Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
Rightwing computer scientist and hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer was the top donor to Donald Trump's presidential campaign. He contributed $13.5 million and laid the groundwork for what is now called the Trump Revolution. Mercer also funded Cambridge Analytica (CA), a small data analytics company that specializes in "election management strategies." CA boasts on its website that it has psychological profiles, based on 5,000 separate pieces of data, on 220 million American voters. CA scoops up masses of data from peoples' Facebook profiles and uses artificial intelligence to influence their thinking and manipulate public opinion. They used these skills to exploit America's populist insurgency and tip the election toward Trump.
[...] We enter and participate in this digital world every day, on our laptops and our smartphones. We are living in a new era of propaganda, one we can't see, with the collection and use of our data played back in ways to covertly manipulate us. All this is enabled by technological platforms originally built to bring us together. Welcome to the age of platform capitalism—the new battleground for the future.
Previously on SoylentNews: Do Advertisers Know You Better Than You Know Yourself?
Related Stories
Is it worse to be distracted by irrelevant ads, or to be monitored closely enough that the ads are accurate but creepy? Why choose? [...] One company called Cambridge Analytica has managed to apply what some are calling a "weaponized AI propaganda machine" in order to visit both fates upon us at once. And it's all made possible by Facebook.
Cambridge Analytica specializes in the mass manipulation of thought. One way they accomplish this is through social media, particularly by deploying "native advertising." Otherwise known as sponsored content, these are ads designed to fool you into assimilating the ad unchallenged. The company also uses Facebook as a platform to push microtargeted posts to specific audiences, looking for the tipping point where someone's political inclination can be changed, just a little bit, for the right price. Much like Facebook games designed specifically for their addictive potential, rather than for any entertainment value, these intellectual salesmen exist solely to hit every sub-perceptual lever in order to bypass our conscious barriers.
[...] Microtargeting [is] the idea that Alice the Advertiser can accurately change the mind of Bob the Buyer based on information Alice can buy. The notion of microtargeting is not itself new, but what Cambridge Analytica is doing with it is novel. They're using the Facebook ecosystem because it perfectly enables the goal of targeting individuals and using their longer-lasting personality characteristics like a psychological GPS. It all hinges on a Facebook advertising tool called "unpublished posts." Among advertisers, these are simply called dark posts.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday April 11 2017, @12:03PM
An outsider beat Washington at their own game. JK not an outsider, more of a designated driver.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @12:10PM (18 children)
MSNBC, CNN, Wapo, NYT, ABC, Vice and so on. And on the other side, there's Fox. Not exactly comforting.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 11 2017, @04:16PM (10 children)
Don't worry, Fox produces enough lies, bullshit, and distorted spin to counterbalance them a dozen times over, and I am no fan of MSNBC or CNN. Try another, less obvious fallacy.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by linkdude64 on Tuesday April 11 2017, @06:50PM (8 children)
"I'm going to claim that a minority is equal in strength to a majority because it serves my cognitive bias to do so."
-Azuma Hazuki (Translated quote)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:44PM (4 children)
> "I'm going to claim that a minority is equal in strength to a majority because it serves my cognitive bias to do so."
You don't seem to understand how information works, do you?
Here's a clue, its non-rivalrous. [wikipedia.org]
Turns out that liberals spread their news consumption pretty broadly across multiple sources.
Conservatives have all clustered up around Fox news. [journalism.org]
That's why Fox News has such high ratings - they get the lion's share of conservatives while the remainig pool of viewers is split N-ways between all the other sources of news who are consequently much more competitive, and thus accountable to their viewers.
So, yeah Fox is able to produce enough disinformation to manipulate at least as many people as the so-called 'left' media is able to in aggregate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:54PM (3 children)
That is not at all what she was saying. You came in to attempt to justify anyway. For Fox News to be such a conservative bastian, it seems to be all of the liberal people I know who wait on it with baited breath to wail about what they just saw on it. I don't hear my conservative friends talk about it at all. Many of them actually listen to BBC and other sources instead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @08:06PM (1 child)
> That is not at all what she was saying.
But it is exactly what dinkdude was saying and that is who I responded to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:53AM
> That is not at all what she was saying.
But it is exactly what dinkdude was saying and that is who I responded to.
But linkdude is not too bright, so it is probably best just to skip over his posts, Definitely do not respond the them, it will only encourage him and lead him deeper into denial and delusion and destitude and desirata.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:34AM
FFS! If you are going to defend the "cuckservingtive" cause, please learn to spell, so you do not embarrass Bill O'Really.
For Fox News to be such a conservative bastian, it seems to be all of the liberal people I know who wait on it with baited breath to wail about what they just saw on it.
What the F is a "bastian"? Could it be a bastard bastion? Alt-facts and alt-truth are one thing, but you do not get alt-spelling.
"baited breath" . . . Srsly? "Baited"? as in, to put something attractive upon so as to lure in victims? How do you do that with your breath? Oh! You probably meant "with bated breath", because that is the actual English phrase. "bated", as in held back, (as in rebate, probate masterbate), to waiting while holding your breath. Do not make this mistake again. It makes you look illiterate, and now everyone is going think all conservatives are just as uneducated, especially the ones who only now realize they have been using the wrong word for lo these many years.
(Score: 3, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:59PM (2 children)
Really now? Creo que estás usando este software de traducción de forma incorrecta. Por favor, consulta el manual.
Yeah, you don't get to drag me down to your level, asshat. Fox is well known to be full of shit. They've done to our parents what our parents worried violent video games would do to us. And you, ironically, are the one doing what you accuse me of here; simply plugging your ears and going "Nuh uhhh, they're WORSE!" without actually doing the research.
Yes, mainstream news has gone to hell, and no, I don't really trust any of those networks now, but I'd be a hell of a lot more inclined to trust the BBC than Fox and with good reason.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @01:28AM
"News" doesn't matter much these days. The conversation is driven by talk radio on one side and late-night comedy on the other.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:47PM
"you don't get to drag me down to your level, asshat."
If money is speech, and it ABSOLUTELY is when it comes to fucking television broadcasting, all of the other news conglomerates combined have more speech than Fox News does. This is just the economic reality. How that claim could be construed as trying to "bring you down to my level" is beyond me, so please explain your reasoning.
"simply plugging your ears"
Where the fuck is your argument, then? Where is your supporting evidence to your claim that ALL OTHER NEWS STATIONS are EQUAL in influence to a SINGLE one of their competitors? Of course there are subtleties, but do you know what supports my claim that they are still ultimately in competition with each other? The fact that clickbait headlines and misrepresentative sound bites are used to garner attention by every one of them. They are in competition with each other bar fucking none, and you are grasping at straws and falling back to ad hominems faster than your terminal velocity would be if you were physically taking such huge leaps in logic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:04PM
That was true ten years ago. Nowadays every one of the "mainstream" sources including AP, BBC, has caught up to Fox in bullshit production quantity.
The root problem is corruption, the force multiplier is incompetence. When you see journalists block and insult sources on social media for correcting their stories, you can tell that they are not interested in accuracy.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:52PM (5 children)
Not one of the outlets you mentioned is Anti-Capitalist.
They are all on the Right side of the political palate. [politicalcompass.org]
BIG HINT: Trying to use a 1-dimensional term to describe an entity's position is bound to make you look foolish.
When it comes to The Working Class/workers' rights, all of the entities you mentioned are lukewarm at best--and you can forget any mention from them of workers' collective ownership of the means of production.
Finding someone in the USA who is actually Left of the center line is a real challenge.
Politics in the USA has been skewed by The Red Purge, McCarthyism, and The Cold War.
In the USA, the fist step of "political discussion" is to chop off the entire Left half of the political palate.
That leaves the Overton Window. [google.com]
Actual Leftists in broadcast media in the USA are few.
If you want to check out some that are, check out Pacifica Radio and its affiliates.
They are pretty much the extent of that paradigm.
I recently mentioned some Anti-Capitalist voices heard on my SoCal affiliate. [kpfk.org]
Looking at the list that you think is "Left", if you were to listen to Michael Slate (a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party), your head would explode.
Others I previously mentioned: Eric Mann, Jim Lafferty, and Blase Bonpane.
Economics professor Richard Wolff is the most obvious of the Anti-Capitalists.
On his program Economics Update, he constantly points to ways that Capitalism has failed recently and how Socialism would be better for The 99 Percent.
That program recently become available on Free Speech TV (cable).
KPFA has an excellent archive of the audio webcasts.
I previously forgot to mention Indy Media on Air, hosted by Chris Burnett.
His theme music is "Subvert". [google.com]
.
Pacifica presenters who are Progressives (e.g. pro-union, anti-police state) but are not Leftists (not Anti-Capitalist) include Ralph Nader, Amy Goodman, Maria Armoudian, Lila Garrett, the Sheer family, and many more.
Brad Friedman (BradBlog) is one of the best voices anywhere WRT verified voting/voting fraud.
Jimmy Dore and David Feldman are comedians/comedy writers who I compare to Jon Stewart WRT good political analysis.
.
Text-based outlets that are actually "Left" include the World Socialist Web Site (Socialist Equality Party).
Jacobin Magazine is strongly Leftist.
N.B. The WSWS guys often call workers.org (Workers World Party) and socialistworker.org (International Socialist Organization) pseudo-Left for those places' wishy-washy positions on workers' rights and their willingness to cheer e.g. back-to-work orders by labor union officials or the conclusion of a labor action which includes concessions to corporations.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 11 2017, @08:02PM
Modded up because you're right, but don't confuse the alt-reich with facts; they put feelz before realz, as it hath been written, and the first feel they put before what's real is that they feel everyone ELSE puts feelz before realz. They're hopeless; the best thing we can do is ridicule them until they drop dead of ischemic insult.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @11:20PM (3 children)
>Entertaining socialists and communists
Right, into the helicopter you go, nothing ever goes well with your kind.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @01:04AM (2 children)
Well, if you ignore a third of the economy of Emilia-Romagna and the thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of Socialist workplaces there.
Add thousands more Socialist workplaces in South Tyrol for good measure.
Leaving Italy and moving on to Spain, there's (Socialist) Mondragon which has gone from 6 worker-owners in 1956 to over 100,000 worker-owners today.
...and for those who don't understand "helicopter", that refers to a meme among those with small minds, an activity done by murderous allies/clients of murderous USA regimes.
"Communists like free stuff[1], so let's give them free helicopter rides." [google.com]
[1] The Fascist morons who say that don't know what they're talking about.
Tiny weak minds to match their tiny weak dicks.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:15AM (1 child)
Small minded? You haven't understood the implications my friend.
How do you tell a communist and an anti-communist apart? The former merely read Marx, the latter understood it.
Capitalism is dog-eat-dog while Communism is wishing you had dog to eat.
Communists were so ahead of its time, it destroyed the concept of wages only to reinvent it a few years later.
Communism is so class-free they had a new Communist Official class.
But enough bantz.
Free helicopter rides is what communism needs. Every time it fails, apologists will circle around and claim "oh it wasn't TRUE communism". How communist do you think the Soviets were? How communist do you think modern China is? How communist do you think North Korea is? How communist do you think Venezuela is? How communist do you think Cuba is?
Last I checked, Italy and Spain isn't exactly a beacon of economic prosperity in contrast to multinational corporations with more than twice the number in worker-slaves. If your answer to that is that WE NEED MORE COMMUNISM, you might as well start rounding up reactionaries into labor camps for the greater good when actual FASCISTS starts showing up to present themselves as the alternate THIRD WAY.
You might think I'm being hyperbolic to confuse socialism with communism, but that's more of a branding issue, socialists are just communists with more patience, eloquently put by Trotsky "The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end". Do you think communists would give up on their promised land as foretold by its prophets?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:00AM
How do you tell a communist and an anti-communist apart? The former merely read Marx, the latter understood it.
Spoken like a true Nazi! You Fascist, misogynist, racist bastard! I fart in your general direction. But that is only because I know what you do not! I, am not left handed! Wait, that is not it. I know both that you have never, ever read Marx, mostly because he uses big words, and I know that since you never read him, you obviously do not understand him. You might understand the version that your obercommandant has given you to memorize, as is appropriate for someone so low down on the buggering order, but it remains the same. You have no idea about what you are talking about, because you are a stupid, uneducated, illiterate, cuckservative! There! I said it! Up against the wall with you, my dear counter-revolutionary. Not so much because we disagree with you, but because of all the children you gave free helicopter rides to, of all the young people you killed in the Soccer Stadium in Chile, because of all the murder and mayhem you carried out at the behest of your masters because you were too stupid to realize you were being used. That kind of ignorance is unforgiveable, it is unhuman and monstrous, and your fate is sealed. You are an enemy of humankind. Probably a lizard person.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @11:50PM
Have you listened to AM, and some FM, radio lately? It is a right-wing as it gets.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @12:15PM (6 children)
Make is sound more like, this [technologyreview.com]. Can we do that as a team?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:47PM (5 children)
I think the difference is that these guys were spreading lies and bullshit while Obama's data efforts were driving things like get-out-the-vote efforts.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:55PM (4 children)
no, no, no!
Everybody is equally venal and manipulative. There is no such thing as ethics and standards.
Anyone who tries to live up to a standard and fails was just a crook all along.
There are no principles, only tribes.
The nazis were no worse than the americans.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday April 11 2017, @08:32PM (3 children)
The nazis were no worse than the americans.
Well, apparently the Nazis didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons [cbsnews.com] so maybe you're on to something!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @09:13PM (1 child)
Well, if anyone is qualified to know, its the people in the whitehouse.
They have an actual nazi on staff, [lobelog.com] they probably just asked him.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:35AM
So they should know! And, they are correct. Gassing a bunch of people because of their ethnic identity, in a room, with poison, is not the use of chemical weapons: it is genocide. Nazis supposedly did not use chemical weapons against combatants because: 1. they were cowards, like the Nazis that are emerging the the US right now. Prefer to attack people already constrained or otherwise made unable to fight back. Cowards. 2. Not war, but genocide, or more plainly, mass murder on a scale never seen before on the planet, and made worse by the complicity of Dupont-IGFarben: better dying through chemistry. The only thing easier, more impersonal, and evil, is a nuke. And 3. Hitler himself survived a gas attack in WWI, and supposedly thought it was a bad way to die, if you were a soldier, as opposed to an undesireable civilian. So Assad has much to answer for. But then, so does the Trump administration, since as the Donald said, American kills people, too.
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:33AM
Hitler had experienced chemical weapons firsthand.
(Score: 1) by FuzzyTheBear on Tuesday April 11 2017, @12:25PM (28 children)
Best ,as always , is not to have personal info out in public. There's very bad people out here .
From researcher dream to public nightmare the net is the instrument of it's own destruction. Major changes need to happen to privacy law before
we can trust it. In fact , fake news has totally wiped off trust in the media.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday April 11 2017, @03:14PM (27 children)
I don't think the internet will be destroyed. But social media, good riddance.
People should be able to distinguish trustworthy from untrustworthy information -- and media. The key to this: an educated populace.
We are now reaping the failures of our education system that started some time back. Ignorance is celebrated. Intelligence is belittled and ridiculed. While a fictional strawman "geek hero" is created who brings us smart phones, etc.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday April 11 2017, @03:30PM (8 children)
We are now reaping the failures of our education system that started some time back.
Right on. I'll suspect some natural selection will unfortunately correct some of this. The question is how many others and what they will take with them on the way down.
Suppose you had insight and courage in Germany 1935. Would it matter?
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:11PM (7 children)
I wouldn't call it "courage" but in Germany there were two fellows who invented a refrigerator. Fearing what the Nazi government might do, they went to the United States, where they wrote a letter to the president that led to the realisation of the atomic bomb.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein-Szil%C3%A1rd_letter [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @08:51PM (5 children)
I am going to recommend once more that folks DON'T just cut and paste URLs.
A proper hyperlink with proper link text is the way to go.
In this example, we have Eastern European non-Roman characters.
What has resulted is not searchable via the S/N search engine nor via Google. 8-(
...not to mention not readable by a normal human.
A white space between words (rather than e.g. an underscore) would also help WRT the "searchable" thing.
I'm also recommending use of the Preview button to verify that what you -thought- you wrote is actually what will turn up.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @09:16PM (2 children)
It would be nice if rehash was smart enough to clean up bare urls when it linkifies them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @09:53PM (1 child)
...as in "Guess which of the dozens of character set this was using -before- it got changed to a Roman-equivalent for that site where I found it."
I don't think you have a strong enough grasp of the subject to be commenting on it.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @10:17PM
Wow, you kinda suck at this don't you?
I cut-n-paste a URL, rehash fetches the page and looks at the results to decide what to use.
Prick.
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Tuesday April 11 2017, @10:08PM (1 child)
> [...] DON'T just cut and paste URLs.
I know how to do that, but I can't usually be bothered to make the effort.
> In this example, we have Eastern European non-Roman characters. What has resulted is not searchable via the S/N search engine nor via Google.
For me, the SoylentNews search has never worked when I attempted to search for comments. I assume it's because I'm not a subscriber. For example, a search of comments for "search" has no results for me:
/search.pl?tid=&query=search&author=&sort=1&op=comments [soylentnews.org]
> ...not to mention not readable by a normal human.
I'm aware that URLs are often not human-readable. I don't expect readers to read them. I'm aware that presenting them as URLs rather than as link text looks messy.
> A white space between words (rather than e.g. an underscore) would also help WRT the "searchable" thing.
Search engines typically ignore punctuation, do they not?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @10:44PM
Having tried others and having been disappointed with the results, these days, I use Google exclusively.
Google considers an underscore to be a searchable character.
Sites which use that character in URLs would be wise to use the same text (with whitespace, of course) in the page title.
Better still: Don't use the underscore in URLs.
(Too late for e.g. Wikipedia Launched - January 15, 2001. [wikipedia.org])
N.B. Google was founded in 1998 [wikipedia.org] and has used the same "searchable" criterion since I began using it that year.
Some sites which started before Google, went back and re-did their URLs to be Google-compatible.
Others never took any notice of how Google treats their URLs. 8-/
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday April 11 2017, @10:06PM
I think this is the point. A fucked state is usually unmanageable for an individual. Thus even if one has all the knowledge the brains to understand it and everything around. It still won't matter much. And thus emigration is in most cases the most efficient option.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Tuesday April 11 2017, @04:26PM (17 children)
We are now reaping the failures of our education system that started some time back.
It isn't a failure. Go read the writings of the people who designed the government schools. They wanted a compliant population to be good cogs in the Industrial Revolution's machine instead of rowdy individual Citizens. Good little team players, packed with enough knowledge to do their job but not taught to think independently since that would only cause them unhappiness. The ruling class of course continued to attend private schools that taught them how to lead.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:47PM (15 children)
Go read the writings of the people who designed the government schools.
Go google it! The demand of every idiot who can't back up his claims.
Good little team players, packed with enough knowledge to do their job but not taught to think independently since that would only cause them unhappiness.
You make two claims here, one true, one false.
(1) They realized the population needed to be educated so that there would be enough people with skills for the modern economy
(2) They wanted them to brainwashed so as not to question their place in society
Don't bother trying to prove #1, nobody disputes that.
I await your proof of #2. I'm sure I will be waiting a long time.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by meustrus on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:09PM (14 children)
The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher [cantrip.org]
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:51PM (13 children)
You found an essay from 1991 that does not cite any historical documents by anyone.
That's not proof that the public school system was designed to do anything.
Its the opinion of one unhappy person.
Seems more like your are trying to disprove #1 by personal example than prove #2.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday April 11 2017, @09:59PM (12 children)
Alright, how about one with more sources? [wesjones.com]
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @10:55PM (2 children)
Looks like bullshit to me. As in the guy is lying about what his sources actually say.
For example, he claims:
3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role.
But the actual source material [archive.org] is practically the opposite of that sinister portrait:
163 The diagnostic and directive function.
...
The mere offering of various forms of instruction does not complete the work of the secondary school. It must, as far as may be possible, add to that function the function of exploring, testing, diagnosing, and directing the education of the pupil. It must permit the pupil to discover and test his own special aptitudes and capacities...
The source material says its school's job to help kids figure out what they are good at and your guy twists that into forcing kids to conform to their 'proper' role.
Your guy obviously didn't conceive of a world where his claims could be fact-checked in a few minutes. He relied on his sources being entombed in the dusty vault of a library that few have access to so that we would have to trust his interpretation to be honest.
Maybe his other claims have more merit, but its telling that the very first one I decided to check turned out to be duplicitous. I really don't have the spare time to give him the benefit of the doubt after that.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday April 11 2017, @11:14PM (1 child)
Present day school policy managers perhaps also twists the original purposes the same way? That teacher after all tried to analyze his actual experiences during decades of teaching and student interaction. So even despite this, there's something seriously wrong with the way the school works.
How come we can make Mars rockets but not fix school?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @11:54PM
Part of the problem is that factory-schooling can only have so much variety. But you can not look at it in a vacuum.
Prior to public schooling, princelings got personal tutors, merchant kids got very small class-sizes, like ~6 kids per teacher and everybody else got apprenticeships, almost always in the family trade.
Compared to that, public schooling provides much broader options for the majority of pupils than would otherwise be available. So it isn't that conformity was a design goal, it is a result of the limited available resources.
I am not qualified to comment on which pedagogical strategies are better or worse. I'm just smart enough to recognize that the idea that public school is intended to turn kids into conformist robots is conspiracy theory and thus counter-productive. It might be satisfying to believe there is an enemy deliberately working to hold down the proletariat, but if you don't understand the reality of the situation you can't hope to fix it.
(Score: 1, Troll) by kaszz on Tuesday April 11 2017, @11:10PM (7 children)
Here are the goals of compulsory numb-school, as per Alexander Inglis's 1918 book, Principles of Secondary Education [archive.org]:
(pointed out in the previous posters linked text)
1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.
2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.
3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.
4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.
5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.
6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.
The book [archive.org] is 776 pages long and the actual source material can be found under "376 PRINCIPLES OF SECONDARY EDUCATION", page 396 in the pdf [archive.org] file. I noticed some other interesting chapters too in the first pages.
The summary can almost be this: Got brains? GET OUT NOW!
Or at least study your own smarter curriculum regardless of what the school wants. Be it in classroom ignoring the teacher, library reading while skipping classes, which keeps up the image that "you go to school" or reading elsewhere away from the thug people. Remember that the only thing you need from your first 12-years of school are the papers that either get you into college or a decent job. Unless you start your own thing, in which case business performance is everything and not grades.
And don't take anyone elses word for that you are smart or dumb. Test it!
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @11:39PM
> Here are the goals of compulsory numb-school, as per Alexander Inglis's 1918 book,
False
Those are some other guy's version of Inglis's goals.
A guy who is pushing a very specific narrative that seems to be only superficially related to what Inglis actually wrote.
There is so much irony in you two uncritically accepting what you are told about what Inglis wrote rather than checking it for yourself despite having the full text available to you.
Are you, by chance, a public-school graduate?
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:21AM (2 children)
Tried searching for:
"Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority." in the plain-text [archive.org] and was not able to find an occurrence.
" because its intention is to make children as alike as possible." does not show up either.
Neither does "School is meant to determine each student's proper social role.
Here is what seciton 151 (starting page 367) actually says:
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:53AM (1 child)
I think Gatto has written his text with only partial inspiration from Inglis's book. Gattos points seem valid regardless. There are other people with conclusions along the same lines.
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:59AM
By the third null result, it was clear I was quoting a (possibly biased) summary :)
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday April 12 2017, @01:36PM (2 children)
I used to get yelled at in school for doing that (late 90s, early 00s). Apparently these days when you complete a test or assignment you're supposed to sit quietly and stare at a wall; individual educational reading is strictly prohibited.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:45PM (1 child)
Apparently these days when you complete a test or assignment you're supposed to sit quietly and stare at a wall;
Seems they mixed up jail with school.. :P
Time for kids to screw that hard.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:42PM
Eh, they're just treating it as the job training that everyone keeps saying it should be.
I spend a LOT of time these days staring at a cubicle wall. When I'm not on Soylent at least... ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @12:45AM
https://archive.org/details/TheUndergroundHistoryOfAmericanEducation_758 [archive.org]
"THE UNDERGROUND HISTORY OF AMERICAN EDUCATION is a freewheeling investigation into the real - as opposed to the `official' - history of schooling, focused on the U.S. but with examinations of other historical examples for the purposes of comparing and contrasting, as well as for tracing where ideas and concepts related to education originated. You will discover things you were never told in the official version, things that will, at times, surprise, disgust, and scare you. You will also be introduced to the little-known historiography of the the darker side of the construction of compulsory government schooling."
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday April 11 2017, @10:09PM
It's a failure for the outcome of the society as a whole. The individual power brokers want to abuse others to profit and get power is another issue.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @01:21PM (5 children)
Ah propaganda, the old loaded term for PR. Everyone within the US political system is doing exactly the same thing, singling out Trump in order to spin the propaganda narrative against him is the epitome of hypocrisy.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @02:10PM
Of course. When Obama had his tech gurus he was a revolutionary. When Trump does it, it's sinister. These guys are so fucking transparent. And I have no time for them, nor the useful idiots that actually believe them.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday April 11 2017, @03:25PM (3 children)
Googling . . .
Propaganda is "information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view".
Propaganda is not PR. PR may be biased, but should not be misleading -- especially about politics.
Trump is not being covered unfairly. Just critically. It is fair to criticize any politician including Trump. Especially using their own words. Probably why Trump doesn't speak in public anymore, because he can't speak in complete sentences. Criticism on this is completely deserved.
Trump's policies are criticized. Completely fair game.
Trump is not singled out. He just makes himself an easy target. Just like the Dear Leader of NK is an easy target for criticism.
Trump started a war with the media. What did he expect?
He's not being treated unfairly. He (and his supporters) just don't like the blowback for his policies which affect people other than his supporters.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @03:32PM
Trump upset vested interests and pointed out media lies. Of course there will be a fight.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:22PM (1 child)
Googling . . .
Facepalming...
If you are wondering why I refer to PR as propaganda, you might want to look into the origins of PR [wikipedia.org]. Tis a field created by a man who quite openly cited Goebbels as his primary inspiration. Whatever online dictinoary you are citing is the victim of propagandist efforts into rebranding propagandist techniques as PR in order to obfuscate the moral bankruptcy of the practice.
(Trump blah blah blah)
Complete non sequitur. This is your brain soaked on PR, you are so mired in the mindset that you don't even realize the intellectually dishonest tactics you are employing.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday April 11 2017, @10:24PM
Tis a field created by a man who quite openly cited Goebbels as his primary inspiration.
Well other than getting the entire direction of inspiration wrong.... nice work. But yes, it is quite clear that Propaganda and PR are the same thing, at least in the eyes of the guy who literally wrote the book on the subject.
From Wikipedia:
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @01:27PM (15 children)
Robert Mercer is an example of what happens when an idiot wins the lottery.
He is a full-blown nutjob, [newyorker.com] like pizzagate nuts.
He believes that the clintons ran drugs out of arkansas with the CIA and that they regularly murder people.
That black people were better off before the civil rights movement and that there are no white racists anymore, just black racists.
That radioactive fallout made the japanese healthier and that all-out nuclear war would not be such a terrible thing for americans.
That humans have no value other than how much money they make. If someone earns 1000x times more money than a schoolteacher, then he's 1000x more valuable than that schoolteacher and that people on welfare have negative value. A full-blown ayn randian asshole.
Basically, Breitbart is his bible.
And his daughter, Rebekah is just as delusional.
Unfortunately they have so much money that instead of reality correcting them, they pervert reality.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @01:35PM (14 children)
"He believes that the clintons ran drugs out of arkansas with the CIA"
What if you could interview a retired CIA agent who talks a little to much when he's had a few drinks? What if that agent told you how many times he watched the radar signature of an aircraft crossing the US/Mexico border, come in to land in west Arkansas, or east Oklahoma, only to get a radio call to leave that plane alone.
I'm as sure that the Clintons made their first money on drugs as I can possibly be, without having been there myself.
I have little idea what the rest of your rant is all about, I'm not touching it.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @01:38PM
Case in point.
Too bad there is no hope for you, its 10x easier to fool someone than for them to realize they've been fooled.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @01:40PM
Wow. Better change your brand of Kool-aid.
(Score: 4, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday April 11 2017, @03:12PM
Well, I'm convinced. An unnamed person on a website indirectly alluded to some third-hand drunken gossip from someone who alleges to have seen a blip on a radar screen. Obviously the only logical conclusion is that Bill and Hilary Clinton are massive drug dealers. I can't conceive of any higher standard of proof, and I look forward to seeing them both brought to trial and conclusively convicted on the strength of this irrefutable evidence.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday April 11 2017, @03:29PM (9 children)
If that were true, a conspiracy that big, involving that many people, could not be kept.
Other radars would pick up that plane also.
More people would come forward.
All you seem to have is mere hearsay, if it is even that.
I could make up crazy stories too. But we now live in a time when facts no longer matter. Only ideology seems to matter.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday April 11 2017, @04:48PM (8 children)
That is the trick, these secrets aren't kept they are merely suppressed. If the media doesn't report it most people won't believe it happened. Since the media are essentially on the Democratic Party's org chart that means they can get away with all sorts of things. Media bias is not just the lies they tell right to our faces, it is the stories that get declared non-stories and thus anyone who persists is trafficking in 'conspiracy theory.'
Secret Service agents can retire and write books on what they saw and, nope no coverage so still just a "conspiracy theory." Bill Clinton raped multiple women but the media still insist it isn't a story so "conspiracy theory." Somehow it always works in one direction, Rolling Stone almost gets away with destroying someone's life over a lie that advanced the Narrative and that is fine. Bill Clinton actually does rape women and the NOW promulgates the One Grope Rule (like even that excuses actual rape rape) and the media declare the story a non-story so anyone still discussing it is a crazy conspiracy theorist. Hillary Clinton broke multiple laws and the media declared it off limits so "conspiracy theory." She took a hundred million from Russia. Roll that number around in your mind a moment and repeat after me, this is not a story.
Or take the current conspiracy theory that it is not only acceptable to discuss, it is mandatory: RussiaGate. What is the accusation exactly? They want low info voters to think the Russians hacked voting machines to install their puppet, Trump. But if you actually read the media's accusation it is about WikiLeaks and Hillary Clinton's crimes being exposed and the accusation the Russians did it instead of Seth Rich. So at bottom the accusation is that the Russians committed Journalism. That is it. If the NYT splashed someone's email on page 1 (Sarah Palin... cough!) they would get another Pulitzer to put on the shelf in dishonor along with Duranty's for his crimes against sentient life. But how dare Putin commit Journalism! Bomb him now!
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:08PM
The problem with conspiracy theories is that people like to believe them, even on flimsy evidence. It is fun to think you know something others don't.
Ostensibly, the media may refrain from carrying many stories because they lack independent verification. For something like a rape accusation, that may not always be possible. However, you are alleging a pattern of behaviour (with Bill Clinton anyway), which may imply more than one victim. Now that I think about it, The Rolling Stone article you are alluding to [wikipedia.org] may be a case where they did not fact-check well enough before publication.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:09PM (2 children)
> If the NYT splashed someone's email on page 1
You mean like all those times they splashed Clinton's email on page 1?
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:20PM (1 child)
Different. WikiLeaks and the dastardly Russians did it, once it was out and a story the NYT had to cover it, who else could provide the proper context to the raw information? Who else could assure panicked Hillary supporters that there wasn't any real news here, to keep calm and donate again.
You don't get a Pulitzer for carrying someone else's big breaking news exclusive. Point being, just like the media sitting on the Lewinsky scandal until Drudge broke it, it sat on Susan Rice's latest crime until Cernovich broke it and the NYT would have sat on Seth Rich had they been given first shot at it, the media won't break a story harmful to Democrats. Once out they will decide if they can help with damage control by spinning it or burying the story. As CNN did with Susan Rice for example, at last check they had still refused to admit that story exists other than a few snarky "that is an attempt at distraction we ain't falling for" lines from idiots on live air.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:49PM
Who else could assure panicked Hillary supporters that there wasn't any real news here, to keep calm and donate again.
Yeah, because near constant coverage is how you assure people that there is no real news here.
What alternate reality do you live in?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 11 2017, @06:39PM (3 children)
That is the trick, these secrets aren't kept they are merely suppressed.
Ah ha! Now I get it! The reason this is all true is that there is no evidence of it, and it must have been suppressed since it would be impossible to keep such things secret, and since we do not know that these things did not happen, that means for certain they did! jmorris, you are too much of a crazy person to even argue with, and it gives me no pleasure to mock your intellectual deformities, but I feel we must do it for the sake of others.
You are engaged in the well-known argumentum ad ignorantiam, an appeal to ignorance. More or less, you are saying, since we don't know (can't prove) something is false, it must be true. Unfortuneately for all you "false equivalency" right-wing conspiracy nut-job types, there is an equivalency here. Just because you cannot prove something is true (AGW, anyone?), that does not mean it is false. Equally, just because you cannot prove something is false, that does not mean that it is true.
The point is that what we do not know has no bearing on what we do know. Of course, this might explain the attraction of this fallacy to the conservative mind, since there is so much it does not know. In fact, there is almost nothing for a conservative to base knowledge on, since all they start with is ignorance. And so they loves them some conspiracy theory! Hey, have you heard of David Ickes? You know, no one has been able to conclusively prove that we are not ruled by lizard people! Just saying!!
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by jmorris on Tuesday April 11 2017, @10:43PM (2 children)
Now you are just being a douche. There is plenty of evidence, you just go to great effort not to know about it. Guess ignorance is bliss. Wasting an hour digging up links would be a pointless effort. Learn to use Google. You want sworn testimony? It is out there. On the record accounts from former law enforcement / secret service / intelligence agents? Yup. Giant infographic posters carefully detailing the dozens of dead people under violent and suspicious circumstances swirling around the Clintons? Find one, compare to similar lists of who died on The Sopranos and note which list is longer. Think some of the entries might be bogus? Get a list and poke around on a couple at random. They tend to check out to the extent you can check as a civilian, i.e. the person named existed, was closely associated with the Clintons and died under violent but mysterious circumstances. But I already know your reply: You. Don't. Care.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @11:01PM
Learn to use Google.
Lol! Go Google It!
What, you didn't learn your lesson the first time? [soylentnews.org]
Brings to mind that line about the definition of insanity.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 11 2017, @11:25PM
It is out there.
Not only is "it" out there, but you are really "out there", jmorris! Do you want I should dig up some links on the Lizard People?
There are many differing theories. If you look at the forums on Icke's site, there are numerous posts either telling people how to spot lizard people or asking how to pick a lizard person out from the crowd.
Bump, one of the top lizard person journalists in the field, made a handy guide last year that culled lizard-person identifiers. Here's the list of lizard person tells:
Green eyes
Good eyesight or hearing
Having red hair
A sense of not belonging to the human race
Unexplained scars on the body
Love of space
Low blood pressure
A brief survey on Icke's forums also point out physical features like having a smile where bottom teeth show, eyes that change size, or eyes with abnormally-sized pupils as potential lizard-person tells.
First hit! http://www.vox.com/2014/11/5/7158371/lizard-people-conspiracy-theory-explainer [vox.com] But kinda MSN rife with SJWs so BBC. LOL.
.
And, it's not just me, jmorris. No one cares about your nutjob conspiracy theories, except your (((fellow travelers]]], and of course, the Illuminati and the Reptoids.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @03:08AM
You know, if you don't want people like the Clintons to make money selling illegal drugs, you can just legalize them, and the price will fall through the floor.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Tuesday April 11 2017, @02:20PM (11 children)
Him donating use of his private jets to Hillary for her political purposes? Google altering search results regarding Wikileaks? Organizing her fucking campaign and being seen wearing a "staff" badge at one of her Party's parties?
Yeah fucking right, fake news. You sure make me want to buy a subscription! Trump won on schedule and WAY under budget, compared to Clinton.
All of the mainstream news outlets, all of the vocal celebrity activists, the Pope, every living former President, the FBI, CIA, NSA, and IRS, *ALL* working under the outgoing administration, ALL supporting her, with 30 years of political experience under her belt...
...and she was beaten soundly by a man who entered politics as a hobby just a year before the election. Read the country's lips, fake news media: She was that. fucking. bad.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @02:46PM
Indeed. An election is an accurate measure of a candidate's value, just like the stock market is an accurate measure of a company's value.
Which, ironically, is how Robert Mercer got rich, he came up with algorithms to manipulate the stock market and has been made billions via his quant hedge fund.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Scottingham on Tuesday April 11 2017, @04:35PM (3 children)
Not sure if you can call winning the popular vote 'beaten soundly', but I get your point. She was pretty fucking bad.
I was a Bernie man, so fuck it all at this point.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Tuesday April 11 2017, @06:48PM
Believe it or not - as a now Trump supporter I was donating small amounts to Bernie's campaign when I could afford to. Then it became apparent that he was going to race-bait as never before, and ultimately, was going to submit to the establishment.
"We're gonna destroy the establishment!!! Oops, looks like I lost, all your donations go to the establishment....Vote for the establishment. No refunds."
-Bernie Sanders (paraphrased)
However you spin it, if you were on his damn mailing list like I was, you know damn well that he was spamming emails asking for donations for weeks after he knew he was going to be beaten. In the end, he deceived and betrayed his voter base by not pursuing true action against who was possibly the most deeply-rooted establishment candidate ever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @08:50PM (1 child)
As many have pointed out, the name of the game was never "get the most public votes" it was "get the most electoral college votes" which Trump did quite well with. He was even proven correct a few times when they did their recount and discovered there were more votes for Trump than they counted before AND there was true voter fraud (more votes for Clinton in certain districts and counties around Detroit than there were actual voters for instance).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @09:33PM
there was true voter fraud (more votes for Clinton in certain districts and counties around Detroit than there were actual voters for instance)
I would like to see your citation on that.
...and had The Orange Clown -not- done better than Killary in the Rust Belt states, we would have gotten a Neoliberal [soylentnews.org] who was/is the Head Cheerleader for Slick Willie's agenda. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [truth-out.org]
Whether the Red or the Blue won, we lost.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @04:55PM (4 children)
The search suggestions are cleaned up. Put in "Hillary Clinton is" on google and you only get nice suggestions. Try it on Bing or DuckDuckGo, and oh boy!
Facebook does this kind of shit too, and twitter is probably the worst. Twitter carefully suppresses conservative opinion. Tweets get hidden from influential people (only those people) who might retweet them, and only until the tweets are old. This is subtle; your non-influential friends tell you that they can see your tweets but -- temporarily -- your tweets are hidden from the people who matter.
It's pretty damn evil what the left will do.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:06PM (2 children)
> The search suggestions are cleaned up. Put in "Hillary Clinton is" on google and you only get nice suggestions. Try it on Bing or DuckDuckGo, and oh boy!
Put in Donald Trump and you get the same thing.
Google sanitizes equally. You just didn't bother doing the comparison because its all about halting the search as soon as you find something that confirms your bias.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Tuesday April 11 2017, @06:55PM (1 child)
If you have not read Julian Assange's essay on Google, you are blind in this conversation.
https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ [wikileaks.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @08:00PM
Assange? Isn't he the guy who has so utterly lost his shit about Clinton to the point of writing deranged tweets about her having parkinsons and a head injury?
The guy who has convinced tons of people that Clinton had a DNC staffer murdered as revenge for leaking the emails he actually got via Russia?
His opinion, especially when it comes to Clinton whom he blames for stranding him the embassy, is less than trustworthy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @10:17PM
> ... and twitter is probably the worst.
Those who ignore history are condemned to retweet it. -- David Brooks (recent NYT editorial)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @01:12PM
The FBI published two different precedent shattering, possibly illegal, memos about how she really was a crook they swear, they just didn't have enough evidence to arrest her. That is not support.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @02:58PM (8 children)
I just can't believe it. How many times do we need proof of election rigging to finally bring a court case against Trump and his administration?
Oh, right. It doesn't matter. Americans are complacent about Russia and Trump swaying voters.
And now that he's in power, it's just going to be more and more of this. And the fact that it was done with stuff like Facebook makes it just that much worse.
Who knew we'd get both 1984 and Brave New World in the same book, and call it "2017."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @03:22PM
I don't know much about the US law regarding elections, but is "influence" illegal? I'm having a very difficult time trying to find anything about it, and I've spent 5 minutes or so already searching. "US voting laws influence" doesn't yield much more than some articles written by SJW's about how black people are too stupid to have ID's and that its racist to enforce voter ID. "US voting laws 'illegal influence'" leads me down the opposite path, with talks about how Obama actively encouraged illegals to vote and reassured them that if they did vote they wouldn't be deported, with video proof no less. so I'm really not seeing anything in US law that says you can't lie to gain votes, because I'm pretty sure that would kill the career of many politicians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @03:43PM
When corruption goes far enough unpleasanties pop up.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by jmorris on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:00PM (3 children)
You are probably too young to remember. But Pepperidge Farm remembers and so do I, when the Democrats supported Soviet Russia and called anyone who saw the pervasive Soviet infestation of our institutions an evil person practicing McCarthyism against innocent public servants. Amazing how that reversed almost as soon as the Soviets became the Russians again. Now Conservatives (especially Alt-Right ones) are willing to see Russia as a future friend while Progs HATE the traitors to the cause.
And if meddling in the internal affairs of others is wrong somebody forgot to tell the US government. You might be too young to remember Soviet Russia but do you remember President Obama meddling in Egypt's elections to favor the Muslim Brotherhood? Meddling in the BrExit vote by openly campaigning on the side of Remain? Totally ignoring the politics of smart bombs that deposed Libya's dictator. So Putin would rather not let the NeoCons rejoin the Progs to go to war with Russia and took an interest in preventing WWIII, you guys say that like it is a bad thing. Is Putin evil? Oh Hell yea, but like the Middle East I doubt a Good aligned person could rule so whatever. But he understands there wouldn't be a winner in WWIII so I can agree with him on that point. Let us return to some RealPolitik here and make the best out of a broken world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @08:41PM
Oh wow...
Just wow...
I don't...
I tried, but I can't even.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @09:21PM (1 child)
> But Pepperidge Farm remembers and so do I
We all knew you were crackers, and that you are about as smart as a goldfish.
But we never expected you to brag about it. [pepperidgefarm.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @06:15AM
[begin encoded message] SJW Special Task Force, jmorris Division, tactical update. Stardate 70742.2. Subject apparently delusional, attributing consciousness and memory to "farms". Not a good sign for the subject, but if this trend continues, subject may be rendered harmless. I mean, who wants to read a guy who writes "Pepperridge Farms remembers"? Situation being monitored. Hold off on the Wet Squad, for now. [end encoded message] And remember, jmorris, just because you are paranoid, that does not mean they are not out to get you. Listen to aristarchus, he has your best interests at heart.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by shortscreen on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:47PM (1 child)
Yes, the election was rigged. It was rigged before it even began, being monopolized by two corrupt political parties with long histories of criminality and blatant track records of favoring special interests over people. They have the corporate media and the government itself stacked with their own henchmen. Who's gonna stop them?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @10:10PM
...and those of you who refer to USA's "2-party system" without venom dripping from your voices: shame on you.
We need more political parties in the mix.
We need to experience a wider range of ideas.
(A big raspberry for Lamestream Media here.)
To make this effective, we need to adopt Ranked Voting (like all the civilized countries).
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by meustrus on Tuesday April 11 2017, @04:32PM
So glad we said as a society that it's perfectly OK and legal, even desirable, for internet companies to use all this data to target advertisements. So glad we let "corporate cancerism" as I've recently seen it described have a level of access to our personal lives that, were the government to have, would result in armed revolution. So glad they've been at it long enough to get good at it. So glad that now our options are the old aristocracy that broke the system for their own benefit and this new aristocracy that doesn't even have enough sense to keep the system stable enough for their own benefit.
Yeah, this is definitely going to end well.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?