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I suspect this is just a phase. I don't have any hard stats at the moment to back it up, so it's just a feeling. Internet culture is still very young. At least

by geuis 10y ago

I suspect this is just a phase. I don't have any hard stats at the moment to back it up, so it's just a feeling. Internet culture is still very young. At least in the US based on the election last week, the majority of people 18-25 voted progressive in most states. These are people who have never known the world without internet access. I guess that the people who voted the other way are folks who have transitioned into internet-required lifestyles later in life and had their young adult lifestyles set in the 80's and early 90s and earlier. This makes them less digital natives and more like immigrants (ironically). Again, none of these are universally true of course and this is all just personal opinion. I believe that in general, younger people have become better at filtering out bullshit because they've had access to much more information than older folks did growing up. I was born in 1980 and while I'm technically outside the millennial cutoff, I still identify with that group more than any other. While we didn't have a computer in the house until the early 90's, I was always exposed to computers and the internet from a super early age. Most of my viewing habits are gaming and making on YouTube, some streaming, etc. Still haven't really gotten the value from Snapchat personally, but I think that's more of a function of not having much need to use it. Overall I am hopeful things are getting better as boomers age out and die off and the younger folks are coming into their own.

wott 10y ago
> none of these are universally true of course Er... yes, I basically deeply disagree with all of your points :-)
Consultant32452 10y ago
Nah, those 18-25 year olds are ignorant idiots too. And when they get older they'll start voting conservative just like their parents generation. One anecdote about how ignorant they are... on three separate occasions I had a conversation with a Hillary supporter about her having destroyed subpoenaed evidence. Each of those three cited a factcheck.org article that stated in its third paragraph that she had in fact destroyed the evidence after the subpoena. They don't even read their own citations... I didn't vote for Trump, so it's not like I was supporting him, but damn Hillary voters were so ignorant of her history. They were so mad that Trump didn't want to welcome more Syrian refugees. How many of them knew Hillary literally created the Syrian refugee crisis in a failed attempt at a coup? Not a single one I talked to.
- EthanHeilman 10y ago
  >How many of them knew Hillary literally created the Syrian refugee crisis in a failed attempt at a coup? Not a single one I talked to. There is no evidence that Clinton backed or supported a coup in Syria. The US did support elements of a popular uprising in Syria during the Arab spring, and then provided and continues to provide military support to Anti-Assad factions after Assad viciously cracked down on the uprising. A coup d'etat is a very different beast. The refugee crisis is a result of Assad and Anti-Assad factions acting to change the demographics of Syria via ethnic cleansing. It is unclear, but seems unlikely to me, that the refugee crisis would be lower if the Anti-Assad factions had gotten less support from the US. The refugee crisis would have just happened over a shorter period of time. To avoid increased US involvement Assad regulated his behavior somewhat (see Chemical Weapons controversy). It seems likely to me that the US by providing limited support to Anti-Assad factions acted to limit/control military support given by gulf nations to the more extreme Anti-Assad elements. Such support would likely have made the more radical elements of the civil war much more powerful and likely increased the flow of refugees. US involvement in the Syrian Civil War did in certain circumstances limit the refugee crisis and has allowed refugees to return home. For example the US/YPG defense of Sinjar Mountain in N. Iraq allowed refugees to escape genocide, then with the recapture of Sinjar, allowed refugees to return home. Another example would be halting of the Islamic State's campaign in N. Syria, which if continued would have generated hundreds of thousands of refugees. Not only was the Islamic State's advance halted, but it has been rolled back significantly with large numbers of refugees returning home. This would not have been possible without US support to the factions (YPG/SDF) fighting the Islamic State. We can debate the exact nature of US responsibility for the refugee crisis, but (1). any direct responsibility for foreign policy at this level is with the President not the Secretary of State, (2). there was no coup d'etat attempted or otherwise in Syria.
  - Consultant32452 10y ago
    The CIA trained, armed, and radicalized the Syrians to fan the flames of the "popular uprising" in Syria. Then, Iran and Russia came to the aid of their ally and the coup failed. Those Syrians migrated to Iraq and formed ISIS which is now active in over 30 countries. Of course, now that the coup has failed the Pentagon is backing Assad because... well I honestly don't know why. http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-cia-pentagon-isis-20160327-story.html http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-cia-pentagon-i... >Srian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border, highlighting how little control U.S. intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed and trained in the bitter five-year-old civil war.
vacri 10y ago
> the majority of people 18-25 voted progressive in most states This is entirely normal - the young like things to change, the old do not. This voting pattern well predates the internet. > I believe that in general, younger people have become better at filtering out bullshit because they've had access to much more information I disagree. It's about the same as it always has been. Yellow journalism exists now, just as it existed in the 19th century, and people still fall for it now. If the internet stopped people from falling for bullshit, "post-truth" would not have been 'word of the year' for 2016.
- jamesrcole 10y ago
  > If the internet stopped people from falling for bullshit the person you're replying to didn't make such a strong claim.
  - vacri 10y ago
    'stopped' does not necessarily mean 'ceased' when discussing human behaviour. Laws against murder and theft stop murder and theft, but doesn't zero them.
    - jamesrcole 10y ago
      You're equivocating. You said "If the internet stopped people from falling for bullshit, "post-truth" would not have been 'word of the year' for 2016." which is making a general claim. Whereas now you're implying that you weren't making a general claim about "stopped".
      - vacri 10y ago
        Oh, for fuck's sake, stop being so goddamned literal. Do you also tell people off for calling children "kids", because "kid means young goat"? If you 'stop' corruption, it doesn't mean you 100% eliminate corruption. A journalist can 'stop people in the street' to talk to them, but that doesn't mean that they stand still rather that walk-and-talk. If a parent is able to 'stop' a kid sleeping badly, it doesn't mean their kid never again sleeps badly, just that the incidence is considerably reduced. Even a traffic 'stop' sign doesn't completely stop people all the time. 'Stop', when applied to human behaviour, is not the fucking same as corking a bloody wine bottle.
hackuser 10y ago
> I suspect this is just a phase. ... Internet culture is still very young Maybe, but if so it's not like a phase of the moon, which changes on its own. This phase will only pass if we do something to make that happen.
- yxhuvud 10y ago
  Thankfully, old people die. No active action required.
  - w8rbt 10y ago
    And young people become old, gain more life experience and knowledge and change their views.
  - hackuser 10y ago
    Too bad for all the people that suffer in the meantime. Said one smart person: ... this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists [and everyone else] set themselves too easy, too useless a task, if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us, that when the storm is long past, the ocean is flat again.
irrational 10y ago
I was with you up until "I believe that in general, younger people have become better at filtering out bullshit because they've had access to much more information than older folks did growing up." Um, have you actually talked to any younger people? I both teach young adults and have teenagers/kids in their 20s. They seriously believe anything they come across on the internet. They have no filter. It's incredible how little skepticism they have. And good luck trying to point out that something is BS, they don't have the attention span to hear it or they just don't care. Titillating trumps truth. At least that is my experience.
- vedranm 10y ago
  As a former teaching assistant at a university, I can confirm this is true.
brainwashedla 10y ago
Your comment reeks of elitism. You think that Trump got elected because of "dumb people". If only they had read wikipedia their jobs would come back and their quality of life would have gone up. I think you will find the opposite is true. You have completely out-of-touch elitists who think everything is great, and then you have people who voted for Trump who are extremely aware of the reality of the situation. The people who voted for Trump had to actually seek out the truth because they realised that would they were being fed by the mainstream media and social media didn't match their reality. The people who voted for Hillary just continued to be fed information. The end result is the Trump voters became extremely knowledgeable about all of the various issues, and Hillary voters look like products of brainwashing. For example, Hillary voters would see the cnn article about how citibank predicted the sharemarket would drop 3% if Trump was elected and just take it at face value. Trump supporters know that citibank has strong ties to the democrats to the point that they selected the Obama team and can see that CNN is merely a propaganda arm of the clinton foundation. Hillary was under investigation from the FBI at the time that article was written and their logic for suggesting the 3% decrease was supposedly that at some point Trump wasn't the favourite and so it would be an unexpected result. So being an unexpected result will cause a 3% drop, but not your president being under investigation by the FBI. That is just one example of literally hundreds of examples. Hillary voters never bothered to seek the truth.
- danenania 10y ago
  Trump has evaded taxes on a massive scale, colluded with a foreign government to impact the election, and sexually assaulted many women. The only reason he wasn't/isn't under investigation himself is that the FBI favors his police state mentality.

by geuis 10y ago

wott 10y ago

> none of these are universally true of course Er... yes, I basically deeply disagree with all of your points :-)

Consultant32452 10y ago

Nah, those 18-25 year olds are ignorant idiots too. And when they get older they'll start voting conservative just like their parents generation. One anecdote about how ignorant they are... on three separate occasions I had a conversation with a Hillary supporter about her having destroyed subpoenaed evidence. Each of those three cited a factcheck.org article that stated in its third paragraph that she had in fact destroyed the evidence after the subpoena. They don't even read their own citations... I didn't vote for Trump, so it's not like I was supporting him, but damn Hillary voters were so ignorant of her history. They were so mad that Trump didn't want to welcome more Syrian refugees. How many of them knew Hillary literally created the Syrian refugee crisis in a failed attempt at a coup? Not a single one I talked to.

EthanHeilman 10y ago
>How many of them knew Hillary literally created the Syrian refugee crisis in a failed attempt at a coup? Not a single one I talked to. There is no evidence that Clinton backed or supported a coup in Syria. The US did support elements of a popular uprising in Syria during the Arab spring, and then provided and continues to provide military support to Anti-Assad factions after Assad viciously cracked down on the uprising. A coup d'etat is a very different beast. The refugee crisis is a result of Assad and Anti-Assad factions acting to change the demographics of Syria via ethnic cleansing. It is unclear, but seems unlikely to me, that the refugee crisis would be lower if the Anti-Assad factions had gotten less support from the US. The refugee crisis would have just happened over a shorter period of time. To avoid increased US involvement Assad regulated his behavior somewhat (see Chemical Weapons controversy). It seems likely to me that the US by providing limited support to Anti-Assad factions acted to limit/control military support given by gulf nations to the more extreme Anti-Assad elements. Such support would likely have made the more radical elements of the civil war much more powerful and likely increased the flow of refugees. US involvement in the Syrian Civil War did in certain circumstances limit the refugee crisis and has allowed refugees to return home. For example the US/YPG defense of Sinjar Mountain in N. Iraq allowed refugees to escape genocide, then with the recapture of Sinjar, allowed refugees to return home. Another example would be halting of the Islamic State's campaign in N. Syria, which if continued would have generated hundreds of thousands of refugees. Not only was the Islamic State's advance halted, but it has been rolled back significantly with large numbers of refugees returning home. This would not have been possible without US support to the factions (YPG/SDF) fighting the Islamic State. We can debate the exact nature of US responsibility for the refugee crisis, but (1). any direct responsibility for foreign policy at this level is with the President not the Secretary of State, (2). there was no coup d'etat attempted or otherwise in Syria.
- Consultant32452 10y ago
  The CIA trained, armed, and radicalized the Syrians to fan the flames of the "popular uprising" in Syria. Then, Iran and Russia came to the aid of their ally and the coup failed. Those Syrians migrated to Iraq and formed ISIS which is now active in over 30 countries. Of course, now that the coup has failed the Pentagon is backing Assad because... well I honestly don't know why. http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-cia-pentagon-isis-20160327-story.html http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-cia-pentagon-i... >Srian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border, highlighting how little control U.S. intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed and trained in the bitter five-year-old civil war.

vacri 10y ago

> the majority of people 18-25 voted progressive in most states This is entirely normal - the young like things to change, the old do not. This voting pattern well predates the internet. > I believe that in general, younger people have become better at filtering out bullshit because they've had access to much more information I disagree. It's about the same as it always has been. Yellow journalism exists now, just as it existed in the 19th century, and people still fall for it now. If the internet stopped people from falling for bullshit, "post-truth" would not have been 'word of the year' for 2016.

jamesrcole 10y ago
> If the internet stopped people from falling for bullshit the person you're replying to didn't make such a strong claim.
- vacri 10y ago
  'stopped' does not necessarily mean 'ceased' when discussing human behaviour. Laws against murder and theft stop murder and theft, but doesn't zero them.
  - jamesrcole 10y ago
    You're equivocating. You said "If the internet stopped people from falling for bullshit, "post-truth" would not have been 'word of the year' for 2016." which is making a general claim. Whereas now you're implying that you weren't making a general claim about "stopped".
    - vacri 10y ago
      Oh, for fuck's sake, stop being so goddamned literal. Do you also tell people off for calling children "kids", because "kid means young goat"? If you 'stop' corruption, it doesn't mean you 100% eliminate corruption. A journalist can 'stop people in the street' to talk to them, but that doesn't mean that they stand still rather that walk-and-talk. If a parent is able to 'stop' a kid sleeping badly, it doesn't mean their kid never again sleeps badly, just that the incidence is considerably reduced. Even a traffic 'stop' sign doesn't completely stop people all the time. 'Stop', when applied to human behaviour, is not the fucking same as corking a bloody wine bottle.

hackuser 10y ago

> I suspect this is just a phase. ... Internet culture is still very young Maybe, but if so it's not like a phase of the moon, which changes on its own. This phase will only pass if we do something to make that happen.

yxhuvud 10y ago
Thankfully, old people die. No active action required.
- w8rbt 10y ago
  And young people become old, gain more life experience and knowledge and change their views.
- hackuser 10y ago
  Too bad for all the people that suffer in the meantime. Said one smart person: ... this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists [and everyone else] set themselves too easy, too useless a task, if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us, that when the storm is long past, the ocean is flat again.

irrational 10y ago

I was with you up until "I believe that in general, younger people have become better at filtering out bullshit because they've had access to much more information than older folks did growing up." Um, have you actually talked to any younger people? I both teach young adults and have teenagers/kids in their 20s. They seriously believe anything they come across on the internet. They have no filter. It's incredible how little skepticism they have. And good luck trying to point out that something is BS, they don't have the attention span to hear it or they just don't care. Titillating trumps truth. At least that is my experience.

vedranm 10y ago
As a former teaching assistant at a university, I can confirm this is true.

brainwashedla 10y ago

Your comment reeks of elitism. You think that Trump got elected because of "dumb people". If only they had read wikipedia their jobs would come back and their quality of life would have gone up. I think you will find the opposite is true. You have completely out-of-touch elitists who think everything is great, and then you have people who voted for Trump who are extremely aware of the reality of the situation. The people who voted for Trump had to actually seek out the truth because they realised that would they were being fed by the mainstream media and social media didn't match their reality. The people who voted for Hillary just continued to be fed information. The end result is the Trump voters became extremely knowledgeable about all of the various issues, and Hillary voters look like products of brainwashing. For example, Hillary voters would see the cnn article about how citibank predicted the sharemarket would drop 3% if Trump was elected and just take it at face value. Trump supporters know that citibank has strong ties to the democrats to the point that they selected the Obama team and can see that CNN is merely a propaganda arm of the clinton foundation. Hillary was under investigation from the FBI at the time that article was written and their logic for suggesting the 3% decrease was supposedly that at some point Trump wasn't the favourite and so it would be an unexpected result. So being an unexpected result will cause a 3% drop, but not your president being under investigation by the FBI. That is just one example of literally hundreds of examples. Hillary voters never bothered to seek the truth.

danenania 10y ago
Trump has evaded taxes on a massive scale, colluded with a foreign government to impact the election, and sexually assaulted many women. The only reason he wasn't/isn't under investigation himself is that the FBI favors his police state mentality.