2016-06-30 22:33 GMT+03:00 Stephen D. Williams <s...@lig.net>: > The world has a long memory; true propaganda, distorting or outright lying > about the actual facts, is going to be quite apparent later. It's fine for > Russia to be proud of themselves, but it seems like they have been > embarrassing themselves frequently. In the unlikely event that we elect > Trump, we might return the favor for a while. But everyone would see > through it and know it would stop in 4 years, so it would likely be more > humorous than anything. The US is too open and too self-examining in > public for much false propaganda to get very far for long. > > I'm not sure that American Sniper is propaganda, even unintentionally. > Seems mostly like highlighting the sad situations people have allowed to > happen. Perhaps in the Strongest Tribe sense it has some weight, but > snipers are a narrow, special breed. I would think that the magical hand > of God like drone war would have more weight. The effect depends on what > those people are thinking: Do they realize that they can never win in any > serious sense? Do they care or are they fine with just proving a point? > > The US almost completely holds back on propaganda / education in the > world, maybe for fear of or a general policy against being seen to be > promulgating propaganda. In most cases, where media and news and the > Internet flow openly, it isn't really needed. However, when hardly anyone > in Afghanistan knows anything at all about 9/11 or similar, that is a > failure of the world to provide even basic knowledge to everyone. Separate > from that, just understanding how a modern culture works, whether the US or > Europe or any other high-functioning society, would be an important thing > for some seriously problematic masses of people to know. I don't care who > causes effective education to bring these people up to date with > understanding modern cultures, but it needs to happen. In the absence of > some other paths, it would seem like an important strategy for both US > State and Defense, but I don't see it happening much. > > The US has no need to try to make people like it; that should not > generally be a goal. But the world, especially including the capable > Western world, both governments and populations, has a responsibility to > educate those with abject ignorance, poverty, and knowing nothing but > conflict that there are better ways of being, limitless opportunities, and > that they could effectively work to modernize and become effective > societies and cultures. We need something similar to 'genocide' to > identify pathological ignorance, recognize that it leads to the ruin of > many lives, and determine how to take action to stop it. There is no need > for each culture to be exactly like the West or a particular form of > government, but they should understand the options, understand how things > can work effectively and why, and be able to incorporate elements in a > local way to eventually make it work. We need to decide how hands off we > should be in allowing large areas to fumble about without making progress > and even regress. The prime directive should only apply to societies that > are functioning to a reasonable degree. > > An interesting question is whether and how poisoned thinking, i.e. bad > memes, are shared, instilled, and propagated to eventually create > terrorists and criminals: What should we do to prevent spreading poisonous > ideas? Should we be rooting out bad imams, literature, religious leaders? > Ideally, our values and culture is an effective answer to these sources, > but, just like in the biological world, eventually a successful defense > will occur. If you've read The Selfish Gene, you know that truth, > rightness, or goodness are not the goals of particular genes or memes > (ideas). The only thing that determines success is successful competition > and replication. Our Western ideas can successfully compete and replicate > against these bad meme sets, but only if they are present. We seem to be > in a situation where some of our allies are supporting the teaching of > memes that are directly opposed to modern knowledge, including social and > political knowledge. What should we do about that? > > All of this is crosscutting to security, encryption, communication, > publishing, and surveillance. Distrust is healthy, and sometimes prudent. > And, if we fail totally as a modern society, we may need it to maintain a > modern underground in our new dark ages. In addition to safe commerce and > social connection, and balancing government and keeping it healthy, we > should even better organize and extend the ways that we help enlighten the > ignorant while combating meme cancer. > > I imagine that soon we'll have universally available Internet (LEOs for > instance), ultra-inexpensive devices (smart phones are down to $50 or less > now), and organized, complete, and effective educational material that is > somehow available, safe, and effective for everyone. There should be some > kind of support systems of various kinds, to the extent possible. We are > failing for not working toward these kind of things effectively enough. >
In this loooong comment, i see so many lies and propaganda... so many delusions and contradictions (some of them Juan has commented), so many psychological techniques that mislead the direction of the discussed subject/s.... that it seems like *a big fucken ameriCunt SARCASM*, when someone claims, among other false things, that there is no propaganda in/from the us, providing a billion tons of cheap US propaganda by himself. >_<