In the original Iron Man comic Tony Stark was captured by Wong-Chu, a Vietnamese commander. This was in 1963. Who was our enemy in those times I wonder?
Fast forward to 2003, the Iron Man movie is released, and Tony Stark is captured by a terrorist group in Afghanistan. Who was our enemy in those times I wonder?
What have we been told since elementary school? Russia is evil, and masters of propaganda. Our CIA adopted the Russian word which defines the spread of false information with intent to mislead, specifically for propaganda purposes by governments. The word is дезинформация, or in english, dezinformatsiya, which we know as Disinformation.
> The United States Intelligence Community appropriated use of the term disinformation in the 1950s from the Russian dezinformatsiya, and began to use similar strategies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation#American_disinf...
Now we are being told by the media and politicians and internet experts to hate that red country called China, they are a bunch of evil commies and are going to attack us!
I struggle with getting on the hate an entire country just because I'm told to bandwagon because it clashes with the reality I've experienced. In my reality, China is thriving because of the work we outsource to them, and our corporations have been able to grow because of that (at the expense of US jobs I'm not saying it's all good). In my reality China movie box offices can often exceed the earnings of US box offices, for US movies! In my reality I've worked with countless people from China who grew up in China, or had parents who did, and I've yet to hear any one of them say anything negative regarding the country (not to say they wouldn't, but if the place was so evil wouldn't it be at least once that it was mentioned). In my reality Americans vacation in China, and take walks on the Great Wall. In my reality, our 2 countries have a mutually beneficial relationship who would both suffer immeasurable economic hits should we end things. In my reality, that evil commie country is working to expand the our species and our understanding of our place in the universe with an expensive and time consuming space program, space station, and planned moon missions. In my reality both countries have worked together on space missions and through those partnerships have made the entire world more scientifically literate.
Yet, everyone is so fucking amped about hating on an entire country, literally asking for a war for some reason, and choosing to ignore reality regarding the fact we both heavily rely on each other. We live in a world where we both have spy satellites that can take pictures of license plates yet shot down "Chinese spy balloons" and were told this is a common thing, yet in my 36 years of existence I had never seen a news report of such an event happening in the past, because why would it when both countries have satellites overhead 24/7.
Is everything great? Nope. It isn't anywhere. I can whataboutism all day with counter examples of the US being just as shitty if not worse than China all day long, yet doing so is dismissed as deflection. I'm just not convinced they are the big baddies we're being told they are because I see every government as evil and horrible on about the same level of shit.
Folks should pause and question things whenever they start being told who they should hate, and pay attention to what motivations might behind such an order.
> In 2000, it came to light that soldiers from the 4th Psychological Operations Group had been interning at the American news networks Cable News Network (CNN) and National Public Radio (NPR) during the late 1990s. The program was an attempt to provide its PSYOP personnel with the expertise developed by the private sector under its "Training with Industry" program. The program caused concern about the influence these soldiers might have on American news and the programs were terminated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_operations_(Unit...
> In 2008, The New York Times exposed how analysts portrayed in the U.S. news media as independent and objective were in fact under the tutelage of the Pentagon.[46] According to the NYT:
> Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration's wartime performance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_operations_(Unit...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
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The implicit assumption that by clicking on a medium link the user accepted the policies is illegal under GDPR. It doesn't give the chance to reject before being tracked.
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There was no implication people don't have a choice to keep using terrible software.
The person I was replying to above only referred to the paywall issue when I think the main basis for the initial plea to avoid Medium was the second point, Medium's objectionable or illegal practices (not just "terrible") against its users. It's sensible to plea not using it or at least not promoting it here.
No. I shall not.
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That's now how this works.
Please don't use Medium, post to Medium, or share Medium links. Sites like this are a cancer on the Internet.