I accepted what you actually meant
and specifically and explicitly said
, 'malicious foreigners, presumably paid, to post arguments and news that supports republicans by
blaming literally everything happening anywhere in the world on Democrats and also never shutting up about it and refusing to engage with the objective fact that the Republicans would be catastrophically worse in literally every way
' and
claimed I accuse anyone who opposes genocide of being a bot even though a quick search for 'I don't at all think' or 'just someone with a particular set of genuine opinions' will show me saying literally the exact opposite of that, and emphasizing the reasons why I thought this particular person was an influence operation which had not a lot to do with their opinions except in passing
Fixed some parts for you. I hope there are still some Gazans alive by the time your grand strategy to fix American Israel policy comes back for the next round in the next election. I think it is more likely than not that they'll all be dead. Good job, Patrick, we saved Palestine.
I am so glad I abandoned Instagram and friends. I have no idea about this and I would be unhappy to see it in action.
So then you sort of implied that OBVIOUSLY I hadn't seen any Russian bots and was just squirming.
So then I said, well, here's a poster who is pretty clearly a foreign influence operation of some kind, in my opinion, but you can draw your own conclusions.
And then you said that OBVIOUSLY I'm just against anyone who is critical of America's bipartisan support for genocide, and the whole thing about the calculator and the actual point of my post was just a distraction I guess.
When I addressed that you moved to saying OBVIOUSLY the purpose of this non American person "screaming about the ghoulish shit the dems do" is just to help the Democrats win the election by changing their messaging, because the DNC reads Lemmy I guess? And you know that that was this person's motivation?
There is a pretty good video which talks about this argumentation strategy. It's never just "Hey show me an example of a Russian bot" "Here's an example, it doesn't completely fit what you asked for but it's what I've got" "Yeah that doesn't exactly fit, I thought you said Russian bots" "Tru dat" (fin). It always has to morph into some new argument in every message, and it always has to be part of a prepackaged talking point ("I'm just trying to help the Democrats" "Oh I guess you think ANYONE who's anti-genocide is a Russian bot" are both things I've seen a bunch of times before. The first one doesn't even apply here, since I think ostensibly we were talking about why this other person was airing these particular views, which you would have no idea about why they would say it, or what the "purpose" was. Anyway, and so on.)
The running theme here is all these people who ostensibly want a frank exchange of ideas spend a lot more time making accusations than asking questions. Because why ask what you believe when they can tell you what you believe and make you correct them? And if you ever don't go to the trouble of correcting them, must be because they're right.
But accusing people who are critical of America's bipartisan support for genocide of just being a foreigner is a little too mask-off.
I had a feeling you would wildly misconstrue lol
I was and still am very welcoming of people who are critical of America's bipartisan support for genocide. I'm one of them. People who wanted to make the genocide ten times worse (and have now succeeded), by letting someone into power who wants to turn what was already a catastrophe into something much, much darker, probably the end of Gaza and maybe the end of the West Bank depending, I was opposed to.
People who were willing to sacrifice Gaza by letting Trump come into office, for whatever reasons of their own, and disguise it behind a tissue-thin veneer of care for Palestinians and accuse other people of some kind of wild weirdness any time someone calls them out on it, I was definitely opposed to. Also, not to mention sacrificing progress on the climate, safety for anyone inside the US who's not a citizen, free elections, all kinds of things which are now in horrible danger.
Anyway, this account clearly wasn't American and was still agitating tirelessly for a particular outcome in American politics which was guaranteed to make things much, much, much worse for Palestinians. If you want to say that they're not literally a bot, and I haven't proven that they're Russian, then sure. Fair. IDK why you would immediately react though by making excuses for this user or pretending that my complaint was something absolutely wholly different from what my complaint was, if you cared about Palestinians.
I DMed you an example of one of the accounts posting constantly about US politics, and then one day using non-US currency punctuation in their numbers. That in itself isn't all that weird, obviously, but then someone asked them the fairly obvious question of, wait, hang on, where are you from? If you're not from the US (which looking at your numbers you clearly are not), then why do you post constantly about US politics? And, of course, the particular take they had on politics was exactly the same bizarre "all anti-Democrats all the time" opinion set that a lot of these accounts tend to have.
Anyway, when asked about the punctuation, they professed total confusion about the question, made a weird comment about symbols on their calculator, accused people of being super weird for thinking anything was strange about the non-American style they used for money, got hostile, and refused to engage anymore. Basically their answer was 100% bizarre. That part of it is a pretty strong indication that they're a foreign influence operation, although of course I have no idea whether that means "Russian," and it's impossible to really be sure.
They've long since been banned for other sins, but that was the one that really stuck out to me as actual evidence. Most of the time, it's impossible to tell the difference between an influence operation and just someone with a particular set of genuine opinions. They're only really obvious when they fuck up like that or something, which doesn't happen all that often.
There you go, no squirming required.
So according to what we know, out of the 5,000 million metric tons of CO2e we put out every year, there's 63 million tons that's from the military. I mean, that's not a small deal by any means (which isn't surprising since the military is one of the largest parts of the biggest single human organization on the planet that's ever existed), but also I don't see how it's completely relevant to the idea that we fucked up on saving 1,000 million metric tons per year by letting Trump come to power.
I could be banned from this community if I did. That's the way they set up the rules for it.
Yeah, and they're still using the playbook they worked out in the 90s: AM radio and cable news channels. If they were as hip as the Russians are in terms of hooking up social media bots and funding podcasters, we'd be in even more trouble than we currently are.
I'm not saying they didn't do a ton of home-grown damage (and are continuing to), I'm just saying the landscape has changed enough that they're not where the forefront of innovation is at this point.
Yep, I'm pretty sure that's the one. Thank
Ones I have not seen in other comments, although you probably have enough at this point:
- The Fifth Element - Yes I know the director is a sexual predator, it's still really really good. One of the most creative movies ever made
- Run Lola Run - Surreal modern-style impossible narrative movie from way before movies really did that, also very well done
- O Brother Where Art Thou - Damn, we're in a tight spot
- Schindler's List - Warning, very very very heavy obviously, but there is a reason it won all the awards
- Conan the Barbarian - You may or may not like B movies, but if you like "Sword and Sandal" B movies, this one is the king
- The Sting - Absolutely top-notch gangster movie from before your parents were born
- Office Space - If you have ever worked a crappy tech job this movie will become your spirit animal in time of need
I've also heard great things about "Highlander." Don't watch the sequels.
There are also miniseries. "Stranger Things" season 1, "Chernobyl," and "Game of Thrones" up until about season 5. Yeah, it's a shame they never made any more after that, but you can just let it be. You'll know roughly when. If the three female assassins from Dorne come on the screen, you went too far, just turn it off immediately and be sure to take a shower right away.
Edit: Additions
Oh, my bad.