Thread

1. dividefuel · 1790450358 · focus · HN ↗

   I had my first kid a couple years ago and found myself spending a ton of time holding my kid while he slept, since it's the only way he'd reliably sleep. I spent a good amount of that time browsing various parenting and new baby subreddits.

   One very common pattern I saw is that the conclusion is always that the dad is useless. Any provided facts are downplayed. Any omitted facts are imagined in the most negative light possible. And to be fair, there really are LOTS of cases where the dad is useless. The issue is more that posts needed to contain a mountain of evidence to return a neutral ground where the dad is no longer seen as a piece of garbage, rather than starting from neutral ground.

   I feel for moms, who in addition to giving birth and having their lives upended to raise a baby, are now told that not only are most men garbage, but their man is garbage too. I feel for the dads, who even if they work hard are told how useless they are, and have to combat a stream of negativity fed to their spouse. It's a divisive wedge thrown into a new family, one that social media algorithms are only happy to encourage for engagement.

   When I see instances like the one in this topic, I can see how the default narrative has been applied here. The radio announcers surely aren't aware of the storm they're creating, but it suddenly thrusts two average people into the social media spotlight, where people are happy to assume any missing details to fit their narrative. Everyone is going to apply the default story without taking any time to consider the possibility of other context.

   EDIT TO ADD: I know there are manosphere spaces that are toxic too. As a man I've had no problem avoiding them, so this is one of my first extended exposures to this type of content, which is why it stuck with me. Probably also because I felt personally unwelcome as a dad.

   1. CMay · 1790452230 · focus · HN ↗

      People are animals and animals can be trained. Dogs can be trained, elephants can be trained, tigers can be trained. This fact is hated, but has been known for thousands of years.

      Foreign adversaries, political extremist groups and so on are all clawing away at every facet of society that can contribute to training people to be and do what they want. For all of our information, language and intellect, those strengths are just an open vulnerability if they aren't protected.

      You have to train yourself sufficiently on the grounded basics of reality, the truth and the nature so that when adversarial training against you and others strikes you can be wise enough to push back like this. You have to be able to surround yourself with people who disagree and stand your ground, because they're all being pumped with garbage from everywhere and don't know any better.

      It is one of Russia, China, Cuba's and even Iran's way of attacking the US at a distance by funding these groups and amplifying the dumbest stuff you can imagine until these minority voices reach majority saturation in some of the information spaces where they can fester. Taking over education, journalism, social media and so on.

      If the idea of the open society is going to survive into the next century, we're either going to need AI to ground society if we can prevent AI from becoming too centralized, or we're going to need to rapidly change education to teach people to think even if the reason we haven't been doing so up to this point is that it fragments society too much. If the alternative is a fragmentation that our enemies control, then a new enlightenment may be the better way.

      1. the_gipsy · 1790452995 · focus · HN ↗

         > It is one of Russia, China, Cuba's and even Iran's way of attacking the US

         It's the USA eating itself and trying to attack Europe, if anything. It's American fascist billionaires who own, buy, and steer these social networks.

         1. CMay · 1790455945 · focus · HN ↗

            Owning the social networks doesn't mean you control all the information inherently, because it can easily get out of control. It wasn't that long ago that hundreds of thousands of bots had to be removed after running rampant for a long time which were manipulating trends that cause peaks on journalist's social media dashboards that influences what stories they cover.

            Yes, social media bots impacting statistical trend services which some news organizations use to decide what stories to cover.

            Communists caused World War 2 and yet love to play the victim. Not everybody who is against communism is a "fascist" and most people don't even know what that really means.

            We're not attacking Europe, we're making Europe stronger so it can stand more independently so it doesn't require as much US intervention in the case World War 3 does start and a new front opens there beyond Ukraine. That way the US can invest more of its resources in the pacific. NATO understands this.

            The reason we had to do it rudely, is because we've been trying to get Europe to do this for decades nicely and that hasn't work. So you get the rude approach.

            1. max__dev · 1790467288 · focus · HN ↗

               > Communists caused World War 2 and yet love to play the victim.

               This is an unconventional position. What's your rationale?

               1. metiscus · 1790471231 · focus · HN ↗

                  My best guess is something like this:

                  The Soviets gave the Germans a free hand to begin the war by splitting Poland via the Molotov pact. Without that agreement, and without the preceding years of Soviet resource shipments and technical exchanges, it is unclear if the European war would have happened.

                  1. max__dev · 1790472168 · focus · HN ↗

                     This is about as far as I could guess as well. Unfortunately by this logic you could just as easily implicate France and the UK for the Munich agreement, as well as the failure to excercise their defense pact with Poland. So essentially every party with exception of Germany and the United States is at fault for WW2. This also leaves the Pacific theatre unaccounted for as you implied. So I'm very curious what the original commenter intends.

                     1. the_gipsy · 1790500515 · focus · HN ↗

                        "ackchually, facism good" is what he intends.

                        It doesn't merit more response, you can just look at the reality of actual fascist states. Economic stagnation, the most extreme corruption and incompetence, and cruelty beyond imagination. True masterminds.

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