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Is this a fair characterization? It's factually correct that USA interfered before and also that others are interfering now in USA's elections. But the allusion

• dylan604 3y ago
  Where did you get that from my comment? I don't recall hearing Russia overflying US cities dropping leaflets, but there's plenty of stories of the US doing the very thing. I wasn't impling the US was the only ones doing it nor that they are not doing it now. However, it IS happening to the US now, and it is effective. It's also much more difficult to deny a leaflet drop, but we have people here on a very technically oriented forum denying the effectiveness of these campaigns. I guess it's a positive that they are not being denied that they are happening.??
  • jvanderbot 3y ago
    I'm actually not interested in the effectiveness, because as you say that's kind of a bad foundation to base a moral / retribution story off. I'm just honest here, I have to assume we've been meddling in each other's leadership and civil directions for a long long time. Like forever. And I just can't believe that the USA is somehow unique either as a perpetrator or a victim. I could believe that there was a time when the USA was more effective and that time may not be right how, but the "coming back to bite you" argument doesn't ring true.
    • dylan604 3y ago
      To me, the difference is the type of government. The US attacking the internet of North Korea seems strange since it is so closed off, but it is very effective for DPRK to use against the US. The fact that the internet is so open to the US citizens means that directly influencing the population via the source of their addiction is just very humorous to me. Maybe it's just part of my disdain against the socials, but you got to admit, there's just a bit of chef's kiss about it
    • blackoil 3y ago
      The difference is earlier method were costly and based on power balance. No other country apart than USSR could afford to manipulate regimes like US did in Iran, Central America, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan etc. Now with Internet the power is "democratised".
• fnordpiglet 3y ago
  Generally these efforts against the US were channeled through political parties like the US communist party (not to say it wasn’t a legitimate movement, but it was also an inflection point into the US political system). However I think what you’re referring to is the Cold War, where the US and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies did shenanigans all over the world to third party states to try to bend the global balance in their favor through many nefarious means, and election interference was the smallest of those in terms of egregious behavior. It’s important to note this wasn’t a US against the world thing, it was a Cold War between two allied blocs. Generally the two primary parties didn’t directly and overtly do these things within each others borders as the name of the game was avoiding direct confrontation. I absolutely think the US currently does culturally destabilizing stuff against what it considers its geopolitical adversaries. They are also. I don’t think it’s a causal effect in either direction - I.e., the US did X so everyone turned around and did it back. It it’s more like a well understood concept that’s been going on for decades if not longer. The key I think is the US political system other than in the early 1900’s, essentially since FDR, has been extremely stable. There was an enormous amount of cultural effort put into homogenizing the social and political dialogue during WW2, and even more in the 1950’s. In the 1960s the Soviet Union absolutely manipulated political unrest to their advantage and it weakened the will of the people to stand for the Vietnam war and helped nudge us into retreat gaining a Cold War victory. 70’s and 80’s saw a retrenchment of homogenization, but the 90’s individualism weakened the walls so to speak in favor of globalization, multiculturalism, etc (which fwiw are all great things in my mind). I think the change is the advent of algorithmic social networks, memes, broad homogenized cultural enclaves that span spacial and social constraints, etc. This coupled with the broad access to interaction with the cultural “others” (I.e., while generally q-anon wackos isolate together, they’re constantly exposed to information and cultural influence by more liberal culture due to the internet, creating an opportunity to polarize). This is specifically being exploited by nation states against each other. China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and the “bad guys” dominated by authoritarian dictators and oppressive regimes, are extremely well aware these technologies can be used to foment cultural discord that would destabilize their nations, not just internally but by external agents, and have cracked down on it aggressively. Knowing democratic and individualist cultures won’t and can’t, they have ramped up learning how to exploit the dynamics of algorithms, cultural polarization, etc. So it feels very one sided - because it is. It’s that way though because “they” have defended themselves against this vector of disruption, while “we” have explicitly invested in exposing everyone as much as possible to the vector for profit. But the history isn’t one sided then and somehow swung around against the US. It’s more that this specific vector of cultural attack is a key weakness in the west because we believe it’s more valuable than dangerous, while “they” believe it’s more dangerous than valuable. My belief is like a virus analogy, society will build meme antibodies and be able to more clearly distinguish mandating information. Most of the victims of this stuff tend to be poorly educated with minimal sophistication in online interactions. They are also not generally accepted in broader society, and over time the broader society will replace these vulnerable pockets of more susceptible minds and the effectiveness of cultural psyops via algorithmic and meme attacks will weaken quickly and social stability will emerge naturally. But it’ll take time. Interestingly this means the authoritarian regimes populace are still highly vulnerable to highly sophisticated attacks. All it would take is a weakening of the walls against social media and algorithmic manipulation. I actually think you see this under the radar on platforms like signal and telegram, but they’re not well understood as there’s explicitly no national dialog allowed.