Bit defeatist, but fair enough.
> Its a losing battle because I fight fair, while they fight by buying up troll farms.
Now who's the conspiracy theorist? Who's they!?
Just ribbin' you. : )
> You are naive. You aren't aware of the tactics being used in the modern social networks or how poisoned the discussion has become.
I've read some articles and have found most of this to be unconvincing. I think you're probably right that Twitter lends itself to bad conversation. But, just because a bunch of bots show up with false information or call me a dork, doesn't mean I have to believe them. I can verify sources, and quantity != quality when it comes to shitposts.
> Are you seriously comparing BBC and Voice of America to RT? What side of the Ukrainian war are you on
I'm on the side that understands without governments there aren't wars.
> You're free to disagree, and I'm free to think of you as naive fool for doing so.
Yup.
> Because I have actually talked to many Jan6th truthers and alt-right people on my own time.
Not unique to your experience. Many of that view run in my circles.
> Alas, my experience says otherwise, and there's nothing you can say to convince me otherwise.
Okay. Well talking to an immovable wall isn't a good look, so I'll drop it.
> Its not like their "free speech" has disappeared off the face of the internet.
Yup, which is why I don't care too much about Twitter either way. I'm just an advocate for free speech.
@dragontamer,
Thank you for the extended discussion. I'm going to try to get some work done.
Hope you have a great evening (assuming it's near night wherever you are)
Cheers,
- reedjosh
I feel I have the ability to figure this stuff out too.
Unfortunately, the people I care about do not have such ability. And they trust these online personalities (who are largely supported by bots) more than my discussion points or arguments.
Yes, I'm defeatist, but there's a reason for that. I don't think my friends being dumbasses / unable to handle propaganda is a reason to cut them out of my lives, but it is very disconcerting to me how terrible at logos they've become, and how much ethos/pathos sways them these days.
These are people close to me: my mother, coworkers, my sister, etc. etc. I enjoy a spirited debate with them now and then still but its not to actually convince them of any facts, but only for me to check up on how far the propaganda train they've gone. Actually trying to convince them of anything doesn't work, and is not the point of discussions in my experience.
The fact remains: online personalities (be they Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan, Trump, etc. etc.) hold more sway to these people than my own words. I cannot win the ethos or pathos battle, only the logos battle (but that's only one peg of the rhetorical triangle). Without any support of ethos or pathos, its all for naught.
That's why rhetoric is ethos + pathos + logos. We can't just focus on the logos leg. Figuring out ways to punish the ethos (ex: banning Trump from Twitter, to diminish his reputation) seems like the only answer.
Any attempts for me to diminish ethos on my own only leads to an ad hominem attack which is easily deflected and diminishes my own logos.
> Hope you have a great evening (assuming it's near night wherever you are)
You as well.
Good luck with that.
Trump, and his followers, today still believe the election was stolen. I don't believe there's any way to convince them otherwise. The only thing that can happen is to mitigate the damage.
You're welcome to try to convince them. I've done what I can from my side.
> Ridicule them.
That doesn't work for state-sponsored propaganda sites like RT. These groups have access to huge amounts of state-sponsored money and hire troll-farms from 3rd world countries to gaslight the discussion.
The opposite occurs, I'm ridiculed more often than not with these ridiculous discussion points. Its a losing battle because I fight fair, while they fight by buying up troll farms.
Unless I myself use a ton of fake accounts to build up a fake-following and build up a fake discussion, there's pretty much no hope at actually reaching critical mass and making discussion points move.
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The same occurs with billionare-level supporters like Elon Musk and/or Trump. They have the money to buy up false support and astroturf their supporters. You're up against literal professionals, who are paid per tweet to make the discussion look like their sponsored billionare is winning the discussions.
Its not quite as bad as state-sponsored propaganda like RT, but still bad.
You are naive. You aren't aware of the tactics being used in the modern social networks or how poisoned the discussion has become.
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> Why is Voice of America still allowed to operate on Twitter?
Are you seriously comparing BBC and Voice of America to RT? What side of the Ukrainian war are you on?
> I disagree. But I think we're running in circles now.
You're free to disagree, and I'm free to think of you as naive fool for doing so. At best, you're unaware of the tactics. At worst, you're in tacit support of them and are trying to convince me that the pro-Trump Jan6th insurrection crowd is a reasonable group that can hold a discussion with.
Alas, my experience says otherwise, and there's nothing you can say to convince me otherwise. Because I have actually talked to many Jan6th truthers and alt-right people on my own time. I've also discussed the Russian/Ukraine issue with pro-Russian / RT-supporters.
Its not like their "free speech" has disappeared off the face of the internet. I still seek them out for debate and they're readily available to discuss the issues with me.