Unfortunately, we have an entire civilization with “screeching messages” in their ears right now, we have a population largely reactive and only thinking that they’re thinking, people are fed nonsense, a deluge of headlines that blur reality and fantasy. I have to explain to people working in my team in the morning huddles when they are chatting that no, we did not in fact discover Atlantis and a mermaid kingdom. No, there are no giant floating eyeballs in space. We did not discover a city on Mars, aliens have (as far as we know) NOT been in contact with anyone, much less politicians. When media and headlines on stories are designed to sensationalize, people stop paying attention and stop believing anything but what they want to hear, and you can change people’s ideas what they want to hear.
I’m quite sure efforts were made to swing the election manually, via voting machines and ballots, maybe those efforts made a difference, but a lot of people who have never been involved in the logistics of voting in a country this size have no concept of how hard it is to rig. Remember, this was part of the huge contention with Trump when he lost in 2020, he claimed fraud and because of those claims everyone got a better glimpse into how secure the US’s elections are. They are secure simply because the scale of the operation needed to change results is staggering.
I’m not saying you’re entirely wrong, but I think the election was stolen via more subtle and broad, sweeping methods, which is more efficient and less easy to track down individuals responsible - I am talking large-scale social engineering. It doesn’t take a lot and it doesn’t give back a lot, but it can be enough to turn a tide, it can be enough to shift perspectives just enough, it can be enough to capitalize on public mistrust and frustration and it can select for the people most vulnerable to specific, tailored messaging.
And this was before AI was what it is today, I expect the next elections are going to be even more baffling.
That’s probably accurate but not unusual, it still had some of the highest turnout in history and the data backs this up, we didn’t have as much of turnout problem as an attention span and informed voter problem.
The problem was more revealed in exit polling determining that people largely didn’t see a difference between candidates, saw no difference between Harris and Biden (kinda true) but saw Trump as a “lets see how he does” option because he wasn’t in charge when egg prices went up.
Studies have shown the Trump beat out Dems in all categories and it has a lot to do with people largely losing interest in politics and just marginally paying attention to social media propaganda, which skews heavily right. Financial uncertainty often pushes populations towards conservatism and authoritarian leaders, and Dems are very, very bad at this kind of populism.
Almost everything has become media entertainment, media is about capturing attention-spans because attention is monetized via commercials and clicks on affiliates and the like. This has led to an arms-race in grabbing attention faster and faster, so now the general population, and I mean MOST people, pay less attention to anything that requires patience or does not provide immediate dopamine hits.
This is just the state we’re in, it’s widespread and it’s a massive problem and AI is making it even worse every day.
The average grade-school teacher reports they have to design curriculums around 3 - 7 minutes maximum attention-spans, that anything more than a few minutes at a time and kids will start fidgeting, looking around and acting disinterested, nor can teachers even give kids homework anymore because they use ChatGTP to finish it most of the time. Adults aren’t in much better shape. About a full quarter of America’s adult population are functionally illiterate, meaning while they can usually work out words and text messages via context, they can’t read an article or a book, they can’t assemble paragraphs to form narration in their minds.
This is why we’re in this mess right now, because many people are exploiting this trend and only a handful of people are raising awareness about it and trying to get us broadly to put the electronic devices down. Which nobody wants to do, nor can we all do because of the need to use smartphones and computers in our daily lives.
Also, even if you’re not counting the large swath of the population who are chronically attention-span handicapped, the average middle-class American family has to work 6 - 7 days a week to support the increasing costs of raising families and having homes.
Most of these people don’t watch the news, they barely have time to watch a disney movie with their kids Sunday night before browsing social media for 30 minutes and going to bed to start the week all over. People are incredibly overworked and distracted. Politics doesn’t seem to touch you in this kind of life because the US protects the middle-class to some degree, as long as you’re putting in your 80 - 100 hours of work each week between yourself and your partner, you will just barely make the bills and expenses, you will have just enough for expenses and never enough to stop or take a break.
These families are good people, they just don’t have a margin in their life to care about politics. This is the system that’s been engineered to keep people from mobilizing and working together.
I don’t mean to be mean, but you need to talk to more people.
A lot of people in America simply do not believe they can change anything. Either because they don’t know how, they’ve never shown up to a town hall, or because the only politics they hear about are from states and federal buildings they’ll never live or work in, or because the only politics they hear about outside of Trump being a dipshit is some 2% thing that will do something which might lead to something else maybe, or because South Park taught them that caring about anything is cringe and, actually, the smartest people spend all day making fun of anyone with an idea.
I mean, let me ask another question: how the fuck do you lose interest in unions? And yet, the US lost interest a looong time ago.
There is an element of people wanting their fast food and being displeased that civil rights took multiple decades to build.
That said, it isn’t just their fault. The Democrats, generally, do not know how to be exciting. As much as people say they’re not interested, it’s not entirely true; there is a spark that has yet to be ignited.
Mostly they just want both sides to burn down and be replaced with something less horrible
But the right has enough supporters to win.
And at this point, short of the SCOTUS getting overthrown before the finish, ushering in fascism, all the politics are just arranging deckchairs on the Titanic.
Ohh screw that. We’ve got a bunch of sleepers in the left that they activate everytime the fucking race gets close, 90% of the left is complicit, selfish and owned. There’s nothing going on in the governemnt right now that’s ok and getting the left back in won’t change shit.
We need accountability, checks and balances and the scotus needs guaranteed representation
childish my ass, keep hoping for things to just get better and stay as they are or go back a couple years and watch it collaps around you. That’s myopic and a pipe dream
Last presidential election had the highest turnout of voters and youth voters in American history.
Our problem is much more depressing and much more deeply baked-in.
The Trump/ Putin/ Musk cabal rigged the election, and we ALL know it.
He won EVERY swing state? Puh-leeeze. I’ve got good Critical Thinking Skills, and they have been screeching in my brain ever since Election Day 2024.
Unfortunately, we have an entire civilization with “screeching messages” in their ears right now, we have a population largely reactive and only thinking that they’re thinking, people are fed nonsense, a deluge of headlines that blur reality and fantasy. I have to explain to people working in my team in the morning huddles when they are chatting that no, we did not in fact discover Atlantis and a mermaid kingdom. No, there are no giant floating eyeballs in space. We did not discover a city on Mars, aliens have (as far as we know) NOT been in contact with anyone, much less politicians. When media and headlines on stories are designed to sensationalize, people stop paying attention and stop believing anything but what they want to hear, and you can change people’s ideas what they want to hear.
I’m quite sure efforts were made to swing the election manually, via voting machines and ballots, maybe those efforts made a difference, but a lot of people who have never been involved in the logistics of voting in a country this size have no concept of how hard it is to rig. Remember, this was part of the huge contention with Trump when he lost in 2020, he claimed fraud and because of those claims everyone got a better glimpse into how secure the US’s elections are. They are secure simply because the scale of the operation needed to change results is staggering.
I’m not saying you’re entirely wrong, but I think the election was stolen via more subtle and broad, sweeping methods, which is more efficient and less easy to track down individuals responsible - I am talking large-scale social engineering. It doesn’t take a lot and it doesn’t give back a lot, but it can be enough to turn a tide, it can be enough to shift perspectives just enough, it can be enough to capitalize on public mistrust and frustration and it can select for the people most vulnerable to specific, tailored messaging.
And this was before AI was what it is today, I expect the next elections are going to be even more baffling.
More than 1 in 3 people didn’t vote.
That’s probably accurate but not unusual, it still had some of the highest turnout in history and the data backs this up, we didn’t have as much of turnout problem as an attention span and informed voter problem.
The problem was more revealed in exit polling determining that people largely didn’t see a difference between candidates, saw no difference between Harris and Biden (kinda true) but saw Trump as a “lets see how he does” option because he wasn’t in charge when egg prices went up.
Studies have shown the Trump beat out Dems in all categories and it has a lot to do with people largely losing interest in politics and just marginally paying attention to social media propaganda, which skews heavily right. Financial uncertainty often pushes populations towards conservatism and authoritarian leaders, and Dems are very, very bad at this kind of populism.
Excuse me, but HOW THE FUCK do you LOSE INTEREST in politics?!
Is there too much lead in people’s food or something?
Almost everything has become media entertainment, media is about capturing attention-spans because attention is monetized via commercials and clicks on affiliates and the like. This has led to an arms-race in grabbing attention faster and faster, so now the general population, and I mean MOST people, pay less attention to anything that requires patience or does not provide immediate dopamine hits.
This is just the state we’re in, it’s widespread and it’s a massive problem and AI is making it even worse every day.
The average grade-school teacher reports they have to design curriculums around 3 - 7 minutes maximum attention-spans, that anything more than a few minutes at a time and kids will start fidgeting, looking around and acting disinterested, nor can teachers even give kids homework anymore because they use ChatGTP to finish it most of the time. Adults aren’t in much better shape. About a full quarter of America’s adult population are functionally illiterate, meaning while they can usually work out words and text messages via context, they can’t read an article or a book, they can’t assemble paragraphs to form narration in their minds.
This is why we’re in this mess right now, because many people are exploiting this trend and only a handful of people are raising awareness about it and trying to get us broadly to put the electronic devices down. Which nobody wants to do, nor can we all do because of the need to use smartphones and computers in our daily lives.
Also, even if you’re not counting the large swath of the population who are chronically attention-span handicapped, the average middle-class American family has to work 6 - 7 days a week to support the increasing costs of raising families and having homes.
Most of these people don’t watch the news, they barely have time to watch a disney movie with their kids Sunday night before browsing social media for 30 minutes and going to bed to start the week all over. People are incredibly overworked and distracted. Politics doesn’t seem to touch you in this kind of life because the US protects the middle-class to some degree, as long as you’re putting in your 80 - 100 hours of work each week between yourself and your partner, you will just barely make the bills and expenses, you will have just enough for expenses and never enough to stop or take a break.
These families are good people, they just don’t have a margin in their life to care about politics. This is the system that’s been engineered to keep people from mobilizing and working together.
I don’t mean to be mean, but you need to talk to more people.
A lot of people in America simply do not believe they can change anything. Either because they don’t know how, they’ve never shown up to a town hall, or because the only politics they hear about are from states and federal buildings they’ll never live or work in, or because the only politics they hear about outside of Trump being a dipshit is some 2% thing that will do something which might lead to something else maybe, or because South Park taught them that caring about anything is cringe and, actually, the smartest people spend all day making fun of anyone with an idea.
I mean, let me ask another question: how the fuck do you lose interest in unions? And yet, the US lost interest a looong time ago.
It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy. Things don’t change because they don’t participate. They don’t participate because things didn’t change.
90% of things people claim are the reason they don’t vote could be changed if they fucking voted.
There is an element of people wanting their fast food and being displeased that civil rights took multiple decades to build.
That said, it isn’t just their fault. The Democrats, generally, do not know how to be exciting. As much as people say they’re not interested, it’s not entirely true; there is a spark that has yet to be ignited.
Mostly they just want both sides to burn down and be replaced with something less horrible
But the right has enough supporters to win.
And at this point, short of the SCOTUS getting overthrown before the finish, ushering in fascism, all the politics are just arranging deckchairs on the Titanic.
A bit a of a childish all-or-nothing argument.
They can keep hoping for unattainable perfection. In the meantime, others are happy to take power.
Ohh screw that. We’ve got a bunch of sleepers in the left that they activate everytime the fucking race gets close, 90% of the left is complicit, selfish and owned. There’s nothing going on in the governemnt right now that’s ok and getting the left back in won’t change shit.
We need accountability, checks and balances and the scotus needs guaranteed representation
childish my ass, keep hoping for things to just get better and stay as they are or go back a couple years and watch it collaps around you. That’s myopic and a pipe dream