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It seems to me that all a foreign power has to do has to generate enough twitter/fake news saying "OMG we are running out of toilet paper/gas", and watch Americ

It seems to me that all a foreign power has to do has to generate enough twitter/fake news saying "OMG we are running out of toilet paper/gas", and watch America crumble. It is like the covid virus is not the one doing the damage; it is the immune system's own response, the cytokine storm.

enchiridion 5y ago
Despite what Twitter might be saying, America is doing just fine. Seems like the image of America crumbling over toilet paper is the real propaganda.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Twitter has the ability to create sudden panics - we saw that a year ago with the toilet paper issue being referenced. I agree that a lot of what happens on Twitter never escapes the bubble of Twitter - but that toilet paper panic was swept up by mainstream news and echoed across the nation. Being able to incite a panic can be extremely tactically valuable if you can, for instance, leverage that panic to move a whole bunch of product at a mark up or weaken a critical system at a critical time.
- tolbish 5y ago
  My first reaction was to agree with you. Then I considered the possibility that the reassuring notion of "America is doing just fine" may actually be the propaganda. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/screen-shot-2020-01-08-at-5-06-47-pm/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-... At least I thought it was worth considering.
adventured 5y ago
Pretty amusing premise given the US economy has already recovered from the intense pandemic hit in terms of its output, and it's still just getting warmed up. US GDP per capita will cross $70,000 shortly and its overall GDP figure will hit a new high this year. Here are the countries that have higher per capita figures at present: Switzerland, Norway, Ireland. The US is soaring far beyond anything Europe or the EU broadly have managed in terms of economic recovery and the same goes for basically all major economies not named China (which largely sailed through the pandemic economically).

enchiridion 5y ago

Despite what Twitter might be saying, America is doing just fine. Seems like the image of America crumbling over toilet paper is the real propaganda.

munk-a 5y ago
Twitter has the ability to create sudden panics - we saw that a year ago with the toilet paper issue being referenced. I agree that a lot of what happens on Twitter never escapes the bubble of Twitter - but that toilet paper panic was swept up by mainstream news and echoed across the nation. Being able to incite a panic can be extremely tactically valuable if you can, for instance, leverage that panic to move a whole bunch of product at a mark up or weaken a critical system at a critical time.
tolbish 5y ago
My first reaction was to agree with you. Then I considered the possibility that the reassuring notion of "America is doing just fine" may actually be the propaganda. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/screen-shot-2020-01-08-at-5-06-47-pm/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-... At least I thought it was worth considering.

adventured 5y ago

Pretty amusing premise given the US economy has already recovered from the intense pandemic hit in terms of its output, and it's still just getting warmed up. US GDP per capita will cross $70,000 shortly and its overall GDP figure will hit a new high this year. Here are the countries that have higher per capita figures at present: Switzerland, Norway, Ireland. The US is soaring far beyond anything Europe or the EU broadly have managed in terms of economic recovery and the same goes for basically all major economies not named China (which largely sailed through the pandemic economically).