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Basically anyone who sits at a panel, interview or a discussion and talks about geopolitical affairs. It’s the space around politics and think tanks and nationa

Basically anyone who sits at a panel, interview or a discussion and talks about geopolitical affairs. It’s the space around politics and think tanks and national security. There’s an implicit expectation that you talk about certain topics in a certain way, and that way usually conforms to the narrative that’s acceptable to the apparatus of power. It’s a vague description but that’s because of the nature of this unspoken expectation. More concrete examples would be how you’re expected to just completely agree that Russia and China are essentially evil and enemies. Like that’s the unspoken premise. Or in the US, playing this game of theatre around how Democrats or Republicans are bad. I’m not American but there’s a talk show host called Tucker Carlson who goes around talking about how Democrats are ridiculous and holds all these inflammatory and demagogue views on air, but is known to be completely normal and reasonable off air and in his private life. That’s the kind of skill that’s seen as necessary in these kinds of “elite” circles, where you’re just expected to be able to hold two contradicting views and milk them to your advantage. You’re expected to be able to peddle mistruths and warp facts convincingly and worse, you’re seen as higher status and more “refined” for being about to pull this off convincingly. Another example I’m reminded of is an Australian one, where a think tank that is funded by arms manufacturers called ASPI, had its CEO defend itself on live television. As you’d expect, he was surprisingly able to spin a tale where they were seen as the good guys using all sorts of deception and rhetorical tricks. I don’t know how these people sleep at night but it’s the very definition of double think from 1984. I do believe more people will see this subtle aspect of how opinion is shaped in future.

FormerBandmate 3y ago
Russia commits countless war crimes on a daily basis (there is tons of documentation) and China has concentration camps. America is not perfect but they are legitimately much worse
- theaussiestew 3y ago
  This is the exact narrative that I’m talking about. It’s a hand wavy pseudo intellectual narrative that goes, Russia commits war crimes and kills civilians, China is Nazi Germany 2.0 and is trying to exterminate Muslims like the Nazis tried to do with the Jews and America is bad, you know with even more casualties in the Middle East but it’s not as bad as these cartoonishly evil regimes. I mean no offence to you by calling it hand wavy and pseudo intellectual but this is the exact attitude I’m talking about. It goes, “Everybody knows [something] [something]” and that’s usually a big warning sign for me; I know because I had to examine some of my own beliefs that way and it was painful to realise that most of it was talking points I had unfortunately picked up from so called thought leaders. It’s a lot to unpack and I’m not going to discuss Russia because a lot of that is actually true, but why don’t you hold America to the same standards? Also regarding the concentration camps thing, this is another narrative. Can you describe to me what you think is going on in China? I’m genuinely curious. My understanding, after a lot of research and incredulity is that it’s essentially China’s version of Guantanamo Bay, because you know, they had terrorist attacks where there were hundreds killed in stabbings in Xinjiang but you probably don’t know about that right? It seems all that people know is the pictures of lots of Muslims sitting in blue overalls behind wired fences, which has been deliberately used to evoke comparisons to gas chambers and the Holocaust, by ASPI. But when I say this, people often have a knee jerk reaction which is along the lines of: “How can you support genocide or another Holocaust, you’re evil.” Which is the exact problem because the whole premise of the discussion has been completely warped by so called accepted “truths“ and people manipulating our emotions in a classic appeal to pathos. Could the world really be this cartoonishly black and white and good and evil, where my side is morally righteous and our adversaries are morally despicable? This is exactly what Orwell described in his essay, “Politics and the English Language.” Regarding the concentration camps narrative, just Google ASPI and you’ll realise that about 70% of this narrative originates from them. Not only that but they’re literally funded by the military industrial complex (e.g. Northrup Grumman, Thales) and their plan worked because Australia recently bought billions of dollars worth of crappy missiles from the very companies that sponsor this so called “think tank”. It’s most definitely NOT a conspiracy theory and it’s very revealing that these think tanks can be this brazen. If you want to get to the root of this, just search for the origin of common narratives like this one and you’ll find it’s just a handful of sources all repeating the same misleading points. You’ll be shocked at how easily narratives can be seeded in the media. https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/the-think-tank-behind-australia-s-changing-view-of-china-20200131-p53wgp https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/the-think-tank-be... And this video is kind of memey but you get the gist. https://youtu.be/_fHfgU8oMSo https://youtu.be/_fHfgU8oMSo
  - senttoschool 3y ago
    Politicians leverage anti-China rhetoric to get votes while mainstream media use it to get an audience. Just write "China bad" and automatically get 2x more views and clicks. When was the last time you read something positive or even neutral on China in the mainstream media? I can't remember the last time. Probably before Trump. 1.4 billion people and not a single positive thing happens in China, according to Western media. Show a Chinese person being happy? Must be CCP propaganda. You didn't automatically say "China bad"? CCP shill. Show a Chinese company having international success? Must have stolen the tech. Social media app that US teens love to use? China must doing mass surveillance on Americans. This sort of black and white demonizing of China creates extremist views. You can see these extremist views on China all over HN, where one expects users to not be easily deceived. I was wrong. People are so concerned and fearful of pro-China propaganda that they don't even realize they've been drinking propaganda from the other side as well. Mainstream media gets more views and clicks by generating fear, anger and saying "China bad": * Your view of China turns negative over time * Politicians need your vote in order to advance their careers * Politicians say "China bad" to get your votes * Media quotes politicians saying "China bad" * Your view of China turns even more negative * Politician's approval ratings are down * Politician says "China bad" to distract you * Your view of China turns worse Because of this endless cycle, it's career suicide for a US politician to not be anti-China. Any US politician objectivity on China has been lost since 2016. And it's not like there are alternative media since the media landscape has consolidated into a handful of powerful conglomerates. I know some will accuse me of being anti-western or pro-CCP below. No. I'm not. I'm anti-extremists. The fact that even people on HN are convinced by the good (western) vs evil (China) narrative shows you how effective this sort of thing is.
    - mu53 3y ago
      [flagged]
  - theteapot 3y ago
    > My understanding, after a lot of research and incredulity is that it’s essentially China’s version of Guantanamo Bay ... Excuse me, but the camps are for free vocational training and re-education. A lot nicer than Guantanamo Bay! A lot of citizens in the US are crying out for free education!
- ok123456 3y ago
  China does not have "concentration camps." All that reporting goes back to a single man: Adrian Zenz.
- Loquebantur 3y ago
  The US has Guantanamo Bay. Among others. The US did commit various war crimes in about every of their foreign engagements. Those had to be leaked of course and weren't reported by some self-correction built into the system. The US uses false narratives like "national security" to justify unjustifiable actions regularly. See their economic sanctions, Huawei, etc. pp. The list goes on of course. Now, the one thing clearly better about the US is, people being able to talk about it. But that only has meaning if it is done and actually leads to changes. Else it is only another layer of deception.
  - mrcode007 3y ago
    The huawei sanctions are a result of the origins of the company. Many people forget or never knew about the hacks that happened over 10 years ago https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/nortel-collapse-linked-to-chinese-hackers-1.1260591 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/nortel-collapse-linked-to-c... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-07-01/did-china-steal-canada-s-edge-in-5g-from-nortel?sref=9GiFaIMD&utm_source=website&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=mobile_web_share https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-07-01/did-china...
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    "Else it is only another layer of deception." There is still a great difference between mainstream media and politicians avoiding certain topics and police activly supressing knowledge about historical events and rewriting history as they see fit (tiananmen square). And completely banning Winnie Pooh, because some internet dudes made a funny picture.
  - FormerBandmate 3y ago
    Guantanamo Bay is thousands of times smaller in magnitude than putting millions of your own citizens in concentration camps. It's also reprehensible and should be closed, no one disagrees on that
    - theaussiestew 3y ago
      There are NOT millions of people in “camps” in China, that’s a bizarre claim made by some so called researchers like Adrian Zenz. 1000s or 10,000s at most. And do you even know what the rationale for these so called “camps” are for?
- faddypaddy34 3y ago
  The Ukraine used illegally cluster bombs on ethnic Russians for years. This is actually documentation. https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-cluster-munitions https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-c...
  - _kbh_ 3y ago
    They didn’t use them illegally neither Russia nor Ukraine are signatories to the CCM.
  - ROTMetro 3y ago
    This makes no sense. The conflict started in 2014, you point to an article from 2014, how does that show years of bombs? In addition Russia no longer keeps up the lie that the 'little green men' that invaded Ukraine were just ethnic Russian Ukrainians already in Ukraine. They admit that they invaded with Russian troops. Soldiers will often have their service in 2014 hyped in online obituaries when they are eliminated now. Ukraine was responding to an unannounced invasion by it's much larger neighbor with the weapons is has at hand (weapon's that Russia also has and uses). What a non-point made with non-evidence trying to place blame on a country that was invaded. Do you also use 'how she was dressed was asking for it' as an arguement?
  - thewildginger 3y ago
    >The Ukraine It's a country, not simply a geological region.
    - i2cmaster 3y ago
      [flagged]
hackerlight 3y ago
> Basically anyone who sits at a panel, interview or a discussion and talks about geopolitical affairs. There’s an implicit expectation that you talk about certain topics in a certain way, and that way usually conforms to the narrative that’s acceptable to the apparatus of power. How do you know that this is true without mind reading or lie detection powers? I'm not being sarcastic. You see these people talking and have somehow arrived at the strong belief that they do not believe what they are saying. How?
- theaussiestew 3y ago
  First, it’s because I noticed myself and others doing this through observation and intuition. Secondly, it’s because there are literally accounts and articles where these people say out loud what they’re doing. E.g The Tucker Carlson example wasn’t me just surmising something, I read it in an article where acquaintances literally said he held no outrageous views privately and was literally doing it to rile his audience up. Same for other Republican politicians who appear “rabid” and “crazy” in the Twittersphere to rile up their constituents, and then clock off work and behave completely normally, like flicking a switch. My impression is that the left thinks they’re morally superior for not supporting so called Republican crazies but they’re being played like a fiddle too, since they ALWAYS fall for this rage bait theatre and think that lambasting conservatives is actually constructive or achieves anything.
  - XorNot 3y ago
    Ah yes, Tucker Carlson who was dropped by Fox News for managing to lose them $750m after refusing to reign in his messaging on Dominion, and then during discovery his personal messages and recordings include such explicit gems found in court filings as: * "Now this guy may be a child rapist," he says, "I'm just telling you that arranging a marriage between a 16-year-old and a 27-year-old is not the same as pulling a stranger off the street and raping her." and * When the show host describes 14-year-old girls at Mr Carlson's daughter's school sexually experimenting with each other, he says: "If it weren't my daughter I would love that scenario." and then * Mr Carlson refers to celebrities Britney Spears and Paris Hilton as "the biggest white whores in America", he calls the journalist Arianna Huffington a "pig" and says that Oprah Winfrey and Hillary Clinton are "anti-man". Yes I'm sure that guy who has day in and day out pushed "extreme" narratives for so long is just a totally well-adjusted person. You know, just like Bill O'Reilly who proceeded him ... what's that? He went down for sexual harassment in the workplace? [2] Total outlier. Definitely all an act. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47523608 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47523608 [2] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/oct/21/bill-oreilly-32m-harassment-claim-fox-news-deal https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/oct/21/bill-oreilly-3...
rocketnasa 3y ago
> there’s a talk show host called Tucker Carlson who goes around talking about how Democrats are ridiculous and holds all these inflammatory and demagogue views on air, but is known to be completely normal and reasonable off air and in his private life. Exactly what Peter Pomerantsev described of domestic Russia in 2014. https://youtu.be/5Au332OG-M4?t=980 https://youtu.be/5Au332OG-M4?t=980

FormerBandmate 3y ago

Russia commits countless war crimes on a daily basis (there is tons of documentation) and China has concentration camps. America is not perfect but they are legitimately much worse

theaussiestew 3y ago
This is the exact narrative that I’m talking about. It’s a hand wavy pseudo intellectual narrative that goes, Russia commits war crimes and kills civilians, China is Nazi Germany 2.0 and is trying to exterminate Muslims like the Nazis tried to do with the Jews and America is bad, you know with even more casualties in the Middle East but it’s not as bad as these cartoonishly evil regimes. I mean no offence to you by calling it hand wavy and pseudo intellectual but this is the exact attitude I’m talking about. It goes, “Everybody knows [something] [something]” and that’s usually a big warning sign for me; I know because I had to examine some of my own beliefs that way and it was painful to realise that most of it was talking points I had unfortunately picked up from so called thought leaders. It’s a lot to unpack and I’m not going to discuss Russia because a lot of that is actually true, but why don’t you hold America to the same standards? Also regarding the concentration camps thing, this is another narrative. Can you describe to me what you think is going on in China? I’m genuinely curious. My understanding, after a lot of research and incredulity is that it’s essentially China’s version of Guantanamo Bay, because you know, they had terrorist attacks where there were hundreds killed in stabbings in Xinjiang but you probably don’t know about that right? It seems all that people know is the pictures of lots of Muslims sitting in blue overalls behind wired fences, which has been deliberately used to evoke comparisons to gas chambers and the Holocaust, by ASPI. But when I say this, people often have a knee jerk reaction which is along the lines of: “How can you support genocide or another Holocaust, you’re evil.” Which is the exact problem because the whole premise of the discussion has been completely warped by so called accepted “truths“ and people manipulating our emotions in a classic appeal to pathos. Could the world really be this cartoonishly black and white and good and evil, where my side is morally righteous and our adversaries are morally despicable? This is exactly what Orwell described in his essay, “Politics and the English Language.” Regarding the concentration camps narrative, just Google ASPI and you’ll realise that about 70% of this narrative originates from them. Not only that but they’re literally funded by the military industrial complex (e.g. Northrup Grumman, Thales) and their plan worked because Australia recently bought billions of dollars worth of crappy missiles from the very companies that sponsor this so called “think tank”. It’s most definitely NOT a conspiracy theory and it’s very revealing that these think tanks can be this brazen. If you want to get to the root of this, just search for the origin of common narratives like this one and you’ll find it’s just a handful of sources all repeating the same misleading points. You’ll be shocked at how easily narratives can be seeded in the media. https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/the-think-tank-behind-australia-s-changing-view-of-china-20200131-p53wgp https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/the-think-tank-be... And this video is kind of memey but you get the gist. https://youtu.be/_fHfgU8oMSo https://youtu.be/_fHfgU8oMSo
- senttoschool 3y ago
  Politicians leverage anti-China rhetoric to get votes while mainstream media use it to get an audience. Just write "China bad" and automatically get 2x more views and clicks. When was the last time you read something positive or even neutral on China in the mainstream media? I can't remember the last time. Probably before Trump. 1.4 billion people and not a single positive thing happens in China, according to Western media. Show a Chinese person being happy? Must be CCP propaganda. You didn't automatically say "China bad"? CCP shill. Show a Chinese company having international success? Must have stolen the tech. Social media app that US teens love to use? China must doing mass surveillance on Americans. This sort of black and white demonizing of China creates extremist views. You can see these extremist views on China all over HN, where one expects users to not be easily deceived. I was wrong. People are so concerned and fearful of pro-China propaganda that they don't even realize they've been drinking propaganda from the other side as well. Mainstream media gets more views and clicks by generating fear, anger and saying "China bad": * Your view of China turns negative over time * Politicians need your vote in order to advance their careers * Politicians say "China bad" to get your votes * Media quotes politicians saying "China bad" * Your view of China turns even more negative * Politician's approval ratings are down * Politician says "China bad" to distract you * Your view of China turns worse Because of this endless cycle, it's career suicide for a US politician to not be anti-China. Any US politician objectivity on China has been lost since 2016. And it's not like there are alternative media since the media landscape has consolidated into a handful of powerful conglomerates. I know some will accuse me of being anti-western or pro-CCP below. No. I'm not. I'm anti-extremists. The fact that even people on HN are convinced by the good (western) vs evil (China) narrative shows you how effective this sort of thing is.
  - mu53 3y ago
    [flagged]
- theteapot 3y ago
  > My understanding, after a lot of research and incredulity is that it’s essentially China’s version of Guantanamo Bay ... Excuse me, but the camps are for free vocational training and re-education. A lot nicer than Guantanamo Bay! A lot of citizens in the US are crying out for free education!
ok123456 3y ago
China does not have "concentration camps." All that reporting goes back to a single man: Adrian Zenz.
Loquebantur 3y ago
The US has Guantanamo Bay. Among others. The US did commit various war crimes in about every of their foreign engagements. Those had to be leaked of course and weren't reported by some self-correction built into the system. The US uses false narratives like "national security" to justify unjustifiable actions regularly. See their economic sanctions, Huawei, etc. pp. The list goes on of course. Now, the one thing clearly better about the US is, people being able to talk about it. But that only has meaning if it is done and actually leads to changes. Else it is only another layer of deception.
- mrcode007 3y ago
  The huawei sanctions are a result of the origins of the company. Many people forget or never knew about the hacks that happened over 10 years ago https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/nortel-collapse-linked-to-chinese-hackers-1.1260591 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/nortel-collapse-linked-to-c... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-07-01/did-china-steal-canada-s-edge-in-5g-from-nortel?sref=9GiFaIMD&utm_source=website&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=mobile_web_share https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-07-01/did-china...
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  "Else it is only another layer of deception." There is still a great difference between mainstream media and politicians avoiding certain topics and police activly supressing knowledge about historical events and rewriting history as they see fit (tiananmen square). And completely banning Winnie Pooh, because some internet dudes made a funny picture.
- FormerBandmate 3y ago
  Guantanamo Bay is thousands of times smaller in magnitude than putting millions of your own citizens in concentration camps. It's also reprehensible and should be closed, no one disagrees on that
  - theaussiestew 3y ago
    There are NOT millions of people in “camps” in China, that’s a bizarre claim made by some so called researchers like Adrian Zenz. 1000s or 10,000s at most. And do you even know what the rationale for these so called “camps” are for?
faddypaddy34 3y ago
The Ukraine used illegally cluster bombs on ethnic Russians for years. This is actually documentation. https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-cluster-munitions https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-c...
- _kbh_ 3y ago
  They didn’t use them illegally neither Russia nor Ukraine are signatories to the CCM.
- ROTMetro 3y ago
  This makes no sense. The conflict started in 2014, you point to an article from 2014, how does that show years of bombs? In addition Russia no longer keeps up the lie that the 'little green men' that invaded Ukraine were just ethnic Russian Ukrainians already in Ukraine. They admit that they invaded with Russian troops. Soldiers will often have their service in 2014 hyped in online obituaries when they are eliminated now. Ukraine was responding to an unannounced invasion by it's much larger neighbor with the weapons is has at hand (weapon's that Russia also has and uses). What a non-point made with non-evidence trying to place blame on a country that was invaded. Do you also use 'how she was dressed was asking for it' as an arguement?
- thewildginger 3y ago
  >The Ukraine It's a country, not simply a geological region.
  - i2cmaster 3y ago
    [flagged]

hackerlight 3y ago

> Basically anyone who sits at a panel, interview or a discussion and talks about geopolitical affairs. There’s an implicit expectation that you talk about certain topics in a certain way, and that way usually conforms to the narrative that’s acceptable to the apparatus of power. How do you know that this is true without mind reading or lie detection powers? I'm not being sarcastic. You see these people talking and have somehow arrived at the strong belief that they do not believe what they are saying. How?

theaussiestew 3y ago
First, it’s because I noticed myself and others doing this through observation and intuition. Secondly, it’s because there are literally accounts and articles where these people say out loud what they’re doing. E.g The Tucker Carlson example wasn’t me just surmising something, I read it in an article where acquaintances literally said he held no outrageous views privately and was literally doing it to rile his audience up. Same for other Republican politicians who appear “rabid” and “crazy” in the Twittersphere to rile up their constituents, and then clock off work and behave completely normally, like flicking a switch. My impression is that the left thinks they’re morally superior for not supporting so called Republican crazies but they’re being played like a fiddle too, since they ALWAYS fall for this rage bait theatre and think that lambasting conservatives is actually constructive or achieves anything.
- XorNot 3y ago
  Ah yes, Tucker Carlson who was dropped by Fox News for managing to lose them $750m after refusing to reign in his messaging on Dominion, and then during discovery his personal messages and recordings include such explicit gems found in court filings as: * "Now this guy may be a child rapist," he says, "I'm just telling you that arranging a marriage between a 16-year-old and a 27-year-old is not the same as pulling a stranger off the street and raping her." and * When the show host describes 14-year-old girls at Mr Carlson's daughter's school sexually experimenting with each other, he says: "If it weren't my daughter I would love that scenario." and then * Mr Carlson refers to celebrities Britney Spears and Paris Hilton as "the biggest white whores in America", he calls the journalist Arianna Huffington a "pig" and says that Oprah Winfrey and Hillary Clinton are "anti-man". Yes I'm sure that guy who has day in and day out pushed "extreme" narratives for so long is just a totally well-adjusted person. You know, just like Bill O'Reilly who proceeded him ... what's that? He went down for sexual harassment in the workplace? [2] Total outlier. Definitely all an act. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47523608 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47523608 [2] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/oct/21/bill-oreilly-32m-harassment-claim-fox-news-deal https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/oct/21/bill-oreilly-3...

rocketnasa 3y ago

> there’s a talk show host called Tucker Carlson who goes around talking about how Democrats are ridiculous and holds all these inflammatory and demagogue views on air, but is known to be completely normal and reasonable off air and in his private life. Exactly what Peter Pomerantsev described of domestic Russia in 2014. https://youtu.be/5Au332OG-M4?t=980 https://youtu.be/5Au332OG-M4?t=980