Comment by legacynl
5 days ago
Propagandists have long figured out that you don't have to control people's thoughts and opinions. You just need to go into their public forum and say some outrageous shit, it doesn't have to be right, well thought out, you just need to shout some shit, so that you get to control the topics that people talk about.
Everytime something about EU tech sovereignty is posted, comments with sentiments like OP are posted within the first several minutes. Because they're outrageous (anger-inducing) they get a lot of comments telling them off, an resultingly will be presented prominently on the page.
How much effort and resources does it really cost to have some bots doing this kind of stuff on a couple of well-visited platforms? As techies we should understand that it's basically costs no resources, time and effort. Therefore we should expect these kinds of influence operations on public forums like these.
I'm not sure if those comments are even bots. The bots seem to only amplify those opinions and make them more visible. It's a vicious circle, once those opinions are everywhere, more and more people pick up on them and write new posts like that.
I think the claims about propaganda can often be nullified pretty easily, by simply turning it around. Were it remotely possible to push people in any direction whatsoever then the powers that be would be spending every possible effort, with 'insider access' no less, to tilt people in that direction. And, for the most part, they are. But it simply does not work, at least not on topics that people had any preconceived opinions of before at all. See: Israel/Gaza.
As for Europe, this [1] is a graph of the EU's share of the global GDP, PPP adjusted. It's been in steady decline for decades. And so discussing the decline of Europe, at least relative to the rest of the world, is hardly outrageous.
[1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/253512/share-of-the-eu-i...
> As for Europe, this [1] is a graph of the EU's share of the global GDP, PPP adjusted.
That's fun, here's the US's version of that graph.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/270267/united-states-sha...
Notice that both show the same downward trend?
Do you know what's behind that trend? It's because it's a graph of the global share. The share drops if the GDP of other members is increasing faster. Someone like, say, China.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/270439/chinas-share-of-g...
China is doing brilliantly since the 80s, to the point it overthrew the US as the global hegemon. India is also doing well, albeit in a far less impressive way
https://www.statista.com/statistics/271328/indias-share-of-g...
I don't think I was stating or implying anything else? It's also completely reasonable to say that US has been in relative decline, though to a lesser degree than Europe. Though I wouldn't call China a hegemon. They have the largest economy in the world, by an increasingly wide margin, but I think we've fully entered into a multipolar world and we will probably be staying here for the foreseeable future at least.
2 replies →
> it simply does not work, at least not on topics that people had any preconceived opinions of before at all. See: Israel/Gaza.
Except it does work. Of course you're never going to make dyed in the wool supporters of Israel xor Gaza switch sides with propaganda. This is obvious, as you imply.
What propaganda does do is crowd out the middleground nuanced opinions, which will bounce back and forth between condemning Israel or Hamas based on what each one is actually doing, in favor of the "opposing" extremist views wherein each camp can do no wrong. The extremist views each then feed on the other's popularity to boost its own, ultimately supporting unrestrained maximalist actions by both sides.
Nice such lying with statistics, you should give a course.
Of course this little graph fails to account for the fact that the EU took on the burden of paying for 50 years of back maintenance in former USSR countries. And on balance the change has been very positive. It will take at least another 30 years to reach parity.
Accusations like these are against the HN guidelines by the way.
They are often unfounded and obviously incorrect when made towards old accounts with established history of posting.
do you suppose that the average tech worker is socially perceptive enough to determine the occurence of their manipulation? seems to me that most tech workers cease consideration of consequences after accepting their role.
Assuming their not actively engaging in it in the first place.