values it. i.e. not the NYTimes (or equivalent). The entire apparatus of the mass media has become thinly veiled editorial positioning, even in stories that are claimed as "news". a recent example of this effect: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/01/…

How would you know if you were wrong about this? Maybe NYTimes is actually pretty good, and posts like yours are trying to undermine our faith in actual journalists.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#108

Post by metaphorm » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 8:09 PM UTC

dfabulich wrote: post #107

metaphorm wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is such a thing as reporting and investigation. very little of that survives the editorial process. if I want to read some reporting, I'll have to go to a source that values it. i.e. not the NYTimes (or equivalent). The entire apparatus of the mass media has become thinly veiled editorial positioning, even in stories that are claimed as "news". a recent example of this effect: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/01/…

How would you know if you were wrong about this? Maybe NYTimes is actually pretty good, and posts like yours are trying to undermine our faith in actual journalists.

you're right, its hard to know. that's why I linked an example of a reasonably good empirical study examining editorial bias in a NYTimes article.

criticism of this kind is important in revealing those kinds of flaws. in many instances its not actually the journalist doing this, but the editors. NYTimes, for example, has recently begun the practice of making undocumented changes to online articles _after_ initial publication.

here is a recent example of that practice:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-the-new-york-t...

and the times public editor's response to the controversy

https://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/17/new-york-t...

so why am I pointing this out? is it to undermine faith? I find it shocking that you would have any faith left at all. What is there to even be undermined?

in other words, who is responsible for convincing you what is true and what isn't? if you take things on faith you are demonstrating an attitude that you are ambivalent about the truth. that attitude displays a preference to have certainty in your dogma and to not be challenged about the trustworthiness of the sources of that dogma.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#109

Post by wavefunction » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 8:15 PM UTC

ConfuciusSay02 wrote: post #77

AngrySkillzz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are trying to gaslight us. Foreign powers want to misinform and distract the public in democracies; a misinformed populace puts pressure on elected governments to govern poorly. If democratic governments flounder because of this, that gives authoritarians an opportunity to get more power and influence over world politics. Not to say that western nations aren't engaged in their own information operations. Just th…

Authoritarian regimes usually rest on more fragile underpinnings. If anything it's the inverse, authoritarian regimes have a lot MORE to fear from a "misinformed" public. This is borne out by the fact that we see authoritarian regimes crack down much harder on social media and other forms of free communication.

I don't believe I agree with your contention, either that authoritarian regimes have more to fear from misinformation or that this relationship is borne out of social media.

Social media is neutral in terms of its content: it can broadcast accurate information or it can broadcast inaccurate information. But it allows that information to reach a much larger audience more quickly than calling on the phone or sending a letter or even wandering the streets shouting whatever you want to spread.

The only significant negative aspect of social media for authoritarians that I can think of is that it allows for non-centralized information spreading, whereas controlling the newspapers and TV is more straight-forward.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#110

Post by throwawaywd4252 » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 8:16 PM UTC

clairity wrote: post #72

i'd say our political machine in the US has done a great job for the last 35 years at distracting us from the biggest social threat of our times: wealth disparity. instead, the public conversations revolve around terrorism, who uses which bathroom, twitter, celebrities, and even health insurance. if recent political movements (tea party, the 99%) and national elections have taught us anything, it's that this is incre…

This comment contains a couple of strong and unsubstantiated assertions.

1. Wealth disparity is an issue -- this needs to be justified beyond an appeal to fairness. Why is this an issue at all? Is the real issue the decline of the middle class? Is that necessarily connected to increasing wealth in the upper class?

2. The election of Donald Trump is a 'lose-lose' scenario. How? What, specifically, about his proposed policies has a demonstrably negative impact on the quality of life for American citizens and the United States' geopolitical influence?