Where does the culture war come from?

[Clinamenic]

It seems to me that AI hasn't properly mastered humour yet. I suppose it is one of humanity's hardest idiosyncrasies to pin down.

Yeah but it may learn it faster than we expect it to. It can already do puns, almost as well as @Mr. Tea

 

[Clinamenic]

Didn't mean to equate tea's punnery with humanity's greatest idiosyncrasies though.

 

[Leo]

Yeah but it may learn it faster than we expect it to. It can already do puns, almost as well as @Mr. Tea

that implies there's intelligence in tea's puns to begin with.

 

[version]

this is more in the luka etc realm, but for people who are more likely to believe in psyops and the like, there you go

The parapolitics lot on Twitter will often remind you there were 100+ MKUltra subprojects and they likely learned something from it.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

The parapolitics lot on Twitter will often remind you there were 100+ MKUltra subprojects and they likely learned something from it.

yeah, I guess, my question would be, draw me a line from point A to point B

in an indirect sense of institutional knowledge gained by half-century of Cold War psyops, maybe

but draw me a relatively direct line from stuff like that to Lee Atwater and Karl Rove to Cambridge Analytica to this

 

[version]

I imagine a lot of it comes from advertising and general experience rather than anything particularly nefarious. You don't need to do any outlandish psychological experiments to work out that scaremongering works.

 

[wg-]

something no one's mentioned yet but that we've certainly talked about before is the chain of informal to more formal information sources

i.e. the echo chambers of 4chan, reddit, etc to social media to traditional news outlets

and its role in creating and especially in amplifying these kinds of attacks, like turning an ember into a blazing grassfire

I couldn't even begin to describe its mechanisms in any kind of detail but undoubtedly it exists

QAnon I'd guess is the prototype and/or paradigm

I'd say you're definitely accurate about the change of information delivery. access to non-conventional media will undoubtedly mean a massive proliferation of extraneous material, some people will sail through it and others will find themselves embroiled or convinced

But i think it goes back further than Qanon, really; pizzagate was before Q, the clinton dossier early 90s, the left-led conspiracies about Bush & 9/11 being used as justification for the surveillance state.

I guess the difference now is, as you say, there are more successful delivery models that allow them to weaponise specific attack angles on whatever the chosen cause is

& as said earlier in the thread, right-wing manouvering vastly overtook the left in that regard. But around the time of 9/11 the conspiracy realm was definitely in the left, not the right. What has changed now is that the right has learned to embrace it and recast the "elite" as a neo-liberal grouping as opposed to the neo-con gang as it previously was

 

[version]

It's a tad simplistic, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were partly down to the US lacking a particular ideological opponent. The culture wars of the 90s took place between the collapse of the Soviet Union and 9/11.

You could respond by bringing up China but that hasn't really kicked in yet, meanwhile the War on Terror's been wound down and, as much as has been made of them, Russia don't seem like too great a threat to America herself.

 

[Leo]

been going on for ages but trump certainly supercharged it over the past decade. every president spins things, but trump continually embraced and amplified (even invented) crazy shit all day long on social media, at rallies, in interviews.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I'd say you're definitely accurate about the change of information delivery. access to non-conventional media will undoubtedly mean a massive proliferation of extraneous material, some people will sail through it and others will find themselves embroiled or convinced

But i think it goes back further than Qanon, really; pizzagate was before Q, the clinton dossier early 90s, the left-led conspiracies about Bush & 9/11 being used as justification for the surveillance state.

I guess the difference now is, as you say, there are more successful delivery models that allow them to weaponise specific attack angles on whatever the chosen cause is

& as said earlier in the thread, right-wing manouvering vastly overtook the left in that regard. But around the time of 9/11 the conspiracy realm was definitely in the left, not the right. What has changed now is that the right has learned to embrace it and recast the "elite" as a neo-liberal grouping as opposed to the neo-con gang as it previously was

I agree with most of that. I should have just said paradigm in re QAnon. I didn't mean to imply it was first so much as the current paradigm for an entirely subreddit-hatched conspiracy that seems to arise ghost in the machine style but is clearly directed, at least inititally, by someone(s) somewhere, with Pizzagate being QAnon's John the Baptist (if you were conspiratorially minded you might call it a test run).

I also agree that conspiracy has become overwhelming a right-wing thing, and that the right has wildly succeeded in cynically, and/or avariciously, using it to bolster populist ressentiment against a liberal "elite" that taps into real and valid feelings of anger against the traditional American ruling class of all stripes.

I don't agree that conspiracy was mainly the province of the left pre-9/11 - the 90s were also the era of black helicopters/NWO, the militia movement, etc which were all the province of the right and often tied to things like white supremacy, i.e. Timothy McVeigh and The Turner Diaries. there was also, actually, an amount of anti-govt right/left crossover that seems unthinkable now - i.e. Behold a Pale Horse, probably the quintessential 90s conspiracy text, was frequently namechecked by rappers. Waco and Oklahoma City - inseparably paired - call back to the FBI occupation (and paramilitary murder campaign) of Pine Ridge.

I guess in terms of wherever we are now that's not so important, tho it's always good to understand how you got somewhere.

what's happened, besides the change in delivery models - the importance of which can't be overstated - is that the GOP has completely abandoned, not without a bitter internal fight which the anti-Trump people lost, previous political norms. not to say those norms were perfect or even good, but this is undoubtedly worse. even pretending to tell and care about the truth has value in that it sets limits on what you can say and do. right-wing conspiracy thinking has become so prevalent and so toxic that if you're on the left it's hard not get stuck between a rock and a hard place defending the powers that be - the neoliberal wing of corporate, military-industrial capitalism - against something which is, amazingly, somehow even worse.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I agree with most of that. I should have just said paradigm in re QAnon. I didn't mean to imply it was first so much as the current paradigm for an entirely subreddit-hatched conspiracy that seems to arise ghost in the machine style but is clearly directed, at least inititally, by someone(s) somewhere, with Pizzagate being QAnon's John the Baptist (if you were conspiratorially minded you might call it a test run).

I also agree that conspiracy has become overwhelming a right-wing thing, and that the right has wildly succeeded in cynically, and/or avariciously, using it to bolster populist ressentiment against a liberal "elite" that taps into real and valid feelings of anger against the traditional American ruling class of all stripes.

I don't agree that conspiracy was mainly the province of the left pre-9/11 - the 90s were also the era of black helicopters/NWO, the militia movement, etc which were all the province of the right and often tied to things like white supremacy, i.e. Timothy McVeigh and The Turner Diaries. there was also, actually, an amount of anti-govt right/left crossover that seems unthinkable now - i.e. Behold a Pale Horse, probably the quintessential 90s conspiracy text, was frequently namechecked by rappers. Waco and Oklahoma City - inseparably paired - call back to the FBI occupation (and paramilitary murder campaign) of Pine Ridge.

I guess in terms of wherever we are now that's not so important, tho it's always good to understand how you got somewhere.

what's happened, besides the change in delivery models - the importance of which can't be overstated - is that the GOP has completely abandoned, not without a bitter internal fight which the anti-Trump people lost, previous political norms. not to say those norms were perfect or even good, but this is undoubtedly worse. even pretending to tell and care about the truth has value in that it sets limits on what you can say and do. right-wing conspiracy thinking has become so prevalent and so toxic that if you're on the left it's hard not get stuck between a rock and a hard place defending the powers that be - the neoliberal wing of corporate, military-industrial capitalism - against something which is, amazingly, somehow even worse.

Yep, and then you get figures like Assange and Snowden whose appeal crosses traditional left-right lines.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

It's a tad simplistic, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were partly down to the US lacking a particular ideological opponent. The culture wars of the 90s took place between the collapse of the Soviet Union and 9/11.

I definitely think there's something there

I've said it before, surely I'll say it again: it's exactly what the Romans did after they defeated Carthage and became the only superpower

their culture wars were about Greek culture and general Eastern decadence supplanting traditional Roman values - which were definitely stereotypes, but so are ours, that's the point of culture wars, they're made up of crude stereotypes - rather than abortion and gender rights, but the context and cultural fulcrum is exactly the same: a lack of external enemies leading to inward aggression over what it means to be "Roman" or "American". just like here, their culture wars began as an internal split within the ruling class that gradually intensified and become more bitter until the point that winning become more important than your actual policies and they abandoned established political norms in pursuit of winning.

spoiler: things did not end well for the Roman Republic

 

[Mr. Tea]

My attitude to those guys (edit: Assange/Snowden) is more or less "You're not one of the good guys just because your actions have embarrassed one gang of bastards if you've had to team up with an even bigger gang of bastards to do so."

 

[catalog]

It's a tad simplistic, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were partly down to the US lacking a particular ideological opponent. The culture wars of the 90s took place between the collapse of the Soviet Union and 9/11.

You could respond by bringing up China but that hasn't really kicked in yet, meanwhile the War on Terror's been wound down and, as much as has been made of them, Russia don't seem like too great a threat to America herself.

I definitely think there's something there

I've said it before, surely I'll say it again: it's exactly what the Romans did after they defeated Carthage and became the only superpower

their culture wars were about Greek culture and general Eastern decadence supplanting traditional Roman values - which were definitely stereotypes, but so are ours, that's the point of culture wars, they're made up of crude stereotypes - rather than abortion and gender rights, but the context and cultural fulcrum is exactly the same: a lack of external enemies leading to inward aggression over what it means to be "Roman" or "American". just like here, their culture wars began as an internal split within the ruling class that gradually intensified and become more bitter until the point that winning become more important than your actual policies and they abandoned established political norms in pursuit of winning.

spoiler: things did not end well for the Roman Republic

Death to America!

 

[luka]

something no one's mentioned yet but that we've certainly talked about before is the chain of informal to more formal information sources

i.e. the echo chambers of 4chan, reddit, etc to social media to traditional news outlets

and its role in creating and especially in amplifying these kinds of attacks, like turning an ember into a blazing grassfire

I couldn't even begin to describe its mechanisms in any kind of detail but undoubtedly it exists

QAnon I'd guess is the prototype and/or paradigm

this is more in the luka etc realm, but for people who are more likely to believe in psyops and the like, there you go

I would be very interested in seeing the kind of analytics work @DannyL mentioned, if it exists anywhere

unlike social media I'd guess it has to be primarily humans rather than bots, due to the higher level of complexity required, but maybe not

and that's definitely something that could change as AI language models become more powerful

i dont think its that deep necessarily. a small number of people have a public platform and some of those people can be bought.

 

[luka]

Didn't mean to equate tea's punnery with humanity's greatest idiosyncrasies though.

its a low bar

 

[IdleRich]

the only part of that I disagree with is "blundering". the left has undoubtedly been outmaneuvered by brilliant (and deeply cynical) line of attack, but it's not a secret. the trap is right there for everyone to see but we have to fight anyway, because it is literal life and death. and not only do we - trans people and their allies - have to fight, but the rest of the left coalition has to fight and expend political capital too, or the implicit solidarity that holds it together doesn't mean anything. that is its brilliance as a line of attack.

Yeah true, sometimes the best option is to recognize the trap, and still walk into it hoping that the fact you have recognized it and

 

[IdleRich]

the only part of that I disagree with is "blundering". the left has undoubtedly been outmaneuvered by brilliant (and deeply cynical) line of attack, but it's not a secret. the trap is right there for everyone to see but we have to fight anyway, because it is literal life and death. and not only do we - trans people and their allies - have to fight, but the rest of the left coalition has to fight and expend political capital too, or the implicit solidarity that holds it together doesn't mean anything. that is its brilliance as a line of attack.

Yeah sometimes all you can do is recognize the trap and still take it on, hoping that being forewarned will aid you on terms of being forearmed.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

i dont think its that deep necessarily. a small number of people have a public platform and some of those people can be bought.

luka with the anti-conspiratorial take, didn't see that coming. what a role reversal.

I don't think you're wrong, surely payola to people with platforms is one element, tho the incentives content creators already have to jump on anything that will generate views and increase their profile probably cuts down on the need to pay

but clearly someone also has to be creating and maintaining these bot armies and fake accounts, whether it's culture warriors with ideological reasons or mercenaries being paid by someone with ideological reasons. just paying a few people is not a sufficient explanation.

these kinds of coordinated attacks have been going on for years, so presumably there are distribution networks in place that you can tap into if you know where to go and have the right connections and $. it's probably not totally different from traditional distribution networks - you can see James Carville complaining about hit pieces in The War Room way back in 1992.

ultimately it's probably a combination of ideology and profit motive, and the profit motive is built into the attack whether implicitly or explicitly. if you can generate enough traction you know that x number of people with platforms with y reach will pick it up and amplify your attack by x*y for their own purposes, whether ideological or $ or both.

 

[luka]

the war rooms would be interesting to look inside of. the little ive seen of politics looks like its run by fucking idiots but i dunno