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The Yang Gang and Its Bots

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Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#151

Post by gremlinsinc »

speedplane wrote: post #136
gremlinsinc wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bernie supporter here AND UBI supporter, (not Yang's version per se though). I support a bigger more expansive UBI that would basically cover all food, housing, and major monthly expenses. We still need education/healthcare though as Bernie suggests. Which is why I support him. I like the idea of ending the current welfare system because it makes the recipient feel 'less' because they're on 'state assistance' vs ever…

> Bernie supporter here AND UBI supporter, (not Yang's version per se though). I support a bigger more expansive UBI that would basically cover all food, housing, and major monthly expenses. I agree that those basics that make up common humanity should be covered. But I differ on how to get there. UBI means writing a check to someone, and letting them spend it how they wish. They can spend it on food and healthcare,…

I also come at it from a technical standpoint. It's easier/cheaper to shut down all welfare buildings and government programs and just cut a check. That ends a lot of wasteful spending to pay for the thing. Also housing/food differs dramatically across the country. How do you manage that? Mailing multiple checks? Multiple EBT like cards? I mean it's really difficult to think of a method other than just writing a check that's big enough to cover most..

Who in America would not be better off with a guaranteed $36000/year income? If they have a spouse and two kids they'd make around $50k...and that's BEFORE they take up a full or part-time job.

Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#152

Post by schuke »

dragonwriter wrote: post #123
turtlecloud wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yang campaign is actually seeing exponential growth. Thus the increase in smear articles. The establishment is running through mental gymnastic excercise to rationalize these results. Thus them calling all supporters bots

> Yang campaign is actually seeing exponential growth. In what? His polling position has been bouncing around within the margin of error with no progress for months. Yang's got some good ideas, and he's certainly one of the most interesting candidates of the cycle. But he's got no momentum.

Fundraising numbers. Others dropping out would count as progress too I guess. Although polling is still in single digit but 5-6% is certainly progress from 2-3%.

Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#153

Post by shiftpgdn »

dragonwriter wrote: post #123
turtlecloud wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yang campaign is actually seeing exponential growth. Thus the increase in smear articles. The establishment is running through mental gymnastic excercise to rationalize these results. Thus them calling all supporters bots

> Yang campaign is actually seeing exponential growth. In what? His polling position has been bouncing around within the margin of error with no progress for months. Yang's got some good ideas, and he's certainly one of the most interesting candidates of the cycle. But he's got no momentum.

Yang is polling at 8% nationally now. That's more than margin of error.

Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#154

Post by jessaustin »

turtlecloud wrote: post #96
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why isn’t he doing well in the polls then?

Polls have outdated models that don’t accurately reflect the age of social media. Prior polling models don’t work with the changing environment. For example most the people they poll are in landlines and 65+ yrs old. Also polls are politicized now.

I'm convinced that the outdated nature of polling entirely explains Biden's numbers. He appeals to clueless old people, and polling as practiced today over-samples that demographic.

Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#155

Post by Communitivity »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #151
speedplane wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bernie supporter here AND UBI supporter, (not Yang's version per se though). I support a bigger more expansive UBI that would basically cover all food, housing, and major monthly expenses. I agree that those basics that make up common humanity should be covered. But I differ on how to get there. UBI means writing a check to someone, and letting them spend it how they wish. They can spend it on food and healthcare,…

I also come at it from a technical standpoint. It's easier/cheaper to shut down all welfare buildings and government programs and just cut a check. That ends a lot of wasteful spending to pay for the thing. Also housing/food differs dramatically across the country. How do you manage that? Mailing multiple checks? Multiple EBT like cards? I mean it's really difficult to think of a method other than just writing a chec…

I support UBI and social welfare program reform, but the two are separate things. The programs are there for when people need help. The UBI is there to minimize the number of people who need help.

All the solutions I see for UBI are short term. What I posted on Twitter was the idea of addressing it in the long term:

For each of the 3919528 babies born in the USA in 2019 ((11.979 babies born per 1000 people, in 2019; 327.2 million population), deposit $100k in a lower risk growth mutual fund. , at a cost of $391 billion. Do this for 50 years. When the first cohort of babies turns 50 they should have around $1m available for retirement. So will each year's cohort after them for the next 50 years. Much of that money will be passed on to a new generation, or go back to the government if they die without issue (and that money goes into a mutual fund whose interest goes to help pay for subsequent cohorts).

Yes, it won't touch the problem for 50 years (hence the need for social program reform now too), and it requires both political parties to agree to not dismantle it (like Soc Security was tampered with). But if so, the problem is solved after 50 years, for at least 50 years and hopefully longer.

Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#156

Post by Communitivity »

bnjms wrote: post #129
comnetxr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how do you know the passionate to the point of addiction Yang supporters are real? I think its likely that many are, but that there are also many passionate supporters of the other candidates who just lurk on Twitter without posting due to social norms about how often you should chime in and how forcefully. The social norms around Yang supporters on twitter have changed by bots posting often and loudly, breaking the…

Bots don’t meme. Yet.

I've seen proof of concepts that could be strung together to do that, using a combination of Generative Adversarial Networks, style transfer, and rule-based semantic reasoner.

Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#157

Post by dfsegoat »

Tangential thought: There is an biting element of dehumanization when you call someone a “bot” (who is actually a real person). I see this term thrown around a lot in political threads when the account in question is quite obviously human.

In short, It’s become a term du jour for compromising and silencing those with whom you disagree.

Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#158

Post by maire »

raz32dust wrote: post #91

The author presents no evidence of these accounts being bots other than them being closely connected and cliquey. She makes that inference very quickly, and from then on, they are just referred to as "bots". I am 100% sure there are bots, but I am highly skeptical that Yang Gang is the worst offender here or stands out in any way compared to other campaigns. In fact a quick check on twitteraudit.com tells that he mig…

> The author presents no evidence of these accounts being bots other than them being closely connected and cliquey.

I had the same reaction. I follow all of the candidates on twitter. Most of the campaigns are periodic quite frankly boring posts by the candidates. Yang lets his gang do most of the tweeting and he retweets their posts. In person he does the same thing. There is a lot of audience participation during his speeches. This makes his campaign more lively.

The reason why I doubt they are bots is that the tweets are intelligent. About a week ago I tweeted something about Yang that was factually incorrect. Someone tweeted back within minutes and very politely corrected what I said. We had a few tweet exchanges then someone else jumped in and said that my confusion was something that they would take back to the campaign. A few days later Yang mentioned my confusion in one of his interviews. I am not exactly sure if this was a coincidence...

Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#159

Post by dragonwriter »

schuke wrote: post #152
dragonwriter wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yang campaign is actually seeing exponential growth. In what? His polling position has been bouncing around within the margin of error with no progress for months. Yang's got some good ideas, and he's certainly one of the most interesting candidates of the cycle. But he's got no momentum.

Fundraising numbers. Others dropping out would count as progress too I guess. Although polling is still in single digit but 5-6% is certainly progress from 2-3%.

> Fundraising numbers.

Fundraising is just a means to get money to spend (often, ineffectively) building/maintaining support. If you are raising and spending more money and not moving the needle in the polls, that's not progress.

> Others dropping out would count as progress too I guess.

No, if the field is narrowing and you aren't getting any of the support (and your remaining competitors are) that's also the opposite of progress.

> Although polling is still in single digit but 5-6% is certainly progress from 2-3%.

It would be, if he was consistently polling at the former and previously polling at the latter. But that's not what's happened to Yang. His national polling in January has ranged from 2-5%. His national polling in December ranged from 2-5%. His national polling in November ranged from 2-5%. His national polling in October ranged from 2-5%. And the margin of error on most of the polls is in the neighborhood of ±5%.

Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#160

Post by [deleted] »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #153
dragonwriter wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yang campaign is actually seeing exponential growth. In what? His polling position has been bouncing around within the margin of error with no progress for months. Yang's got some good ideas, and he's certainly one of the most interesting candidates of the cycle. But he's got no momentum.

Yang is polling at 8% nationally now. That's more than margin of error.

[deleted]
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