1. #17881
    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post
    Nunes is asking for charges about lying to Congress, and I'm willing to bet real money on this, on the basis of "Barr said there was no collusion but these witnesses said there was".

    Hey, remember that time Trump went under oath and answered questions? No? That's because he hasn't.
    That's the biggest thing right there, we know a president can be put under oath for questioning, so then why was Trump able to weasle out of it with only written answers?

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  2. #17882
    The Undying Cthulhu 2020's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shalcker View Post
    It's quite hard to "block" certain views from being published without going into totalitarian measures of control, and if something Russians say strikes as true... all you would be doing by exposing it as Russian propaganda is make Russians look trustworthy; and if it doesn't strike people as true, then it will fail to influence them anyway.
    "Something Russians say that strikes as true" is basically an oxymoron, given that they've spent the last 100 years becoming masters of making lies sound credible. If someone is a proven liar all the time, you don't start suddenly believing them because something they said sounds like it "could" be true.

    You make it sound like Russia is starting from a "just met you" phase where you meet someone and someone else immediately starts screaming that they're a liar out of thin air. No, Russia is that big authoritarian failed state that is a liar and everyone on the face of the planet knows is a liar.
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  3. #17883
    Quote Originally Posted by Butter Emails View Post
    "Something Russians say that strikes as true" is basically an oxymoron, given that they've spent the last 100 years becoming masters of making lies sound credible. If someone is a proven liar all the time, you don't start suddenly believing them because something they said sounds like it "could" be true.

    You make it sound like Russia is starting from a "just met you" phase where you meet someone and someone else immediately starts screaming that they're a liar out of thin air. No, Russia is that big authoritarian failed state that is a liar and everyone on the face of the planet knows is a liar.

    You mean like Donald Trump? Trump lying so much give Russia a second chance. The standard both sides argument - Russia lies, but so does the US.

  4. #17884
    Quote Originally Posted by Shalcker View Post
    There are already laws in place against such meddling from financial perspective.

    As for "information warfare"... perhaps some general way of dealing with different opinions other then "show who posted it" and "prevent them from posting it in the first place" could do the trick?

    It's quite hard to "block" certain views from being published without going into totalitarian measures of control, and if something Russians say strikes as true... all you would be doing by exposing it as Russian propaganda is make Russians look trustworthy; and if it doesn't strike people as true, then it will fail to influence them anyway.
    Frankly we just need to physically cut adversary countries like yours off our internet and follow that by erecting a Great Firewall around the free world that keeps you people.

    Won't be a 100% solution, but it's a start. The less the free world has to do with Russia, the better.

  5. #17885
    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    Frankly we just need to physically cut adversary countries like yours off our internet and follow that by erecting a Great Firewall around the free world that keeps you people.

    Won't be a 100% solution, but it's a start. The less the free world has to do with Russia, the better.
    I thought they were already working on that themselves.
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    I do not need to play the role of "holier than thou". I'm above that..

  6. #17886
    Quote Originally Posted by Ripster42 View Post
    I thought they were already working on that themselves.
    They are. But I think it is more for in case of a (Russian) National emergency than an always on thing.

    Part of this is on *us* though. Having a social media account and putting your life and ideas on it in 2019 is a fucking joke that only crazy people should be doing. Forums are fine because of anonymity. But the internet is more dangerous than useful as a way of people exchanging ideas, and should be treated as such.

    Russia was successful, in no small part, because a lot of boomers and laid off people still thought "Social" was some great thing in 2016.

  7. #17887
    Quote Originally Posted by Butter Emails View Post
    "Something Russians say that strikes as true" is basically an oxymoron, given that they've spent the last 100 years becoming masters of making lies sound credible. If someone is a proven liar all the time, you don't start suddenly believing them because something they said sounds like it "could" be true.
    Noone lies all the time though. Best influence comes from properly framed truths.

    Also lying is as old as man itself, and gets used all the time. You don't seem to have much success fighting lies in general.

    You make it sound like Russia is starting from a "just met you" phase where you meet someone and someone else immediately starts screaming that they're a liar out of thin air. No, Russia is that big authoritarian failed state that is a liar and everyone on the face of the planet knows is a liar.
    And US is oligarchy driven by monetary interests with no regard to their citizen's well-being.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    Frankly we just need to physically cut adversary countries like yours off our internet and follow that by erecting a Great Firewall around the free world that keeps you people.

    Won't be a 100% solution, but it's a start. The less the free world has to do with Russia, the better.
    That's admitting defeat though.

  8. #17888
    Quote Originally Posted by Shalcker View Post
    That's admitting defeat though.
    The Russian government is an authoritarian regime that abuses human rights on a scale only out done by the Chinese Communist Party. And its foreign policy is basically institutionalized geopolitical trolling.

    And what do you do with trolls? You don't feed them.

  9. #17889
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ripster42 View Post
    I thought they were already working on that themselves.
    They are, but that's more of a precaution they're taking because they're expecting to be cut off, not because it's something that they would want to have happen.

  10. #17890
    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    The Russian government is an authoritarian regime that abuses human rights on a scale only out done by the Chinese Communist Party. And its foreign policy is basically institutionalized geopolitical trolling.
    So, maybe you should cut China from internet as well? And Saudis, while you're at it?

    And what do you do with trolls? You don't feed them.
    Despite billions of dollars spent, you think US is worse at propaganda then Russia?

  11. #17891
    Quote Originally Posted by Shalcker View Post
    So, maybe you should cut China from internet as well? And Saudis, while you're at it?
    Yep absolutely. China is actually more urgent. Remember: the main geopolitical conflict this century is the United States vs China New Cold War. Russian containment is the hobby. Keeping China down is the job. Russian containment is the beneficiary of things that are "China-first".

    Quote Originally Posted by Shalcker View Post
    Despite billions of dollars spent, you think US is worse at propaganda then Russia?
    Not exactly. US softpower, even with Trump, is so pervasive and aggressive it's fundamentally changed the way billions of people think about themselves, their neighbors, their own governments, the US and the wider world. The world's never seen anything like what the US has been exporting in terms of culture and ideas for well over a century now. The US never had an official comparable propaganda effort, even during the Cold War, because it simply didn't need it. American culture, American money, American ideas, American technology, American travel, was better than the best purpose built influence campaign we could ever imagine.

    Russia has to engage in government-run, tightly structured foreign propaganda efforts because that's pretty much all your authoritarian regime has. It can't compete at the thing that makes the US its most powerful which is Americans taking everything special about our people and fanning out across the world, going about our business.

    But let's be clear, we're still coming for you. Putin's dumb 2016 stunt is only going to buy Russian years more of misery.

  12. #17892
    Quote Originally Posted by Nymrohd View Post
    I think there is a marketing issue when it comes to US soft power these days and indeed something that has slowly happened after the cold war. While the US and Europe are the champions of FDI all over the planet, we see an increasing narrative in media across the planet about how the US doesn't care for Africa or Asia and how China or Russia are seriously investing there (with Europe not even being mentioned). I see it reflected here as well with people crossposting these articles that often come from respected journalists.
    In marketing they say that free services meant to create loyalty (all types of freebies) make the customer happy the first time, they doesn't notice them the second time and they demand them the third time. I think this is what we see in the world at large when it comes to investment and building soft power outside the developed world (which is crucial for the future ahead of us); they are so used to investment from the Western block that it doesn't even register anymore; it is demanded as if it is their right and it doesn't buy us goodwill anymore.

    I think we need to make our presence abroad, both the US and the EU, more "extravagant". The money is there, we also need the hype.
    Yep. I absolutely agree. The US and Europe needs to open their pockets, build around the world and most of all, tell the story about it. China's whole "Belt and Road" initiative, for example, tells a story in the manner the US used to excel at telling.

    The good news is that China is starting to force the US to basically do this, as our little stunt at ASEAN last year showed. And China, for all the hooplah when it comes to their agenda around the world, is still completely hopeless at actually turning small-time soft power wins into big picture strategic game changers.

    "The Americans are coming" needs to be something hopeful around the world again. Because for many decades, that meant "the builders". It's been a long long time since we've been known as that. More recently, we've been associated with destroying.

    Taking a global lead on implementing responses to climate change is probably "the big one" that could do it over decades. And I mean beyond just treaties. I'm talking consequence mitigation. While Donald Trump is straight out of 2005 in his Climate Denialism, more and more elected Republicans are moving towards acceptance. Is it good enough net? Not nearly. And there are still plenty of old fossils who will go into the ground themselves to protect taking fossil fuels out of the ground. But every year, we're a year closer to a generation of Republicans who forswear their predecessors inaction on climate change, and that will open the US up even more to actually leading the global response.

  13. #17893
    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    The US never had an official comparable propaganda effort, even during the Cold War, because it simply didn't need it. American culture, American money, American ideas, American technology, American travel, was better than the best purpose built influence campaign we could ever imagine.
    You should really look into the history...

    US very much had "comparable propaganda effort" during Cold War - whole USIA was devoted to the task until it was seen as redundant in 1999... and things went downhill for US image from there.

    And looking at it's task:
    • To explain and advocate U.S. policies in terms that are credible and meaningful in foreign cultures;
    • To provide information about the official policies of the United States, and about the people, values and institutions which influence those policies;
    • To bring the benefits of international engagement to American citizens and institutions by helping them build strong long-term relationships with their counterparts overseas;
    • To advise the President and U.S. government policy-makers on the ways in which foreign attitudes will have a direct bearing on the effectiveness of U.S. policies.[3]


    You very much need something like that right now.

    Russia has to engage in government-run, tightly structured foreign propaganda efforts because that's pretty much all your authoritarian regime has. It can't compete at the thing that makes the US its most powerful which is Americans taking everything special about our people and fanning out across the world, going about our business.
    And then without tightly structured propaganda efforts people of the world can actually see that you're quite flawed and not exactly special in many ways.

    ----

    Quote Originally Posted by Nymrohd View Post
    I think we need to make our presence abroad, both the US and the EU, more "extravagant". The money is there, we also need the hype.
    There is also a problem of Western investment coming with strings attached - like "respecting human rights" for EU and, in case of US, "buying US stuff and not getting better deals from US competitors when available", like we see with latest US-Turkey spat over S-400.

    ...and it isn't always worth the trouble.
    Last edited by Shalcker; 2019-04-08 at 09:06 AM.

  14. #17894
    Quote Originally Posted by Nymrohd View Post
    And Russian and Chinese loans beyond the actual needs of the project that cannot effectively be repaid come with absolutely no strings attached whatsoever! No crucial resources secured against them, none at all.
    Well, what those strings are attached to can matter a great deal.

    Some are more acceptable then others and less risky for situation at hand; and sometimes there are even better rates being offered.

    There is also historical context... Russia, for example, regularly "writes off" old debts (money were already spent "buying Russian" and enforcing loan payments is seen as expendable to political goals), while EU and US can hound (and sanction) their debtors for decades to come.

  15. #17895
    I see someone has a hankering for turnip soup today.

    Quote Originally Posted by Omega10 View Post
    You mean like Donald Trump? Trump lying so much give Russia a second chance. The standard both sides argument - Russia lies, but so does the US.
    Exactly why Putin installed him.
    Quote Originally Posted by Tojara View Post
    Look Batman really isn't an accurate source by any means
    Quote Originally Posted by Hooked View Post
    It is a fact, not just something I made up.

  16. #17896
    Quote Originally Posted by Shalcker View Post
    You should really look into the history...

    US very much had "comparable propaganda effort" during Cold War - whole USIA was devoted to the task until it was seen as redundant in 1999... and things went downhill for US image from there.

    And looking at it's task:
    • To explain and advocate U.S. policies in terms that are credible and meaningful in foreign cultures;
    • To provide information about the official policies of the United States, and about the people, values and institutions which influence those policies;
    • To bring the benefits of international engagement to American citizens and institutions by helping them build strong long-term relationships with their counterparts overseas;
    • To advise the President and U.S. government policy-makers on the ways in which foreign attitudes will have a direct bearing on the effectiveness of U.S. policies.[3]
    Of course the US had a propaganda arm. But that's not what I was refering to and no way analogous to what Russia has done every day of the fucking week for the past 90 years. Our wider soft power efforts makes an effort conparable to Russia, which the USIA never was, superfluous. That was my point.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shalcker View Post
    You very much need something like that right now.
    We do not. Russian-style propaganda campaigns are something authoritarian regimes do, and we're better than that.



    Quote Originally Posted by Shalcker View Post
    And then without tightly structured propaganda efforts people of the world can actually see that you're quite flawed and not exactly special in many ways.
    Uh-huh. I want you to look at a picture.


    This is Pluto and Charon. Formerly the 9th planet, was visited by the NASA New Horizons probe in 2015. This picture was taken by that probe, 7.5 billion kilometers away, during the main science phase of a mission launched in 2006 that arrived in the Plutonian system 9 years later. It is the human race's first and only look at a "double planet".

    Or let me put it another way. The human race has expanded its frontier to now include the exploration of the far edges of our solar system because Americans fucking went there.


    Here's a video of something that's never happened in America, because we, as a free society, don't have a roving secret police.


    That video is a nice encapsulation of why Russia continues to scrape by, digging ever deeper into the dirt for something to hawk on the global market, while the free world reaches for the stars.

    Europe and America are civilization. Russian and Chinese authoritarianism represent throwbacks to the dark ages. America on its worst day is a better place to live than under the War Criminal Vladimir Putin's authoritarian regime. Never forget it.

  17. #17897
    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    Of course the US had a propaganda arm. But that's not what I was refering to and no way analogous to what Russia has done every day of the fucking week for the past 90 years. Our wider soft power efforts makes an effort conparable to Russia, which the USIA never was, superfluous. That was my point.
    It's exactly the same thing, made with exactly same methods, Skroe.

    We do not. Russian-style propaganda campaigns are something authoritarian regimes do, and we're better than that.
    No, you aren't.

    Here's a video of something that's never happened in America, because we, as a free society, don't have a roving secret police.
    Right, in America he wouldn't just be threatened there, he would just be shot.

    Because that's what we're mostly seeing in the news without US government-funded propaganda agency.

  18. #17898
    Quote Originally Posted by Shalcker View Post
    It's exactly the same thing, made with exactly same methods, Skroe.
    No. It is not. I can't believe you're actually trying this old Russian nonsense-tactic on me, lol.

    Don't waste your time.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shalcker View Post
    No, you aren't.
    We are. You don't need to agree on this. In the end, I voted to change my government in November and have donated heavily to oppose my President, and have worked to do so without fear to my health and safety.

    You on the other hand, can't do that.

    Sucks for you to live under an authoritarian regime!


    Quote Originally Posted by Shalcker View Post
    Right, in America he wouldn't just be threatened there, he would just be shot.

    Because that's what we're mostly seeing in the news without US government-funded propaganda agency.
    Ah the old KGB whataboutism shit again. Really, it doesn't work. Stop trying.

    There is absolutely no equivalency between US gun violence committed by police officers - terrible and not nearly prosecuted as forcefully as it should be - and Vladimir Putins' roving bands of secret police in blacked out SUVs and military gear, pulling a gun during a road side incident.

    The United States doesn't have secret police to protect the regime, you do, and that's all their is to it.

    You want to know what the crazy part about this is? I'm not even talking about "Russia" or "the Russian people". You people are the chief victims of what I am taking a big dump on, which is the authoritarian regime that you're basically the property of. You're now 6 year continuing defense of this is one of the most pathetic things I've ever seen in my entire life and I will never forget it.

    You've basically been making the long term, big picture argument, on why it's okay to be slave. Because that's what you are. A slave. You have the rights that Vladimir Putin decides you should have, and one of those as evidenced in that video, is not the right to life. You may not be in chains, but you were born into slavery, and unless Russians step up to the plate and clean house, you will die a slave. And that is very, very sad. Because a free Russia would be a positive force in the world. But a Putin Russia? The Russia you've been the champion of for years? It's a revisionist, regressive adversary that is destined to lose everything.

  19. #17899
    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    You on the other hand, can't do that.
    I certainly can.

    Sucks for you to live under an authoritarian regime!
    Second term of Trump is going to be a treat.

    There is absolutely no equivalency between US gun violence committed by police officers - terrible and not nearly prosecuted as forcefully as it should be - and Vladimir Putins' roving bands of secret police in blacked out SUVs and military gear, pulling a gun during a road side incident.
    That's not "Secret Police" - black vans are generally FSB stuff. Counterterrorism and the like.

    Almost perfectly equivalent to US FBI.

    The United States doesn't have secret police to protect the regime, you do, and that's all their is to it.
    Stop being deluded.

    It's a revisionist, regressive adversary that is destined to lose everything.
    And so does US. Sad but true.

  20. #17900
    Quote Originally Posted by Shalcker View Post
    I certainly can.
    Uh huh. I would love to see you try.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shalcker View Post
    Second term of Trump is going to be a treat.
    Won't happen, but even if it did, having authoritarian predelicions and being, you know, Vladimir Putin, are two very different things. Also the Democratic House will permanently blockade him. And his 94% loss rate in the courts helps too.

    We have an independent judiciary. You don't.
    Quote Originally Posted by Shalcker View Post
    That's not "Secret Police" - black vans are generally FSB stuff. Counterterrorism and the like.
    And we all know what constitutes "terrorism" in an authoritarian regimes.
    Quote Originally Posted by Shalcker View Post
    Almost perfectly equivalent to US FBI.
    The FBI is nothing like the FSB. The FBI is a professionalized law enforcement agency. The FSB is one half of the KGB renamed and principally acts as an organ of state power upon the populace.
    Quote Originally Posted by Shalcker View Post
    Stop being deluded.
    Sorry, we don't have roving black vans that pull guns on people. That's you.
    Quote Originally Posted by Shalcker View Post
    And so does US. Sad but true.
    All you have is "no u"? Oh give it up already, Shalcker lol.

    Six years of this shit and you've made zero headway.

    Christ I'm so glad the West sees the Russian government and people like you for what it is finally.

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