Now imagine the level of sophistication propagandists have reached with the internet, where merely running ad campaigns on social media has the power to influence millions and directly control politics on a global scale.
Cambridge Analytica was merely the tip of the iceberg. It's scary to think about the magnitude of the operations we don't hear about.
It seems increasingly and screamingly obvious that it's not possible to have country-level power without any action to insert ones-self into, and assert ones power upon, the affairs of neighbouring countries in morally questionable and subversive ways. Which is just a longer way of saying: power corrupts.
The problem I have with this realisation, is that this kind of behaviour sets a precedent for 'acceptability' for all groups and individuals on lower rungs than government - which is everyone. No wonder governments have trouble legislating against bad corporate behaviour, because they have done, and likely are in the midst of doing, shady shit themselves of a greater scale. I feel I'm exposing a level of my own naivete, but I'm trying to convey the path from government 'bad-ness' to the current level of social and civil mistrust in government and also inward looking perspectives on any and all actions (ie. what's in it for me, fuck y'all) that's encouraged by every exposure of such government-approved actions.
You, Government, with all your power, cannot judge me, as a powerless individual member of the proletariat, as guilty and punishable for any crime lesser than that which you yourself has actively participated in and considered acceptable. The wind blows unhindered through your glass house.
>It seems increasingly and screamingly obvious that it's not possible to have country-level power without any action to insert ones-self into, and assert ones power upon, the affairs of neighbouring countries in morally questionable and subversive ways. Which is just a longer way of saying: power corrupts.
I think it can be done if the country is small enough and the government itself is small enough. Even if such states do end up meddling in the affairs of neighbors they won't be able to concentrate as much wealth into these actions as larger countries can.
I'm wondering if it's a case of "idle hands are the devil's plaything", which would, as you've said, be easier for a larger country having a larger tax base and more cash-on-hand to spend on questionable pursuits.
I'm also permanently intrigued as to whether it's possible to succeed as a government without being evil. The good of the many at the expense of the few means being evil to 'the few'. Hard decisions have to be made, and when they're made they need to be committed too lest inviting insanity from constant second-guessing.
Tough gig either way, but the setting of behavioural precedents for "your people" should be of utmost consideration.
To be clear, there's many different socio-political doctrines that are inherently anti-governmental in nature, and supported by the above. Libertarianism is merely one of them.
With WWI, how did the european powers manage to convince their civilians to go die in the trenches fighting a meaningless war? Or Vietnam in the US
The saying "if everyone jumped off the bridge..." is funny, because people will say it and forget what it means the moment everyone around them starts jumping off the bridge
Nowadays we just send out the poor and desperate. I've always felt conscription was better. How many military interventions would the Pentagon be allowed to sign off on if Wallstreet bankers had to serve in the front lines? Can you imagine the SHIT STORM about burn pits if it involved a billionaire's son...
In ancient Rome everyone in the elite had to serve a few years as an officer in a legion.
There's a common misconception that the US volunteer military is only poor people.
Surprisingly enough, the top US income quartile enlists at a higher rate than the bottom income quartile. There's a big list of things that disqualify recruits, not having basic literacy, no recent prison time, no high school dropouts, obesity standards, mental health standards, no marijuanas use, no children...
Afaik, in times of ancient Rome men who gave orders to fight were standing in front of the people they gave orders to, not in some remote office or bunker.
As for wall Street and conscription - they would find a way to get their sons out of this trouble I am sure.
In most countries, they simply conscripted them. There was no "convincing". Australia is one of the exceptions, although certainly not because the government didn't want conscription.
> In most countries, they simply conscripted them. There was no "convincing"
But who conscripted them and dragged them off to war? Was it the politicians who decided to go to war? The "convincing" isn't necessary once it's reached critical mass
We didn't have conscription in WW1, but we did in WW2 and then "National Service" in the 50s. In the 60s there was a draft that had a "ball draw" every month with the date (a ball numbered from 1-28/30/31) and if you turned 18 on that date of the month, you were drafted.
There were exemptions but it still seems a cruel form of gambling in a way.
Relating 'Camgridge Analytica' to this situation is a bit hyperbolic.
CA 'scandal' was vastly misrepresented by most in the press, it was a bit of a problem, but completely over stated.
I worked at a company that received 'special access APIs' from Facebook (something indicated during this scandal) and it was not only benign but the mechanics were misrepresented.
That said - it's reasonable to wonder 'What Is Happening Now?'
Another question is ... is it rational and/or moral? That's a more difficult question to contemplate for younger people I think, who have less exposure to the mechanics of the world, which are materially relevant. My view on that has evolved so much over time, it's so hard to say.
> CA 'scandal' was vastly misrepresented by most in the press, it was a bit of a problem, but completely over stated.
CA abused the friend-of-a-friend feature of FB's API to create detailed profiles of millions of voters, which they then used to micro-target them with ads. Advertisers are quite aware of the psychological effect of ads, and their ability to influence decision making, even on a subconscious level. It's pretty clear, then, how this would be useful for pushing propaganda, and swaying voters one way or another.
The 2020 leaks[1] show that they've done this in 68 countries. Whether or not they were entirely responsible for election results is debatable, but you can't possibly call this "a bit of a problem" and "completely over stated".
This is a very real and dangerous weaponization of social media, and it's not difficult to see how it's a natural progression of propaganda efforts from past decades. It would be naive to think that CA was the only and last firm operating in this business. They're just the ones we happened to hear about.
> Another question is ... is it rational and/or moral?
How is that even a question? There's nothing moral about getting paid by politicians to manipulate voters into voting for them. It's the modern equivalent of outright buying votes. If you don't see how that undermines democracies[2], then we have completely different worldviews.
CA did what many people were doing at the time, and those kinds of shenanigans are very common today.
The 'harm' caused by such information gathering, were it effective, is marginal.
So yes, we don't want people abusing people's APIs, but it's almost a nothing burger that people could 'target a few ads'.
More relevant to CA's case - their capabilities were rubbish. They completely overstated their ability to target people and to influence them.
This is the 'running scam' of the entire advertising, agency, ad-buying and consulting industry. Their claims were ridiculous.
All of that combined means that this was not some scary thing for civilization, the effects were marginal, and even then 'ad targeting' itself is not even a bad thing.
It's not 'harmful' that Toyota was able to get their ads in front of a few more truck buyers. More like 'annoying'.
'The Guardian' is a primary source for borderline fabrication at least to the extent that they vastly overstate both the kinds of abuse in the situation, and the power of the information garnered. In this case, misinformation by The Guardian is as bad as the case they are following.
"There's nothing moral about getting paid by politicians to manipulate voters into voting for them."
What Campus Bubble do you live in?
So you want to ban all public communications by 'Politicians'?
Are signs 'evil'? 'Pamplets'? 'TV Spots'? 'Radio spots'?
Did that 'pamphlet' you receive make you vote for ABC politician, and therefore the 50 cost of that was tantamount to 'vote buying'.
Does the same apply to industry? The iPhone ad should be illegal?
Please.
Ironically - targeted advertising is, on the whole, probably better for everyone than not. There is too much information out there, and we need better ways to access it. 'Targeting' is a form of market clearing, it's a form of efficiency.
The dynamics of it are screwed up in that some are much better able to leverage the system than others, and I don't like that our privacy is abused in many cases, but on the whole it's not bad.
It seems to me that when you have the ability to decide what is shown and how it is shown or framed, it is pretty easy from there to get people to fall into their respective positions and have them propagate and reinforce the narrative themselves. Like how social media relies on user generated content, I wouldn't be surprised if modern propaganda efforts are so successful because they get those that are propagandized to reinforce the narrative and its framing, like people making their own thought prisons. Even opposition nowadays is content in working within the established framework of narratives instead of questioning its validity.
Now imagine the level of sophistication propagandists have reached
Very little reason to believe they aren't, for the most part, as bunglingly ineffectual as they were then, especially when it comes to efforts tied to intelligence services or people trying to sell a service, like CA.
> Very little reason to believe they aren't, for the most part, as bunglingly ineffectual as they were then
Really? I thought there was plenty of reason. There has been lots of reporting on Russian troll farms and concentrated Russian efforts for Brexit, Donald Trump. There was also quite good reporting against the propaganda war in the Central African Republic between the French and Russian armies/intelligence services.
The existence of these efforts doesn't say much about their effectiveness, which is marginal at best. Notice how the 'successes' are always in perfect conditions. Decades of Soviet propaganda did next to nothing, yet suddenly, Russian propaganda is the most effective thing imaginable. Or a US-government-sponsored letter writing campaign by the better-off Italian Americans to their Italian relatives is credited with helping influence an election in struggling post-war Italy. There's a huge selection bias for the times there's even a hint of any kind of effect.
Why would the British elite want free healthcare for everyone? Of the welfare dole? Or any of that stuff? Who is making these decisions that they’re feeding to the masses? These all seem like things you wouldn’t want if you were say, an ultra rich British noble or even the royalty.
This is a genuine not rhetorical question. I don’t know much about British politics but the statement that some shady elites are controlling the British through the BBC seems counterintuitive to me.
Primarily the victory election at the end of WWII where Churchill seemed to assume he'd be back in, in a landslide and he ignored the work being done by Labour memebers amongst the troops. There was a pretty solid army education corps which was (surprise suprise) dominated by left/labour leaning academics, and they put a lot of "why are we fighting" "homes for heroes" "make britain better for you" messages out. Labour got in on a landslide, Clement Atlee was elected to replace Churchill. The Beveridge report [0] was (partially) implemented. This was the birth of the welfare state.
> "Beveridge was opposed to "means-tested" benefits. His proposal was for a flat rate universal contribution in exchange for a flat rate universal benefit. Means-testing was intended to play a tiny part because it created high marginal tax rates for the poor."
Controlling some narratives does not mean controlling them all.
The BBC is not a clandestine operation, but does sometimes work with the government on special issues particularly for national security and/or in times of crisis.
Even knowing all of this, it's still a pretty good news source actually.
It's better than the Canadian CBC or US PBS/NPR in terms of 'objectivity' though those three entities do have some good qualities.
BBC is nothing like Russia Today for example, or even CNN/Fox or major braodcast networks, all of which have different levels of relationship with government.
elite # rich. The elite could be the bureaucrats, in which case, a free healthcare is basically a government owned clinic and corruption will run rampant on that where the bureaucrats will collect. Same thing for welfare (collect taxes from business, pass some of it to the masses, collect some of it as government officials).
Except that this didn't happen with the NHS or with Australia's public health care systems. The worst and most rampant corruption in healthcare is the US health insurance industry. The US could fix that, but the entire country no longer has any basis for reliable discourse on a subject like healthcare, which is by design.
plenty of great things about Britain, including the BBC. The fact that is a fantastic propaganda project is to the British credit, it was a key part of imperial maintenance. For the people who fought against empire though (independence movements in Malaysia, Kenya etc), it was and remains, the equivalent of RT
Do not completely shade the hope of those upon whose shoulders you stand, for you do not want to find your feet in direct contact with the ground, lest you find another's feet on your shoulders.
Balancing hope, fear, and desperation requires permanent effort.
>Why would the British elite want free healthcare for everyone? Of the welfare dole? Or any of that stuff? Who is making these decisions that they’re feeding to the masses?
Why not? If it doesn't cost them much then why wouldn't they want this for the masses? They're still people and most people don't like it when others needlessly suffer.
Providing free healthcare and handouts make people dependant on the government. And anyways, healthcare is never free, it's paid for one way or the other. Civilians either pay directly to private companies or indirectly through taxation by the government. The very wealthy can use tax vehicles to prevent paying high taxes anyway, so they're very unlikely to be harmed.
In order to increase income from taxes, governments can usually most easily tax the middle class (provided middle class isn't too small of course).
And I state that free healthcare and handouts make people more dependant on the government, since governments can always provide some reason for decreasing the handouts or healthcare provided for various reasons. For example, perhaps at some point a government might decide to withheld free healthcare for civilians that refuse vaccination. Civilians at the bottom of the food chain would then feel more pressured in taking some vaccination in order to keep access to free healthcare of government handouts.
People dependant on the government will be more obedient civilians, so its likely many governments will want to move in this direction. Central Bank Digital Currencies will also give governments more control of people, so it will be the direction we'll be moving towards in the coming years.
People are dependent on government anyway. Your life is very much in the hands of whichever entity wields the most power. Sometimes this power is direct and immediate (like a tyrannical despot). Other times it's less direct but no less powerful (democracies controlled by corporations).
On using healthcare as a tool for coercion - whilst it's a debatably bad outcome, it's generally still better than healthcare locked behind money (the latter resulting a continuous, persistent denial of healthcare to some portion of the population - the former being a once off, or possibly intermittent, denial of healthcare).
Of course healthcare isn't free. The worst case, of course, is when healthcare is both paid for via taxation and then subsequent billing by non-government entities.
> And I state that free healthcare and handouts make people more dependant on the government, since governments can always provide some reason for decreasing the handouts or healthcare provided for various reasons. For example, perhaps at some point a government might decide to withheld free healthcare for civilians that refuse vaccination. Civilians at the bottom of the food chain would then feel more pressured in taking some vaccination in order to keep access to free healthcare of government handouts.
This sounds right, but the same issue of refusing services is just as valid (if not more valid) for private businesses. It would be a harder argument with respect to public healthcare because the first amendment is binding with respect to the government and not private companies. Said private companies and insurance companies can (and likely do) charge more because of things like vaccination.
The problem is not a matter of private vs public healthcare but of punishing violation of the first amendment and enforcing legislation that protects religious minorities from discrimination, especially on insurance companies.
The private sector is more unregulated than the public sector with regard to things like religious freedom. Corporate HR departments can get away with more coercion and subterfuge than the government, hence the current situation in the US where employers control freedom of speech and other things more thoroughly than the government ever could. It's far easier to exert power through the corporations than it is through the government
That is a very American view of public health care.
The world view is that public health care is actually a massive subsidy for corporations, who obviously benefit from a healthy (and educated) pool of workers.
That public health care is fought against in the US is more about the hideously large and inefficient health care juggernaut in the US that lobbies against the publics interest in their own favour. Forget the smokescreen that the US calls "socialism", the word has no effective meaning there other than an epithet.
I would just add that public health care also adds legitimacy to government; a tangible reason for it to exist. Legitimacy is something that appears to be on the wane in the US.
You have to remember that after WW2 Europe was destroyed.
This is how socialist politicians came in. Before the war socialists were the enemy, after the war they were the ones who had to fix the mess and stop communism.
>> Why would the British elite want free healthcare for everyone?
So that they will have control of the healthcare system. Or lack thereof. "You missed crossing the T on page 1027-56, section 3 when filling out your submission to acquire cancer treatment form, and so we are rejecting your request at this time. Please fill out the form again and wait 6 weeks before re-submitting."
The more power politicians/elite have over the populace, the easier it is to control the populace. Right up until the riots.
Apparently UK propaganda teams dropped the ball on colonization. There's a lot of people who see the spread of the old British Empire™ as a bad thing and express pain at the thought of it.
Yeah it's almost sacrilege to discuss any upsides of colonization. It's also possible that as well as the UK propagandists dropping the ball, UK adversaries are doing really well on keeping colonialism a current subject in media / academia
This isn't it however: the BBC/ABC work destabilising the Sukharno communist government and their complicity in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of leftists in the subsequent Coup is remarkably well documented.
Remember Menzies in Australia tried to ban the communist party by legislation and lost a referendum in 1951 on this issue (it passed in 3? states I think, but didn't obtain the supermajority necessary)
Interestingly, he's also generally viewed as one of the greatest prime ministers, and did insanely well by most metrics. He served both the longest period of any prime minister in Australia (18 years), and has the longest consecutive time as prime minister too (16 years iirc).
He was also a central figure for one of the two major parties (Liberal - basically our closest equivalent to the American Republican party).
It would be fascinating to hear his opinion on where the Liberal party is today. That said, I think both major parties are generally shit (Broadly speaking, one works in the best interests of corporations, and the other just doesn't do much of anything)
By who? Good old pig iron bob, sold metal to the Japanese that came back as bullets fired during ww2, painted everyone as communists, ran a deeply corrupted domestic spy state and conscripted young men to fight that pointless war in vietnam? Continued the repression of women and homosexuals and kowtowed to the catholic and anglican churches who were buggering orphans and stolen aboriginals on an industrial scale.
That guy? Calling him great is controversial to say the least.
And this is from country where you actually get the documents. One can only imagine what else there is going on in countries where papers are under lock and key forever.
Interesting...the same Richard Butler who came to fame as the head of the UN weapons inspection team to Iraq prior to the US invasion. Deep state operator, or just a career bureaucrat who moved from department to department to jump pay grades?
Now imagine the level of sophistication propagandists have reached with the internet, where merely running ad campaigns on social media has the power to influence millions and directly control politics on a global scale.
Cambridge Analytica was merely the tip of the iceberg. It's scary to think about the magnitude of the operations we don't hear about.