DC Capitol Riot & Subsequent Fallout Thread (Jan 2021)

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

I don't necessarily disagree but go read r/onguardforthee. That subreddit is filled with insane left wingers who have a serious victim complex.

So it isn't like those type of left wingers don't exist.

You'll need to cite specific examples. I just checked the front page of r/onguardforthee, and I saw no conspiracy theories or anything that doesn't have a basis in reality. Almost all of the top posts were either about the news that Jagmeet Singh recently called for the Proud Boys to be designated a a terrorist organization or were pictures of elected Canadian Conservatives (Candice Bergen, a CPC MP from Manitoba and Devin Dreeshen, a UCP MLA and Alberta's Minister of Agriculture and Forestry) showing their support for Trumpism by wearing MAGA hats.

So again, what's the left-wing equivalent to QAnon? You may not share the same political opinions as the people who post to r/onguardforthee, but they at least appear to belong to the reality-based community. Nothing I saw there in a cursory search of the front page comes anywhere close to the craziness that exists on the popular right-wing subreddits.

[CliffFletcher]

Twitter has badly undermined journalism. The incentive to post an immediate hot take rather than take the time to gather facts from several sources. The incentive for a journalist to develop a personal following, and for that following to be highly partisan. The incentive to seek likes and retweets with snarky bon mots. The fact that the active user base of twitter isn’t anything close to being representative of the population at large, but journalists behave as though it is. Look at how astonished so many pundits were at Biden winning the Democratic primary. Nobody in their social media universe supported the guy.

The people tasked with informing us and mediating our dialogue live in a world different from 90 per cent of us. Heck, even those of us posting here or on Facebook or reddit live in a different world. Only a fraction of the population posts about contentious subjects on social media at all, and we are far from representative of the general population - angrier, younger, more partisan.

Social media distorts our perception of norms by fostering echo chambers and rewarding partisanship and extreme opinions. This has been validated by data and studies. Saying no, my social media sources and my tribe are different, is just a delusion. You’re not immune to the effects that the creators of these tools have spent billions and billions of dollars developing and perfecting.

[Wastedyouth]

One thing I don't like, right now, is the fact that people are absolving themselves of responsibility.

"Social media is bad" "It's feeding the bad side of our society" "fake news is rampant"

Is it? Is it not our own responsibility to think critically about where we are getting our info? Why do we absolve ourselves of our responsibility to our own actions and thoughts?

[Scorch]

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Twitter has badly undermined journalism. The incentive to post an immediate hot take rather than take the time to gather facts from several sources. The incentive for a journalist to develop a personal following, and for that following to be highly partisan. The fact that the active user base of twitter isn’t anything close to being representative of the population at large, but journalists behave as though it is.

The people tasked with informing us and mediating our dialogue live in a world different from 90 per cent of us. Heck, even those of us posting here or on Facebook live in a different world. Only a fraction of the population posts about contentious subjects on social media at all, and we are far from representative of the general population - we’re angrier, more partisan.

Social media distorts our perception of social norms by fostering echo chambers and rewarding partisanship and extreme opinions. This has been validated by data and studies. Saying no, my social media sources and my tribe are different, is just a delusion. You’re not immune to the effects that the creators of these tools have spent billions and billions of dollars developing and perfecting.

It's beyond delusional to not acknowledge or accept there can be material differences between tribes/sides.

You just both sides; many sidesed us.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by Wastedyouth

One thing I don't like, right now, is the fact that people are absolving themselves of responsibility.

"Social media is bad" "It's feeding the bad side of our society" "fake news is rampant"

Is it? Is it not our own responsibility to think critically about where we are getting our info? Why do we absolve ourselves of our responsibility to our own actions and thoughts?

People are responsible but studies have shown it's like a drug. It gives you dopamine hits and heavily influences your behaviour

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Wastedyouth

One thing I don't like, right now, is the fact that people are absolving themselves of responsibility.

"Social media is bad" "It's feeding the bad side of our society" "fake news is rampant"

Is it? Is it not our own responsibility to think critically about where we are getting our info? Why do we absolve ourselves of our responsibility to our own actions and thoughts?

Too many people do not have that skill. And too many people probably don't even understand what critical thinking is to even know they don't have it as a skill.

[Wastedyouth]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

People are responsible but studies have shown it's like a drug. It gives you dopamine hits and heavily influences your behaviour

So do drugs. Does this mean I absolve myself of guilt and responsibility for doing drugs, because they are addictive?

[MarchHare]

What's the liberal version of QAnon, Cliff? Is there a left-wing equivalent of Trump, and if so, does he or she have a realistic chance of actually winning an office as high as the presidency?

Yes, my media sources and my tribe are different. That's reality, not delusion. But please continue to both sides, many sides this if it makes you feel above the fray and superior to everyone else.

[OldDutch]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

Social Media needs to be held accountable for facilitating all of this over the last 4 years. By Facebook's only internal metrics, 64% of people that joined radical ideological groups did so based on Facebook's own recommendation engine.

https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-...-insurrection/

Here’s a twist. In the latest $600 checks bill, it was held up by Trump. In part because he wanted $2000/person, the other because he explicitly wanted to remove protections from the social media companies that protected them from people spouting false stuff like Qanon. That was also included in the bill.

The Democrats are big supporters of that bill, and it passed with their full support.

Again I am not a Trump supporter at all, but it goes to show how murky politics is down there. Its not a pure good and evil story by any stretch.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by Wastedyouth

One thing I don't like, right now, is the fact that people are absolving themselves of responsibility.

"Social media is bad" "It's feeding the bad side of our society" "fake news is rampant"

Is it? Is it not our own responsibility to think critically about where we are getting our info? Why do we absolve ourselves of our responsibility to our own actions and thoughts?

No one takes personal responsibility for anything these days. Why would they do that for media?

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by Weitz

No one takes personal responsibility for anything these days. Why would they do that for media?

Is this supposed to just be a quip, or an actual blanket opinion on all people to dismiss the idea that people have some responsibility here?

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

Is this supposed to just be a quip, or an actual blanket opinion on all people to dismiss the idea that people have some responsibility here?

Just a quip on personal responsibility.

There are tons of people responsible for this situation obviously.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

You'll need to cite specific examples. I just checked the front page of r/onguardforthee, and I saw no conspiracy theories or anything that doesn't have a basis in reality. Almost all of the top posts were either about the news that Jagmeet Singh recently called for the Proud Boys to be designated a a terrorist organization or were pictures of elected Canadian Conservatives (Candice Bergen, a CPC MP from Manitoba and Devin Dreeshen, a UCP MLA and Alberta's Minister of Agriculture and Forestry) showing their support for Trumpism by wearing MAGA hats.

So again, what's the left-wing equivalent to QAnon? You may not share the same political opinions as the people who post to r/onguardforthee, but they at least appear to belong to the reality-based community. Nothing I saw there in a cursory search of the front page comes anywhere close to the craziness that exists on the popular right-wing subreddits.

I said I don't disagree. All I did was say that there are crazy left wingers too. And yeah, some of them have some crazy theories.

I made no comment about how many of them there are or the prevalence of news networks supporting their claims or anything else.

About the only thing they have in common is that they are both obsessed with painting themselves as victims, but that's hardly a surprise.


EDIT: for clarity. I can see how my OP was unclear.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Sliver

It's beyond delusional to not acknowledge or accept there can be material differences between tribes/sides.

You just both sides; many sidesed us.

I didn’t say there were no material differences. I'm saying the bigger problem is that social media platforms incentivize hostility and tribalism no matter who the participants are or what the subject is. The tools exploit our cognitive weaknesses the same way VLTs do.

Gather together 1,000 people of whatever political persuasion you choose, isolate them somewhere to form a utopian community, and give them twitter, facebook, and reddit as the only tools to communicate with one another, and in no time at all the community will be split into hostile camps.

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

What's the liberal version of QAnon, Cliff? Is there a left-wing equivalent of Trump, and if so, does he or she have a realistic chance of actually winning an office as high as the presidency?

Yes, my media sources and my tribe are different. That's reality, not delusion. But please continue to both sides, many sides this if it makes you feel above the fray and superior to everyone else.

I would say that there are some conspiracies considered to be more left wing.

Anti-Vaxxers, GMO, World Trade Org/Bilderberg groups quests for world domination.

I think the biggest problem is that Trump is the first person with so much influence to openly embrace and peddle conspiracy theories.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by OldDutch

Here’s a twist. In the latest $600 checks bill, it was held up by Trump. In part because he wanted $2000/person, the other because he explicitly wanted to remove protections from the social media companies that protected them from people spouting false stuff like Qanon. That was also included in the bill.

The Democrats are big supporters of that bill, and it passed with their full support.

Again I am not a Trump supporter at all, but it goes to show how murky politics is down there. Its not a pure good and evil story by any stretch.

That's the omnibus bill problem, hiding law changes in other laws like a poison pill others would have to take as a compromise. I really feel like governments shouldn't be doing that sort of thing.

I understand the position Democrats would take though... immediate relief for deal with Trump's removal of protections for media companies for now, undo it after Trump is no longer in power.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Sliver

It's beyond delusional to not acknowledge or accept there can be material differences between tribes/sides.

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

I didn’t say there were no material differences.

...

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Saying no, my social media sources and my tribe are different, is just a delusion.

Ok.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

I didn’t say there were no material differences. I'm saying the bigger problem is that social media platforms incentivize hostility and tribalism no matter who the participants are or what the subject is. The tools exploit our cognitive weaknesses the same way VLTs do.

Well you did say, "Saying no, my social media sources and my tribe are different, is just a delusion."

I think the left is different. I think the right has been poisoned. There was a time in my memory where right and left were both moored to reality. Now, the mainstream right is disengaged from reality and therefore borderline impossible to reason with.

The left tribe is different right now. That's just the truth.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

I would say that there are some conspiracies considered to be more left wing.

Anti-Vaxxers, GMO, World Trade Org/Bilderberg groups quests for world domination.

I think the biggest problem is that Trump is the first person with so much influence to openly embrace and peddle conspiracy theories.

GMO, yes that seems like a left wing thing due to a lack of education on the subject.

The other two, I would equate overwhelmingly with right wingers.