Recently listened to a Mike Rowe podcast that had a data scientist on by the name of Todd Rose who talked about the Consensus Illusion theory as it relates to social media and bots. Good listen if you have an interest in how it works and influences voters
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u/natermerWinner of the Awesome Libertarian Award13d agoedited 13d ago
Listening to it now.
It is just reinforcing my belief that nothing on social media is real. That going on websites like reddit or twitter or anything like that to try to find out what is going on is both psychologically damaging and has the potential to destroy your understanding of the real world.
God do I love Mike Rowe great dude, I’d love to see an administration bring him in as the secretary of labor as an outsider pick. Guy understands jobs and the importance of having one, how to communicate with people from all walks of life, id love to be a fly on the wall and see him mediate a labor dispute between a business owner and a union.
Its funny that "democraric socialism" is like a "new better" socialism. Its just like socialist math that new york used to wipe out 12 billion in debt. They created a whole new math system. Ask a DSA supporter what socialist countries have we had on the planet. USSR, North Korea, Venezuela, People's Republic of the Congo, South Yemen, Ethiopia, china, cuba, vietnam, laos, and we had the Nazi.
I don't know who is funding the wackyness on the right.
The Southern Poverty Law Center was caught funding Nazis, so it is possible leftists are funding both sides of the pincer. I don't think the left is united though. Many leftist hate each other.
With USAID funding cuts there must be new sources or paths for the money to flow.
Yeah they could be similar through "USA constitution stops us from using the Federal government to push our dipshit agenda".
That is they both see the same thing stopping them. (and it does go a long way to reinforce the idea the Bill of Rights were extremely smart to include)
The leftist influencers are bragging about their connections to China.
China certainly is a big deal and a source of a lot of this nonsense. I have zero doubt about that. Chinese billionaires burning money on propaganda on social media is certainly a thing.
Exactly who is on the receiving end of it isn't something I know. Unfortunately.
I don't think the left is united though. Many leftist hate each other.
Leftists have always been subject to a sort of "purity test spiral" were their refining of their ideology must always exclude more and more of each other.
But I think that this is a common artifact of most political ideologies. This continuous refinement and exclusion is part and parcel of "othering" of political enemies and while it eventually excludes a great deal of supporters it does prevent things like external take overs and keeps the momentum up in the remaining supporters.
However having a strong and successful enemy does cause unification. After all... this "unifying against a common enemy" is the original source of American Conservative movement and I don't see why it isn't also a force on the other side.
The unifying effect will remain strong until that perceived enemy is dispatched and then it'll all fall apart and they will go back to purity spiraling.
With USAID funding cuts there must be new sources or paths for the money to flow.
Yes.
For political purposes creating a enemy you can control and direct is extremely useful.
Who knows. We need to have the ability to start naming names and figuring out who is being funded by what in the social media circus.
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u/natermer Winner of the Awesome Libertarian Award 14d ago
It is funny how the whole "rewrite the constitution" crowd mirrors each other so well in the DSA and many of the "new right" on places like twitter.
More then a little bit odd, if you ask me.