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The Yang Gang and Its Bots

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Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#171

Post by Grue3 »

godelski wrote: post #166
Grue3 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've seen so many ...."Bernie's people are horrible" posts on the Yang subreddit which has turned me off the yang gang Well, Bernie's subreddit literally bans every single person who makes a post containing the word "Yang". They even remove him from the poll results. Certainly doesn't give any socialist dictatorship vibes (that, and his support of Venezuela).

Come on. People will get upset at you for speaking like this on the Yang subreddit, expect the same here. It doesn't matter if another group is more toxic or not. It isn't a competition about who can be more toxic. We say "Humanity First". If you really do support Yang, stand by that. You're talking to another human and you're also representing Yang. Be kind. We're running a campaign about unification, so expect to b…

I'm not American so I don't really support any candidate. I have my own preferences, and neither is Yang my preferred candidate, nor is Bernie my most disliked candidate.

Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#172

Post by drewrv »

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…

I feel like there should be a law for social media: "Sufficiently passionate fanbases are indistinguishable from bots"

Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#173

Post by godelski »

blackrock wrote: post #150

What I don’t understand about Yang and his UBI push, is that he doesn’t mention anything about the housing crisis. It’s not really the people that have homes that are at risk. It’s the people who are renters, and are under the whims of landlords raising the rents to match expensive mortgages. There’s no mention from him, about socializing the cost of housing. This is the primary source of inequality. I am not a fan o…

> There’s no mention from him, about socializing the cost of housing. This is the primary source of inequality.

It isn't well mentioned on his website[0], but he has talked about it in more details before (sorry, I forgot which videos he specifically addresses this in. There are a lot and they are long). But the tldr is he wants to do better zoning, encourage high rise apartments, and throw in government incentives for affordable housing. If you post this question in the subreddit I know it'll get answered quickly, with many links, and will likely be updated on the website (that's the usual pattern).

> Is his he expecting that people will take the $12,000/year UBI, and move out to podunk Iowa somewhere, and buy a small plot of land, and farm the earth and raise chickens to be self subsistent?

In part UBI, but in part he wants the IRS to refund some moving costs[1]

> that rampant capitalism has run amok,

This is actually at the forefront of his campaign: "Human Centered Capitalism"[2] That the rules need to be rewritten and we need to make the economy human centric, not money first.

> Clearly, [UBI] isn’t enough to pay the rent. Will these people work part time driving for Uber, or delivering for DoorDash?

There's no way you can pass a living wage UBI in this political climate. But $1k/mo does more than $15/hr (presuming hours are stagnant and you can get full time work. Most states already pay above federal minimum) and it is something that Republicans are on board with (because it simplifies welfare and enables more choice). I know it isn't a complete win, but it is an obtainable win. People are already asking how you pay for UBI, now imagine if he doubled the amount. Let's not let perfection get in the way of good. Think of it as a step in the right direction, not a full solution.

[0] https://www.yang2020.com/policies/zoning/

[1] https://www.yang2020.com/policies/get-america-moving/

[2] https://www.yang2020.com/policies/human-capitalism/

Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#174

Post by EdSharkey »

bnjms wrote: post #117
EdSharkey wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The candidate straight outta Google is struggling? Too bad, Google. You could use more friends in high places the way things are headed.

Yang is often referred to as a “tech entrepreneur” but it’s practically a smear to insinuate he’s some billionaire (a common assumption). It’s more accurate to say he’s a nonprofit entrepreneur given his dot-com was a charity organizing company and his nonprofit works with startups in underserved markets.

https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/7/19/20701175/andrew-yang-20...

Read between the lines.

Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#175

Post by ilaksh »

dragonwriter wrote: post #106
ilaksh wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most recent poll has Yang at 8% nationally, beating Bloomberg, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar. And Yang has been left of several polling questions entirely (whereas Klobuchar and Buttgieg always included) and left out of several graphics on TV. Which is to say, he has been written off prematurely and in fact is gaining massively.

> Most recent poll has Yang at 8% nationally, beating Bloomberg, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar. Paying attention to individual polls produces more noise than useful information; you get more value (though less cherry-picking opportunities) from a poll aggregator like 538s. But if you want to play that game, the most recent national primary poll I can find that includes Yang has him at 3%, the best recent polling was at 5%…

Bloomberg has spent $250 million and is still trailing Yang in the latest Emerson Poll. Which you would have found if you were looking for it.

Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#176

Post by raz32dust »

grumple wrote: post #164
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. Multiple accounts with the same name, image, and profile, coupled with radical changes in the types of content posted, and also with superhuman (clearly automated) posting rates? What more evidence do you need?

I didn't say there weren't any bots. But the article portrays Yang's followers as somehow being more full of bots than others. There is no evidence for that.

Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#177

Post by jshevek »

turtlecloud wrote: post #144
vegcel wrote: post #57

I wonder how many people are more of the author's mistaken bots, like Mike mentioned in the article? If you were to join twitter for the purpose of campaigning, I imagine you'd have a lot of bot like behavior. Activities the author describes as bot-like to me seem like activities a noob on twitter would engage in. Twitter itself does a lot to self-create these node clusters, with a circle jerk of recommended follower…

Yes - from my experience managing bots, low IQ people and bots are pretty much indistinguishable, if looking purely at user behavior.

Also: high IQ people who are fanatical or interested only in propagandizing, not discourse.

Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#178

Post by jshevek »

turtlecloud wrote: post #97

How many startup people have actually read “Zero to One” by Peter Thiel? Yang has gone from 0 to 1 and is going to see exponential growth as Iowa gets closer. All these articles are people who have a distorted views of reality and chalk up his support as bots in order to fit their world view. The most likely reason from my observation is bias against Asian American men in leadership positions.

I am opposed to Yang and his agenda, but I am sympathetic to his (and Yang Gangs) mistreatment.

I agree that Yang's passionate supporters grew quickly, and part of this 'bots' narrative is due to cognitive dissonance. But the 'bot' narrative is also a tactic to discredit Yang and his supporters.

Bias against Asian men may play a role, but there is much more going on here. The leadership of the DNC do not like to see people like Yang gain too much momentum.

Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#179

Post by jshevek »

dfsegoat wrote: post #157

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.

Yes, this is a good and important point. There are many people who declare NPC a vile, dehumanizing term...who hypocritically call everyone who disagrees with them a bot.

Re: The Yang Gang and Its Bots

#180

Post by dragonwriter »

ilaksh wrote: post #175
dragonwriter wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most recent poll has Yang at 8% nationally, beating Bloomberg, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar. Paying attention to individual polls produces more noise than useful information; you get more value (though less cherry-picking opportunities) from a poll aggregator like 538s. But if you want to play that game, the most recent national primary poll I can find that includes Yang has him at 3%, the best recent polling was at 5%…

Bloomberg has spent $250 million and is still trailing Yang in the latest Emerson Poll. Which you would have found if you were looking for it.

> Bloomberg has spent $250 million and is still trailing Yang in the latest Emerson Poll.

Bloomberg is also at over 3x Yang's support in the Ipsos poll that covers the same time as that Emerson poll, and ahead of Yang by a similar amount in most othere recent polls that are within a couple days of that Emerson poll.

Now, it could be that the Emerson poll is showing a real phenomenon that appeared suddenly and that Ipsos missed, but its vastly more likely that its just a statistical outlier blip.

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