sufi
lala
Yeah the culture war is always a losing battle for the right, cos ultimately they need rights like everyone else
Where does the culture war come from?
- Thread starter wild greens
- Start date
You can see a lot of the mechanics of distribution in network graph terms. OSINT people have been doing it for a while. I usual cite Kate Starbird's paper on The White Helmets but there must be a lot of other analytics like this, though this'd be on the level of specific stories, whereas Wild Greens question is broader.
I should add, its easier to see with the kind of analysis Starbird does, 'cos she's looking for disinformation, foreign powers influencing online clicks and distribution. The mechanisms that propagate "culture wars" issues are going to be a lot closer to home.
version
Well-known member
Sounds like something the Labour left would call Keir Starmer on Twitter.
relevant reading on this subject, the answer is always historical, not necessarily contemporary...
libcom.org
Some optimistic and incorrect assumptions about workers control and socialism which bare the typical 80s imprint but the thesis (that the US had to subordinate Europe to counteract a crisis in its own state structures) is a solid one.
and this, though you'll need to use libgen to get it.
The Cold War as a System - Michael Cox
Many leftists saw the Cold War as a genuine clash between Soviet 'Socialism' and Western capitalism. Michael Cox, however, shows how Soviet Stalinism and the Cold War helped stabilise global capitalism for 40 years.
Some optimistic and incorrect assumptions about workers control and socialism which bare the typical 80s imprint but the thesis (that the US had to subordinate Europe to counteract a crisis in its own state structures) is a solid one.
and this, though you'll need to use libgen to get it.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
The other thing I find weird about this stuff is how quickly and how far the right-wing media can push a new issue without the readers just thinking "why are you suddenly so obsessed with this total non-issue you complete weirdos". Like, there has to be some sort of limit to how fast they can pick a new group of people to turn into a threat to civilization, but I don't think we've found it yet...
IdleRich
IdleRich
I haven't read all the replies so no doubt my response has been covered completely already. But anyway... I think the right have realized that this is a very divisive issue (it's probably worth asking why this is) that absolutely enrages certain people, something that they can't get past. I suppose the hope is that you could have some guy who is a Democrat on every other issue, but, by raising this issue that almost suddenly doesn't affect that guy, it might remind them that on that they are a Republican, and that issue is so important that it overpowers everything and switches their vote.
As for the left, I think that they have been badly outmanoeuvred on this, and by joining battle have blundered into a trap. I see this in the number of twitter accounts that say things such as "I will vote for someone who... blah blah blah... and can tell me what a woman is".
And I've got a friend here who says that in the past the left were the radical side of free speech and equality, whereas now he sees them as people whose main purpose appears to be cancelling people who are unable to correctly negotiate the minefield of trans rights. To be clear, I'm not imparting his wisdom here, I'm just saying that as regards him - and I suspect others - it has been a very successful tactic.
So, I don't mean at all to play down the importance of the issue, it's quite literally a matter of life and death for those at the sharp end, and just on the principle of fairness to all that makes it a matter of utmost importance for everyone...
But there are lots of other big issues that are life and death and which directly affect far more people. The sheer amount of time and effort - and passion - devoted to this issue seems hugely disproportionate and so there must be something driving it... hence this thread I guess. I suppose I'm just saying I agree it's an important question to ask (cos I'm sure I just scratched the surface there).
IdleRich
IdleRich
I don't mean to pick you up or anything here cos I agree with you, I mean any debate gets boring when it goes round and round in circles with only the smallest of changes... but you (I assume) and I have the luxury of finding it boring.
Those minor changes can mean everything to those who are most deeply involved... at times I almost feel that it's a deliberate tactic to make people bored, the only thing against that is that it's not as if my maintaining a keen interest in the topic would make the slightest bit of difference to anyone.
That said I do feel that I owe it to people not to get bored.
IdleRich
IdleRich
I reckon that bots are important here. I find these coordinated culture war battles quite interesting and it always seems to me that there is a mixture of bots and people making up each army.
As I see it, the normal sequence of events seems to begin with a news story that gives rise to loads of minor skirmishes as soldiers on both side give their own opinions... but then, at some point, the kinda unofficial-official argument, the party-line if you like, gets released and suddenly it's being repeated up and down the internet wherever you look.
(I see this happening with arguments from the right but I assume it works both ways)
It's always clear that it's one person's argument, especially if there is a bit that doesn't make sense, how could ten thousand people come up with the same nonsensical argument at the same time?
But wherever it comes from, it appears, and then it's being spread by this mixture of bots and people that intrigues me. Are these people sort of willing useful idiots or do they somehow think that it's their own opinion?
So I'd love to know how the party-line is decided and begun, and also what percentage are bots, plus, how do the non-bots fit into this?
I saw this thing with Ziziek the other day talking about dates where he takes his vibrating plastic vagina, the lucky lady beings her own vibrator and then - if they hit it off I guess - they put the toys together for sexy time... while the two real people do something more interesting.
And when he said that, it reminded me of something I've thought about before - two people playing online chess, both cheating by using a computer, ending up with the humans as mere proxies or conduits for their computer masters.
The above are quite humorous situations I suppose, but ultimately limited when you compare them to twitter battles where both armies are built from a mixture of humans and robots fighting side by side, accepting each other unquestioningly and without prejudice as brothers in arms.
It feels that there ought to be a lot to learn from that but I'm afraid I don't know what it is.
IdleRich
IdleRich
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.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Had me scratching my head too sadly
wild greens
Well-known member
I'd imagine
No, you're right & you do have to be aware of privilege in these scenarios. But it's not quite the idea of being "bored" of the situation I'm talking about here, it's the construct of the endless debate & supposed "war". The mechanism. This is an intentional design of the process, I'm sure
A lot of current political power relies on a large degree of apathy i think; if people are unwilling to engage then a ruling class (or whatever) can really get away with anything.
Most people's lives now will largely be unaffected by political mechanism, or seem to be at least, but you can forget what political activism has achieved for "you" in a current sense, how your current freedoms definitely did not exist even 50-60 years ago, which is fuck all in historic terms
No, you're right & you do have to be aware of privilege in these scenarios. But it's not quite the idea of being "bored" of the situation I'm talking about here, it's the construct of the endless debate & supposed "war". The mechanism. This is an intentional design of the process, I'm sure
A lot of current political power relies on a large degree of apathy i think; if people are unwilling to engage then a ruling class (or whatever) can really get away with anything.
Most people's lives now will largely be unaffected by political mechanism, or seem to be at least, but you can forget what political activism has achieved for "you" in a current sense, how your current freedoms definitely did not exist even 50-60 years ago, which is fuck all in historic terms
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
TBF that's at least as funny as some of the 'funny' bits in Gravity's Rainbow.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Fair points, I did see that you clarified this somewhat further in the thread.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
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.
for better or worse the left is always going to be more heterogeneous than the right. that's potentially a great strength, but it also exposes you to these kinds of divide and conquer attacks. it's not a new strategy - historically it's obv primarily been turning White people against Black people (desegregation, school busing, "welfare queens", "superpredators", etc ad inf) - just different targets. trans rights are low-hanging fruit and have the added benefit of exposing and potentially fracturing internal fault lines within the left.
the right also has various built-in advantages when it comes to coordinating an attack. greater homogeneity makes it easier for everyone to get and stay on message. it means you can invoke tribalism in a way that the left can't, especially at the national level (traditional Democratic urban machines are predicated on local demographic advantage). if you don't care about actually governing, you don't have to worry about anything besides winning. and so on.
this all intersects with the thread's original question in the way these attacks have been refined and concentrated over the last ~20 years as the Internet has completely reshaped human communication, and culture.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
undoubtedly intentional and again, refined by decades of experience to a finely honed cutting edge
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
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.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
Leo
Well-known member
sort of related: we've talked before about how lots of people now consider posting a tweet or retweeting someone else as political activism, as opposed to actually getting involved in local politics, lobbying their elected officials, running for office themselves, protesting in the streets, etc. social media does play a role today, and of course not everyone has the time, ability or means to do more than that. but sharing an article about an issue on twitter doesn't accomplish much.