The Trump presidency

[Pickman's model]

Or are you and me just inhabiting the same online echo chamber or self perpetuating delusion?

i'm in an online anechoick chamber. so no.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

What about the fact that, according to this, some 72 % of registered Republican voters still think Obama is probably not an American. Even though he showed his birth certificate and the whole thing was clearly a malicious confection invented and disseminated online based on nothing at all.

Large numbers of people believed stupid things before the internet, too. This isn't new. As Anais Nin put it, 'we don't see things as they are; we see things as we are'.

 

[Pickman's model]

Large numbers of people believed stupid things before the internet, too. This isn't new. As Anais Nin put it, 'we don't see things as they are; we see things as we are'.

yes. but you were on about people being able to get good information to put down the bad and now you seem to be rowing back from that bold claim.

 

[bimble]

Poor Donald seemed confused today about who to blame for his troubles. Went for the leakers first, then a couple of hours later there's no leaking, nothing to leak, its all just Fake News.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Poor Donald seemed confused today about who to blame for his troubles. Went for the leakers first, then a couple of hours later there's no leaking, nothing to leak, its all just Fake News.

View attachment 100615

He should be careful about who he's blaming.

The press are quite as capable as the intelligence services to tear someone down. Deliberately creating an antagonistic relationship with them is asking for trouble. They might actually start taking their role in a civil society seriously again.

If he instead blames leakers, he should consider the fact that he's not complaining because the information is wrong, only that it's classified. He's deliberately created an antagonistic relationship with the security apparatus, another bad idea. I'm sure they can find plenty of perfectly true information to ruin him if they so choose.

In either case, he'd likely be better off to keep silent. That isn't something that seems to be his strong suit.

 

[Nylock]

'blowhard gotta blow' etc...

 

[Pickman's model]

'blowhard gotta blow' etc...

Yeh but yer man will be exposed as the whoopee cushion fraud he is

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I wouldn't be so confident to declare that the existence of the internet has led to a rise in false beliefs.

It's arguably beyond question that the internet has led to an increase in false beliefs.

The Rapid Spread of Misinformation Online | The Huffington Post

Fake news and the spread of misinformation - Journalist's Resource

The rise and rise of fake news - BBC News

Researchers Map How Scientific Misinformation Spreads On The Internet | The Huffington Post

 

[CrabbedOne]

McVeigh was radicalised pre-internet. These groups use the internet, of course, as everyone else does, including the groups that oppose them. But that's just whatever group using whatever means at its disposal to communicate. I don't see any reason to believe that there is a causal connection between the means of communication and the nature of the groups as they exist now. I do agree that a relatively small group of people can now achieve greater noise than previously, though. What effect that might have, I'm not sure. Truth is that we on here tend to be acutely aware of this stuff, because we pay attention to it, but many other people really aren't.

Well that's it really the far-right militia movement that largely supplanted the KKK were marginal and heavily penetrated by the FBI. A lot of them basically threw the towel in in disgust and turned tout when their movement unexpectedly produced someone as loonily dangerous as McVeigh.

A couple of decades later people with very similar ideas are springing up all over the place. It's now pretty normal to have a large collection of assault weapons be prepping for the End Days and be nodding along with Alex Jones on Sandy Hook and 9-11 being a state Black Flag op. This is no longer extremism it's an edgy part of the wingnut mainstream. How did that happen?

Thing is nowadays you don't have to go out to some backwoods place to hook up and be immersed such people. They are only a few clicks away. And you can get with white grievance fueled the hating and feel good from your own rather comfortable home. You can begin to live in an imaginary dystopian world of evil Feds, FEMA camps and UN black helicopters without even getting your well pressed chinos mussed.

It's rather similar with the Islamic State online recruiting if you think about it. A group that can spawn "lone wolf" attackers in the US without ever meeting them thus making a border wall little better than a security blanket.

Pape in Dying To Win back in 05 wrote about the importance of group hate sessions in the radicalisation of Suicide Bombers. Young often alienated men nurturing a sense of outraged victimhood gather in groups with peers to rant about Jews, Shia, Crusaders etc. Some will go on to become human ordinance. You no longer need physical proximity and you can now gleefully mob hate figures on Twitter as a lot of Jewish US journalists are finding out. This seems like a fine way to produce a mass movement of radicalised young and not so young men.

And if a US President if not exactly endorsing such behaviour appears to turn a blind eye and himself to share barely concealed elements of their world view that's just going to make it more normative and stoke the flames.

 

[Buckaroo]

It's arguably beyond question that the internet has led to an increase in false beliefs.

The Rapid Spread of Misinformation Online | The Huffington Post

Fake news and the spread of misinformation - Journalist's Resource

The rise and rise of fake news - BBC News

Researchers Map How Scientific Misinformation Spreads On The Internet | The Huffington Post

Religion is bigger than all that, it's all fake belief isn't it?

 

[Reiabuzz]

He's currently giving yet another bonkers press conference

• Administration is "running like a fine tuned machine" despite reports of chaos

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Well that's it really the far-right militia movement that largely supplanted the KKK were marginal and heavily penetrated by the FBI. A lot of them basically threw the towel in in disgust and turned tout when their movement unexpectedly produced someone as loonily dangerous as McVeigh.

A couple of decades later people with very similar ideas are springing up all over the place. It's now pretty normal to have a large collection of assault weapons be prepping for the End Days and be nodding along with Alex Jones on Sandy Hook and 9-11 being a state Black Flag op. This is no longer extremism it's an edgy part of the wingnut mainstream. How did that happen?

Thing is nowadays you don't have to go out to some backwoods place to hook up and be immersed such people. They are only a few clicks away. And you can get with white grievance fueled the hating and feel good from your own rather comfortable home. You can begin to live in an imaginary dystopian world of evil Feds, FEMA camps and UN black helicopters without even getting your well pressed chinos mussed.

It's rather similar with the Islamic State online recruiting if you think about it. A group that can spawn "lone wolf" attackers in the US without ever meeting them thus making a border wall little better than a security blanket.

Pape in Dying To Win back in 05 wrote about the importance of group hate sessions in the radicalisation of Suicide Bombers. Young often alienated men nurturing a sense of outraged victimhood gather in groups with peers to rant about Jews, Shia, Crusaders etc. Some will go on to become human ordinance. You no longer need physical proximity and you can now gleefully mob hate figures on Twitter as a lot of Jewish US journalists are finding out. This seems like a fine way to produce a mass movement of radicalised young and not so young men.

And if a US President if not exactly endorsing such behaviour appears to turn a blind eye and himself to share barely concealed elements of their world view that's just going to make it more normative and stoke the flames.

Your last para is clearly crucial here.

It's a thorny question, and largely an irrelevant one really given that the internet isn't going anywhere - there will be others that we never hear about who hook up with very different ideas via the internet that inoculate them against extremism that they encounter offline.

The example for me would be the comparison of McVeigh with Roof. Here, the common features are the important ones for me, including the very similar reactions of the state. That Roof may have taken ideas from the internet isn't so important. I'm sure McVeigh would have done the same if it had been around in his day.

 

[CrabbedOne]

What about the fact that, according to this, some 72 % of registered Republican voters still think Obama is probably not an American. Even though he showed his birth certificate and the whole thing was clearly a malicious confection invented and disseminated online based on nothing at all.

I've only met a small sample of Republicans but I'd have guessed the percentage with doubts about Obama's birth was even higher. Good friends of mine claimed to believe this and thought me wrongheaded for being skeptical. It became a conventional article of faith like global warming denial.

Donald Trump said it so it must be true. He now claims it was a lie invented by the Clintons. That will be truthy for most Republicans as well.

 

[Reiabuzz]

He's just admitted he knew about the call to the Russians. He seems a bit more subdued today though.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I've only met a small sample of Republicans but I'd have guessed the percentage with doubts about Obama's birth was even higher. Good friends of mine claimed to believe this and thought me wrongheaded for being skeptical. It became a conventional article of faith like global warming denial.

Donald Trump said it so it must be true. He now claims it was a lie invented by the Clintons. That will be truthy for most Republicans as well.

We also need to treat such figures with caution. If a pollster asked me if I believed that David Cameron stuck his penis in the mouth of a dead pig's head as a student, I'd probably say 'yes, certainly, he's a pig-head-fucking bastard'. I'm well aware that this is an unsubstantiated rumour put about by a disgruntled tory, but I don't like David Cameron, so I don't actually care if it is untrue. Ask me to put money on it, and I'd say no thanks.

Presumably the vast majority of registered republicans detested Obama, and so would have found it similarly easy to state a doubt as to his nationality.

 

[Reiabuzz]

This is the best press conference yet. His staff must be shitting themselves in the briefing room. He is fucking insane.

 

[Reiabuzz]

He says the “rollout was perfect,” regarding the executive order on immigration.

 

[krtek a houby]

This is the best press conference yet. His staff must be shitting themselves in the briefing room. He is fucking insane.

"I am the least racist person..."

 

[Reiabuzz]

It's not even been a month, just astonishing. It just keeps giving. He's clearly decided spicer isn't up to the press job so he's taken it on himself. It's even better.

 

[krtek a houby]

It's not even been a month, just astonishing. It just keeps giving. He's clearly decided spicer isn't up to the press job so he's taken it on himself. It's even better.

That young lad who asked about Melania and the visitor's room... he seemed to like that question a lot...

"That's a very nice question" WTF?

 

[Reiabuzz]

He also claimed earlier he was going to blow a Russian ship out of the water (I think?). Didn't really get the context there.

 

[ruffneck23]

Total lack of applause at the end , I'm gutted I only caught the last few seconds of it

 

[krtek a houby]

He also claimed earlier he was going to blow a Russian ship out of the water (I think?). Didn't really get the context there.

missed that but hell's teeth, some real hostile moments there, from both him and the press...

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

He says the “rollout was perfect,” regarding the executive order on immigration.

That's only true if the intended purpose of the executive order was to sow chaos.

 

[J Ed]

Total lack of applause at the end , I'm gutted I only caught the last few seconds of it

Re-watch it here if you really want to... Watch live: Trump announces new Labor secretary pick

 

[ruffneck23]

Thanks although I may regret it

 

[J Ed]

Anyone else have to remind themselves that the US President is effectively at war, and vice versa, with the CIA?

 

[J Ed]

Weird fucking times

 

[J Ed]

BTW note all the journo questions on Russia, nothing on the murderous raid in Yemen or further entrenchment of institutional corruption.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

It's arguably beyond question that the internet has led to an increase in false beliefs.

The Rapid Spread of Misinformation Online | The Huffington Post

Fake news and the spread of misinformation - Journalist's Resource

The rise and rise of fake news - BBC News

Researchers Map How Scientific Misinformation Spreads On The Internet | The Huffington Post

Ultimately, its not the internet that's at fault here. The fault lies in the fact that too many people, are too willing, to go out and find information that confirms odd beliefs they already hold, instead of anything that challenges them.