[HN Gopher] Pentagon opens sweeping review of clandestine psycho...
___________________________________________________________________
Pentagon opens sweeping review of clandestine psychological
operations
Author : haasted
Score : 177 points
Date : 2022-09-19 13:08 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| neilv wrote:
| When I was a kid in the 1980s, we heard about Soviet government
| propaganda to its citizens, including via Pravda. We were also
| taught how great the US is, by contrast, that it doesn't do those
| things.
|
| Later, I thought I'd learned (maybe misheard?) that US could
| engage in propaganda or psyops, but that there were strict rules
| not to do it against US citizens.
|
| That seems like good guidance, and I'd welcome an honest review
| that checks whether we're living up to standards that have been
| an inspiring part of our national character in the past, and
| leads to any corrective action.
|
| Maybe US collective leadership realizes a way here that we can
| build upon our ancestors' great ideals, and follow through
| further, not drop the ball.
| nimbius wrote:
| propaganda can seem innocent enough at first, but its most
| insidious trait is that it eventually poisons and undermines
| even the most essential functions of your government not only
| during a crisis but through even its most mundane operational
| capabilities. institutions once intended to act and think
| critically and challenge orthodoxy in the service of
| advancement of the nation now become an artifice for furthering
| a dead ideology or deleterious policy. Whatever good you
| thought US propaganda could do to bolster things like
| patriotism or civic duty, it does exponentially more damage by
| crippling the basic ability to challenge paradigms or
| uncomfortable situations and decisions that if avoided may very
| well plunge your state into ruin.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| One of my history teachers in high school had a large stack
| of 'Soviet Life' magazines that he said we could read if we
| wanted whenever we were done with our work but he warned they
| were propaganda. I was surprised by what I read because I was
| expecting it to be stories about the evils of capitalism and
| the mighty strength of communism but instead it was mostly
| 'slice of life' stories about average people in the various
| Soviet republics. Took me a while to figure out that was the
| propaganda. Part of that was due to my preconceived notions
| of what propaganda would look like because I had been primed
| by popular media in the US to expect it to be "you capitalist
| pigs" rants instead of one that pushed the narrative that the
| Soviets were peacefully trying to go about their lives
| without bothering anyone. I often wonder if that's why our
| teach made them available to us so we'd figure that out on
| our own.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| I remember those. RT US was largely coverage of domestic
| policy/events and very little about Russia. You could watch
| the same topic coverage from the BBC, CBC, DW, Al Jazeera
| English or even Democracy Now and not see much, if any,
| difference.
|
| But of course everyone who had never actually watched an
| episode would screech propaganda while embracing other
| state-funded channels. The Beeb saying "America border
| policy bad" is ok, but Russia... totally different.
| zoomablemind wrote:
| Indeed. Propaganda, just as disinformation, in the long run
| results in mistrust and cynicism. I guess, this may hamper
| critical thinking and eventually can polarize the society by
| overweighting the groups on the extremes of the spectrum and
| padding the middle with the cynics.
| angrycontrarian wrote:
| > Propaganda, just as disinformation, in the long run
| results in mistrust and cynicism.
|
| The notion that facts which are unapproved by the
| government are disinformation, _is_ the propaganda.
| unity1001 wrote:
| > Later, I thought I'd learned (maybe misheard?) that US could
| engage in propaganda or psyops, but that there were strict
| rules not to do it against US citizens.
|
| That law was repealed in 2010. Since then its all out
| propaganda.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > That law was repealed in 2010. Since then its all out
| propaganda.
|
| Cite? I'm aware there was some kind of awkward law that meant
| to block domestic access to VOA-type stuff (IIRC, because it
| was feared the VOA or State Department was infiltrated by
| Communists or something like that) that got repealed, but
| that's a far cry from "since then its all out propaganda."
|
| I mean, I don't think I've even seen a single VOA article in
| our local newspaper.
| black6 wrote:
| The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 opened the door
| for materials produced by the US Department of State and
| the Broadcast Board of Governors to be spread within the
| borders of the US.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 opened the
| door for materials produced by the US Department of State
| and the Broadcast Board of Governors to be spread within
| the borders of the US.
|
| What's been the actual effect of that? It's been 10
| years, and I can't recall seeing a VOA story reposted in
| a local outlet or radio stations switching to a VOA-based
| format.
| ImHereToVote wrote:
| "What's been the actual effect of that?"
|
| What is the mainstream medias opinion on Julian Assange?
| unity1001 wrote:
| Isn't the mainstream media selling that very
| propaganda...
| walterbell wrote:
| _> What 's been the actual effect of that?_
|
| One example mentioned in the article and visualized on TV
| shows--teams of software-assisted humans each acting
| under multiple online personas, e.g. on social media or
| discussion forums. The more problematic elements often
| intersect with private contractors and commercial
| activity, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29838001
| somenameforme wrote:
| It's rather more broad. The text from the bill itself,
| "The Secretary and the Broadcasting Board of Governors
| are authorized to use funds appropriated or otherwise
| made available for public diplomacy information programs
| to provide for the preparation, dissemination, and use of
| information intended for foreign audiences abroad about
| the United States, its people, and its policies, through
| press, publications, radio, motion pictures, the
| Internet, and other information media, including social
| media, and through information centers, instructors, and
| other direct or indirect means of communication."
|
| I don't understand the implications of that, because I
| don't know the details of the law beforehand. But
| something that's clear is that it opens the door to some
| very nasty stuff - especially if there is no obligation
| for source/identity disclosure.
| IncandescentGas wrote:
| Not that that law mattered before it was repealed. Here's a
| nytimes articles from 2005.
|
| > To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second
| segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government
| produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by
| the State Department. The "reporter" covering airport safety
| was actually a public relations professional working under a
| false name for the Transportation Security Administration.
|
| > This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that
| a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration
| policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from
| the government.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/under-bush-a-
| new...
| pessimizer wrote:
| It's bizarre that Armstrong Williams was the only person to
| pay a price for a massive government manipulation program,
| but it's typical. Judith Miller got to take responsibility
| for the entire Iraq war.
| takoid wrote:
| Additional context: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arch
| ive/2013/07/america...
| behaveEc0n00 wrote:
| They privatized it by passing technical propaganda research to
| universities who modeled it into behavioral economics,
| marketing, advertising.
|
| Social media is built with such research in mind.
|
| Society will never stop trying to wrap a big fuzzy one size
| fits all blanket around everyone's thoughts. We intentionally
| manipulate biology that religion stumbled upon.
|
| A philosophy of "oh well there is this separation of powers
| written down on paper" does not stop graft, nepotism. Tribalism
| is innate to human biology; words on paper don't just shut our
| bodies innate traits off. Thinking a law prevents intentional
| propagandizing is quaint and naive. They just call the same
| behavior and motivated "behavioral economics" and viola; it may
| have all the mechanics of propaganda, but trust us, it's not
| propaganda.
| [deleted]
| itronitron wrote:
| As long as the DOD employs military recruiters they are
| engaging in psychological operations.
| Lutger wrote:
| I don't really understand why not doing it to US citizens makes
| it ok. I can imagine one would find it permissible to use such
| techniques against your enemies, but this is very clearly also
| about your allies.
|
| To the US, American lives are all that really matter? I mean,
| there's also the policy that torture is ok but not against
| Americans and not on US territory, hence the secret CIA torture
| spaces during the Gulf War and guantonomo bay (simplifying a
| bit here). Isn't that obviously wrong?
|
| How can one maintain that their country is the greatest with
| such dubious ethics? I mean specifically using the argument
| 'doing objectionable things only to non US citizens' as part of
| the case for America's greatness seems...odd at best. I feel
| like I'm missing something here. A cultural gap maybe. Or is
| American superiority deemed so self evident that it legitimates
| itself in a circular justification?
|
| I don't want to sound combative, though I probably do, but
| really I want to understand how this works for Americans.
| Implicated wrote:
| We (Americans) don't all feel this way. Personally, I feel
| the same way you do when I read things like this. I'm puzzled
| how it's ok for anyone that wasn't assigned an American
| citizenship in the birth lottery.
| neilv wrote:
| I think different Americans have different awareness and
| thinking about those questions.
|
| I'd started to address that in my message, then awkwardly
| edited it out (see last sentence) before posting.
|
| It's easy to persuade that we should be honorable towards
| ourselves.
|
| Outside of ourselves are much more complicated and
| contentious geopolitical questions, I don't know the answers,
| and I thought negative reactions to raising that would defeat
| the smaller point.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| > How can one maintain that their country is the greatest
| with such dubious ethics?
|
| Compared to who?
|
| > I mean specifically using the argument 'doing objectionable
| things only to non US citizens' as part of the case for
| America's greatness seems...odd at best.
|
| That is a rule of law (for their citizens) better than much
| of the world.
| flerchin wrote:
| As a democracy we don't want our institutions to be shaping
| the opinions which are used to elect them. Shaping the
| opinions of foreigners has no such compunction.
| CSMastermind wrote:
| > I don't really understand why not doing it to US citizens
| makes it ok. I can imagine one would find it permissible to
| use such techniques against your enemies, but this is very
| clearly also about your allies.
|
| Because of conflict of interest.
|
| When you're persuading people outside of the US of something
| you're presumably doing it in (at least nominally) the US'
| best interest because as a citizen of the US your personal
| interests are also aligned with those of the nation (at least
| at the scale these operations work at).
|
| Turned internally there's all sorts of messy conflicts like
| political parties using the tools to gain power, agencies
| using the tools to gain funding, etc.
| vmoore wrote:
| This is a bit too late. PSYOP campaigns have plagued Twitter &
| Facebook from the beginning. Twitter cracked down multiple times
| on fake accounts, but the operators change their modus operandi
| each time. It's basically whack-a-mole against the troll farm
| operators. Requiring phone numbers might slow them down, but then
| they just acquire a bunch of SIMs and continue registering. The
| only way to stop this is verifying people's passports and their
| account has to be held in their legal name. Just like a bank. It
| might be over the top, but it's the only way to drastically
| reduce the amount of propaganda, spam, astroturfing, disinfo, and
| artificially inflated metrics of Twitter & Facebook.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Part of the problem is that Twitter and Facebook deliberately
| traded away effective moderation in the pursuit of scale. They
| are not just bad at moderation, they explicitly oppose it.
|
| Remember how Twitter gave Trump exemption from their own rules
| from 2017 thru 2021? They called it the World Leaders Policy,
| as in, "these world leaders provide so much value to our
| platform that we are going to give them a pass on our rules in
| the name of free speech". If I remember correctly, this even
| extended to DMCA 512 takedowns, which is an absolutely stupid
| level of risk to take on to protect a handful of users.
|
| The Mudge disclosure also revealed that several Twitter admins
| - as in, people with control over all the servers and databases
| - are actually foreign agents of India or China's current
| governments. This is absolutely ludicrous levels of risk to
| take on for any company, but social media is so addicted to
| scale that this was deemed acceptable.
|
| So even if Twitter were to enforce identity verification on
| everyone, they would still let the trolls through. Because the
| whole org is compromised and their incentives are to compromise
| themselves at every step.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > This is absolutely ludicrous levels of risk to take on
|
| You have it all wrong. Pissing off world leaders is taking on
| serious level of risk.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Isn't all lobbying and advertising psy-ops?
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| One of the major qualities of psyops is to not have those lines
| of control be known. Gaslighting is not lobbying.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| That brings to mind Instagram influencers, many who do not
| explicitly call out they are being paid to influence by
| certain organizations (in the fashion or luxury market area).
|
| This also brings to mind the movies like 'the avengers' which
| gets lots of military support to drive recruiting.
| ouid wrote:
| >"There are some who think we shouldn't do anything clandestine
| in that space. Ceding an entire domain to an adversary would be
| unwise. But we need stronger policy guardrails."
|
| I don't think this point is entirely without merit. We shouldn't
| opt to lose this battle on ideological grounds. Blaming the US
| govt for conducting psyops is somewhat analogous to blaming
| Robert Oppenheimer for the strong nuclear force, with the caveat
| that the laws of physics in this situation are somewhat actively
| controlled by the companies that host these "social media
| platforms".
| hunglee2 wrote:
| Effective propaganda is one of the US's strongest competitive
| advantages - extensive and well funded national security
| apparatus, think tanks with global reach, compliant media
| publishers with global reach and big tech platforms used
| throughout the world, which can amplify and dampen messages,
| based on whether they suit US foreign policy objectives. We
| should celebrate this full spectrum narrative control, not
| 'investigate' it.
| banannaise wrote:
| The tools of warfare and colonialism become the tools of
| suppressing one's own people. Foucault's boomerang.
|
| "These tools are good for us when we use them against our
| enemies" breaks down very fast when your apparatus starts to
| find "enemies" within its borders, a line we crossed a very
| long time ago.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| yes, I think actually it is other way round - one must first
| suppress your own population (via propaganda, ideally), so
| that they can be recruited to suppress the other.
| Eumenes wrote:
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Found the defense contractor/federal employee
|
| You seem new here, but what you wrote is pure noise and
| violates the site guidelines.
| Eumenes wrote:
| Meh, defending the use of propaganda by a nation state
| seems antithetical to the culture of "hackers" ... but
| agreed, I'll be more thoughtful moving forward.
| michael1999 wrote:
| Because US psy-ops against the domestic populate are illegal!
| And anyone who says you can draw a bright line between domestic
| and foreign social media activity is a crook.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| It's been legal for a decade
| michael1999 wrote:
| Ugh - really? What was the change? I found this, but it
| looks like a crack, but not a repeal -
| https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-
| propaganda-...
| michael1999 wrote:
| There's a long way between allowing VoA onto domestic
| cable and allowing spooks to sock-puppet in domestic
| politics.
| maybelsyrup wrote:
| Legality never stopped them anyway.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| >Effective propaganda is one of the US's strongest competitive
| advantages - extensive and well funded national security
| apparatus, think tanks with global reach, compliant media
| publishers with global reach and big tech platforms used
| throughout the world, which can amplify and dampen messages,
| based on whether they suit US foreign policy objectives. We
| should celebrate this full spectrum narrative control, not
| 'investigate' it.
|
| Government propaganda is anathema to a free and democratic
| society. Our government is purportedly granted its authority by
| the consent of the masses. Having this consent influenced (or
| completely manufactured by government propaganda) nullifies the
| whole idea of democracy. The absurd contention that propaganda
| being spread by US military and government operatives on
| Facebook and social media is only targeted at (much less only
| influences) "foreigners" is patently absurd. Millions of
| Americans (myself included) vehemently oppose our currently
| stated "US foreign policy objectives" devised by the CIA, the
| Pentagon and the various government-funded "think tanks" that
| set policy and direct these propaganda efforts. "Full spectrum
| narrative control" has been the wet dream of every dictator,
| king and authoritarian government since the dawn of time, and
| it should be something that every thoughtful, decent person
| recognizes as toxic and incompatible with a free and open
| society.
| realce wrote:
| Your conception of Public Relations and mass manipulation is
| shallow: investigating these programs is part and parcel of the
| overall psychological manipulation program the US employs. Part
| of our marketing includes this whole "integrity" aspect that's
| supposed to give us "moral authority" over other nations.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| 4D chess. I am naive!
| pessimizer wrote:
| No, just 2D chess. Humor the possibility that spies might
| have some degree of guile.
| Ligma123 wrote:
| Very cool, Mr CIA operative.
| [deleted]
| nyokodo wrote:
| > We should celebrate this full spectrum narrative control, not
| 'investigate' it.
|
| Ignoring any moral qualms or suspicions, any powerful weapon
| that isn't actively overseen will inevitably be abused.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| who watchers the watchers though, this is infinitive regress.
| Besides, who or what is being abused, and what qualifies as
| such, as also part of the program
| nyokodo wrote:
| > who watchers the watchers though, this is infinitive
| regress.
|
| Infinite regress is only contemplated when you aim for
| perfect oversight which is impossible. The best we can hope
| for is 'as good as possible'. We the People, as well as
| possible, oversee that the appropriate authorities are,
| independently as possible, overseeing the use of weapons
| and interventions. It's obviously imperfect just like any
| other human endeavor but that's why we as citizens should
| fight for strong whistleblower protections, regular
| investigations/audits and reasonable timeframes for
| declassification etc so that we can do our job.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| >who watchers the watchers though
|
| We all should - one of many arguments for complete
| transparency. Democracy dies behind closed doors. All the
| claims about the need for government secrecy, "national
| security", protecting "methods and sources" are trash when
| compared against the importance of transparency in a
| society purportedly governed by elected representatives of
| the people. The so-called "risks" posed by radical and
| complete government transparency are far less than the
| actual and tangible harms caused by the ever-growing
| secrecy afforded and demanded by those holding the levers
| of power.
| paganel wrote:
| Not sure why you're being down-voted, because once you see it
| is very, very hard to un-see it. For example in my case one of
| the factors for making me "see it" was the fact that almost all
| of the anti-corruption campaigns from my EU-member country were
| connected to a US governmental agency one way or another, be it
| the State Department or some other entities that are most
| probably the front for something that Langley is doing.
|
| The US ambassador visiting our Justice Ministry [1] a few years
| ago when almost all of the middle-class electorate was out in
| the streets protesting against the Government's direct
| influence on some justice-related stuff was the cherry on cake.
| I didn't realise it back then, because I was busy protesting
| against my own government, but in retrospect I started
| wondering how come it's ok for a foreign entity to control the
| justice system from my (supposedly sovereign) country.
|
| [1] https://stirileprotv.ro/stiri/actualitate/ambasadorul-sua-
| ha...
| michael1999 wrote:
| Influence is not control. I have absolute confidence that
| Canada's elections are sound. But I have strong suspicions
| that the USA applies influence to our processes of developing
| candidates. So do Russia, China, and Europe. How could it be
| different?
| [deleted]
| the_jesus_villa wrote:
| googlryas wrote:
| So what's the deal here?
|
| Is there a corruption problem in Romania, and the US is
| trying to help overturn it?
|
| Is there no corruption problem in Romania, and the US is
| doing some power play to try to get the people in power out?
| tarakat wrote:
| There's a corruption problem, and the US will use it as an
| excuse to target politicians unfriendly to their interests,
| and divert scrutiny away from those that play ball with
| Washington.
| paganel wrote:
| Exactly this.
|
| Plus the few cases when US companies (or they local
| subsidiaries, more exactly) do get tangled up in a
| corruption thingie for one reason or another the
| companies themselves get out of it as nothing had
| happened.
|
| Here's an article about a former CEO of Oracle Romania
| [1] recognising that he took 500,000+ euros as bribes,
| but because he reached a deal with the prosecutors he
| received a suspended sentence (so no actual prison time).
|
| And, the most famous, the Microsoft scandal [2], which
| has its own dedicated wikipedia page, but where, again,
| the company itself got away without anyone working for
| them actually being prosecuted. I'll give it to the
| American authorities on this one, though, that scandal
| was most probably put into motion at the very beginning
| thanks to the work of the FBI [3] (so, obviously, as the
| result of domestic US investigations), the FBI which had
| also found irregularities with MS's work in China and
| Italy.
|
| [1] https://www.mediafax.ro/social/fostul-ceo-oracle-
| romania-aco...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_licensing_cor
| ruption...
|
| [3] https://fcpaprofessor.com/microsoft-business-in-
| romania-the-...
| [deleted]
| hunglee2 wrote:
| Upvote / downvote are almost always emotional on HN ;-)
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| The US has overall amazing projection generally, be it
| propaganda, military, culture, etc. I find it funny, looking
| back a couple years ago, that people were outright dismissing
| American hegemony but it looks alive and well today imo.
| concinds wrote:
| While the U.S.'s core strength has always been propaganda
| (they got Operation Paperclip Nazis to becom American
| patriots, got the USSR to abolish itself, and the young
| Russian Federation to destroy itself with its infamous "shock
| therapy"), China also has quite strong propaganda, especially
| in Africa. And in Europe, go back 30 years and people still
| saw Americans as liberators; now, Europeans see it as a
| corrupt third-world country where people can't afford
| healthcare.
|
| And while it's true that U.S. cultural "force projection"
| hasn't weakened; they are being _severely_ squeezed when it
| comes to trade dominance
| (https://merchantmachine.co.uk/china-vs-us/) and monetary
| dominance (see James Rickards' books).
|
| America still has its hegemony, but the notion that it's
| declining is very much mainstream in academia
| (https://www.routledge.com/Americas-Allies-and-the-Decline-
| of...). Worse, its national security institutions have lost
| credibility among a significant portion of its electorate
| (MAGA people), and its military hegemony is now opposed by
| both populist left (pacifists) and populist right (non-
| interventionists). They're being squeezed both abroad and at
| home.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| All empires eventually decline.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| The issue I have is things could be substantially worse than
| US hegemony - for example there could be a lot more
| wars/nuclear proliferation if the US failed.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| It's the worst hegemony...except for all of the others. It
| doesn't have to be perfect.
| FpUser wrote:
| Says the hegemon. The victims of which there are plenty
| might have something resembling "fuck you" instead.
| troops_h8r wrote:
| This is much easier to say if you're not living in any of
| its victim states, or under the boots of any of the vicious
| autocrats the US props up.
|
| Also, it's not like nuclear proliferation is solved. It's
| still breathing down our necks, we just don't talk about it
| anymore
| [deleted]
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Are you sure? Where do you think the current path of the US
| is taking its citizens and the rest of the world? Wars are
| awful and a nuclear war would especially be so, but taking
| the slow road to an authoritarian state controlled by
| unknown forces hidden from view has the potential to be
| much worse. Think of your ideological worldview, now think
| of those who are the opposite. What happens if that group
| ends up in control without you even noticing it happening
| until it becomes a capital offense to point it out?
| thfuran wrote:
| It can't possibly be the case that we're currently headed
| to a secret takeover by a cabal exactly ideologically
| opposed to every reader.
| feet wrote:
| It's a thought experiment to try and point out the
| negative aspects of the current situation that could
| resonate with any reader
| hackerlight wrote:
| Realism predicts more war in a multipolar world.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| War isn't the only evil in the world.
| spamizbad wrote:
| The US capitalized on the whole "US has declining global
| influence" meme* and used it to lay the groundwork for even
| more global influence. A real "Heads we win; tails you lose"
| sort of operation.
|
| *This is probably true in some areas but the opposite in
| others - our influence simply shifted.
| okdood64 wrote:
| Interesting, elaborate?
| pram wrote:
| Seems to me shifting the narrative to an emerging 'multi-
| polar' world from the 'uni-polar' US hegemony might
| solidify alliances more than they otherwise would have
| been. Kinda like during the cold war you were on one team
| or another, no trying to play multiple sides.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > Kinda like during the cold war you were on one team or
| another, no trying to play multiple sides.
|
| Tangential to your comment, but in fact there _was_
| another path, spearheaded by, among others, India. It 's
| where we get the term "third world", which became
| shorthand for "developing" because basically no developed
| countries joined this "third world" movement ("first
| world" being the so-called West, "second" being the
| Soviets).
| erikerikson wrote:
| Shifting to a multi-polar that in essence agrees to the
| best possible outcome, even as we explore it, seems
| perfectly within the interests of all. Such an alliance
| can be more stable and productive while guarding against
| misuse of the single point of control.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _a multi-polar that in essence agrees to the best
| possible outcome, even as we explore it, seems perfectly
| within the interests of all_
|
| Multi-polarity is generally code for regional hegemony.
| That's great if you're the regional hegemon. Not so much
| if you're the hegemon's neighbor.
|
| America is a maritime power. These (think: Carthage,
| Venice, Portugal, the Dutch and Britain; counterfactual:
| Japan) have historically relied on trade, and trading
| outposts, to project power. As such, they're a natural
| friend of small countries resisting regional hegemony.
| tdba wrote:
| So it's better to be dominated by an even bigger hegemon
| from further away?
|
| >natural friend of small countries resisting regional
| hegemony
|
| Consider Cuba or Venezuela and their relationship to the
| USA.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it 's better to be dominated by an even bigger hegemon
| from further away?_
|
| Objectively, yes. In no small part because maritime
| powers tend to knit together alliances, not annex and
| colonise the way land powers do.
|
| > _Consider Cuba or Venezuela and their relationship to
| the USA_
|
| In both these cases, we are the regional hegemon.
| spamizbad wrote:
| Not sure I agree with that in practice, but maybe my
| understanding of history is flawed.
|
| Was the humanity better off during the Bi-polar era of
| the Cold War, with continuously escalating nuclear
| threats and proxy wars vs 1991-2010? What about the
| multi-polar world of 1919-1938?
| hackerlight wrote:
| This is the exact opposite of the truth. Multi-polariry
| always leads to war because there's no hegemon with a
| monopoly on force. States are in anarchy, after all. In
| an anarchic situation in the presence of information
| asymmetries and opposing interests, you always get war.
| Aside from nukes, unipolarity is the only reason for the
| unprecedented levels of peace we've seen since 1990. This
| is realism 101.
| adampk wrote:
| Isn't China dictating Hollywood's scripts a challenge to this
| projection?
|
| Hollywood is the main exporter of American culture and values
| and that seems to have been compromised quite effectively in
| this last decade.
| steele wrote:
| Complain about this in Mandarin
| ben_w wrote:
| Me: "Complain about China dictating Hollywood's scripts,
| but write the answer in Mandarin Chinese"
|
| GPT-3:
|
| Wo Jue De Dian Ying Jiao Ben Bei Zhong Guo Ren Qian Zhi
| Liao
|
| (Transition according to Google: "I think the movie
| script is being held back by the Chinese")
| polytely wrote:
| from what I've read it's perfectly fine to complain about
| stuff on the Chinese net, you start getting in trouble
| once you attempt to mobilize people
| peteradio wrote:
| > main exporter of American culture
|
| "foot-in-the-door" American culture maybe. I'd say it's a
| different projection of our culture at home.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Hollywood spreads whatever culture they are being paid to
| spread. I think they are pretty indifferent to whether that
| is promoting violence, drugs, etc.
| adampk wrote:
| I can't tell if you are one of the Chinese agents that
| seem to be ever present on hackernews nowadays or you are
| somehow unaware of the very real self-censoring Hollywood
| does for China
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/09/how-
| holl...
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Well that is new... Been called a Russian bot before but
| never a Chinese agent. Anyhow... I'm not either as far as
| I'm aware.
|
| What I can say though is that money appears to be the
| primary driving factor here whether that is pushing an
| agenda or censoring ideas.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > We should celebrate this full spectrum narrative control, not
| 'investigate' it.
|
| You were doing well until this last sentence.
|
| No, propaganda and psychological manipulation is completely
| incompatible with a democratic society.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| democratic societies require ideological control. We are
| seeing today how unfettered communication is leading to
| polarisation and consequent 'crisis of democracy'. Good job
| we are reasserting control over information flows - banning
| Trump etc - in order to reduce confusion, improve
| indoctrination and promote stability.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I disagree strongly, but I believe this comment should be
| in full view so that people can appreciate it is not a rare
| sentiment. I have encountered it within my social circle
| quite often.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Those in favor of such a system for some reason are 100%
| convinced that it will be people like them who get to
| decide what's acceptable thought and what thoughts
| deserve punishment. The reality is much more likely that
| such a beast will take on a mind of its own and all of
| us, regardless of ideology, will end up suffering greatly
| under it.
| chasd00 wrote:
| > in order to reduce confusion, improve indoctrination and
| promote stability
|
| one social credit has been deposited in your account
| palmetieri2000 wrote:
| The low education of many Americans is the reason Trump
| was/is effective, not because he has a capacity to
| communicate...
| eastbound wrote:
| Is it? What leads you to believe that democracy is a stable
| state?
|
| My take: Democracy is not the natural state, therefore
| requires a lot of psyops to remain in place. It's not
| democratic, but well, can you speak up about it? No. Or if
| you can, will you? Probably not worth it. You're "happy
| enough".
|
| My converging evidence: France's 1789 democracy was set up by
| gillotining the very person who would have gotten all the
| majority votes (He was organizing a referendum and the
| parliament couldn't let this happen); The EU wasn't born as a
| democracy and we only ask people's opinions when it's
| trending up; etc. there are so many examples that actually-
| democratic systems are an unstable mess and superficially-
| democratic systems are the norm.
|
| The idea is that people believe they live in democracy, and
| psyops the only way to reach this state. True democracy might
| be a naive dream.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"True democracy might be a naive dream."
|
| If the democracy leads to a tyranny of a majority it does
| not deserve to be a dream either. To me what has the most
| value is the recognition and protection of the individual
| rights.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| While the subject is serious, I want to offer a quote
| from Pratchett:
|
| "Vimes had once discussed the Ephebian idea of
| 'democracy' with Carrot, and had been rather interested
| in the idea that everyone had a vote until he found out
| that while he, Vimes, would have a vote, there was no way
| in the rules that anyone could prevent Nobby Nobbs from
| having one as well. Vimes could see the flaw there
| straight away."
| goodpoint wrote:
| Is this 4chan now? Between this and the other 2 idiotic
| replies I can't tell the difference.
| jasfi wrote:
| The points for not playing dirty, and making that public, are
| worth it. Hopefully other countries take note.
| jasfi wrote:
| Disclaimer: I'm not an American.
| adampk wrote:
| Have our adversaries historically ever taken note and
| followed more "enlightened" behavior?
| weard_beard wrote:
| Let me ask you, if you heard that in the next town over
| they started a dog fighting ring would you start one in
| your town and take your own dog so that he might learn from
| such "enlightened" behavior?
|
| I sleep much better knowing my dog isn't taught such
| behavior is acceptable. I would hate for him to bite the
| hand that feeds him because he learned such, "enlightened"
| behavior is acceptable and condoned by his owner.
| adampk wrote:
| So you do not have an example of any of our adversaries
| changing their behavior because we are acting more
| "enlightened", but you want to do it anyway because you
| believe it is good
| Mezzie wrote:
| But they are less than the points for playing dirty and _not
| getting caught_ are. Then you reap both the rewards of the
| sketchy behavior _and_ the perception of moral behavior.
|
| So the logical thing to do is dump resources into keeping
| yourself from being caught.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > We should celebrate this full spectrum narrative control, not
| 'investigate' it.
|
| Corruption? Abuse of power?
| throwrqX wrote:
| I like the sarcasm but if you read the report that originally
| started this review (you can find it in the attached link)
| you'll find the propaganda in this specific case didn't seem
| particularly effective. Quoting:
|
| > It also reveals a somewhat damning tidbit when talking about
| the reach and impact of these campaigns; according to the
| report, "the vast majority of posts and tweets we reviewed
| received no more than a handful of likes or retweets, and only
| 19% of the covert assets we identified had more than 1,000
| followers." What's more, the two accounts with the most
| followers explicitly said they were tied to the US military.
| I'll try not to think about how much all this cost when I'm
| paying my taxes next year.
|
| Had US social media agencies been fully in bed with the feds
| such a report would have never been produced in the first
| place. Remember, conspiracists always talk about shadowy
| organizations or groups of people with near omnipotent power -
| an idea these agencies themselves would like perpetuated to
| make it seem resistance is futile.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/25/23322214/us-government-pr...
| the_jesus_villa wrote:
| >an idea these agencies themselves would like perpetuated to
| make it seem resistance is futile.
|
| Quite the opposite - the conspiratorial reaction is that
| these agencies _want_ to be mistaken for bumbling
| bureaucracies, so they let reports of small-level stuff get
| out. That way we underestimate the real degree of their
| control and believe that if they ever tried to manipulate us,
| they would get caught anyway, and besides, they 're just
| making unsuccessful tweets, right?
|
| Or even deeper, that these organizations are meant to
| distract us from much more powerful entities who they don't
| even realize they are controlled by.
|
| I don't believe any of this, but the conspiracy theorists
| deserve more credit for creativity that you are giving them!
| pessimizer wrote:
| That's because it's meant to disrupt conversations, not be
| liked. None of it is liked, you just have to wade through
| mountains of it to follow a conversation. The content is
| shitty US propaganda that maybe 5% of people agree with
| without reservations. None of those people are on the threads
| where they're asking a woman how much she likes Putin's dick.
|
| The most damaging thing that they do is inflate the like
| counts and apparent engagement of government thinktank
| employees and unaware nationalists drunk on the dopamine hits
| of botted upvotes. I'm absolutely certain that the removal of
| downvotes from social platforms in general was a long term
| government project.
|
| edit: does anyone believe that this behavior can't be easily
| detected algorithmically? I don't know about other platforms,
| but Twitter is obviously a government partner, not a victim.
| TheBlight wrote:
| The problem is when it's used on its own population.
| the_optimist wrote:
| It has been. Nakashima (author) is effectively a stenographer
| for the intelligence agencies. She does not have authority,
| she's merely a writer.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| https://archive.ph/qFnls
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| A sweeping review?!?! Americans have been targeted and impacted
| by government-funded propaganda. They have been caught up in the
| fake drama and emotionally manipulated in ways that may impact
| them for the rest of their lives. It is time that they do a truth
| and reconciliation and start talking about money available to
| victims.
| kornhole wrote:
| Why would we put much credibility into an organization
| investigating itself? This review is itself probably centralized
| narrative control. It goes something like this: Through social
| media monitoring, the Pentagon sees an uptick in people
| questioning the narrative and seeing the Pentagon behind pysops
| campaigns. So they commission a study and review that finds a
| couple supposedly rogue persons in their ranks which they
| scapegoat and nominally punish. The main apparatus is preserved
| in the shadows and more resilient after they have probed and
| fortified all its weaknesses.
| halJordan wrote:
| You can ask that question about any org. Ultimately people do
| lie, but the fact is that the world does these self-
| investigations all the time and the world hasnt stopped. The
| dod in particular has very strong boundaries and rules to
| follow, which people honest to God, believe in; as well as
| actually independent minders. So if you're fine with Twitter
| self-reporting bot numbers when it's obviously a conflict of
| interest to do so, you should be fine with the DoD
| investigating one of its combatant commands.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Why would we put much credibility into an organization
| investigating itself?
|
| That's kind of a bizarre question, and I think you're
| misunderstanding what this is. This sounds like it's a story on
| the organization's internally-focused management, not some kind
| of external accountability thing meant to convince you of
| anything.
| kornhole wrote:
| It is kind of hard to tell what the real goals are after
| reading different reports of the review. It does seem to be
| an internal only review and not something that will enlighten
| the public much. It shouldn't be any surprise that the
| Pentagon and its branches do what they do to push their
| narrative, but they screw up when they are too obvious. That
| seems to be what they are trying to address.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Here is a good quote from a State Dept. diplomat:
|
| >One diplomat put it this way: "Generally speaking, we shouldn't
| be employing the same kind of tactics that our adversaries are
| using because the bottom line is we have the moral high ground.
| We are a society that is built on a certain set of values. We
| promote those values around the world and when we use tactics
| like those, it just undermines our argument about who we are."
|
| This is my position as well. Going forward in a world where more
| and more of what we hear and even see can be fake, trust will
| become more important. Trust is hard to build and easy to break.
|
| I understand the need to reach out to hesitant populations, and
| the desire to advance our national interests through persuasion
| and propaganda. However, actual lying, fake accounts, and
| disinformation that is deployed in a blanket fashion will be a
| long-term detriment to our government's credibility.
|
| In shorter form: Bias and "targeted messaging" is one thing.
| Literally fake people and lies are another.
|
| We should act better than our adversaries, because we are better.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| US citizen here - I believe that "we" is not possible, due to
| structural associations, misaligned incentives and tension
| between social forces. "We" America is not one thing.. the
| dollar and the vote and Bill of Rights are unifying, but not
| completely. Meanwhile, there are intelligent actors in every
| language group, despite no-dollar, no-vote and no-Bill of
| Rights.
|
| A system of systems has to have flexibility to evolve; calling
| one team uniform as "better" is just more of the same
| stefantalpalaru wrote:
| [deleted]
| greenhearth wrote:
| The U.S. has been doing this with VOA for almost a century. This
| is basically the same tactics, but in a new information space.
| The main point is marketing and propagation of ideology to render
| it competitive. The vehicles and the methods are incidental, and
| depend on info consumption preferences, really.
| BrainVirus wrote:
| If you believe that Pentagon influence operations on social media
| are limited to creating fake accounts that spout propaganda and
| get deleted by social media on discovery, I have a bridge to sell
| you. Reminder: WaPo is owned by Bezos who makes billions on
| defense contracts.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| >Significantly, they found that the pretend personas -- employing
| tactics used by countries such as Russia and China -- did not
| gain much traction, and that overt accounts actually attracted
| more followers.
|
| Because America is fundamentally not peddling the same kind of
| narrative that Russia or China does.
|
| What America wants is freedom[0]. Russia is run by ethnofascists
| and China is run by near-textbook tankies. These ideologies are
| pariahs, and honest propaganda of this bent cannot survive
| contact with the background radiation of politics. In other
| words, when America is overt, people complain that we aren't
| living up to our own standards. When Russia or China is overt,
| people laugh at them and ignore them.
|
| So, instead, they have to co-opt other concerns and lie about
| what their ideological opponents are doing. Hence shit like "the
| CDC created COVID" or "NATO is creating supersoldiers in Ukranian
| labs[1]". The job is not to prove that China or Russia is right,
| but to distract from what they are doing. The more they can piss
| off Americans against their own government, the better.
|
| Americans do not need to do this, because... who is their target
| audience, here? Hardline Iranian theocrats or the Taliban aren't
| going to be distracted by covert propaganda. Neither will
| Russians who think Ukraine is run by the corpse of Adolf Hitler
| or Chinese who think America created COVID in a lab. People who
| _aren 't_ shitheaded will either respond well to American overt
| propaganda, or at least point out how America falls short of
| their own ideals. You don't need to lie to them.
|
| Since America's interests are not furthered by covert propaganda,
| we should abandon it, since the only interest such propaganda
| could serve would be fifth-columning the country.
|
| [0] As defined through a liberal lens; i.e. we accept and embrace
| private capital accumulation and business ownership. Other non-
| shitheaded definitions of freedom are free to reject this.
|
| [1] Which is literally just the premise of Captain America with
| extra steps. Every time someone claims this we should reply, "Is
| this the new MCU movie"?
| cpursley wrote:
| > Russia is run by ethnofascists
|
| Regarding the "ethno" part, do you see evidence of this? Russia
| is quite diverse in terms of ethnic/cultural groups. The
| richest woman there is ethnically Korean, for just one example.
| And other groups like Jewish, Armenian, Tartar, Chechen etc
| play important roles in government, biz and cultural life
| there.
|
| - https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/334417-how-many-ethnic-groups
|
| - https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Minority_cultures_of_Russia#:.
| ...
| jevgeni wrote:
| Russia is fascist by assimilation (in contrast to the Third
| Reich which was fascist by exclusion). As in, you either call
| yourself russian or get marginalized. It's so pervasive that
| people stopped noticing it. There are 200 ethnicities, yet
| all the federal websites are only in russian and maybe
| english.
|
| This is why Putin has this fetish for "Ukraine is not a
| country / we are the same people" narrative.
| spoiler wrote:
| Isn't Putin saying that parts of Ukraine which voted in a
| referendum that they'd like to join Russia should stop
| being bullied by Azov neo-nazies[1][2], and that's one of
| the reasons why this whole kerfuffle in Ukraine started
| (the other two being Ukraine's new interest in NATO, and
| claims of research US military facilities near the Ukraine-
| Russia border, or plans for one[2]).
|
| Also, if someone's genuinely interested in my "sources" I'm
| willing to put in the work and post them, but didn't want
| to waste time in case people can't be bothered to be
| critical and click the links, and I also don't have a horse
| in this race, but the whole "America best, everyone bad"
| mentality literally reeks of indoctrination and lack of
| critical thinking that indoctrination and gaslighting
| cause, and it's worrying that it's happening in America of
| all places (which I admired for human rights and freedom of
| expression and thought, at least until recently). For
| reference, some were older BBC and CNN articles, a few
| YouTube videos, and a Quora thread which duplicates some of
| these.
|
| [1]: Which the US military is supplying weapons to,
| apparently
|
| [2] Maybe I fell victim to not appropriately fact checking
| some propaganda though, but I'm also not sure how to fact
| check something like this, and... The truth of the matter
| is that the US has done much worse in the past.
|
| Aside: This whole "everything is a propaganda machine" is
| so frustrating, and I hate that there's literally nothing
| you can trust these days. I honestly can't even tell if I'm
| "paranoid" to think so. It just so very saddening, and
| despite some people's best efforts, it seems human nature
| is truly disappointing everywhere we turn.
| jevgeni wrote:
| You can fact check it by going to the website of the
| people you are calling neonazis (Azov) and find a neonazi
| agenda.
|
| It was never really about NATO [1] for the russians, but
| as Putin said in his initial speech at the beginning of
| the invasion to "find a final solution to the Ukrainian
| question).
|
| If you want to see the origin of russian ethno-fascism,
| try to find an early 2000s russian action film called
| "Brother 2" (Brat 2). It was immensely popular in russia
| at the time and is the most racist thing I've ever seen.
|
| 1 - https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/exclusive-
| war-beg...
| foverzar wrote:
| > You can fact check it by going to the website of the
| people you are calling neonazis (Azov) and find a neonazi
| agenda.
|
| Why would one be that willfully superficial to look only
| at a recently crafted public image, instead of... I
| dunno... The recent history of the organisation?
|
| At the very least being lazy as we are, we could just
| take a quick look at their recent logo from a few years
| ago, according to Wikipedia featuring "...a combination
| of a mirrored Wolfsangel and Black Sun, two symbols
| associated with the Wehrmacht and SS, over a small
| Tryzub".
|
| Somehow I doubt that this was all a total accident made
| up by evil Russians. I also remember internet openly
| talking about the rise of nazism in Ukraine before it
| became a taboo topic. And you could too, by simply
| telling your search engine to look for documents before
| 2022, when everyone went full post-truth.
|
| > russian ethno-fascism
|
| Ukrainians and Russians are mostly ethnically slavs, ugh.
|
| > If you want to see the origin of russian ethno-fascism,
| try to find an early 2000s russian action film called
| "Brother 2" (Brat 2)
|
| Oh please, it's like claiming that Duke Nukem is a
| represantative origin of women's rights in the US.
| jevgeni wrote:
| Since it's a political organization with stated political
| goals, it might make sense to look at those goals. Not to
| mention that even with those goals they didn't manage to
| break into parliament, i.e. reach 2% of the votes (if we
| are talking about "the rise of nazism in Ukraine", btw).
| Right now you're going "symbol scary!". By that logic
| German AfD, the French Front Nationale, or UKIP are
| totally above board in that respect...
|
| > Ukrainians and Russians are mostly ethnically slavs,
| ugh.
|
| Thanks for your racial theories...
|
| > Oh please, it's like claiming that Duke Nukem is a
| represantative origin of women's rights in the US.
|
| It was indicative of the culture though. This is why
| today you won't see a popular game with such rhetoric as
| Duke Nukem anymore. But Russians still don't realize Brat
| 2 is racist.
| spoiler wrote:
| I'm aware of their failed legitimate attempts to
| establish a presence in the government. I'm not trying to
| saying Ukraine is turning to nazism or fascism (I also
| don't know that much about their politics). But I imagine
| that 2% of military-minded, [semi-]trained and armed
| people is enough to wreck havoc on civilian regions.
| jevgeni wrote:
| Do you assume AfD electorate in Germany is also "military
| minded, semi-trained and armed"?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > you either call yourself russian or get marginalized.
| It's so pervasive that people stopped noticing it.
|
| There is massive racism in Russian society, the various
| awareness movements that happened in the West never
| happened in Russia. One could compare the way USA has
| treated native people, and many issues would be similar.
|
| Additionally, some of the ehnicities have beef with each-
| other that sometimes sparks into armed conflict.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Prigorodny_conflict
| gdy wrote:
| "you either call yourself russian or get marginalized"
|
| Marginalized for not calling themselves Russian?
| Marginalized how?
|
| "yet all the federal websites are only in russian and maybe
| english"
|
| That's true, but only 3% of Russian citizens are Tatar
| language speakers and there are even fewer speakers for
| other languages.
|
| Maybe you'll tell me where I can find Spanish version of
| the Congress website?
| jevgeni wrote:
| So at which percentage of the population should you start
| to respect the culture of minorities?
|
| I'll make it even easier. Go to any LOCAL government
| website in Russia where there is a concentration of these
| ethnic minorities and find me a version in their
| language.
|
| Good examples of treatment of minorities are Finland with
| their treatment of the Swedish minorities there.
| cpursley wrote:
| Yeah, sure:
|
| - Komi Republic (Komi - a Finnish/Uralic language):
| https://gov.rkomi.ru/kv/kontakty-pravitelstva-respubliki-
| kom...
|
| - Tartarstan (Tartar language): https://tatarstan.ru/tat/
|
| - Adygheya Republic (Adyghe aka West Circassian):
| http://www.adygheya.ru/ady/
|
| That's just a handful that I'm personally familiar with.
| It's easier to search in Cyrillic.
| jevgeni wrote:
| Cool! Let's validate. Let's find a useful content page in
| russian and see if it works say in Tartar.
|
| https://tatarstan.ru/documents.htm
|
| So, a guide through all the relevant administrative
| documents you might need. Let's click the "TAT" button to
| switch to the Tartar language... Oh wait, what's this? It
| doesn't exist? Imagine that. Another Potemkin website.
| The most ironic thing is that the "Report of the
| Tatarstan Foundation for Citizen's Right Protection"
| (PDF) is russian only.
|
| Regarding your pre-edit statement about seething in anti-
| russian hate: if russians don't like it, they can stop
| invading, stealing and killing. Maybe that'll help?
| cpursley wrote:
| So bigotry and hatred is okay against all Russians. Got
| it.
|
| Glad my country never invaded or killed anyone
| recently...
| jevgeni wrote:
| Any German person I spoke to has a deep feeling of
| responsibility for WW2. Even today, even younger
| generations. Believe it or not it makes the society
| stronger. Russia is far away from that.
|
| Being liked is a privilege you have to earn. Thinking you
| are owed nuanced, friendly treatment is a bit naive after
| what russia has done.
| marshray wrote:
| > only 3% of Russian citizens are Tatar language speakers
| and there are even fewer speakers for other languages
|
| Ever stopped to wonder why that might be the case?
| cpursley wrote:
| For similar reasons that people in the US no longer speak
| German, Dutch or various British Isle dialects (and the
| reason after a couple generations, Spanish speaking
| immigrants are more fluent in English than Spanish).
| mistrial9 wrote:
| the world is not that different in some ways than five
| hundred years ago.. there are literate people and
| illiterate people, on a large scale. The rise and fall of
| literate languages is not the same story as the number of
| people that speak a language, or what colors are on the
| local police car. It is not popular to speak of this in
| the USA since there is a "unifying myth" of equality.
| What the USA did do brilliantly is use markets and local
| jurisdictions to let warring people settle nearby each
| other, and thrive. Over time the old ways show up
| however. Evolution is not practiced uniformly.
| Skgqie1 wrote:
| America wants freedom for America above everything else. It's
| why they engage in subversive and potentially destabilising
| operations abroad (in order to "protect" their own freedom).
|
| Internally, the situation is not much different (at least from
| an outsiders perspective). The elite and wealthy effectively
| using their resources to further the gap between themselves and
| the lower rungs in the name of profit.
|
| Externally, the propaganda is aimed at distracting from how
| disruptive they are in other countries affairs (most notable in
| recent history being the Middle East). Internally, it seems
| like it's indoctrination into the belief of the inherent
| superiority of capitalism, and the construction of strawmen to
| distract from real issues.
| jevgeni wrote:
| What would be the alternative? Wanting freedom for everyone
| in the world at the cost of your own?
| spoiler wrote:
| Contrary to what you seem to believe, freedom doesn't have
| to be a zero sum game
| jevgeni wrote:
| So why claim that America wants freedom at the expense of
| everyone else?
| spoiler wrote:
| But hasn't the American government constantly meddled in
| other countries' affairs and justified it using
| freedom/democracy to its own people?
|
| I don't want to be insensitive, but the whole 9/11 thing
| is such hypocrisy. They call it a terrorist attack, but
| America has been and is the terrorists to a substantial
| portion of the world. Claiming otherwise is just ignorant
| jevgeni wrote:
| Russia has "filtration camps" right now. China commits
| genocide against the Uyghurs. I'd say _that's_ a baseline
| for calling someone a terrorist. USA is marginally
| better.
| UmbertoNoEco wrote:
| gdy wrote:
| Yeah, because the whole world wants to take away their
| freedom. That's the most ridiculous cliche of American
| internal propaganda.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > Since America's interests are not furthered by covert
| propaganda, we should abandon it, since the only interest such
| propaganda could serve would be fifth-columning the country
|
| This conclusion should be self-evident for any democratic
| society, so any reasonable value of free and democratic.
|
| I have various bones to pick with the rest of the post, chiefly
| viewing all of politics as being about abstract notion of
| freedom instead of realpolitik
| Zealotux wrote:
| https://archive.ph/SA49A
| lioeters wrote:
| Off-topic: The featured photograph for the article I believe uses
| a technique called "tilt and shift effect". It makes the
| buildings and cars look like miniature toys.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_faking
| e40 wrote:
| Tilt-shift lens are wonderful things. There are lots of time-
| lapsed videos on youtube made with them and they are so cool.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVsDjGwFImc
|
| is an intro.
| FpUser wrote:
| I might have some perception irregularities as this "tilt and
| shift" never looks like any kind of "miniature" to me.
| jacobolus wrote:
| A tilt-shift lens can make the focus plane no longer parallel
| to the plane of the film. This can help make a narrower range
| of focus for a scenes at middle distances than would be
| possible with a typical lens.
|
| A narrow depth of field is more characteristic of photographs
| of nearby objects, so people who are used to looking at
| photographs end up with the impression that the tilt-shift
| photograph is a picture of a much closer (and thus smaller)
| scene.
|
| This is not the only use of tilt-shift lenses. They can e.g.
| also be used to keep _more_ of the scene in focus than would
| be possible with a typical lens.
| daveslash wrote:
| I might be way off here, but here's what I always _assumed_.
| Anyone correct me if I 'm wrong, this is just what I've
| always guessed, but haven't really thought too hard about
| it....
|
| I think Tilt Shift photography doesn't make the _subject_
| look _like a miniature_ , but rather makes the _photo_ look
| like a _photo of a miniature_. When photographing a
| miniature, the subject is so close that you have a much
| narrower depth of field and you end up with thin slices of
| the miniature subject being in focus. I think that this was
| probably more common in the days of film than digital
| photography. In other words: the photos of miniatures look
| like that because of limitations in the photography process,
| whereas tilt-shift is emulating those limitations at a macro
| scale.
| pueblito wrote:
| tablespoon wrote:
| > I'm with Greenwald on this: all mass media in the US,
| including social media, is staffed by and ran entirely for the
| benefit of the IC/DoD. This is just Deep State Kabuki
|
| Do you have any evidence for that? That's an extraordinarily
| strong claim, and would need evidence much stronger than
| "here's a cherry-picked set of articles I'm interpreting like
| tea leaves."
| pueblito wrote:
| Given your near 10,000 comments in the time since you signed
| up literally on the day Russia invaded the Ukraine, I suspect
| you have the time to do your own homework.
| [deleted]
| ginko wrote:
| Didn't know Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2021.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| One year _before_ Russia invaded Ukraine.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > One year before Russia invaded Ukraine.
|
| And I also think he misread my karma score as comment
| count.
| matai_kolila wrote:
| One implication of "do your own research" is the forced
| assumption that, once the research has been completed, the
| person will inevitably arrive at the same conclusion you
| did.
|
| What would you think if someone did "do their research",
| but based on that investigation concluded something
| fundamentally different from you?
| [deleted]
| tablespoon wrote:
| >> Do you have any evidence for that? That's an
| extraordinarily strong claim, and would need evidence much
| stronger than "here's a cherry-picked set of articles I'm
| interpreting like tea leaves."
|
| > Given your near 10,000 comments in the time since you
| signed up literally on the day Russia invaded the Ukraine,
| I suspect you have the time to do your own homework.
|
| Making a extraordinarily strong claim, then expecting
| others to prove it for you, is a pretty strong indication
| you do not have evidence for it.
|
| I won't mention the other glaring errors in your one-
| sentence comment, since they've already been called out.
| [deleted]
| swayvil wrote:
| They're investigating themselves?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-09-19 23:00 UTC)