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We all wear tinfoil hats now

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Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#121

Post by matmann2001 »

MR4D wrote: post #110
34679 wrote: post #39

I'll put my "hat" on for a moment and ask: Why doesn't the FEC enforce its policy on the identification of political advertisements and who paid for them when it comes to social media activity? Why is it that a 30 second radio ad needs to have "Paid for by the Candidate X campaign", but millions of dollars worth of paid online trolls needn't disclose a thing? According to their own published rules, this sort of activ…

There is a simple answer to this question (excellent question, BTW !) The FEC can only do this if "political advertisement" is first defined. And that's where you will most likely hit a wall. Let's run through a scenario to see if we can get people on HN to agree what is or is not a political "ad": - Person tweeting on April 15th, "God, I hate paying taxes." - Person tweeting on April 15th, "God, I hate paying high t…

Perhaps, the "what" is less important than the "who" or the "how". Maybe any statement made by a member of a political campaign or anyone paid by a political campaign should be considered political advertisement.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#122

Post by 34679 »

oarabbus_ wrote: post #105
34679 wrote: post #39

I'll put my "hat" on for a moment and ask: Why doesn't the FEC enforce its policy on the identification of political advertisements and who paid for them when it comes to social media activity? Why is it that a 30 second radio ad needs to have "Paid for by the Candidate X campaign", but millions of dollars worth of paid online trolls needn't disclose a thing? According to their own published rules, this sort of activ…

>but millions of dollars worth of paid online trolls needn't disclose a thing? Can you elaborate? Twitter doesn't allow paid political advertising and Facebook has a clear disclaimer at the top of every such ad.

There are political entities which exist solely to provide an online presence for their clients. It's no different than "Russian trolls", except they're being paid by campaigns and committees instead of the KGB. It is my opinion that every comment, submission, and account operated by these organizations should bear a disclosure stating who is paying for them, just like every other paid public communication they might do.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#123

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

matmann2001 wrote: post #121
MR4D wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a simple answer to this question (excellent question, BTW !) The FEC can only do this if "political advertisement" is first defined. And that's where you will most likely hit a wall. Let's run through a scenario to see if we can get people on HN to agree what is or is not a political "ad": - Person tweeting on April 15th, "God, I hate paying taxes." - Person tweeting on April 15th, "God, I hate paying high t…

Perhaps, the "what" is less important than the "who" or the "how". Maybe any statement made by a member of a political campaign or anyone paid by a political campaign should be considered political advertisement.

"Why", yeah?

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#124

Post by StanislavPetrov »

deltron3030 wrote: post #20

Cultural authority got decentralized over centuries, from church to bible to traditional media to new media, where everybody can be an author and become an authority, gain a fellowship. Peoples obedience to authority didn't change much in general, it's an instinct for survival, it makes the surrounding society and feedback from a society more predictable. Online bubbles are often subcultures that predate the web, wha…

>How can the problems that are likely caused by cultural independence be solved without fully centralizing cultural authority?

You identified the problem earlier in your post:

>Peoples obedience to authority didn't change much in general, it's an instinct for survival

What separates human beings from other animals is our ability to reason and not defer blindly to instinct. The issue is obedience to authority, not that people are simply listening to the wrong authorities. We should do our best to teach our children skepticism and critical thinking skills. We should urge Socratic Dialogue and, over time, move people towards being less susceptible to faith-based dogmas and conspiracies.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#125

Post by jiofih »

> Those who attributed the political upsets of 2016 to secret algorithmic influence were unwittingly echoing Matthews’s hi-tech conspiracy theory. Two hundred years ago, envisioning a scheme like this was such a drastic dissent from common sense that it landed you in the madhouse. Today, similar notions are among the default ways we think about technology.

This article is infuriating in how it tries to dismiss the manipulation that happened. We saw the Facebook ads, fake events, profiles and dissent propaganda. You can argue how effective it was, but waving it off as a delusion is nothing short of malicious.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#126

Post by hi5eyes »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #124
deltron3030 wrote: post #20

Cultural authority got decentralized over centuries, from church to bible to traditional media to new media, where everybody can be an author and become an authority, gain a fellowship. Peoples obedience to authority didn't change much in general, it's an instinct for survival, it makes the surrounding society and feedback from a society more predictable. Online bubbles are often subcultures that predate the web, wha…

>How can the problems that are likely caused by cultural independence be solved without fully centralizing cultural authority? You identified the problem earlier in your post: >Peoples obedience to authority didn't change much in general, it's an instinct for survival What separates human beings from other animals is our ability to reason and not defer blindly to instinct. The issue is obedience to authority, not tha…

> We should do our best to teach our children skepticism and critical thinking skills. We should urge Socratic Dialogue and, over time, move people towards being less susceptible to faith-based dogmas and conspiracies.

gets brought up a lot during online discussions about digital communities and the well educated affluent antivax parents always comes to my mind

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/parents-vaccinate-kids-tend-af...

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#127

Post by lunias »

deltron3030 wrote: post #20

Cultural authority got decentralized over centuries, from church to bible to traditional media to new media, where everybody can be an author and become an authority, gain a fellowship. Peoples obedience to authority didn't change much in general, it's an instinct for survival, it makes the surrounding society and feedback from a society more predictable. Online bubbles are often subcultures that predate the web, wha…

A "driver's license for the web" is an interesting thought, but I certainly wouldn't model it off of our actual driver's licenses; as they appear to me to be more a form of identification than licensure in that pretty much anyone can get one with no training or display of skill.

I love the internet, but I agree that it has created many realities; sustaining those that would have traditionally burned out in the head of the thinker due to repeated exposure to other people's subjective realities and a lack of confirmation for their own.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#128

Post by DangitBobby »

This article simultaneously claims that advertising is not effective enough to subtly manipulate how millions of people think about a candidate but that an advertising company is effective enough to manipulate how people think about it. Dubious claims at best.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#129

Post by guerrilla »

pjc50 wrote: post #6

Bleurgh. I don't like the conflation of unsupported-by-evidence talk of telepathy and that kind of "mind control" with the heavily-funded and somewhat evidenced effect of targeted political advertising. It acts to discredit conversation about the latter by conflating it with the former. They even manage to quote Foucault on the process of labelling people as delusional in order to exclude them from politics. I hate t…

> hammer of logical positivism

the hammer of a long abandoned school of philosophy?

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#130

Post by 6510 »

jiofih wrote: post #125

> Those who attributed the political upsets of 2016 to secret algorithmic influence were unwittingly echoing Matthews’s hi-tech conspiracy theory. Two hundred years ago, envisioning a scheme like this was such a drastic dissent from common sense that it landed you in the madhouse. Today, similar notions are among the default ways we think about technology. This article is infuriating in how it tries to dismiss the ma…

No, the author is either delusional “fixed beliefs that are not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence.” or it is something more sinister: An article written to reconfigure those who are still triggered to auto-dismiss when mind control is mentioned. Like if I say unidentified object. Do you immediately think of a crank person? What if it flies?
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