We all wear tinfoil hats now • Hacker News Board

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#131

Post by 6510 » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 11:27 PM UTC

dageshi wrote: post #29

ptah wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this reminds me of an interview i saw on the news with an elderly british voter who was adamant that she will vote Tory as they are bound to win. it's almost like she saw her vote as a bet and she wanted to get it right. this interview moved me significantly towards being sceptical of current democracies

Most people don't care about politics that much, they vote more or less for a continuation of what's currently going on with an occasional minor course correction one way or another. I imagine that was the case with that lady, didn't care about politics, wanted things to be more or less the same, votes Conservative and when put on the spot doesn't really have a good explanation as to why. The most useful thing about…

We could do a bunch of rounds of elections where we all vote against someone (or some party) Big spending attention whores would be eliminated in the first round.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#132

Post by cercatrova » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 11:40 PM UTC

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…

Seems like none of these are political ads? Anyone can say any of this and be fine from political ad scrutiny it seems.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#133

Post by 6510 » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 11:43 PM UTC

When talking about basic income I noticed a pattern where people who didn't like the idea would drop off the same comments seen 100 years ago then leave. You could bother answer the query but they didn't read it and a new comment would appear repeating the same statement.

It gave me an idea for a discussion platform. For example politics, each candidate delivers their election program AND a list of multiple choice questions for users to answer. The questions are reviewed for sanity.

THEN when someone writes a comment about candidate X we display under their post if they completed the test for X or not. (with 100% score) Other users can then see the person doesn't know what he is talking about. :-)

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#134

Post by ttctciyf » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 11:54 PM UTC

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…

>> attributed

Attribution to a single cause may be an indicator of unrealistic thinking about these events, but to dismis all concerns about the subversion of democratic processes by algorithmic influence as delusional is a staggeringly uninformed position to take.

As Emma Briant wrote[1],

> this isn’t just a scandal about an obscure, unethical company. It’s a story about how a network of companies was developed which enabled wide deployment of propaganda tools - based on propaganda techniques that were researched and designed for use as weapons in warzones - on citizens in democratic elections. It’s a logical product of a poorly regulated, opaque and lucrative influence industry. There was little or nothing in place to stop them.

> Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, SCL, and its founder, Nigel Oakes, have done everything they can to distance themselves from Cambridge Analytica but politics was important to SCL’s work far earlier than many thought. And SCL’s main clients - NATO and the defence departments of its member states - have managed to get away without being asked how much they knew about what one of their key contractors was up to.

the "SC" in Cambridge Analytica parent company SCL's name is Strategic Communications - the modern military term for information warfare designed to sway and influence populations both in regard to acts of war and terror and in their behaviours as members of a democracy. It encompasses a range of activities such as psychological operations, propaganda, and so on.

See Briant's article[1] for an indication of how SCL activities and state sponsored strategic communications are intertwined.

The point is not that SCL / CA are some kind of government conspiracy, but rather that the present author would, by dismissing fears of democratic subversion as delusional, be denying the efficacy of an entire industrial sector devoted to meeting the "strategic communications" needs of governments around the world.

1: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/as-cambridg...

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#135

Post by edmundsauto » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 12:33 AM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #118

QuantumGood wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evaluating what works by what the dumbest people do is not science. Marketing results are measurable. That people will measure improperly, not at all, or ignore proper measurement approaches is not about what is measured, it's about the people. Yes, there are things that can't be measured well. Smart operators tend to not do those things, no matter how common or popular they are. The very old joke "Half the money I s…

That joke was made precisely because it's difficult to measure results from advertising. Sure, online banner ads can be precisely measured for click rates, but having spent money on things like billboards, magazine ads, etc. It's difficult to consistently capture the particular ad or place that someone heard about a business. It's difficult to know how many exposures it takes to make an ad effective without going ove…

In fact, people with higher IQs are more prone to their own biases. The suspected cause is smarter people come up with more arguments that appear sound to the self, making smart people believe their own b.s. more than an average IQ.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#136

Post by edmundsauto » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 12:37 AM UTC

caseysoftware wrote: post #66

On one hand, we've had a generation of persona-based sales/marketing where it is key to understand your customer, numerous multi-billion dollar companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc, etc that function because they let you target your ads down to excruciating detail, the entire Obama campaign's 2012 micro-targeting data efforts, and the rise of communities based on every interest, habit, and niche. And on the…

I think the mistake is conflating all types of advertising. Direct response ads can work, no doubt! But branding ads and things more subtle, are trying to influence behavior that has many inputs.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#137

Post by Barrin92 » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 3:53 AM UTC

Very strange article for several reasons, predominantly on the politics of it all.

The first problem I have with it is comparing CA manipulation to schizophrenic delusions. fact of the matter is that there was a conspiracy. CA really was hired by wealthy elites trying to shift politics by engaging in mass influencing campaigns. Whether it was technically effective is another matter, but the thing happened, that's not a delusional person talking to the radio.

The second big issue is the flat-out rejection that manipulation is possible, mocking 'mechanistic' views of individuals and politics. This is a very romanticized story of decision-making and arguably close to being debunked. Bartels and Achen in Democracy for Realists showcase how incoherent and flimsy political decision making is, behavioral research has shown the effectiveness of nudging in policy, Nick Chater in the mind is flat drawing on lots of research casts doubt on the narrative of 'deep beliefs' and so on.

The idea that we're inoculated against manipulation because we're all deeply complex people with coherent ideologies is not really tenable.

Overall much of the article really strikes me as a rant against 'centrism'. The author seems to think that the focus on CA is a product of people wanting to blame tech or shadowy organizations and builts up a strawman likening it to delusion, without offering a compelling reason to buy that argument.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#138

Post by MR4D » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:50 AM UTC

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.

Great idea...until you realize you’ve just run headlong into the Citizens United decision.

In reality, if enacted as you say, campaigns would probably just reorganize themselves into a loose federation of organizations, and only one would formally have a candidate.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#139

Post by fat_turdsicle » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 2:37 PM UTC

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.

I would like to be the first to welcome you to the real world. Where the rich and powerful don't have any intention on following rules. It almost makes you think "why should I follow rules then?"

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#140

Post by dangerface » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 2:55 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #77

dangerface wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know first hand that people are willing to pay me to do a ton of things that don't actually work. (They often continue trying to do so after I tell them it doesn't work and it's a bad idea) Hehehe very true. I tell people what works then they ask me to do random shit. I can't deny you are right at the end of the day I do what they will pay for whether it works or not.

Hello, chain of ancestor posters, each saying the same shocking thing. I have been making things that work, and getting paid for them, for more than 20 years now, and I would like some advice on how to transition my career into making things that do not work, for which the customer has specifically been informed that they will not work, and still get paid for them--preferably paid more than I am currently getting for…

It's a customer management thing. We can't change peoples minds we can only get people to act. If the client comes in with an open mind we can help, if they come in with a problem and a solution that isn't working we are kinda fucked, generally they won't accept a solution to the problem, they want their solution to work.

Here is the most common example:

Small business come up with their marketing strategy A and it works they are pretty happy so they invest more into the strategy and get more results, great! They keep doing this and make a small or large fortune doing it, eventually the law of diminishing returns kicks in and they have a problem, they want more results by doing more of A but that isn't working anymore so they come to us and have this conversation.

Client: We have had great results doing A and we want more.

Me: A is working well for you but if you want more results you need to do A and B.

Client: A has worked really well for us so really we want to do more A and get more results.

Me: But doing more of A isn't getting more results, if you want more results you need to do A and B.

Client: Why are you not listening to me? A works really well for us, it gets us good results in the past and we want to do more of it. How much do you charge to do more A?

At the end of the day the client knows for a fact A works and that they are happy with the results and want more.

I don't think it's possible to change some ones mind but I can defiantly target people in the right mindset and then encourage them to act on it.

If the client comes to a marketing agency and wants more A they will do more A, if the client wants more results they will do A and B.

Me: We can do more A for more money!

Client: Fantastic!

a few months later the client will complain they are not getting more results and we will have this same conversation.