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I'm convinced that the anti-vax movement in the US is fueled by foreign operatives. Initially I thought it was just organic hysteria. But then the "vaccine is 9

I'm convinced that the anti-vax movement in the US is fueled by foreign operatives. Initially I thought it was just organic hysteria. But then the "vaccine is 98% graphene" meme came out. If you look at a 2% graphene solution, it's dark grey, and yet the vaccines are transparent, so they are obviously not 98% graphene. I decided to deep dive into some "sources" of the graphene story, and they are inevitably all on fly-by-night "conservative" blogs, with videos that look suspiciously similar to RT produced content. Grammatical errors everywhere. It is clear that these stories are not just a misunderstanding, but an intentional lie. My theory is that Russia and China, and perhaps even local political party operatives, are involved in spreading these lies. For Russia, the goal is to divide and weaken the country, payback for the US propaganda campaigns that took down the Soviet Union. For local political parties, the goal is to corral their base for short term gain.

SkyMarshal 5y ago
I mostly concur, though I suspect the Russian psy-ops have been grooming the US populace for this since the early 2000s at least, making people more open and susceptible to conspiracies. Amplifying emotional responses, biases, investment [1], tribalism, in-group out-group, etc. Now they’re reaping the fruit of that long game. One thing they understand that I’m not sure US leadership does is that the fringe eventually becomes the center, and shaping the fringe has been a key to their long term strategy. Now in some respects it’s becoming the center. I’m not sure the Chinese are involved though, b/c the CCP has never been very good at propaganda, simply because in China they don’t have to be. From their idiotic “wolf warrior” diplomacy to just about everything written in CCP mouthpieces like the Global Times, there’s a complete lack of subtlety, sophistication, and therefore believability. It’s all produced from the point of view that the populace is required to think this, instead of having to convince the populace to believe this by anticipating and addressing the reasons they may not believe it. But who knows, maybe they have some secret elite team somewhere that does understand how to do propaganda and psy-ops in the West. [1]: https://fs.blog/great-talks/psychology-human-misjudgment/ https://fs.blog/great-talks/psychology-human-misjudgment/. (Munger: investment - financial, ideological, emotional, etc. - is one of the main root causes of bias and misjudgement)
- deleted 5y ago
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- colordrops 5y ago
  There are definitely people in China that understand western culture and know how to do imperceptible propaganda. China is a huge country with long and deep ties to the west. It's probably intentional that they put out propaganda that seems naive. It diverts from more subtle programs. Look at TikTok. Does that strike you as not good at manipulating western audiences? My experience with China is that a large majority of people are simple and naive, but there is an elite core that is beyond most of the rest of the world in skills and knowledge, as you allude to.
readflaggedcomm 5y ago
They got into Japan, too, with that metal flake story.

SkyMarshal 5y ago

I mostly concur, though I suspect the Russian psy-ops have been grooming the US populace for this since the early 2000s at least, making people more open and susceptible to conspiracies. Amplifying emotional responses, biases, investment [1], tribalism, in-group out-group, etc. Now they’re reaping the fruit of that long game. One thing they understand that I’m not sure US leadership does is that the fringe eventually becomes the center, and shaping the fringe has been a key to their long term strategy. Now in some respects it’s becoming the center. I’m not sure the Chinese are involved though, b/c the CCP has never been very good at propaganda, simply because in China they don’t have to be. From their idiotic “wolf warrior” diplomacy to just about everything written in CCP mouthpieces like the Global Times, there’s a complete lack of subtlety, sophistication, and therefore believability. It’s all produced from the point of view that the populace is required to think this, instead of having to convince the populace to believe this by anticipating and addressing the reasons they may not believe it. But who knows, maybe they have some secret elite team somewhere that does understand how to do propaganda and psy-ops in the West. [1]: https://fs.blog/great-talks/psychology-human-misjudgment/ https://fs.blog/great-talks/psychology-human-misjudgment/. (Munger: investment - financial, ideological, emotional, etc. - is one of the main root causes of bias and misjudgement)

deleted 5y ago
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colordrops 5y ago
There are definitely people in China that understand western culture and know how to do imperceptible propaganda. China is a huge country with long and deep ties to the west. It's probably intentional that they put out propaganda that seems naive. It diverts from more subtle programs. Look at TikTok. Does that strike you as not good at manipulating western audiences? My experience with China is that a large majority of people are simple and naive, but there is an elite core that is beyond most of the rest of the world in skills and knowledge, as you allude to.

readflaggedcomm 5y ago

They got into Japan, too, with that metal flake story.