[HN Gopher] Slamming political rivals may be the most effective ...
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Slamming political rivals may be the most effective way to go viral
Author : hhs
Score : 101 points
Date : 2021-06-25 15:25 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cam.ac.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cam.ac.uk)
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| People just regurgitate their sides last night narrative
| presented to them on their favourite news network. the commitment
| to truth has been lost. Its all about framing now.
| rhino369 wrote:
| IMO, framing things as "truth" or "falsehood" is part of the
| problem. Each side dismisses the other side as just not knowing
| the right facts (or denying the facts), as if everyone would
| agree if they just knew the right facts. The media dug in on
| this very hard after the 2016 with the "fake news" and "fact-
| checking" crusades.
|
| Reality is a lot more complicated. Even if we agreed on the
| facts, we don't agree on conclusions based on those facts. Or
| even what the right result should be. For example, there is a
| big factual dispute over whether the border is having a
| "crisis." But the earnest dispute is really just whether the US
| should allow illegal immigrants to come here or not.
|
| I think the biggest problem is we avoid grappling with our
| fundamental disagreements and we don't honestly engage with
| what the other side is arguing. Both sides have basically
| labeled opinions they disagree with as, at best
| uniformed/ignorant, and at worst, evil (racist, communist,
| bigoted, depraved). Nobody is really trying to convince the
| other side. They are just trying to whip up a frenzy on their
| side and shame the other side into shutting up.
|
| I've voted for both parties in the past (W Bush & Obama), but I
| don't think I could have a real political discussion with
| someone I meet at party without being attacked personally and
| viciously. And I know I can't post political views on social
| media without some psychopath trying to get me fired.
|
| Everyone is addicted to anger.
| s5300 wrote:
| >Everyone is addicted to anger.
|
| Is exactly what a person addicted to anger would say. No,
| believe it or not, everybody is not addicted to anger - but
| those who are sure as hell like to perpetuate the idea of it
| and spread their toxicity
| [deleted]
| username90 wrote:
| "How can not everyone know the obvious truth I just learned
| about 5 minutes ago reading an opinion piece!?"
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _People just regurgitate their sides last night narrative_
|
| In my experience, this is one of those tropes. Yes, people will
| harmonize on their explanations and positions on certain
| debates. That's human nature. Watch a family describe one of
| its members and you'll see the same phenomenon.
|
| If you go out and talk to voters about what matters to them,
| however, one tends to find a diversity of topics.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| It's hard to believe that the voters I talk to face-to-face
| are the same human being, the same society and community,
| posting online.
|
| We perhaps need to bring offline behavior norms into the
| online world.
| Layke1123 wrote:
| Lol, there never was a commitment to the truth on the right.
| Only what keeps us in power.
| chobytes wrote:
| When I was younger I got a bit notable online by doing just this.
| You can pick up thousands of followers on twitter in a couple
| weeks by just picking hot topics and big targets, and publicly
| dunking on them.
|
| Ive grown out of the behavior but its definitely left me very
| cynical about politics.
| kache_ wrote:
| The democratic system shows its true nature when the media
| becomes democratic as well.
| the_laka wrote:
| Shocking discovery. Really. What's next? Sarcasm is the most
| effective way to be funny? You heard it here first!
| hhs wrote:
| The paper is also worth reading. Here's part of the conclusion:
|
| "Understanding the factors that make social media posts go
| "viral" online can help to create better social media
| environments. While social media platforms are not fully
| transparent about how their algorithmic ranking system works,
| Facebook announced in a post titled "Bringing People Closer
| Together" that it was changing its algorithm ranking system to
| value "deeper" forms of engagement, such as reactions and
| comments (68). Ironically, posts about the political out-group
| were particularly effective at generating comments and reactions
| (particularly the "angry" reaction, the most popular reaction
| across our studies). In other words, these algorithmic changes
| made under the guise of bringing people closer together may have
| helped prioritize posts including out-group animosity." [0]
|
| [0]: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/26/e2024292118
| zekrioca wrote:
| Remains to be seen what "deeper" means for them. I'd say they
| reached deep enough.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| Foxnews are experts at this language. Their front page is full of
| "slams", "rips", "fires back", "scold" or "hits". If this is your
| main news source it will make you think that the world is just
| one big conflict.
| aliasEli wrote:
| It seems a nice piece of research with a not very surprising
| result
| programmarchy wrote:
| Yeah, feels we're screwed at the moment.
|
| I subscribe to both DNC and RNC mailing lists and it's typical to
| see things like "Trump Rally BACKFIRES" and "The Radical Left is
| trying to destroy America". I try to laugh it off thinking people
| can't be dumb enough to buy into this, but then I'm gripped by
| the terrifying reality that actually yes, _they are_.
|
| Dunking on opponents really wouldn't be all that bad if there was
| some actual _debate_ progressing, where ideas could be tested and
| improved, but that seems to have stagnated to a large degree.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The use of slang like dunking, slamming, murdering, and so on
| by adults in a professional arena is embarrassing.
| mizzack wrote:
| Unless it's a literal arena.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I just had a vision of a dystopian(?) future where
| politicians unable to reach a compromise are forced to
| fight in the thunderdome, but they were still a bunch of
| old pasty white guys.
| nemo44x wrote:
| We are not a serious country any more.
| vkou wrote:
| I don't think you would be able to find a single time
| period in the history of this country where yellow
| political journalism was not wildly popular.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| I suspect that there are varying amounts of return on effort,
| and that their strategists have learned that in a two party
| ONLY system, with low voter turnout regularly, that just
| agitating those already on your side to do something, in any
| way that happens, is more return on effort than convincing
| people or other variations.
|
| There are feedback effects within their decision making that
| dampen and then eliminate new ideas, which reinforces "return
| to the party line" and opposite of "take our group in a new
| direction with this idea" ; anti-evolution basically..
| tablespoon wrote:
| > and that their strategists have learned that in a two party
| ONLY system, with low voter turnout regularly, that just
| agitating those already on your side to do something, in any
| way that happens, is more return on effort than convincing
| people or other variations.
|
| That's totally the case. I've read article after article for
| the past few years about the "disappearing center" and how
| elections are now won by getting your side to show up at the
| polls.
| trentnix wrote:
| Well yes, because all political reporting is basically TMZ for
| boring, ugly people. It molds politics into some fantasy world of
| rap battles and gang fights rather than a productive discussion
| about making good policy.
|
| And if your first impulse is to think _well yeah because the
| other side blah blah_ , you're part of the problem too.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| In my opinion long form podcasts are fixing this. The gotcha
| nonsense on Twitter isn't going away, but at the same time long
| form discussions about complex topics are growing in
| popularity. So there is at worst a duality where things are
| getting worse on one hand and better on the other.
| nerfhammer wrote:
| us good, them bad
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >It molds politics into some fantasy world of rap battles and
| gang fights
|
| Politics is a world of rap battles and gang fights. It's war by
| other means. That's the fundamental essence of anything
| political. The boring, ugly people are the wonks who actually
| think politics is about 'good policy consensus' and have been
| spending a little too much time on Laputa.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laputa#Inhabitants
| krapp wrote:
| Basically, politics: https://youtu.be/NUC2EQvdzmY
| munificent wrote:
| It would be fascinating to do a study where you take politics
| news articles and replace all names with A, B, C, etc. and
| likewise any mention of Party. So just policy and blank
| identifiers. Then see how people respond to the news. Are they
| more likely to agree with or disagree with policies when they
| don't know who they're coming from?
|
| I suppose in practice there are enough shibboleths in each
| political camp that readers will still be able to tell which
| side is their tribe, but it would be interesting to see.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| >>> political reporting is basically TMZ for boring, ugly
| people.
|
| Can I get that on a TShirt please ?
|
| (And yes, was it Nietscheze who says politicians are just sales
| people for their manifestos?)
| yesenadam wrote:
| > yes, was it Nietscheze who says politicians are just sales
| people for their manifestos?
|
| I strongled doubted it was Nietzsche, so I googled the phrase
| "politicians are just sales people for their manifestos" (in
| quotes), and there was one result--your comment. It's yours!
| im_down_w_otp wrote:
| Are they even that anymore? That seems like it would be an
| improvement. Now it seems like they're just cast members
| doing product placement for someone else's manifesto.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Not even a manifesto. If you look at people like Marjorie
| Taylor Greene, their rise is basic upon mutual dislike, and
| nothing more. Just a willingness to "own" the other side.
| There is no manifesto (unless you consider god, guns and
| glory a manifesto), just hatred. And it's extremely
| engaging for their respective base. I don't blame the
| politicians per se, in some ways it's democracy at work if
| that's what the people want. We need to change what people
| fundamentally want to not be based upon us vs them
| mentality.
| smaddox wrote:
| Or perhaps we need to change our democracy to stop
| enforcing a duopoly. I firmly believe that widely
| implementing STAR Voting (https://www.starvoting.us/)
| would fix a large swath of problems in politics and
| public policy.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Ranked voting also can have unexpected surprises as well.
| Every system has flaws, and if we open things up even
| more, I believe we'll just get a collection of even more
| radicalized parties who only care about a single issue.
| At least with two parties there's inner tension they need
| to modulate.
| smaddox wrote:
| RCV can have unexpected surprises, but STAR voting
| resolves all such issues with RCV.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| As far as I know, STAR voting is a form of RCV. However,
| the Fairvote organization has advertised RCV with instant
| runoff voting as the counting method as being RCV.
| voting749227383 wrote:
| Technically speaking, STAR voting is a form of cardinal
| voting, while ranked-choice encompasses the various
| ordinal methods.
|
| The distinction here is that in STAR voting, I could rank
| two candidates equally to show that I have no preference
| between them. Also, I don't have to rank the candidates
| in order: I could give my first-place a score of 5, my
| second place a score of 2, and my third place a score of
| 0. If I scored my second place candidate as 3, this
| ballot could result in a different outcome.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Thanks for the correction! The whole voting system and
| counting methods is a deeper dive than what I first
| imagined.
| nickff wrote:
| There is no 'best' voting system, only different trade-
| offs.[1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility
| _theore...
| vkou wrote:
| Canada does not have a duopoly[1], and yet, ABC (Anything
| But Conservative) has been a rallying cry behind a few
| elections.
|
| The US will probably get better outcomes with a multi-
| party system, but moving to one will not change the
| _tone_ of political conversation. (Which is what this
| thread is about.)
|
| [1] Although it suffers from all the typical FPTP
| nonsense, where the party that gets 30% of the vote gets
| 100% of the power.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| But - isn't it a manifesto of sorts. I mean it's nice to
| see a fully costed budget broken down into multiple
| categories, but let's be fair, that's just to get past
| the gatekeepers of yore (NYT, The Times, BBC).
|
| Turning up without the numbers adding up was just an easy
| way to get pasted by the interviewer.
|
| Now there is no interviewer - so the manifesto is what it
| always really was - an attempt to connect to the voter on
| a level of identity, common understanding and culture.
| It's why it is flat out amazing any single human being
| can get 70 million votes in the US (or even more amazing
| 300m in India)
|
| How many hats does such a person have to wear? How many
| promises does someone need to connect.
|
| I mean Brad Pitt is _gorgeous_ and just has to say five
| scripted lines and he could not get 300 million women to
| vote for him.
|
| The idea that democracy has scale this far with just a
| personality cult as its main adjudicator is incredible
|
| The number of living humans who can make that many people
| think"yeah"'is tiny !
|
| One day we will go beyond our initial ape reactions
| sjienn wrote:
| Well there are problems where not only no one agrees on the
| paths ahead, but there is no guarantee any of the paths you
| take will lead anywhere useful.
|
| These kinds of problems there is always going to be
| manipulation. Especially if the stakes are high. As long as
| the chimps aren't assassinating each other its all par for
| the course. I am just glad there are people willing to play
| such a game when things are ambiguous. Cause I usually just
| run for the hills when things get political :)
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Why is it that the political salespeople are boring and ugly?
| Politics would be even more difficult to approach objectively
| if the politicians were photogenic, charismatic, attractive,
| and well-spoken.
|
| Television ads have this figured out, viewers subconsciously
| want to be the smiling cool guy drinking Advertised Beer (tm)
| and partying with the wealthy and youthful crowd shown in the
| ad, but no one wants to hang out in the scenes portrayed on
| CSPAN.
|
| I'm glad to not need to deal with that level of reality
| distortion yet, but I don't know why that's the case.
| krapp wrote:
| Looks helped for JFK and Obama, and might help for AOC in
| the future.
|
| On the other hand, millions of Americans voted for Donald
| Trump because his being ugly, irascible, and vulgar made
| him seem more relatable and sincere... likely as a reaction
| to a negative impression given by Obama's relative youth
| and well-spokenness.
| toomanyducks wrote:
| Maybe some of this is due to how little variation there is:
| I've yet to see a politician who isn't neoliberal (though Trump
| was more than a bit fascist at times). Even 2019-20 Andrew Yang
| still built his ideas (mainly UBI) off of neoliberalism, and
| imo, appealed to a ton of more traditional neoliberal values:
| that UBI is about providing equally and flatly for everyone,
| not specifically and directly helping the disenfranchised and
| indirectly aiding worker control of the means of production
| (how I'd view its effects). And then he abandoned the UBI
| campaign this year, becoming even more centrist.
|
| Then, if we shift our focus further left, we see Bernie
| Sanders, who is just not all that socialist because he's really
| working within the neoliberal framework that his years of
| politics conditioned him to work in. Further left than that,
| well, there are no anarchists or communists in politics.
|
| I could make the case that this is here (and bad) bc
| neoliberalism will slide towards fascism if we give equal
| weight to everyone's ideas, but that does feel like I'm sinking
| further into divisions, and it presupposes that my positive
| opinions about the far left are actually supported by facts,
| regardless of any ground truth. But really, it wouldn't be an
| issue if we had more variety in ideology: discussion would be
| more varied and more thorough, we'd all question our own
| ideology's assumptions just a bit more, and overall it would be
| easier to engage in someone else's ideas if you knew they
| weren't coming from the same baseline as you.
|
| Neoliberalism is not a neutral or balanced ideology: let's have
| more communists, socialists, anarchists, libertarians, hell,
| maybe a few fascists or stalinists could do some good.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| There's no such thing as neoliberalism. "Neoliberalism" is a
| fake bogeyman that Latin American populists came up with when
| they needed something to blame for the failure of their
| policy choices.
| toomanyducks wrote:
| That is not something I've ever heard before - could you
| explain further, provide some links maybe?
| 1270018080 wrote:
| Self described neoliberals will be surprised when they
| learn neoliberalism isn't real.
| wyager wrote:
| Dimwit: politics is like a gang fight
|
| Midwit: politics is actually about making good decisions for
| society
|
| Topwit: politics is like a gang fight
| [deleted]
| hndirect wrote:
| > Unless social media companies start penalising polarising
| content and rewarding more constructive posts,
|
| Twitter and Facebook are not shy about having a hand in the
| conversation. If anything they reward polarizing content, and
| they've shown interest in censoring wrongthink, but do they have
| any interest in turning down the temperature?
|
| > these platforms will continue to be swamped by political
| animosity that risks spilling into real-world turmoil.
|
| It's more than a risk, it's been spilling into real-world turmoil
| for years.
| whatshisface wrote:
| I think it is interesting that high temperature plus censoring
| wrongthink makes two minute's hate. Calling things Orwellian is
| something of a cliche, but it is occasionally appropriate.
| ruined wrote:
| a subset of journalists seem to continually forget that media
| is still real, social media perhaps even more so
|
| nobody else seems to have this delusion, except cops
| responsible for investigating threats and harassment campaigns
| against individuals.
| klyrs wrote:
| This story is so meta. Most of the comments here are slamming the
| press and social media users for slamming politicians for
| slamming eachother. Slam slam slam. And here I am, slamming the
| lot of you.
|
| Serious question though. Is this merely a neologism used to
| describe a phenomenon that was old before Cicero lost his head?
| wolverine876 wrote:
| You haven't noticed some changes in politics in the West in the
| last 10 years? The rise of polarization and conspiracy theories
| is very well documented.
| CyanBird wrote:
| > Is this merely a neologism used to describe a phenomenon that
| was old before Cicero lost his head?
|
| Yep it is
|
| Only now there's reduced geographic friction from it, so the
| waves can get larger quicker, "social media deterritorializes
| politics" if you'd like to get pedantic about it
| kansface wrote:
| > Serious question though. Is this merely a neologism used to
| describe a phenomenon that was old before Cicero lost his head?
|
| While there may be nothing new under the sun, there is still
| plenty of room for the relative prevalence of slamming vs
| engaging to change in American political communiques, and for
| the press' coverage of slamming to change as well.
| anm89 wrote:
| I've noticed this hilarious thing where within the left leaning
| media sphere, the only verbs that Ocasio-Cortez and to a lesser
| degree Bernie ever engage in is "slamming".
|
| They don't eat, sleep, debate, propose, or discuss. They just
| slam 24/7.
|
| I googled her to verify the spelling on her name and the first
| headline was:
|
| "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slams the lack of diversity in an all-
| white group of lawmakers who drafted a bipartisan infrastructure
| deal"
| [deleted]
| bigbob2 wrote:
| The verbage may have changed but this has been happening for a
| while and is certainly not limited to Ocasio-Cortez and
| Sanders.
|
| Article found from simple Google News archive search of
| "Pelosi" from 2004-2006:
| http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/28/tauzin.pelosi/inde...
| Same thing but "Bill Frist" instead:
| https://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/12/edwards.stem.cell...
|
| Sure, "rips" and "knocks" have been replaced with "slams" etc
| but it's the exact same tactic that has been used for at least
| a while.
|
| It would be interesting to see how far back this media behavior
| goes, which outlets are most culpable, and which "side of the
| aisle" these articles are mainly targeting, because I genuinely
| don't know.
| david422 wrote:
| I noticed it a while ago with this particular verb too. And
| ever since, it made me simply have an aversion to articles with
| these titles, and the news sources that use them.
|
| I wonder if there is a point of diminishing returns -
| engagement goes down on clickbait titles.
|
| Probably not since they are still doing it.
| chapium wrote:
| CNN is particularly guilty of this. Every other headline on
| their site is politician slams rival politician. Reporter slams
| rival reporter, etc.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| That's kinda also the reverse as well. AOC ran a well-ran
| campaign to win her place at the table in congress.
|
| Republicans slamming her day-in and day-out made her a
| household name.
|
| Like, AOC should be, (with no disrespect) basically a nobody in
| politics, she is a 1.2 term representative. But republicans
| wanted a villain and boy did they make one.
|
| Beyond that, I kinda also think a critical bit in this is to
| understand that the headlines are not realistically a way to
| judge the actions of a politician because the politician is not
| the one actually writing them. Her job is to do her job and
| feed the marketing team the needed clips within. For the most
| part her daily life is reading memos and bills and voting. The
| PR team works like a marketing organization and they want to
| win in the same way AMD and Intel want to win, it's that
| simple. Hit the right notes while doing your job of working on
| the busywork of the job. It's mostly how Trump won 2016.
| Politics is marketing-based, not results-based.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Like, AOC should be, (with no disrespect) basically a
| nobody in politics, she is a 1.2 term representative. But
| republicans wanted a villain and boy did they make one
|
| It's mutually beneficial for them both, in the same way that
| rappers spend so much time beefing with each other.
| Controversy drives popularity, especially when each side's
| followers made up their minds long ago about which side
| they're on.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Here's the cited tweet:
|
| https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1408124343700369411
|
| I don't think "slammed" is too harsh of a description.
|
| After her critique about the Senators drafting this bill all
| being white:
|
| > This is not to say that any/all bipartisan deals are bad
| but it's to ask people to actually read what's inside them
| instead of assume bipartisan=good
|
| But surely, as a member of Congress, she has access to the
| details of this deal, and can opine on it specifically?
| Instead of opining on bipartisan deals as an abstraction?
|
| Wouldn't her constituents rather know, specifically, if this
| deal will help them or not and whether she would vote for it,
| and why?
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| I think this shows that going viral works the other way, too.
| Virality plus the adage that "any publicity is good
| publicity" can make this kind of a stunt backfire when
| there's an election at stake.
| [deleted]
| jeffbee wrote:
| AOC hasn't been in the arena long but she defeated one of
| those petrified 10-term bozos at the top of the party
| hierarchy, which is a notable event.
| slibhb wrote:
| > Republicans slamming her day-in and day-out made her a
| household name.
|
| No, she became a household name due to her ability to produce
| viral content (she's an influencer-politician) and the
| progressive media being in love with her.
|
| Some time after that, yes, the Republicans realized they'd
| rather run against AOC and "the squad" than Joe Biden so they
| did their best to pretend that was the case.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| The thing that is weird about her is that she can be
| hyperbolic when making personal appearances but she's one of
| the few in Congress who take their jobs seriously when in
| committee. She's not as prepared as Katie Porter, but she
| usually does the work she's being asked to do by her
| constituents instead of simply grandstanding during working
| hours.
| fenderbluesjr wrote:
| /r/murderedbyAOC is a subreddit with seemingly limitless
| content. I for one believe that slamming people is her
| shtick. She is blue team Trump
| mizzack wrote:
| Half of the posts on that sub are neither from AOC nor
| "murders". Just another political spam subreddit outraging
| its way to the front page.
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| Hmm, let's try this in Google:
|
| "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slams": About 73,300 results
|
| "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez eats": About 109 results
|
| "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sleeps": 1 result
|
| "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez debates": About 173 results
|
| "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposes": About 5,880 results
|
| "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez discusses": About 1,150 results
|
| Damn, you were right! Also surprised that AOC never sleeps.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Unless you paged thru these and manually counted yourself, do
| not trust Google's number of returned results. It's
| effectively a random number generator.
|
| Source: I've worked for Google.
| anm89 wrote:
| Of course it is not very rigorous but those results seem to
| indicate a pattern to the contrary.
| jakeva wrote:
| Surely it's closer to an estimate than purely random?
| azinman2 wrote:
| Do not use it for any comparisons. It is not what you
| think it is. It's largely there to impress you with how
| big Google is, and at this point, more historical inertia
| than anything else.
|
| Here's a bit of outside analysis that's fun to read:
| https://blog.xkcd.com/2011/02/04/trochee-chart/
| anm89 wrote:
| ha, amazing
| Clubber wrote:
| >Also surprised that AOC never sleeps.
|
| Well, she slept once according to your results.
| soperj wrote:
| that result was actually referring to her never sleeping.
| mLuby wrote:
| Not specific to one faction. It's a local maximum, so all sides
| will adopt this strategy unless the environment or rules
| change.
|
| My 2C/ on why "slam" specifically:
|
| 1. It's a super short word, which matters in headlines and
| tweets. I think this is also why headlines will "quote" a word
| or two (the quotes are magic symbol to ward against libel).
|
| 2. Our monkey brains are aroused by violence and tribal
| warfare, even when that violence is described second-hand and
| is figurative.
|
| Aggressive verbs are certainly inflammatory, and certainly
| increases clicks and engagement (at the cost of societal
| cohesion and individual contentment).
|
| Mark my words--future headlines will be even more outrageous as
| we become inured to (and accepting of) the current patterns:
| "AOC Jr 'eviscerates' Will Clinton over proposed lunar sale to
| China." "Don Trump VI 'rapes' UN Fusion Program's
| budget to pay for July 4 parade."
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| An equivalent in Poland is "masakrowac" (to massacre) - but
| this was popularized by followers of Janusz Korwin-Mikke (far-
| right).
|
| So both sides can be full of shit - and public discourse
| suffers.
|
| https://natemat.pl/103155,korwin-masakruje-czyli-o-polityczn...
| handrous wrote:
| Not to "both sides" it, but... well, both sides do this in
| their reporting. Sometimes they also "own" or "destroy"
| someone. I don't think it's partisan. That kind of language
| gets clicks, so everyone's optimized for it.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| I'm not so sure about it not being partisan. When I think of
| "own" in this context, it's mostly in relation to "owning the
| libs." I'm not sure if this particular usage is used mostly
| by left-leaning pols ironically, or right-leaning pols
| unironically, however.
| handrous wrote:
| It started out used seriously on right-wing YouTube and
| forums, but it probably is the case that right-wing use of
| it is now self-consciously imitating the parodic use of it
| by the left, so by now it's irony all the way down.
|
| [EDIT] downvoters: is this wrong? My perception was that
| "own" was originally (in a political context--its roots are
| in gaming, of course) used as a fairly ordinary
| headline/title intensifier to get more clicks, mostly on
| the right (for that particular word--everyone plays with
| language to get more clicks, of course), that parodic use
| on the left followed, and I'm _guessing_ that its continued
| use on the right is with some awareness of the way it 's
| been mocked on the left, so has likely changed the intent
| with which it's employed.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| At least as far back as the Jon Stewart era of the Daily
| Show, there was nothing ironic about it. I believe
| "destroy" was the preferred nomenclature back then.
| [deleted]
| mjburgess wrote:
| Unlike, of course, the people slamming AOC for views.
| Ironically, illustrated by this comment.
| rm999 wrote:
| The funny thing is I've recently noticed the exact same
| phenomenon on conservative media. A few days ago there were 4
| posts at the top of r/conservative about liberals being
| 'slammed' for something or the other (for the record I am an
| independent and watch that subreddit to better understand the
| issues that interest conservatives).
|
| Here's some recent 'slams' on that subreddit:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/search/?q=slam&sort=re...
| _jal wrote:
| I'm sure there was a research report somewhere that showed
| .021% more engagement with 'Slams' headlines than competitive
| verbs or something.
|
| Headline writers run in packs, just like CEOs.
| lancesells wrote:
| I think it's sadly more about A/B testing run amok.
| Engagement rules, not sentiment.
| CyanBird wrote:
| > They don't eat, sleep, debate, propose, or discuss. They just
| slam 24/7.
|
| Why are you attributing what they say, to what _the media says_
| they said?
|
| AOC didn't write that headline, a news editor did, for the
| explicit purpose of making you put attention to it
| Layke1123 wrote:
| Is that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex saying the world slam, or
| someone else?
|
| Don't get confused when someone makes a great point, versus
| someone trying to get political points. The two don't have to
| be mutually exclusive. Your bias is showing.
| rdiddly wrote:
| Hot-damn, you just put your finger on why the whole thing is
| such a turn-off. It's just a big, lame, shallow show. Bags of
| hot air blowing at each other, for the clickbait value. And
| whether it's a media outlet characterizing something as
| "slamming" for the clicks, or the person speaking in a "slammy"
| way for the same reason, hardly makes a difference. The former
| dutifully serves the latter and the latter feeds the former.
| They're both just manipulating you. Or maybe, at best, someone
| through their Twitter account might be trying to display "who
| they are" (LOL!) by virtue of what they oppose, which seems
| like it would never work, and it doesn't. Not for that purpose.
| Look at the big picture and it's incredibly sad. Though almost
| laughably so if you zoom far enough out.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Headlines generally are offenders here. Always using verbs that
| belong more to WWF wrestling that to politics.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Of course. Virality is a mob action... you always get a visceral
| reaction from the mob being against something.
|
| If you're running for local office, what gets more attention when
| you troll social media?
|
| Talking about policy to improve storm sewers or claiming that
| your opponent is a communist who wants to kill children? What
| gets more attention?
|
| In my hometown, a guy got on the non-partisan school board on a
| platform of being pro-gun, and against his "woke" opponent, who
| was accused of hating veterans.
| dinkleberg wrote:
| On mobile that is the most intense cookie consent I've ever seen.
| techbio wrote:
| Just like ESPN highlight reels raise the visibility of athletes.
| Bread and circus alive and well.
| tengbretson wrote:
| Alternative title: Political pr firms appear to be the most
| effective at astroturfing online virality.
| 3grdlurker wrote:
| There's a lot of commentary here on news reporting and social
| media but I really don't think that this is a problem unique to
| our time. The end effect of virality is herd mentality, which
| then creates populism past a certain threshold, and we've
| certainly had populist leaders in history before.
| jahewson wrote:
| > populism
|
| I don't think that word means what you think it means.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Sometimes I wish they just disabled the share button.
| hackeraccount wrote:
| Eh, the easiest most effective arguments are also the most toxic.
| The people who disagree with me aren't just wrong but they're
| disingenuous liars with an agenda so terrible even they won't
| admit to it. The people who disagree with me don't even
| understand what they're saying because they're just mindlessly
| repeating things they have been indoctrinated to believe.
|
| Neither of those will convince anyone of anything but it makes
| people who already agree really happy and it drives those people
| who disagree up a wall.
| vkou wrote:
| There's a reason for this.
|
| The reason for it is that you don't win elections by convincing
| the other side that they are wrong, and they should vote for
| you.
|
| You win elections by convincing _your_ side to show up.
|
| And the best way to do it is by telling your side that giving
| the victory to your opponent is voting for a Trump.
| yesenadam wrote:
| > you don't win elections by convincing the other side that
| they are wrong, and they should vote for you.
|
| > You win elections by convincing your side to show up.
|
| Well, in my country and many others, voting is compulsory, so
| we don't have this problem.
| Sanzig wrote:
| I think I've changed my stance on compulsory voting over
| the years.
|
| My old view was that voting should be as easy as possible
| (advance polling days, no advance registration requirement,
| mail-in ballot options), but at the same time it shouldn't
| be mandatory. I used to view compulsory voting as an
| impediment to the democratic process: if you aren't
| motivated enough to vote, why should you get to weigh in?
|
| These days, I think compulsory voting may have a whole lot
| of value as an effective countermeasure to polarization.
| Political campaigns would be forced to shift from whipping
| up furor among existing supporters to reaching across
| partisan divides in order to convince independents and
| persuadable individuals in the other camps to vote for you.
|
| Have there been any studies done in this regard?
| guerrilla wrote:
| In the US*. People flow betweem parties much more in Europe.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The reason for it is that you don't win elections by
| convincing the other side that they are wrong, and they
| should vote for you.
|
| > You win elections by convincing your side to show up.
|
| And the other side not to, either voluntarily or by targeted
| voter suppression and disenfranchisement. At least, that's
| all true in the US, but its mostly artifacts of a strongly-
| structurally-reinforced two-party system.
|
| In multiparty democracy, positive turnout tactics over
| persuasion is less effective because the activation energy to
| move to another party is smaller because you don't just have
| polar opposites, and negative turnout tactics are less
| effective because you've got more targets to suppress. So
| persuasion is more important.
| belorn wrote:
| We see the same patterns in multiparty democracy. It could
| simply be behavior drawn from US influence, but I doubt it.
| What the article did not mention (but maybe the study did?)
| is that under brain scanners, few things trigger pleasure
| as much as imagining justified violence. It is also very
| addictive in term of neurochemistry.
|
| In multiparty democracies, the one thing that can however
| temporary reduce the problem is the consequences of
| minority government. If enough parties refuses to talk to
| each other, and always vote against the others, you end up
| with a situation where the majority will votes no to
| everything. This does not work, so people then start to
| prioritize cooperation for a while.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Where was this trend started? In my mind it was Nigel Farage in
| Europe that successfully exploited this strategy first, but most
| of these trends tend to come from the US. Who started this in the
| US?
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| It doesn't strike me as particularly new, politicians in days of
| yore were pretty durned hard on each other. and usually better
| read than the current crop.
|
| My favorite variation of all this is the micro variety.
|
| . Find a social media maven with a zillion followers
|
| . Say something horrid to them
|
| . Get them to respond
|
| . Huzzah! Instant fame or at least a few followers for yourself.
|
| . Wash rinse repeat.
| platz wrote:
| The Toxoplasma Of Rage
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23972391
|
| X can get everyone to agree in principle that Q is bad, but no
| one will pay any attention to it.
|
| And Y can get everyone to pay attention to Q, but a lot of people
| who would otherwise oppose it will switch to supporting it just
| because they're so mad at the way it's being publicized.
|
| At least Y got them to pay attention! They're traveling up an
| incentive gradient that rewards them for doing so, even if it
| destroys their credibility.
| williesleg wrote:
| Hacker news!
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