The Expensive Education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley (nytimes.com) 155
Kara Swisher, writing for The New York Times: I kept pressing Mr. Zuckerberg on how he personally felt about the damage his creation had done. [Editor's note: Ms. Swisher is referring to her recent interview with Mark Zuckerberg.] Was he beginning to understand the power that he held, and that the world that he controlled was not such a rosy place? Facebook was "probably," he admitted, "too focused on just the positives and not focused enough on some of the negatives." Fair enough. But it was impossible to get him to acknowledge any personal pain as both the creator and the destroyer. "I mean, my emotion is feeling a deep sense of responsibility to try to fix the problem," said Mr. Zuckerberg. "In running a company, if you want to be innovative and advance things forward, I think you have to be willing to get some things wrong. But I don't think it is acceptable to get the same things wrong over and over again."
It was a classic Silicon Valley engineer's roll-up-your-sleeves answer, which leaves many cold when it comes to, say, the manipulation of democracy. Fending off bad actors like the Russians has been and will be increasingly expensive; it may even be impossible. But Facebook could have done much more than it did, and it certainly needs to do more than it's doing. Mr. Zuckerberg is now trying to fend off talk in Washington of regulating his company like the thing he once told me it was: a utility. He has also spent the last month meeting over dinners with a range of academic experts on free speech, propaganda and more to try to understand where to go from here. Call it the education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley, but on the world's dime. How much that has -- and will -- cost is probably immeasurable.
It was a classic Silicon Valley engineer's roll-up-your-sleeves answer, which leaves many cold when it comes to, say, the manipulation of democracy. Fending off bad actors like the Russians has been and will be increasingly expensive; it may even be impossible. But Facebook could have done much more than it did, and it certainly needs to do more than it's doing. Mr. Zuckerberg is now trying to fend off talk in Washington of regulating his company like the thing he once told me it was: a utility. He has also spent the last month meeting over dinners with a range of academic experts on free speech, propaganda and more to try to understand where to go from here. Call it the education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley, but on the world's dime. How much that has -- and will -- cost is probably immeasurable.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
The problem is that they are not shoving those things up their own asses, we wouldn't complain so much if they did. The problem is that they try that on our asses, despite being the far greater assholes.
Jail Zuckerberg or destroy Facebook (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
But look, it *is* just an internet company. No one HAS to join or participate in FB, it is voluntary.....and you are generally free to tell too much about yourself on there for others to see, and.....it is your own damned fault if you as a user get too caught up in it, and start to believe everything you read or hear on there, you know?
I don't see him needing to feel "guilty" about anything personally....he didn't do anything wrong that I can see, he just created
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But look, it *is* just an internet company. No one HAS to join or participate in FB, it is voluntary.....and you are generally free to tell too much about yourself on there for others to see
At face value that's a true statement. Realistically, more people use FB than are aware of that fact. I use NoScript, and most pages I visit have a FB script running[0]... well, trying to run. I block that shite.
How many 'just plain folks', not on FB, and not using a script blocker/tracker blocker have data about their web habits on FB?
I doubt we'll ever know the true extent of FB tracking...
m
[0] To be fair, *lots* of companies piggyback scripts and trackers, so FB isn't alone in this creepy re
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I'm no fan of Zuckerberg to say the least.
I'd just say the govt's involvement in FB would be best served by making sure that when a person leaves FB, ALL of their info is wiped upon request.
Even the data from all the Russian trolls?
Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
All facebook is doing is letting stupid people be stupid.
This just exposes how dumb the average person is and how stupidly they make decisions on who to vote for.
Also, it was never proven that the Russians have had *any* impact on the outcome of the election.
So what damage are we talking about exactly?
What damage has facebook done?
Conspiracy nuts have always existed. Racists have always existed. Election propaganda has always existed.
Remember when the president of Mexico told americans not to vote for Trump?
Why isn't he arrested for election hacking?
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At this point I'm resigned to this "russia did it" stupidity. They're committed to it and the solution is to ignore them and keep winning elections until they get a clue.
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Of course, it is this sort of stupidity that leads to war.
But this time, it'll be with thermonuclear weapons.
Truly the ultimate tantrum.
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Would Russia or some other country *LIKE* to influence an election in the U.S.? Would they *TRY* to influence an election? Absolutely, yes.
But did they? No.
Hillary Clinton got 3 million more votes than Donald Trump. That's some pretty lousy and incompetent "interfering in an election". And Trump only won due to a fluke in our electoral system that neither the Russians, nor anyone else, predicted.
The whole "Russia hacked our election" is complete bullshit, being pushed by a bunch of sore losers who can
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
a fluke in our electoral system
It's not a fluke. It's deliberate design. The system is intentionally biased against large states. Rhode Island has two senators, for example. All the deliberate rounding errors, from the distribution of representatives to the structure of the electoral college, have this same bias. The superhuman wisdom of our founders is why NY and CA don't yet have tyrannical control over this country.
Re:Stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
a fluke in our electoral system
It's not a fluke. It's deliberate design. The system is intentionally biased against large states. Rhode Island has two senators, for example. All the deliberate rounding errors, from the distribution of representatives to the structure of the electoral college, have this same bias. The superhuman wisdom of our founders is why NY and CA don't yet have tyrannical control over this country.
It's not about large states, it's about culture, specifically urban/city culture vs. rural/farm culture. Nations are built on their ability to produce as much food as possible with the fewest people, as it then frees up people to focus on other things like building Facebook. If votes were proportional to individuals, then eventually as the wealth of the nation increases the backbone of every nation, it's agrarian sector, would get it's voice diminished more and more. This is how nations fall, when the ba
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The superhuman wisdom of our founders is why NY and CA don't yet have tyrannical control over this country.
The typical political wisdom of our founders is why wealthy white males still have tyrannical control over this country. That's how they set the system up, and although some of the structures they emplaced to achieve that end have been removed, inertia continues to guarantee that situation today.
Re: Stupid (Score:1)
But wealthy white males are demonstrably superior to every other demographic on Earth when it comes to organizing and running large organizations, including nation-states (among many other endeavors). Thatâ(TM)s why they were in charge in the first place.
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And Trump only won due to a fluke in our electoral system that neither the Russians, nor anyone else, predicted.
It's not a fluke. It's a feature. It's by design. This is a union of states.
Further, many people did predict it. They were laughed at and ridiculed, but they were correct.
I myself thought Trump had no fucking chance. I thought Wolf Blitzer was going to have a short night as Hillary was going to be crowned faster than any other President. Nope! To watch it all slowly unfold, and to watch the news anchors admit to it even more slowly, was bizarre. Imagine being a fly on the wall in Hillary's dugout as
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They didn't do it though. We know that they don't influence the election. They make the loser feel as if they were cheated. That's exactly what they did with Hillary and that's exactly what they would have done if Trump lost. Stupid people are out there protesting, they don't even know they're doing what the Russians are telling them to do.
I mean come on. Women are separated from their children every day in every country in the world as they go to jail when they commit crimes. Why should illegals that break
Re:Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems to me you wouldn't pass your own proposed "emotional/mental stability testing" and you wouldn't be allowed to vote.
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Re: Stupid (Score:2)
Please stop using homophobic slurs you obnoxious fascist.
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This is why I like the Westminster parliamentary system at times. A 'tard like Trump would not survive the years of backbencher work required to get to be leader, just like Boris Johnson. Oh, wait...
I suppose I will have to rely on the intelligence of my fellow voters, a scary proposition.
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What we really need is basic IQ testing and emotional/mental stability testing before we allow anyone to vote.
It can be simpler than that.
Make the ballot a list of offices with blank boxes to fill in the names. Yes. Just leave all the names off. If the voter can not be bothered to learn enough about a candidate to be able to spell their friggin' NAME, then that voter does not deserve the opportunity to vote. PERIOD.
Call it a poll tax if you want, but I will always assert that some level of civic involvement and commitment should be required to have a say in selecting our leaders.
NOT FUNNY (Score:1)
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I can't find the cite, but this minister said - when asked why he still supports Trump even though everything he does is a slap in the face of Christian values - "Clinton wouldn't allow someone like me to exist. Trump protects people like me.
2. Where did he get that idea? Clinton never -EVER - said anything that was anti-religious.
Well, Ellen said that she wouldn't interview Trump because he was the most hostile president in history towards homosexuality. I think you'd be hard pressed to find actual evidence (even using is tweets) that Trump has a more conservative view on this subject than either Bush, Bill Clinton, or Regan. But I hear more than just Ellen say it when I look at my friend's facebook posts.
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All facebook is doing is letting stupid people be stupid.
This just exposes how dumb the average person is and how stupidly they make decisions on who to vote for.
Also, it was never proven that the Russians have had *any* impact on the outcome of the election.
So what damage are we talking about exactly?
What damage has facebook done?
Conspiracy nuts have always existed. Racists have always existed. Election propaganda has always existed.
Remember when the president of Mexico told americans not to vote for Trump?
Why isn't he arrested for election hacking?
You're right, but there's a greater level of stupid you might be missing here. The other level of stupid is the ability to perpetuate a fiction that Trump stole the election through collusion with the Russians.
Let's just be clear. Did the Russians buy ads to influence the election? Yes; I don't need proof to show that because the ads are easy to buy and it's in their interest to influence the election (and Putin and Clinton do not get along) so they would do so. Did it swing the election? No. You don'
Re: (Score:2)
Also, it was never proven that the Russians have had *any* impact on the outcome of the election.
It hasn't been proven, but there is evidence [newsweek.com].
Remember when the president of Mexico told americans not to vote for Trump?
Why isn't he arrested for election hacking?
He's free to have and openly express an opinion; he's not free to surreptitiously manipulate opinion through deception.
In other words... (Score:3)
It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.
Or a Billion Dollars.
Or gets called out for doing something they believe and would rather no one knew.
Or gets called out for doing something they would never ever accept if it were done to them.
Mark, welcome to the real real world, where you can indeed lose everything, and have no one else to blame but yourself. You are not too big to fail.
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(To rickb928)
you left out ...and this is your wake-up call.
The lessons that stick are the lessons that hurt. (Score:1)
He's not stupid, just evil. And evil can be reasoned with. All we had to do was hurt him enough.
If not for Facebook (Score:2, Funny)
The world would not know the deep state exists, and needs to be extinguished with all due haste. The George Clooneys and the Hillary Clinton child sex rings, and demonic worship, needed to be exposed. We are safer. Stronger. Trump is the light. Worship his light.
Force (Score:5, Insightful)
Is anyone forcing you to use Facebook? Is using Facebook required to accomplish any task or job? Are there not alternatives to Facebook?
No?
Then WHO CARES.
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Never had a job offer where you're supposed to send your resume through Facebook? Or seen companies offer certain deal only via Facebook, or only accept logins by Facebook (or Twitter, yeah, great alternative)?
If you don't use it, you really start to notice such things...
Re:Force (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
sounds like a job offer to turn down
That, sir, is a statement made from a position of privilege. Plenty of people need a job, any job, so that they do not become homeless. It's easy to say "well, they should have saved some money" but the corollary is that plenty of people have never made enough money to save any significant amount, nor do they have family or friends who can and/or will help them.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You might be in a position where you can turn a job offer down. Many people are not.
Re:Force (Score:5, Informative)
Never had a job offer where you're supposed to send your resume through Facebook?
Yes. I've never had to submit my resume through Facebook. Always through email. I don't know anyone who has had to submit their resume through Facebook.
Or seen companies offer certain deal only via Facebook, or only accept logins by Facebook (or Twitter, yeah, great alternative)?
I've never seen Facebook only deals. I've seen email offers that are duplicated on Facebook, but never the other way around.
Every website I've seen that has had the option to log in using Facebook (or Twitter, or Google) has also had the option to create a local account, which is what I do.
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Ditto here since early 2015.
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Never had a job offer where you're supposed to send your resume through Facebook? Or seen companies offer certain deal only via Facebook, or only accept logins by Facebook (or Twitter, yeah, great alternative)?
If you don't use it, you really start to notice such things...
I've seen the deal thing - i have a twitter account that exists solely for amazon giveaways.
The job thing, I've never seen before. It's always either through email or through their HR job site.
Re: (Score:1)
Never had a job offer where you're supposed to send your resume through Facebook?
No. I am an engineer and I used to use Facebook daily, until about 2 years ago, and I never once saw a company ask for a resume submission via Facebook, and I'd bet $500 that the few that do are smart enough to have submissions through email, AngelList, and all the other normal, professional channels.
Or seen companies offer certain deal only via Facebook
I.E. Encourage you to spend money while also gathering your personal info ... Isn't this a big part of The Problem?
or only accept logins by Facebook (or Twitter, yeah, great alternative)?
Tinder did. Then they wised up that young people aren't on FB and now you can create an account
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Nope, I've never had anything to do with a job (working one, getting one, etc) that involved Facebook or any other form of social media.
I've had no problems accessing anything I needed to without a FB or Twitter logon......
The only reason I used Facebook... (Score:1)
In order to free myself from Facebook, I had to blow them all off. Let the hostages fend for themselves.
You can't just blow off a cultural institution. You have to count the cost and chew off a limb of your social life.
Society is other people. And most other people are morons.
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Social pressure, and the need to belong, is a real force in society.
Also, whether 'compulsory' or not, billions of people use Facebook. That makes it something we all should care about understanding.
Also, no, there are no real alternatives to Facebook, as the most important feature of any social network is "are my friends there".
working as intended (Score:5, Insightful)
Ultimately that's the problem.
Facebook is a data harvesting engine designed for maximum privacy violation.
It is designed to make money off the flow of information regardless of whether it is "true" or not.
There is far too much information to censor it reliably, and censorship carries it's own set of problems.
About the best they can do is go after fake accounts who's whole purpose is to relay false infomation. But that will be an arms race and FB will be behind most of the time.
Ultimately, they will make decisions based on the money they are making and will do whatever is legal. He's only worried about reputation as it directly affects the bottom line, which can be a little difficult to gauge.
Educate the People? (Score:2, Interesting)
Sounds like a people problem if Russia's campaign is credited for so easily enhancing the divisive environment created by our bipartisan political system. Most important part of education is learning how to educate yourself. Obviously a majority did not do that; now they are all credited as victims regardless. MERRICA!
Malcolm said it best (Score:2)
Your scientist were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
....and...
I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here, it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it, you wanna sell it.
...applies to social media just as much as it does cloning dinosaurs. Silicon Valley is all about "can we do it" and "can we sell it", nothing else.
muh feels (Score:5, Insightful)
But it was impossible to get him to acknowledge any personal pain as both the creator and the destroyer.
I'm no Zuckerberg fan, but sheesh.
He's actually on your side politically, and he's saying that he wants to address your concerns, but you are in a tizzy because he won't say the "right" things about how he feels and he won't emote the way you want him to??
Re: (Score:1)
She is thinking like a female. She is expecting a man to act like a female.
Don't hate me because I'm right :)
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I don't hate you because you are right, I hate you because you are wrong.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No, people are in a tizzy because that sack of shit Zuckerberg is making stupid mistakes for which he isn't the one paying the price ... and I don't mean his loss of fucking stock value for his overvalued company.
It's not his fucking personal information he's leaking.
I wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire, and I'm sure as hell not going to accept him saying "yeah, we're an invasive company who is violating everyone's privacy and helping foreign agents to influence elections, so we'll try harder next time"
Re:muh feels (Score:4, Informative)
Funny how this had been going on for literal years, everyone knew about it and everyone was ok with it.
Then one person wrote an article about how a company MIGHT have used it to help get Trump get elected, now its a complete shit show for Facebook?
Meanwhile, Donna Brazile says the DNC rigged their primary and no one gives a shit. People are upset that Facebook "might" have been used to help elect Trump, but actual election rigging is perfectly ok.
When you meet Trump supporters that don't agree with you and you can't figure it out, the above is a big hint for you.
Re: (Score:1)
Lots of former Democrats give a shit, myself included. That's why we're former. That party needs to fix itself before I'll ever return - until then, more Trump.
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Your argument would be valid if the DNC was a private business, but speaking realistically, they are a part of the government for all practical purposes. They have a duopoly on political power in this country, and they receive plenty of tax dollars, so it's not unreasonable to expect them to abide by their own fucking rules..
Tribalist bullshit like your post is why we have Trump.
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He's actually on your side politically, and he's saying that he wants to address your concerns, but you are in a tizzy because he won't say the "right" things about how he feels and he won't emote the way you want him to??
I think it was fairly shrewd move to not announce sexual arousal and the urge to spank the interviewer by Mark.
When you ask people to tell you how they feel, are you really prepared to hear the answer?
Re: (Score:2)
That's important, because we got into this mess because Zuckerberg is a classic technological determinist. He thinks that slapping technologie onto society will automatically make it better in the long run. And he thinks this course is inevitable.
We need to know if he has really learned anything about the Social Constructivist point of view:
- new technology does not automatically make the worl
All process arguments are insincere (Score:5, Insightful)
...including this one. The NY Times never complained when FB "manipulated" the election of Barak Obama in 2012 by letting the DNC volunteers send their friend graph to a vote analysis service which then recommended get-out-the-Democrat-vote messages back. Back then FB was hailed to high heaven as this digital force of nature and Republicans were clueless against the onslaught of the hip, digital natives.
And look where we are now. The hypocrisy just abounds.
Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is no one in a tizzy about all of the many carefully planned protests for illegal immigration? That's 12 million unregistered foreign agents currently in country, actively demonstrating for governmental action. Mueller would call it a conspiracy and start issuing subpoenas, if they were Russians and helped the current narrative that Hillary should have won.
Go back a little further and notice no one complained when the Soviets were sending millions to fund the anti-Vietnam war effort. The Soviets sent more money to the US left during the Vietnam war then they did to the Viet-Cong. Not a whataboutism, just trying to educate.
The press has more to blame for 2016 by giving Donald so much screen time and then declaring Hillary the victor when the votes hadn't even been cast. Their certainty in a landslide probably did more to suppress the vote than anything else.
Too much hypocrisy in all of this. Too much irony as well, but it is bitter. Hillary lost twice by not understanding the process. She lost to Barrack in her first Presidential nomination run by not realizing how delegates get counted, which she fixed in the stupidest possible way in her second run. Then she lost to Donald because she couldn't grasp how the electoral college works.
Re: (Score:1)
This.
Trump is a caricature of a human being. Clinton should have won. The left is blinding itself to the cold hard truth: Trump didn't win the election, Clinton LOST the election. It was hers to lose and she lost it.
The left needs to do some soul searching and figure out why they lost, not try to conjure up some meta-fictional scenario of social media manipulation by evil Russian spies.
Re: Exactly (Score:1)
Keep telling yourself the same thing when he wins the next one.
Re: (Score:1)
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-campaign-use-tactics-cambridge-analytica/
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, Bethania Palma, bastion of factualness and objectivity, and the reason not to trust Snopes all that much anymore with politics.
Re: (Score:1)
Fact Check: Ad hominem attack. You can't actually change the facts, so attack you're attacking source. In other words, the fact checking is spot on.
Re: All process arguments are insincere (Score:1)
Yeah, it's as if people think there's a difference between US citizens and Russian spy services in terms of Facebook and politics. Totally the same thing; you're right to point out the equivalence.
What's Facebook? (Score:3)
That's what my grandkids will ask. Their user base will just get older. Their platform isn't compelling or even interesting to the younger generations.
Re: (Score:2)
The sad thing is that the alternatives are not better privacy wise on a corp level which means also means the data is available at a government level. People feel it's more private because it's easier to hide stuff from your friends, spouse, or partner but the privacy is an illusion.
More Trump tantrums? (Score:1)
So, someone won an election that liberals do not like. They can't understand how anyone would have been so stupid and unenlightened to vote for him. The obvious solution to the Left is to squelch free speech so that ideas they don't agree with cannot be heard. Liberals need to make sure only the truth as they think it is discussed. They need to protect you from yourself and your friends that think incorrectly.
Deceit and propaganda have always been part of geopolitics. Trying to subvert your adversaries
Spare me (Score:1)
"Oh
Probably he wanted it manipulated to his preferences instead of against it.
Given that FB's stock dropped so, so long after the election and that Trump is polling
What should he say? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
She wants him to hug her and say I'm sorry, I'm bitterly sorry Trump was elected, let us both pretend that it was because of fake news put up by Russians on Facebook, I will do everything I can to make sure it doesn't happen again, but yes for now we are stuck with him, so let us get drunk together and drown our sorrows in this excellent gin I keep in my file cabinet.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh Look (Score:3)
Oh look, it's the NYT crying about the Russians again!
F A K E
N E W S
Net Neutrality vs. Social Net Neutrality (Score:1)
Totally from a different perspective.
A social network could be viewed as a big pipe carrying information. Most of time, it does not "create" content. Then, does "Net Neutrality" imply a "Social Net Neutrality"?
If at first you don't succeeed, .... (Score:1)
There is a problem...just not that one. (Score:2)
The reason that Facebook has a problem isn't that it allowed the Rooskies to bamboozle us. The reason that Facebook has a problem is that it's a pro-social advertising and data-mining platform.
There are some marginal improvements with the different reacts, but Facebook encourages spreading things people like over stopping things people don't like. That, along with the bubble effect, make it a series of big circlejerks instead of a conversation, where things like 'nuance' can reside. As it turns out, ci
Re: (Score:2)
> where things like 'nuance' can reside
That reminds me of quote from Taleb quoting that French guy who said "Logic excludes -- by definition -- nuances, and Truth resides exclusively in nuances."
The Great Firewall of Facebook (Score:3)
Looks like Facebook needs to learn a little bit from China, who has done a bang up job of filtering offensive content in their country. I hear North Korea has a pretty good handle on locking down "problematic" content from the hoi polloi.
Those decrying the free speech rights of russian trolls might want to think about babies and bathwater for a while.
"Russians" have meddled for DECADES (Score:3)
The "Russians" needed fending off for decades. The stoked America's racial strife [aim.org], and sponsored the "peace" movement [wikipedia.org]. Yes, the butchers of Budapest and Prague, the destroyers of Afghanistan were arguing for "peace" and the American Left where lapping it all up! Quite possibly, these efforts cost us victory in Vietnam — the war was no less justified than the earlier Korean one, but met much higher internal opposition...
Only back then the same NYTimes — and all the rest of the Left-thinking Americans — mocked any attempts at the fending off as "Red scare" [nytimes.com] and denounced it as "evil McCarthyism". And now the same people are trying to convince us, the President is illegitimate, because his son once met with a Russian lawyer.
feeling a deep sense of responsibility? (Score:2)
If he had any "feelings" before getting caught paying his employees to spread disinformation to deliberately throw the election to Trump, then he should have just done nothing instead. Zuckerberg, Its too late for feeling sorry. It would be bad enough for him to let other people spread lies and disinformation, but actually paying your own employees to do it for you is just inexcusable.
TreasonBook(tm) anyone?
https://www.youtube.com/result... [youtube.com]
What's she trying to say, don't try new things? (Score:2)
Call it the education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley, but on the world's dime.
What? Were Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley supposed to predict ahead of time what all the outcomes of doing something new? Is anyone with a new business or idea supposed to whip out a crystal ball first to make sure there's no potential downside? Should we preemptively lock up bold entrepreneurs lest they come up with something brilliant but imperfect?
What a jerk.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's more that they keep fucking up and that everyone else has to foot the bill for their blunders.
Re: They have something in common (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah Trump sure is going down! Oh wait, I have been hearing that daily since the day he announced running, so I wonâ(TM)t hold my breath. This article is absurd, Facebook did not threaten democracy. Facebook is for fucking idiots to share Kim Kardashian news and selfies, a few thousand dollars in dumb Russian troll posts did not change any votes. If Hillary and her billion dollar campaign could not beat 100k in laughable Russian ads, she deserved to lose.
Re:Notice how Russia... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't you love it when everything's back to normal? Us old folks who remember the good ol' days of the 70s and 80s were kinda miffed at those newfangled enemies. The only boogeyman that could hold a candle to the Russians were the terrorists, and they were kinda bland. Faceless, nameless, not something you could point at. The Russians were different. You knew where they were, you didn't have to wage war with them and lose young guys, but the cold war kept the military industrial complex well funded. Perfect war, great for the economy and nobody has to die.
Far better than that war with the terrorists where people actually get killed.
Plus, the Russians never sent anyone to our country, neither to blow shit up nor as refugees. They even made sure that everyone stayed where they belonged.
Yes, I long for our old, beloved enemies. It's good to see that they're coming back in style.
Could we phase out those other ones, those terrorists? I mean, we don't really need them now anymore, now that the Russians want to play again, and they get kinda pesky. Plus, they're SO completely nuts that our government doesn't have to pretend to be the good guys with them. That's something the Russians always managed to do really well for us.
Re:Notice how Russia... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think HL Mencken had something to say about it:
"Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary."
Yep, that describes our (and most other) governments. Russia's done the same using us as the boogyman, North Korea...maybe it's why we don't like looking in the mirror much. It's the oldest trick in the book - hey, look, a bear is even more attention-getting than hey, look, a squirrel.
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A German comedian put it best: If you know who the enemy is, your day has structure.
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So it's not possible to add a little spice to the crazy soup and then stir it up a bit without having placed all the ingredients in the pot yourself?
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Which is nonsense because Russia is very weak compared to the US, both economically and militarily. Still it's good for Russia that the left pushes the story how Russians have the power to influence the US elections. Just as it was for Cambridge Analytica founders and employees.
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despite that said premise is not yet supported by hard evidence.
It is supported by hard evidence, but it points to Hillary and the DNC being behind it all.