The Chinese government has built up the world’s largest known online disinformation operation and is using it to harass US residents, politicians, and businesses—at times threatening its targets with violence, a CNN review of court documents and public disclosures by social media companies has found.
The onslaught of attacks – often of a vile and deeply personal nature – is part of a well-organized, increasingly brazen Chinese government intimidation campaign targeting people in the United States, documents show.
The US State Department says the tactics are part of a broader multi-billion-dollar effort to shape the world’s information environment and silence critics of Beijing that has expanded under President Xi Jinping. On Wednesday, President Biden is due to meet Xi at a summit in San Francisco.
Victims face a barrage of tens of thousands of social media posts that call them traitors, dogs, and racist and homophobic slurs. They say it’s all part of an effort to drive them into a state of constant fear and paranoia.
Sure, but you need to sell someone on why the time is worth spending. Nobody here is asking anyone to walk them through the subject matter, just give an idea of why the subject matter is worth digging into.
I personally have read the The Communist Manifesto, and when paired with what I know about human nature and how it turned out in practice, my conclusion is that it’s a bunch of idealistic nonsense. It can only work in the way described if everyone buys in and the leadership is noble, which is true for pretty much every governmental system out there (dictatorships can work well if the dictator works in the interests of the people). It doesn’t work well when you remove the assumption, because people will game the system and consolidating power is a recipe for disaster.
And that’s why liberal democracy has worked so well. Instead of assuming people are good and consolidating power is beneficial, it instead mitigates the damage bad actors can cause. There are obviously downsides, but the average liberal democracy should be better off than the average dictatorship.
So I’m not going to pitch The Communist Manifesto because I find it uninteresting. I will, however, pitch How Democracies Die, which is an interesting look at how bad actors have subverted or attempted to subvert democracy to turn it into authoritarianism, and it culminates in a discussion about Donald Trump and similar political figures. You won’t find a pitch for an ideal political system, but you will find examples of weaknesses in past and existing institutions, and I think that’s a lot more interesting than a non-existent, “ideal” system that we don’t fully understand.
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This is a great example of how you can take complicated subjects and express the ideas in a simple way while still recommending further reading. I’m absolutely more likely to read How Democracies Die now than I am to read anything the tankies have suggested.
If you can’t explain something to a five year old then you don’t really understand it.
I’m convinced the tankies understand less about government than they do about social media techniques and creating a cult.
Hell, I’m even trying to help them. Novel ideas are good for everyone. It’s why we believe in freedom of speech and not banning books. Trying to bandwagon and browbeat and mock people into joining your “cause” is… less helpful.