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from the That's-what-they-WANT-you-to-think dept.
In the Salon
There seems to be a lot of science being thrown at the "Trump Phenomenon." Salon covers yet another, and interviews the author.
A new paper, recently presented at the American Political Science Association's annual convention, suggests a widespread motive driving people to share fake news, conspiracy theories and other hostile political rumors. "Many status-obsessed, yet marginalized individuals experience a 'Need for Chaos' and want to 'watch the world burn'," lead author Michael Petersen tweeted, announcing the availability of a preprint copy.
Truth, in such a worldview, is beside the point, which offers a new perspective on the limitations of fact-checking. The motivation behind sharing or spreading narratives one may not even believe can help make sense of a variety of threatening or confusing recent developments in advanced democracies. It also sheds light on disturbing similarities with outbreaks of ethnic or genocidal violence, such as those seen in Rwanda and the Balkan nations during the 1990s.
Preprint of the paper available at PsyArXiv, here. [DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/6m4ts]
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by VLM on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:16PM (3 children)
Ha! Best Analogy Ever!
Consider the classic/ancient 80s movie "Wargames", when the kid gets kicked out of biology class, as a near perfect analogy to the situation with the journalists and "fake news". Yeah I know it sounds crazy but hear me out.
In both situations, the masses are being indoctrinated in stuff that doesn't matter and doesn't directly improve their lives. It is merely feel good propaganda. True, if you're going into a bio field like doc or nurse, bio is important, but not for 80%+ of the population. True, if you're a young adult who never learned how to think, maybe you'll learn in bio class, but if you haven't yet you probably can't ever, and clearly the kid in the movie knew how to think and problem solve, as likely did every other kid in that class although probably not using computers. Eventually the curve of young adult patience intersects the curve of authoritarian lecturer and "Class, who can tell me which famous biologist defined the concept of asexual reproduction?" "Uh, that would be your wife". Just like WRT fake news eventually enough commie propaganda BS on CNN results in "Obama was never born in the USA, you know..."
Now lets look at the effectiveness of the response. Stuff thats been tried by the lefties. Yeah yeah, I know, to be on the left is to fail. Look at left wing economies, left wing family life, left wing science, left wing lifestyle. But humor them and for the sake of argument assume they're not intentionally trying to fail regardless of their typical outcome.
So in the "Wargames" movie we can slander the kid by declaring his remarks completely NON-KOSHER (ahem) by having the authority figures call his comment "Fake Education" and start rabble rousing to indoctrinate the other proles to hate whatever is defined today as "Fake Education" and so forth. That sounds very left wing, yet also sounds a complete belly laugh.
Or in the "Wargames" movie they could respond with violence. Consider if the teacher started whacking the kid with a bike lock, directing an angry mob to attack the kid in his car, or more abstract ideas like giving the kid and his family an economic death penalty by messing up their lives. On the very short term that sounds good, but remember from a "COIN" counterinsurgency perspective, like 80% of the population is aligned with the kid not the aggressors. Also its already happening in urban schools with dumber populations that teachers get gunned down for less severe attacks; if the aggressors push the envelope, they will rapidly and effectively martyr themselves.
Or in the "Wargames" movie the devout authority priest-figure of a teacher could have verbally attacked the kid. "Whaddya mean, my wife, you fucking stupid creationist hick evolution-denier whippersnapper". Sorta like the dialogue in "Gran Turino" but not entertaining at all, and the not entertaining part is a big problem. There are New York Times Editors posting anti-white stuff like that on twitter. That is VERY effective at reducing the spread of the propaganda message; its very out of tune. "Hey you people I'm propagandizing, I hate you" has always been a blue-on-blue score. I strongly encourage my opponents to double down on what is driving their support away.
Or in the "Wargames" movie they could deplatform the kid, kick him out of school, throat punch his larynx, duct tape his mouth. The problem is 80% of the population hates the stupid message being proselytized, so you're back to the "violence as a solution" outcome where either you have to death camp 80% of the remaining classmates or the classmates start shooting back out of self defense.
The solution in the linked paper, comically, seems to propose the "Wargames" movie response to "your wife" should be to make fun of the kids psychological state in non-refutable manner. "Oh you think my wife invented it, well fuck you kid you're insane and when are you going to stop beating your wife?" Ehhh somehow I'm not seeing that work out well.
The fundamental problem is looking for a very small scale solution to a very large scale problem. The large scale problem is the dominant political propaganda is dying and as dying movements often do, its going to extremism, and with that drift leftward the propaganda they've been spewing is turning into a laughingstock and is being responded to in a manner appropriate for standup comedy or maybe shittalking at a bar or shitposting online. Clean the den of vipers and put sane americans in charge of our propaganda instead of mostly insane Israelis? Maybe but thats a lot of work.
Maybe the best solution to general opposition against propaganda of a dying ideology is simply calmly wait for it to finish dying out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @04:18AM (1 child)
Whatever you're smoking, dude, you need to ease up on that shit a bit. Seriously.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @05:10AM
I rarely read his shit, definitely won't read that wall of text. I must say though, it is amusing watching the crazy users around here slowly start to unravel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:49PM
Dafuq did I just read?