Comment by rootsudo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rootsudo | Hacker News Reader

Comparing today's media, to the media of old - where they colluded to hide FDR couldn't walk because of the shame/and attacks it'd lead to now, where Tech companies overtook print media and now themselves control the pitchforks and direct anger at the masses.

1984 Two minutes of hate is real, so very real, and it's quite sad how most people welcomed this into the world.

I've deleted my social media, twitters years before, and have divested myself completely from other platforms. There is nothing to be valued, gained or such,

The Internet should always be a decentralized, fragmented piece of human technology. The more centralized it becomes, the more authoritarian it is. And the orgs that become in control point the finger at others to show off how it's not them.

--

I hold no opinion on Trump, but these tech companies have to much power and it's a game of bidding where they can creep more and more into our lives and general lobbying to make the case that life is "better" with them here then it ever was before.

I can't say if it really is.

Yeah, I agree. I've started reducing the amount of social media I assume and deleting certain people off my networks. Way too much vile behavior on social media and it is a net negative to my life. I suggest others to do the same.

Social media is the cigarette of our generation.

Trump gave Twitter the power though, so I don’t think his suspension supports your logic. He was the user who communicates only over Twitter, purposefully de-fragmenting it. He could e easily protected himself from this by publishing the same content across many different platforms.

The tech giants only have power when users give it to them. Trump could’ve negated their power very easily, without legislation.

You might enjoy this take on the matter:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=YtRfmao1vvs

>I hold no opinion on Trump

Utterly baffling and genuinely inconceivable. My imagination is running wild trying to imagine what sort of person you might be, assuming you are being honest here.

IS it wrong to always be skeptical and paranoid about the world, the media, the government, the tech companies/any company promising a good thing?

This isn't a new feeling, idea or such - there's always been a counter culture and I enjoy and love tech. I never got into Twitter, and the more accessible tech has become, it seems to have become eternal summer.

Which, on one hand is good - tech is accessible, government "can" be more transparent then ever.

But is it, really? Go back to any presidency generation and you can see the same questions. It doesn't matter if it's the red scare, the pacifist of USA not jumping into WW2 until bommbed at pearl harbor (but had operations in Sino China.) and etc -

That's another issue here, the moving and adaption of wrong think, and tribes forming based if you think one alike - there's so many arguments from how you value money, what is money, what is a good president, if the color of your skin matter, what you do, how you spend your free time, if you allow people to peer onto your social presence, etc

It's just alarming, the slippery slope of internet adaption/culture the past decade really has ushered a dystopia.

But, it seems, according to you, that is "utterly baffling and genuinely inconceivable" where it goes to show, if you don't follow tribe mentality, you are labelled pariah, and then what, excommunicated for questioning the status quo?

It is specifically baffling to have no opinion on Donald Trump, yes, and that is precisely orthogonal to one's opinions on the internet, Twitter, "tribes", technology, or anything that you mentioned in your comment, for that matter.

Put away your pitch fork for a second and think rationally what the chilling effect of this is. It doesn't matter who the president is, what matters is that this is unprecedented that a tech company, that skims the line of being a media company which is usually the mouthpiece/marketing arm for corporations to outsource their engagement has this much control, manipulation and can steer an audience / rewrite an narrative as it seems fit.

Then throw in any politician, and there you go. Can be trunp w/ Twitter. Can be how Facebook abetted genocide Myanmar -- yet you are focused on "what" I think.

That's how deep you are in the rabbit hole, and how deep the user audience for these walled gardens are.

I understand it's hard to separate recent events from the big picture - but that's what it is all about. But it seems no one else sees that.

I don't even have a pitchfork, I was just genuinely surprised by the prospect of someone having no opinion on Donald Trump. That has literally nothing to do with technology whatsoever, if we were cavemen and Donald Trump was a caveman and you said you had no opinion of him, I would still be baffled.

There are people who live in countries outside the US, you know.

Even then it's next to impossible to not have an opinion on Trump.

It's impossible to not have an opinion about something you know about.

One can tell themselves that they don't have an opinion, however I don't think that it's true.

If you don't care about something, then that's your opinion.

You have an extremely obnoxious, narrow view of the world then, like some child whose yet to develop a Theory of Mind and forgivably fails a false-belief exercise.[0] I suspect you're offended the opinions you're emotionally invested in have apparently been trivialised.

My 90-year-old frail Bangladeshi grandmother cared as much about Trump as she did about Bolsonaro—i.e. not at all. She cared very much about politics domestic to her country though, her husband was a politician.

What is your opinion on the Nigerian Special Anti-Robbery Squad—an important political topic in a country of 200 million people? Or the debate on traditional vs simplified Chinese characters? Or Article 9 of the Japanese constitution? These are things people are very emotionally invested in, are these topics also impossible to not have an opinion on?

Some people have other things to think about.

0. https://s3.amazonaws.com/spectrumnews-web-assets/uploads/ima...

Your 90 year old frail grandmother is also not here writing essays about U.S. presidential history. I also find it difficult to believe someone so knowledgeable about such a subject has no opinion whatsoever on Donald Trump

As someone who lives outside the US I can assure you that very few people in my country don’t have an opinion on Trump.

>I hold no opinion on Trump,

Everyone has an opinion about Trump. Are you too afraid to say yours? I'm asking in good faith here - not trolling.

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