Trump Versus Biden

[Hydra009]

I listened to much of the Republican defense on my way back from getting my covid shot.  I think they did a good job of reaching out and hanging on to their constituents without seeming like they were in on the prank with Trump.  Superficially, it sounded like a great defense of free speech.  And I think they could probably win with their arguments in court of law, with the general understanding of free speech.

As a side note, I've been opposed to free speech for at least 30 years after I first tuned into HATE Radio, as they referred to their station in Kalispell, Montana, but I don't expect anyone to accept my position.  I will say, that I support responsible speech, while I oppose free speech.

Conservatives certainly are suddenly much more protective of free speech when one of their own faces consequences than when Colin Kaepernick takes a knee or when people walk the streets to protest for positive change.

Personally, I tend to be extremely permissive when it comes to speech, a policy I've had to continually ruminate on when speech has an associated deathtoll, be it antivaxx speech or speech that leads directly to a deadly, democracy-endangering attack.

Ideally, I'd like to live in a society were people can say whatever they want without tragic consequences.  Is such a thing possible?

[GSOgymrat]

I used to be a free speech absolutist but not anymore. It is too easy to spread false information online, which is especially problematic when that information is selectively targeted. There is the idea that if everyone is allowed to speak freely without censorship the truth will win out but if we have learned anything in the past six years it is that people will gladly accept lies if it suits their agenda. Online misinformation leads to polarization and extremism. Also, online free speech enables people to anonymously harass individuals as a mob, resulting in online and offline consequences. I think there need to be some limits.

[Shiranu]

There is the idea that if everyone is allowed to speak freely without censorship the truth will win out...

I put that up there with "If the market is free, it will inevitably shift in the consumer's favor" and "Trickle down economics".

Sounds nice, but once you spend time thinking about it you realise just how flawed it really is.

[Hydra009]

*a conservative browsing this thread*

Ah ha!  All these liberals are pro-censorship and want a 1984-type society!  Forshame!

[SGOS]

*a conservative browsing this thread*

Ah ha!  All these liberals are pro-censorship and want a 1984-type society!  Forshame!

One of Trump's lawyers did the "For-shame" thing in his concluding remarks yesterday, apparently thinking that's it's OK to send a rioting mob into the Capitol.  And he's shaming Democrats?  He's in an alternate reality.

[drunkenshoe]

Frankly I think the repubs are overestimating Trumps base. They see a few thousand, maybe they see a hundred thousand fanatics, but they don’t see that, IMO, probably 50% didn’t vote Trump they voted Republican. I see videos of hundreds protesting all over, but not 35 million. I see a large vocal angry crowds gathered at spots all over the country and protesting...but we are not seeing 35 million. They, IMO, risking the real base of the Republican cause to the idea that the few speak for the majority. Whole no doubt, there are tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands screaming, but we are not seeing 35 million screaming. That would be a whole lot different. Pandering to the vocal because they are scared. Now, I don’t have access to the phone records of all the repubs from their constituents, but I think, if we could, we would find a lot less that we think as far as succumbing to 35 million objections. One jackass calling 50 times, and I do believe that many of them call constantly to scream, there is not 35 million calling. But....I could be wrong.

No, you have a point. Actually, that's also the case pretty much everywhere around the world with these groups. The average people of the world have lives, partners, spouses, families, kids, jobs, bills... and no time for this shit. And mostly they are not even interested, more importantly, contrary to the common belief most people are sensible. They vote or don't, and watch some news video, follow the events, have a chat about it with their online friends as we do here. It's us.

The problem is that a little amount of people can create mass fear. Because violence changes everything. You know that we try to teach kids that 'violence is never the answer' because that was what they taught us? Because it is good? The thing is, beyond wishful thinking, violence has a huge, unbreachable answer for everything. And that's Fear. And fear changes human behaviour. It's not that what you think about the specific thing itself, or if you agree with it or not, it is how that fear changes the way you see the society you live and your place in it. People, events, the relations between events, phenomena...the way you percieve cause and effect. At some point, the way you live your life. Of course, this does not happen over a night. It happens over years, decades and every time it happens, it's just the normal. When we change our behaviour and lives because the society we live in startes to change, we are not conscious of it most of the time.

How and when have the majority of American people gotten used to the random shootings? School shootings?  If these have become random violence most people even don't want to read about, why wouldn't be the actions of these groups? If the answer is 'because this has a political motivation' then you don't need 35 million people to agree with the little group.

In my opinion, this has a very cliché mechanism, one that is in conflict with the so called post-truth zeitgeist. And that's taking responsibility for the things around you.  When all this happens bit by bit over a certain period of time, people stop taking responsbility in any level. Your dry cleaner, the teacher of your kids in school, the clerk in the shop...the manager in your firm...think every occupation and personal relationship...go up to the administrating levels. But note that I'm not saying these people do illegal things, break rules and laws. They do their job but they do not take responsbile for anything as much as possible. We are these people. That's the result of that growing mass fear and that's the change in behaviour. That's what the elders keep saying with 'when I was at your age...this wouldn't happen' while everyone else in the room rolls their eyes.

It seems that white supremacists have been doing this for a long time, and scoial media was the right medium to 'crystalise' it, if you will. The years of rabbithole effect, the pandemic, insurrection...etc.

These characters coming up saying things, making threats...I see in American news. It's like I'm watching the local news. Word for word. Their body languge is the fucking same. I'm thinking when that wasn't the norm? 17-20 years ago. Nobody would dare to do something like this then in the place I live. It seems to similar with the US.

When I think 'What's happened, what's changed?' while my mind keeps going to factors like social media, mass depression, social media, population growth, social media...I've started to think we are wrong in thinking it is something 'extra' added to human life, something we haven't had before that's the problem; something out of control and became very complicated because of the grand scale and abundance, but in fact, it is something we've had before just little over a tipping point and when it fell down from that degree we've lost it altogether. Something very simple. Nothing to theorise about. Daily life detail. And that carries me to a form of behaviour older generations had almost automatically. Responsibility.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Not according to faux.  and they always get all the facts right. 

Easy for people to get swooshed these days.

[SGOS]

Frankly I think the repubs are overestimating Trumps base. They see a few thousand, maybe they see a hundred thousand fanatics, but they don’t see that, IMO, probably 50% didn’t vote Trump they voted Republican. I see videos of hundreds protesting all over, but not 35 million. I see a large vocal angry crowds gathered at spots all over the country and protesting...but we are not seeing 35 million. They, IMO, risking the real base of the Republican cause to the idea that the few speak for the majority. Whole no doubt, there are tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands screaming, but we are not seeing 35 million screaming. That would be a whole lot different. Pandering to the vocal because they are scared. Now, I don’t have access to the phone records of all the repubs from their constituents, but I think, if we could, we would find a lot less that we think as far as succumbing to 35 million objections. One jackass calling 50 times, and I do believe that many of them call constantly to scream, there is not 35 million calling. But....I could be wrong.

I always wonder about this kind of thing.  At one time, I thought I misjudged their base, based on a perception that no one can be that stupid, but now I have accepted that people can be that stupid.  But how big that base actually is and how loyal they are, I could be way off in either direction.

We assume politicians have a more scientific way of judging their support.  And it's exactly that; It's an assumption.  I know the president has pollsters, but when you hear from them on TV, they don't act like pollsters.  They act like Madison Avenue advertising agents. Do they actually construct valid polls?  I have no idea.  It's just an assumption.

A Republican Senator in Montana sent out a poll one time, and you've seen them too.  On the surface they are asking for your opinion.  How wonderful.  This guy actually gives a shit about my opinion, but then the questions are all choices designed by his pollster, who doesn't have a clue how to ask questions in a poll.  For example:

---------------------------------
Check one:

Do you want to tie up all forest resources so they cannot be used by anyone?
or
Do you support high wages and jobs for everyone?

Well duh?!  Can I save some resources that would help stave off global warming, and maybe create some jobs that are environmentally friendly? --- No sorry.  You choice is between locking it all up and poverty.  There can be nothing in between.

My reaction when I read the stupid thing, was to wonder how many people see those as the only alternatives.  Well, I guess the Senator doesn't spend hundreds of thousands of dollars sending those things out, if he thinks people will laugh that kind of thing off as the fallacious idiocy that it is.

[GSOgymrat]

*a conservative browsing this thread*

Ah ha!  All these liberals are pro-censorship and want a 1984-type society!  Forshame!

That kind of reaction is an example of polarization. The problems of social media and disinformation are not a left/right issue. We have address the consequences of a new technology, just as we had to deal with the pros and cons of the automobile. No one wants to waste their time determining if the information we see online is accurate. I don't want to worry whether the next presidential address is accurately conveyed or whether parts are deep faked, that what Republicans, Democrats or people in Europe or China or the Middle East see is a different address that has been designed to create conflict. We may not be willing to stop this misinformation because of freedom of speech, that this was "a parody" and "political speech criticizing an elected official" and protected by the First Amendment. This isn't just about America, the people of the world have some hard choices.

[drunkenshoe]

Polls were invented for a day when there was a more common, relatively a more homogenic media existed. At least not a world with opposite realities in conflict. While it looks like the polling would be easier and more accurate with wider audience with internet mediums, I think it has become another medium for propaganda along with every other thing. Also, the literal thinking in most millenials, almost all social media kids -they're still not at the voting age I guess, they will be in next elections *global alarm button pushed- is overwhelming. It's like the first decades of televison. 'If it is on tv, it must have a reality to it' kind of frame of mind. Fucking memes.

Same with quizes and surveys...And eventually, most of them evolved to measure only extreme tendencies at different ends. Because that's the area from every group of people will meet. Otherwise, 'so many different worlds, so many different suns, and we have just one world but we live in different ones' as the poet says. (It's disgusting just trying to make it look better.)

Best polling is the dumb polling. "Who will you vote for?" Not "Why will you vote for that candidate?"

If poll making could predict social media rabbitholes, they wouldn't miss Orange's win.

[Hydra009]

It is too easy to spread false information online, which is especially problematic when that information is selectively targeted.

This guy is a notorious loon to just hammer that point home, lol.

[drunkenshoe]

Why does he look familiar? I think he looks like someone famous.

[Hydra009]

Why does he look familiar? I think he looks like someone famous.

Hercules on TV.  Went off the deep end and took part in Christian propaganda movies after that, notably playing a fundamentalist caricature of an atheist professor.

[drunkenshoe]

Oh yeah...he is the person I think he looks like, lol.

[GSOgymrat]

Twitter vs India

A remarkable face-off is unfolding between an American internet company and the world’s largest democracy over the appropriate bounds of free speech.

The backdrop is ongoing protests of farmers in India opposing new agriculture laws. The Indian government, citing its laws against subversion or threats to public order, demanded that Twitter delete or hide more than 1,100 accounts that it says have encouraged violence or spread misinformation.

Twitter has complied with some of India’s orders. But Twitter has refused to remove accounts of journalists, activists and others that the company says are appropriately exercising their right to criticize the government.

The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is saying Twitter is breaking the law. Twitter is saying that India is breaking its own laws. And democracy activists say that tech companies like Twitter shouldn’t play along when governments pass laws that effectively shut down free speech. ...