What do you mean by "manufactured consent for each other the whole time"? I'm familiar with the Noam Chomsky book Manufacturing Consent, but this book was about the dynamics that shape coverage decisions in mass media, not some concrete process which Person X could perform "for" Person Y.
I also struggle to see how it can be that different Presidents with often directly contradictory policies could both be serving the same ruling class interests. If the funding rules for scientific grants are changing, and defenders of the old rules argue that this is a terrible change that will cause huge problems, how can it be that both the old rules and the new rules serve the same interests?
> What do you mean by "manufactured consent for each other the whole time"?
> I also struggle to see how it can be that different Presidents with often directly contradictory policies could both be serving the same ruling class interests.
Using the polarizing topic of COVID (whose risks remain in 2026) as an example, we can answer both of your questions:
This can be applied to virtually any topic. The party of "good cop" and the party of "bad cop" promise no change from the status quo. Of course, anybody easily distracted by the culture wars will not see the commonality between both corporate parties, by design. These people see a close election and use that as "proof" we still have a functioning democracy.
Covid is a great example, because outside of hyperpartisan spaces, it was not a polarizing topic at the time these pieces were written. As the second link details, by 2022, the American people strongly felt that there were more important problems to tackle and we would have to eventually accept Covid as a fact of life. Ms. Doubleday perceives her problem to be with "the press" because she's out of touch, and doesn't realize that they're simply reporting what most Americans want and how most Americans feel.
People who are concerned about "corporatism" have the same problem. I often see them get confused and frustrated when the news presents "big government" as a scary thing that people are worried about - doesn't everyone know big business is the more important concern? Most Americans don't agree with them (https://news.gallup.com/poll/701054/perceived-threat-big-bus...), but if all your friends think big business sucks and government programs are great, it's hard to know that this is something you should check.
This is actually pretty well-understood if people wanted to do it.. contrary to popular belief it's more about responsible governance than economics and not really a pro/anti capitalism thing
What if the goal of an economic system was to support everyone instead of maximizing the upside for winners? Perhaps that's the sort of change necessary for improvement. Perhaps having billionaires is the failure state.
A goal fails - who sets a goal? The keyword is system.
An economic system needs something like a Nash equilibrium where defectors are sufficiently discouraged (and cooperators are rewarded as you imply). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium
> Firefox is controlled opposition practically owned by Google
And how does that "ownership" look like in practice? Has Google ever decided how things should be done "or else"? What Google does is pay a protection tax. Without Firefox around and independent, the EU is almost sure to break Chrome away from Google, especially with the warm EU-US relations now. So Google pays and is going to pay as much as it takes to keep Firefox alive, kicking, and doing whatever it wants.
Google Chrome needs Firefox to be moderately successful more than Firefox needs that money. Or else it might become someone else's Chrome.
> Follow the money
Everyone has this revelation once. If it was that easy then customers would practically own the company providing them the services. Do you and your fellow paying customers feel like you own any company, especially big-tech? Do you all control Netflix? Amazon? Apple?
> Everyone has this revelation once. If it was that easy then customers would practically own the company providing them the services. Do you and your fellow paying customers feel like you own any company, especially big-tech? Do you all control Netflix? Amazon? Apple?
A million individual voices are just noise which is what your "fellow paying customers" line equates. A single monetary contributor is not that. It is the sugar daddy of Firefox. Conflating the two seems to be a bad faith comparison.
Talking about bad faith, with Google's single, enormously powerful voice surely you can hear what it says. So why not answer to literally the first thing I asked in my comment instead of skipping straight to the end to claim bad faith? You should have laundry list of examples to show how Google flashes the cash and the orders, and Firefox executes. That's a sugar daddy.
You understand that if Firefox ever just becomes a puppet on Google hand the whole setup crumbles? It's barely at the edge of plausible deniability even today. Why kill the golden goose when Firefox is anyway in no position to become a real threat on the browser market any time soon.
Plenty of companies lived and died by their customers' "noise", or at least got a bloody nose, so that's a shallow dismissal.
My point was in support of that if not clearly stated.
Expecting FF to listen to a million individual users is not a good expectation. Expecting FF to be prone to listening to a single powerful voice would be a better expectation. However, FF has not assimilated into yet another Chrome, so there's some evidence they are not giving in to the whims of that powerful voice.
What is the advantage of building a browser engine from scratch? As opposed to just forking Blink and maintaining it as a separate project? Seems like the former just adds an ungodly amount of work and still doesn't solve the problem of Google using its weight to control web standards.
If Firefox and Apple can't rein in Google with their competing engines, what exactly does Ladybird change?
Linux and Windows do not have a goal of perfectly emulating the other one, to the degree of sharing the same spec and tests. Not sure how this example applies, especially since Blink is open source, while Windows is not.
In fact your example betrays you, because it would be like rewriting Linux from scratch while still attempting to maintain perfect compatibly with Linux. And then arguing that you've somehow weakened Linux in the process. Why not just fork it and maintain your own fork?
Please don't post attacks on people's character like this on HN. It's fine to share information about people that are relevant to the discussion, but please keep it to dispassionate sharing of material facts rather than venomous slurs like this.
> Who cares at this point. Nothing has ever managed to unite Europeans as effectively as the orange man’s unrelenting torrent of temper tantrums over the past year and a half.
> Americans, we know some of you aren’t crazy. Can’t wait for the grown-ups to be in charge again, but in the mean time we’ll be moving on.
Assuming by "grown-ups" you mean Team Blue, then you'll be disappointed, because they manufactured consent for "orange man" every step of the way. People are too easily fooled by the good cop / bad cop routine, which is why it's continuously deployed.
We have a uniparty with red and blue facades whose illusion apparently even pervades overseas. Buckle in for disappointment no matter where you live. As if your country doesn't have similar power struggles.
It's capital interests against everybody else. Always has been. "Lesser of two evils" is still evil.
I am deeply, profoundly, emphatically uninterested in your "teams". Your local news are not relevant to us. What the rest of the world sees is US foreign policy, and the mainstream sentiment in every other Western nation right now is one of second-hand embarrassment.
It's safe to assume you've either drunk the kool-aid or have something to gain monetarily (even if falsely assumed) by allowing the illusion to persist. Either way, you're literally part of the problem, as is anyone else who still takes this system seriously.
> It's safe to assume you've either drunk the kool-aid or have something to gain monetarily (even if falsely assumed) by allowing the illusion to persist. Either way, you're literally part of the problem, as is anyone else who still takes this system seriously.
Is it? Am I? As a former Sanders caucuser who didn't fall for his supporters' both sides bullshit, perhaps some self-reflection on why running a candidate who's only popular with white people in Iowa would inevitably lose is in order.
Are you kidding? Hillary was hated by so many demographics. Forcing her (in a blatantly unfair fashion, to anybody paying attention) twice was so absurd that it qualifies as a prime example of manufacturing consent for capital interests.
"Vote for our capital shill or else you're hitler" is demonstrably not a winning strategy, especially when her Pied Piper shenanigans as revealed by wikileaks ultimately delivered us Trump.
Nobody said same. In fact, on a surface level, they're easy to view as polar opposites. One must critically examine beneath the surface to see how they're both on the same team (capital).
What about sanders, mamdani, aoc? Or are they just fringe candidates and don’t count? For every AOC there are a dozen Schumers I guess. But I disagree with your thesis because there are factions of ethical capitalists in the democratic party that have never existed in the modern Republican Party.
As a former Sanders supporter, it became clear that even though Bernie was likely acting in good faith, the establishment used all of their levers politically and in capital-controlled media to limit him to the role of controlled opposition. Emphasis on "controlled."
> ethical capitalists
That is not a coherent concept, especially in late stage capitalism.
Thinking there’s no such thing as ethical capitalism is laughable. Your purity test is counter productive and ultimately just doomer signaling. Sure I get it billionaires are fuckkng us over but that has more to do with the failure of US democracy than capitalism.
That's why the "late stage" distinction is important. A case could be made for people who didn't know better decades ago. Hell, even Marx acknowledged it as a necessary bootstrapping phase of human societal development. But now, not so much.
I caucused for Sanders 2016 in Iowa. He lost the primary fair and square, and was mathematically eliminated before superdelegates even factored into the contest at all. Sanders had zero appeal outside of white, college-educated people like myself, whereas Clinton was very popular with minorities and white, college-educated people. She was just a better candidate for the Democrat primary, and if you want to win the general as a Dem, you have to win the primary first.
Blaming the media, capitalism, Debbie whatshername and insider elites is just Bernie Bro conspiracy theory making excuses for a bad, unpopular candidate.
> late stage capitalism
This is not a coherent concept, it's a term that doomers use to blame all of their bugbears with western society on shadowy cabals of nebulous elites. Ethical capitalism is, in fact, real – Elizabeth Warren, Robert Reich and Teddy Roosevelt are all examples.
Is reality a DNC bot? I'm someone who used to support Sanders, but I chose pragmatism and progress over digging my damn heels in and crying "conspiracy".
You guys only have one line, don't you. That, and "buttery emails."
Not that Bernie winning would have fixed the underlying systemic problems, of course.
The grand spectacle created by systematic screwing over by capital interests was the biggest value of the Bernie campaigns. Basically, you can have somebody willing to stand up to monied interests, and they will get exactly as far as those monied interests allow, and not one inch further.
> but I chose pragmatism and progress
Delusional take, considering Dems delivered "nothing will fundamentally change" Biden followed by the most unpopular nominee in recent history, resulting in Trump Term 2. Controlled opposition by definition. "Oopsies, how did we ever lose this time?"
> followed by the most unpopular nominee in recent history, resulting in Trump Term 2. Controlled opposition by definition. "Oopsies, how did we ever lose this time?"
You're not talking about Kamala Harris here, right? The general candidate who lost the popular vote by less than 1.5%? That doesn't sound like the most unpopular nominee in recent history, surely you'd need a gap wider than that. Donald Trump himself lost the popular vote by much more than that (4.5%) to Joe Biden in 2020. Mitt Romney lost it by 3.9% in 2012, McCain lost it by 7.3% in 2008, and Kerry lost it by 2.4% in 2004. All wider margins than Harris.
How did you come up with the definition of "most unpopular nominee in recent history"? Are you basing that off of her performance in the 2020 primary – which she dropped out of before it even began? Are you constraining "recent history" to just mean the last four years? Do you mean "unpopular" as in "unpopular within the social media spheres that I frequent"?
You're not looking at the electoral college results and using it as a proxy for popularity, are you?
It should have been trivial to find a candidate that could beat Trump the second time around. Instead, they forced a weak pick, screwed everyone out of a proper primary, and acted confused when the vote was close. "Must have been the racist misogynists; time to double down on identity politics in the most self-unaware fashion."
It's so blatantly intentional, and rather convenient how it props up the illusion of a functioning democracy by having the vote be so close. But no, according to you, that's all tin foil. Cool, enjoy your shithole country you helped create.
> Why this test? Because pelicans are hard to draw, bicycles are hard to draw, pelicans can’t ride bicycles... and there’s zero chance any AI lab would train a model for such a ridiculous task.
At this juncture I'm left wondering why competing AI labs wouldn't train for this now well known "test".
When the ramen noodles run out, how many will begrudgingly create a linkedin account and pretend to embrace AI while they fight for the remaining/dwindling job openings?
Question to your question: How many will actually get a job?
When the system fails to reward compliance, that begrudging conformity will eventually curdle into systemic disruption.
History has proven so time & time again.
Lock a massive class of highly educated, financially desperate young people out of the economy.. they won't just starve in silence.
They organize unions, radicalize politics, and ultimately rewrite the rules of the game.
Drones and robot killer dogs a la Back Mirror will keep everybody in check until they die an early preventable death from being lied to about COVID, etc.
History might rhyme, until it doesn't, due to paradigm shifts like these.
Expectation: In 10 years, killer drones will corral us away from quarantine zones to forcibly infect millions of hapless civilians. The proletariat will revolt and wage civil war against the state, sending millions of shock troops to fight for representation in government or dismantle the governing body itself. They will die peacefully, knowing they were right.
Reality: People will scroll TikTok for another decade and contract sedentary lifestyle diseases that they blame on others instead of themselves. Constant influence campaigns and surveillance will keep them divided and give them new scapegoats to assuage their mounting insecurity and shame for their generation. They will die outraged, knowing they were wrong.
Yes, but to your previous point, the propaganda system is well tuned enough to pit the blue half of that populist contempt against the red half, even though you and I both know it's orchestrated by the uniparty. The only thing that comes to mind recently that bridges the gap is the Epstein stuff, but people are easily distracted with aforementioned propaganda and mindless scrolling.
A lot of what we have today is a result of some of the stuff they had on the show back then. Most companies weren't doing NN's in 2016 but SV was. I agree that there needs to be a 2.0 maybe with a different cast, different company trying to make it but it's RIPE for today's market.
You would barely even need to advertise for it if it was obviously better than any of the existing corporate slop. It would sell itself, and the "profit" would be the end result that everybody can enjoy.
Because I don't think the problem has to do with who owns the platform, but rather its that the platform's design relies on infrastructure that can be owned in the first place.
The people who run existing social media didn't start out evil, being in a powerful position made them that way.
I'll be rooting for this user owned thing to stay true to its goals, but if it's shaped like the other ones in all ways but its ownership structure, then I won't be expecting it to do so.
I believe that threat could be prevented with the suggestions in the article.
> The people who run existing social media didn't start out evil
Um, not all of them:
> On July 6 instant messages by a 19-year Zuck appeared on Twitter, along with a link to a 2010 Business Insider story about an exchange that took place shortly after the Facebook founder launched the social-media phenomenon in his dorm room.
> “Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard just me. I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS,” Zuckerberg’s message says.
> “What? How’d you manage that one?” a friend asks.
> “People just submitted it,” Zuckerberg responds. “I don’t know why they 'trust me.' Dumb fucks.”
True, which is why you'd need well defined safeguards in place from the very beginning, with high visibility into the organization that you normally wouldn't find in a closed, for-profit business.
Maybe the right lawyer is out there for that challenge. But legal code is running on compromised infrastructure these days so I think we should plan to operate as if the law is against us.
> For most of its history, Reddit didn't have an algorithm that promoted stories beyond upvotes and time since posting, that might even still be the case.
Reddit is heavily botted, including by capital interests, and has been for a long time. This includes basic up/down vote activity.
> I think there is a significant percentage of users that do not initiate extreme content but participate in amplifying it.
Yes, it's probably initiated by bots, and then real users are easily persuaded to follow the manufactured herd.
The problem with the bots explanation is that it is unfalsifiable. On top of that, this fits a very recognizable pattern of human behavior. I'm very skeptical that blocking all the bots would even move the needle.
It's unfalsifiable, therefore it isn't happening? Not very convincing for anyone who's engaged with these platforms where reactions happen seconds after your own clicks.
Alternatively, ask yourself, would monied interests be inclined to exploit these platforms? Of course they would. It'd need a solid explanation as to why they wouldn't.
I never said I think it isn't happening, I just don't think it is driving the phenomenon. Platforms like Lemmy do not have enough traffic to justify a bot presence by monied interests and their general discussion communities are just as extreme as Reddit, if not more.
Likely because distributed platforms like lemmy/mastodon suffer from the "fiefdom" problem, plus siloed communities forming due to ideologically defined rules.
So if reddit is more left than you are, it's "manufactured controlled opposition which is designed to look crazier than unchecked capitalism", and I guess if it's less left than you are, then they're a bunch of DINOs (LINOs?) like Manchin or Sinema?
It's a bunch of siloed group think offered in a variety of flavors. Definitely not a monolith, though basic liberal types (who virtue signal as being more "left" than they really are) might be the most common user.
Siloed groups are the easiest to monetize to advertisers, and they're also not a threat to a faux democracy.
My god, Bluesky is probably actually run as manufactured controlled opposition from all the crazy stuff you see on there. It makes perfect sense. HOW DEEP DOES THIS GO.
But those four puppets served the same ruling class interests, and they manufactured consent for each other the whole time.
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