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Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

economist.com

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Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#112

It's not a recent phenomena - it's been happening since WWII. The weirdest part is - the stronger someone is influenced by American political culture, the more they'll tell you about how awful America is.

This is gonna sound strange.

High self-criticism is what I admire about US.

In my country, the check and balances and freedom of speech are not strong enough. People are somewhat reserve about criticizing their own countries. And you can pretty much guess what is happening...

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#113
post #3

No country is willingly importing this divisive rhetoric. Aspirational young citizens who repeat the same formula within their home countries and are quickly rewarded with status and power. So the scourge continues. Short-term, this toxic, zero-sum behaviour reaps havoc. Long-term, American culture capital will have been exhausted and the US will have signed its own death warrant.

We're seeing some pushback both, politically as well as in the corporate/business world. Some companies are starting to detach from social justice issues and politics in general from taking over internal discussions. American society is recognizing the dangers of this and starting to swing the pendulum back to the center politically. More democrats that I know (atleast in SV) are aware of the compliance culture (see…

Social Media signaling and amplification might produce some momentary storm area 51 or storm the capital madness but it hasnt produced any Mandela or Gandhi or Lenin type pressure on govts that is going to cause collapse. Lots of fools will get thrown in jail or thrown of the networks.

Its more of a nuissance than a danger imho. The herd has the attention span and power of fruit flies and the powers that be on all sides know it.

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#115
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure the First Nations people would also agree.

Nice baiting there Jcowell, well played. No country in the world is perfect. Canada is still near the top of the list when it comes to safety and quality of life. It's true that many first nations people struggle. Canada is taking steps to help them (see accelerated vaccination of native communities) and I sincerely wish them all the best. However, dismantling the police probably isn't going to undo things that happe…

>However, dismantling the police probably isn't going to undo things that happened several centuries ago.

The First Nations have more recent and direct issues with the police than the founding of Canada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatoon_freezing_deaths

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#116
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but the propaganda about “critical theories” comes from people who either don’t believe in the racist history of America or else think it’s good.

Not in my experience. Obviously such people exist, but the generalization is just an ad hominem.

Such people do exist, like the governor of Florida, who just passed a rule that appears to ban teaching that Florida had slavery and said it was to stop "critical race theory" and the 1619 Project.

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like the “intellectual matrix” the French education minister wrote about recently: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/world/europe/france-threa... > French politicians, high-profile intellectuals and journalists are warning that progressive American ideas — specifically on race, gender, post-colonialism — are undermining their society. “There’s a battle to wage against an intellectual matrix from American…

I think you're being down voted but you speak the truth. The current division, strife, and lack of unity in western society is in large part due to misinformation, propaganda, and psyops from adversaries. The primary goal is to make personal identity politics more important than national allegiances so that we rot from the inside out. We're not in the cold war anymore. We are in the Ice War.

He does. Same concerns are arising in Spain as in France. American discourses are introduced through social media and this weird feedback loop some academics have with US universities.

It's still not in mainstream but there's a growing resentment against this phenomena in some intellectual/political circles.

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#118

... and prudery. Really, you cannot imagine how prudish Facebook's "community standards" are looking from a European point of view.

And how intensely it celebrates violence and is a rule of 'who shouts the loudest' rather than a discourse and exchange as you would expect in European politics and media.

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're seeing some pushback both, politically as well as in the corporate/business world. Some companies are starting to detach from social justice issues and politics in general from taking over internal discussions. American society is recognizing the dangers of this and starting to swing the pendulum back to the center politically. More democrats that I know (atleast in SV) are aware of the compliance culture (see…

Social Media signaling and amplification might produce some momentary storm area 51 or storm the capital madness but it hasnt produced any Mandela or Gandhi or Lenin type pressure on govts that is going to cause collapse. Lots of fools will get thrown in jail or thrown of the networks. Its more of a nuissance than a danger imho. The herd has the attention span and power of fruit flies and the powers that be on all si…

> it hasnt produced any Mandela or Gandhi or Lenin type pressure on govts that is going to cause collapse.

Yeah, right. Except that Trump, Johnson, Modi, Bolsonaro, Duterte etc. etc. are increasingly looking like they just might be the new Mandela, Gandhi and Lenin. Isn't democracy great?

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're seeing some pushback both, politically as well as in the corporate/business world. Some companies are starting to detach from social justice issues and politics in general from taking over internal discussions. American society is recognizing the dangers of this and starting to swing the pendulum back to the center politically. More democrats that I know (atleast in SV) are aware of the compliance culture (see…

Social Media signaling and amplification might produce some momentary storm area 51 or storm the capital madness but it hasnt produced any Mandela or Gandhi or Lenin type pressure on govts that is going to cause collapse. Lots of fools will get thrown in jail or thrown of the networks. Its more of a nuissance than a danger imho. The herd has the attention span and power of fruit flies and the powers that be on all si…

It's certainly not a threat to governments but it can be a threat to individuals. Some of the looting/mob attacks were coordinated on social media and the mobbing phenomenon is real and can have real world consequences. Of course governments aren't going to fall because the world isn't 1789 anymore. Just burning down a building isn't going to change the government because authority is not tied to buildings. Neither can you break into a bank, burn records of debts, and have your debts wiped clean. But that doesn't mean that you can't organize a mob to attack a courthouse in Portland or harass a judge; while this isn't going to overturn any verdicts, it will cause real damage to people and property.
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