He made a point and added some speculation. You made a cheap, ad hominem attack. You are breaking the rules here and you are the one that’s out of line.
I am not an anti vaxxer or anything, I am just stating what I have seen on youtube on these videos. For example this was after 10 sec of searching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0z3sLYvxX4
Thanks for the insult, though. Intolerant closed-minded assholes still exist on HN. Good reminder.
The fact that the number of crazy people who are voicing their opinions is surging is exactly why Google needed to dump the dislike button. The toxicity is clearly causing what will soon be irreparable harm, and political bandwagoning is the main cause.
I really don't think pointing out that the number of crazies is on the rise helps your point.
America has stopped working for 50% of the population, and they know it. The "toxicity" results from media and government telling these people to shut the fuck up and get back to work and stop trying to look behind the curtain.
Well the American people aren't falling for the myriad bullshit any longer.
The toxicity will go away when ultra-progressive politics aren't shoved down people's throats, when people can actually get a job working 40 hours a week that'll allow them to own a home and raise a family with the partner, and when members of the government stop lying not only to us, but even to Congress.
That's how you "fix" these problems... or it's at least a good start.
I think you are largely right, America is no longer a place where a white family can own a house and raise a family on a single blue collar income. We've returned to productivity levels on par with the rest of the world. Does that mean the government has stopped working? No, it means the the rest of the world caught up. The sooner rust belt types accept that they're no longer on top of the world the sooner we can start trying to solve problems that are actually solvable.
This is also a lazy take, in that it just assumes the marginalization constitutes a justification for lining up behind disinformation.
The problems you reference are real, and are indeed driving discontent. But echo chambers of red herrings and big lies do nothing to actually address the source of those problems - it's just another system of control, driven by a different wing of the same political class. And so if we care about discussing the real issues, rather than just cheering on societal destruction out of spite, we're right back to viewing disinformation promoters as a problem.
Tell me, have you been following the drastic divergence between the media reporting on the rittenhouse trial and the actual courtroom testimony that has been livestreamed from day one?
I bring this up in particular because it is an especially egregious display what is otherwise typical partisanship - and effectively these outlets have spread misinformation, with sophistry and by lying through omission, such that relying on their collusive reporting on the matter would completely obfuscate the fact that even ignoring the original videos of the incident (conveniently scrubbed from the polite corners of the internet), the prosecution had absolutely no case - not to mention their star witness was shown to have lied repeatedly in his testimony to police, withheld evidence, etc.
Point being that the word "disinformation" at this point is a manufactured buzzword designed to dishonestly suppress dissent - and if your views on any politically charged topic, including the "safe and effective" vaccines, align at all with the consent that these blatantly partisan outlets have been manufacturing, I would urge you to at least consider that you are the one who has been lining up so virtuously behind disinformation. At the very least you are participating in just as severe of an echo chamber as that which you perceive your opposition to be taking part in.
No, I haven't. The Rittenhouse trial is solidly in the political entertainment category, which I try to avoid. I would be surprised if there weren't massive distortions going on, since the core of the disinformation machinery is the political machine manufacturing wedges to drive engagement.
> being that the word "disinformation" at this point is a manufactured buzzword designed to dishonestly suppress dissent
Except that the term really does capture the dynamic. Based on your description of the Rittenhouse trial, would you not describe that reporting as disinformation? From what you've said, it sounds like people will be better informed if they don't tune into such reporting. Hence "disinformation".
I'm a libertarian who generally views both political machines as hostile entities. But what really destroyed my symmetrical view (suspension of disbelief of bad faith) is seeing the anti-mask disinformation bubble play out. Here is a topic that is directly applicable to everyone, easily understandable, and quite objective [0]. Yet the establishment party raised a political banner that directly contradicts common sense while harming its followers. And yet supporting that political movement is seemingly more important than self preservation (memes are a hell of a drug). That's objectively straight up "disinformation" - anybody spreading anti-mask nonsense is actively undermining our society in a very clear way.
Now of course this "disinformation" label can't help but be used with a bias, to further drive disinformation bubbles in either team's forums. On the original topic I do think hiding downvotes is a poor change (I'd love richer semantic criticism that doesn't just collapse a person's opinion into for/against). But my comment was addressing the self-righteous responses pigeonholing the entire dynamic as a political play by one team, ignoring the real objective reality being overridden.
[0] The only argument of substance I've seen against masks is that ersatz cloth masks don't do anything. Which would be a worthy critique to support wearing proper equipment instead. But instead it's being used to indict the entire concept of respiratory protection.
CNN, MSNBC, FOX, and friends produce tons of misinformation.
Part of this hiding of dislikes boils down to attempts to establish these and other sources as authoritative, and qualified to judge what is misinformation and what is not.
A lot of perfectly valid, informative dissent is being lumped in as disinformation, and it's not easy to differentiate. Said dissent often focuses on basic issues impacting many ordinary Americans, or more generally labor.
The authoritative sources, as defined by other authorities, all of whom are economically elite, simply do not produce information from the labor point of view. That same point of view has almost no meaningful representation in Congress due to how money in politics works right now too.
I do agree with you on calling out a different wing being unproductive.
I agree that the youtube like/dislike ratio is obviously not the best metric to gauge sentiment towards the government. I think it's better to look at opinion polls, which DO back up my point - for instance see https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/09/inflation-concerns-democrats... or many other similar articles.
I understand where you are coming from, I just wish there was a way to solve these issues other than censorship and removing functionality. Perhaps some sort of reputation score, that would weigh any vote according to your credentials and reputation to roll into some combined metascore... but that might be too close to social credit. Tough problems without obvious solutions.
Personally I wonder if it is even possible to meet all the demands being placed on governments. The country is composed of such different groups pulling in opposite directions... something could snap at some point.
The US's own intelligence apparatus is pessimistic about the ability of the government to adapt to these changes in the next 20 years. Check out the IC's Global Trends 2040 report[1] to see what I'm talking about: a particularly salient quote is as follows:
"At the state level, the relationships between societies and their governments in every region are likely to face persistent strains and tensions because of a growing mismatch between what publics need and expect and what governments can and will deliver. Populations in every region are increasingly equipped with the tools, capacity, and incentive to agitate for their preferred social and political goals and to place more demands on their governments to find solutions. At the same time that populations are increasingly empowered and demanding more, governments are coming under greater pressure from new challenges and more limited resources. This widening gap portends more political volatility, erosion of democracy, and expanding roles for alternative providers of governance. Over time, these dynamics might open the door to more
significant shifts in how people govern."
I think the key phrase here is "expanding roles for alternative providers of governance". It seems like these people expect parts of the government to wither away and for the free market to step in with solutions.
Free markets aren't really about solutions as much as they are as complete economic freedom as possible. Markets are regulated and business operates under license, and the intent is more "fair" markets than free ones.
Free markets are distinctive in that the economic freedom of all participants is maximized, regulation is minimized.
These markets, by definition are not fair due to inevitable outcomes where a few winners essentially rule and can exploit their favorable position in ways that prevent competition.
The single most valuable idea in markets is the idea of competition. Where it is robust and meaningful, a solid case can be made for buyers getting very high value for the dollar.
Having that condition be true means reducing economic freedom to a degree so competition cannot be avoided.
The idea of a free market runs in conflict with it being fair, and even more importantly, a market that serves us, not us being enslaved and exploited by it.
Insuring robust competition requires regulation and increasing regulation as well as reducing economic freedom mean fair markets are simply not free ones.
In addition to that, the idea of governing being markets is not universally applicable.
Government, and the Civic needs of the population are not the same as business, and running everything the same as business, actually does more harm than good in the areas of our society that are not appropriate for markets.
Let's see. 20 years ago you wouldn't have said this. Now you do. Did "a large percentage of our country" go "crazy" as you said two comments up, or "stupid" as you say now, in 20 years? When did this incredible phenomenon start? In 1992, with Bill Clinton's election? In 1994 with that year's Republican wave election? In 2000 with Bush's election? In 2006 with the Democrat wave election? In 2008 with Obama's election? In 2010 with that year's Republican wave election? In 2016 with Trump's election? ...
Please tell us.
Or does it go back to 1980, 1976, 1968, ...? When did the country go nuts?
Or is it just that you dislike one very large set of the polity's opinions so much that you are willing to go to great lengths to have them quashed?
They were always stupid, they just didn't have people manipulating them to the same extent before. People being mislead by disinformation goes back at least to the spanish american war, and really much further. But now even more people have the megaphone, so even more people are buying into the disinformation. This comes back to the point of the thread, Youtube knows it is largely culpable for the division within this country, and dislike trolling is one reason why.
One is the Washington Economic Consensus. Very significant majorities of both parties have no interest in representing ordinary Americans, labor, populist interests. And to be clear, this means basics: wages, health care, housing, and the like.
Flat out, more Americans struggle every year. More.
The real conflict is class based, and class is simply not discussed well in American politics today. Hasn't been for quite a while.
Calling large numbers of us stupid, and then claiming they are too stupid to be trusted with the national policy debate is completely unproductive.
The second thing going on here is the actions of Reagan and Clinton. Reagan got rid of the fairness doctrine and Clinton deregulated media, both of things things allowing for the massive news networks we have today, as well as the idea of newstainment and one sided national coverage.
There's our struggle over what many believe to be a divided nation, when the reality is that division is quite shallow and would pack one heck of a lot less of a punch had we not allowed big corporate media to gobble news up and produce almost nothing from the labor / populist point of view and what they do publish is partisan, biased strongly for conflict and ratings.
Not being able to see the doctor is not a partisan issue.
Being unable to feed the kids is not a partisan issue.
Tepid wages for decades on end is not a partisan issue.
I could go on.
Until those same media giants got involved and decided they needed to be in first position on the likes of YouTube, far more reasonable voices, all doing much better journalism and less inflammatory commentary were wiping the floor with CNNFOXMSNBC and friends.
It's no contest!
The need for CNN to dominate You Tube, you know because god forbid people actually get some real news and not establishment drivel for profit, is driving a lot of this garbage.
CNN and friends get a ton of dislikes because their product is garbage and tons of people, and in particular younger people, know it! They know CNNFOXMSNBC are not speaking to them, about them, for them at all, and why bother liking that?
Who wants to like the people trying to make the Internet into yet another broadcast type thing?
Not me, and I've pushed that button many, many times hearing raw garbage, misinformation, and more.
That's who this is all about. Establishment, for profit media.
The same media who gets it wrong all the time. The same media who has proven in court it has the right to force it's journalists to lie. The same media brought to you by the same wealthy donors buying ads as we see buying government one election donation at a time.
The idea people are too stupid is an insult and I'm flat out embarrassed to read it.
Completely disagree. If this were true democrats would have complete control.
> Not being able to see the doctor is not a partisan issue.
> Being unable to feed the kids is not a partisan issue.
> Tepid wages for decades on end is not a partisan issue.
These actually all are partisan issues, democrats have plans to solve them, republicans don't. Democrats literally are weeks away from passing universal childcare and tax credits for kids.
The real conflict is the culture war. White Americans wish to remain superior to minorities and those in other countries, and are willing to sacrifice a lot to make that happen.
Dems were given complete control this last election.
The GOP has only the say Dems chose to grant them, and Dems chose to do that rather than take action on long overdue policy backed by majority American support.
That speaks volumes to Dems actually being about class, and even more about how Dems often run on class policy then govern well away from making any of it law and blame jaded voters, who have seen all this before, for those voters lack of trust, disapproval, and tepid vote turnout!
Those voters ask a simple question, "vote for what?" to which Dems have wagged fingers while giving non answers and lame excuses.
And let us be clear: the obstruction in play exists because Dems made bipartisan legislation a higher priority than those voters who gave them full control only to see it handed off like a hot potato.
"Willing to sacrifice"
Sorry, haven't seen it. At all.
Finally, the issues are not partisan at all. People of all political alignments are struggling. This is why populist solutions to these issues are enjoy majority support. Far too many people are impacted for it to be otherwise.
Neither party appears willing to act, and that is why we keep having change elections that result in basically no change.
I disagree. Youtube is about to face huge regulatory pressure along with Facebook. They need to get ahead of it if they want to come out unscathed. Sure, you can say that no one "has to" do anything, but this was absolutely something that will help them avoid regulation, which seems close enough to "has to" for me.
That's hand wavy, and definitely not a solid case for "had to."
And what regulatory pressure? The US Government has no business dealing with trolls. First Amendment.
This and other moves to get around limitations on regulating speech by using private agents is not going to do any real good, and will do considerable harm.
Valid, many would argue necessary, dissent is being suppressed in the same fashion, and all that happens to coincide with very high levels of government disapproval.
Anyone trying to make the case massive dislikes aimed at major news networks, POTUS and others has to also explain how doing that is not actually suppressing meaningful and justifiable disapproval. Hard case to make.
BTW: The demographics on morning TV are terrible under 60 years old.
Asking them to take the vaccine on a venue with a seriously dubious record is not going to be effective. A ton of dislikes happen because of how traditional media giants have used money, political influence and assistance from big tech to shove old school broadcast online as if somehow everyone ignoring them are the problem.
I tuned out years ago. I remember the day I saw, "the regime is the weapon of mass destruction" on the then spiffy FOX news scroller at the bottom of the screen.
Lies. War of choice for oil rooted in lies.
Things did not improve.
I began reading foreign press. Began reading indie journalism, and I began talking to others.
Every year since, the talking to others has improved. Understanding other people is very high value. Most of the division the same liars shove in the faces of anyone willing to watch is largely manufactured.
The reality is people have a lot in common. Their struggles are the same. We all run the same general way, and we all have the same basic needs.
One of the more serious reasons to very strongly dislike old media being propped up online is how they drive people to judge others, cultivate fear, blame and shame.
"Those other people"
"Teaching those other people a lesson"
"Both sides"
Controversy is often created too. Both sides is often used to justify putting someone, say a scientist, or doctor, up with a loon, or fear monger, idiot.
Then have a talking head get them yelling at one another...
Nobody needs them to do that and nobody is helped by them doing that.
Tons of people, wait for it...
Dislike them doing that.
Oh, and here is another one!
Objectivity. Neutral. Fair. Balance.
These, in addition to justifying manufactured controversy and "othering" to the point of otherwise reasonable people being unable to talk to one another, are all employed to help lie about bias.
The old media giants have a very clear economic bias and they lie about it, are not objective, and in general do not take feedback, or respond to fact checking by improving.
What they do is attack, use their position and economic weight to push critics off the stage... to own the conversation.
The bias in economic terms is generally neo liberal, neo conservative and aligned with the Washington Economic Consensus. They do not produce anything from the labor point of view. They do not amplify those voices.
Those points of view and voices are aligned with the interests of a majority of people.
Tons of reasons for dislikes and those giants could improve. They have not and are instead trying to push competition aside to garner and maintain the illusion of popularity and authority they trade on to produce "news" and commentary which is low value and not compelling or even helpful to a majority of people today.
Conflating trolls and crazies, zealots, and others with perfectly legitimate dissent, actual journalists doing actual journalism is all about manufacturing consent.
Reputable people publishing hard truths are being suppressed and that is no accident.
I could go on for pages here.
Given these things going on for decades, is there any wonder so many people dislike?
Nope.
And the worst?
That Surgeon General has made statements that undermine their own credence, on media that torched the public trust for years, and the people who called that out and who have used actual data from informed people doing real science and medicine get punished for "attacking" authorities, who are abusing their authority and squandering the public trust this whole mess we are told is necessary to improve on said public trust!
Did you see Jon Stewart do his new show?
He has access, is well liked, trusted, and has put these same people into a polite interview where he deftly gets them to say the quiet parts out loud.
Same thing the guy did years ago to Tucker Carlson.
I do not believe it will work now any better than it did then. Maybe the act gets polished up a bit, some particularly ugly stuff gets walked back and a few better conversations happen.
What it will do is get a new generation of people to question and amplify those who have been for some time now.
Good.
What we need here is not new and more spiffy ways to continue propagandizing people. Enough harm has been done.
What we need is non AD driven news and commentary that can speak to people, inform them, empower them and bring class awareness to action.
Big tech once presented that to the body politic. It was great. Necessary and very well liked because people saw and felt the value, understanding one another better and how corruption has gone unchecked for too long, doing too much harm.
Now that is over.
People looking for the next big thing need only follow this trail to find where the hearts and minds of good people will gather and talk about how to improve this mess for their families, themselves and that much better possible future out there.
