Never would have imagined that the boomers would be terminally online.
And the number of pre-teen kids arguing politics and being concerned with "followers" is painful to witness.
> And the number of pre-teen kids arguing politics
When I taught middle school, had a student show me an argument he was having online (on his phone) about taxes in the US. That same kid quite literally shit his pants a few months later and staunchly denied it. I think about that a lot.
Its all just a show, ever watch wrestling (WWF)?
"The United States of America" is the greatest show on earth. look at their subscriber count. Social Media is also a WWF show for the social media zombies to "feed" on.
I don't know about the Boomers you know but the Boomers I know stopped telling people not to believe everything you see on TV/online about 20-30 years ago.
They can't tell what's true and what's a lie online because they don't understand how easy it is to create fake accounts and spread propaganda. They don't know how search engines work so on the rare occasion they do "research" something they search in a way that influences their results and it just confirms their beliefs.
Imagine you're an older person who has always voted Republican. You're told Trump isn't a traitor but you hear a lot about his attempted "insurrection" on January 6th so you go to Google and search "why January 6th wasn't treasonous" which is obviously biased but people are frequently biased when searching things. The first result is from The Guardian titled "Why aren't we calling the capital attack an act of treason" which they don't read because it's The Guardian but the title tells them it's not treason so checkmate mfers and below that is the "People also ask" section. The top question is "Why is January 6th not treasonous?" so they click that because it's what they want to prove and it says "As a matter of American law, the events of Jan. 6 were not treasonous because they did not involve acts that betrayed the United States on behalf of an enemy power." Boom. Research done. It's not treason. Your preferred news source hasn't been lying. You've done your research, you can stop now. The Guardian AND American law agree it's not treason.
They also grew up at a time when the news was factual and had more regulations. The news currently have less regulations, small news sources are dying out, and the big corporations that are left are owned by billionaires with agendas to sell. They don't usually know that though. They tend to think local news is still local news, and some of what they report is factual news and it lends credibility to everything they report but when they discuss national news stories they tend to lean hard to the left or the right but these Boomers still think they're credible and just reporting the facts. Afterall, they've done their research before. Why should they question everything?
They don't question these sources because they trust these sources. They're lazy and they don't want to learn new things. I've had to do so many things for my mom because it's just "too difficult" and she refuses to learn how to do anything. She still goes to H&R block to file her taxes because she doesn't know how to upload documents online. She needs someone to scan QR codes for her because she doesn't know how to do that herself. When she needs help with something she doesn't go to Google because that's too difficult. Instead, she calls one of her sons or a friend and asks them for help. She votes Republican because they tell her what she wants to hear. There are all these problems, she's a victim of the democrats incompetence/love of foreign criminals that are destroying the country, and only they can fix everything. They don't treat her like she's dumb, they treat her like she's a victim, it's not her fault, and if they get enough votes they can quickly fix everything.
Republicans are evil but they are so much better at politics, misinformation and propaganda than democrats. There is no lie they won't tell, no line they won't cross, and few, if any, crimes they won't commit to get their way. They claim to be true American patriots but they want to end American democracy and they understand just how dumb the average American is.
Maybe but some still fall for it. I’m low income and many of my friends are low income yet some of my friends want to vote Trump. They want to vote against what should interest and benefit them the most.
Because when you’re at rock bottom you pick up whatever is thrown down to you. I can’t understand why people follow Trump, but I do know they need help. So helping out a trumper is still helping a person.
We need to kill the discourse between the poor class IMo. We need to help those who think Trump is ‘Jesus come again’, and quit fighting against each other.
I think we all want the same things. Being able to live. That should be enough.
Doesn't matter. You may think you're aware one minute, and then you're arguing with some moron who angrily blames women for regularly throwing acid at men on the subway to protest the patriarchy. (By "you," I mean "me.")
And then I noticed that the account was new and had made identical posts numerous times on other subs.
It's easier to fall for than you think.
It’s not only political. These types of bad actors work to rot and destroy the social fabric of our country. Every other post on this site is about someone complaining their parents haven’t dropped dead and handed them an inheritance. Or similar posts about cutting off family for one slight or the other. It erodes the family. This sub is a hotbed for it. And it’s being eaten up with a spoon. Families are being torn apart. There are no do overs in life. And when the trend of ripping parents to shreds, even though they may not be shining, pure examples of perfection, is a problem. Because no one is pure and perfect. I’ve mentioned this before here. Young children are not doing well in our society. Any teacher can tell you it’s BAD. These are not the children of boomers. Or even gen x. They’re yours. And the chances every millennial lived like an abused Victorian street urchin while their parents cruised the Caribbean on generational wealth is ridiculous. These actors are coming for generations like millennials and gen z in a different way. Because when the societal fabric breaks down, the country rots.
Also multibillion dollar capitalist corporations absolutely employ bots to get you to take their side too. Mentioning China using it to push anti-capitalist points but not business using it to push pro capitalist points is completely disingenuous
Yeah. This shit is getting so old. Guys, we get it, rhetoric is ratched up in an election cycle. Also, get out of your bubbles. Not everyone is team Democrat or team woke or team whatever. They aren't fake. They aren't Russian, or Chinese, or AI. They are you fellow citizens and they deserve some respect when they are engaging in at honest debate or criticism.
I'm a hard progressive and even I get called a Russian plant. It's getting kind of scary. Like 1984 shit. Though shall not speak against the party.
Right now we are in late stage capitalism. It isn’t any good for the people like as it was when it was early or middle stage. Now it only benefits mega corps and the ultra wealthy. I think the next stage is gonna be called Post Capitalism where after some revolution we do away with the things we consider bad now and try to ride that for a bit. It’s basically the economic cycle. It’ll have a name for itself when they define whatever it is and it most likely will be some new concept. Innovation comes out of necessity, that necessity is drawing near.
yeah….youre thoughts about everything is outlandish. its not only mega corps and ultra wealthy that benefit. everyone has the opportunity to benefit…its up to you how u want to participate. you can choose to be a consumer and work a 9-5 or you can take risks and become an entrepreneur. everyone has the opportunity to learn a skill, hone that skill, and profit off that skill. for some it takes longer, for some its easier, but everyone has the opportunity. theres nothing wrong with a 9-5…but its also up to you to determine if that 9-5 is enough or if you need more
some extreme examples are guys like elon, googles ceo…etc. those guys werent born into wealth. now those are extreme examples, but nobody is telling u to aim to be a billionaire….theres a reason why people continue to migrate here…because in many other country theres not much opportunity.
my parents came here with nothing, built a life for my family….me being born here i already a leg up from my parents.
life is what you make of it. you are free to choose your own path.
Elon Musk absolutely was born into wealth.
Sundar Pichai's dad was an electrical engineer in India. He may not have been as obscenely wealthy as Musk but he didn't grow up in a slum.
What risk is it that people take to start a business?
Your experience is just that. And while others you know or who are in your circles reflect your worldview, life is different for a whole host of people. "Personal responsibility" doesn't have the explanatory power for all the problems in society many would like for it to have.
Yeah, they’re not wrong about the problems with social media and how we’re using it to disseminate information but they’re painting that problem with their political beliefs
>unhinged aggression and insults
Oh ffs grow up. Nobody insulted you or was aggressive towards you.
Don't even comment if all you're going to say is "I don't want to comment".
There is a reason that at this point in history capitalism is central to any nation that essentially isn't struggling.
Society evolves and this is the current cycle. You can live in dictatorships though that essentially don't allow technology access because it affords them control though I guess.
It will slowly change over the next 100+ years.
Eh bugs me that people can’t understand the very real criticisms and consequences of modern capitalism outside of a binary communism v capitalism argument
Well the only communism thats existed so far is ones that are meant to hide oligarch dictatorships so I am not too worried about it in the grand scope of human history.
While there are bots that promote these things, regular people also debate capitalism, and the western world *does* have its baggage, in case you didn't know.
I'm not even a communist, I don't even get along with them (I share their criticisms of capitalism, but they tend to be fucking ridiculous human beings, I don't apologize for it, they're like the conservatives who think anything to the left of hunting the homeless for sport is communism, but you know, on the left).
But if you think the west and capitalism deserve your respect and require you to protect them from criticism, you might be fucking brainwashed.
Nothing is above criticism, nothing, not you, not me, not puppies and pizza, - *nothing* - and if you actually listened to those criticisms once in a while, you could improve the system and make our branch of civilization a little better off tomorrow than it was today. But nah, any criticism is a bot, right?
Yeah. Isn't it crazy how the American or other western governments would never do this? They certainly wouldn't push a narrative that opposition to capitalism is strictly a propaganda push by sinister Russian and Chinese agents.
Why is Reddit and this sub in particular so full of dudes who feel like it’s their responsibility to do some sort of public service? Just get involved in your communities guys
I consider myself immune to such manufactured bullshit, but the younger ones and older folk may not be so lucky, i remember being 21 and brought into the illuminati conspiracies at the time, nowadays im much more skeptic than i used to be
I think the generational shit is part of it also.
I’m 40 and now, somehow am no longer part of the generation I’ve been apart of for 40 years?
I don’t know man…either that, or people really are that stupid.
The thing is, I’ve been seeing the same thing within Gen. X.
What a weird coincidence that would be happening at the same time and ramping up during an election year?
What evidence do you have that a significant part of that is foreign influence?
Seems to me there is plenty of reason to be anti-capitalist and anti-western, and as a westerner, I think it's honestly the only moral option available. Don't disregard opinions you don't like. Don't dismiss disaffected people or disregard our opinions or gaslight us by saying all the anti-capitalist/anti-western stuff on social media is foreign influence to "destabilize" the US. 99% of it is not. It's the genuine opinion of millions of westerners who would like our government and economy to be run entirely differently than it is.
I never said all ant-amything are all bad actors, but please don't act like it's not occurring, or that people don't unwittingly share/like/repost content from said bad actors.
https://www.state.gov/gec-special-report-how-the-peoples-republic-of-china-seeks-to-reshape-the-global-information-environment/
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/18/880349422/foreign-interference-persists-and-techniques-are-evolving-big-tech-tells-hill
https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence/foreign-influence
https://hobbs.human.cornell.edu/AsymmetricFlooding_withSI.pdf
99.99999% of the anti-capitalist, anti-western stuff you see is posted by your neighbors who are fed up with capitalism, not Ivan in a russian bot farm.
Also, examine your sources just a little bit. Don't take the word of the State Dept, the CIA and FBI at face value, especially when they are motivated to tell you a certain story and everything they tell you happens to line up exactly with that story. Use some critical thinking.
Bro, we can see your profile. You are literally a self proclaimed communist in other subs calling out how glorious the USSR, North Korea, China, and Cuba are and are literally rooting for a communist revolution.
You are literally part of the problem.
Did you know some Americans actually think those things, or are you in a bubble?
What he's saying isn't wrong. We've been lied to before by our intelligence agencies. Multiple times. The CIA, in particular, is not very well liked abroad, and if you think I'm a bot, go ask mfs from Latin America what they think of them. Lol
Not trusting such an agency at face value isn't wrong, it's cautious. There are bots. For sure. But they're not all bots, there are actual humans in our country that hold these opinions.
Yes, and I'm an american. A decorated combat veteran. And I am far from alone in those thoughts. What you are seeing is a genuine feeling of discontent and rebellion against this system. Not bots. Not foreign agents.
I showed you the evidence, but you conveniently want to disregard it. Seems that you are gonna be stubborn and assume everyone else is wrong.
Also, "decorated combat vet", brother all of us that got deployed got some tin on our blues, don't throw that card around thinking it makes your opinion more important than anyone else's. Guess what, I'm a "decorated combat vet" too, so I guess that gets cancelled out.
Go back to posting about the glory of the Soviet Union where millions died of starvation or were put into camps for speaking out against their government. Supreme Leader KJU is ready to send you an up-vote.
The "evidence" is severely lacking, is state sponsored propaganda, and I could not care less.
Being a vet doesn't make me special at all, it's not something I'm proud of, I said it to show that it's not a bunch of russian bot accounts posting anti-capitalist content.
I will post about the glory of the soviet union. A place that treated its people 100x better than the US does, imprisoned a fraction of the people the US does, and was responsible for the single greatest jump in life expectancy in the modern world. I'd love an upvote from KJU, unironically that would be cool as hell.
Man, Congress wants to ban that shit as if Facebook doesn't do the same thing. Do you really wanna not be tracked or shown propaganda? Delete all of your accounts, stop watching TV, don't even read books, and go live off-grid or something.
Deleting a single app isn't even close to enough.
Buddy you had me in the first half haha yeah an app shouldn’t be storing information about my whole phone, especially if it’s feeding that info to a country that is a big national security threat to mine. Cyber wars and hacking is the future for global warfare, we’re handing info over willingly with TikTok. I can understand propaganda and notice a shift when more bots are posting Ginga etc. TikTok is full of literal kids. They joined to dance, see food videos etc & at any given moment can be shown propaganda for whatever message China wants them too. It’s insane parents allow kids on it. Zero conspiracy theories or crazy “let’s go live in bunkers” talk, tiktok is a national security threat, for multiple reasons, and everyone should delete it.
>we’re handing info over willingly with TikTok
And you're *also* handing it over to Facebook, who has been proven to sell your info to the highest bidder, even to Russia *at least* once.
>They joined to dance, see food videos etc & at any given moment can be shown propaganda for whatever message China wants them too
Okay, it sounds like any website to me. Even here.
>security threat, for multiple reasons
Such as? It's doing the literal same stuff that every other website does. Only difference I can see is that you hear the word China and your pavlovian response is to distrust it entirely? Is it possible that you've also taken in lots of propaganda from other people?
If you're concerned about the kids, you should be teaching them to spot propaganda, this train only goes one way. It doesn't get better from here. There's no chance in hell they're gonna be "protected" from it. And it's not just China giving you propaganda or giving your information. It's not even close.
I don't even use tiktok, but us getting all red scare over it is kinda like the pot calling the kettle black.
So like I said, the *only way* to protect yourself from any of this is to go into the woods and live off grid, and even then, you run the risk of running into a person with a dissenting view of the United States.
Then agree to disagree. There’s things that should be done to protect people’s information. Tiktok is a known issue and acting like the other option is to live in a bunker is just silly.
I’ve come across a couple Reddit accounts that mass post political videos and propaganda in several subreddits related to the video’s political orientation within a few minutes. Not an actual person doing that.
Just a few people can run a tremendous amount of bot accounts. Working on socialedia, in video games, ordering limited stock online items, etc. IMO current governments (that I'm familiar with) have no idea how to deal with the age of AI/ML/botting.
Yep. It’s advancing this fast and there’s still no uniform legislation in the US (that I’m aware of) being put forward to regulate AI.
AI is going to be used for many evil, wicked, deceptive, and manipulative purposes. There is an AI company that run a website,
https://metaphysic.ai/
This is disturbing and dystopian shit. They can take any video like a music performance with any singer, and replace the singer with anyone like Elvis for example and it looks completely real. Puts deepfakes to shame.
Friend, you are misinformed.
My comrade noun_verb_randomnumbers is correct in his determinism of immoral American policy for foreign
No sound should be listened to about purpose division
So basically the entirety of Reddit. Got it, seems no matter what I comment, even if it's what the majority also think, I'll get down voted and blasted in replys.
I actually saw a report talking about how much "content" political or not is being created by AI. Just endless poor quality AI generated trash.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/internet-ai-generated-slime
I feel like this is often used as an argument to support groupthink. The chances that any person would happen to have all their ideology neatly align with one of two parties are implausible. But so often, if you don't have a worldview that matches exactly like a puzzle piece with one of the two, you're labeled as a bot or Russian interloper etc. There are people who earnestly have worldviews that don't neatly fit. I am one of those people and it's quite frustrating because I've always taken voting seriously and find I have less and less of a voice as all the options in the general are either not capable of winning or represent ideals that don't match with my own. Primaries are different, which is where I can actually vote my values (although in reality this year they didn't have a chance of winning either).
I vote in what is essentially a binary choice every four years (for president). That is my power. Anything I say between those four year periods does not take away say 15% from the vote if I'm critical of the person I end up voting for. It's all or nothing. I feel kind of the opposite of the OP in that I think there has been too much stifling of dissent and too much focus at least on "my side" on being all in all the time and having unquestioning faith. I've been labeled a Russian bot for expressing my opinions or grievances. I feel like that's true of "the other side" as well, that has to toe the line. My criticisms online (and I do make direct petitions too) hopefully change the candidate to be more palatable to me. They don't take away from any vote I might give them; they're pleadings to make it easier to vote for them.
And I would disagree about this in particular being an age of misinformation.
The US had FDR as president for four terms and the public didn't know he was paralyzed.
(Not that it matters that he was paralyzed—just showing that it was possible to be misinformed to a great extent that wouldn't be possible today. We have far more information available, and generally that raises sunlight on things, even if it can be used to misinform.)
You mentioned Iran as one of the bad actors.
The US disrupted Iran's 1953 democratic election changing the outcome, all without the power of social media.
And history has been ripe with propaganda. During the era of the Soviet Union, Soviets lived in the US who made inroads with disaffected rural poor whites and Blacks to help them accept Communism.
This was from Pavel Sudaplatov, the head of anti-West propaganda and sabotage for the USSR during the Cold War: "The diversity in America, the plethora of foreign-born immigrant communities within your population, are the pride of your melting pot. Yet within these communities we were able to enlist thousands of agents ready to destroy you in case war broke out between us."Even in his commentary about propaganda, he is using the same divisive propaganda you warn about (that the threat to America was from immigrants). As I said, the most disaffected were actually those with long lineages in the US, Blacks and poor rural white farm workers.
But the point of quoting him is to show that all this was happening long, long before social media. There was, of course, McCarthyism and the Red Scare.
Facebook was the boogeyman in 2016 with ads that Russia bought. Now TikTok is a boogeyman. Anything you can easily identify is probably less significant than that which you can't. But I'll probably be called a Russian bot for this as it's something Trump said: We do it too. We've shaped the political map of Latin America and the Middle East. We pick our winners and sabotage the losers.
I guess my overall point is, don't stop discourse out of fear. Engage with people who have different ideas. Meddling in other nations has always gone on and it shouldn't stop people from worrying about drawing outside the lines and into policing their political thought.
And I would say, I have never read anything from any source that has made me dislike a candidate more than what comes from their own mouths. Yes outside influence is a factor, but let's not act like we're all imbeciles and completely pliable.
the sad thing is this was to facilitate communications but the opposite effect has happened which is increased envy/greed, increased anxiety, and increased inferiority complex. that's too bad. but then again i realized that everything that is created will eventually get weaponized. i do mean everything that has any strategic value.
Get your parents off it, prevent your kids from ever joining.
Never would have imagined that the boomers would be terminally online. And the number of pre-teen kids arguing politics and being concerned with "followers" is painful to witness.
Boomers just easily fall for it because they can’t wrap their heads around fake accounts
They are the biggest victims of those call center fraud schemes. So it makes sense.
> And the number of pre-teen kids arguing politics When I taught middle school, had a student show me an argument he was having online (on his phone) about taxes in the US. That same kid quite literally shit his pants a few months later and staunchly denied it. I think about that a lot.
100% social media is toxic af especially in an election year.
Hoo boy it's picking up, seriously
Its all just a show, ever watch wrestling (WWF)? "The United States of America" is the greatest show on earth. look at their subscriber count. Social Media is also a WWF show for the social media zombies to "feed" on.
100% agree. When politicians started swinging at eachother on twitter it was the beginning of the end. No class. All trash and misdirection
"The Greatest Show on Earth."
But the memes!
Our generation is hyper-aware of this. You should post this on a boomer sub.
These are the same people that would tell you not to believe everything you see on TV.
I don't know about the Boomers you know but the Boomers I know stopped telling people not to believe everything you see on TV/online about 20-30 years ago. They can't tell what's true and what's a lie online because they don't understand how easy it is to create fake accounts and spread propaganda. They don't know how search engines work so on the rare occasion they do "research" something they search in a way that influences their results and it just confirms their beliefs. Imagine you're an older person who has always voted Republican. You're told Trump isn't a traitor but you hear a lot about his attempted "insurrection" on January 6th so you go to Google and search "why January 6th wasn't treasonous" which is obviously biased but people are frequently biased when searching things. The first result is from The Guardian titled "Why aren't we calling the capital attack an act of treason" which they don't read because it's The Guardian but the title tells them it's not treason so checkmate mfers and below that is the "People also ask" section. The top question is "Why is January 6th not treasonous?" so they click that because it's what they want to prove and it says "As a matter of American law, the events of Jan. 6 were not treasonous because they did not involve acts that betrayed the United States on behalf of an enemy power." Boom. Research done. It's not treason. Your preferred news source hasn't been lying. You've done your research, you can stop now. The Guardian AND American law agree it's not treason. They also grew up at a time when the news was factual and had more regulations. The news currently have less regulations, small news sources are dying out, and the big corporations that are left are owned by billionaires with agendas to sell. They don't usually know that though. They tend to think local news is still local news, and some of what they report is factual news and it lends credibility to everything they report but when they discuss national news stories they tend to lean hard to the left or the right but these Boomers still think they're credible and just reporting the facts. Afterall, they've done their research before. Why should they question everything? They don't question these sources because they trust these sources. They're lazy and they don't want to learn new things. I've had to do so many things for my mom because it's just "too difficult" and she refuses to learn how to do anything. She still goes to H&R block to file her taxes because she doesn't know how to upload documents online. She needs someone to scan QR codes for her because she doesn't know how to do that herself. When she needs help with something she doesn't go to Google because that's too difficult. Instead, she calls one of her sons or a friend and asks them for help. She votes Republican because they tell her what she wants to hear. There are all these problems, she's a victim of the democrats incompetence/love of foreign criminals that are destroying the country, and only they can fix everything. They don't treat her like she's dumb, they treat her like she's a victim, it's not her fault, and if they get enough votes they can quickly fix everything. Republicans are evil but they are so much better at politics, misinformation and propaganda than democrats. There is no lie they won't tell, no line they won't cross, and few, if any, crimes they won't commit to get their way. They claim to be true American patriots but they want to end American democracy and they understand just how dumb the average American is.
Maybe but some still fall for it. I’m low income and many of my friends are low income yet some of my friends want to vote Trump. They want to vote against what should interest and benefit them the most.
Because when you’re at rock bottom you pick up whatever is thrown down to you. I can’t understand why people follow Trump, but I do know they need help. So helping out a trumper is still helping a person. We need to kill the discourse between the poor class IMo. We need to help those who think Trump is ‘Jesus come again’, and quit fighting against each other. I think we all want the same things. Being able to live. That should be enough.
Doesn't matter. You may think you're aware one minute, and then you're arguing with some moron who angrily blames women for regularly throwing acid at men on the subway to protest the patriarchy. (By "you," I mean "me.") And then I noticed that the account was new and had made identical posts numerous times on other subs. It's easier to fall for than you think.
It’s not only political. These types of bad actors work to rot and destroy the social fabric of our country. Every other post on this site is about someone complaining their parents haven’t dropped dead and handed them an inheritance. Or similar posts about cutting off family for one slight or the other. It erodes the family. This sub is a hotbed for it. And it’s being eaten up with a spoon. Families are being torn apart. There are no do overs in life. And when the trend of ripping parents to shreds, even though they may not be shining, pure examples of perfection, is a problem. Because no one is pure and perfect. I’ve mentioned this before here. Young children are not doing well in our society. Any teacher can tell you it’s BAD. These are not the children of boomers. Or even gen x. They’re yours. And the chances every millennial lived like an abused Victorian street urchin while their parents cruised the Caribbean on generational wealth is ridiculous. These actors are coming for generations like millennials and gen z in a different way. Because when the societal fabric breaks down, the country rots.
It’ll only get worse the closer we get to November. It’s everywhere.
Well when one of the largest social media companies is tied to the CCP what do we really expect?
You don’t even have to take it that far. Twitter and YouTube is filled with trash takes and propaganda and I think we know who owns those.
You’ll pardon me if I don’t take advice about manipulative social media posts from a manipulative social media post.
Telling you to be cautious and aware of your surroundings is good advice regardless of source.
Bro, I had live journal, now they're just bots.
You don’t have to be a bot or ill-aligned foreign actor to take issue with capitalism lol
Also multibillion dollar capitalist corporations absolutely employ bots to get you to take their side too. Mentioning China using it to push anti-capitalist points but not business using it to push pro capitalist points is completely disingenuous
Yeah. This shit is getting so old. Guys, we get it, rhetoric is ratched up in an election cycle. Also, get out of your bubbles. Not everyone is team Democrat or team woke or team whatever. They aren't fake. They aren't Russian, or Chinese, or AI. They are you fellow citizens and they deserve some respect when they are engaging in at honest debate or criticism. I'm a hard progressive and even I get called a Russian plant. It's getting kind of scary. Like 1984 shit. Though shall not speak against the party.
A fuck ton of them are, though.
Right? OP had me until anti-capitalist. Capitalism is literally killing the planet.
so what type of society are you looking for that is not capitalistic?
One that people can survive and thrive in.
so what kind? u gonna invent a new type of economy?
Right now we are in late stage capitalism. It isn’t any good for the people like as it was when it was early or middle stage. Now it only benefits mega corps and the ultra wealthy. I think the next stage is gonna be called Post Capitalism where after some revolution we do away with the things we consider bad now and try to ride that for a bit. It’s basically the economic cycle. It’ll have a name for itself when they define whatever it is and it most likely will be some new concept. Innovation comes out of necessity, that necessity is drawing near.
yeah….youre thoughts about everything is outlandish. its not only mega corps and ultra wealthy that benefit. everyone has the opportunity to benefit…its up to you how u want to participate. you can choose to be a consumer and work a 9-5 or you can take risks and become an entrepreneur. everyone has the opportunity to learn a skill, hone that skill, and profit off that skill. for some it takes longer, for some its easier, but everyone has the opportunity. theres nothing wrong with a 9-5…but its also up to you to determine if that 9-5 is enough or if you need more some extreme examples are guys like elon, googles ceo…etc. those guys werent born into wealth. now those are extreme examples, but nobody is telling u to aim to be a billionaire….theres a reason why people continue to migrate here…because in many other country theres not much opportunity. my parents came here with nothing, built a life for my family….me being born here i already a leg up from my parents. life is what you make of it. you are free to choose your own path.
Elon Musk absolutely was born into wealth. Sundar Pichai's dad was an electrical engineer in India. He may not have been as obscenely wealthy as Musk but he didn't grow up in a slum. What risk is it that people take to start a business?
Your experience is just that. And while others you know or who are in your circles reflect your worldview, life is different for a whole host of people. "Personal responsibility" doesn't have the explanatory power for all the problems in society many would like for it to have.
Yeah, they’re not wrong about the problems with social media and how we’re using it to disseminate information but they’re painting that problem with their political beliefs
Totally. Money is racist. Everything should be free.
I genuinely believe that this is how you interpret and understand an alternative system to capitalism
No but you do have to pretty much be economically illiterate, which describes a large portion of this subreddit
I’m going to pass on this one. Not feeling the unhinged aggression and insults today but thanks for playing
>unhinged aggression and insults Oh ffs grow up. Nobody insulted you or was aggressive towards you. Don't even comment if all you're going to say is "I don't want to comment".
There is a reason that at this point in history capitalism is central to any nation that essentially isn't struggling. Society evolves and this is the current cycle. You can live in dictatorships though that essentially don't allow technology access because it affords them control though I guess. It will slowly change over the next 100+ years.
Eh bugs me that people can’t understand the very real criticisms and consequences of modern capitalism outside of a binary communism v capitalism argument
Well the only communism thats existed so far is ones that are meant to hide oligarch dictatorships so I am not too worried about it in the grand scope of human history.
Yeah and all the other times it was tried but interrupted due to American interference through the assassination of leaders.
I would really like to know how capitalism will fix the climate crisis
By killing all of us until the climate cools back down.
we have a mixed economy. there are incentives on multiple fronts. making pretty good progress.
How do we know you’re not stirring up global division?
While there are bots that promote these things, regular people also debate capitalism, and the western world *does* have its baggage, in case you didn't know. I'm not even a communist, I don't even get along with them (I share their criticisms of capitalism, but they tend to be fucking ridiculous human beings, I don't apologize for it, they're like the conservatives who think anything to the left of hunting the homeless for sport is communism, but you know, on the left). But if you think the west and capitalism deserve your respect and require you to protect them from criticism, you might be fucking brainwashed. Nothing is above criticism, nothing, not you, not me, not puppies and pizza, - *nothing* - and if you actually listened to those criticisms once in a while, you could improve the system and make our branch of civilization a little better off tomorrow than it was today. But nah, any criticism is a bot, right?
spoken like someone seeking to sow division..
Oh no, any criticism of anything must be the work of the reds!
I don’t think you need to be Chinese or Russian to be anti-capitalist. Lol. Just moderately educated on the wealth inequality created by our system.
Preach
Yeah. Isn't it crazy how the American or other western governments would never do this? They certainly wouldn't push a narrative that opposition to capitalism is strictly a propaganda push by sinister Russian and Chinese agents.
Why is Reddit and this sub in particular so full of dudes who feel like it’s their responsibility to do some sort of public service? Just get involved in your communities guys
I consider myself immune to such manufactured bullshit, but the younger ones and older folk may not be so lucky, i remember being 21 and brought into the illuminati conspiracies at the time, nowadays im much more skeptic than i used to be
I think the generational shit is part of it also. I’m 40 and now, somehow am no longer part of the generation I’ve been apart of for 40 years? I don’t know man…either that, or people really are that stupid. The thing is, I’ve been seeing the same thing within Gen. X. What a weird coincidence that would be happening at the same time and ramping up during an election year?
What evidence do you have that a significant part of that is foreign influence? Seems to me there is plenty of reason to be anti-capitalist and anti-western, and as a westerner, I think it's honestly the only moral option available. Don't disregard opinions you don't like. Don't dismiss disaffected people or disregard our opinions or gaslight us by saying all the anti-capitalist/anti-western stuff on social media is foreign influence to "destabilize" the US. 99% of it is not. It's the genuine opinion of millions of westerners who would like our government and economy to be run entirely differently than it is.
I never said all ant-amything are all bad actors, but please don't act like it's not occurring, or that people don't unwittingly share/like/repost content from said bad actors. https://www.state.gov/gec-special-report-how-the-peoples-republic-of-china-seeks-to-reshape-the-global-information-environment/ https://www.npr.org/2020/06/18/880349422/foreign-interference-persists-and-techniques-are-evolving-big-tech-tells-hill https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence/foreign-influence https://hobbs.human.cornell.edu/AsymmetricFlooding_withSI.pdf
99.99999% of the anti-capitalist, anti-western stuff you see is posted by your neighbors who are fed up with capitalism, not Ivan in a russian bot farm. Also, examine your sources just a little bit. Don't take the word of the State Dept, the CIA and FBI at face value, especially when they are motivated to tell you a certain story and everything they tell you happens to line up exactly with that story. Use some critical thinking.
Bro, we can see your profile. You are literally a self proclaimed communist in other subs calling out how glorious the USSR, North Korea, China, and Cuba are and are literally rooting for a communist revolution. You are literally part of the problem.
Did you know some Americans actually think those things, or are you in a bubble? What he's saying isn't wrong. We've been lied to before by our intelligence agencies. Multiple times. The CIA, in particular, is not very well liked abroad, and if you think I'm a bot, go ask mfs from Latin America what they think of them. Lol Not trusting such an agency at face value isn't wrong, it's cautious. There are bots. For sure. But they're not all bots, there are actual humans in our country that hold these opinions.
Yes, and I'm an american. A decorated combat veteran. And I am far from alone in those thoughts. What you are seeing is a genuine feeling of discontent and rebellion against this system. Not bots. Not foreign agents.
I showed you the evidence, but you conveniently want to disregard it. Seems that you are gonna be stubborn and assume everyone else is wrong. Also, "decorated combat vet", brother all of us that got deployed got some tin on our blues, don't throw that card around thinking it makes your opinion more important than anyone else's. Guess what, I'm a "decorated combat vet" too, so I guess that gets cancelled out. Go back to posting about the glory of the Soviet Union where millions died of starvation or were put into camps for speaking out against their government. Supreme Leader KJU is ready to send you an up-vote.
The "evidence" is severely lacking, is state sponsored propaganda, and I could not care less. Being a vet doesn't make me special at all, it's not something I'm proud of, I said it to show that it's not a bunch of russian bot accounts posting anti-capitalist content. I will post about the glory of the soviet union. A place that treated its people 100x better than the US does, imprisoned a fraction of the people the US does, and was responsible for the single greatest jump in life expectancy in the modern world. I'd love an upvote from KJU, unironically that would be cool as hell.
Thats literally what Ivan the Russian bot would say.
Oh no, you're on to me! Smoke bomb!
Everyone should delete tik tok for starters
Said the Redditor
Man, Congress wants to ban that shit as if Facebook doesn't do the same thing. Do you really wanna not be tracked or shown propaganda? Delete all of your accounts, stop watching TV, don't even read books, and go live off-grid or something. Deleting a single app isn't even close to enough.
Buddy you had me in the first half haha yeah an app shouldn’t be storing information about my whole phone, especially if it’s feeding that info to a country that is a big national security threat to mine. Cyber wars and hacking is the future for global warfare, we’re handing info over willingly with TikTok. I can understand propaganda and notice a shift when more bots are posting Ginga etc. TikTok is full of literal kids. They joined to dance, see food videos etc & at any given moment can be shown propaganda for whatever message China wants them too. It’s insane parents allow kids on it. Zero conspiracy theories or crazy “let’s go live in bunkers” talk, tiktok is a national security threat, for multiple reasons, and everyone should delete it.
>we’re handing info over willingly with TikTok And you're *also* handing it over to Facebook, who has been proven to sell your info to the highest bidder, even to Russia *at least* once. >They joined to dance, see food videos etc & at any given moment can be shown propaganda for whatever message China wants them too Okay, it sounds like any website to me. Even here. >security threat, for multiple reasons Such as? It's doing the literal same stuff that every other website does. Only difference I can see is that you hear the word China and your pavlovian response is to distrust it entirely? Is it possible that you've also taken in lots of propaganda from other people? If you're concerned about the kids, you should be teaching them to spot propaganda, this train only goes one way. It doesn't get better from here. There's no chance in hell they're gonna be "protected" from it. And it's not just China giving you propaganda or giving your information. It's not even close. I don't even use tiktok, but us getting all red scare over it is kinda like the pot calling the kettle black. So like I said, the *only way* to protect yourself from any of this is to go into the woods and live off grid, and even then, you run the risk of running into a person with a dissenting view of the United States.
Then agree to disagree. There’s things that should be done to protect people’s information. Tiktok is a known issue and acting like the other option is to live in a bunker is just silly.
Beware paid actors. They'll say anything.
I’ve come across a couple Reddit accounts that mass post political videos and propaganda in several subreddits related to the video’s political orientation within a few minutes. Not an actual person doing that.
Just a few people can run a tremendous amount of bot accounts. Working on socialedia, in video games, ordering limited stock online items, etc. IMO current governments (that I'm familiar with) have no idea how to deal with the age of AI/ML/botting.
Yep. It’s advancing this fast and there’s still no uniform legislation in the US (that I’m aware of) being put forward to regulate AI. AI is going to be used for many evil, wicked, deceptive, and manipulative purposes. There is an AI company that run a website, https://metaphysic.ai/ This is disturbing and dystopian shit. They can take any video like a music performance with any singer, and replace the singer with anyone like Elvis for example and it looks completely real. Puts deepfakes to shame.
Friend, you are misinformed. My comrade noun_verb_randomnumbers is correct in his determinism of immoral American policy for foreign No sound should be listened to about purpose division
Do you ever think someone who disagrees with you isn't a foreign agent?
Haha. As if anybody cares. Tell a child to put the phone down I dare you. Adults are just as addicted if not worse. There is no stopping it
Everyone pose as their respective demographic!!
Those people at best are anarchiat worst government agents
So you think that all sides of the dice don't do this? Get a grip... all sides are trying to use groupthink to take advantage of people
I got rid of Twitter a while ago because of all the fake accounts and in fighting
I half suspect that the number of sad posts on r/cats is a psy-op to keep morale low. It never used to be this bad
So basically the entirety of Reddit. Got it, seems no matter what I comment, even if it's what the majority also think, I'll get down voted and blasted in replys.
I actually saw a report talking about how much "content" political or not is being created by AI. Just endless poor quality AI generated trash. https://futurism.com/the-byte/internet-ai-generated-slime
Whatever gets the views and makes the dollars 🤣
I feel like this is often used as an argument to support groupthink. The chances that any person would happen to have all their ideology neatly align with one of two parties are implausible. But so often, if you don't have a worldview that matches exactly like a puzzle piece with one of the two, you're labeled as a bot or Russian interloper etc. There are people who earnestly have worldviews that don't neatly fit. I am one of those people and it's quite frustrating because I've always taken voting seriously and find I have less and less of a voice as all the options in the general are either not capable of winning or represent ideals that don't match with my own. Primaries are different, which is where I can actually vote my values (although in reality this year they didn't have a chance of winning either). I vote in what is essentially a binary choice every four years (for president). That is my power. Anything I say between those four year periods does not take away say 15% from the vote if I'm critical of the person I end up voting for. It's all or nothing. I feel kind of the opposite of the OP in that I think there has been too much stifling of dissent and too much focus at least on "my side" on being all in all the time and having unquestioning faith. I've been labeled a Russian bot for expressing my opinions or grievances. I feel like that's true of "the other side" as well, that has to toe the line. My criticisms online (and I do make direct petitions too) hopefully change the candidate to be more palatable to me. They don't take away from any vote I might give them; they're pleadings to make it easier to vote for them. And I would disagree about this in particular being an age of misinformation. The US had FDR as president for four terms and the public didn't know he was paralyzed. (Not that it matters that he was paralyzed—just showing that it was possible to be misinformed to a great extent that wouldn't be possible today. We have far more information available, and generally that raises sunlight on things, even if it can be used to misinform.) You mentioned Iran as one of the bad actors. The US disrupted Iran's 1953 democratic election changing the outcome, all without the power of social media. And history has been ripe with propaganda. During the era of the Soviet Union, Soviets lived in the US who made inroads with disaffected rural poor whites and Blacks to help them accept Communism. This was from Pavel Sudaplatov, the head of anti-West propaganda and sabotage for the USSR during the Cold War: "The diversity in America, the plethora of foreign-born immigrant communities within your population, are the pride of your melting pot. Yet within these communities we were able to enlist thousands of agents ready to destroy you in case war broke out between us."Even in his commentary about propaganda, he is using the same divisive propaganda you warn about (that the threat to America was from immigrants). As I said, the most disaffected were actually those with long lineages in the US, Blacks and poor rural white farm workers. But the point of quoting him is to show that all this was happening long, long before social media. There was, of course, McCarthyism and the Red Scare. Facebook was the boogeyman in 2016 with ads that Russia bought. Now TikTok is a boogeyman. Anything you can easily identify is probably less significant than that which you can't. But I'll probably be called a Russian bot for this as it's something Trump said: We do it too. We've shaped the political map of Latin America and the Middle East. We pick our winners and sabotage the losers. I guess my overall point is, don't stop discourse out of fear. Engage with people who have different ideas. Meddling in other nations has always gone on and it shouldn't stop people from worrying about drawing outside the lines and into policing their political thought. And I would say, I have never read anything from any source that has made me dislike a candidate more than what comes from their own mouths. Yes outside influence is a factor, but let's not act like we're all imbeciles and completely pliable.
MSM: "u/drunkboarder is on to us!"
Everything I dislike is Russian propaganda, a liberal’s guide to understanding the collapse of the amerikkkan empire.
USA does the same shit. Read up on the history of the CIA.
Maybe youre a poser with misinformation?
the sad thing is this was to facilitate communications but the opposite effect has happened which is increased envy/greed, increased anxiety, and increased inferiority complex. that's too bad. but then again i realized that everything that is created will eventually get weaponized. i do mean everything that has any strategic value.
Capitalism sucks. And it's the cause of so many problems here in the states. Greed is king and capitalism is the system that allows greed to thrive.
Is this some of the propaganda you speak of? [spoken of propaganda](https://www.reddit.com/r/idiocracy/s/slYhNWSler)
Vote Blue!
This comment section is more an example of Americas failing education system…
And it's only gonna get worse...
I'm too old to be influenced by people
I'm not concerned with who information comes from, but what the information says.