And yet, he said he was voting for Trump. Why? Because Joe Biden was a pedophile whose son f~~ked underage Chinese children and took money from a Ukranian dictator to influence US policy.
He saw Biden as more amoral than Trump. I think this is a significant demographic block that's been ignored, because the media class doesn't really meet with people of these sort. He was extremely convinced, and I'm sure he really believed it. He really seemed upset about the moral quandary of voting for Trump vs. voting for a pedophile.
NYT follows the narrative supportive of the corporate agenda writ large, not because of an active choice about what it does write about, but because of the glaringly newsworthy things it ignores: like ongoing imperialism and terrorism committed by the US all over the world. This is true for most all major news orgs in the US.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/world/americas/evo-morale...
His statements don’t line up with the ruckus after the Tom Cotton op-Ed or Bari Weiss’s departure.
I never realized how influential Bitchute QAnon believers are or One America News Network is either (mainly due to social media algorithms running haywire).
Tristan Harris of the Social Dilemma made some really great points to this effect on his podcast episode with Joe Rogan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaTKaHKCAFg.
Biden won because people have legitimate issues with Trump. Deride it as "the propaganda machine" and other nonsense all you like. But this administration has a mind-boggling amount of documented fact-checked lies, clear nepotism, a history of censoring government agencies and intimidating federal employees who disagree, and putting out some of the most absurd propaganda we've seen in this country in modern history. It's astounding that this administration's chief complaints about the other side are always exemplified by the administration themselves. And people mindlessly repeat it without a shred of irony.
That's simply not true. There are pro-Trump comments here that are not being flagged or downvoted into oblivion. But they're the substantive comments that aren't full of baseless claims about Trump being the victim of conspiracies and abuse.
We need reconciliation, but it will never happen until we're at least willing to look at the facts objectively and realize we just witnessed a type of coup.
I am concerned with the integrity of the process. I have never believe US elections were fair. I would prefer they were. The irregularities here are massive. PA literally violated an order from Justice Alito going into this election, and that cause will very likely go back to the Supreme Court.
I know you want your side to win, but do you want it at this cost? The integrity of the system is in jeopardy. The media doesn't decide elections. There is a process, starting with certifying the results, electors being selected, those electors voting in the capitol and the House voting based on those electors. None of that has happened yet, and we've never had the news media "call" an election with this much up in the air.
I hope you get better one day and rejoin humanity.
He tweeted a video of a man yelling "White Power." Now, you can say that was "an accident", but it was up for four hours!
Our president is always reachable, by definition, and he has people who watch media like a hawk, so if it was accidental, four hours for removal would make zero sense. So Trump's racism is not a fabricated media narrative, it's directly provable with verifiable evidence.
In other words, voting for Trump because "samy is my hero." :)
Could there be a class action lawsuit against the various companies whose recommendation engines hijacked people's attention to recommend and reinforce this garbage?
Edit: clarification
People like to hand-wring about "the algorithm", but then they seem to fall short[1] of understanding that exposure, impressions, and engagement are sold to the highest bidders on social media platforms. Not only that, the platforms allow fine-grained targeting of users based on tomes of data collected on them.
These recommender systems don't just hijack people's attentions as a side effect of increasing engagement, it is by design in pathologically manipulative and anti-user way.
It isn't a coincidence that those with money and an agenda[2] can inject money into social media platforms and have their content spread like wildfire.
[1] https://kelleycotter.com//wp-content/uploads/2020/02/IJoC_Al...
I think this thought is spot on. The usual defense is "but free speech!". Which would boil down to: "such is human nature". But I don't believe that's the problem. The problem may indeed be selection and amplification mechanisms like recommendation engines tuned to divert max. attention to the medium, masterfully exploiting the vulnerabilities of the human psyche as evolution formed it. The rest is collateral damage which nobody seems to feel responsible for. Not a sustainable situation.
If there were a dead simple filter where the user could pick friend groups, tags and sorting criteria to tune their feed this would not be an issue. Reddit, for instance seems relatively simple in that respect- the presentation is a function of the subreddit and the votes.
But once the algorithm is driven by sponsorships, monetization opportunities, and opaque surveillance data then the control of the presentation shifts from user to platform. One could argue that this should creates some liability on the part of the platform.
If the editor of a publication was monetarily compensated for publishing lucrative slander, in a manner designed to maximize its credibility with certain audiences, and it resulted in harm to people then they arguable could be held responsible. If the editor claimed that an algorithm decided to publish it and the publication developed the algorithm I don't think it would make them less responsible.
I read it in one of his books, but this is the only good version I can find online.
PDF: http://plaza.ufl.edu/trishak/Carl%20Sagan%20-%20Why%20We%20N...
>> From Parade Magazine, September 10, 1989 – As I got off the plane, he was waiting for me, holding up a sign with my name on it. I was on my way to a conference of scientists and TV broadcasters, and the organizers had kindly sent a driver.
>> "Do you mind if I ask you a question?" He said as we waited for my bag. "Isn't it confusing to have the same name as that science guy?"
>> It took me a moment to understand. Was he pulling my leg? "I am that science guy," I said. He smiled. "Sorry. That's my problem. I thought it was yours too." He put out his hand. "My name is William F. Buckley." (Well, his name wasn't exactly William F. Buckley, but he did have the name of a contentious TV interviewer, for which he doubtless took a lot of good-natured ribbing.)
>> As we settled into the car for the long drive, he told me he was glad I was "that science guy" -- he had so many questions to ask about science. Would I mind? And so we got to talking. But not about science. He wanted to discuss UFOs, "channeling" (a way to hear what's on the minds of dead people -- not much it turns out), crystals, astrology ... He introduced each subject with real enthusiasm, and each time I had to disappoint him: "The evidence is crummy," I kept saying. "There's a much simpler explanation." As we drove on through the rain, I could see him getting glummer. I was attacking not just pseudoscience but also a facet of his inner life.
>> And yet there is so much in real science that's equally exciting, more mysterious, a greater intellectual challenge--as well as being a lot closer to the truth. Did he know about the molecular building blocks of life sitting out there in the cold tenuous gas between the stars? Had he heard of the footprints of our ancestors found in 4-mil-lion-year-old volcanic ash? What about the raising of the Himalayas when India went crashing into Asia? Or how viruses subvert cells, or the radio search for extraterrestrial intelligence or the ancient civilization of Ebla? Mr. "Buckley" -- well-spoken, intelligent, curious -- had heard virtually nothing of modem science. He wanted to know about science. It's just that all the science got filtered out before it reached him. What the society permitted to trickle through was mainly pretense and confusion. And it had never taught him how to distinguish real science from the cheap imitation.
There is plenty of real hard evidence than Hunter was used to peddle influence and spread corruption, and the media completed censored all of that information, from one of the oldest newspapers in the country:
https://battlepenguin.com/tech/the-solution-to-big-tech-isnt...
This should trouble everyone.
Joe Biden's touchiness does bother me, as does the Hunter Biden story. But I don't think that's anywhere near what my driver was talking about, and I also don't think Trump is better when it comes to sexually inappropriate behaviour or corruption.
My driver also brought up Pizzagate and other such (nearly unequivocally) debunked conspiracy theories, which makes me suspicious of his reasoning capabilities.
Conservatism is not comparable to liberalism. They are not alternatives. It just means a desire to maintain the status quo. The opposite of conservatism is progressivism, not liberalism.
In fact most Republicans in the US are liberal-democrats.
My problem is that Trump is just a man of such awful character that it hurts to see how many supported him, regardless of policy preferences. I have never felt this way about any previous president, Republican or Democrat.
The outsiders make the progress.
Reading https://www.amazon.com/Renegade-History-United-States/dp/141...
"A Renegade History of the United States" by Thaddeus Russell
Most support for Trump is at a deep, emotional level (to be fair, strong support for leadership usually is).
A lot of the points you mentioned are points that people who were not Left, have come to move past on the Right. The Right has changed. Trump does support free trade - if the US is not taken advantage of. Foreign wars are something everyone's tired of. Russia as a major threat is not something people take seriously, unless it's used to influence people against Trump. Etc.
Many on the right would classify the points you mentioned as "neocon" or "neoliberal," something they've always been uncomfortable with and seen as an infection of the party and had to grudgingly accept without alternative, until Trump.
Support for Trump is at a deep, emotional level for many. But certainly not in spite of his policy positions. If anything, his policy positions reinforce that emotion for most of his supporters.
The people most in need of good policy, at the price of an acceptable nonchalance regarding a president's mere presentability - minorities - made their voices heard by voting for Trump. Every single minority demographic voted in higher numbers for Trump this election over last. The only demographic to vote for him less? White men. And that made the difference.
The privileged have the benefit of being able to vote based on presentability. The rest of the population cannot afford to in the same way.
It's for basically that reason that incumbent politicians are usually favored to win. As long as people's lives go generally okay, they want to stick with the devil they know.
Really? From my perspective, the media has not noted it at all. I had to notice it in a Twitter stream before it disappeared down my feed forever, to know these statistics. It seems more notable than zero, and therefore to me more notable than the media is making it out to be.
I don't disagree with the rest of your comment. Peoples' lives were determined to be better under Trump, so they voted to keep it. Privileged people with the benefit of discounting quality of life bumps that were significant to others but insignificant to themselves, were more likely to vote based on appearances.
For instance if black men who support Republicans very grudgingly (enough not to vote say) are swept up in a broader wash of getting all black men to vote more, you’d see that pattern.
Another reading of the data is that these were votes against Biden/Harris or protest votes against the Democratic party for their lack of more aggressive action on racial justice.
Or it’s all of these things. One of the thing about every 4 year elections is it’s hard to interpret trend data. Especially not 5 days later.
Why? There is no reason for this assertion. There are equally likely begrudging black democrats, and higher turnout doesn't necessarily lean towards a side. You'd expect higher numbers in equal proportions on both sides, all else being equal.
> Another reading of the data is that these were votes against Biden/Harris or protest votes against the Democratic party for their lack of more aggressive action on racial justice
Yes. Away from Biden is functionally equivalent to towards Trump if that's how the votes were placed. That's saying what I'm saying, in part
I am not sure that the increases say much about Trump's actual policies outside of his stance on shutdowns and Covid which has had a tremendous negative effect on the Economy.
I think a certain segment of the population probably saw Biden as too much of an insider who will deliver more of the same.
The whites are having identity shouting matches with each other while the minorities they supposedly are trying to be considerate of, move in the opposite direction.
It's not that Trump had a track record of doing things that benefitted non-white people, it's that Biden has a sustained track record of actually causing serious harm and people have not forgotten.
- First Step Act [0]
- Platinum Plan for Black America [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Step_Act
[1] https://cdn.donaldjtrump.com/public-files/press_assets/presi...
> The people most in need of good policy, at the price of an acceptable nonchalance regarding a president's mere presentability - minorities - made their voices heard by voting for Trump. Every single minority demographic voted in higher numbers for Trump this election over last. The only demographic to vote for him less? White men. And that made the difference.
Can you share your source for this? (this is not a challenge, I'm genuinely interested in digging deeper into the data myself)
https://twitter.com/CharlesMBlow/status/1323975456668979200
Which pulls its insights from this article:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/...
"The black male vote for trump increased from 13% in 2016 to 18% this year"
"The black female vote for Trump doubled from 4% in 2016 to 8% this year"
"Exit polls show a majority of white women voting for Trump. (Important note: Pew analysis of actual votes in 2016 showed that it wasn’t a majority but was a plurality.)"
"The percentage of LGBT voting for Trump doubled from 2016"
"The percentage of Latinos and Asians voting for Trump increased from 2016"
This is not the case, as (or at least has not been since Reagan) there have been 2 main tools of regulating/restricting foreign imports by Republicans: Tariffs and Quotas. Both have different tradeoffs.
Reagan was heavily in favor of quotas instead of tariffs: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/i-am-a-tariff-man-com...
Reagan CEA economist Steve Hanke added:
“the share of American imports covered by some sort of trade restriction soared under ‘free-trader’ Reagan, moving from only 8 percent in 1975 to 21 percent by 1984.”
According to these Fox News polls[1], that shouldn't be a problem given their views.
This election also saw a drop in white male support for Trump.
>> Both sides could do with a culling of the old and an infusion of new blood.
Don't know if I could have come up with a better example of the unhelpful language I'm talking about if I tried. Why would some white guy, say, in his 50s want to be on board with your "culling of the old" rhetoric?
Genuine question: how can this be done without giving up on the people who don't match that description?
I thought the Sam Harris podcast really hit the nail on the head. The messaging from the left for the past 10-15 years has really had very little to offer straight, white men at a psychological level. The rhetoric is pretty constant around wanting more diversity as a first, primary goal (meaning fewer straight white men), constant talk of privilege (you should be ashamed not just for trying to take pride in your own accomplishments, but you're guilty of your parents' and grandparents' sins as well), hyper-vigilance against language that has even the slightest resemblance to a color or culture (no more master branch for you), doing things once seen as "manly" is now filtered through the lens of "toxic masculinity".
And to be clear, I don't even disagree with many of these ideas. But in a democracy why should we be shocked when people vote in their own selfish interest?
The toxic masculinity thing is milder then everything i listened about feminity and anything feminine growing up. And plus it is tempered by boys are actually better thing that definitely still exist.
I'm taking this as clear evidence you have never listened to a Sam Harris podcast.
Or, you know, we could stop focusing on race, gender and sexuality so fucking much.
The most important thing about a person in 2020 is their race it seems. Followed closely by their gender and sexual orientation. That is what needs to change.
> The most important thing about a person in 2020 is their race it seems. Followed closely by their gender and sexual orientation
All US presidents (until Obama!) have been straight white guys. Was that a coincidence, or was it in fact vitally important in their election?
I'm not sure how your response there follows at all from the GP's comment of "You can support people of color without actively denigrating straight white men", and indeed I feel like this is a clear example of what I'm thinking about.
Not "Black Lives Matter" but "stop Police Violence". Not "Believe All Women" but "Believe Victims". Not "Affirmative action for non-white non-Asians" but "Affirmative action for the poor" (hint: every discrimination is positive for someone and negative for someone else).
Obama is not white
Some white men are beginning to see that their bubble is breaking.
If this argument was moved to, say, Nigeria, would there be a problematic 'black male position' there?
Trans people who express themselves as male have a ton of interesting anecdotes about how they were suddenly seen as more competent just for being men.
Those who feel they're being pushed out are actually leaving voluntarily because they don't like that others are being allowed in.
But to humor you, here is a good summary from Olivia Troye, former Republican member of the White House Covid task force and aid to Pence: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/10/olivia-troye-whi...
Basically, Trump's only concern about Covid was how it would affect his re-election chances. And this isn't just some "disgruntled staffer". Basically everything she says backs up Trump's own public pronouncements of only seeing Covid as some politically motivated attack, instead of one of the most serious threats facing our nation in decades.
Trump has been extremely transparent that he only views events as how they will help or hurt him. That's a very fair definition of amoral to me.
This is fake news. Trump was one of the first Western leaders that reacted to COVID, closing the borders to China back in February. He was relentlessly mocked as a result, accused of being racist.
Edit: looks like some people disagree with facts.
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/trumps-snowballing-china-t...
> On Jan. 31, the Trump administration declared a public health emergency for the novel coronavirus and announced travel restrictions to and from China, effective Feb. 2.
Its true that the problem was virtually unsolvable regardless of policy for pretty much every Western country (except a few small / sparsely populated islands), the virus started spreading way before it was detected, but that’s hindsight.
Donald Trump is literally on tape with Bob Woodward saying he deliberately downplayed it.
I'd say that this is the default behavior of majority of the population. Politicians do it probably even more. They just do not admit it.
You may argue that altruism is actually in self-interest, by making you feel good, but that’s circular logic[1].
[1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_egoism#Circularity
Not exceptions but ratio of altruistic vs self-centric actions would be I think less than 1%. That is based on my life time experience. Maybe somebody else has better one.
As for the world being a sad place: well it is. The amount of people in need is staggering.
the contradiction is that you give a pass for some people but not for donald trump only by pure political opinion.
It depends on the definition of amoral that each one has
For many people, dating porn stars while married would be a good definition... but some adults have open marriages, that's true.
Most people in the planet would say that snatching babies from their parents (and basically laughing about it) is definitely amoral. Double bonus if you do it while accusing other to conspire to kidnap children without showing any proof of that.
And telling citizens for months to go out unprotected in the middle of a potentially lethal disease, when you are fully aware of the danger and after more than 200.000 people died for this disease, is not much better.
This is fake news. This was Obama-era policy (or at least started with Obama).
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-build-cages-immigran...
that leaves us with covid testing. On June 21st, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McAnany was asked to verify if Trump had ordered testing to be slowed down. She responded, “No, he has not directed that. Any suggestion that testing has been curtailed is not rooted in fact.” She added, “The president was trying to expose what the media often times does, they ignore the fact that the US has more cases because we have more testing.” She added, “It’s a fact the media readily ignores.”
When asked to clarify that the comment Trump made about slowing down testing wasn’t true, McEnany responded, “It was a comment that he made in jest, a comment he made in passing, specifically with regard to the media coverage...when you test more people, you find more cases.” so not a fact.
see. im probably gonna be downvoted for this because people are not factual and just hate the guy and while there are reasons to hate him they need to be concrete and real
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_administration_family_se...
No, that isn't how it works. The policy is that children gets torn away from their family if the family gets prosecuted for a crime. That policy existed long before Trump. The only thing that changed under Trump was removal of lenience against parents, meaning parents now got prosecuted at same rate as other border crossers.
Yes, In the last 4 years while Trump was in charge it was. He had enough time and political resources and green light at senate. Could have stopped it at any time. He didn't.
This is completely false. Family separation was never a policy of any administration until Trump.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_administration_family_se...
https://dailycaller.com/2018/06/19/photos-obama-immigration-...
That said, the recent Sam Harris podcast really helped me understand his appeal. And I hope (but am not hopeful) that the left tries to mend their ways by refraining from pushing (mainly white, straight men, but also others, like the religious) many further from the Democratic party.