U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

#451

Post by jmull » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #382

dhruvkar wrote: post #47

Are there people here on HN that believe the election was stolen? I haven't seen any evidence, most of the lawsuits haven't borne fruit either. However, I also recognize that there may be blindspots/biases. I'd really like to hear from anyone who believes this, to present a cogent argument. I promise not to attack. I want to hear the argument from the other side. I also beseech the rest of HN to please refrain from a…

I do not believe the election was stolen. But I also don't believe we had perfect election integrity either. In my mind any system involving hundreds of millions of people is bound to have some bad actors, mistakes, fraud, etc. It's important to acknowledge when and where it happens, and how to improve. But claiming any given election had near perfect integrity raises some alarm bells with me at least.

Are there a lot of people claiming the election was near perfect?

I see people saying there isn’t evidence of wide-spread fraud sufficient to overturn the results of the election.

There do seem to be a lot of people making the mistake of trying to cast this as black and white, totally fraudulent or totally perfect. But that never made sense.

(Edit: typo)

Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

#452

Post by tolbish » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

TehCorwiz wrote: post #68

root_axis wrote: post #43

This is a failure of leadership by the republicans - plain and simple. I don't care if this comment is perceived as partisan, it's a statement of fact. If the republican leadership had unequivocally come out against the narrative that the election was stolen, this wouldn't be happening. Edit: Yes, it's true that the top leader and his acolytes have engineered this outcome, but the majority of the republican leadershi…

They invited this! It's the republican leadership that's perpetuation this!

And it hasn't exactly been subtle either. That this isn't apparent to anyone that has been conscious for the past year+ makes you wonder if you're going crazy, doesn't it?

Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

#453

Post by vulcan01 » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #72

How did we arrive to this point where a huge chunk of the population is in one reality and another huge chunk of the population is in another reality? Segregation of information sources? Politicization of media outlets? Self-reinforcing social bubbles? A combination of all of them and more?

I'll posit an additional factor: people who are disenfranchised and desperate are more likely to believe conspiracy theories and act on them. Andrew Yang talked about this a lot during + after his campaign, and also this paper:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3791630 (sorry to those who don't have jstor... I'll try to find stuff)

Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

#454

Post by azemetre » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

Someone on reddit made an interesting comment about how many foreign agents are using this opportunity to plant bugs in various locations.

Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

#455

Post by RealityVoid » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

Shared404 wrote: post #271

dhruvkar wrote: post #47

Are there people here on HN that believe the election was stolen? I haven't seen any evidence, most of the lawsuits haven't borne fruit either. However, I also recognize that there may be blindspots/biases. I'd really like to hear from anyone who believes this, to present a cogent argument. I promise not to attack. I want to hear the argument from the other side. I also beseech the rest of HN to please refrain from a…

> Are there people here on HN that believe the election was stolen? There are. One sent me to this [1] resource earlier. I do not endorse this source, and have not manually verified their claims myself. If anyone else would like to check the source, that would be good, I intend to manually check their claims myself later, but don't have time now. [1] https://hereistheevidence.com/ Edit: I would ask anyone checking th…

So, I am certain, _somewhere_ in this whole election _someone_ surely stole some votes. I can almost guarantee that on such a big number of people voting that at least some number of votes were stolen, probably by representatives from both parties. What I strongly doubt is the fact that this was widespread, organized or the numbers of these frauds were in any meaningful way impacting the election.

The difference between parties was not insignificant. In other election cycles you had much lower differences but the other party conceded to the process ( looking at 2000).

So this whole thing is, IMO, predicated on one side simply refusing to admit defeat.

Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

#456

Post by travisoneill1 » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

happytoexplain wrote: post #415

coryfklein wrote: post #353

It's the practical erosion of Free Speech. Liberal (small "l" liberal) democracy and liberal science thrives on members: 1. Being willing to admit they may be wrong 2. Having access to a diverse information diet But the past two decades have shown erosion of not only legal Free Speech, but practical free speech: * Whereas previously they were just ignored (or even rebutted), today employees, students, and professors…

>hurting our iddly-widdly-fweelings This is irrational and hostile. Regardless, what's unfolding is not a result of people more frequently experiencing normal social reactions to their public statements and actions, nor a result of the exceptional and justly criticized cases where those reactions are based on error. That line of criticism is usually just a dishonest way to excuse other behaviors, like we are witnessi…

Getting angry when a stranger makes a statement that you disagree with is not a normal social reaction, or at least it wasn't until recently. The possibility of error is just one reason that it shouldn't be.

Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

#457

Post by CivBase » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

skissane wrote: post #374

umvi wrote: post #72

How did we arrive to this point where a huge chunk of the population is in one reality and another huge chunk of the population is in another reality? Segregation of information sources? Politicization of media outlets? Self-reinforcing social bubbles? A combination of all of them and more?

> How did we arrive to this point where a huge chunk of the population is in one reality and another huge chunk of the population is in another reality? My own impression is that this is far worse in the US than in most other first world countries. If I'm right about that, then explanations based on social media algorithms etc don't really work, because the same algorithms apply in other countries too. It really then…

The US has a uniquely strong distrust in government compared to other nations to which you are referring. I think as a result, the social media algorithms are particularly potent in the US.

Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

#458

Post by fhrow4484 » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #72

How did we arrive to this point where a huge chunk of the population is in one reality and another huge chunk of the population is in another reality? Segregation of information sources? Politicization of media outlets? Self-reinforcing social bubbles? A combination of all of them and more?

> How did we arrive to this point where a huge chunk of the population is in one reality and another huge chunk of the population is in another reality

This isn't an accurate representation of the US. There are 4 sides:

- extreme left

- left

- right

- extreme right

The proportion of each is probably around: 5%/45%/45%/5% (maybe 10/40/40/10)

The 5% on each extreme are the one making the news on the other side to instill fear from the "other side" (fox news depiction of far left Portland, cnn depiction of far right, etc)

And logically, the people who consume news the most have the most distorted view of the other side: https://twitter.com/HiddenTribesUS/status/114314670369397555...

Since media get money from more viewers, and since fear sells, unfortunately they have no incentive to make this better. Finding neutral sources while staying informed is a hard problem.

Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

#459

Post by arminiusreturns » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #72

How did we arrive to this point where a huge chunk of the population is in one reality and another huge chunk of the population is in another reality? Segregation of information sources? Politicization of media outlets? Self-reinforcing social bubbles? A combination of all of them and more?

The research done on manipulation of the mind based on the post ww1/2 which most know as artichoke/mkultra/monarch and it's variants in other five eyes have been condensed into a science later solidified and tested in modern wars across the globe (not just GWOT psyops) that is now being exploited on a massive scale via consolidation of power via mergers, aquisitions, and more subtle extension of control over all forms of media (print, tv, radio, and now the internet, as the oligarchs finally recognized it as a primary threat vector), academia, and politics (largely via a progressively worse bribery, coercion, blackmail (Epstein goes here), threats system) that is being used as part of a divide and conquer strategy that enables the hegellian dialectic mostly via limited hangouts and false opositions to create whatever state of reality the supranational elite want.

The reality is there is a conspiracy/are conspiracies that are coordinated by various disparate secret and not secret organizations whose goals sometimes don't but most often do overlap, and occurences like Q-anon and these protests are likely psyop techniques to distract potential genuine movements that might respond or create desired counter-responses in order to limit the fallout while the oligarchs catch up in the race against the internet as the last bastion of freedom of speech that could cause a neo-peasants revolt if the people found out the truth.

Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

#460

Post by curt15 » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

dhruvkar wrote: post #47

Are there people here on HN that believe the election was stolen? I haven't seen any evidence, most of the lawsuits haven't borne fruit either. However, I also recognize that there may be blindspots/biases. I'd really like to hear from anyone who believes this, to present a cogent argument. I promise not to attack. I want to hear the argument from the other side. I also beseech the rest of HN to please refrain from a…

For all the fraud allegations thrown around by Trump and his allies, his lawyers have consistently refused to allege fraud in their court proceedings. See for example https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/us/politics/trump-giulian...