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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   31489 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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It's still not clear to me what is the meaningful content here. What information is it bringing that wasn't already being taken into account?

To the person who originally felt that there may be actors trying to manipulate public discourse, affirmation that there are actors trying to manipulate public discourse.

Someone is learning something for the first time every day. The information is always meaningful for those who weren't already taking it into account.

What can I say, I disagree. If you wanted to make the point that we are all being psy-opped by cyber-warfare divisions of every major world power, the point would have been better made as a general statement. If you single out one particular power, it will look like you think there's something different about them in particular.

Except that not all psy-opps run in the Russian style, which was the specific style identified for the example, so claiming that every major world power is psy-opping in the same way would not only be wrong, but a deliberate falsehood.

And if I didn't single out an example, I could be accused of not supporting a claim and doing low-effort posting.

Shrugs

It's a bit like that thing about cat-eating Haitians. The claim is not particularly interesting if it was a freak occurrence, and raising it only makes sense if Haitians are disproportionately more likely to do it.

Is there a credible reason to believe a disproportionately refugee population from a state with endemic contemporary food insecurity is not disproportionately more likely to partake in non-traditional dining?

To the person who originally felt that there may be actors trying to manipulate public discourse, affirmation that there are actors trying to manipulate public discourse.

I'm not sure what to tell that person other than "welcome to the Internet". There have been actors trying to manipulate public discourse since forever. Maybe you mean "state actors"? That is an interesting development, as far as history goes, but it's not even a recent one.

Except that not all psy-opps run in the Russian style

Ok, so there is a reason to single-out Russia. I'll even agree with it. Unlike when they're trying to affect countries in their orbit (say, for example, Russia trying to push Ukrainians to vote for a pro-Russian party), Americas rivals probably have greater incentive just to cause chaos to weaken America, rather than back any particular faction, so their cyber-warfare operations will look particularly twisted.

And while this might be an interesting conversation if we were discussion psy-ops in themselves, I still feel like my earlier "what's the content here" question still has merit. Because Russians have an incentive to cause chaos and have westerners at each-others throats, you can't even tell what narrative they're promoting. It could be "FEMA IS PREVENTING VOLUNTEERS FROM DELIVERING AID" or it could be "RUSSIAN BOTS AND CONSPIRACY THEORIST ARE CLAIMING FEMA IS PREVENTING VOLUNTEERS FROM DELIVERING AID". It could even be both. It just doesn't seem to bring that much into a discussion on whether it's true that FEMA is blocking aid.

Is there a credible reason to believe a disproportionately refugee population from a state with endemic contemporary food insecurity is not disproportionately more likely to partake in non-traditional dining?

I'm actually on team "Haitians eat cats" for this very reason, it was just an example. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure the analogy even fits that well, but my point was just that if you single a group out you should show how that group is different from the other groups.

Is there a credible reason to believe a disproportionately refugee population from a state with endemic contemporary food insecurity is not disproportionately more likely to partake in non-traditional dining?

The argument is that Haitians never did it, not once. And TBF the evidence in favor of them doing it is pretty weak. I'm not aware of anyone who says there was a freak occurrence of Haitians eating cats.

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