This makes the situation even more dangerous. Their actions don’t feel like manipulation to them. They feel like common sense. They genuinely believe the narratives they spread, making them even more erratic and harder to counter.
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I know these people. They don't genuinely believe what they say. When they're confronted with undeniable reality they choose to ignore it; then you can tell they know what they said wasn't true because they stop saying it, but learn nothing & move on to something else they also know isn't true
If democracy relies on an informed public, then information disorder isn’t just a crisis - it’s an accelerant. We aren’t watching a controlled authoritarian takeover. We’re watching chaos unfold, driven by leaders who believe their own disinformation.
Jean Kirkpatrick, 1980s UN ambassador, spoke of "epistemological stability" as a prerequisite for democracy: "a concept of reality which is not, in fact, a function of power and does not shift from day to day to fit the political needs of a totalitarian group." https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-myth-of-moral-equivalence/
Do they though? I feel like they know exactly what they are doing and the harm it will cause and are doing it anyway — worse some of it feels like it is done for the lols.
I Generally ascribe to stupidity over malice but this feels too purposeful.
They're acting with purpose, but through the lens of the information ecosystem that surrounds them. In a sense, they look outward from their bubble, the surface of which acts as the lens through which they see the entire world.
Democracy relies on laws being enforced. I don’t deny the damage that dis-and misinformation is causing but I’m not walking blindly into the night. It’s like assuming that inference and logical thinking ceased to exist. I don’t need the bible to tell me that hitting another human hurts.
Lippmann's Public Opinion may be over a century old, but its insights have never been more relevant. The difference is that now, information disorder isn’t just shaping public opinion - it’s shaping the people in power, and none of us are immune to it.
I think the other part of this new neoliberal narrative is that when they have gutted federal government, it will quickly become apparent that the state still has a job to do State agencies will be replaced by private companies extracting huge profits from their work. It will be costly for taxpayers
OK, but there’s one difference. The “lazy gov’t worker” meme is robust because the R’s never cut anything but taxes. Gov’t services always remain intact. If you don’t preserve the latter, I don’t care what information silo you’re immersed in.
If you don’t get your social security application processed, if your insurance premiums skyrocket because Medicaid is no longer sharing the cost of keeping your hospital running, if your cattle are starving because nobody planted grass on the federal land you graze, it just goes on and on.
I noticed the original publishing date. I don’t read ebooks. I prefer the old fashioned paper versions for a variety of reasons. Thank you for the info though.
You might also check out "Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality" by Renee DiResta. I just read a sample of it on Google Books, and it was very interesting and informative and also well written. I plan to get a copy of this book. It was published in 2024, so very up-to-date.
Do they believe Haitian immigrants are eating their cats and dogs? Does Trump legitimately believe he won the election. When he sees a bad poll and says he is polling better than any President ever has, does he believe that?
Why did Trump run for President? Why did Elon buy twitter?
I think you give Musk and Trump too little credit. They are not doing what they think is right, they are doing what makes them powerful (whether or not it's right).
Yes. It’s what despotism always does. A despot always looks around at who or what else has power, and then destroys them. If you want all the power, your method will be to remove everything that would mute the effects of your action. You don’t care about the purpose of those people or institutions.
But there's no underpinning of intellectual theory of their power grab. They aren't remaking a Glorious Reich - they're blasting employees with the Emergency Broadcast System for the lulz. They don't know what the people they're firing even do. They're kids shitting in a sandbox.
Also, there are people in the government now who do have some batshit ideologies not unlike the Nazis or directly Nazi-influenced—like Bannon, Vance, Vought, etc. And they also plan to become billionaires so they aren’t going to back down just for political power. They want the whole hog.
That’s all true but like the Nazis, they have turned people in the government. So there are people in the government now who DO know what’s going on, who DO understand how power works.
The Nazis were insane dipshits but they had an intellectual framework. Elon Musk's ethos is power, yes, but he doesn't know what power even is, or how to get it, except "throw money at interns and bark at them until i get something that looks like Power". He's 4chan with an infinite bank account.
It would be comforting to believe that; say what you like about evil masterminds, but at least they have a plan. Imagine if this were all just ignorance and greed? Now, that would be truly terrifying…
What makes them powerful politically is reading the room and delivering attacks on the "common foe." But both the room and the foes are products of their informational bubble.
I think it's a mix. Yes, they want money and power, but they also think that's "right"...or, at least "ok". Trump believes if no one stops you, it's ok..if you can get away with it, why wouldn't you? Musk believes he's the smartest man in the room and he knows what's best. He's doing us a service.
But even that has nuance and they share in that right wing "bullshit meritocracy" premise that they have earned the right to be on top and exerting power is their right and duty.
An issue with Public Opinion is his prescriptions at the end, an information ecosystem managed and regulated by a cadre of expert bureaucrats, is vulnerable to populist backlash and insider threats. Lippmann wanted a system of Lippmanns to rein in the mob. It’s inherently anti-democratic.
Engage (civilly). Have hard conversations. Especially with those sharing or commenting with disinformation. Challenge falsehoods. We got here because too many people were quiet while the loud, extreme and misinformed ones filled the void.
And the more bubbles get popped, the more resistance we'll see in Republican circles. The circle that actually has the power to exercise government-level resistance at this point.
Not to mention the implied addition of Republican voices to street-level resistance already taking place.
And since the situation is so grave, how did the Dems not have the foresight to see this. Biden's refusal to exit early. No primary. Just conceding race to Kamala, in spite of the fact she was never popular and only got 1% in the 2020 Dem primary. They put an unpopular person up, without primary.
I'd say the self affirming algorithm is not really the problem, it's the thumb on the scale of the algorithm, suppressing alternate views, boosting preferred views and thus creating a critical amount of groupthink that the Ash conformity experiments showed work pretty well in flipping viepws.
I would make an attempt to argue that similar circumstances existed in pre enlightenment England.
Due to lacking literacy, local maignant rumourmills could often lead to local conflicts and riots.
One of the reasons for pushing to develop literacy in England was to give people tools to check...
... rumours for themselves, or at least keep abreast of what was happening in the country, from official sources, and thus be less likely to fall prey to mass untruths and their consequences.
How we can do something similar today - develop media literacy - is a tricky question. Especially as ...
This was an excellent piece. I just reread to find a section that has continued to kick-around in my brain. “In their view, they are not victims of manipulation, but rather the enlightened few who have transcended mainstream…”
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https://bsky.app/profile/satyamuni.bsky.social/post/3li3cswn4ck2f
I Generally ascribe to stupidity over malice but this feels too purposeful.
this excellent thread by Higgins inspired by Lippmann's Public Opinion.
Why did Trump run for President? Why did Elon buy twitter?
Every friend who gets fired, kid who loses insurance, cancelled treatment trial, parent that can't access services, etc. is a contradicting instance.
Not to mention the implied addition of Republican voices to street-level resistance already taking place.
But that's long term, and assumes a sane leadership is in place.
Due to lacking literacy, local maignant rumourmills could often lead to local conflicts and riots.
One of the reasons for pushing to develop literacy in England was to give people tools to check...
How we can do something similar today - develop media literacy - is a tricky question. Especially as ...
https://bsky.app/profile/pettertornberg.bsky.social/post/3lfpdx72sls2n