chenGOD

An interesting article on David Icke, who is definitely a precursor to this whole shit: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27b/132.html

lol k chengo approves.

reddit is a festering shithole, but it's been all worth it:

chengo approves.

That just means you're not doing it right. Also, your avatar is fabulous.

Sure, lay it one me, but don't take hours from your life please.

Has this conversation amounted to hours of our lives? Fuck, we're deep in the matrix now. Dude, breathe, and just put me on ignore or something.

These are not narratives - they are fact. Easy to look up the contract with the Canadian political party, his book is out there, and it's relatively easy to look up his past. It's also easy to see that he hasn't faced any jail time or financial penalty, so I'm not sure what the "tremendous cost" has been to him besides getting his facebook account closed down...which is probably a plus?

They actually named their convention "For God and Country Patriot Double Down". That's fucking amazing. I wonder if KFC is sponsoring.

LOL it's either a small operation or a potent new power that effected change on an industrial scale. Choose and stand by your point. Wylie is an opportunist. His history is sketch as fuck, and he's simply in it for the dollar/fame.

He started his own company (which couldn't deliver on his promises - he tried a pilot project for a Candian political party and did not receive the actual contract), and is pushing a book. Sure sounds like a tremendous cost. Did he face any jail time or financial penalty for illegally using the Facebook data?

Does that sound you're describing a small operation? You talk about the impact this messaging has - I'm trying to tell you, fix the underlying economic issues,improve access to quality education, and people will be much less likely to buy in to the scare-mongering and fake news. It's easy to be scared of something that's different when your economic world has crumbled around you. This shows that while Republicans distrust their main mews sources to a larger extent than Democrats, the majority still have some trust in their main news source. Also those who are older (more economically secure) and better educated (college degree) exhibit more trust in their main news sources: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/07/01/republicans-less-likely-to-trust-their-main-news-source-if-they-see-it-as-mainstream-democrats-more-likely/

No no, he's a digital civil rights activist.... https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/ron-watkins-qanon-digital-rosa-parks-1247187/ It's funny, I have a friend in japan who was describing an anti-vax party where both long-haired hippies (the vaccine is like, totally not natural man) and right-wing nationalists (this is a global conspiracy for global government) were hanging out being, you know, unvaxxed. Seems like that desire to rebel against perceived injustices is broad indeed.

So he got more votes in 2020, when they weren't using the services of CA and SCL, than in 2016? Yeah, Wylie is out there trying to sell his book. Anyways, I'll leave you alone now.

Very daoist ?

Which I’m saying the research generally shows that these modern manipulation dynamics are not as important as they have been made out to be. I’d be way more concerned if trump had won by a landslide, but he lost the popular vote (by quite a lot iirc). Which is why fixing the underlying economic conditions is much more important. Dems showing that they are actually fixing things will have a bigger impact on the electorate, along with sustained get out the vote efforts. Now, I’m not saying that disinformation or propaganda isn’t a problem, because obviously it is. But I do not believe that this particular issue around CA is anything more than a distraction. I guess luckily for you, my opinion means less than yours in the US, since I don’t live there. QAnon seems much more like a cult these days. Another grift around trump. I don’t inherently trust Wylie. He claimed to have worked in the office of the leader of the official opposition (here in Canada) when he was a teen, he likely was an intern there for a couple of months. He has also claimed that the fashion industry was a huge tool in getting trump elected and is fascinated by spy agencies and power. To me it just seems like he read the Blue Ant trilogy by William Gibson and tried to put that to life (probably a glib take), but something makes me think Wylie is also a grifter. This is a much better example of how information was used to harm American democracy: https://archive.md/tnXu4

This is wrong: aleksandr kogan created the system. https://theconversation.com/amp/how-cambridge-analyticas-facebook-targeting-model-really-worked-according-to-the-person-who-built-it-94078 and here is how the system “worked”: https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2018/3/23/17151916/facebook-cambridge-analytica-trump-diagram Saying that this issue of CA and psychographic warfare is not the issue is not whataboutism. The research shows that results of this program were questionable. And even the creator of the program (Kogan) doubts the effectiveness. This is different from the CA issue, and we don’t disagree that there is an information situation. You’d do more to fix that by trying to ban disinformation sites like the ones that got pumped out of places like Macedonia. Finally, You don’t have to worry about nuclear war for two reasons: 1) it is highly unlikely that it will ever happen; and 2) there is literally nothing you can do to effect change on that issue (I am assuming you don’t have access to the nuclear launch codes, nor do you provide strategic military advice to Biden…).

Yes I have read both of those and yes we’re off topic, and yes it’s simplistic but I don’t think a Daoist would conduct social engineering either. It’s more about adapting yourself (or your policies, in the case of statecraft) to the frantic actions of those around you, to achieve your goals. It’s also a classic strategy in Chinese military tactics. my understanding is that Dao literally translated does mean “the way” but in the context of the title can include “follow the way”.

Sun Tzu is of course, most famous for writing about warfare, but his work(if it was just one person) certainly reached into politics, which would have been necessary in that time. He would have certainly advocated for using duplicity in cultivating loyalty. With respect to passivism in Daoism, it literally measn to follow the path, so a political leader would not be shaping narrative. What does wu wei mean to you? It certainly doesn't mean doing nothing, but it is definitely not actively shaping the course of the narrative.

No I mean Sun Tzu. One of the tenets of his philosophy was that a ruler must cultivate a loyal following. Lao Tzu would be the opposite with the passivity of Daoism.

Seems like we're differing in our definition. I'm talking about creating actual disinformation, while the analyst from CA talks about how they would link facebook profiles to blog sites or "news" sites that created the disinfo. I suppose I would say that CA would be a spreader, rather than a creator. And I just wanted to say that for the record, it sure sounds like you were making that claim. And that's why I posted those articles (which describe CA's methodologies in some detail) that disputed the actual results. Also, I think it would be wildly difficult to measure the results of the work that CA claimed they could do. I also stand by my claim that focusing on this issue avoids the real issue of conomic inequality. If progressives want to start pushing the overton window back left, that's where they need to focus. Democrats need to get out en masse and vote in the upcoming midterms, especially in the swing states. It would be wild if everyone who had to took a sick day to go and vote (I mean it should be a national holiday, but hey, one step at a time). Way before then. Think more like Confucius and Sun Tzu (who may or may not have existed, but the lessons remain relevant). Leaders need to cultivate the loyalty of their subjects and demonstrate they have the Mandate of Heaven.

CA had a remarkably good marketing campaign. what they are alleged to have done is quite different from seeding social media with disinformation and propaganda. This is not in dispute. Manufacturing Consent remains as relevant as ever. CA did not engage in “engineered narrative seeding” (just say propaganda) though.

I think you're wildly overstating the "power" that cambridge analytica had. https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/20/17138854/cambridge-analytica-facebook-data-trump-campaign-psychographic-microtargeting https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/cambridge-analytica-and-the-perils-of-psychographics And i think this article makes a very good point, which is that the potential harms from CA and the big hack do take away from the real issue, which is economic inequality and lack of opportunity. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-technology-breakingviews-idINKCN1UE1NL This is a very good point, and it (media literacy) should be taught in conjunction with more critical thinking classes.

All fair points and totally understandable. The books were re-read often when I was young, the movies, I watch maybe once a year. I hadn't read the books, got into the series when they were showing season 5, and was pleasantly surprised. Peter Dinklage is also excellent, most of the other actors grow into the roles. The first 5 seasons are really quite good. 6 is still pretty good, seasons 7 and 8 should have never been filmed. I'm not outraged like some fans who are wayyyy too invested in a piece of pop culture, but still, they are just not up to the standards set in the first 6 seasons. Anyhow - not required watching, but good enough if you have time to spare. All IMO obviously. SF and the comic books (now that CGI is at a level to make the effects seem natural) definitely translate better, especially I think hard SF, as there are usually clear definitions. Definitely give the Expanse a shot, it's very good. I thought they were going to bite off more than they could chew with the plot, but it hasn't jumped any sharks yet. I loved that book (and the whole Clavell series, Tai Pan is probably my favourite) when I was younger, and then I was stupid and went and did Asian Studies in university. It's still a good read, but really hard to get some of the Orientalism and some of the inaccuracies out of the way when reading. I hope the remake is better than the original mini-series, which could never have done justice to the book.