General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDoes the human race need a huge catharsis to straighten out its act?
Think of it: Only through cataclysm does mankind ever really solve anything.
It took a Revolution to make America free.
It took a Civil War to free enslaved people in the United States.
It took a crippling Great Depression for a real social safety net to develop.
It took 65 million deaths in World War II to stop Hitler and his fascists.
Must we have a blowout World War III now to really set us straight? If that's even possible?
Just asking.
Jim__
(15,061 posts)We used some of those small nuclear weapons. We have large nuclear weapons now. If there is a World War III, what are the odds we use some of those large nuclear weapons. Do you think using those weapons will set us straight?
bucolic_frolic
(53,891 posts)It's the inoculation of disease principle applied to nutrition, same as you apply it to politics and nationhood.
rampartd
(3,687 posts)the usa, and maybe 90% of us, are quite doomed however or whenever he and his cult are raptured.
haele
(15,051 posts)The sociopathic baby-men (and women) who believe cooperation is a weakness. Unless it primarily benefits them.
Other people are competition to them; if they're not the center of attention, if they can't own the outcome, anything that's going on without their agreement or approval is an attack against them.
Those idiots have always been with us. They are never able to think beyond themselves.
SamuelTheThird
(586 posts)BannonsLiver
(20,218 posts)SamuelTheThird
(586 posts)I'll know my place as a peasant and not criticize the defenseless billionaire. I'm very contrite
BannonsLiver
(20,218 posts)Emrys
(8,922 posts)See here, as you still don't seem to realize you were, at best and on the most charitable interpretation, gullible, unlike many of those who responded to your infamous OPs:
Note: Though based on research about recent campaigns targeting Taylor Swift, the findings have wider relevance for potential political influence operations in future, as detailed in the last paragraph quoted below.
Data analysis of social media posts painting the singer as a Trump supporter or white supremacist revealed a network of inauthentic accounts
...
Soon, online discussion of the [The Life of a Showgirl] album turned extreme in ways that many found bewildering. There were social media posts accusing Swift of implicitly endorsing the MAGA movement, trad-wife gender norms, and even white supremacy with dogwhistle references. While the far-right have been known to claim the singer as an icon of Aryan greatness despite her record of championing Democrats and liberal values and President Trump himself has blithely and disingenuously shared AI-generated imagery depicting her as a supporter this was a noticeably divergent trend, an apparent attempt to cancel Swift for those presumed affiliations. The attacks largely focused on specific word choices (her use of the term savage on the song Eldest Daughter was interpreted as racist) and symbols (a necklace for sale on her website stirred up Nazi comparisons because its lightning bolt charms bore a passing resemblance to the bolt pattern worn by the SS).
...
Editors picks
What Swifts defenders didnt realize, however, was that they were pushing back against a false narrative that had been seeded and amplified by a small network of inauthentic social accounts. Worse, they were helping to disseminate those bad-faith allegations by earnestly engaging with them.
Thats according to new research from GUDEA, a behavioral intelligence startup that tracks how such reputation-damaging claims emerge and go viral on the internet. In a white paper examining more than 24,000 posts and 18,000 accounts across 14 digital platforms between Oct. 4 (the day after The Life of a Showgirl came out) and Oct. 18, shared first with Rolling Stone, the firm concluded that just 3.77 percent of accounts drove 28 percent of the conversation around Swift and the album during that period. This cluster of evidently coordinated accounts pushed the most inflammatory Swift content, including conspiracy theories about her supposed Nazi allusions, callouts for her theoretical MAGA ties, and posts that framed her relationship with fiancé Travis Kelce as inherently conservative or trad, with all of this framed as leftist critique.
Once the provocations were injected into the Swift discourse often they appeared in edgier online forums like 4chan or KiwiFarms before migrating to popular social apps they were organically sustained by the people challenging them on mainstream platforms. This, in turn, algorithmically reinforced their visibility. The false narrative that Taylor Swift was using Nazi symbolism did not remain confined to fringe conspiratorial spaces; it successfully pulled typical users into comparisons between Swift and Kanye West, the researchers wrote. This demonstrates how a strategically seeded falsehood can convert into widespread authentic discourse, reshaping public perception even when most users do not believe the origin.
...
The more recent, Swift-focused activity of these accounts may indicate the owner(s) dipping a toe in the water before pursuing other ends with this network in the future. After all, while [Blake] Lively has argued that [Justin] Baldoni is trying to sabotage her career with bot-driven commentary, its not immediately clear what anyone stands to gain from painting Swift as a closet MAGA voter.
When we put our doomsday hat on, I think we can see that reality, Paul says of the test-run scenario. It could be, she speculates, that there might be other nefarious actors, not U.S.-based, who have reasons to see, If I can move the fan base for Taylor Swift an icon who is this political figure, in a way does that mean I can do it in other places?
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/taylor-swifts-social-media-campaign-life-of-a-showgirl-1235480646/
SamuelTheThird
(586 posts)I typed nothing dealing with any of this-
'The attacks largely focused on specific word choices (her use of the term savage on the song Eldest Daughter was interpreted as racist) and symbols (a necklace for sale on her website stirred up Nazi comparisons because its lightning bolt charms bore a passing resemblance to the bolt pattern worn by the SS).'
I did accurately note she didnt criticize ICE for using her song, unlike other artists.
I also linked to her friendships with MAGA people and her praising MAGA podcasts
Subsequently I also mentioned her documented high emissions from her vanity private jet use.
So, nothing I said was sourced from right wing bot farms. You are mistaken
Emrys
(8,922 posts)Read the whole article, which I had to excerpt severely to try to comply with DU's fair use rules.
It covers quite a few bases you did scattergun touch on during your rants. You did source your first screed from Reddit. It's one of the sites used in the campaign analysed. It's certainly not hard to find haters on Reddit, so it's fertile ground for campaigns such as those described.
The point of the article is how these memes spread from the kernel planted by the botnets, often propagated by well-meaning dupes who've had the right buttons pressed. If the cap fits ...
And here, yet again you're regurgitating the same supposed slams - "her friendships with MAGA people", "her documented high emissions from her vanity private jet use" yadayada, all responded to and rebutted multiple times (in the case of the flights, ably refuted by accurately citing what the article you linked in your support actually said, not what you wished and claimed it said) by those who bothered to reply to you yesterday.
I think you have a handful of buyers here. Keep pumping if you must, but I think you'll find you're pumping mud.
SamuelTheThird
(586 posts)Her private jet CO2 emissions have never been refuted.
And the friendships and podcasts are facts. Go refute them right here specifically if you can.
This celeb worship is really bizarre to me
canetoad
(20,137 posts)Will likely be the trigger that wipes out the humans.
Carl Sagan said:
Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.
BannonsLiver
(20,218 posts)As long as social media consumption is at current levels the species is doomed. We could have an alien invasion and it would be politicized and fully tribal in a matter of hours. Probably even before we could be exterminated.
GJGCA
(210 posts)...cat-horses:

3catwoman3
(28,535 posts)maxsolomon
(38,127 posts)We've been following the same barbaric course for 10,000 years (that we know of).
GJGCA
(210 posts)--Immanuel Kant
OC375
(410 posts)In some ways its prophetic, until you realize its just retelling human history.
BH liberal
(104 posts)would be a good place to start:
"Give them all an enema!"
Bayard
(28,446 posts)Unfortunately, we'll drag the rest of the planet down with us. We seem compelled to destroy ourselves.