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I lack the willpower to go down the rabbit hole of how bad this guy was. On the political front, on the science front, on the logical consistency front. After
by RealityVoid 2y ago
I lack the willpower to go down the rabbit hole of how bad this guy was. On the political front, on the science front, on the logical consistency front.
After 2 weeks of frantically trying to convince people not to vote for him, I am exhausted and just want a good night's sleep.
Someone should document the amount of absolute insanity that the candidate was and maybe then you'd get it. I just feel relief at this point.
- UncleOxidant 2y ago> I lack the willpower to go down the rabbit hole of how bad this guy was. On the political front, on the science front, on the logical consistency front. We're in the same place in the US. > After 2 weeks of frantically trying to convince people not to vote for him, I am exhausted and just want a good night's sleep. How many of us felt after the US election.
- RealityVoid 2y agoI never thought I would say this, but this guy was, honestly, way way worse than Trump. Not to diminish your torture. But it was off the charts insane. Like... A compendium of conspiratorial beliefs.
- Terr_ 2y agoIn a broader sense, the exhaustive storm of BS is deliberate: When the people are too damn tired to care about which story is really true, it changes the playing field to favor whoever is willing to tell the most-pleasing lies.
- hermitcrab 2y agoThat is classic Russian disinformation isn't it? Fill every channel with contradictory information, until no-one knows what to believe.
- Terr_ 2y agoEventually it dovetails with the dynamics of: "The way you have to pretend to believe/avoid my obvious lies is a demonstration of my power and an implicit threat to others." Then: "By forcing you to publicly sacrifice your integrity, I've poisoned any future resistance with mutual doubt." > He thought: the worst thing about Vorbis isn’t that he’s evil, but that he makes good people do evil. He turns people into things like himself. You can’t help it. You catch it off him. -- Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
- datameta 2y agoYes, it is known as Hypernormalization.
- hermitcrab 2y agoMy understand of Hyper Normalisation is that it is the construction of a fake reality that everyone agrees on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperNormalisation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperNormalisation Which is different to flooding the channels with contradictory information, so that no-one knows what to believe. The film 'Hyper Normalisation', by Adam Curtis, is well worth watching, BTW.
- RealityVoid 2y agoWell, that fits as well for the CG crowd.
- hermitcrab 2y agoCG?
- RealityVoid 2y agoCalin Georgescu, the candidate that hasrussian support. Kind of how US abbreviates Donald Trump as DJT.
- 2y ago
- jokethrowaway 2y agoI don't think this is what's happening. There is no confusion. Europe is going down the drain due to the lack of innovation and over-regulation making people poorer and poorer. Refugees cause crime on the street making people feel unsafe. The average Joe is pissed and votes whatever extremists, as long as they oppose the EU.
- RealityVoid 2y agoTrust me, there is confusion. We have inequality in Romania, but we don't have flrefugees causing crime or making people feel unsafe. The quality of life as steadily been improving. There is lack of faith in the political class.
- gmueckl 2y agoAnd Russia is happily adding fuel to that fire. It's a divide and conquer strategy for them.
- Wytwwww 2y agoSo? Do you suggest that some people in Romania (and well.. applies to many other countries just as much) should lose the right to vote because they are too dumb and are easily tricked (I mean I certainly agree that they are)? Because what other options are there?
- stubish 2y agoPropaganda channels need to be shut down and replaced with information sources. While originating with politicians, the advertising industry has turned propaganda into a science you can study at University and this is the result - populations, not just dumb individuals, without agency, and democracy just a game to be played by the manipulators. Political truth and spending laws also need to be become agile, because the US election showed you can dump billions into disinformation if you are fast enough to not be blocked until after the election. But it is toothless while someone outside of your legal framework gets to choose the next leader by hiring a marketing graduate and giving them an advertising budget.
- Saline9515 2y agoThe argument is doubled edged and typically what a totalitarian government could say to close competing media outlets. It is quite ironical that the main newspaper in the Soviet Union was called la Pravda = "the truth".
- ANewFormation 2y agoThey also had Novosti = the news. It led to a fun joke: "Why do we have two newspapers, Truth and News? Well that's because there's no truth in News, and no news in Truth." Alot of these old Soviet jokes are becoming quite appropriate again. What times we live in.
- RealityVoid 2y agoThis is true. But nonetheless, it is double edged. Not a fan of closing down sources, more a fan of education and inoculation of the population against misinformation. But that takes decades. And this is now. Not sure what is the best course of action.
- jdck1326 2y agoHow bad you or I think he is is irrelevant. If the people's decision is overturned when the elite do not like it then the country isn't any kind of democracy.
- data_maan 2y agoHow about overturning the result when the elite accepts it, but then discovers that he (or whoever helped him) actually manipulated people via TikTok? It's not really a true people's vote in that case any more, so it seems rather like defending democracy.
- jdck1326 2y agoMy point is that our personal views on his positions and character are irrelevant. You seem to be discussing a different point.
- datameta 2y agoYou seem to be discussing the Romanian election in a vacuum divorced from the reality that Putin is doing everything in his power to sow chaos in Europe because the calculus just works for him.
- RealityVoid 2y agoDemocracy works because it leads to reasonable outcomes for the vas majority of the population. If the election itself leads to unreasonable ones, it ceases to be a good political system. You know about the old dilemma used for justifying the electoral college "the tyranny of the" majority". Well, me and my countrymen mostly judge that we were about to vote for tyranny in our country. An EC like approach wouldn't have stopped it because of the vote repartition, but only because of electors refusal to vote for a particular candidate. Well, actually, it kind of DID stop it because we had the CCR step in and declare the election null. This fetishizing of democracy need to take into account the safely valves baked into the law for situations like this and a safety valve just triggered.