The Wow I Can't Believe That News Story Thread

[Anteater]

Originally Posted by Dharma & Greg

But that Asian supremacy is the best since they're the smartest.

Was the Rape of Nanking also white supremacy's fault?

As someone who loves a good alternative history book, I can tell you that the world would be just as terrible if the Mongols or Aztecs ended up conquering Europe. You might be riding a yak instead of driving a car, but you'd still have to pay your taxes.

[OccultHawk]

Fareed Zakaria

ZAKARIA: So what did you learn? Because you went to Ukraine; you've been to the Donbass, to the part of eastern Ukraine that is, sort of, occupied by the Russians. What did you learn about what they're doing?

COHEN: Well, first, night we saw a number of tactics that we've never seen before. So we're seeing the systematic and customized targeting of disinformation on messaging platforms. It's very clear to me that the new front for disinformation is platforms where the barrier of entry is a phone number. It's much more believable, if somebody is in your contacts list, and you get information from them, you're much more likely to believe it.

We're seeing the manipulation of audio and the spoofing the phone -- spoofing of phone calls. We're seeing manufactured revenge porn, manufactured hacking of e-mails that then get dumped onto the public domain. And we're seeing a growing ecosystem of illicit merchants who are selling these capabilities to the highest bidder on the deep and dark web.

...

ZAKARIA: Do you think, though, that the -- is the Trump administration, sort of, attentive enough to how -- how malign Russia is?

Let me ask you, does it strike you that this is all coming out of Russia, out of the Kremlin, and the attempt is to delegitimize the Ukrainian election?

COHEN: There's certainly an attempt to -- to delegitimize the Ukrainian election, and particularly at a moment when the Russians don't have a chance of having their candidate win, running too low in the polls.

You know, on the one hand, you have democracy working pretty well in Ukraine right now because nobody knows who's going to get to the second round, let alone who's going to win. On the other hand, that ambiguity makes it more of a target for Russia.

What we're seeing also is the democratization of these capabilities. So the Iranians were all of a sudden, you know, making similar attempts in the U.S. midterm elections. We've seen other countries get into the game. So, you know, Russia has a particular focus on Ukraine. But the capabilities are going to be on full display for other countries to latch onto. And there are certainly plenty of countries out there that have an interest and an incentive to try to disrupt the U.S. presidential elections

That’s such an effective way to create disharmony and chaos. Not just the elections but just massively ****ing with people’s personal lives. Everything that can ever weaponized gets weaponized. Manufacturing revenge porn? Goddamn.

[Frownland]

Originally Posted by Anteater

if the Mongols or Aztecs ended up conquering Europe. You might be riding a yak instead of driving a car

*facepalm*

I'm just gonna pretend that you're self aware enough for these posts to be ironic.

[Anteater]

Originally Posted by Frownland

*facepalm*

I'm just gonna pretend that you're self aware enough for these posts to be ironic.

I thought everyone wanted a high speed yak. Better fuel economy. Or at the very least a steam powered vehicle.

[Frownland]

Gotta work with you got. Yaks are the best that those Hispanics can do amiright

[The Batlord]

He didn't even read my post right but still came off as ignorant white trash. That must be some deep ****.

[OccultHawk]

Was the Rape of Nanking also white supremacy's fault?

Japanese imperialism was indeed inspired by Western imperialism. They had been minding their own business for generations until we insisted on cracking them open. The Perry Expedition ended two centuries of Japan intentionally minding its own business.

[Anteater]

Originally Posted by Frownland

Gotta work with you got. Yaks are the best that those Hispanics can do amiright

Mexicans would win the race war, but not on yaks.

Originally Posted by Dharma & Greg

He didn't even read my post right but still came off as ignorant white trash. That must be some deep ****.

I saw it, laughed, stepped over it very gently, then went on my merry way. Don't lead with ad hominem attacks next time.

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

Japanese imperialism was indeed inspired by Western imperialism. They had been minding their own business for generations until we insisted on cracking them open. The Perry Expedition ended two centuries of Japan intentionally minding its own business.

[OccultHawk]

This is also from Fareed Zakaria

It might be taboo but I think understanding the biology behind racism might help us get past it

This is a professor from Stanford

SAPOLSKY: When you look at the neurobiology of how we process "uses versus them," there's some incredibly hard-wired stuff going on. Flash up faces of people that somebody has categorized as either an "in group" or an "out group" and, in a fraction of a second, your brain is differentiating between them. If it's a "them," parts of your brain that are related to fear, aggression, disgust, activate. Parts of your brains that normally process faces don't activate as much as normal. Parts of your brain related to empathy don't activate as much as normal, if it's a "them." We've got this gigantic fault line in our heads as to who counts as an "in group" member, who evokes empathy, who evokes concern and who's a "them" who just gets us bristling.

ZAKARIA: And you talk about how it's very easy, as a result of this dynamic, to scape-goat. You say scape-goating is a, kind of, very human response?

SAPOLSKY: Well, one of the more interesting parts of the brain that's pertinent to this, an area called the insula -- the insula, if you're a normal mammal, what it does is tell you if you've bitten into some disgusting food. It keeps you from getting poisoned. And in humans it does that, but in addition it also activates at morally disgusting acts, at people whose actions we consider to be disgusting.

What it does is give this tremendous viscera to who we think is appallingly different. And what that winds up meaning is we're incredibly easy to propagandize into "thems" as vermin, "thems" as malignancies, "thems" as cockroaches, all these historical examples of genocides being built around, sort of, dehumanizing "thems."

And, basically, if you're some autocratic tyrant, if you can get your followers to activate the insular cortex as soon as they contemplate the "thems," you've just checked off half of your to-do list on your, like, ethnic cleansing shopping list.

ZAKARIA: You know, you've studied this all, you know, very deeply. But you also talk about how you -- you've come to this even personally. You grew up in a very small, insular Jewish community that was suspicious often of the outside world. Is this something that one can do anything about?

SAPOLSKY: Well, there's -- there's some good news lurking in there. It's some very fragile good news. But it's one of the ways in which we're different from your typical chimp or baboon going about an "us- them" dichotomy. We belong to multiple groups. We belong to multiple groups, and thus we have multiple "thems" in our heads. And who counts as a "them" could change in a fraction of a second.

ZAKARIA: So the hope is that we, kind of, embrace the idea that everybody has multiple identities; we're -- we belong to many different groups, that no one can -- you know, people can't just be put into a box. Is that right?

SAPOLSKY: Well, the hope is that could be used for good. Of course, we have no shortage of examples of it being used for the worst. During the Rwandan genocide, Tutsi and Hutu people there, who had been neighbors for years, suddenly a neighbor, a classmate, a student, a parishioner, all of those were transformed into a "them," thanks to the propaganda of that. Insofar as we are a smart species that can juggle lots of categories in our heads at once, we are species that could be terribly vulnerable to manipulation.

I think it's fair to say we are fairly hard-wired into dividing the world into "uses" and "thems" and not being very thrilled about the "thems." But who counts as an "us" and who counts as a "them" could change in a fraction of a second. ZAKARIA: Wow, sobering stuff. Professor Sapolsky, pleasure to have

[Anteater]

^ That's pretty on-point actually. You see it all over the world in every major culture across time.

You'll start to see something similar to racism across all demographics and socioeconomic classes once functional AI and automata become a norm as well.

One day we'll all look back and say "It all started with Flippy..."

USA Today - Hamburger-making robot Flippy is back at Calif. chain