Author Topic: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...  (Read 1309109 times)

LennStar

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6700 on: March 28, 2019, 09:29:09 AM »
The GOP were literally unable to repeal the ACA, so now they want the courts to do it for them. I don't see how that wouldn't be insulting to Roberts intelligence and make him want to flip his vote. The GOP who are the major complainers about legislating through the courts are blatantly using the courts to drive their legislative agenda.
Have you still not found out?
The GOP are always complaining about X and doing X, often at the same time. There is a huge advantage of that: If pisses Democrats off (trolling) and leads them into defeats, too.
Democrats are "playing by the rules" peoples.
GOP is "I take whatever is needed to reach my goal".

This results in Democrats that want to play by the rules (and expect it from others!) get moved into a "compromise" with GOP when the GOP is weak, and when the GOP is strong, they laugh off the rules and any compomise.
That means Democrats 0,5 points, GOP 1,5 points.

bacchi

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6701 on: March 28, 2019, 09:33:27 AM »
Trump's wading back into the healthcare space, saying he is optimistic that the 5th district courts will strike down the ACA and then the supreme court will concur.
He's promising that the GOP will have an 'incredible plan' this time, but of course he gives no specifics.

Given the GOP couldn't get a repeal bill through with control of both chambers of congress this seems like a tall ask. Seems more designed to pander and divide than improve overall opinions of this administration.  I'm guessing this pushes infrastructure bill(s) off the burner (again).
I suppose I’ll take comfort in his inability to act like a statesman and garner support for his political ideas. I’ll have to trust that the courts can be independent enough to hold up the ACA. Sigh.

I don't understand this strategy. The 5 judges that upheld the ACA are still on the court, and I don't think they're likely to see the removal of the individual mandate as a good faith change. There's a deeper question here. Can a law found constitutional be purposefully changed so that it is unconstitutional and struck down by a court?

The GOP were literally unable to repeal the ACA, so now they want the courts to do it for them. I don't see how that wouldn't be insulting to Roberts intelligence and make him want to flip his vote. The GOP who are the major complainers about legislating through the courts are blatantly using the courts to drive their legislative agenda.

Not only was the GOP unable to repeal the ACA, they had years to make a different plan. All of the think tanks, from Cato to Heritage to AEI, could have been working on a suitable plan to satisfy Republicans and we got fuck all.

GuitarStv

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6702 on: March 28, 2019, 09:35:26 AM »
Trump's wading back into the healthcare space, saying he is optimistic that the 5th district courts will strike down the ACA and then the supreme court will concur.
He's promising that the GOP will have an 'incredible plan' this time, but of course he gives no specifics.

Given the GOP couldn't get a repeal bill through with control of both chambers of congress this seems like a tall ask. Seems more designed to pander and divide than improve overall opinions of this administration.  I'm guessing this pushes infrastructure bill(s) off the burner (again).
I suppose I’ll take comfort in his inability to act like a statesman and garner support for his political ideas. I’ll have to trust that the courts can be independent enough to hold up the ACA. Sigh.

I don't understand this strategy. The 5 judges that upheld the ACA are still on the court, and I don't think they're likely to see the removal of the individual mandate as a good faith change. There's a deeper question here. Can a law found constitutional be purposefully changed so that it is unconstitutional and struck down by a court?

The GOP were literally unable to repeal the ACA, so now they want the courts to do it for them. I don't see how that wouldn't be insulting to Roberts intelligence and make him want to flip his vote. The GOP who are the major complainers about legislating through the courts are blatantly using the courts to drive their legislative agenda.

Not only was the GOP unable to repeal the ACA, they had years to make a different plan. All of the think tanks, from Cato to Heritage to AEI, could have been working on a suitable plan to satisfy Republicans and we got fuck all.

The Republican plan is pretty simple.

If you're rich you get health care, if you're poor you die.  Why would they spend time thinking up a new one, when they've put all their efforts behind that one?

StarBright

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6703 on: March 28, 2019, 09:44:03 AM »
Trump's wading back into the healthcare space, saying he is optimistic that the 5th district courts will strike down the ACA and then the supreme court will concur.
He's promising that the GOP will have an 'incredible plan' this time, but of course he gives no specifics.

Given the GOP couldn't get a repeal bill through with control of both chambers of congress this seems like a tall ask. Seems more designed to pander and divide than improve overall opinions of this administration.  I'm guessing this pushes infrastructure bill(s) off the burner (again).
I suppose I’ll take comfort in his inability to act like a statesman and garner support for his political ideas. I’ll have to trust that the courts can be independent enough to hold up the ACA. Sigh.

I don't understand this strategy. The 5 judges that upheld the ACA are still on the court, and I don't think they're likely to see the removal of the individual mandate as a good faith change. There's a deeper question here. Can a law found constitutional be purposefully changed so that it is unconstitutional and struck down by a court?

The GOP were literally unable to repeal the ACA, so now they want the courts to do it for them. I don't see how that wouldn't be insulting to Roberts intelligence and make him want to flip his vote. The GOP who are the major complainers about legislating through the courts are blatantly using the courts to drive their legislative agenda.

Not only was the GOP unable to repeal the ACA, they had years to make a different plan. All of the think tanks, from Cato to Heritage to AEI, could have been working on a suitable plan to satisfy Republicans and we got fuck all.

But isn't ACA structurally based on the Heritage plan - specifically the individual mandate and the exchanges? They haven't given us a new one because we already used their best effort plan (which is also from the early 90s right?). 

Honestly at this point, just let Trump reintroduce the exact same plan and call it Trump care. He'd be thrilled to erase Obama and people would still have health coverage.

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6704 on: March 28, 2019, 10:08:00 AM »
Trump's wading back into the healthcare space, saying he is optimistic that the 5th district courts will strike down the ACA and then the supreme court will concur.
He's promising that the GOP will have an 'incredible plan' this time, but of course he gives no specifics.

Given the GOP couldn't get a repeal bill through with control of both chambers of congress this seems like a tall ask. Seems more designed to pander and divide than improve overall opinions of this administration.  I'm guessing this pushes infrastructure bill(s) off the burner (again).
I suppose I’ll take comfort in his inability to act like a statesman and garner support for his political ideas. I’ll have to trust that the courts can be independent enough to hold up the ACA. Sigh.

I don't understand this strategy. The 5 judges that upheld the ACA are still on the court, and I don't think they're likely to see the removal of the individual mandate as a good faith change. There's a deeper question here. Can a law found constitutional be purposefully changed so that it is unconstitutional and struck down by a court?

The GOP were literally unable to repeal the ACA, so now they want the courts to do it for them. I don't see how that wouldn't be insulting to Roberts intelligence and make him want to flip his vote. The GOP who are the major complainers about legislating through the courts are blatantly using the courts to drive their legislative agenda.

Not only was the GOP unable to repeal the ACA, they had years to make a different plan. All of the think tanks, from Cato to Heritage to AEI, could have been working on a suitable plan to satisfy Republicans and we got fuck all.

But isn't ACA structurally based on the Heritage plan - specifically the individual mandate and the exchanges? They haven't given us a new one because we already used their best effort plan (which is also from the early 90s right?). 

Honestly at this point, just let Trump reintroduce the exact same plan and call it Trump care. He'd be thrilled to erase Obama and people would still have health coverage.
I mean, isn't that basically Trump's MO for the last decade or so? License your name onto other people's projects for perceived value?

bacchi

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6705 on: March 28, 2019, 10:26:12 AM »
But isn't ACA structurally based on the Heritage plan - specifically the individual mandate and the exchanges? They haven't given us a new one because we already used their best effort plan (which is also from the early 90s right?). 

Honestly at this point, just let Trump reintroduce the exact same plan and call it Trump care. He'd be thrilled to erase Obama and people would still have health coverage.

It's loosely based on the Heritage plan. The Heritage plan also wanted to get rid of tax breaks for health insurance, which is a great idea, but also advocated for the elimination of Medicaid (going along with their poor=bad motif) and the replacement of Medicare with a voucher system.

nereo

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6706 on: March 28, 2019, 11:00:32 AM »
Honestly at this point, just let Trump reintroduce the exact same plan and call it Trump care. He'd be thrilled to erase Obama and people would still have health coverage.

That was actually suggested several dozen pages ago in the "after ACA" thread back when the GOP controlled both houses.  Propose some moderate 'fixes' to ACA, pull enough Dems on board to make it seem 'bipartisan,' (and to use as a political shield later on), rebrand it as 'Trumpcare' and declare victory.

Of course passing a large infrastructure bill would have been easy if they had just stated with that in the first place.

HBFIRE

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6707 on: March 28, 2019, 11:47:06 AM »
Can anyone give some clarification on the democrats proposed universal health care?  I support universal health care as a moderate conservative, but I'd like to have the option to purchase private health care (I believe Canada has this option).  From what I've read, this would not be an option with what's being proposed so far.

partgypsy

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6708 on: March 28, 2019, 11:56:27 AM »
I haven't read it, but in most cases countries who have universal coverage, participants have the option to purchase higher cost add-on insurance, but not to opt out of universal health care program altogether. Similar to people who have different levels of medicare, but private instead of government insurance. It's not different than what we have now, where someone may have either insurance through their job or through the ACA but also purchased dental, vision, medication plans.

on Canada website: Private health insurance: Private insurance, held by about two-thirds of Canadians, covers services excluded from public reimbursement, such as vision and dental care, prescription drugs, rehabilitation services, home care, and private rooms in hospitals. In 2014, approximately 94 percent of premiums for private health plans were paid through employers, unions, or other organizations under a group contract or uninsured contract (by which a plan sponsor provides benefits to a group outside of an insurance contract).6 In 2014, private insurance accounted for approximately 12 percent of total health spending.7 The majority of insurers are for-profit.
« Last Edit: March 28, 2019, 11:59:15 AM by partgypsy »

nereo

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6709 on: March 28, 2019, 01:01:07 PM »
Can anyone give some clarification on the democrats proposed universal health care? 
There is not one single plan, but rather a range of plans - many of them short on specifics. Broadly the idea is to have a single-payer health care system which covers everyone and most basic services.  How those plans are disbursed (e.g. through individual states, regulated private companies, at the federal level) and how services it would cover (e.g. Rx, vision, private hospital rooms) and how serves are billed are one of many areas open for debate within the party and among those who generally support this single-payer approach.  I have yet to see a plan which would make additional private insurance obsolete/illegal.

Yes, in Canada most people have additional private insurance, though it's important to note that the healthcare in Canada is controlled at the provincial level; there is no single "Canada health care".

ETA: after some further reading it seems that a few plans would eliminate the private insurance industry entirely.  Though important to note that no campaign plan has ever gone through congress unaltered.
« Last Edit: March 28, 2019, 01:24:12 PM by nereo »

StarBright

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6710 on: March 28, 2019, 01:17:34 PM »
Here is a decent summary of one of the plans being proposed by some Dems:

https://slate.com/business/2019/03/beto-orourke-health-plan-medicare-for-all-america.html

*I hate that Slate calls this Beto's plan, as he just supports the plan put forward by Reps. Rosa DeLauro and Jan Schakowsky. But still, this gives decent insight into one of the medicare-esque plans being talked about currently.


arebelspy

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6711 on: March 28, 2019, 03:35:17 PM »
At what point do we allow people who refuse to listen to logic keep trolling under the idea of allowing diverse viewpoints, and how much do we let them ruin forum threads?

Asking for a friend.

I found the point.

It was somewhere up there. ^^^

before the single person who`s personal AD experience means he knows better than the government intelligence agencies?

I have no idea what this means. :D
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JLee

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6712 on: March 28, 2019, 03:42:23 PM »
At what point do we allow people who refuse to listen to logic keep trolling under the idea of allowing diverse viewpoints, and how much do we let them ruin forum threads?

Asking for a friend.

I found the point.

It was somewhere up there. ^^^

before the single person who`s personal AD experience means he knows better than the government intelligence agencies?

I have no idea what this means. :D

Basically there's someone who is a small business owner and has experience running social media ad campaigns who is insisting that the US gov intelligence agencies are wrong about social media.

ReadySetMillionaire

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6713 on: March 28, 2019, 04:00:53 PM »
At what point do we allow people who refuse to listen to logic keep trolling under the idea of allowing diverse viewpoints, and how much do we let them ruin forum threads?

Asking for a friend.

I found the point.

It was somewhere up there. ^^^

before the single person who`s personal AD experience means he knows better than the government intelligence agencies?

I have no idea what this means. :D

Basically there's someone who is a small business owner and has experience running social media ad campaigns who is insisting that the US gov intelligence agencies are wrong about social media.

There are two small business owners with social media experience trying to explain how minimal these overall numbers are, but there are other diehard liberal Russia truthers who believe in the Father, Son, and Intelligence Community. And this is the same self-serving, power-hungry IC that most liberals and Democrats I know openly distrusted for decades until this whole Russia bullshit started.

But yes, the IC is infallible, it is the word of God, they couldn’t possibly be exploiting a situation to gain more power (COUGH PATRIOT ACT COUGH).

sol

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6714 on: March 28, 2019, 04:03:33 PM »
But yes, the IC is infallible, it is the word of God, they couldn’t possibly be exploiting a situation to gain more power (COUGH PATRIOT ACT COUGH).

If you were a Russian troll, this sort of accusation would make total sense.  Just sayin'.

Lews Therin

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6715 on: March 28, 2019, 04:17:08 PM »
But yes, the IC is infallible, it is the word of God, they couldn’t possibly be exploiting a situation to gain more power (COUGH PATRIOT ACT COUGH).

....  wow.

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6716 on: March 28, 2019, 04:18:33 PM »
I don't understand how these self-described small business owners have reached the conclusion that there could not have been an effect. It seems the logic is that because there weren't a very high volume of posts any influence must have been negligible.  This runs contrary to my own company's experience, which is a 501(c) with an advancement office of four people.  Just out of curiosity I asked the head of this office how many people they target in a given year with our various campaigns.  Answer: about 400. 

The return from this 4 person operation which actively markets to about 400 people is pretty darn good; they're able to bring in several thousand additional people  just by focusing on these key individuals, and a sizable portion of our total budget.

point is - you can blast out non-targeted campaigns to millions of people in the hopes of getting the attention of just a few, or you can actually spent a great deal more effort influencing a much smaller number of people. Both are valid strategies, but the two business owners seem more familiar with the former while by all accounts the Russians were utilizing the latter.

HBFIRE

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6717 on: March 28, 2019, 04:28:48 PM »
I don't understand how these self-described small business owners have reached the conclusion that there could not have been an effect. It seems the logic is that because there weren't a very high volume of posts any influence must have been negligible.  This runs contrary to my own company's experience, which is a 501(c) with an advancement office of four people.  Just out of curiosity I asked the head of this office how many people they target in a given year with our various campaigns.  Answer: about 400. 

The return from this 4 person operation which actively markets to about 400 people is pretty darn good; they're able to bring in several thousand additional people  just by focusing on these key individuals, and a sizable portion of our total budget.

point is - you can blast out non-targeted campaigns to millions of people in the hopes of getting the attention of just a few, or you can actually spent a great deal more effort influencing a much smaller number of people. Both are valid strategies, but the two business owners seem more familiar with the former while by all accounts the Russians were utilizing the latter.

I consider myself somewhat of an expert on media buying, I've been doing it for over 12 years now, and spend North of 2M/month on media buying.  I do pretty big volume as a 2-man operation for a wide variety of verticals. That said, I'm still just a guy working from my small apartment on my couch.

This quote below pretty much echoes my thoughts, from a high level media expert:

"Anyone who’s worked in online advertising or social-media management, the $100,000 spent by the Russian government is laughably small, no matter how precisely targeted. In contrast, the official Trump campaign spent $90 million on digital ads — and, unlike the Russians, had assistance from Facebook employees to target and deploy them effectively. “There’s no way $100,000 in ad budget impacted the election. It’s ridiculous,” García Martínez said.
« Last Edit: March 28, 2019, 04:30:44 PM by HBFIRE »

JLee

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6718 on: March 28, 2019, 04:30:18 PM »
I don't understand how these self-described small business owners have reached the conclusion that there could not have been an effect. It seems the logic is that because there weren't a very high volume of posts any influence must have been negligible.  This runs contrary to my own company's experience, which is a 501(c) with an advancement office of four people.  Just out of curiosity I asked the head of this office how many people they target in a given year with our various campaigns.  Answer: about 400. 

The return from this 4 person operation which actively markets to about 400 people is pretty darn good; they're able to bring in several thousand additional people  just by focusing on these key individuals, and a sizable portion of our total budget.

point is - you can blast out non-targeted campaigns to millions of people in the hopes of getting the attention of just a few, or you can actually spent a great deal more effort influencing a much smaller number of people. Both are valid strategies, but the two business owners seem more familiar with the former while by all accounts the Russians were utilizing the latter.

I consider myself somewhat of an expert on buying media, I've been doing it for over 12 years now, and spend North of 2M/month on media buying.  That said, I'm still just a guy on my couch.

This quote below pretty much echoes my thoughts, from a high level media expert:

"Anyone who’s worked in online advertising or social-media management, the $100,000 spent by the Russian government is laughably small, no matter how precisely targeted. In contrast, the official Trump campaign spent $90 million on digital ads — and, unlike the Russians, had assistance from Facebook employees to target and deploy them effectively. “There’s no way $100,000 in ad budget impacted the election. It’s ridiculous,” García Martínez said.

You are conflating marketing campaigns with registered website users actively trolling.  That does not generate marketing revenue numbers to be reported by Facebook.

HBFIRE

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6719 on: March 28, 2019, 04:31:30 PM »

You are conflating marketing campaigns with registered website users actively trolling.  That does not generate marketing venue numbers to be reported by Facebook.

I addressed this above, the numbers from Facebook include all organic statistics.

JLee

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6720 on: March 28, 2019, 04:36:35 PM »

You are conflating marketing campaigns with registered website users actively trolling.  That does not generate marketing venue numbers to be reported by Facebook.

I addressed this above, the numbers from Facebook include all organic statistics.

You referred to $100,000 spent with assistance in direction from Facebook employees, implying that $100,000 was spent on Facebook ads.  Also, all statistics you can refer to are only known accounts.  I would bet a cookie that Facebook (or Twitter, or Reddit) has not identified every Russian troll account.

What about Reddit? Twitter? Forums (such as this one, which implemented a 100-post minimum to try to keep trolls out of Off Topic)?

HBFIRE

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6721 on: March 28, 2019, 04:40:15 PM »

You referred to $100,000 spent with assistance in direction from Facebook employees, implying that $100,000 was spent on Facebook ads.  Also, all statistics you can refer to are only known accounts.  I would bet a cookie that Facebook (or Twitter, or Reddit) has not identified every Russian troll account.

What about Reddit? Twitter? Forums (such as this one, which implemented a 100-post minimum to try to keep trolls out of Off Topic)?

The 100 K ad budget citation was from another person -- I was just quoting him.  But the statistics Facebook has released includes all stats, including paid and non-paid "marketing" statistics.  We're not going to agree on this, and that's fine.  My opinion is that the scope and scale of the Russian "trolls" was not relatively impactful and the numbers being reported are extremely small.  The internet is full of trolls -- especially in the political arena.  If you think trolls are really impacting votes, these types dwarf the russian trolls.  The book I mentioned earlier -- "Trust me I'm Lying" is a great read.  Media manipulators are hired by the thousands by political prospects.  These are the people you should be concerned with because they have actual budgets to work with which can really move the needle.  In fact some of the marketing I used to do was precisely to manipulate opinion using shock posts that look organic, quite easy to do via Facebook (although I think they've cracked down on it).  It's not just the very small Russian campaign attempting this.  You're going to see more politicians use this type of marketing -- basically posts that look organic and not paid.  In fact it's already being done.  Basically my point is that if we assume people are dumb enough to be persuaded by these media manipulations, we don't need to be concerned with Russia -- it's happening here with real sizable budgets.
« Last Edit: March 28, 2019, 04:52:37 PM by HBFIRE »

JLee

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6722 on: March 28, 2019, 04:54:03 PM »

You referred to $100,000 spent with assistance in direction from Facebook employees, implying that $100,000 was spent on Facebook ads.  Also, all statistics you can refer to are only known accounts.  I would bet a cookie that Facebook (or Twitter, or Reddit) has not identified every Russian troll account.

What about Reddit? Twitter? Forums (such as this one, which implemented a 100-post minimum to try to keep trolls out of Off Topic)?

The 100 K ad budget citation was from another person -- I was just quoting him.  But the statistics Facebook has released includes all stats, including paid and non-paid "marketing" statistics.  We're not going to agree on this, and that's fine.  My opinion is that the scope and scale of the Russian "trolls" was not relatively impactful and the numbers being reported are extremely small.  The internet is full of trolls -- especially in the political arena.  If you think trolls are really impacting votes, these types dwarf the russian trolls.  The book I mentioned earlier -- "Trust me I'm Lying" is a great read.  Media manipulators are hired by the thousands by political prospects.  These are the people you should be concerned with.

72% of the front page of r/bestof has an upvote count that would fit within the capacity of a 900-person troll team.

28% of the front page of r/worldnews has an upvote count that would fit within the capacity of a 900-person troll team.

64% of the front page of r/news has an upvote count that would fit within the capacity of a 900-person troll team.

92% of the front page of r/republican has an upvote count that would fit within the capacity of a 900-person troll team.

100% of the front page of r/freeconservative has an upvote count that would fit within the capacity of a 900-person troll team.

76% of the front page of r/libertarian has an upvote count that would fit within the capacity of a 900-person troll team.

64% of the front page of r/democrats has an upvote count that would fit within the capacity of a 900-person troll team.

Keep in mind a post with ~500 upvotes lands at 400 downvotes with 900 coordinated people.  With how Reddit works, that will result in easily raising or burying content on demand. With enough coordinated people, you can drive a narrative.

arebelspy

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6723 on: March 28, 2019, 05:09:14 PM »
...and do so MUCH more effectively than spending money to buy ads.

Troll farms don't sway opinion by paying for ads, they do so by posting what appears to be legitimate content, and spreading that content via likes and shares.
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Dancin'Dog

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6724 on: March 28, 2019, 05:16:24 PM »
I wonder who's living under the bridges in Russia now, since the trolls moved to the farms?

JLee

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6725 on: March 28, 2019, 05:22:23 PM »
...and do so MUCH more effectively than spending money to buy ads.

Troll farms don't sway opinion by paying for ads, they do so by posting what appears to be legitimate content, and spreading that content via likes and shares.

Yup. Side note, that 28% of the front page of r/worldnews that could be promoted by a concentrated team of fewer than 1000?  r/worldnews has 20.8 million subscribers.

nereo

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6726 on: March 28, 2019, 05:29:55 PM »

I consider myself somewhat of an expert on media buying
It may surprise you to learn that Dan Coats and Gina Haspel consider themselves experts in foreign intelligence matters.  Mark Zuckerberg considers himself an expert on the Facebook platform.  Why is your 12 years experience working off of your couch more valuable than theirs?

ReadySetMillionaire

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6727 on: March 28, 2019, 05:40:33 PM »
...and do so MUCH more effectively than spending money to buy ads.

Troll farms don't sway opinion by paying for ads, they do so by posting what appears to be legitimate content, and spreading that content via likes and shares.

Yup. Side note, that 28% of the front page of r/worldnews that could be promoted by a concentrated team of fewer than 1000?  r/worldnews has 20.8 million subscribers.
For the 50th example, this is exactly what I’m talking about. R/worldnews has 21M subscribers. It has 55k active subscribers (using the site right now) as I type this. You think 900 people can overtake 21M with pro-Trump content on a platform known for its generally liberal crowd?

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6728 on: March 28, 2019, 05:41:50 PM »
...and do so MUCH more effectively than spending money to buy ads.

Troll farms don't sway opinion by paying for ads, they do so by posting what appears to be legitimate content, and spreading that content via likes and shares.

Yup. Side note, that 28% of the front page of r/worldnews that could be promoted by a concentrated team of fewer than 1000?  r/worldnews has 20.8 million subscribers.
For the 50th example, this is exactly what I’m talking about. R/worldnews has 21M subscribers. It has 55k active subscribers (using the site right now) as I type this. You think 900 people can overtake 21M with pro-Trump content on a platform known for its generally liberal crowd?

28% of the front page content on r/worldnews has fewer than 950 upvotes.

I never said they were promoting exclusively pro-Trump content.  I'm quite sure I stated the opposite earlier in this thread.

ReadySetMillionaire

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6729 on: March 28, 2019, 06:23:12 PM »
We’re just never going to agree on this, which is fine, and mirrors the last line of Silver’s article stating that more data is needed.

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6730 on: March 28, 2019, 06:31:12 PM »
...and do so MUCH more effectively than spending money to buy ads.

Troll farms don't sway opinion by paying for ads, they do so by posting what appears to be legitimate content, and spreading that content via likes and shares.

Yup. Side note, that 28% of the front page of r/worldnews that could be promoted by a concentrated team of fewer than 1000?  r/worldnews has 20.8 million subscribers.
For the 50th example, this is exactly what I’m talking about. R/worldnews has 21M subscribers. It has 55k active subscribers (using the site right now) as I type this. You think 900 people can overtake 21M with pro-Trump content on a platform known for its generally liberal crowd?
The key part is the vast majority of use is passive, and the active users (even a small number of them, especially if acting in a coordinated effort) can tilt what those passive users see.
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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6731 on: March 28, 2019, 07:58:16 PM »
I'm not sure why all of the "who was influenced" matters. People are influenced by all sorts of crap. The election was 3 years ago, it's over. Trump isn't going to get kicked out of office because some people saw propaganda.

Also, there is waaaaaaaaaay more domestic propaganda than international. What about all of that?

I haven't heard anyone come up with any ideas on how to get rid of propaganda or whether getting rid of it is even legal (given freedom on speech).

Democracy relies on the electorate being of some minimum intelligence level.

Finally, the outrage of Americans being upset over foreign powers influencing their elections is pretty funny on it's face given how much they get involved in other countries around the globe.

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6732 on: March 28, 2019, 08:10:43 PM »

Also, there is waaaaaaaaaay more domestic propaganda than international. What about all of that?


It's not as sexy and dramatic as talking about the big bad russians.

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6733 on: March 28, 2019, 08:29:27 PM »
Also, there is waaaaaaaaaay more domestic propaganda than international. What about all of that?
There are also a lot of domestic homicides, but if foreign troops landed and started shooting people, I think the citizenry might properly be concerned.

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6734 on: March 29, 2019, 01:40:42 AM »
For the 50th example, this is exactly what I’m talking about. R/worldnews has 21M subscribers. It has 55k active subscribers (using the site right now) as I type this. You think 900 people can overtake 21M with pro-Trump content on a platform known for its generally liberal crowd?

Let's put it like this: I know from first-hand experience that 2 "trolls" can destroy a 50-100 active people political group even without speaking to half of them directly (not counting giving a talk at a big meeting and such stuff).

Now imagine this wasn't a group of (on average) highly intelligent people with similar goals, but average joes just looking.

And also remember that science has shown again and again that what you see on e.g. facebook, if you are a heavy user, greatly influences your view of the world, and I don't even speak about filter bubbles.
Take the New York pizzeria thing. Without the Russian trolls it would probably have never gotten big. You just need to "advertise" that story to a few hundred of the right people and you get a snowball. And once the snowball has gotten big, other media jumps on it and you have a national discussion.

Other example of that, not related to Russia?
Greta Thunberg. A 16 year old girl. She did a small thing. Now hundred thousands of students are striking each friday. Not because she talked to them all.

Nobody says the trolls are effective every time. But the point is they only need to be effective once in their several hundred or even thousand tries. If they bring a "Hillary eats babies" story to the top every second day, there will be people believing it (or at least going away from Hillary). That has also been shown by science again and again and again.
Or to quote Goebbels, who certainly had known how to do propaganda: You only have to repeat the lie often enough and people will believe it.

Quote
Finally, the outrage of Americans being upset over foreign powers influencing their elections is pretty funny on it's face given how much they get involved in other countries around the globe.
That is one point that always strikes me as hilarious, too.
« Last Edit: March 29, 2019, 01:49:44 AM by LennStar »

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6736 on: March 29, 2019, 07:39:25 AM »
So this happened at the confirmation hearing for Trump's interior secretary David Bernhardt (to replace Ryan Zinke who resigned amid multiple ethics investigations)


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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6737 on: March 29, 2019, 08:06:23 AM »
That should help secure NASA funding.

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6738 on: March 29, 2019, 08:16:45 AM »

Also, there is waaaaaaaaaay more domestic propaganda than international. What about all of that?


It's not as sexy and dramatic as talking about the big bad russians.

Do we really have to explain why citizens get to have a say in our political processes but foreigners don't?

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6739 on: March 29, 2019, 08:44:54 AM »
That depends...

Are the foreigners asking for asylum? Or are they merely providing financing for real estate deals?

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6740 on: March 29, 2019, 09:12:54 AM »
Thank you for the photo, Nereo. Such a good photobomb.

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6741 on: March 29, 2019, 09:19:28 AM »
That depends...

Are the foreigners asking for asylum? Or are they merely providing financing for real estate deals?

I don't think I understand the question.

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6742 on: March 29, 2019, 09:36:44 AM »

Also, there is waaaaaaaaaay more domestic propaganda than international. What about all of that?


It's not as sexy and dramatic as talking about the big bad russians.

Do we really have to explain why citizens get to have a say in our political processes but foreigners don't?

Yeah, I could do with the Koch brothers getting their fingers out of our affairs.

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6743 on: March 29, 2019, 09:45:47 AM »

Also, there is waaaaaaaaaay more domestic propaganda than international. What about all of that?


It's not as sexy and dramatic as talking about the big bad russians.

Do we really have to explain why citizens get to have a say in our political processes but foreigners don't?

Yeah, I could do with the Koch brothers getting their fingers out of our affairs.

While I would very much like to bring their political power more in line with an average citizens, I still believe they have a right to have and share their opinions on our political process so long as they are a part of our society.

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6744 on: March 29, 2019, 09:50:59 AM »
While I would very much like to bring their political power more in line with an average citizens, I still believe they have a right to have and share their opinions on our political process so long as they are a part of our society.

Should they continue to get government subsidies for their privately owned business, and then use the profits of that business to buy political power?  Because that feels very undemocratic to me.

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6745 on: March 29, 2019, 09:56:40 AM »
While I would very much like to bring their political power more in line with an average citizens, I still believe they have a right to have and share their opinions on our political process so long as they are a part of our society.

Should they continue to get government subsidies for their privately owned business, and then use the profits of that business to buy political power?  Because that feels very undemocratic to me.

No.  Do you think that the Koch brothers getting a say in our government is on the same level as the Russian government getting a say in our government?

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6746 on: March 29, 2019, 10:02:24 AM »
Do you think that the Koch brothers getting a say in our government is on the same level as the Russian government getting a say in our government?

Aside from the fact that they both advocate for the same causes?  No not really.  The Koch brothers buy corrupting influence legally.

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6747 on: March 29, 2019, 10:21:04 AM »

Also, there is waaaaaaaaaay more domestic propaganda than international. What about all of that?


It's not as sexy and dramatic as talking about the big bad russians.

Do we really have to explain why citizens get to have a say in our political processes but foreigners don't?

Yeah, I could do with the Koch brothers getting their fingers out of our affairs.

While I would very much like to bring their political power more in line with an average citizens, I still believe they have a right to have and share their opinions on our political process so long as they are a part of our society.

My post was about two things:
1) Do you think the foreign propaganda rose above a "noise" level given all of the domestic propaganda?

And more importantly
2) What are we going to do about foreign or domestic propaganda if anything? The world's communication is so interconnected that unless we go North Korea style it's not a problem that can be addressed on the by impacting the side of the people creating the propaganda. It has to be addressed by educating the public to assess information.

Also, @shenlong55, what you said about citizens having a say in the political process and foreigners shouldn't, I think this is a broad statement that needs to be thought through. I am not a US citizen. I frequently talk to my US citizen friends about politics, and even try to sway their views on some issues. Should that be illegal? If not, where do you draw the line?

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6748 on: March 29, 2019, 11:12:03 AM »

Also, there is waaaaaaaaaay more domestic propaganda than international. What about all of that?


It's not as sexy and dramatic as talking about the big bad russians.

Do we really have to explain why citizens get to have a say in our political processes but foreigners don't?

Yeah, I could do with the Koch brothers getting their fingers out of our affairs.

While I would very much like to bring their political power more in line with an average citizens, I still believe they have a right to have and share their opinions on our political process so long as they are a part of our society.

My post was about two things:
1) Do you think the foreign propaganda rose above a "noise" level given all of the domestic propaganda?

Who says they're separate issues?  My understanding is that the foreign propaganda was mostly amplifying the domestic propaganda.  So whereas both are an issue, I'd say the domestic propaganda at least has some legitimacy.  So the best solution to me is to first address the foreign propaganda which will also reduce the effects of the domestic propaganda.

And more importantly
2) What are we going to do about foreign or domestic propaganda if anything? The world's communication is so interconnected that unless we go North Korea style it's not a problem that can be addressed on the by impacting the side of the people creating the propaganda. It has to be addressed by educating the public to assess information.

I mean, basically the same way you set personal boundaries.

Step 1: Communicate to the other party clearly that the behavior is unacceptable.
Step 2: Who cares, since our current government can't even accomplish step 1 I agree that we need to just accept that there will be more foreign involvement in our politics in the future and try to mitigate it by educating our fellow citizens.   I just don't understand why anyone trying to do that would also be trying to minimize the effects of the problem instead of using it as an example to help show why a skill like properly assessing information sources is an important skill to develop.

Also, @shenlong55, what you said about citizens having a say in the political process and foreigners shouldn't, I think this is a broad statement that needs to be thought through. I am not a US citizen. I frequently talk to my US citizen friends about politics, and even try to sway their views on some issues. Should that be illegal? If not, where do you draw the line?

I think that situation is about as far as you can get from a foreign government making a coordinated effort to sow discord in our political discussions while still being in the same realm.  I'm not interested in censoring individuals, so I see no problem with you discussing US politics with friends.  But I would probably have a big problem with you banding together with other foreigners to create a PAC-like entity to lobby our government.  I don't want to wall us off from foreign political ideas, but I do want US citizens to be primarily in control of their own government.
« Last Edit: March 29, 2019, 12:14:40 PM by shenlong55 »

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Re: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency...
« Reply #6749 on: March 29, 2019, 11:58:43 AM »

Also, there is waaaaaaaaaay more domestic propaganda than international. What about all of that?


It's not as sexy and dramatic as talking about the big bad russians.

Do we really have to explain why citizens get to have a say in our political processes but foreigners don't?

Yeah, I could do with the Koch brothers getting their fingers out of our affairs.

While I would very much like to bring their political power more in line with an average citizens, I still believe they have a right to have and share their opinions on our political process so long as they are a part of our society.

They are part of YOUR (i.e. U.S.) society.  They are not part of mine (different country, eh?) but they pour all sorts of money into Canadian Right-wing think tanks.  Our right wing parties have gotten way more right wing since they got involved.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!