> Russian companies were charged in the U.S. with operating a covert social media campaign aimed at fomenting discord and dividing American public opinion
This is key here and I think we should all take note because I see comments here that feed into their tactics. Their goal isn't to have a specific election winner, but to divide us as a nation (not just US but all Westerners and even countries like Japan) and create political shutdowns. The point is to further political extremism, on both sides, and to create in fighting so that no united formation can stand against them.
So the question is how to fight against this. There are things that the government can and should do, but there are things we the public NEED to do as well. We have to be aware that we're often in these battlegrounds. This thread is one itself. So when commenting we need to ensure that we're discussing in good faith. That we're avoiding mic drops and easy points. We need nuance and to discuss the complexities of the issues we face in a complex world. Shift away from the emotional reactions because that is what they exploit. They have super computers and trolls aimed at your brain to exploit this animalistic behavior and we all are ill prepared and highly vulnerable to it (yes me, yes you, and I mean all of you). So we have to slow down and think more. It's not easy and causes an internal battle, but I think my doing this we become stronger and this helps us fight any adversary who would like to make useful idiots out of all of us.
These should have bipartisan support. Things like paper votes for every election, random manual recounts to sample error rates and confirm they are low, funding improvements to security of voting infrastructure, etc.
According to Verified Voting (https://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/#mode/navigate/map/ppEqu...), ~5% of votes are made with un-auditable "direct recording electronic" voting machines, where the votes are held in memory rather than printed to paper. When you actually do pentests, it turns out that these machines are sometimes connected to the internet (even though best-practices are to not do so), and they have been demonstrated to be hackable by someone with a USB drive even when air-gapped. Any such tampering is undetectable if done well. It's simply unacceptable to use such technology for voting IMO, and we should pass laws mandating paper-trails and banning DRE voting.
One problem is that much of the worry about election fraud is motivated reasoning ("my preferred candidate didn't win therefore there must have been fraud; let me find evidence of fraud to support my theory"), rather than actual concern based on an objective analysis starting with the facts. I do wonder if we can still make some changes to the system that strictly improve security and require zero trust of the opposition party, without destroying trust in the underlying institutions.
I believe you are focusing on a moving target. Electoral fraud is just the current wedge issue, it will become something else next when a lot of effort and thought is wasted trying to fix a system that is not that broken to be causing such uproar.
You waste resources playing a whack-a-mole game against the firehose of bullshit. It's electoral fraud now, something to do with green energy plans next, then whatever welfare issue is hot in the moment. Something with immigrants and then start repeating.
Election security might be a moving target for you, but this is something I have been paying attention to for at least a decade. I think it's important to note that there is an underlying bipartisan issue here that has been known for a long time.
> a lot of effort and thought is wasted trying to fix a system that is not that broken
This is certainly the blue-tribe talking point right now, but it's an oversimplification, and I encourage you to actually read and engage with the materials I linked. There are security vulnerabilities and auditability failures in the system which should be fixed, and this was a common blue-tribe issue prior to 2020, when it switched to being a red-tribe issue. I don't think these issues are catastrophic failures that invalidate the election results, but they are serious and worth attention.
I think one should separate out concrete claims of fraud in 2020 that have since been refuted by recounts (e.g. Antrim County) as examples of the motivated reasoning I referred to, vs. issues like un-auditable DRE machines which are actual problems that need to be fixed.
I do understand where you're coming from; the instinctive reaction in a low-trust partisan environment is that giving oxygen to the bad-faith/motivated-reasoning claims of election fraud does more harm than good. However for one example, I think if the red tribe has a good showing tomorrow (i.e. lose some of their incentive to cry fraud), then that would be an ideal time to get some bipartisan legislation in place to try to bleed the issue of salience ahead of the 2024 elections where it could be extremely dangerous.
> You waste resources playing a whack-a-mole
The point I was making is that there is some set of policy changes that the blue team thought were beneficial in 2016, and perhaps we could all agree to do them. It's not merely whack-a-mole if you leave the world a better place after whacking the first mole. The goal I'm advocating here is not to play zero-sum games to "whack the opponent", it's to actually make objective improvements to the system that in normal times would be uncontroversial bipartisan proposals. If we can execute the political Ju-Jitsu to redirect the current toxic discourse into actual improvements that would be a major win.
Sure, following that there will be another wedge issue; that's politics. But I think the important question is whether we make non-zero-sum gains during each issue cycle, and sometimes it is possible to do so.
It's essential to the voting system that different groups who do not trust each other can trust the vote counts. There is a reason even a high-trust, homogenous society like Taiwan does vote counting like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqKt-lPfJuw
Lack of trust in the election system isn't a partisan issue. When I was a young Democrat, the kerfuffle was over how Diebold voting machines delivered Ohio for George W. Bush. In 2018, two thirds of Democrats polled said they believed Russia "tampered with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected President."
Programmers should understand this. When a system is opaque and hard to reason about, people won't trust it. We can't afford for our election system to be like that.
> It's essential to the voting system that different groups who do not trust each other can trust the vote counts.
This is one of the big reasons I endorse cardinal style voting over ordinal systems. The act of counting the vote is trivial in comparison (singular round, no runoffs, trivially parallelizable). There are other reasons I advocate for it, but this is a major one: transparency.
I definitely a agree that creating a highly transparent system is integral to our elections. I think we need substantially more transparency than we have now. But not just with how votes are counted, but also in who has power and how they are making decisions. The left has been discussing quite a bit about how the right is trying to hijack the system. So I think even both sides would be highly in favor of increased transparency.
But like I said in my OP, complex problems require complex solutions. The original post was about one such need. I think this is another need under the same umbrella and I think there are many more too.
> According to Verified Voting (https://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/#mode/navigate/map/ppEqu...), ~5% of votes are made with un-auditable "direct recording electronic" voting machines, where the votes are held in memory rather than printed to paper. When you actually do pentests, it turns out that these machines are sometimes connected to the internet (even though best-practices are to not do so), and they have been demonstrated to be hackable by someone with a USB drive even when air-gapped. Any such tampering is undetectable if done well. It's simply unacceptable to use such technology for voting IMO, and we should pass laws mandating paper-trails and banning DRE voting.
This is quite contrary to the ~~propaganda~~ trustworthy journalism take on the matter:
> One problem is that much of the worry about election fraud is motivated reasoning ("my preferred candidate didn't win therefore there must have been fraud; let me find evidence of fraud to support my theory")
Another problem is that much of the lack of concern about election fraud is based on bad epistemology ("my preferred candidate won fair and square [in an epistemically sound, absolute sense] because some people said it was the most secure in history).
> ...rather than actual concern based on an objective analysis starting with the facts.
In my experience, this (utilizing actual objective analysis) is a good way to collect downvotes and insults.
> I do wonder if we can still make some changes to the system that strictly improve security and require zero trust of the opposition party, without destroying trust in the underlying institutions.
I wonder if we will ever try, as opposed to simply repeating the same claim enough times so that people believe it to be true. The latter is certainly cheaper, and certainly gets the job done (where the job is persuading the public that their election system is secure in fact, regardless of whether it is actually true).
> This is quite contrary to the ~~propaganda~~ trustworthy journalism take on the matter:
I would note that it's possible for both to be true: A) this was the most secure election in US history, B) there are still some meaningful security issues to iron out. For example between 2016 and 2020, DRE machines were being phased out (28.9 -> 11.4%), so in that regard we do seem to be more secure than in the past.
And I want to be clear -- I think the detailed content of that Guardian article is broadly fair, even if they do engage in some sloganeering.
> The officials who signed the statement said they had no evidence that any voting system had deleted or lost votes, had changed votes, or was in any way compromised.
> They said all the states with close results have paper records, which allows for the recounting of each ballot, if necessary, and for “the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors”.
I think this is an honest evaluation of the evidence RE: specific claims of voting fraud in 2020. (Though I'm always interested to hear folks' best evidence to the contrary.)
Importantly, absence of evidence _is_ evidence of absence (evidence != proof!). If there was vote tampering, it should have been detected by a recount somewhere. But we don't see that.
> I would note that it's possible for both to be true: A) this was the most secure election in US history, B) there are still some meaningful security issues to iron out. For example between 2016 and 2020, DRE machines were being phased out (28.9 -> 11.4%), so in that regard we do seem to be more secure than in the past.
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> And I want to be clear -- I think the detailed content of that Guardian article is broadly fair, even if they do engage in some sloganeering.
Perhaps, but these articles are misinformation (Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. It is differentiated from disinformation, which is deliberately deceptive.)
I think it is very interesting how when our geopolitical rivals engage in misinformation, it's a super big deal (regardless of whether there is actual evidence supporting the claim), but when our politicians and media do it it's "fair".
> I think this is an honest evaluation of the evidence RE: specific claims of voting fraud in 2020. (Though I'm always interested to hear folks' best evidence to the contrary.)
It may be, but this does not erase the coordinated deception that took place - and this is just one instance of deceit.
And, there was a time not so long ago where the burden of proof lied with the one making the assertion, only recently has the convention changed to the burden of proof being on anyone who questions the official narrative.
> If there was vote tampering, it should have been detected by a recount somewhere. But we don't see that.
Similarly, I "should" quit smoking and join the gym, but I ain't seeing much of that either.
If "seems about right" is the standard election officials think is applicable to their role, I'd like for them to make an explicit announcement so everyone is on the same page about what kind of a show we're running here.
I'll admit, that is a major concern of mine too. But at this point I don't see another option. Our own governments (not just US mind you) have actively demonstrated to us that they revel in this same political discourse. That they thought they could wield the fire instead of stamping it out. So who is left? Corporations? Same story there I'm afraid. So as I see it, the systems we ,,should'' rely upon have failed us and thus we must take manner into our own hands. I think this strategy is infinitely better than the civil war people so eagerly discuss. But like the SAO/VR story from yesterday, I don't think people are actively internalizing the horrors that such an event would bring. So I'm going to keep my hope that we can solve things in a civil manner (which also means we can break the cycle). We don't need everyone to make these changes, but just enough.
The Democrats could abandon neoliberalism and put identity politics on the back burner and pass Universal Health Care, Child Care and College, along with a large boost in infrastructure spending in the midwest, and a reduction in certain obvious issues of regulatory capture (importing drugs from Canada and Europe) and tax hikes on the rich. That'd do a lot to fix the average condition of the worker in the United States, and many of these proposals are actually supported by a majority of Republican voters.
The reality is that we've had a divided population ever since the 90s, and this is by the design of both political parties in the United States, because we have two different competing corporate parties now. And the way we've been provoked to fight each other didn't start with the Russians, we were doing it back in the 90s with Limbaugh and Bill Clinton. They may have thrown a little gas on the fire, but we lit it a long time ago.
And trying to shift responsibility onto individuals doesn't really work. That's like trying to solve climate change by having everyone recycle harder and plays into the old individualistic puritan work ethic mythology which it should be obvious by now doesn't fix anything and just gets us yelling at each other and policing each other.
The government is going to have to change, and corporations are going to have to change and billionaires are going to have to recognize that unrestrained plundering of the economy will wind up tearing the country apart.
And I don't see any way out of this where everyone remains civil and nothing fundamentally changes. The fact that the best solution you've got is to just remind people to be civil at all costs suggests to me that we're going to hit some kind of really bad situation.
And the fact that the proposals that I suggest in my first paragraph are likely to catch a lot of flak and a whole lot of pushing for the status quo and expanations of how those ideas are fundamentally unthinkable and politically unreasonable are why I think we're heading for violence. If nothing changes then the pressure cooker just slowly continues to boil without any release and lecturing the people who are getting angry about the situation that they're not being civil isn't going to stop it blowing up eventually.
Yeah... I have no faith in the general public either. This is the same public that went full insane by reading grainy jpegs on Facebook and watching obviously terrible "news" networks.
Positive change requires much more time, effort and leadership. Changing in negative ways just rely on fear and stoking strong emotions, it's much faster and effective.
I think it's possible to fight back with positive changes but those take decades to generations to actually take hold while requiring political support throughout so plans set in motion can actually reap benefits by then. Any political thwarting from adversarial forces and those long-term plans just grind to a halt or are reversed.
It's an uphill battle, for years and years to come.
It doesn't matter whether the Russians want a specific election winnner because many Americans want a specific election winner and have found bad faith discussions, easy talking points and mic drops are an excellent way to achieve those results.
But that's also why it is so important that we fight back. That we don't let these bad faith "discussions" propagate. We push back. We provide the complexity and nuance to slow it all down.
It's a superbowl ad with a wild west showdown theme. Actors portraying Joe Biden, Sen. Mark Kelly, and Speaker Pelosi are having a high-noon style duel with the Republican candidate. The Republican manages to shoot the guns out of their hands and they flee defeated.
I think this is tacky more than anything else. I do not think there is some sinister subliminal message at play here. Nor do I consider this "shooting their political party's opponent", because those words conjure an image of an actual assassination and this looks like something fanciful.
The problem is that smart people, paying attention and putting national interest will now compromise, and people not in that category will just continue to refuse. So the "centre" will move closer to whatever that latter group believes. And will keep doing so until then former group stops compromising.
So this, like so so many issues, cannot be solves by appeals to individuals to change their own position. It REQUIRES a national level fix.
It is also passing the buck. We're representative countries, which means the individual always plays a role. Requiring a national fix means garnering national support. That of individuals. Which is exactly what I'm trying to do here.
I think you misunderstand the strategy of many moderates and centrists. Many have been unmoving over the years and we should note the stark rise in independent voters. There's this narrative that moderates and centrists compromise on everything and this too is propaganda. These people people just see value in some positions from each side. But the key here is cherry-picking. You don't take an issue like abortion and "compromise" on it, but rather you have an opinion that falls akin to one group. That may or may not be the same group who's opinions align with your opinions about taxes though. In fact, you even see the Libertarians trying to capture these groups by promoting themselves as "fiscally conservative, socially liberal." So don't buy into the propaganda.
> It REQUIRES a national level fix.
The US has a national election tomorrow. This requires individuals to vote for representatives that will adequately represent them in this manner. There is an individual role required to make a national fix.
I'd also ask, what to do when those national institutions fail? We've always, and always will, have to rely on individuals. This is both the power and vulnerability of a democracy (even democratically elected republics). It is the individual who votes. It is the individual who stokes or stamps the flames of extremism. Is always has been and always will be up to us. The alternative is autocracy. So please do not pass the buck. You have a role to play here and it is critical. Surely there are solutions that do not require us to go to civil war nor turn to autocracy. We're better than that.
I'm also going to leave this here: John Cleese's (of Monty Python) skit on Extremism. It is worth a watch, even just for a good laugh. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXCkxlqFd90
The strategy I laid out is effective to all potential adversaries of this manner. That includes any institutions which try to wield the fire instead of putting it out.
I'd be careful with your words though. They have a defeatist attitude and may perpetuate said attitude. That is still a win for those trying to sow discord within our societies. You get people to either fight one another or shut up, but that still leaves no one to fight the dragon pulling the strings (in this case, many dragons). So I'm actively encouraging opening our voices, but to do it with care. Staying silent may not be akin to actively engaging in the inter-fighting, but it is enabling it. We're at a point where the fire won't put itself out and if we don't act accordingly, it will burn the whole house down.
The goal is to poison the well. If you convince people that Russia has no specific goal except spreading evil and discord, you can 1) ascribe any act to Russia without having to come up with any reason why they would do it, and 2) not-so-subtly turn him to Satan in the Protestant mind, the only being whose only object is chaos.
Putin does the same thing in Russia (as US intelligence agencies do in the US.) With one of his major power centers being the Russian Orthodox Church, he can frame every external attack as an attack on religion, and a sign of the end-times - one of the reasons for the extremely homophobic policy and culture he's helped grow. The West is trying to turn us gay to destroy our religion.
Very likely this is a domestic message to underline their political relevance and prowess. Worst thing you can do and have already done in your first paragraph is to put everyone on the suspect list for being potentially influenced. This ironically would align with their goal in the first place.
> The point is to further political extremism, on both sides, and to create in fighting so that no united formation can stand against them.
> So the question is how to fight against this.
I think our political parties and media are responsible for 99% of the political extremism, unwillingness to compromise, and placing their self interests over the well being of the country.
And frankly, I think posts like yours contribute to the problem. Rather than taking responsibility as a country for where we are, we constantly resort to blaming external actors. If not the Taliban, then now Russia. Or we blame China.
And the narrative from those in power is always the same. The Taliban isn’t attacking us for our freedom? Well you support terrorists then. Russia isn’t responsible for Trump getting elected? You must be a Russian shill. You say Russia did exactly what they said they would do if NATO didn’t stop expanding eastwards? Oh you’re a traitor or must work at a Russian troll farm.
No. Take responsibility for once. We’re in this situation because of our own fault. We elected leaders who divide us. In the last election, the party of liberal and forward thinking ideas elected a man who’s been in politics longer than my children and grand children have been alive. What new ideas does this man have? What’s he going to do now in the executive branch that he couldn’t influence his party to do over his many, many decades long career? Is all that Russias fault too?
To be frank: I don’t care for either party. I’m just tired of the constant blame game and passing on the buck to someone else.
> I think our political parties and media are responsible for 99% of the political extremism, unwillingness to compromise, and placing their self interests over the well being of the country.
FPTP usually creates this polarisation. I don't agree with your take that both parties are equally responsible though, one of them has consistently used political gridlock as a weapon, since Obama years. To the point where one of these parties fillibustered their own bills just to spite the other side.
There are differences in level and scale.
> You say Russia did exactly what they said they would do if NATO didn’t stop expanding eastwards? Oh you’re a traitor or must work at a Russian troll farm.
I have a huge grievance with this line, it's literal Russian propaganda you are repeating.
> I don't agree with your take that both parties are equally responsible though, one of them has consistently used political gridlock as a weapon, since Obama years.
Is political gridlock the root of the problem? Help me understand how only one party is responsible.
Interesting you mention Obama. He ran on an anti-war platform, which was fairly out of line with the media and general American politics at the time. That alone was a big reason to vote for him.
But what did he do? An unprecedented increase in drone attacks. By all measures, Obama let the military industrial complex grow.
> I have a huge grievance with this line, it's literal Russian propaganda you are repeating.
How is it propaganda? Are you staying this IS NOT exactly what Russia stated, repeatedly since the early 2000s?
> Interesting you mention Obama. He ran on an anti-war platform, which was fairly out of line with the media and general American politics at the time. That alone was a big reason to vote for him.
> But what did he do? An unprecedented increase in drone attacks. By all measures, Obama let the military industrial complex grow.
I don't care and there was nothing in my comment that led to this segue about Obama. This is purely soapboxing around an issue that wasn't in discussion, thanks anyway.
> How is it propaganda? Are you staying this IS NOT exactly what Russia stated, repeatedly since the early 2000s?
That's exactly the point, you are repeating this which is Russian propaganda. Why should Russia dictate what Ukraine can or cannot do? NATO didn't expand eastwards, countries to the East asked to join NATO. Should NATO say "no, thanks, Russia doesn't allow us"?
You are performing a bizarro form of victim blaming and not seeing an issue with that. Are you subscribed to Mearsheimer's real politik/offensive realism stuff? It really does feel like you are repeating his lines...
> I don't care and there was nothing in my comment that led to this segue about Obama.
Hold on a second. You’re saying that Republicans have been gridlocking since the Obama years. So clearly, you’re saying one side is at fault. But you don’t want to discuss the merits of Obama’s actual policy. Barack Obama did hypocritical things, but clearly your expectation is that Republicans just go along.
That’s not how a democracy works.
You brought up Obama and Republicans gridlocking, but the minute we dive deep into a more nuanced look, away from your binary/black and white narrative, you say this:
> This is purely soapboxing around an issue that wasn't in discussion, thanks anyway.
Now you’re on a borderline personal attack. I’m not sure you’re here to discuss in good faith.
> That's exactly the point, you are repeating this which is Russian propaganda.
> Why should Russia dictate what Ukraine can or cannot do? NATO didn't expand eastwards, countries to the East asked to join NATO. Should NATO say "no, thanks, Russia doesn't allow us"?
I’m not sure if you understand what “propaganda” means.
Russia doesn’t want NATO at its doorstep, and it sees NATO as an existential threat. You don’t have to agree that this belief is justified. You can say those countries have a right to join NATO. That as sovereign nations, it’s entirely up to them to do as they please.
But that’s not the point here. The Soviets brokered a deal with us. We agreed NATO would not expand eastwards.
Again, Russia is doing what they said they would do, given the present circumstances. Whether you agree with what they’re doing or not, does not make it propaganda.
You could try to argue that the world has changed. That the US and Russia cannot single handedly make decisions in the 1990s and have them enforced on a modern day Europe, that those countries can decide for themselves.
But it’s besides the point. Russia sees NATO at their door step. The real terrifying thing is that our media paints Putin as a dictator, terrorist, a mad man. He probably is all three of those things, but why we’re playing fire with someone sitting on the worlds largest nuclear arsenal is beyond me.
Regarding Russia’s views: It’s the same way we (the US) instilled the Monroe doctrine, and you can bet money that if China gets real cozy with South American countries, we’ll be sending navy carriers down the Pacific.
Two other thoughts:
Your linked “sources” are well known liberal and left of liberal - progressive - organizations. To say this is a GOP specific problem is your ideology yelling out loud. The reality is that both parties are hyper polarized. Neither party has American interests at heart. The biggest ideas any Democrat or Republican has is on how to fan the fear mongering flame and divide people.
Again - the party of forward thinking and liberal ideas literally elected a dinosaur who probably doesn’t even know how to use e-mail.
> The Soviets brokered a deal with us. We agreed NATO would not expand eastwards.
This is simply not true. It is a talking point developed for Putin's speech at 2007 Munich security conference to justify the shift to genocidal wars against its neighbors. It did not exist before 2007 and was not brought up when, for example, Poland joined NATO in 1999. There was an endless stream of whining and unspecified threats from Russian diplomats at the time, but not once do I remember talk about any deals.
It's nothing more than a simple, yet effective hook for catching western self-flagellants into their net, while the truth is that western governments went above and beyond to accommodate Russia and build cooperation, and it still lead to a maniacal dictatorship carrying out genocide in Europe and threatening rest of the world with hunger and nuclear armageddon.
No, their goal is indeed to have a specific election winner and to foment division. The IC has been quite clear that Russia had a strong preference for a Trump victory at least in 2016. [Removed a section on GOP preference for defunding Ukraine since this is not a party position, just a growing position within the party]
Everything else you've said is true though - no reason to stick our heads in the sand about their preferences or to hate our fellow Americans because an adversary picked their side (worth noting Russia has also been involved in far leftist movements in the US for quite a long time).
> GOP's stated preferences for defunding Ukraine's defense
The voting record shows their preference is to continue funding it. I don't know why your information sources are saying the opposite. Maybe they do it to polarize us.
Both the Republicans and the Democrats paint each other as insufficiently committed to attacking Russia and China. It's because they both, wisely, don't respect the intelligence of the people who vote for them.
edit: not that both don't have a huge base that is against WWIII, but with the Republicans, having a far more democratic internal process that was a concession to Tea Party activists, some of that base actually gets to have a say in Congress. The Congressional Democratic Party is completely impenetrable to anyone in their base who isn't an extreme nationalist hawk, whereas Republicans can't realistically exclude isolationists/paleocons.
There you go, I've removed it, despite Kevin McCarthy, Matt Gaetz, and Marjorie Taylor Greene all expressing in the last few months that if the GOP were to win the House, that funding would either slow or be halted completely.
The point remains that indeed Putin did prefer a Trump victory, as he himself publicly stated [0], which of course is 50% bullshit propaganda itself. However this was also confirmed by the US's Intelligence Community in 2017 [1].
> We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. *We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.*
I think given the gravity of the atrocities being committed, and the imminent threat to democracy, things like audits should be a distant secondary concern.
I'm certainly not concerned about the dollars being used to fight Putin because I think the costs of not doing otherwise would far outweigh them.
When we see any indication whatsoever of abuse/lost weapons/etc, then we can discuss audits. So far there has been not one single photo anywhere of any US-provided weapons leaking from Ukraine.
That is not entirely true. According to Ukrainian sources (Kiev Independent) there were at least 2 high profile incidents. 1 - US supplied weapons popping up in Finland, 2 - someone tried to ship a helicopter out of Odesa. But this is not what I am saying at all. How would you even know how funds are being used? A manufacturer can hike prices of say ammo 10x, and as result Ukraine would get 10x less of it
Not sure if you’re shilling on purpose but 1) no, Kiev Independent never reported on foreign supplied guns in Finland, “New Voice of Ukraine” did, using a statement by Finnish FBI (NBI) that was mischaracterized and explicitly corrected by NBI about 7 days ago. They say they are watching closely but have no evidence of what you’re alleging. 2) Couldn’t find anything about the helicopter, link?
You can “just ask questions” like that one about any item in any budget on the planet with the net effect of stalling everything we need to accomplish as a society, so I don’t really give that approach much credence. No reason to suspect a particularly bad or particularly important instance here and it’s especially suspect coming from people who’ve already indicated they don’t support US involvement in such conflicts.
I wonder how much of this is "divide and conquer" and how much of this is just the Putin administration trying to export its own flavor of governance, which doesn't really directly translate to Western democracies. What comes out are ultimately sentiments of anti-liberalism / anti-rule-of-law / anti-individuality and the political factions who tend to embrace that live on the fringes.
It's both. I think it is easy to get caught up in which and that can add to the distraction. In my opinion it is still essential to teach our citizens to become aware of this practice and to be able to defend against it. We don't even need anywhere near 50% of citizens for this to be effective. I'd assume that between 10% and 20% could be more than sufficient, as long as we learn how to make our voices powerful. This number comes from the fact that a small minority of people have demonstrated the ability to capture the narrative and use it to dive and confuse us. So how do we instead harness this power to create good in our society? That's the real question here.
It is neither. Just like in case of "second most powerful army in the world" this is just buffooning to atract attention of western press.
Regime that is absolutely financially and morally corrupt is absolutely incapable to implement anything like that on scale. It is not important how much money they have when 99% will always be stolen in process.
Unfortunately it does not make overall situation any better because there are less corrupt, more stable, but even more totalitarian regimes that capable of doing this.
So much of this. A lot of us underestimate how powerful modern propoganda is and how easy it is to manipulate people. A lot of research been done on human behavior and phychology in recent decades and opressive regimes makes good use of it. It takes time, but unfortunately it's still possible to turn a lot of normal people into zombies on Nazi Germany level.
With internet and social networks spreading all kind of manipulative information became so much easier. If someone thinks that living in democracy alone makes you immune to propoganda that just not the case.
So yeah "Divide and Rule" still work in modern age and it's crucial to keep political discussion alive even if society is really polarized. Otherwise one day we'll all wake up in another version of China, Russia or something even worse.
Disclaimer: I am Russia citizen who been in opposition for decade, immigrated immediately once war began and I financially supporting Ukraine armed forces. So I well aware what I am talking about.
> If someone thinks that living in democracy alone makes you immune to propoganda that just not the case.
I think more commonly what people do is see propaganda that is ineffective on them and inaccurately conclude that propaganda overall is ineffective on them. Often citing their intelligence. In reality you just weren't the target of said propaganda. We're all vulnerable to it, no matter your IQ. If one wants to demonstrate their intelligence they need to demonstrate their realization of their (intellectual) weaknesses. This is what I see happen with HN users a lot: "Well I'm not vulnerable to it, but others are." (often in context of ads and discussions of surveillance capitalism. But that's the same tool as in this discussion).
> it's crucial to keep political discussion alive even if society is really polarized.
Importantly that said conversation is done with good faith. Meaning we try our hardest as the listener to interpret the intent of the speaker's words (and vise versa). These people will sell simple solutions to complex problems. Unfortunately complex problems require complex solutions and nuanced discussion. Because of that, it is critical that we discuss from different points of views.
> Disclaimer: I am Russia citizen
The difference between you and me is smaller than the distance between us and our respective leaders. An old cold war hippy saying, but still true. It is our leaders who cause good men to go to war. To live through atrocities that need not be. Atrocities worse than hell. But in the end we are accountable because we are the power that they wield. A sheep tricked by a wolf in sheep's clothing is still a dead sheep. We can't always rely on the shepherd to keep us alive.
I honestly dont know real solution to this problem. It is easy to blame a nation, but even talking of people in opposition to regime things become weird when terrible happen. A lot of smart people stay passive and unable to protect themselves let alone resist. Propoganda did not make them support war and regime, but it was perfectly capable of breaking their will.
Honestly speaking I not even sure if political discussion alone is enough. I just wish more people understood this is the big problem for modern civilization. We need better education on these topics so average Joe is better suited to resist manipulation.
That may have been true pre-2016 but it's clear at this point that one of the major parties (starts with an R) is the pro-Putin party. They may have got to that point by dividing, but now they're reaping the benefits.
Various opinions on the matter are documented, but that is not the same of documenting what is objectively true in base level reality.
There is an old and sophisticated discipline that studies this phenomenon that unfortunately (but also: conveniently, for some) does not get much attention these days for some reason:
I've been looking at the "Russian meddling" not as an attack on the plebs, to get the masses to substantially change their votes, but as a psyop against the rulers, enraging them by being seen meddling with their subjects. It's been highly effective though I have no way of knowing if things worked out this way by intent or chance
This is key here and I think we should all take note because I see comments here that feed into their tactics. Their goal isn't to have a specific election winner, but to divide us as a nation (not just US but all Westerners and even countries like Japan) and create political shutdowns. The point is to further political extremism, on both sides, and to create in fighting so that no united formation can stand against them.
So the question is how to fight against this. There are things that the government can and should do, but there are things we the public NEED to do as well. We have to be aware that we're often in these battlegrounds. This thread is one itself. So when commenting we need to ensure that we're discussing in good faith. That we're avoiding mic drops and easy points. We need nuance and to discuss the complexities of the issues we face in a complex world. Shift away from the emotional reactions because that is what they exploit. They have super computers and trolls aimed at your brain to exploit this animalistic behavior and we all are ill prepared and highly vulnerable to it (yes me, yes you, and I mean all of you). So we have to slow down and think more. It's not easy and causes an internal battle, but I think my doing this we become stronger and this helps us fight any adversary who would like to make useful idiots out of all of us.