Would you please just stop posting generalized pejoratives about $NATION and $PEOPLE? In your case it's America and Americans, but it doesn't matter which particular nation someone has an issue with—it inevitably leads to increasingly low-quality and nasty internet discussion, which is just what we don't want here.
I know you're not doing this intentionally, but it's always many times more obvious to readers than it is to the commenter. Multiply the possible effects of such a comment by 100x and you'll get a more accurate picture of how this sounds.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22219018.
I personally found is fascinating that a person from the USSR (famous for propaganda) had the insight and self awareness to say they're very aware that every country is a propaganda machine, though while I was in the US for 5 months last year I met many people who had no idea they're in one too.
I would say the same is true in Australia, and Canada (the other countries I've lived in)
At no point was I trying to say America is crap (like many people assumed) and I tried to say that on two separate occasions, but all the other comments just jumped back to "American isn't as bad as china" (which is unrelated to my insight above).
But yes, I'll stop.
"You're in a propaganda machine" is one hop from "Wake up sheeple". That's a cliché of internet fulmination because it never works. Posting like this is pushing a button that generates angry responses. It's your responsibility not to push the button. (Not that that's always easy, since we usually do it inadvertently.)
"You're in a propaganda machine" is one hop from "Wake up sheeple". That's a cliché of internet fulmination because it never works. Posting like this is pushing a button that generates angry responses. It's your responsibility not to push the button. (Not that that's always easy, since we usually do it inadvertently.)
But when it's true, we need to have the perspective to realize that, just like the other commentor from the USSR. Just because it pushes people's buttons doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it - especially when it's true.
I'm originally from Australia, and yes, 100% without a doubt it is a propaganda machine. It does annoy me, and that's a good thing because it means I'm motivated to do something about changing it.
We can't simply not talk about things that might push people's buttons. Then we'd be just always talking about surface stuff, and never getting to the heart of anything, and - even worse - we'd never improve anything.
But sure, I'll stop. I'll stick to easy topics on HN. Sorry to use up your precious time again.
I'm pretty sure that rayiner's comment exists mirrored on a random Chinese forum. Someone being offended by a comparison of China and US (implying China is better). We're all the same.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/inside-roman...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/15/cia-torture-...
Your attempt to equate these things is frankly shocking.
How about how many wars the Americans started? How many people killed, left without homes? How about the fact that Americans bombed the Japanese? Why can't people accept that bad is bad no matter who does it or how many times they do it.
This is not you vs. me, democrats vs. republicans, conservative vs. liberals, Russia vs. US, it's not the divide and conquer of the American propaganda.
I'm not defending the USSR, Europe or US. I'm saying all are bad and all of them have done horrifying things, the only thing we can do is to hope that we can become better. And this can only be done if we stop saying "oh but he did it worse/first, mom" but understand that we need to do better.
> How about how many wars the Americans started? How many people killed, left without homes? How about the fact that Americans bombed the Japanese? Why can't people accept that bad is bad no matter who does it or how many times they do it.
No one is arguing that Americans never do anything wrong.
> I'm not defending the USSR, Europe or US. I'm saying all are bad and all of them have done horrifying things, the only thing we can do is to hope that we can become better. And this can only be done if we stop saying "oh but he did it worse/first, mom" but understand that we need to do better.
Saying that all countries have done horrifying things is facile. The idea that, in order to "do better," we have to first convince ourselves that killing millions of people by forced labor is the same as kidnapping 3000 people and torturing them is bizarre. It's all-or-nothing nonsense. The fact that no country is perfect does not mean that no country is better than any other country.
This argument didn't start because someone said "rendition was okay because the gulags were worse". It started because you objected to the statement that the USSR was much worse than the US.
I'm a bit confused about your comments, since it would be comfortable to think that you are "trolling", but the fact that you are upset is clearly a sign that you believe in what you are saying.
My guess is that you are young and above average intelligence, I'm sure that you can look things up on Wikipedia, I'm old and not so sharp anymore, so I'll also look things up, hopefully we can all get better educated on what all these countries did.
Writing in English is hard at this time of the night, so I'll sign off, I wish you the best.
Wondering aloud if the Soviet system might not be better "because at least people were aware of it" is shocking and cruel.
US for almost all practical purpose for most of its existence is an extended Britain. And for the remaining part the best result of European colonialism. The US is basically Europe. There are now differences of course, but the bigger story is this.
By and large Russia and China are the result of revolutions, that were attained in the climate of what was then the dominant political and economic narrative of the time.
The fact that countries like China and Russia have done whatever they have done what it took Europe and its colonies centuries to do is in itself a huge proof of success, if you want to measure it that way.
“manfactured consent” is top-down, elite-driven propaganda that the general citizenry isn't any more complicit in than is the case with authoritarian propaganda.
It's different than authoritarian propaganda in that it isn't centrally directed by the state, per se, (on the other hand since it is elite-directed by the same elites to whom the state apparatua is subservient, that difference is less significant than it might appear at first.)
It's also different in that while there is a significant degree of commonality, the elites that it serves have competing interests which results in diversity and conflicts in the propaganda.
I'm saying it's interesting to realize that everyone on all sides are fed propaganda. As 'siracusa23' points out, he is very aware that both Americans and Soviets continue to be fed propaganda.
What I said was that today, the vast majority of Americans have no idea they are constantly being fed propaganda, and they openly take offence if you say as much.
Note that millions of us Americans who are disgusted with systemic racism and authoritarian overreach in our country are free to discuss it openly, assemble in opposition, and vote our conscience. Do you imagine a person in China is likewise free to engage in a public discussion about Uyghur concentration camps?
Americans have no idea they are being fed propaganda. That's my point. That's what I said right back at the start.
It's not relevant what a person in China can or can't do.
People are quite good at recognizing the propaganda from other bubbles that aren't their own (hence everyone on the left seeing Fox News for what is... and everyone on the right seeing CNN/MSNBC for what they are). Many of the resources within each bubble are dedicated to exposing the propaganda of other bubbles. A bubble's inhabitants do less well at recognizing and acknowledging the propaganda of their own bubble, however.
Democracies are basically (thought) bubble blowing contests.
Its not quite the market place of ideas we wanted or hoped for... but its what we have today, and its still preferable to the alternative, where there's only one despot-controlled bubble - and so we don't even realize that bubbles exist at all - or if we do, we don't mention it out loud, if we know whats "good" for us.
> Plenty of people were jailed in the occupy wall street peaceful demonstrations. Open your eyes.
My argument is that this is a bullshit, apples-to-oranges distraction. I'm sorry to be so blunt.
> Americans have no idea they are being fed propaganda.
What "Americans" are you talking about? You're talking to an American right now. There are millions of us fully aware that we're swimming in spin, biased reporting, and government misinformation. If anything, seeing propaganda everywhere we look has become a bit of an American pastime. Regardless, look around at this forum; I can't count how many heated debates we've had on HN about the dark, rotten corners of this country's past and present. Everything from the genocide of the Native Americans to the Lost Cause, the Iraq War, Snowden, what have you.
It's bizarre that you can invoke the deaths of American protesters at the hands of the police, and then condemn Americans' collective gullibility and disinterest as though it's somehow comparable, in any fucking way whatsoever, to things like the Great Firewall. They are not comparable.
You and I agree on more things than not. But on some topics like this, I really think you get carried away with sweeping and reactionary generalizations that don't help your case.
You appear to want to debate "whether America is evil" or something but I'm talking about a distinction between manufacture-of-consent propaganda and state control of speech and dissidence, which does not exist in the United States.
No. I have no interest in saying that at all. I have not said that anywhere in this comment thread.
All I started out saying, and am continuing to say is that the major difference with propaganda in the USA is that the vast majority of Americans have no idea they are subjected to it, and would get angry if it was pointed out to them.
That's all.
> state control of speech and dissidence, which does not exist in the United States
I agree, you are absolutely correct.
This just doesn’t jive with my experience growing up in what was (at the time) a fairly conventional somewhat conservative state (Virginia). We were exposed to Zinn and Manufacturing Consent in our public school. We learned about slavery, Indian extermination, Jim Crow, McCarthyism, etc. We learned about our interventions in Latin America and Iran. Socialism and the labor movement was taught very sympathetically. For example, we were taught that Upton Sinclair’s “the Jungle” was muckraking journalism. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned that the novel was intended to be socialist propaganda. We certainly were never we exposed to the contemporaneous criticism of Sinclair: https://fee.org/articles/29-upton-sinclairs-the-jungle-prove...
If anything, I’d argue the propaganda was in the other direction. America was almost always painted in a bad light, except for two things: the founding, and WWII. (Although, teachers are already trying to delegitimize our founding by incorporating material from the 1619 project.) We never learned all the bad things about the Soviet Union, or socialism as tried in Latin America.
By what measure? The average American house is double the size of the average European house. We have vastly more disposable income: http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-states/
It correspondingly leads the world in household consumption expenditures per capita: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_household... ($37,903 in the US, $20,408 in France).
We are among the top in terms of college education rates: On other measures, the US does great. It has long been among the top countries for college attainment: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cac.asp
There are some indicators where the US doesn’t do as well. For example, life expectancy at age 65 is on the lower end, six months less than the UK and about the same as Denmark and Poland: https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-65.htm. Though the fact that Denmark and Poland are the same should indicate that the measure is highly sensitive to demographic and cultural factors. (Sweden, Germany, and the UK are closer to the US than they are to France or Spain.)
> Plenty of people were jailed in the occupy wall street peaceful demonstrations.
Occupy Wall Street protestors were not all “peaceful.” They sometimes got violent or destructive, and they were arrested, but that‘s not a bad thing. It’s happening in France too: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/france-scores-yellow-.... There is a huge difference between arresting rowdy protestors and imprisoning political dissidents.
> Also includes executing American citizens without trial
By that you mean ordering a military attack on an American citizen who was waging war against the US on foreign soil. Again, huge difference between that and executing citizens on US soil for political offenses.
> testing on huamns against their consent
Yes, that was bad. But not as bad as experiments in collective farming killing tens of millions of people!
> overthrowing democratically elected leaders
Not clear that this is bad.
> I could go on and on. The fact you're inside it, and being subjected to it, means you can't see it clearly.
You can go on and on, but can you present any examples that are actually equivalent? Your examples, presumably the best ones you have, are utterly superficial. What’s the equivalency you’re hoping to draw between taking military action against a terrorist on foreign soil, who happens to have US citizenship, and massive political purges? It’s not even just a matter of “both are bad, but one involves more instances of the bad thing.” The moral calculus is completely different. How are you supposed to even handle a US citizen who wages terrorist attacks on the US from abroad. It’s not like you can send police to arrest them. Whether it’s ultimately “bad” or not, the ethical calculation is completely different.
> That's why I said it's interesting 'siracusa23' can. He/she has more perspective than you (and I'm willing to bet the majority of Americans)
There are millions of Americans who have first hand experience with socialism and communism, and many are among the most fervent defenders of the American way. There are 1.5 million Cuban Americans in Florida, and Donald Trump won a majority of their vote: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/100-republ.... These are people for whom the distant memory of communism is so powerful that they’ll hold their nose and vote for the Republican candidate regardless of the odious things he’s said about immigrants. Nationwide, a supermajority of Hispanics (60-20) said they wouldn’t vote for someone who called themselves a “socialist”: https://www.latinorebels.com/2019/11/07/telemundopoll. These are people who have (or their families have) experience with the dismal failures of socialism in Latin America.
By all the measures that actually indicate how life is for the average person on the street, not just the ones about how much stuff you use up.
The US is at or very near the worst among OECD countries in: infant mortality, child poverty, child health and safety, life expectancy at birth, healthy life expectancy, rate of obesity, disability-adjusted life years, doctors per 1000 people, deaths from treatable conditions, rate of mental health disorders, rate of drug abuse, rate of prescription drug use, incarceration rate, rate of assaults, rate of homicides, income inequality, wealth inequality, and economic mobility.
In many of those, it's 2x to 5x worse than other countries.
As to your other indicators, are you really talking about the “average person” or the poorest people? Because there is a big difference, and in the US we have deliberately chosen to optimize for lower taxes on the middle class at the expense of weaker safety nets for the lowest class. Take, for example, income mobility. For the top 80% it’s similar between the US and Denmark: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012.... Someone born in the second to lowest quantile, for example, has a similar shot at rising to the top quantile in the US and Denmark.
As to health indicators it’s similar, although also complicated by demographic and diet differences. Asian Americans have the longest life expectancy of pretty much anyone in the world, including people in Hong Kong, Singapore, or Japan. It’s not because there is an alternate, Asian only health system. It’s because Asian Americans are largely outside the bottom quantile, and a lot of the things that drag down the US in the overall average are a function of very bad results in the bottom quantile.
In contrast, people in countries like China and the old USSR are empowered only to learn of and share state-approved knowledge, in a state-approved manner. Stepping too far outside these boundaries often leads to imprisonment or worse.
The repercussions were social mostly, your boss would not promote you anymore, your neighbours would avoid you. Only in cases of high-treason, such as Assange from WikiLeaks, you would get "imprisonment or worse". Think to how PC culture works in the US. If you're misoginistic, your friends will start avoiding you, you might even get fired.
And no, people did not learn through state-approved knowledge, we had conspiracy theories, we had friends, uncles and friends having friends working inside the government.
So, "high-treason" must have included religious offenses, attempting to leave the USSR, independent journalism, cultural and literary nonconformism, activism of any almost any kind, and any other sort of activity deemed undesirable to the state. Is that right?
> And no, people did not learn through state-approved knowledge, we had conspiracy theories, we had friends, uncles and friends having friends working inside the government.
Conspiracy theories and rumors are not comparable to the robust freedom of expression we enjoy in the West -- a freedom that we take advantage of on this very forum, where we are free to share information and criticize our Western governments however we please, anonymously or not.
If you're interested in learning about the USSR's treatment of people who spoke against the state, the accounts of the dissidents themselves makes excellent reading. There are entire libraries dedicated to preserving the experience of people imprisoned and killed for crimes of expression in the USSR and its satellites, written in their own words.
I don't know if you really intended to compare the imprisonment and murder of people for crimes of expression, religion, or ethnicity under authoritarian states to the PC movement in the West, but if you are, I have to question whether you actually experienced the former.
I would say the enormous difference is that you are aware of it, while the vast majority of Americas are utterly clueless. In fact they often take extreme offence at the very mention their media contains propaganda.