5 ms·

Impending National Distraction, aka Public Relations 101

59 points by cwilson 13y ago

BadassFractal 13y ago
Quick, have a celebrity reveal a naked breast in public. Nothing will provoke more outrage.
mtowle 13y ago
Too bad the Royal Wedding already happened. Friday night that weekend would've been perfect.
- cwilson 13y ago
  At first I thought you meant the Red Wedding (Game of Thrones), then realized this was not a typo, but both are still 100% applicable.
btbuildem 13y ago
Let's hope they don't resort to bombing a major city in an effort to whip up fear and xenophobia..
waster 13y ago
Yeah, it seems to me there is some tradeoff that could likely be expressed in a mathematical equation between distracting the public and therefore in theory not jeopardizing the status quo of intelligence gathering, and the cost of a too-large distraction. Not that it would necessarily be a simple equation (what's the cost of jeopardizing the status quo of intelligence gathering? No clear way to say for certain that a specific capability would necessarily head off future calamity, with the possible exception of really clear cases, which I think must exist at times. And what's the true cost of, say, military action? There's the direct. There's the fallout (literal and figurative - benefit to weapons manufacturing, damage/benefit to trade, injured veterans, reduced/increased spending from a scared public...)). But I think I would love to see that equation. Edit: Closed parentheses.
gasull 13y ago
Maybe the war in Syria will be the distraction.
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  It sounds really tinfoil hatish to say that but I worry about that too. Nothing like jumping into war to take the citizens minds off what ever it is they are going on about. I'd prefer it was some sort of 'good news' distraction of course.
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    That is tinfoil hattish. The Syria situation has been brewing for years, and the strategic factors that make it into a hard problem run back decades. I'm surprised we've managed to keep out of it this long.
    - ChuckMcM 13y ago
      I don't disagree. I keep hoping that passing meaningful immigration reform is the actual distraction planned.
      - anigbrowl 13y ago
        That too has been in the works for many, many years. The public is distractable, but as I've repeatedly pointed out, only a small section of the public cares all that much about this issue to begin with. It's not logical to posit that everything else in DC is taking place in relation to the NSA scandal, any more than it was logical to assume that everything in DC revolved around the Benghazi thing last year. Now, a major new administration initiative that appeared out of the blue in the last 2-3 weeks would probably be a distraction, but it's unrealistic to expect every part of government to stop what its doing until everyone has argued out the NSA issue.
- user24 13y ago
  Isn't that the point of the article?
eksith 13y ago
I'm reminded of a something Neil deGrasse Tyson once said of optical illusions : "They should be called BRAIN FAILURES!" We get a lot of them and they're not all optical. People hate unhappy, depressing or otherwise hopeless situations and will seek out the easiest outlet to escape. I think it's a survival mechanism of sorts where you're more focused on being happy and alive vs. disillusioned and not procreating. We're genetically ill-equipped for righteous indignation by and large so X-Idol-Housewives-Celebrity-Factor-Dance will do nicely in a time of genuine crisis.
- cwilson 13y ago
  Or alternatively, a much bigger crisis (which is scary).
dclusin 13y ago
I have a different and more pessimistic perspective. My pessimism is actually derived from my Facebook feed as well. I haven't seen a single posting about PRISM or any discussion of the massive surveillance state that we have created from people outside of the technology industry. My facebook friends consist largely of people whom I've grown up with or known since childhood. I have approximately 226 FB friends and of those approximately 20 are developers. The only posts even mentioning these shenanigans are from a few of those developers. YMMV I guess.
- JumpCrisscross 13y ago
  Ditto, almost all the substantive debate I see comes from the British, French, German, and Chinese press.
- hobs 13y ago
  Agree, even at around people I know I still dont hear about it, and these are people who are on the internet every day. General public? I just hear SSDD.
- munin 13y ago
  I was sitting in the airport waiting for a flight today for two hours and heard NSA discussed on the news channel at least once an hour. this was on whatever local news channel for seattle they had in seatac, so, maybe you just have tuned out friends...
- gojomo 13y ago
  But what if the Facebook feed algorithms found that talking about the NSA bums people out, thus decreasing engagement and revenue? They might then decrease the visibility of such discussion. What you observe might be a real phenomenon – the 'normals' are barely aware of the NSA stories so far. But something so carefully curated by a for-profit entity as the Facebook feed (or similarly, the national TV networks' nightly half-hour news) is not going to give a representative sampling of people's concerns.

59 points by cwilson 13y ago

BadassFractal 13y ago

Quick, have a celebrity reveal a naked breast in public. Nothing will provoke more outrage.

mtowle 13y ago

Too bad the Royal Wedding already happened. Friday night that weekend would've been perfect.

cwilson 13y ago
At first I thought you meant the Red Wedding (Game of Thrones), then realized this was not a typo, but both are still 100% applicable.

btbuildem 13y ago

Let's hope they don't resort to bombing a major city in an effort to whip up fear and xenophobia..

waster 13y ago

Yeah, it seems to me there is some tradeoff that could likely be expressed in a mathematical equation between distracting the public and therefore in theory not jeopardizing the status quo of intelligence gathering, and the cost of a too-large distraction. Not that it would necessarily be a simple equation (what's the cost of jeopardizing the status quo of intelligence gathering? No clear way to say for certain that a specific capability would necessarily head off future calamity, with the possible exception of really clear cases, which I think must exist at times. And what's the true cost of, say, military action? There's the direct. There's the fallout (literal and figurative - benefit to weapons manufacturing, damage/benefit to trade, injured veterans, reduced/increased spending from a scared public...)). But I think I would love to see that equation. Edit: Closed parentheses.

gasull 13y ago

Maybe the war in Syria will be the distraction.

ChuckMcM 13y ago
It sounds really tinfoil hatish to say that but I worry about that too. Nothing like jumping into war to take the citizens minds off what ever it is they are going on about. I'd prefer it was some sort of 'good news' distraction of course.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  That is tinfoil hattish. The Syria situation has been brewing for years, and the strategic factors that make it into a hard problem run back decades. I'm surprised we've managed to keep out of it this long.
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    I don't disagree. I keep hoping that passing meaningful immigration reform is the actual distraction planned.
    - anigbrowl 13y ago
      That too has been in the works for many, many years. The public is distractable, but as I've repeatedly pointed out, only a small section of the public cares all that much about this issue to begin with. It's not logical to posit that everything else in DC is taking place in relation to the NSA scandal, any more than it was logical to assume that everything in DC revolved around the Benghazi thing last year. Now, a major new administration initiative that appeared out of the blue in the last 2-3 weeks would probably be a distraction, but it's unrealistic to expect every part of government to stop what its doing until everyone has argued out the NSA issue.
user24 13y ago
Isn't that the point of the article?

eksith 13y ago

I'm reminded of a something Neil deGrasse Tyson once said of optical illusions : "They should be called BRAIN FAILURES!" We get a lot of them and they're not all optical. People hate unhappy, depressing or otherwise hopeless situations and will seek out the easiest outlet to escape. I think it's a survival mechanism of sorts where you're more focused on being happy and alive vs. disillusioned and not procreating. We're genetically ill-equipped for righteous indignation by and large so X-Idol-Housewives-Celebrity-Factor-Dance will do nicely in a time of genuine crisis.

cwilson 13y ago
Or alternatively, a much bigger crisis (which is scary).

dclusin 13y ago

I have a different and more pessimistic perspective. My pessimism is actually derived from my Facebook feed as well. I haven't seen a single posting about PRISM or any discussion of the massive surveillance state that we have created from people outside of the technology industry. My facebook friends consist largely of people whom I've grown up with or known since childhood. I have approximately 226 FB friends and of those approximately 20 are developers. The only posts even mentioning these shenanigans are from a few of those developers. YMMV I guess.

JumpCrisscross 13y ago
Ditto, almost all the substantive debate I see comes from the British, French, German, and Chinese press.
hobs 13y ago
Agree, even at around people I know I still dont hear about it, and these are people who are on the internet every day. General public? I just hear SSDD.
munin 13y ago
I was sitting in the airport waiting for a flight today for two hours and heard NSA discussed on the news channel at least once an hour. this was on whatever local news channel for seattle they had in seatac, so, maybe you just have tuned out friends...
gojomo 13y ago
But what if the Facebook feed algorithms found that talking about the NSA bums people out, thus decreasing engagement and revenue? They might then decrease the visibility of such discussion. What you observe might be a real phenomenon – the 'normals' are barely aware of the NSA stories so far. But something so carefully curated by a for-profit entity as the Facebook feed (or similarly, the national TV networks' nightly half-hour news) is not going to give a representative sampling of people's concerns.