SlyFoxx on 30/5/2016 at 15:25
Seriously...voting for Hill or Hair is like taking a dump in your own living room and then complaining about the smell.
Melan on 30/5/2016 at 17:42
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
Not entirely that simple. Trump is extremely good at communicating with Idiots. Read Scott Adam's analysis of Trump. He was one of the few pundits who called exactly what was going to happen back when everyone else was scoffing and saying that Trump's run was just a publicity stunt.
I second the recommendation. Scott Adams has written quite a lot of good stuff on what makes the current US elections tick, and he has been one of the few people who described Trump's strategy in a way that didn't read like a demonology, but had decent predictive power. (Predictively, it was not well received by social media.)
Tony_Tarantula on 30/5/2016 at 19:40
It's also worth noting that Trump is fairly easy to understand if you have read his books. In my case I read "art of the deal" about this time last year before anyone knew he was going to run.
A few points that stick:
1) Trump likes to keep his options open, and many of his deals were structured that way to where he didn't have to commit to projects until everything he needed for it was settled(e.g not starting construction on his Atlantic City Casino until after getting a gambling permit, unlike everyone else trying to build). You can see this reflected in his speeches now where he articulates foreign policy goals and principle while refusing to commit to specific strategies.
2) He believes publicity helps him. He claims to have figured this out after receiving massive criticism from New York's architectural community over one of his buildings, only for the criticisms to draw more attention to the project and make it easier for him to work with the NYC bureacrats who had control over the necessary building permits.
3) He actually does believe that he can do things with government just because he's smart. This isn't just because most bureacrats are dumb as rocks (they are, and I say that from personal experience working with DoD, EPA, and other regulators), but because a lot of his projects in NYC were only possible because he succeeded at wrangling with the politics of NYC's city hall. It's definitely encouraging to his supporters but remains to be seen whether he can do the same with Congress and federal regulators.
4) He's very much North Eastern blue collar. He speaks that way, thinks that way, and trusts heavily in the intuition of working class people he interacts with (e.g., selling an apartment complex before the value crashed because he talked with local workers who felt less safe), and puts very little stock into what office-ridden, data crunching "analysts" tell him. I think that part instinctively causes a lot of people to dislike him. Southern Conservatives absolutely despise NorthEasterners, and a lot of American liberals have extreme levels of contempt for working class individuals who they view as beneath themselves. That he speaks and acts like he does is going to cause both groups to intuitively dislike him.
Quote:
Just out of interest - who thinks social media propaganda is paranoid tinfoil-hattery? I don't think I've seen anyone here say that and I was under the impression that it was obviously something which happened - the the extent where no one would disagree it does.
You do. I'm not going to go that far back, but only a few months ago I seem to recall you saying that I was crazy when I mentioned that a lot of modern "activism" causes are astroturf.
heywood on 30/5/2016 at 20:02
There's plenty of activism and plenty of astroturf. The fact that Twitter was being used as a tool by activists is largely what attracted the astroturfing pols to it in the first place.
faetal on 30/5/2016 at 21:52
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
You do. I'm not going to go that far back, but only a few months ago I seem to recall you saying that I was crazy when I mentioned that a lot of modern "activism" causes are astroturf.
No, I think I previously claimed that your assertions that most feminism was basically just a social media conspiracy wasn't well justified. As I recall, your "proof" was a powerpoint presentation anonymously posted on the internet with "secret big organisation powerpoint" or something watermarked on it laying out the social media campaigns for smearing political / business rivals or whatever. Quit with the false syllogisms - they don't really add anything to the discussion.
242 on 31/5/2016 at 11:35
Ronald Reagan
Tony_Tarantula on 5/6/2016 at 04:26
Quote Posted by faetal
No, I think I previously claimed that your assertions that most feminism was basically just a social media conspiracy wasn't well justified. As I recall, your "proof" was a powerpoint presentation anonymously posted on the internet with "secret big organisation powerpoint" or something watermarked on it laying out the social media campaigns for smearing political / business rivals or whatever. Quit with the false syllogisms - they don't really add anything to the discussion.
You're babblingly incoherent. My "Powerpoint presentation" had all of jack shit to do with "feminism".
You're acting like a Creationist. The evidence stares you flat in the face but it still can't be true, and you don't have any valid counter argument, so all you can do is claim it's a bunch of mumbo jumbo that means nothing. You know exactly what I posted: it was part of the Edward Snowden leak. It's about as far from "secret big organisation powerpoints" as you can get. It received widespread coverage in the media and was verified multiple times as being legitimate.
Have you been living under a rock the last four years? Literally EVERYONE except you knows the leak was legitimate. Let me remind you: (
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/the-nsa-files)
The other way in which you are being intentionally misleading is saying that it's "most feminism". I pointed at a number of specific, high profile instances in which social media "social justice" advocacy was originated either from wealthy sponsors or from government sources. Again we're not talking "conspiracy theories", because the subject matter in question was neither secret nor unproven at the time I posted it.
Your comment aside, I'm not really fond of the way this whole thing is going. Both candidates have a fairly chillling record on free speech. Trump's comments are fairly well known so it's not really worth re-hashing here. What's much less known is that Hillary has a record of viciously retaliating against anyone who criticizes her....they even went after a damn Comedy Club.
[video=youtube;vYnWXPV2APA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYnWXPV2APA[/video]
Either way we're fucked. Even the false pretense that free speech and due process exist in America(they don't post war on terror) is about to fall off the rails.
faetal on 5/6/2016 at 09:10
No, I was refuting your notion that I somehow "didn't believe" that social media narratives can be manufactured to suit people's agendas. I never said that. All I recall is once responding to you saying that the entire social justice thing was some big conspiracy to oust people from businesses etc..
There is no "evidence" staring me in the face, there are just your assertions. Creationists ignore science, I just ignore you.
242 on 5/6/2016 at 19:18
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
Either way we're fucked. Even the false pretense that free speech and due process exist in America(they don't post war on terror) is about to fall off the rails.
How peculiar that to demonstrate that you post Russia Today's story.
Russia Today has nothing to do with free speech or with journalism altogether.
Tony_Tarantula on 6/6/2016 at 01:17
Quote Posted by 242
How peculiar that to demonstrate that you post Russia Today's story.
Russia Today has nothing to do with free speech or with journalism altogether.
What are you talking about? I posted links from the Guardian and from Wikileaks.
What the hell does that have to do with Russia Today?
