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Are you suggesting that the government causes shark attacks? Do they control the sharks, or just have agents to push the swimmers into their jaws? Seriously th
by jabretti 9y ago
Are you suggesting that the government causes shark attacks? Do they control the sharks, or just have agents to push the swimmers into their jaws?
Seriously though, democratic governments are much less good at propaganda operations than despotic ones, not necessarily because the people involved are much more honest on an individual level, but just because democratically elected governments are never really in all that much agreement about what sort of propaganda ought to be spread. The genius of democracy is that if you keep the people in power constantly fighting with each other they don't have as much time left over to screw the rest of us.
So although "whatabout the US?" is inevitably the top comment on every thread about the evils of China, I think that just sometimes we ought to actually pay attention to China qua China.
- Cpoll 9y agoI think the point is that shark attacks are non-news, and the surge in interest is suspicious. You can probably replace 'shark attack' with any other 1-in-10-million occurrence/human interest story. Of course, the cynical interpretation is that there's nothing weird going on, and people just have a larger attention span for gruesome fluke accidents than for corruption.
- jabretti 9y agoShark attacks are no more non-news than at least 80% of the crap that fills media outlets, and it's not the least bit suspicious. Shark attacks are lurid and scary and human attention is notoriously poorly distributed. Yesterday, President Trump gave a speech about his trip to Asia, and 90% of the headlines were about the fact that he drank water during it.
- vim_wannabe 9y agoTwo sips?! Impeach that rice and cherry pie eating koi-killer!