detonating civilization's pillars (or idiocracy)
June 30, 2024 8:42 AM Subscribe
@drvolts: "Now, I'd like you to think about what will happen if Trump takes over, Project 2025 is implemented, & the entire federal bureaucracy (including law enforcement branches) is staffed with ideological MAGA cronies."[1]Agnotology: Culturally constructed ignorance, purposefully created by special interest groups working hard to create confusion and suppress the truth.
Finland is winning the war on fake news. What it's learned may be crucial to Western democracy - "The exercises include examining claims found in YouTube videos and social media posts, comparing media bias in an array of different 'clickbait' articles, probing how misinformation preys on readers' emotions, and even getting students to try their hand at writing fake news stories themselves."[5]"In the Democratic party, not everybody gets their way, but everybody gets a voice. In the Republican party, there's just one voice." --Christopher Gibbs, Farmer, Shelby County Ohio
You Are Entering the Infernal Triangle - "Authoritarian Republicans, ineffectual Democrats, and a clueless media."[7]
That will mean the end of anything like independence or expertise in the civil service. Crime statistics will be engineered to support Trump -- in his mind, and theirs, that's what the bureaucracy is *for*. The gov't is Trump's, devoted to Trump's glory...@GregTSargent: "Under Project 2025, an army of Trump loyalists would deeply corrupt information gathering by the government and turn it into little more than pro-Trump propaganda."[2] (TNR)
And you can broaden that out to economic statistics, trade statistics, GHG emissions, any & all information about the objective state of the country & the polity. It will all be pure propaganda under Trump, which will mean simply that *no one really knows* what's going on.
People lament the "post-truth" era we're living in. Misinformation. Epistemic bubbles. Algorithmic distortions. Etc. But I need people to understand that we really haven't seen anything yet... Take a peek at Russia or Turkey for a preview.
This is what keeps striking me over & over again as we wander backward into fascism, with scarcely any resistance: all the blessings we enjoy in America, the result of so much hard work that came before us, that we are taking for granted & casually frittering away.
MAGA personalities raged at CNN when it refused to allow a Donald Trump propagandist to smear journalists on air. They exploded again when CNN announced that the debate would be fact-checked. We think this provides an unexpected glimpse into what Project 2025’s implementation might look like. This thought was driven home by a must-read thread from writer David Roberts about Project 2025’s true aims. So we talked to Roberts about what MAGA’s hostility to neutral journalism portends for a second Trump term—one that wrecks the professional, fact-based civil service and transforms government into a tool for manufacturing propaganda. Listen to this episode here.[3]also btw...
- Supreme Court decision can't defrost chilling effect on disinformation research, experts warn - "Why it matters: Disinformation campaigns targeting the 2024 U.S. elections are expected to reach further and outnumber what's been seen in past elections, experts warn."
- The Destruction of Economic Facts - "During the second half of the 19th century... To prevent the breakdown of industrial and commercial progress, hundreds of creative reformers concluded that the world needed a shared set of facts. Knowledge had to be gathered, organized, standardized, recorded, continually updated, and easily accessible... The result was the invention of the first massive 'public memory systems' to record and classify—in rule-bound, certified, and publicly accessible registries, titles, balance sheets, and statements of account—all the relevant knowledge available... for investors to infer value, take risks, and track results... Over the past 20 years, Americans and Europeans have quietly gone about destroying these facts. The results are hardly surprising. In the U.S., trust has broken down..."[4]
Finland is winning the war on fake news. What it's learned may be crucial to Western democracy - "The exercises include examining claims found in YouTube videos and social media posts, comparing media bias in an array of different 'clickbait' articles, probing how misinformation preys on readers' emotions, and even getting students to try their hand at writing fake news stories themselves."[5]
The course is part of an anti-fake news initiative launched by Finland’s government in 2014 – two years before Russia meddled in the US elections – aimed at teaching residents, students, journalists and politicians how to counter false information designed to sow division.Comparing Trump to 'political chemotherapy' - "Cuban said: '...a lot of [chemotherapy patients] die. A lot of the systems, they change.'"[6]
The initiative is just one layer of a multi-pronged, cross-sector approach the country is taking to prepare citizens of all ages for the complex digital landscape of today – and tomorrow. The Nordic country, which shares an 832-mile border with Russia, is acutely aware of what’s at stake if it doesn’t.
Finland has faced down Kremlin-backed propaganda campaigns ever since it declared independence from Russia 101 years ago. But in 2014, after Moscow annexed Crimea and backed rebels in eastern Ukraine, it became obvious that the battlefield had shifted: information warfare was moving online.
"My kids, when they're 60 years old and say, hopefully, say, look, we went through, the country went through the s*** when I was a kid, but we learned from it," he continued.
"I think we're starting to learn from what happened. You're seeing them throw him under the bus."
You Are Entering the Infernal Triangle - "Authoritarian Republicans, ineffectual Democrats, and a clueless media."[7]
I just wish everyone was taking all this more seriously.
QFT
I think Trump's one true trick is to make it so that taking him seriously makes one look ridiculous.
posted by chavenet at 9:14 AM on June 30 [9 favorites]
QFT
I think Trump's one true trick is to make it so that taking him seriously makes one look ridiculous.
posted by chavenet at 9:14 AM on June 30 [9 favorites]
If you think things here are fucked up at the moment, wait until Trump destroys what's left of US global hegemony and it can't keep sending out scraps of cotton and linen for real physical goods.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:24 AM on June 30 [2 favorites]
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:24 AM on June 30 [2 favorites]
Maybe [someone else] can save us from [bad thing that threatens everyone] so that I don't have to [spend money, time or take risks]. This is the code running on so many of the beneficiaries of public goods and collective achievements and it has neutered our society. The enemies of freedom of speech/press, freedom of and from religion, diversity, equality, consumer and environmental and worker protection etc, they are pulling off the coup, in steps and the moonshot is within range.
That many of these would be warlords and oligarchs and gauleiters and blockwarts will suffer under the revolution they are conspiring toward, but too late for it do them or any of us any good. Civil wars last on average about 16 years now, up for 10 in the past. Dictators tend to stay in power about 13years, but dictatorships last much longer, as the most likely successor to a dictator is another dictator. It's not a black-hole, but its worse than quicksand... the time to do something to prevent your life, your family, your friends and neighbors lives and your countries life from going down the drain is right now, not 4 months or 4 years from now. It will be too late by the time the procrastination crowd becomes certain.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 9:32 AM on June 30 [7 favorites]
That many of these would be warlords and oligarchs and gauleiters and blockwarts will suffer under the revolution they are conspiring toward, but too late for it do them or any of us any good. Civil wars last on average about 16 years now, up for 10 in the past. Dictators tend to stay in power about 13years, but dictatorships last much longer, as the most likely successor to a dictator is another dictator. It's not a black-hole, but its worse than quicksand... the time to do something to prevent your life, your family, your friends and neighbors lives and your countries life from going down the drain is right now, not 4 months or 4 years from now. It will be too late by the time the procrastination crowd becomes certain.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 9:32 AM on June 30 [7 favorites]
John Oliver went over what a second Trump term would look like a couple of weeks ago. There is also a section explaining Project 2025, and Schedule F (the firing of career civil servants to replace them with Trump loyalists):
Trump’s Second Term: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
(This is the video that is accessible from Germany, apologies if it happens to be blocked in the USA).
posted by LaVidaEsUnCarnaval at 9:40 AM on June 30
Trump’s Second Term: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
(This is the video that is accessible from Germany, apologies if it happens to be blocked in the USA).
posted by LaVidaEsUnCarnaval at 9:40 AM on June 30
This strikes me as a key point, and something that has worried at me since 2016 before Trump was elected and I heard people who really should've known better proclaiming "Burn it all down!"
This is what keeps striking me over & over again as we wander backward into fascism, with scarcely any resistance: all the blessings we enjoy in America, the result of so much hard work that came before us, that we are taking for granted & casually frittering away.
I've been working on how to understand this. We already have language for it, which Roberts uses here, to "take things for granted." But this, I think, isn't near strong enough.
What we face is something closer to the sunk cost fallacy. A blind spot of faulty reasoning that is both extremely common and persuasive, and can lead to devastating effects.
I propose we call this the sunk benefits fallacy. Importantly, it is frequently more persuasive the more a person has to lose, because they can less imagine losing it.
Safe food, safe drinking water, accurate and agreed upon facts about so many things (per the OP), minimal but real workplace safety requirements, the absence of neighborhood and regional regimes of corruption and violence, all of these are things that are not only unusual within the course of human history, but within the history of the United States. Critically, however, they are more than two generations in the rear view mirror, and the mechanisms by which we moved beyond them as a society are neither celebrated or even well remembered.
We briefly saw Congress members shocked out of their privilege post-January 6th, but most of them were all too eager to go back into the anodyne comforts of their station. As Leon in Bladerunner says, "Painful to live in fear, isn't it?" And I think this is at the root of the motivation behind people's observable willfulness towards engaging in this fallacy. To really see all of the things we take for granted as impermanent and conditional, perhaps dependent on our own actions in ways that inconvenience us or on things far beyond our agency, or even worse, some nebulous combination of the two, is to an extent psychologically painful.
Unfortunately, as with the editorial staff who per Paul Krugman's not exactly cryptic Xeet are quite sanguine about what a second Trump administration would mean for them and for the country, many in positions of power in this country simply cannot imagine outside of their privilege, and we are all in peril for it.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 9:44 AM on June 30 [2 favorites]
This is what keeps striking me over & over again as we wander backward into fascism, with scarcely any resistance: all the blessings we enjoy in America, the result of so much hard work that came before us, that we are taking for granted & casually frittering away.
I've been working on how to understand this. We already have language for it, which Roberts uses here, to "take things for granted." But this, I think, isn't near strong enough.
What we face is something closer to the sunk cost fallacy. A blind spot of faulty reasoning that is both extremely common and persuasive, and can lead to devastating effects.
I propose we call this the sunk benefits fallacy. Importantly, it is frequently more persuasive the more a person has to lose, because they can less imagine losing it.
Safe food, safe drinking water, accurate and agreed upon facts about so many things (per the OP), minimal but real workplace safety requirements, the absence of neighborhood and regional regimes of corruption and violence, all of these are things that are not only unusual within the course of human history, but within the history of the United States. Critically, however, they are more than two generations in the rear view mirror, and the mechanisms by which we moved beyond them as a society are neither celebrated or even well remembered.
We briefly saw Congress members shocked out of their privilege post-January 6th, but most of them were all too eager to go back into the anodyne comforts of their station. As Leon in Bladerunner says, "Painful to live in fear, isn't it?" And I think this is at the root of the motivation behind people's observable willfulness towards engaging in this fallacy. To really see all of the things we take for granted as impermanent and conditional, perhaps dependent on our own actions in ways that inconvenience us or on things far beyond our agency, or even worse, some nebulous combination of the two, is to an extent psychologically painful.
Unfortunately, as with the editorial staff who per Paul Krugman's not exactly cryptic Xeet are quite sanguine about what a second Trump administration would mean for them and for the country, many in positions of power in this country simply cannot imagine outside of their privilege, and we are all in peril for it.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 9:44 AM on June 30 [2 favorites]
I find that in the US, there's a lot of "yeah, maybe [X] would make things worse, but the world has winners and losers, and I secretly take comfort that me and mine will be winners".
posted by Artful Codger at 9:51 AM on June 30 [1 favorite]
posted by Artful Codger at 9:51 AM on June 30 [1 favorite]
pundits’ predictions are most useful when they are wrong. They provide an invaluable record of the unspoken collective assumptions of America’s journalistic elite, one of the most hierarchical, conformist groups of people you’ll ever run across. Unfortunately, they help shape our world nearly as much, and sometimes more, than the politicians they comment about. So their collective mistakes land hard. (from the last link aptly named 'infernal triangle.)
This, so much this. It is getting harder and harder to stay a Democrat. The journalistic elite are joined by the political elite - see for example the last Virginia governor's race. There were so many much better candidates than McAulife but he was a political insider with deep ties to the Democratic party elite (think 'super delegates').
posted by bluesky43 at 9:56 AM on June 30
This, so much this. It is getting harder and harder to stay a Democrat. The journalistic elite are joined by the political elite - see for example the last Virginia governor's race. There were so many much better candidates than McAulife but he was a political insider with deep ties to the Democratic party elite (think 'super delegates').
posted by bluesky43 at 9:56 AM on June 30
It is getting harder and harder to stay a Democrat.
In all the lamentation and garment-rending, there's still not enough attention directed at the systemic factors, especially the rigidly bipolar US party system.
A principled and courageous faction of the GOP might have been able to purge Trump... but it would now certainly be electoral suicide, and maybe even party-ending as well.
Similarly, what in the Democratic party has led to the vacuum where a past his best-before date octogenarian is the last bulwark against Trump?
It seems that stuff needs to break, cos evolutionary change seems impossible in the present setup.
posted by Artful Codger at 10:06 AM on June 30 [1 favorite]
In all the lamentation and garment-rending, there's still not enough attention directed at the systemic factors, especially the rigidly bipolar US party system.
A principled and courageous faction of the GOP might have been able to purge Trump... but it would now certainly be electoral suicide, and maybe even party-ending as well.
Similarly, what in the Democratic party has led to the vacuum where a past his best-before date octogenarian is the last bulwark against Trump?
It seems that stuff needs to break, cos evolutionary change seems impossible in the present setup.
posted by Artful Codger at 10:06 AM on June 30 [1 favorite]
But there's no reasonable alternative to the Democratic party for keeping fascists out of office (with their genocide against trans people, women, children, etc). Leaderless leftist groups like Occupy & DSA are often made up of wonderful people, but I can't see a mass movement gaining momentum without a charismatic figure at the fore. Far right populism's power is in its populism, moreso than in its policies.
The Left is understandably skeptical of populism. Is it possible to harness it without it turning into demagoguery? If the leader ends up just being another billionaire or celebrity, what does that mean for "democracy"? What happens when your figurehead inevitably Milkshake Ducks?
Our political system is truly awful, but I don't see a realistic way to a better one that doesn't involve rivers of blood. So I keep working for the Democratic party. If I were in my 20s instead of my 50s I don't know what I would do.
posted by rikschell at 10:12 AM on June 30 [4 favorites]
The Left is understandably skeptical of populism. Is it possible to harness it without it turning into demagoguery? If the leader ends up just being another billionaire or celebrity, what does that mean for "democracy"? What happens when your figurehead inevitably Milkshake Ducks?
Our political system is truly awful, but I don't see a realistic way to a better one that doesn't involve rivers of blood. So I keep working for the Democratic party. If I were in my 20s instead of my 50s I don't know what I would do.
posted by rikschell at 10:12 AM on June 30 [4 favorites]
Compare and contrast:
NY Times: To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race
Philly Inquirer: To serve his country, Donald Trump should leave the race
posted by adamrice at 10:38 AM on June 30
NY Times: To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race
Philly Inquirer: To serve his country, Donald Trump should leave the race
posted by adamrice at 10:38 AM on June 30
Mod note: One comment removed. Reminder: there is a whole wide internet for wishing murder on people. Not here though.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:44 AM on June 30 [2 favorites]
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:44 AM on June 30 [2 favorites]
To get an idea of a Trump future just look at countries and states where Dominionist/ Christo-Fascist ideas are usurping real politics, a d destroying anything good.
New Zealand
Alaska
Florida
United Kingdom
Uganda
in the deeper past
Honduras
In every case it is straightforward to link the religious fundamentalist politicians and activists to the US Council of National Policy, they are driving this, oil is paying for it. And evangelical Christians have allowed themselves to see their salvation as contingent with support for libertarian policy.
This is not your grandpa's GOP, Trump will end America. Gonna have to hold your noses and vote DEM, or be led by the nose to horror.
What went wrong is that America failed to see the need to maintain the 1776 Revolution.
posted by unearthed at 11:11 AM on June 30
New Zealand
Alaska
Florida
United Kingdom
Uganda
in the deeper past
Honduras
In every case it is straightforward to link the religious fundamentalist politicians and activists to the US Council of National Policy, they are driving this, oil is paying for it. And evangelical Christians have allowed themselves to see their salvation as contingent with support for libertarian policy.
This is not your grandpa's GOP, Trump will end America. Gonna have to hold your noses and vote DEM, or be led by the nose to horror.
What went wrong is that America failed to see the need to maintain the 1776 Revolution.
posted by unearthed at 11:11 AM on June 30
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posted by BungaDunga at 8:47 AM on June 30 [3 favorites]