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Comment by crypt1d | Hacker News Reader

“Our democracy has been hacked.” is something that resonates with me very well. A select group of people have mastered media manipulation and are now acting as puppeteers while we are all in a state of confusion, no longer able to discern truth from disinformation. It is not classic censorship that worries me anymore. It is this constant bombardment with questionable data that we need to figure out how to battle, as it is our biggest enemy now. We need some way to get out of the disinformation bubble and be able to see the real picture.

BTW this article reminded me of a great show[1] that Last Week Tonight did, about how local news outlets in US are used to manipulate the masses.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc

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> questionable data that we need to figure out how to battle

The reality of the situation seems obvious to me, even if the edges are not clearly defined. I don't think it's very difficult to work out what is going on (with climate change etc.)

To me this is not about people getting access to good data, or being otherwise properly educated. It's about people identifying with "their group", and attacking the "others". And such battle lines are fought around various issues and language, and labels. But it's not actually about those issues or language or labels. It's about self and other. My people, and those other people. So this is what needs to be healed, this separative egoness.

This resonate strongly with me but there doesn't seem to be any political platform that has been promoting this theory in the last 20 years. The left focus has been on promoting the distinction and multitude of groups and the strengthening of self-identity that members has towards such groupings. The right is in return focusing the distinction between self and other, making the combination of left and right a special volatile mix in current political environment.

Sadly the group that has changed in this formula is the left. They used to (ie, 30-40 years ago) spend a lot of focusing on eliminating and underplay difference between groups. Today I often see the modern left making fun of those times as naive experiment.

Can you give some examples of when and how the Left is doing this?

From what I can tell, in general the left of the US is constantly making an attempt to be all inclusive. I'd agree that there hasn't been enough work to help people see that they have common cause with people who look different and live in different places. That's really whats needed, but it's never been clear to me how to help someone who is severely bigoted to understand that their views are born of ignorance.

From what I can tell, the Right uses positions to drive wedges between people, such that someone can literally hate something which is clearly benefiting them personally because they have turned the issue into an Us vs Them argument. The only thing I see the Left consistently use as a wedge issue is class and money... Whereas the Right uses every possible thing they can come up with to convince people that follow them that they should all be afraid of what the Left is going to "take" from them.

To take a direct example, in the during 70s-90s some left-leaning families tried to avoid gender specific clothes and toys in order to avoid that the children would fall into typical gender roles. Today the left want gender specific toys, but that toys designed for girls and toys designed for boys should both include professions that are currently popular so that both boys and girls have role models in those. The goal of the first is the remove the group thinking (a very explicit goal, if one read the politics of that time), while the modern left has as a goal that the groups stay distinct and strongly different but that both are included in society in a equal way.

An other example would be collage kids. 30-40 years ago we had the political debate around private gender segregated college vs communal gender mixed college. The argument was that by mixing genders people will be more inclusive and less rigid in their group thinking. In modern left politics we instead see a lot of talk about women only school as an effective way to protect women and get more women into professions that is dominated by men. The idea is that they society should include them by giving them an exclusive safe space.

On the topic of religions I can also see a similar change in theme. Old left were more atheism leaning (through possible less so in the US) and regarded what people did in private as private and not part of group identity. Modern left is more focused in giving each religion equal space and promoting the different groups that self-identify as belong to one. It consider it especially important that society give each group the unique consideration that they need/demand.

The general theme here is that the old left either explicit or indirectly downplayed self-identified groups (gender, religions, and sexual orientation) by simply welcoming in everyone to join in the greater common goal (mostly against money/power in some version or other), and the group that did get promoted was the left movement itself. The right during this time acted in direct opposite by highlighted the multiple "others" in order to strengthen the self-group. Both the old and modern left movement focus on inclusion, but its the method used here and the side effects of those that is in stark contrast between new and old.

The "old"/"real" (I'll explain) left is about erasing identities. The only identity any (extreme) leftist philosophy wants you to have is the identity of the state you belong to.

If you think about how the economic system works, it will very quickly become obvious why this is the only way a leftist state can ever work : idea is that 2 things motivate people, one is richness and one is ideology. Since richness is taken away (that's the very goal of leftism), ideology is the one remaining. Given that, you cannot give freedom of ideology and expect something like communism to work. Even limited communism.

Assuming the goal of the left is still communism (even the ones of the "eventually" persuasion), I would still agree this is true, and therefore should have the "real" moniker.

In my opinion the "new left" has as a defining characteristic "globalism at any cost". The global free movement of people, and (because it's a necessity of movement of people) capital, and ideology is the central principle. This has somehow become what traditionally leftist parties stand for these days.

This is an extreme subversion of leftist thought, because, firstly, it is an extreme laissez-faire market idea, and should thus be classified as extreme-right. Secondly, it's self-destructive, as it allows the owners of means of production to use that movement of people, and especially to abuse it. Why ? To create ridiculous concentrations of wealth that are the very opposite of what leftism stands for. Needless to say, this abuse of people movement is happening on a large scale as a result. "Strongholds" of leftist thoughts (like the Bay Area and especially San Francisco) have become the main examples of what's wrong with capitalism, as gets frequently complained about on this very forum. And yet, most everyone from there professes to hold socialist ideals.

Even on a larger scale this is true. The republican party is currently about as left/right as the democrats (which is, I think, a large part of the reason for Trump's win), and democrats are moving to the right, republicans to the left. It's baffling to see, but every year requires more of a squint not to see it.

I think the left is not inclusive enough. Though perhaps a better way to describe it is that the left is increasingly unwelcoming, remarkably to the people whose votes we need. As an extremely liberal person who also happens to be from the south, I am horrified by my Facebook feed where everyday posts by liberal friends proudly mock conservatives as being stupid or bigoted. Being from the south, I know many conservative people with great hearts. These are the people we are trying to convince to join our side, and we are shitting all over them.

In these articles, one can sense a true disdain for many conservative points of view on topics like abortion, the role of religion in our society, and gun control. It is rare to find articles that I would feel comfortable sharing with conservative friends or family, as their tone is so contemptuous of conservatives. If it were not for the acerbic tone, many of these articles might become powerful tools of persuasion. But I guess it is just too much fun to taunt the "basket of deplorables."

To quote an article that nicely summarizes a Lincoln speech:

> When Abraham Lincoln was 33 years old, he gave a speech inside a Presbyterian church to a temperance society. His message: The assembled ought to be nicer to drinkers and sellers of alcohol, rather than shunning them, or denouncing them as moral pestilences. Indeed, they ought to use “kindly persuasion,” even if a man’s drunkenness had caused misery to his wife, or left his children hungry and naked with want.

> For people are never less likely to change, to convert to new ways of thinking or acting, than when it means joining the ranks of their denouncers.

> To expect otherwise, “to have expected them not to meet denunciation with denunciation ... and anathema with anathema, was to expect a reversal of human nature,” Lincoln explained.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/why-can...

It's hard when some conservatives ARE stupid... I was sad at the Death of Chester Bennington...and one of my old friends...and my wife's best friends' husband -- said to me, "You know the Clinton's Killed him, right?"... and I'm like...okay give me concrete evidence, and he's can only give clear conspiracy theory sites, and I'm like... look here's what snopes says..and he's like...telling me Snopes is FAKE News and crap... as opposed to his sources which are all true...

I literally bloodied my head face-desking after the exchange...

> one can sense a true disdain for many conservative points of view on topics like abortion, the role of religion in our society, and gun control.

Aren't these in fact lightning rod issues between conservatives and liberals in general?

The right for women to choose what to do with their bodies is generally a liberal sentiment. The right to be free of religions in every day life, again is a liberal (and constitutional) view. Gun control, is again a liberal desire (though probably not as stalwart as the others).

Why should liberals relax their views on these things? Liberals have relaxed on are some issues: economics, corporate policy, healthcare, etc.

And in the mean time, other parties will step into our USA internecine war with their own agendas and prey off our pride and ignorance, e.g.: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-ra....

[Written from an obvious US viewpoint.]

So much agree. The content of issues is largely irrelevant to most people. If the republican leadership were environmentalists, so would their constituents be.

What people really want is for their group to beat other groups. It's always been that way, and always will.

This factionalization can occasionally be overcome by great leaders or external enemies. But now, with this 'party over country' attitude that we have, it'll can't be. Shame on us.

I agree completely. People need to be able to come together, with disagreeing being the starting point, and not attack each other's groups and views. That would allow for necessary communication to come to agreement, or at least civilly agree to disagree on that topic. Then the door is at least still open to discuss other topics.

I agree the central issue is the self/other tribalism that's gone out of control. But you shouldn't dismiss the lack of access to good data. It's the manipulation and bombardment of nonesense that is entrenching the divide to what I perceive as unprecedented levels.

So saying (or possibly just feeling) we are all the same makes them try to be different by fighting with each other?

Maybe that came to be cause you cant discern anymore your pals on here as on the street where you see who he is by his looks.

Dividing the West and the United States in particular has been planned for a long time. Race, gender, income, politics all of it is being used to keep the plebes at each others throats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qkf3bajd4

> We need some way to get out of the disinformation bubble

There is even something that came a long time before IT and the resulting disinformation bubble:

Very unhealthy and materialistic values, deeply embedded in our current culture. I.e., we are constantly being told that being rich, being popular and to dominate others is a very desirable target.

Is it really because we're told that? I mean, in very practical terms, being rich and popular (within reason) will give you better life in almost every way. Mainly because it allows you to choose what kind of life you want to lead. Also in case of any life accidents, having contacts and money, you can make lots of them easier to deal with. Dominating others is the only one I'm not sure of.

On a global scale, I think that's a bad situation. On a family scale, being rich is close to the healthiest thing you can do.

> "On a family scale, being rich is close to the healthiest thing you can do."

I would say being self-reliant is the 'healthiest' thing you can do.

Being rich is a type of self-reliance, but it comes with its downsides. The biggest one is probably isolation. A disconnection from the world around you. Perhaps the world around you is 'unhealthy' so it makes some sense to be disconnected from it, but generally it's a downside.

That's a deeper / secondary result. I was thinking in terms of basic needs. Self-reliance is good, but if you live in a good area, close to a good hospital where you don't wait and don't need to worry that calling an ambulance is a debt risk, your survival chance is much higher. You can't realistically provide this yourself / in small community.

Even basic human events like a childbirth: if everything goes well - great, if you get PPH - you've potentially got minutes before bleeding out.

That's why you should support public health services. That way everyone in your community can benefit from the services that you can't provide for yourself. Self-reliance is an ideal rather than the be-all end-all.

Looking at human history I do not this this is new.

It's about to get a lot worse. Realistic chat bots are only now coming into play. Soon there will be 10 bots per legitimate user in every online community that discusses politics.

A prediction of mine for the past year: in 2020 mass social media dies.

2016 was the first Internet election and showed the power of "fake news" (disinformation flooding) and data driven micro-targeting in an election. Trump won partly because he ran an Internet election while Clinton ran a TV era election. (Obama had a good net game too, but 2008 and 2012 were still dominated by old media.)

The Democrats will close this gap, as will a trillion varied think tanks and pressure groups not to mention a dozen foreign governments. Combine this with the advent of AI chat bots and you have a recipe for social media apocalypse.

My specific prediction is that in 2020 mass social media will be flooded and basically DOS'd to death by automated propaganda bots and algorithmically generated fake news. Sites like Reddit will be nothing but donkeybots arguing with elephantbots. Less than half of online news will be even remotely true, especially on social media. Most will be algorithmically targeted and written propaganda.

It will be like the advent of mechanized warfare in WWI, but with bullshit. Mechanized bullshit warfare. Feel free to visualize.

Social platforms will implement censorship and other measures to attempt to fight this DOS attack but these will ruin them for humans and drive people away.

Basically mass social will die the way Usenet died, but with AI and driven by big big money propaganda efforts.

Internet discussion will retreat to private enclaves. We may see a second BBS era.

I can't help but think the obvious solution here is the correct one: start talking politics with people IN PERSON.

The signal to noise ratio around my kitchen table is a lot higher than on reddit (or even HN), and there are a lot fewer trolls.

We used to say "Never trust anyone you can't punch in the face."

>BTW this article reminded me of a great show that Last Week Tonight did...

Last Week Tonight is one of the most blatant examples of media-driven manipulation on the air today.

This is so true.

The right has always had its own junk - things like Fox News, various 'Think Tanks' and academic institutions who are quite blatant in their bias.

But in the last few years, at least, I've been amazed at just how obvious it is when the left pushes a narrative, regardless of whether it's a hit piece against Trump or any of a dozen other themes: immigration is needed, climate change will destroy us all, women are bullied in tech, etc.

The same exact story, from out of nowhere, is suddenly blaring at me via CNN at the airport and McDonalds, headlining a dozen different magazines at the grocery store checkout, editorials in all the major papers, jokes from three different late night comedians, surprisingly highly-voted articles on Reddit, hashtags on Twitter, a placement in a popular sitcom or movie...

Lawrence Lessig's Republic, Lost directly addresses this.

His 2011 Google Tech Talk provides a condensed version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc

Manipulation is on both sides of the spectrum, so I wouldn't unconditionally trust Al Gore or The Guardian either. (Not necessarily denying the topic).

The media is simply by definition vulnerable to manipulation. At some point you have to trust someone who tells you the truth. There are many ways to bend the truth.

What we need is strong ethics and a strong backing of them.

You're argument is basically, we can't trust either, so we should just throw our hands up and ignore them all?

The entire point of the scientific method is to come to some common understanding of fact. What we need to demand is that articles are backed by properly run studies so that we can come to a common understanding based on good methods.

Yes, Al Gore believes that the current warming trend and climate change is man-made, so he will point to those things that support his theories and possibly downplay things that do not. This does not make him wrong.

> You're argument is basically, we can't trust either, so we should just throw our hands up and ignore them all?

No. I didn't even suggest some immediate action for the current situation. There is probably no way to fix it.

The scientific method cannot solve everything. Maybe it can prove global warming. But the human factor can still corrupt any facts established. That is why I said we need strong ethics. We need to accept the truth, even if it is inconvenient.

Here's a couple good articles by Scott Adams on things that would convince him on climate change. He mainly focuses on his experience with being able to manipulate models to show whatever you want them to show and what proportion is man-made vs natural.

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/158159613566/how-to-convince-sk...

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/158778029326/how-to-change-my-b...

Wow, so here is my otherwise -3 rated first post, it was posted to answer just what you & Scott wrote:

Just in case a preemptive post for all shills and otherwise identity-impaired deniers. Please watch this presentation from Sheffield University: https ://youtu.be/7IbyiOoVgnQ Thank you

I'll watch the video, but whilst I do I'll put a question to you... Do you think the natural habitat of other animals on our planet should be protected?

That's the bigger question for me. I don't care if the planet is getting hotter or colder if biodiversity is being protected. Perhaps we should agree to stop driving species to extinction and let any decisions on climate be driven by that goal. Would you say that's a reasonable approach?

EDIT: Have watched the video. I can see you don't need convincing. Thanks for sharing it.

Here's the fixed video link, I'd recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it:

https://youtu.be/7IbyiOoVgnQ

I don't buy the evil secret conspiracy theory. I mean there are evil secret conspiracies, but they're much more narrow, factional and ineffective than advertised.

Let's take Fake News. This is entirely a grass roots phenomenon. Sure there are individuals and groups behind a lot of it, but those individuals and groups are not heavily funded black ops teams of a billionaire conspiracy. They're sad white supremacist Reddit trolls. The fact that Trump blundered on to a wave of it and rode it to power is an accident, not the culmination of a choreographed master plan.

All news is "fake news".

http://thedesk.matthewkeys.net/2013/12/heres-how-conan-obrie...

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