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GW Hayduke

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Posts posted by GW Hayduke

  1. 3 minutes ago, bernorange said:

    What exactly is it that I need to learn?  I didn't employ a whataboutism to deflect from the original topic.  I responded to one that was attempting to do so.  Your logic is bad and you should feel bad.

    Again, whataboutism is strong in this thread. Responding to whataboutism (trump twitter/phone) with your own whataboutism (Clinton foundation) has driven this thread off the rails

  2. 1 minute ago, bernorange said:

    Lulz.  The last post by Anastasis is addressing the Trump whataboutism to the original topic of this thread, which is the investigation of the Hillary server (and potentially the Foundation).

    Yes, I suggest you learn from Anastasis. 

    Whataboutism is a sign of weakness and a fallacy. 

  3. Whataboutism is strong in this thread.

    Equating the POTUS use of twitter and potentially insecure phones to anything about anyone, such as hillary’s server or the Clinton Foundation, is classic whataboutism.

    Whataboutism is a logical fallacy and sign of a weak argument or position.

    FYI: whataboutism is a key component of Russian propaganda.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

    The honest way to address the issue without the fallacy is to look at the last comments by Anastasis. He is addressing the issue and not trying to divert or equate with some other situation

    • Like 1
  4. Honestly, I don’t blame “gun nuts” all that much. We hope that all citizens, including gun owners, would understand the need for change and welcome measures that better society. For some reason, that isn’t the case. We could chalk this up to social media and an education system that is weak in critical thinking and citizen responsibilities. I would also lay blame to weak media regulations and dark money in politics.

  5. 11 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

    All of Watt’s work on this was done outside of the government as a HOBBY. 

    In his book he bemoans the bureaucracy and the ineptitude of the work of many defense contractors.  

     He feels, as I do, that he can be much more effective outside of the government structures at combating the problem because he has autonomy.

    You might be right. Though the CIA is supposed to take the lead on combatting these types of foreign threats so they need to have some large role to go along with their large availability of resources. If the CIA isn’t flexible enough to monitor and divulge Russian activities, then they need more flexibility. Though it is always possible, since the CIA doesn’t really have a public face, that Watts is actually acting as the CIA’s public mouthpiece on this. 

    Dealing with the right’s acceptance of these methods and the difficulties in parsing witting and unwitting actors is going to require some huge some huge solutions imo.

  6. Watts always has good things to say. I wish the CIA or FBI would give him a large task force and big budget.

    He speaks of “awareness” as an important method to combat. I think that is important. However, considering the difficulties in parsing witting and unwitting actors and the right’s acceptance of these methods, we are going to need a much stronger approach IMO.

  7. 8 minutes ago, TahoeHorn said:

    What is your recommendation to the players?

    I recommend that they vote and that they use their platform to remind others to vote and to bring awareness to others on whatever issues they feel is important. 

    I would also recommend that they specifically call out trump for manufacturing a conflict to sow discord in the US.

    i would also recommend that they use their platform to remind fans about the ideas of citizenry. 

  8. 15 minutes ago, bernorange said:

    You presume to lecture me on bias while ignoring your own filters.  You have no self awareness.

    I contributed plenty of mature conversation to the discussion.  You either didn't see it or ignored it (it didn't fit your agenda) .  I got tired of your "active measures" in the mass shootings thread and called you out on your bullshit attempts to hijack the narrative to push your agenda.

    Your examples are not accurate descriptions of what occurred.  Is it perspective or propaganda?  This is the danger with labels and witch hunts. 

    You are free to provide examples of the filters, active measures, or propaganda that you mention. I’m curious. 

    I would add that I have had many long, healthy debates on issues surrounding firearms. Most healthy debates provide both sides with new perspectives and information to ponder. They usually end up with disagreeing on values, e.g., Liberty/freedom from low regulations outweigh the fact that the US’s gun violence is on par with the third world, or agreeing that a particular topic needs further research. 

  9. 59 minutes ago, bernorange said:

    I haven't kept up with this thread in a while.  I'm laughing at you GW.  You think you are a truth warrior fighting the good fight against right wing trolls?  lulz.  You need to look in a mirror.  You have repeatedly attempted to derail a thread on mass (school) shootings to push your gun control agenda.  You have engaged in the very behaviors that you are railing about here.

    Pogo_-_Earth_Day_1971_poster.jpg

    ~~~

     

    https://www.cfr.org/event/political-disruptions-combating-disinformation-and-fake-news

    There are active disinformation campaigns going on. Most have accepted that as reality. The purpose of those campaigns is to sow discord and push sides further away, tribalism, identity politics, culture war. One strategy is replacing logic/science with feelings/emotions. 

    The right has increasingly become the side that is anti-science, anti-government, anti-education. The right has replaced those things with “feelings,” “emotions,” and “identity” (this is why the right have become snowflakes over the last few years). We see it with global warming, gun control, football kneelers, immigration. The examples are many.  Disinformation campaigns have pushed the right further into this place.

    However, your difficulty in maintaining a mature conversation/debate on firearms may be the result of this recent emotional/anti-science phenomenon being pushed by active propaganda or it may just be who you have always been.

    For example, calling “ad hominem” when someone provides counter evidence or “strawman” when someone attempts to get you to take a clear position, is classic right-wing response grounded in feelings/emotions/anti-science.

    My recommendation is to reflect back on where the sensitivity and feelings come from and ponder whether it may be the result of this culture war, tribalism, identity politics being pushed into or population.

    • Like 1
  10. IMO gonna need a new set of politicians capable of representing the interests of common citizens before we can start making progress at addressing firearm violence.  First steps should include reforms to campaign finance and dark money, solving this Russian/Israeli/right-wing propaganda problem, and increases in gun violence research.  We aren't going to make any meaningful steps at addressing gun violence for several more years.

  11.  

    Here is an example of a thread on r/texas that was blasted with a large amount of questionable users, some I would definitely consider right-wing trolls. I'm able to identify some of them  based on a reddit extension I have that shows me the amount of karma folks have from certain trollish subs, like r/the_donald.

    • Like 2
  12. 5 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

    Let me know when you find a troll who isn't being dishonest. The troll wants you to address his bullshit in order to derail the conversation. You decide you're going to step up and put this fool in his place because his ideas are so ridiculous. You got caught in the trap. You got fooled into an argument over stupid irrelevant bullshit like you're trying to teach a toddler how to be an executive. You're feeding the yippy dog at the table and preventing the adults from having a conversation. 

    There isn’t one troll, and not all trolls are the same. The trolls I am talking about either push false information or try to trigger discord.

    We shouldn’t be scared of them. And ignoring them works only if they are obviously stupid, like the guy “sugar.” But the trolling I’m talking about is more sophisticated. I suspect some is Russian.

    Ignoring sophisticated trolling on reddit helps no one and just allows the disinformation campaign continue IMO. 

    The trolls that drop false or dishonest information. Simply describe it’s falseness/dishonesty and provide accurate information with sources. Don’t just ignore and leave only the false info. 

    The trolls that try to sow discord.  That troll wants to trigger an emotional response and get you (or someone else) to take any extreme position. Don’t give him that but instead, point out to everyone what exactly the troll is doing.

    Subreddit r/texas gets a lot of organized sophisitcated trolling. They show up whenever something big happens, like after a mass shooting. Also, they were there in force when the CATO institute came out with a study showing how immigrants (including illegal immigrants) have much lower rates of criminal activity when compared to native born. 

    Im not sure who you are talking about when you say “you got caught in a trap” or “you got fooled.”

  13. 39 minutes ago, Pods said:

    I'm definitely not saying to ignore what a troll says. Research also shows that if you don't challenge EVERY lie, the unchallenged ones build up and become reality for partially informed observers. The link Caroline O (she's a social behavior scientist) posted above shows that humans aren't good from distinguishing fact from fiction when both viewpoints are repeated and the original event happened in the past. The more you engage these ludicrous viewpoints, the more people read about those viewpoints and normalize them at least somewhat. It's really damned if you do, damned if you don't, which is why Active Measures is so effective on social media. 

    I think Reddit works differently from here. It's so large, you don't recognize a lot of the posters. There is somewhat equal value in all view points that have high karma and that can easily be manipulated. Here, we can recognize the trolls and their patterns. The troll's pattern of behavior is by far the most useful thing to point out, because then others will also see the same visual cues and detect the troll if they didn't before. 

    When a troll posts, anyone that directly engages him gets sucked into a time sink of intellectual dishonesty and just asking questions. It is absolutely what the troll wants.

    It's far better to expose how the troll lies, show they are a known liar and move on. Rebut his ridiculous statements, but not to him. Rebut them to the audience the troll is intending to influence. Realize you will never be able to shame or convince the troll. The goal is to remind the rest of society that the troll's behavior is not okay and it is not normal. 

    I don’t think she is referring to how to deal with a troll. I think she is referring to how to deal with larger scale propaganda, I.e, army of trolls using a mix of media to push a narrative or to sow discord. She is saying don’t plan to confront each and every instance when one of their trolls pops up. She is saying develop a strategy to target the audience, e.g., deveolpe your own organized media blitz to push a counter narrative or to address the discord. 

    I argue that the best way to deal with a troll that is being dishonest, is to point out the dishonesty. Pointing out their dishonesty, fallacy, and purpose isn’t what the troll wants. Most of the time, the troll wants you to be triggered and to emotionally respond with an extreme position. I’m agreeing with your position on exposing the troll. I think you can absolutely shame a troll, but you are right you can’t change his mind.

  14. 8 minutes ago, Pods said:

    If it's immediately after the troll, that can work. If it's too complicated, people tune out. If it's too long after the fact, people tune out. That's the problem, this shit works. Either way, you are engaging the troll and legitimizing his argument to other readers. It's damned if you do, damned if you don't. 

    It depends how you do it. Debunking a trolls lies, calling out his fallacies, and describing motives isn’t giving him legitimacy. Obviously if you get into the mud and let the conversation get bogged down then yeah, a reader will tune out. However ignoring a troll and letting another user bite is pretty much letting the troll do whatever he’s intending. 

  15. 6 minutes ago, Pods said:

    Here's some really good advice on how to respond to Active Measures, domestic and foreign. Don't aim your response directly back at the troll/liar, instead respond to the troll/liar's intended audience and make sure they know the troll is lying. 

     

    Idk. Maybe this works on Twitter. I don’t use twitter. It seems she may be talking about large scale anti-propaganda efforts. Like something a company like Yeti might do to combat the NRA and right wing trolls. 

    I routinely engage on reddit folks that are apparent right wing trolls. Reddit allows a discourse with the troll and for viewers to see the conversation. I usually specifically identify the fallacy or falsehood and then provide evidence supporting whatever is appropriate. If it’s obvious, I’ll also point out their motives, e.g., push a wedge between two groups, identity politics. Hopefully this allows any random viewer to understand what the troll is doing.

  16. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/623145

    CONCLUSIONS: Among women, mental illness and living alone increase the risk of suicide in the home, and household use of illicit drugs and prior domestic violence increase the risk of homicide. Instead of conferring protection, keeping a gun in the home is associated with increased risk of both suicide and homicide of women. Household use of illicit drugs, domestic violence, and readily available firearms place women at particularly high risk of homicide at the hands of a spouse, an intimate acquaintance, or a close relative. Many factors place women at increased risk of violent death in the home. Community- and clinic-based interventions should target those with identifiable risk factors.

  17.  

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2018/05/31/the-surprising-way-gun-violence-is-dividing-america/

    On average, there are 276 gun homicides a week in America. There are 439 gun suicides. All told, there are, on average, nearly 1,200 incidents involving gun violence, every week, in America.

    This landscape of gun violence — suicides, homicides, mass shootings, accidents — is not evenly distributed. Instead, it plays out over geographic and political dividing lines — and these may help explain why individual Americans see the issue so differently.

    To better understand how the geography of gun violence may affect how Americans think about the issue, The Washington Post analyzed data on gun deaths from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for every county from 2007 and 2016 and the nonpartisan Gun Violence Archive from 2016 to present. (Our full methodology is explained at the bottom of this post.)

    A distinct pattern emerged: In Democratic regions of the country, which tend to be cities, people are more likely to be murdered with a gun than they are to shoot themselves to death. In regions of the country won by Republican, which tend to be rural areas and small towns, the opposite is true — people are more likely to shoot themselves to death than they are to be murdered with a gun.

  18. 24 minutes ago, HoustonHorn said:

    Yep and posted it above and then re-posted it again and also posted in the BB thread.. But you dumbfucks are too interested in a slapfight. So by all means continue.

    The problem is both sides just look for something to be offended by and respond to. About 90% of its bullshit talking past each other and trolling with the remaining 10% being lies, damn lies, and statistics. Holy shit this country absolutely deserves Donald Trump and everything else we get.

    BotH sIdeS aRe tHe SaMe is a meme for a reason. The issue IMO is that one side (or a few consistent commenters) bog the discussions down. 

    An analogy showing how society deals with complex, multi-faceted problems is presented. That analogy is met with tedious nitpicking.

    Information from a pro-gun website is countered, suddenly someone is raped by ad hominem.

    Getting someone to clearly state their position on correlation between firearms and violence turns into a baby screaming strawman.

    The topic of funding for school infrastructure turns into r/cringeanarchy.

    There have been some interesting discussions and ideas presented that I gleaned some insight in. But maybe as you would agree, those seem to be few and far between. 

    statistics are important btw if they are presented honestly.

    I don’t actually think this is a place to solve the problem. But rather to discuss, share information in hopes of understanding better the problems and various strategies. For example, I had a discussion over the last couple days in this thread that mostly had me defending a particular study. I had to go back and focus on that paper and consider various things I hadn’t considered before. 

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