Good review of the downside of the internet - it magnifies the impact of propaganda and drowns out reasoned debate to the level of the sheep in Animal Farm, and has reduced confidence in the electoral system to the point of destroying democratic consent.
We are in the age of post truth politics and it bodes ill for all of us.
Nonsense. The title "Russian Hacking of US election" should tell you all you need to know about the propagandist nature of the this article hiding behind a bit of nice respectable liberal hand-wringing.
The problem for the liberal establishment is that they are losing control of the cultural narrative and they don't like it. Consequently, the propagandist lengths they are now prepared to go to are both laughable and sinister in equal measure.
Our polity is not falling apart because of social media. It is falling apart because our political institutions' answer to the four horsemen of peak oil, climate change, ecological degradation and massive global human population overshoot, is to engage in endless military adventures in the oil rich parts of the world, reignite a cold war between East and West, and perpetrate the biggest transfer of wealth from poor to rich in human history. On top of that, the biggest users of the Internet in terms of the spreading of misinformation and plain old fashioned bread and circuses is that very establishment via their various media outlets. However, they are struggling to control the on-line narrative perhaps more than any other. And so now we have growing murmurs about how the Internet is "out of control" and so must be "controlled". to "protect" us.
We all know (in my case first hand) that Western nations hack into each other's national systems , even when they are nominal allies. I see no reason at all to assume that Russia does not do the same, as well as China, and any other nation that have the technology. I do not know if this particular accusation of Russian hacking is true, and it is peripheral to the message that no system is safe , and we are so overwhelmed by propaganda , that many , maybe most people simply chose to believe which candidate presses their personal buttons, and makes no attempt to even make basic checks against other sources of information.
To some extent many people always voted to their personal prejudices, that is the nature of democracy. What is different now is the level and sophistication of personal profiling that well funded candidates can and do employ using the internet and social media as a means of control.
Good review of the downside of the internet - it magnifies the impact of propaganda and drowns out reasoned debate to the level of the sheep in Animal Farm, and has reduced confidence in the electoral system to the point of destroying democratic consent.
We are in the age of post truth politics and it bodes ill for all of us.
Nonsense. The title "Russian Hacking of US election" should tell you all you need to know about the propagandist nature of the this article hiding behind a bit of nice respectable liberal hand-wringing.
The problem for the liberal establishment is that they are losing control of the cultural narrative and they don't like it. Consequently, the propagandist lengths they are now prepared to go to are both laughable and sinister in equal measure.
Our polity is not falling apart because of social media. It is falling apart because our political institutions' answer to the four horsemen of peak oil, climate change, ecological degradation and massive global human population overshoot, is to engage in endless military adventures in the oil rich parts of the world, reignite a cold war between East and West, and perpetrate the biggest transfer of wealth from poor to rich in human history. On top of that, the biggest users of the Internet in terms of the spreading of misinformation and plain old fashioned bread and circuses is that very establishment via their various media outlets. However, they are struggling to control the on-line narrative perhaps more than any other. And so now we have growing murmurs about how the Internet is "out of control" and so must be "controlled". to "protect" us.
Yeah.....right
PS_RalphW's view is more plausible. Claiming an article is propagandist by citing the headline is naive. Many headlines have a propaganda style yet the article is far more reasoned. It's what journalists do to get people to read articles. "Freddie Star ate my hamster" not true in fact.
To become an extremist, hang around with people you agree with. Cass Sunstein
What are you talking about Woodburner. I read the article. Cite some actual facts from that article that demonstrates the Russians are "hacking" the US election.
woodburner wrote:Just what I said then, the headlines have little to do with the article content.
There's no nned to worry though, it's all under control.
There's plenty of propagandist polemic in the article posing as "facts". That is the problem. Or, don't you consider lies posing as facts in the mainstream media to be anything particularly worthy of concern?
This article link to another article claiming to prove that certain hacking activities, the implication being they are part of a Russian attempt to influence the American election. The article in question is:
But, the Washington Post's claim is based on the activities of a private security firm called "CrowdStrike"
However, Crowdstrike have been openly mocked by a DNC hacker who has made claim to the hacking incident and has produced other documents to back up his claim
The point being, that entire Guardian article is built on the third hand non-falsifiable account of a private security firm employed by the Yanks. Everything else the Guardian then attempts build by way of argument and "analysis" is as solid as that third hand account.
Which, is to say, it is bullshit. But then, the Guardian has form on this kind of thing.
I have just provided an explanation of how the central "fact" on which that whole article is based is anything but an established fact, and your response is, as ever, pathetic Mr Hemming.
At a forum hosted by NBC on 7 September, Trump suggested oil seizure would have been a way to pay for the Iraq war, saying: “We go in, we spend $3tn, we lose thousands and thousands of lives, and then … what happens is we get nothing. You know, it used to be to the victor belong the spoils.”
Like many establishment politicians in the west he hasn't understood they shouldn't have been there in the first place.
To become an extremist, hang around with people you agree with. Cass Sunstein
"They are trying to hurt innocent people, but they also want to inspire fear in all of us, and disrupt the way we live to undermine our values," [...] "We all have a role to play as citizens in making sure that we don't succumb to that fear. And there is no better example of that than the people of...*
*Insert oppressed/invaded country here.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
It has become an accepted reality of this presidential campaign that Trump spins a near-endless series of falsehoods. For months, the media has struggled with this unprecedented situation—a candidate who, unlike other politicians who stretch the truth, simply creates his own reality. Trumps regularly peddles “facts” that aren’t true, describes events that never happened or denies engaging in actions that everyone saw him do. He utters his falsehoods so fast that before reporters have the chance to correct one, he has tossed out five or six more.
This time, it is different. Trump can’t skip past his perfidy here. There are two records—one, a previously undisclosed deposition of the Republican nominee testifying under oath, and the second a transcript/video of a Republican presidential debate. In them, Trump tells contradictory versions of the same story with the clashing accounts tailored to provide what he wanted people to believe when he was speaking.
Yet this truth mangler might be the next US president, if the electorate want an inveterate liar because they believe the bits they want to hear, lies or not.
To become an extremist, hang around with people you agree with. Cass Sunstein
