Demagogues existed before the internet. So, too, did a partisan press. We’ve just lost the ability to compartmentalize and separate politics from everything else. Or we’ve lost the illusion that there is an everything else that is separate from politics.
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Overheard from a rich Charleston woman, 50s, white: “everyone knows what they should do, they should vote for Joe Biden.”
Legit stunned.
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If there’s no internet there would still be places like Fox News/oann/Sinclair news spreading fact free propaganda and other sources of news could be very limited for a lot of people
All true but I don’t think Trump would have been possible without facebook/the internet.
That said this is only a big issue with olds/boomers. Younger people are much better at handling the internet and being able to fact check multiple sources etc. Once they die off the internet won’t be such a problem.
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Was considering a mega post on this. But I’ll keep it short.
The rise of the internet should be viewed in the context of 2 previous media revolutions. The printing press and radio plus mass literacy, newspapers and the mass society.
The first gave us the wars of religion. The second gave us hitler.
Common trend is the rise of new actors who will exploit the new medium to its most extreme to challenge the status quo. The system rewards the most extreme, most shocking, with no constraint by reality or facts.
However this doesn’t change who really holds power in society, and establishment forces eventually retake control of the new medium, coopt or disarm it.
It’s in this context we can see the advertiser boycott of facebook. The rise of a fascist far right is not (currently) in the interest of the establishment.
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The internet is a powerful influence on society but they probably said similar negative things about the printing press. They had a point if you just look at the crap that’s been published. I still like books though.
My pony was printing expressed.
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Lol. Great timing. The printing press caused the greatest destruction in history barring ww1/2
Some of the young’s on Facebook are pretty bad, one of my cousins said black lives matter is a Democrat run operation lol. But I think this is because Facebook seems to be actively pushing right wing disinformation, the top 10 ads run on Facebook every day are almost always exclusively right wing sources
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You saw with the Parkland kids, the next generation gets online so much better than their parents. I probably spent 100+ hours arguing in good faith with fucking Ikestoys.
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Carl Reiner rocking threesomes (is that Mel Brooks?) In his 90s. Sick life.
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Haha it is Mel Brooks
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Haha that’s also his daughter
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Dan savage says this a lot, or at least he hopes that’s the case that eventually so many people are out there on the internet nude that it’s no big deal
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Neat, those old dudes definitely Pornhub.
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Mel Brooks a couple of years ago playing himself on The Comedians: “Time had not been good to Carl Reiner. In fact, it looks like Time took Carl Reiner into an alley and kicked the shit out of him.”
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I honestly think a big reason Trump is going to lose is people are just tired of him being the #1 story all the time.
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Would you consider a mega post on this anyway? I value such thoughtful analysis.
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I might. I’ve just finished my exams for the term and have a bunch of ideas buzzing around to write about.
This may of course be hypomania kicking in prior to my post exam stress crash. So let’s watch this space.
For sure. You take a break if you need one. We need you healthy as can be in these troubled times. I hope you did well on your exams.
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