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Europe is just getting adjusted to the new reality and the reality is not black-and-white. Russians didn't discover magic words that they use to hypnotise peop

by mrtksn 2y ago

Europe is just getting adjusted to the new reality and the reality is not black-and-white. Russians didn't discover magic words that they use to hypnotise people and make them vote for pro-Russia candidate. In fact, everywhere in the world the incumbent politics are losing ground because the system is in crisis and people are looking for a change everywhere and Russia appears to be able to propel politicians who are closer to the their politics simply because the incumbent ones screwed up. Is America different? Just a month ago in the American election – those who are anti-establishment and pro-Russian won. US and Europe will go through a soul searching and hopefully will come out of this in a better shape. It has to go through this because the ideology collapsed, economy doesn't perform and the hypocrisy is unbearable anymore. For example, can you tell me if EU is about saving the environment and stopping climate change? If so why they are blocking the Chinese electric cars? Can't stand others making the world better place better than they do? Can you tell me if US is about freedom and respect of the international law, borders and trande? If so why they support Ukraine against Russian invasion and then support Israel who occupies Palestinian territories since many years? Can you tell me why people should drink from paper straws when the rich fly private jets? Can you tell me why the capital can go anywhere but people should be stopped at the borders? Can you tell me how the economy is s great when so many people suffer? The west is in crisis, the ideology doesn't hold and the economy doesn't provide and all the Russians have to do is to point it out. They don't use spell, they just tell what everyone sees. This needs to get fixed, let's hope that the damage wouldn't be too big.

cowpig 2y ago
Technology has changed the landscape of possibility very quickly, and our institutions are not keeping up. The world will need to figure out ways to deal with the new reality. Social media have made it far more lucrative to make up whatever than to report on facts. Meanwhile it's harder than ever to run a sustainable business in journalism. Meanwhile autocrats have noticed that it's cheaper than ever to run massive campaigns of propaganda and misinformation abroad, because they don't have to involve anywhere near the number of local accomplices. LLMs are accelerating the trend. You're right that the US democracy is in crisis as well.
- jahewson 2y ago
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cynicalsecurity 2y ago
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- deleted 2y ago
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- mrtksn 2y ago
  Only of your history goes 1 year back.
  - starik36 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - mrtksn 2y ago
      What's your point? Who said that going back in history solves today's problems?
  - 725686 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - mrtksn 2y ago
      Why don’t stick with modern history and internationally recognized borders? Forget about the deeds of the long gone people, they are not around so it’s irrelevant.
      - 725686 2y ago
        I agree with both replies. I'm just answering to the "Only of your history goes 1 year back." remark. Both sides are wrong with no solution on sight.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      If geopolitics predating the Roman Republic by 500 years justifies kicking people off land they were born in, then I have bad news for almost all of the Americans in the audience. Probably quite a lot of the English too, though with less certainty as nobody's quite sure when even the Celts arrived.
stracer 2y ago
> the ideology collapsed, economy doesn't perform Economy doesn't perform, but ideology has collapsed only in minds of ordinary people. Politicians, stakeholders and various media outlets are very much invested, and still push that the current course is the only correct way and the bright green future as designed is unstoppable. Reminds me of the arrogance of the ruling party slogans from before 90s.
jncfhnb 2y ago
In Moldova the magic words were bribery. Thankfully they didn’t work.
myrmidon 2y ago
I'll bite. > For example, can you tell me if EU is about saving the environment and stopping climate change? If so why they are blocking the Chinese electric cars? Can't stand others making the world better place better than they do? Because the EU is a bunch of democracies, and a few of the biggest ones do not want to accelerate electrification bad enough to threaten parts of their industry/economy right now. This tracks with the electorate; support for green policies is rather low across the board, almost every nation has different primary issues. > Can you tell me if US is about freedom and respect of the international law, borders and trande? If so why they support Ukraine against Russian invasion and then support Israel who occupies Palestinian territories since many years? The Ukraine war is the most clear-cut aggressor/victim situation in a long time, even compared to setups like the Vietnam war: There is not even a puppet government with any legitimacy that the Russians could be claiming to act in support of, and there is no credible casus belli either. It's just blatant expansionism at the cost of a sovereign nation. Israel/palestine is a complicated mess-- it is basically a civil war of sorts, and the Americans DO support people in Gaza/Westbank a ton (humanitarian aid). > Can you tell me why people should drink from paper straws when the rich fly private jets? Note: The non-private jets are a much bigger problem actually, but since there's not enough popular support to curtail air travel significantly, the easy pro-environmental actions happen first. > Can you tell me why the capital can go anywhere but people should be stopped at the borders? Because the people inside those borders don't want other people with no capital wandering in. The capital alone (or its owners) they don't really mind as much. > Can you tell me how the economy is s great when so many people suffer? Can you be more specific on this? I'd say the economy is not great, not terrible, and its about the same for the people (talking about central Europe here).
- mrtksn 2y ago
  > few of the biggest ones do not want to accelerate electrification bad enough to threaten parts of their industry/economy right now Do you see the problem? Those in control screw up and they expect to get bailed out by forcing people to buy their inferior and expensive products. > The Ukraine war is the most clear-cut aggressor/victim situation It's actually not that clear cut and if you apply the same filters for both of the countries you will see it. Try testing for internationally recognized borders and the situation is same for the Israeli invasion and Russian invasion. Test for separatist movements and you will find very similar things, test for minorities getting attacked and you will see that its quite similar. Not the same but when you pick something like "Russia must respect the internationally recognized borders" and you don't apply the same for Israel then you are a hypocrite, you are not doing it from standpoint of a principle but due to your own interest and if you are doing it out of your own interest people start asking why I'm paying for it? Where's my cut if this thing pans out? > The non-private jets are a much bigger problem actually I don't know if that's true or not but you ask people to sacrifice their comfort for a common cause, then everyone should do it. > Because the people inside those borders don't want other people with no capital wandering But then people start noticing that it's not the poor immigrants who want to work who buys al the properties. Some people want the poor stopped at the border and the rich welcomed. Others want different things, a lot of people don't want oligarchs buying all that property and leave it empty. > I'd say the economy is not great, not terrible In the case of the US elections, there were many opinion polls showing that people are not satisfied with the economy. They are also not satisfied with many other things related to the economy. Just yesterday someone killed an insurance CEO at a filthy rich location and so many people were cheering for the killer.
MikeTheGreat 2y ago
> For example, can you tell me if EU is about saving the environment and stopping climate change? If so why they are blocking the Chinese electric cars? Can't stand others making the world better place better than they do? Personally, I think that the goal of a vibrant, thriving democracy is to allow and encourage participation from many groups of citizens. This will result in the government pursuing multiple objectives at the same time. This necessarily means that you're going to have to make trade offs. Is it more important to have cheap EVs or is it more important to keep good jobs in country? Maybe in this case we'll decide on good jobs in our country, and then look at other ways that climate change can be addressed. Maybe we won't. Asking why an entire country doesn't do 100% of the things it could to address a single issue seems almost intentionally naive.
- newspaper1 2y ago
  Maybe it's the idea of a "country" that's flawed? Certainly it is, we live on a planet and are all impacted by the environment. Previous social structures are no longer applicable and are causing damage. It's only a matter of time before they're rethought.
etangent 2y ago
> For example, can you tell me if EU is about saving the environment and stopping climate change? If so why they are blocking the Chinese electric cars? This is a very strange criticism. Why is it wrong to try to make impact on the environment without fully destroying the domestic industry? Let's follow up on this a bit further. If the EU counties did in fact become hardliners on the environment to the point of fully destroying their own industries, then you would no longer attack the perceived "hypocrisy" but would instead attack their policy of deindustrialization. So you don't seem to have problems with hypocrisy, you instead seem to have a problem with environmental movement/policies as such or at least insofar as they are implemented by the EU block. If the EU countries completely abandoned their environmental slogans, and went on an ultra-industrial path, would you still be a critic? Given your other comments (why can capital travel but people cannot?), something tells me that yes, you would. It is difficult for me to perceive your criticism as anything other than coming from a supporter of an _ipso facto_ enemy economic block. You are not interested at constructively helping EU countries anymore, you are looking for a hammer to destroy your chosen target with. One thing about social media is that it allows anyone to have a voice. The problem of "anyone" is that it ignores the fact that we do not live in a post-human utopia, we live in a real world where the concept of an "enemy" is real. There are real people out there who seek our destruction. This is not a pleasant thing to speak about but it is something that seems to be unfortunately the case. Because English is such a popular language, chances are the enemy speaks English and is on social media. What content do you think he posts?
- mrtksn 2y ago
  This is a fallacy. People are not buying Chinese instead of European because they want destruction, they buy it because the European industry failed in making better or cheaper products. If we are bailing out an industry, this can't be on the shoulders of the public who doesn't have anything to do with the failure. If we are going to save it, make sure those responsible for the failure are paying too. You are asking for Europeans to pay almost half a year of their salaries to save these industries, then at least take away the properties of those involved in the failure. Maybe it wouldn't change much but are in this together or not?
  - 2y ago
GeoAtreides 2y ago
> Russians didn't discover magic words that they use to hypnotise people and make them vote for pro-Russia candidate Well, someone else discovered not the magic words but the magic timing of when to tell them and how to surround people with the right words: i.e. the social media algorithms.
- newspaper1 2y ago
  Don't shoot the messenger. The actual problems being pointed out are the root cause.
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    People were unhappy before and nothing like this happened because of it. International interference was always very difficult.
    - newspaper1 2y ago
      More transparency is a good thing, even if that comes from "international interference". The problems exist, try to hide them at your own political risk.
      - rbanffy 2y ago
        The point is foreign election interference is no longer difficult, dangerous, or expensive, and is incredibly effective.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        newspaper1 2y ago
        It's not "dangerous" to expose the truth, even selectively. More information is better, especially when it pertains to things our government is keeping from us.
aatarax 2y ago
The world sucks for most people. The world is better than its ever been for most people. The world can be improved a lot for most people. Those three things can and are all simultaneously true. Unfortunately, improving the world requires engaging deeply with issues and many people now prefer to speak in terms of grand historical narratives and emotional arguments that stitch sparse data points into a large story far vaster than the data can support.
golemiprague 2y ago
[dead]
jltsiren 2y ago
Incumbents losing elections is what is supposed to happen. It's a sign of normal times, not of a crisis. One of the key principles of a republic – both ancient and modern – is that personal power is bad for the society. Leaders are a necessary evil that must be tolerated (if only barely), but they also must be changed regularly.
- simion314 2y ago
  >One of the key principles of a republic – both ancient and modern – is that personal power is bad for the society. Leaders are a necessary evil that must be tolerated (if only barely), but they also must be changed regularly. In Romania not only we change them regularly but we also have PMs and ministers in jail for crimes they commuted, we are not like other countries where same president or prime Minister was in power for 30 years.
- close04 2y ago
  Incumbents losing elections can be fair. But only if the winner played by the rules at least loosely and the win wasn’t orchestrated by a foreign party, especially an adversary. Unless you are Russian or Chinese you shouldn’t have a president ‘chosen’ by them. So props to the Romanian authorities for taking action and not allowing a president beholden to Russian interests.
  - mike_hearn 2y ago
    Nobody is claiming the candidate didn't play by the rules. Rather, some agency has asserted there was "a mass influence operation" in his favor - apparently they're not even asserting an organized conspiracy. There's a big problem with that claim. Intelligence agencies have a long history of making this claim of Russian control over elections all over the world, and it's always been lies and nonsense. What even is a "mass influence" operation? Sounds like the same thing as a political campaign to me? If it's really on a mass scale it should be pretty easy to prove and work out how to stop it next time, shouldn't it? Such claims are never proven because they aren't true. Back in 2016 when Trump and Brexit were still fresh, the sort of people who didn't like those things were trying to explain their loss. The Clinton campaign came up with the Steele dossier and the American press ran with it. This was the origin of the "Russian influence" claim and back then it was usually described as being done through social media bots. Academics flooded the literature with papers that claimed to prove the existence of such Russian bots. I used to work in bot detection so was interested to read some of these papers, and found they were all based on academic fraud: https://blog.plan99.net/did-russian-bots-impact-brexit-ad66f08c014a https://blog.plan99.net/did-russian-bots-impact-brexit-ad66f... https://blog.plan99.net/fake-science-part-ii-bots-that-are-not-c66129e5e3f5 https://blog.plan99.net/fake-science-part-ii-bots-that-are-n... Given the long history of this type of claim, a rational person will have to assume that it's a plot by Romanian intelligence to overturn an election and treat it accordingly.
petre 2y ago
> Russia appears to be able to propel politicians who are closer to the their politics Not really, they propel useful idiots. In the US that would have been Robert Kennedy Jr. In Germany it's whatever clows AfD has, in Austria it's the FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl. Basically anyone that would either auto sabotage that country, the EU, like Viktor Orbán or be pro-Russia, like the Georgian Dream. In Romania it's a RFK Jr. like nutcake figure with new age, peace and love, vaccines bad, water has memory, nazis are patriots, etc beliefs and with a discourse that sounds all right at the surface but practicaly says absolutely nothing except that it's littered with trigger narratives, just as if it were the Heaven's Gate website. His campaign was pumped by Russia on Tiktok using dormant accounts two weeks or so before the election. Also on other US based social networks and on Telegram to a lesser extent. 2M people voted for him out of 9M, some because they hate the current establishment, others saw him as an outsider, when in fact he's actually part of an old boys network, others actually believe his mumbo jumbo. It turns out he's also linked and promoted by fascist groups, some of which are actual former French Foreign Legion soldiers, run a mercenary group in the DRC and survival training workshops in the mountains. These are also linked to a rather controversial Eastern Orthodox bishop who is known to be pro Russian, so this candidate also got promoted through church networks. His campaign was in part financed by a crypto entreprenour with dual Romanian and South African citizenship who currently resides in ZA. The candidate declared zero political advertising expenses. Anyway, I hope Tiktok gets massively screwed by the EU after this. Because this is in the Comission's hands now. The candidate's fascist friends might be soon visited by a SWAT team and they'll probably find firearms. The candidate, I dunno, he's probably going to flee to another country if he ever gets indicted.
- rbanffy 2y ago
  > In the US that would have been Robert Kennedy Jr We should not forget about the orange elephant in the room.
- zjalnxb 2y ago
  In Austria, Haider took over the FPÖ in 1986. In 1999, when Russia was completely weak and had other priorities, the FPÖ already had 26% nationally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Party_of_Austria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Party_of_Austria In Germany the AfD rose to around 10% after Merkel let in millions of refugees in 2015. It had nothing to do with Russia at all. It is currently polling around 18% because the economy is bad and people are tired of U.S. subservience and want Germany to make its own decisions. The concept that right wing parties are somehow beneficial to Russia in the long run is absurd to the extreme. In Ukraine, literally the Bandera supporters are the best fighters and the most anti-Russian. When in history has it ever been beneficial for a country to support nationalism in an enemy country. It does not make any sense. This whole thing is just a narrative of the forces who want to keep down "EU-first" movements.
simion314 2y ago
I disagree with your defense of Ruzzia 1 there is well known that social media and itnernet companies can target content for each person 2 we known from Cambridge analitica and similar that if social media company wants he can make a user depressed, sad etc 3 we also observer that irelevant bullshit is pushed very hard in social media, as an example transgender stuff, it is pushed so hard that my family thinks that Romania is in danger because of EU and their transgender agenda, children will be manipulated to change their gender, You can see how fake stuff about thois topic is pushed on social media, my family never had contact with transgender people, maybe they know one gay person in their entire live but LGBTQ is such an important topic in election that they might decide whot o vote based on this Ruzzian bullshit 4 we also seen same shit with COVID , yes the virus exists even if the pro Ruzzian candidates do not belives it or thinks God send him the naturalistic cure, based on how hard this conpiracies were pushed in last years you have conspirationist vote conspirationists, so if you want their vote you either lower yourselves to that level or try to fight Ruzzia and china to bring a bit of intelligence back. 5 anti emigration is a big push on social media, and fascists in Europe really push on this, but tell my, will italians or Spanish people in the city that studied at the university go and work in the farms, in the hot summer instead of the poor immigrants? Did you also seen how crimes are immediately blamed on the immigrants by the internet trolls before the identity of the criminals is known, and sometimes the criminal is a native, but the trolls pushed so hard on the fake news that it was immigrants that sometimes the immigrants were attacked based on fake news started by Ruzzians and belived by right wing less inteligent people. So in Romania the people that voted for the Kremlin guy , voted him because they want a strong man that is anti transexuals and LGBTQ, anti minorities, that belives in the same conpirations and hate same groups as they hate all because Ruzzia trained them to hate those groups of people and believe those conspiracies. They did not vote because of economical policies the fascist guy proposed.
- mrtksn 2y ago
  I did not defend Russia. Let's stop pretending that everything is perfect but the adversary found magic words that can show to people and sway their opinions. Influencing people is indeed possible and Russia definitely doing it but this tale about showing social media posts and making them vote the way they like is just a caricature. They are able to do it only because of the failure of the others to address the concerns of the electorate. Sure, they lie but they all lie. The Russian propaganda is very well crafted and does address the concerns that others don't want to touch. It's not a spell, it's not magic words, its not hypnosis.
YZF 2y ago
[flagged]
catlikesshrimp 2y ago
>>For example, can you tell me if EU is about saving the environment and stopping climate change? If so why they are blocking the Chinese electric cars? Can't stand others making the world better place better than they do? Because China Gives Two Shits about the environment. Them and their "developing country" tag. They will burn the coal until there is no more, along with India. Because China Gives No Shit about democracy, or human rights. China isn't shy to show force. The "west" is already at war with China but hasn't realized it. Heck, they still don't accept war with Rusia started over a decade ago
mensetmanusman 2y ago
“ For example, can you tell me if EU is about saving the environment and stopping climate change? If so why they are blocking the Chinese electric cars?” This is talked about in many treasury departments. China supports some businesses an order of magnitude beyond the competition because they are a state/corp hybrid model and this allows those businesses to sell below material costs. This eventually destroys competition for future price raises and is a good long term strategy that only authoritarian countries can afford. Other Countries like in the EU are hesitant to let China destroy war machine production capability so they apply tariffs to right-size the actual cost.
kelseyfrog 2y ago
Each of these are a result of neo-*ism constituencies failing. Dialectically, we've reached the point where the contradictions are so great they have become impossible to maintain. Each of these crises are a direct product of those contradictions. The only viable path forward is addressing these contradictions head on. Any attempt at doubling down on existing ideology will inflame the contradictions further.
UncleOxidant 2y ago
> The west is in crisis, the ideology doesn't hold and the economy doesn't provide So democracy (the ideology) doesn't hold? And the US economy is currently the envy of the world - yes there's a big housing problem that needs addressing, but if anything the losing party was the one that put up some kind of plan to deal with it, I don't see the winning party reducing housing/rental costs as they're from the landlord class. > Can you tell me if US is about freedom and respect of the international law, borders and trande? If so why they support Ukraine against Russian invasion Because Ukraine was invaded by Russia thus impacting Ukrainian freedom and borders? It seems pretty obvious.

by mrtksn 2y ago

cowpig 2y ago

Technology has changed the landscape of possibility very quickly, and our institutions are not keeping up. The world will need to figure out ways to deal with the new reality. Social media have made it far more lucrative to make up whatever than to report on facts. Meanwhile it's harder than ever to run a sustainable business in journalism. Meanwhile autocrats have noticed that it's cheaper than ever to run massive campaigns of propaganda and misinformation abroad, because they don't have to involve anywhere near the number of local accomplices. LLMs are accelerating the trend. You're right that the US democracy is in crisis as well.

jahewson 2y ago
[flagged]

cynicalsecurity 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
mrtksn 2y ago
Only of your history goes 1 year back.
- starik36 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - mrtksn 2y ago
    What's your point? Who said that going back in history solves today's problems?
- 725686 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - mrtksn 2y ago
    Why don’t stick with modern history and internationally recognized borders? Forget about the deeds of the long gone people, they are not around so it’s irrelevant.
    - 725686 2y ago
      I agree with both replies. I'm just answering to the "Only of your history goes 1 year back." remark. Both sides are wrong with no solution on sight.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    If geopolitics predating the Roman Republic by 500 years justifies kicking people off land they were born in, then I have bad news for almost all of the Americans in the audience. Probably quite a lot of the English too, though with less certainty as nobody's quite sure when even the Celts arrived.

stracer 2y ago

> the ideology collapsed, economy doesn't perform Economy doesn't perform, but ideology has collapsed only in minds of ordinary people. Politicians, stakeholders and various media outlets are very much invested, and still push that the current course is the only correct way and the bright green future as designed is unstoppable. Reminds me of the arrogance of the ruling party slogans from before 90s.

jncfhnb 2y ago

In Moldova the magic words were bribery. Thankfully they didn’t work.

myrmidon 2y ago

I'll bite. > For example, can you tell me if EU is about saving the environment and stopping climate change? If so why they are blocking the Chinese electric cars? Can't stand others making the world better place better than they do? Because the EU is a bunch of democracies, and a few of the biggest ones do not want to accelerate electrification bad enough to threaten parts of their industry/economy right now. This tracks with the electorate; support for green policies is rather low across the board, almost every nation has different primary issues. > Can you tell me if US is about freedom and respect of the international law, borders and trande? If so why they support Ukraine against Russian invasion and then support Israel who occupies Palestinian territories since many years? The Ukraine war is the most clear-cut aggressor/victim situation in a long time, even compared to setups like the Vietnam war: There is not even a puppet government with any legitimacy that the Russians could be claiming to act in support of, and there is no credible casus belli either. It's just blatant expansionism at the cost of a sovereign nation. Israel/palestine is a complicated mess-- it is basically a civil war of sorts, and the Americans DO support people in Gaza/Westbank a ton (humanitarian aid). > Can you tell me why people should drink from paper straws when the rich fly private jets? Note: The non-private jets are a much bigger problem actually, but since there's not enough popular support to curtail air travel significantly, the easy pro-environmental actions happen first. > Can you tell me why the capital can go anywhere but people should be stopped at the borders? Because the people inside those borders don't want other people with no capital wandering in. The capital alone (or its owners) they don't really mind as much. > Can you tell me how the economy is s great when so many people suffer? Can you be more specific on this? I'd say the economy is not great, not terrible, and its about the same for the people (talking about central Europe here).

mrtksn 2y ago
> few of the biggest ones do not want to accelerate electrification bad enough to threaten parts of their industry/economy right now Do you see the problem? Those in control screw up and they expect to get bailed out by forcing people to buy their inferior and expensive products. > The Ukraine war is the most clear-cut aggressor/victim situation It's actually not that clear cut and if you apply the same filters for both of the countries you will see it. Try testing for internationally recognized borders and the situation is same for the Israeli invasion and Russian invasion. Test for separatist movements and you will find very similar things, test for minorities getting attacked and you will see that its quite similar. Not the same but when you pick something like "Russia must respect the internationally recognized borders" and you don't apply the same for Israel then you are a hypocrite, you are not doing it from standpoint of a principle but due to your own interest and if you are doing it out of your own interest people start asking why I'm paying for it? Where's my cut if this thing pans out? > The non-private jets are a much bigger problem actually I don't know if that's true or not but you ask people to sacrifice their comfort for a common cause, then everyone should do it. > Because the people inside those borders don't want other people with no capital wandering But then people start noticing that it's not the poor immigrants who want to work who buys al the properties. Some people want the poor stopped at the border and the rich welcomed. Others want different things, a lot of people don't want oligarchs buying all that property and leave it empty. > I'd say the economy is not great, not terrible In the case of the US elections, there were many opinion polls showing that people are not satisfied with the economy. They are also not satisfied with many other things related to the economy. Just yesterday someone killed an insurance CEO at a filthy rich location and so many people were cheering for the killer.

MikeTheGreat 2y ago

> For example, can you tell me if EU is about saving the environment and stopping climate change? If so why they are blocking the Chinese electric cars? Can't stand others making the world better place better than they do? Personally, I think that the goal of a vibrant, thriving democracy is to allow and encourage participation from many groups of citizens. This will result in the government pursuing multiple objectives at the same time. This necessarily means that you're going to have to make trade offs. Is it more important to have cheap EVs or is it more important to keep good jobs in country? Maybe in this case we'll decide on good jobs in our country, and then look at other ways that climate change can be addressed. Maybe we won't. Asking why an entire country doesn't do 100% of the things it could to address a single issue seems almost intentionally naive.

newspaper1 2y ago
Maybe it's the idea of a "country" that's flawed? Certainly it is, we live on a planet and are all impacted by the environment. Previous social structures are no longer applicable and are causing damage. It's only a matter of time before they're rethought.

etangent 2y ago

> For example, can you tell me if EU is about saving the environment and stopping climate change? If so why they are blocking the Chinese electric cars? This is a very strange criticism. Why is it wrong to try to make impact on the environment without fully destroying the domestic industry? Let's follow up on this a bit further. If the EU counties did in fact become hardliners on the environment to the point of fully destroying their own industries, then you would no longer attack the perceived "hypocrisy" but would instead attack their policy of deindustrialization. So you don't seem to have problems with hypocrisy, you instead seem to have a problem with environmental movement/policies as such or at least insofar as they are implemented by the EU block. If the EU countries completely abandoned their environmental slogans, and went on an ultra-industrial path, would you still be a critic? Given your other comments (why can capital travel but people cannot?), something tells me that yes, you would. It is difficult for me to perceive your criticism as anything other than coming from a supporter of an _ipso facto_ enemy economic block. You are not interested at constructively helping EU countries anymore, you are looking for a hammer to destroy your chosen target with. One thing about social media is that it allows anyone to have a voice. The problem of "anyone" is that it ignores the fact that we do not live in a post-human utopia, we live in a real world where the concept of an "enemy" is real. There are real people out there who seek our destruction. This is not a pleasant thing to speak about but it is something that seems to be unfortunately the case. Because English is such a popular language, chances are the enemy speaks English and is on social media. What content do you think he posts?

mrtksn 2y ago
This is a fallacy. People are not buying Chinese instead of European because they want destruction, they buy it because the European industry failed in making better or cheaper products. If we are bailing out an industry, this can't be on the shoulders of the public who doesn't have anything to do with the failure. If we are going to save it, make sure those responsible for the failure are paying too. You are asking for Europeans to pay almost half a year of their salaries to save these industries, then at least take away the properties of those involved in the failure. Maybe it wouldn't change much but are in this together or not?
- 2y ago

GeoAtreides 2y ago

> Russians didn't discover magic words that they use to hypnotise people and make them vote for pro-Russia candidate Well, someone else discovered not the magic words but the magic timing of when to tell them and how to surround people with the right words: i.e. the social media algorithms.

newspaper1 2y ago
Don't shoot the messenger. The actual problems being pointed out are the root cause.
- rbanffy 2y ago
  People were unhappy before and nothing like this happened because of it. International interference was always very difficult.
  - newspaper1 2y ago
    More transparency is a good thing, even if that comes from "international interference". The problems exist, try to hide them at your own political risk.
    - rbanffy 2y ago
      The point is foreign election interference is no longer difficult, dangerous, or expensive, and is incredibly effective.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - newspaper1 2y ago
        It's not "dangerous" to expose the truth, even selectively. More information is better, especially when it pertains to things our government is keeping from us.

aatarax 2y ago

The world sucks for most people. The world is better than its ever been for most people. The world can be improved a lot for most people. Those three things can and are all simultaneously true. Unfortunately, improving the world requires engaging deeply with issues and many people now prefer to speak in terms of grand historical narratives and emotional arguments that stitch sparse data points into a large story far vaster than the data can support.

golemiprague 2y ago

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jltsiren 2y ago

Incumbents losing elections is what is supposed to happen. It's a sign of normal times, not of a crisis. One of the key principles of a republic – both ancient and modern – is that personal power is bad for the society. Leaders are a necessary evil that must be tolerated (if only barely), but they also must be changed regularly.

simion314 2y ago
>One of the key principles of a republic – both ancient and modern – is that personal power is bad for the society. Leaders are a necessary evil that must be tolerated (if only barely), but they also must be changed regularly. In Romania not only we change them regularly but we also have PMs and ministers in jail for crimes they commuted, we are not like other countries where same president or prime Minister was in power for 30 years.
close04 2y ago
Incumbents losing elections can be fair. But only if the winner played by the rules at least loosely and the win wasn’t orchestrated by a foreign party, especially an adversary. Unless you are Russian or Chinese you shouldn’t have a president ‘chosen’ by them. So props to the Romanian authorities for taking action and not allowing a president beholden to Russian interests.
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  Nobody is claiming the candidate didn't play by the rules. Rather, some agency has asserted there was "a mass influence operation" in his favor - apparently they're not even asserting an organized conspiracy. There's a big problem with that claim. Intelligence agencies have a long history of making this claim of Russian control over elections all over the world, and it's always been lies and nonsense. What even is a "mass influence" operation? Sounds like the same thing as a political campaign to me? If it's really on a mass scale it should be pretty easy to prove and work out how to stop it next time, shouldn't it? Such claims are never proven because they aren't true. Back in 2016 when Trump and Brexit were still fresh, the sort of people who didn't like those things were trying to explain their loss. The Clinton campaign came up with the Steele dossier and the American press ran with it. This was the origin of the "Russian influence" claim and back then it was usually described as being done through social media bots. Academics flooded the literature with papers that claimed to prove the existence of such Russian bots. I used to work in bot detection so was interested to read some of these papers, and found they were all based on academic fraud: https://blog.plan99.net/did-russian-bots-impact-brexit-ad66f08c014a https://blog.plan99.net/did-russian-bots-impact-brexit-ad66f... https://blog.plan99.net/fake-science-part-ii-bots-that-are-not-c66129e5e3f5 https://blog.plan99.net/fake-science-part-ii-bots-that-are-n... Given the long history of this type of claim, a rational person will have to assume that it's a plot by Romanian intelligence to overturn an election and treat it accordingly.

petre 2y ago

> Russia appears to be able to propel politicians who are closer to the their politics Not really, they propel useful idiots. In the US that would have been Robert Kennedy Jr. In Germany it's whatever clows AfD has, in Austria it's the FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl. Basically anyone that would either auto sabotage that country, the EU, like Viktor Orbán or be pro-Russia, like the Georgian Dream. In Romania it's a RFK Jr. like nutcake figure with new age, peace and love, vaccines bad, water has memory, nazis are patriots, etc beliefs and with a discourse that sounds all right at the surface but practicaly says absolutely nothing except that it's littered with trigger narratives, just as if it were the Heaven's Gate website. His campaign was pumped by Russia on Tiktok using dormant accounts two weeks or so before the election. Also on other US based social networks and on Telegram to a lesser extent. 2M people voted for him out of 9M, some because they hate the current establishment, others saw him as an outsider, when in fact he's actually part of an old boys network, others actually believe his mumbo jumbo. It turns out he's also linked and promoted by fascist groups, some of which are actual former French Foreign Legion soldiers, run a mercenary group in the DRC and survival training workshops in the mountains. These are also linked to a rather controversial Eastern Orthodox bishop who is known to be pro Russian, so this candidate also got promoted through church networks. His campaign was in part financed by a crypto entreprenour with dual Romanian and South African citizenship who currently resides in ZA. The candidate declared zero political advertising expenses. Anyway, I hope Tiktok gets massively screwed by the EU after this. Because this is in the Comission's hands now. The candidate's fascist friends might be soon visited by a SWAT team and they'll probably find firearms. The candidate, I dunno, he's probably going to flee to another country if he ever gets indicted.

rbanffy 2y ago
> In the US that would have been Robert Kennedy Jr We should not forget about the orange elephant in the room.
zjalnxb 2y ago
In Austria, Haider took over the FPÖ in 1986. In 1999, when Russia was completely weak and had other priorities, the FPÖ already had 26% nationally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Party_of_Austria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Party_of_Austria In Germany the AfD rose to around 10% after Merkel let in millions of refugees in 2015. It had nothing to do with Russia at all. It is currently polling around 18% because the economy is bad and people are tired of U.S. subservience and want Germany to make its own decisions. The concept that right wing parties are somehow beneficial to Russia in the long run is absurd to the extreme. In Ukraine, literally the Bandera supporters are the best fighters and the most anti-Russian. When in history has it ever been beneficial for a country to support nationalism in an enemy country. It does not make any sense. This whole thing is just a narrative of the forces who want to keep down "EU-first" movements.

simion314 2y ago

I disagree with your defense of Ruzzia 1 there is well known that social media and itnernet companies can target content for each person 2 we known from Cambridge analitica and similar that if social media company wants he can make a user depressed, sad etc 3 we also observer that irelevant bullshit is pushed very hard in social media, as an example transgender stuff, it is pushed so hard that my family thinks that Romania is in danger because of EU and their transgender agenda, children will be manipulated to change their gender, You can see how fake stuff about thois topic is pushed on social media, my family never had contact with transgender people, maybe they know one gay person in their entire live but LGBTQ is such an important topic in election that they might decide whot o vote based on this Ruzzian bullshit 4 we also seen same shit with COVID , yes the virus exists even if the pro Ruzzian candidates do not belives it or thinks God send him the naturalistic cure, based on how hard this conpiracies were pushed in last years you have conspirationist vote conspirationists, so if you want their vote you either lower yourselves to that level or try to fight Ruzzia and china to bring a bit of intelligence back. 5 anti emigration is a big push on social media, and fascists in Europe really push on this, but tell my, will italians or Spanish people in the city that studied at the university go and work in the farms, in the hot summer instead of the poor immigrants? Did you also seen how crimes are immediately blamed on the immigrants by the internet trolls before the identity of the criminals is known, and sometimes the criminal is a native, but the trolls pushed so hard on the fake news that it was immigrants that sometimes the immigrants were attacked based on fake news started by Ruzzians and belived by right wing less inteligent people. So in Romania the people that voted for the Kremlin guy , voted him because they want a strong man that is anti transexuals and LGBTQ, anti minorities, that belives in the same conpirations and hate same groups as they hate all because Ruzzia trained them to hate those groups of people and believe those conspiracies. They did not vote because of economical policies the fascist guy proposed.

mrtksn 2y ago
I did not defend Russia. Let's stop pretending that everything is perfect but the adversary found magic words that can show to people and sway their opinions. Influencing people is indeed possible and Russia definitely doing it but this tale about showing social media posts and making them vote the way they like is just a caricature. They are able to do it only because of the failure of the others to address the concerns of the electorate. Sure, they lie but they all lie. The Russian propaganda is very well crafted and does address the concerns that others don't want to touch. It's not a spell, it's not magic words, its not hypnosis.

YZF 2y ago

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catlikesshrimp 2y ago

>>For example, can you tell me if EU is about saving the environment and stopping climate change? If so why they are blocking the Chinese electric cars? Can't stand others making the world better place better than they do? Because China Gives Two Shits about the environment. Them and their "developing country" tag. They will burn the coal until there is no more, along with India. Because China Gives No Shit about democracy, or human rights. China isn't shy to show force. The "west" is already at war with China but hasn't realized it. Heck, they still don't accept war with Rusia started over a decade ago

mensetmanusman 2y ago

“ For example, can you tell me if EU is about saving the environment and stopping climate change? If so why they are blocking the Chinese electric cars?” This is talked about in many treasury departments. China supports some businesses an order of magnitude beyond the competition because they are a state/corp hybrid model and this allows those businesses to sell below material costs. This eventually destroys competition for future price raises and is a good long term strategy that only authoritarian countries can afford. Other Countries like in the EU are hesitant to let China destroy war machine production capability so they apply tariffs to right-size the actual cost.

kelseyfrog 2y ago

Each of these are a result of neo-*ism constituencies failing. Dialectically, we've reached the point where the contradictions are so great they have become impossible to maintain. Each of these crises are a direct product of those contradictions. The only viable path forward is addressing these contradictions head on. Any attempt at doubling down on existing ideology will inflame the contradictions further.

UncleOxidant 2y ago

> The west is in crisis, the ideology doesn't hold and the economy doesn't provide So democracy (the ideology) doesn't hold? And the US economy is currently the envy of the world - yes there's a big housing problem that needs addressing, but if anything the losing party was the one that put up some kind of plan to deal with it, I don't see the winning party reducing housing/rental costs as they're from the landlord class. > Can you tell me if US is about freedom and respect of the international law, borders and trande? If so why they support Ukraine against Russian invasion Because Ukraine was invaded by Russia thus impacting Ukrainian freedom and borders? It seems pretty obvious.