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Current Affairs published an in-depth editorial on recent revelations about a $1 million astroturfng campaign by Correct the Record:
Astroturfing makes me angry. It should make you angry. It should make you fucking well see red. It's marketing evolved into something incredibly scary, sophisticated, and evil. It's essentially thought warfare, or psychological warfare, which takes away much of what was supposed to make the internet a new and beautiful frontier of communication. Worse yet, if you actually identify and approach these operatives, they'll gaslight you and deny that they are such an operative. These are people who are paid to psychologically abuse you. Do you get this? It's an ugly and evil thing, and not only does it take away our ability to take information and fact at face value, but it takes away our ability to take opinions, feelings, and personal stances at face value as sincere and legitimate.
takyon: For some additional context, "Hillary-supporting super PAC invests $1 million to hit back at online Clinton critics":
Correct the Record, a super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton's bid to become US president, has promised to invest more than $1 million to respond to users criticizing its candidate on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, and other social media services. The super PAC says its new "Barrier Breakers digital task force" will to respond "quickly and forcefully to negative attacks and false narratives found online," in addition to thanking major supporters and "committed superdelegates" directly.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday April 26 2016, @01:30AM
Those whose minds are easily washed probably need them washed. Seriously, if you've got a weak mind, you don't deserve much respect. You're one of the sheeple. Sheeple are there to be fleeced. They don't serve any higher purpose in life. Just let it ride, man. I don't get upset when the daughter in law fleeces her sheep.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @01:43AM
> if you've got a weak mind, you don't deserve much respect.
Irony alert.
Gynormous irony alert.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday April 26 2016, @01:52AM
That's it, Punkinhead, attack the messanger. How cute, how predictable!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @02:11AM
You can't be a messenger if you don't have a message.
Only someone with a weak mind would confuse that rant for a "message."
It's just a mess of poorly conceived anger.
Oh, I get it you meant attack the messanger.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @02:41AM
ah, the witty woman with the trigger on the flamebait and troll mods :DDD
see, even idiots survive evolution, mainly because others fight for them or because nobody sees them as a threat.
at the end of the day, though, not all, or even many, of the fighters are happy with the dead comrades and idiot survivors.
the only happy fighters are the ones with idiot, but really good looking, wives...
to put an argument into your idiot woman mouth, with fighters i mean marines with guns, since men with guns are the créme of civilization.
btw, idiot woman, did i mention muscle? thats is the shit... without muscle u are nothing.
i hope i have provided some things for u to mod.
/zug
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @03:34AM
did you forget your password or something zugnub?
or did your muscles just get so big that your fingers can't type it anymore?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @05:38PM
I just bet you charm the socks off the ladies, you manly man, you! Haven't you got a Nazi rally you need to be getting to by now, zug?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday April 26 2016, @02:36AM
FTFY.
And please stop massaging the message (aka astroturfing); also stop being dismissive to those having punk in their head: its not illegal and if you want respect, treat others the same.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday April 26 2016, @03:47AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FOUqQt3Kg0 [youtube.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday April 26 2016, @04:01AM
Nope... but rather [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday April 26 2016, @04:15AM
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xSHYlSxQyJM [youtube.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday April 26 2016, @04:30AM
... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPn0KFlbqX8 [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by mcgrew on Tuesday April 26 2016, @02:30PM
I liked the internet a lot better before youtube brought all you aliterates to it. And no, that's not a misspelling despite the idiotic spell checker, in both Webster's and the OED. I doubt you'll find it in the Urban Dictionary.
Just so you guys know, if you want me to hit a youtube link, let me know how funny it is unless it's something really cool that absolutely requires video that can't be done in print.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday April 26 2016, @11:42PM
Well, I liked it better before the alphabet agencies started to look into all the traffic and digging into it.
Take the above as an example of (an innocent) conversation which will resist automatic "pattern detection" and yet would be able to transmit a meaning.
(incidentally, this is one technique that was used in life under communist regimes - of course, not based on youtube).
See? It works.
Not foolproof, but it will work even if Eve knows the technique (by increasing at least one order of magnitude the effort to detect/decipher a conversation automatically)
---
It's somehow a shame that one which aspire to be a writer didn't recognize in it the same technique used in creating literature (when was ever "telling straight what you mean" considered literature? This is what manifests and slogans are for), even if this case relied on means other than printed words.
As a penance (for being dismissive and expecting "funny"), I'd suggest you to write a story about a sophisticated society in which failure to use this technique in every aspect of one's everyday life is punishable with degrading one into a lower caste; the somehow meritocratic elite maintains itself by the ability of its members to "speak" multiple languages of various society groups. Shared ethos and lore, thus supposedly able to resonate - if not empathize - with their needs; the more ethoses one can share, the more groups can trust that one to be their voice.
* "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" - is the language commoners speak - shared experience of the global society, but unrefined for specific areas of life
* "The Moon Moth" will show you the elite will use not only verbal symbols, but also visual clues and music. Add other means as necessary.
* Shunning someone by not seeing him even when present - one is dead when even his parents don't see him anymore - I can't remember the book/author (nor even the plot) in which this was used (some help will be gratefully appreciated)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday April 27 2016, @03:31PM
I'm not dismissive of art or humor or anything that's best presented as a video; both True Grit movies were good, the book sucked. But it took a lot less time to read the book than to watch either movie, and that's the trouble with 90% of youtube links I've hit - someone reading to me when I can read it myself twenty times as fast with better comprehension.
Someone made a video of They're Made Out of Meat. Lousy movie, two guys sitting in a diner parroting the aliens' words. Pathetic.
If, otoh, 90% of the links were moving illustrations rather than talking heads I wouldn't have a problem. But I have no use for a video of someone talking.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday April 27 2016, @04:10PM
Just to male sure... you did get that part of my explanation were I said the dialogue had nothing to do with the quality of the videoclips, right?
(should I decode the dialogue for you?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday April 26 2016, @02:26PM
Just so you know, I'll never be at a TED talk, let alone watch one on youtube. Videos are for illustration, the written word is the best method of communication. I only mention it because I've seen several links to youtube here today, and I don't WANT to listen to a talking head, I'm listening to music and READING on a photo and video-free site. Do you have a link to that content that doesn't involve using my ears?
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Tuesday April 26 2016, @05:23PM
Videos can have they're place, they can be really informative. Written arguments can be hard to follow because you lack the non-verbal cues that go into an argument. That's not to say they're bad, but it's just not always the best way to get a point across, especially if someone, that's hell bent on misrepresenting you, shows up and starts taking everything you say out of context, conflating issues and/or derailing a topic.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 3, Touché) by MostCynical on Tuesday April 26 2016, @09:01PM
And some times a video is just a video, or, as here, people being silly.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday April 27 2016, @03:40PM
Videos can have they're place
I see by that sentence that you're not a reader.
they can be really informative
Yes, if it's something like this [hubblesite.org] but nearly always it's a talking head.
Written arguments can be hard to follow because you lack the non-verbal cues that go into an argument.
The written word is FAR more understandable than the spoken word, as poets have pointed out for centuries. "Lets all get up and dance to a song. That was a hippie four. Your mother was born, though she was born a long, long time ago".
Or Robert Service's "Dangerous Dan McGrew" which comes out as "dangerous damned McGrew" when read out loud. But if you don't know the difference between there, they're and their then yes, the written word might seem unwieldy.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday April 27 2016, @04:17PM
You know I follow you right, for quite a long time actually, and read your Mars, Ho series when you were posting it in your journal.
Some times people just make spelling mistakes. I often am just doing too many things at one time and screw things up without thinking about it. But your response actually makes my point. Sometimes, during a conversation, how people are posturing toward each other can convey a lot of a conversation that would be over looked or misinterpreted when written.
None of that is to say that written words aren't also important or that you can't make a point without body language.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday April 28 2016, @06:11PM
Body language is good at conveying emotion, but that's all. Body language won't explain microbiology or cosmology, only words and maths will do that.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday May 02 2016, @10:22AM
Pictures help, graphs, cell diagrams, charts.
And sometimes having someone point to what they're talking about as they run through demonstrations and examples.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @02:02AM
we need a new mod system on this fucking site...
i have done my part in trying to keep the wise afloat :D
/zug
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @02:08AM
Remember those words when you are relying on a mechanic, lawyer, doctor, plumber, or anyone who knows a lot more than you know about a subject. Are they going to fleece you because they can? Should they fleece you because they can? That's how you treat the "sheeple".
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday April 26 2016, @02:21AM
Perhaps you're not aware of it, but that is how things are done in today's world. Those jokes about a woman driving into a mechanic's garage? They are jokes because people think it's FUNNY. Yeah, I've been ripped of by a lawyer. Doctors? Well, I've got a pretty good one, whose rates are lower than the insurance companies pay. You don't find many of those - they're all out to get that last nickle, whether it be out of your pocket, or the insurance company's pocket.
And, for the most part, all the sheep ever do is bleat about it.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @02:43AM
You just told us how you've been fleeced.
And yet you think you are better than the sheep.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @03:55AM
Yes, because you see... his position is that the only purpose in life is to be fleeced.
That doesn't exclude entities that can be fleeced but also have other purposes in life; e.g. to be milked; or... I don't know... egged?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @05:42AM
You just told us how you've been fleeced.
And yet you think you are better than the sheep.
Yes, because you see... his position is that the only purpose in life is to be fleeced.
That doesn't exclude entities that can be fleeced but also have other purposes in life; e.g. to be milked; or... I don't know... egged?
I personally gyped Runaway out of fifty bucks. Obviously, I cannot reveal my name or the incident, which would amount to the same thing. But just let me say, the man is a mark, a sucker, a con man's dream! When I offered him twice his investment in return, he did not even pause to think I might be lying. Easy money! Yes, I am the man that sold a Chelsea Manning suit to Runaway1956. May he wear it with pride.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday April 26 2016, @02:34PM
Sociopathy is NOT normal. [psych.ubc.ca]
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday April 27 2016, @02:51AM
Ohhhh, I don't know. Odd thing about psychology and related "sciences". The shrinks claim that 20, 25, maybe even 30% of people have issues. But, what is "normal", anyway?
I posit that the shrinks and the researchers are less normal than all the people who are diagnosed with this or that, or some other imaginary affliction. Don't have time to read the PDF now, but it will be here when I get home in the morning. Consider thought, that sociopathy may actually BE "normal".
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday April 26 2016, @03:09AM
Those people don't generally get to run amok with the fleecing because of something the Internet needs. Reputation. As soon as we all just assume 90% of you anonymous cowards are hiding because you have an agenda this problem is mostly solved.
That is why I always post under a real name, both here and on the other place right up to the ghostban, on Discus, etc. Agree or disagree with me, you know I'm a real person. If I can speak so many ideas that most people think are unthinkable and would rather be whipped than admit they even pondered once, there really isn't too much that is unspeakable. It is mostly FEAR that keeps people in line. Everybody should try to at least think about an "unthinkable" idea once a day, maybe a few of ya bastards would work up the courage to let a few of em linger a bit in your noggins. It would be a start. Do it a while and you might graduate to reading forbidden books. Someday you might even admit to a few crimethoughts in public. That is what we need to maintain freedom of thought, enough of us rebels that they can't get us all.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 26 2016, @05:49AM
That is why I always post under a real name,
Um, I don't think that "jmorris" is a real name. Could you provide a meatspace address at which we might direct cruise missles? Or perhaps a land-line telephone number, which would serve the same purpose. Perhaps you would care to share your social security number or national identity number with your fellow Soylentils, perhaps your bank acct # and PIN? No? Ha!! Jmorris, you are not real! You cannot be real! You are a parody of your own positions, an impossibility that if it did exist would naturally choose to end its own life immediately. Thank goodness I got here before Azuma, she is gonna tear you a new one, but since you don't exist, you will probably enjoy it.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday April 26 2016, @05:57AM
I'll leave doxxing me as an exercise for the student. I'll just say that if you really can't manage it you truly suck at the Internet and probably shouldn't be here.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 26 2016, @07:00AM
Unless, as many here, we are afraid of what we might actually find if we set our minds to doxx you. Brain in a vat at NRA headquarters? Possible. AI developed by the Cato Institute: very likely. Kock Bros. sockpuppet? I am not one to cast aspersions on anyone, but who are you really, jmorris? Some of us (not me!) want to know what makes you tick, and what allows you to sleep at night.
Do you have a "safeword"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2016, @06:06AM
We'll find that he's a southerner who abuses his position as a network admin by using company hardware as his personal email server, or at least is pretending to do so by taking up a common URL that one could mistake for his religion oriented employer. For some reason CueCat may have had a significant effect on his life. He employs deceptive practices by displaying his email as one address but having the mailto address link to a more sketchy looking address.
One of his personal websites was easy to find, or at least a website pretending to be from him.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday April 26 2016, @02:42PM
LOL, son, I'm mcgrew. That's the internet spelling of McGrew. My real name. My first email address was mcgrew@famvid.com, my first web space was famvid.com/mcgrew (they offered hosting with web access), I was mcgrew at slashdot, at kuro5hin before it turned to crap, here, my personal web site is mcgrew.info (my picture's currently there), and mcgrew is the name printed on the books I write. [mcgrewbooks.com]
I have no doubt that J is Mr. (or Ms) Morris' real first initial. I have no idea why you don't. I know from your S/N user name you like astronomy and are likely educated.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by fritsd on Tuesday April 26 2016, @04:27PM
Um, I don't think that "aristarchus" is a real name, either. Didn't the real Αρίσταρχος ο Σάμιος [wikipedia.org] die some 2200 years ago?
I think your argument just cratered [wikipedia.org].
(That's the world upside-down: I found myself agreeing with "jmorris" and disagreeing with "aristarchus" :-) )
"fritsd"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by q.kontinuum on Tuesday April 26 2016, @06:29AM
That is why I always post under a real name,
I prefer pseudonyms. I can build a reputation here of speaking my mind without providing an easy link back to e.g. potential future employers to investigate my mindset. Most people have practical considerations for their reputation, and using their real name gives an incentive to work on that reputation rather than openly discussing the issue at hand.
Nevertheless, people can check my history here on soylentnews and figure out if I have an obvious bias or not.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @10:34AM
It cracks me up when people complain about having their posting history evaluated. They whine about how it isn't fair that an AC is judging them based on their own words.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday April 26 2016, @11:52AM
I generally take that approach, too. When a person has a history attached to a username, it accretes a reputation that helps him restrain his id. And that, I think, makes his contributions to a discussion carry a little more weight, because they're honest and perhaps bring a little less vitriol.
jmorris, Runaway, and guys from that ideological neighborhood on SN I disagree with most days, but I appreciate that there's no duplicity in what they write. It's an honest disagreement. That's a rare quality in public discourse anymore.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday April 26 2016, @01:32PM
Everybody should try to at least think about an "unthinkable" idea once a day
An interesting aspect of alt-right political philosophy that is not discussed enough is most of the alt-right people and some of the trad-right people are very comfortable on an intellectual level with physics style thought experiments. Regardless if anyone likes it or not, it observationally leads to lots of alt-right recruitment, lots of personal histories begin with something that summarizes to "as a thought experiment, what would happen if the cathedral narrative about XYZ were untrue?" where XYZ is some topic right wing people care about and the thought experiment matches observed reality better than the authoritarian establishment narrative. Then they start reading red-pill dogma or Moldbug and next thing you know they're fully switched on, for better or worse. I read Moldbug, that red-pill stuff is degenerate, but whatever, everyone's got their own path.
I have noticed that folks not susceptible to alt-right recruitment, in totally different settings, for whatever reason, act like their hamster exploded if you try a non-political thought experiment on them "So imagine you're in an elevator how can you tell the difference between an acceleration from a cable and acceleration from gravity?" "Or imagine for the sake of argument that semiconductors are full of holes where holes are real things just like baseballs, how do they flow and collide?" and they just flip out demanding its not real therefore wrong to think about as a mental model. They flip out in full on rhetoric mode. "you're just making up words it doesn't mean anything unless they're words I like" and so on.
A meme I've been trying to push (mostly unsuccessfully) is if the predominant recruitment style for alt-right today is the physics-style thought experiment, that means they're preferentially going to recruit only the cognitive elite. Bubba ain't gonna read his Misner and Thorne, or whatever the cool kids read today, and think about elevators vs gravitational fields, or the political equivalent. That means there won't be many of them, although that minority (the cognitive elite) is the only people who've ever done anything anyway so maybe its not a big problem. If the only people who think, agree with you, I guess you're golden? So the death of my pet meme is that it doesn't matter.
I don't see proof by induction or thought experiment in left-wing dogma. If its there, at a significant level anyway, I'd like to think about it. The deep mental philosophical model behind left wing thought is much less clear to me than the right wing model, probably because of my own sympathies and biases. (Insert obvious snarky comment about why I can't see the deep mental philosophical model of lefties here, so obvious there's no point even stating it)
Its fun to watch. By watching politics I can almost feel the visceral appeal of sportsball, the gut level prediction, the excitement during the wait, the brutal confirmation or denial by reality, in a tight repetitive cycle. Pass the popcorn...