3 ms·

Russian opposition is tamest of the tame, yet, it is routinely deplatformed and prosecuted, guess for what, calls for extremism and violence! And a large portio

Russian opposition is tamest of the tame, yet, it is routinely deplatformed and prosecuted, guess for what, calls for extremism and violence! And a large portion of population believes that to be true, because government controls most sources of information. I think US might look exactly same in a few years. The mighty benevolent Party will care for thankful citizens, with the exception of a few outcasts who can't even create a simple website and are laughed at all over the media and social networks. And of course the Party will win all the subsequent elections for the next 70 years.

adventured 6y ago
And it's no coincidence that Russian dissident Alexei Navalny spoke out against big tech conspiring together to censor Trump. He sees exactly what they're doing and knows where it leads. All big tech has to do now is tighten the screws further, and they can use their new standard to wipe out any challenger from the right half of the political spectrum before they ever gain traction (whether in media, with payment processing, social media, news, tech platforms & hosting; it's all controlled by the same political group now). This approach by big tech would have prevented Trump from ever having a shot at getting elected in the first place, they would have turned down the volume so nobody could hear what he had to say. Which tells you all you need to know about what's coming next. The US is a unified structural dictatorship of the left now. Tech. Academia. Hollywood & media. Social media. News. Payment processing. Thought police. Speech censorship. Tyranny will obviously follow. I'm non-partisan, I've never voted for a Republican, but it's obvious the left has acquired a dangerous amount of system power over the country. Here's a prediction for you: in the next few years big tech will use this same conspired approach to begin behavior 'encouragement' for the wider population. Fat shame someone? No more Gmail account for you. Say something hateful? No more PayPal account for you. Already you'd have 1/4+ of the left wing nodding their heads in agreement that this is exactly the kind of social engineering that should happen (a US form of what China does to its population). It's inevitably what big tech is going to do, because it's very hard to legislate behavior control to pursue the politically correct dream they have in mind (safe spaces for all, so long as it's their type of safe space, by their rules, and their ideas), but it can be achieved through aggressive coercive action using the platforms, and now with these moves they're officially on the political playing field. It'll arrive in the guise of wrapping society in bubble wrap meant to keep everyone safe, and it ends in societal death by suffocation, narrowing and revocation of practicable rights as ever increasing numbers of things become wrong-think (and come with punishment).
- pixl97 6y ago
  Fox news, one of the biggest news organisations in the US, is left? I'll go with Noam's take on this. There is no liberal media in the US.
- flamble 6y ago
  Yes, the "left" represented by the Democratic party /s. Every single thing you've listed is controlled by capital, not by the left. Tech, Hollywood/Media, Social Media, News, and payment processing. Academia is a very partial exception (google "Koch brothers university funding"). Do you think that any of the organizations that constitute these groups are run by social activists? These are overwhelmingly multinational corporations. They care about nothing but profit and the preservation of the status quo. They will appropriate rhetoric about identity politics insofar as it is a good marketing strategy, but they never make a move which is not motivated by their bottom line, which is why none of the tech giants acted against Trump until he threatened the orderly continuation of the system in which they're all invested. "Left" media is a tiny, powerless fraction of the media. MSNBC and CNN toe the line of the DNC, a right-wing clique that represents only the interests of finance capital, and which, because it has comprehensively rejected any project of improving people's lives in any material way, has been forced into a politics of performative culture war posturing. Any leftist challenge to the status quo can be quelled by capital's complete capture of the media apparatus and government. When you say "the left", it's very clear you mean social progressives, and nothing else. You're conflating co-opted woke capitalism with leftism, the same way countless liberals do. You are however, absolutely correct about the coming repression that will be directed against the populace. It will be mostly directed against the left, as has always been the case, but we will definitely begin to see greater brutality in general as the overall immiseration and precarity of the average person continue to ratchet upwards. In tandem with this, we'll see ever-increasing social policing of culture-war nonsense, as the social unrest continues to play out in a make-believe symbolic realm completely detached from material reality. People will of course continue to believe that it's "the authoritarian left" or "the bigoted right" that is ultimately to blame, depending of which flavour of news media they consume, missing the symbiotic relationship between two parties that both represent nothing but the short-term financial interests of capital.
licebmi__at__ 6y ago
One could also construct an argument about some groups like ISIS recruiting and calling for violence in social media, claiming to fight for freedom and against evil, and create a false slippery slope that America might be equivalent to the caliphate in the next 70 years. I could argue that with all the defects in the Russian political climate, I would prefer to live that kind of regime than something equivalent to an ISIS caliphate, but I consider both arguments fallacious and more akin to scare tactics.
- asdff 6y ago
  Reminder that this was the year where right wing militia groups felt confident enough to plot to kidnap lawmakers in Michigan. Anything is possible, and this country is changing.

adventured 6y ago

And it's no coincidence that Russian dissident Alexei Navalny spoke out against big tech conspiring together to censor Trump. He sees exactly what they're doing and knows where it leads. All big tech has to do now is tighten the screws further, and they can use their new standard to wipe out any challenger from the right half of the political spectrum before they ever gain traction (whether in media, with payment processing, social media, news, tech platforms & hosting; it's all controlled by the same political group now). This approach by big tech would have prevented Trump from ever having a shot at getting elected in the first place, they would have turned down the volume so nobody could hear what he had to say. Which tells you all you need to know about what's coming next. The US is a unified structural dictatorship of the left now. Tech. Academia. Hollywood & media. Social media. News. Payment processing. Thought police. Speech censorship. Tyranny will obviously follow. I'm non-partisan, I've never voted for a Republican, but it's obvious the left has acquired a dangerous amount of system power over the country. Here's a prediction for you: in the next few years big tech will use this same conspired approach to begin behavior 'encouragement' for the wider population. Fat shame someone? No more Gmail account for you. Say something hateful? No more PayPal account for you. Already you'd have 1/4+ of the left wing nodding their heads in agreement that this is exactly the kind of social engineering that should happen (a US form of what China does to its population). It's inevitably what big tech is going to do, because it's very hard to legislate behavior control to pursue the politically correct dream they have in mind (safe spaces for all, so long as it's their type of safe space, by their rules, and their ideas), but it can be achieved through aggressive coercive action using the platforms, and now with these moves they're officially on the political playing field. It'll arrive in the guise of wrapping society in bubble wrap meant to keep everyone safe, and it ends in societal death by suffocation, narrowing and revocation of practicable rights as ever increasing numbers of things become wrong-think (and come with punishment).

pixl97 6y ago
Fox news, one of the biggest news organisations in the US, is left? I'll go with Noam's take on this. There is no liberal media in the US.
flamble 6y ago
Yes, the "left" represented by the Democratic party /s. Every single thing you've listed is controlled by capital, not by the left. Tech, Hollywood/Media, Social Media, News, and payment processing. Academia is a very partial exception (google "Koch brothers university funding"). Do you think that any of the organizations that constitute these groups are run by social activists? These are overwhelmingly multinational corporations. They care about nothing but profit and the preservation of the status quo. They will appropriate rhetoric about identity politics insofar as it is a good marketing strategy, but they never make a move which is not motivated by their bottom line, which is why none of the tech giants acted against Trump until he threatened the orderly continuation of the system in which they're all invested. "Left" media is a tiny, powerless fraction of the media. MSNBC and CNN toe the line of the DNC, a right-wing clique that represents only the interests of finance capital, and which, because it has comprehensively rejected any project of improving people's lives in any material way, has been forced into a politics of performative culture war posturing. Any leftist challenge to the status quo can be quelled by capital's complete capture of the media apparatus and government. When you say "the left", it's very clear you mean social progressives, and nothing else. You're conflating co-opted woke capitalism with leftism, the same way countless liberals do. You are however, absolutely correct about the coming repression that will be directed against the populace. It will be mostly directed against the left, as has always been the case, but we will definitely begin to see greater brutality in general as the overall immiseration and precarity of the average person continue to ratchet upwards. In tandem with this, we'll see ever-increasing social policing of culture-war nonsense, as the social unrest continues to play out in a make-believe symbolic realm completely detached from material reality. People will of course continue to believe that it's "the authoritarian left" or "the bigoted right" that is ultimately to blame, depending of which flavour of news media they consume, missing the symbiotic relationship between two parties that both represent nothing but the short-term financial interests of capital.

licebmi__at__ 6y ago

One could also construct an argument about some groups like ISIS recruiting and calling for violence in social media, claiming to fight for freedom and against evil, and create a false slippery slope that America might be equivalent to the caliphate in the next 70 years. I could argue that with all the defects in the Russian political climate, I would prefer to live that kind of regime than something equivalent to an ISIS caliphate, but I consider both arguments fallacious and more akin to scare tactics.

asdff 6y ago
Reminder that this was the year where right wing militia groups felt confident enough to plot to kidnap lawmakers in Michigan. Anything is possible, and this country is changing.