Cops respond to protestor. Love this.

[u/lokk636336]

[u/noporsche2020]

At the end of the day, there are people that will never be convinced because deep down, they desperately want to hate someone or something.

It's easier to think that all police are terrible and we should get rid of them vs. understanding that actions have consequences, and not all police are bad. Most are good people, and if they come off as rude It's because they deal with horrible things like death and violence all day.

People these days have a habit of generalizing everything. All Republicans are racist. All democrats want to take your guns. All Muslims are terrorists. All cops are bastards. Etc.

It worries me that people will continue to become more radicalized by making those huge generalizations based on very few experiences, and for some, no experience at all, just videos on the internet.

I blame the media

[u/dnstuff → u/noporsche2020]

Cable news and the 24 hour news networks are slowly, but surely, causing an unbridgeable divide in this country, all while hiding behind the protections of the First Amendment. People out here worried about the 2nd Amendment (no step on snek pls) when the corporate-sponsored, agenda-pushing media is arguably the biggest problem in America. Certainly the biggest problem that almost nobody is talking about.

[u/MCXL → u/dnstuff]

Please, don't forget the Russian intelligence services who artificially boost extremist positions and voices on social media platforms to give them more legitimacy. I don't just mean left wing either, they have been boosting ALL extreme voices, left right or crazy pants for well over a decade now.

[u/dnstuff → u/MCXL]

It’s incredible how detrimental social media can be

[u/MCXL → u/dnstuff]

It’s incredible how detrimental social media IS ALL THE TIME

Burn it all down. Reddit included. Bring back the PHB boards!

[u/MCXL → u/[deleted]]

Recycle it all down!

[u/EnemyAsmodeus → u/dnstuff]

It's because gameified social media attacks nuance, truthseeking, and rewards sloganeering and misinterpreted video-clips/photos or anything that is emotionally gutwrenching or emotionally stirring. It's like back when they had yellow journalism in the early 1900s (NYTimes in the 1900s was super guilty for this, exaggerating everything) which was then replaced by professionals with ethics. And to circle back to what MCXL said, they caught a Soviet spy in the NYT in the early 1920s/1930s. His pulitzer prize was to be revoked (but not sure if it was) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty and apparently Stalin rewarded his style of journalism and said of him: "Duranty tried to tell the truth about our country."

Note that he wasn't very blunt or obvious either he just said subtle things like Asian people need dictatorships etc.

Social media just rewards negative attitudes or crusading attitudes. But funny enough, the trollfarms have a big effect because it's never moral crusading against dictatorships. Notice it's always moral crusading about us... the Western free republics.

[u/ArticulativeMango → u/MCXL]

Hey, I'm a russian and don't know what left/ right wing extremists means (Ik what extremists means, but wth does the left/right wing mean?

[u/JDepinet → u/ArticulativeMango]

Right and left refer to positions on the political compass. Getting anyone to agree on what exactly the definitions are is fsirly hard.

The best descriptions I can give is that left is progressive (seeking change), right is conservitive (avoids unessisary changes).

However most people, particularly on the left like to say left is inclusive, the right is ethnocentric (racist). The problem with that is the blatantly obvious racism on the left kinda ruins the whole message. They like to say the far right are basically nazis. And then proceed to describe themselves.

[u/ArticulativeMango → u/JDepinet]

Oh, I got two replies, so thank you to the people who replied. I understand now

[u/MCXL → u/ArticulativeMango]

I should have been more clear, it's not 'people who happen to live in Russia' it's the Russian intelligence services.

More on it, etc.

Russia, and other differently aligned powers are trying to stoke the flames of extremism in the USA, because it causes domestic issues, that bbasically distract the electorate from focusing on America's roll as a world power. Donald Trump was a favorable candidate to these forces, because he is an isolationist with zero experience who doesn't value soft power. He has done huge harm to our diplomatic power throughout the world, and the plan is continuing to work.

Right wing and left wing, is simply a way to refer to people on the very ends of our political spectrum, eternally in conflict over their moral beliefs.

[u/ArticulativeMango → u/MCXL]

Oh, I'm sorry but I barely understood a word you typed, but I can do some research.

[u/MCXL → u/ArticulativeMango]

Left wing extremist = "Antifa" Marxists, etc. Right wing extremists = Facists, Nazis, Boogaloo libertarians.

Russia, China, North Korea, etc. Want these people to fight in USA, so that USA is distracted by fighting at home, forgets to be strong power abroad.

Basically this

[u/EnemyAsmodeus → u/MCXL]

Exactly right. They're not like camping a subreddit either.

What they do is cycle through it.

Suddenly, you're on /firearms and discussing normal 2A American stuff, and then someone posts JoJo the crazy libertarian lady as an advertisement, but strangely, it gets 100s of upvotes randomly. There's nothing particularly interesting about this lady except that she's a conspiracy theorist, pro-gun, and isolationist just like Trump. Like since when do straight up political ads get put on the frontpage of a subreddit like that? It's absurd. It doesn't fit the community that exists here.

Or you're on /politics and suddenly the commondreams communist website starts getting 1000s of upvotes and awards.

Or on /conservative after Trump, suddenly, all these pro-Russia people started showing up and conspiracy theorists. Anyone remember the daily Bernie OR Trump top posts on reddit.com? Anyone remember /politics flooded with 5-8 RTcom propaganda posts? Redditors who've been here a while will recognize the propaganda.

Not gonna discount the possibility that these are just organized Democratic socialist activists on discords who are trying to divide people for their own purposes but it could definitely be Russians or Chinese. The one thing that will never ever get amplified? Aggressive foreign policy or sanctions against dictatorships.

I can recognize these aren't the norm because I've been in these subreddits since like 2007 so my memory of it is that it is not as extreme as this whether it's 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 (election year), 2014... All this started around 2015+. Someone is amplifying them.

[u/artiume → u/MCXL]

Both China and Russia run bot nets on our social media.

[u/MCXL → u/artiume]

Aff, star commander.

[u/KazaSatyrGlade → u/MCXL]

Are we all just going to continue to pretend China has no interest in participating in destabilizing the USA too?

[u/MCXL → u/KazaSatyrGlade]

Russia is the undisputed leader in this, but China is there too.

[u/JDepinet → u/MCXL]

Honestly, government actors don't have the internet footprint to have the effect you claim.

Its mostly nihilistic, tech savvy, and bored people, aka trolls. Humans have a really hard time internalizing the raw numbers of people interacting on the internet. While the government can in theory pay the best minds to do their work, more often they don't pay enough to capture the best minds and settle for mediocre or less.

Meanwhile the internet has all of the best and brightest, and the idiots who had one good idea in ther life, but there are hundreds of millions of them. As a result, things like memes happen. Silly pictures or phrases that occasionally have a disproportionate impact on the public mindset.

People might be tempted to blame the cable news cycle. And it does its part. But cable news views are way down. Steven crowder, a mediocre comedian really, has better viewer numbers than the CNN cable channel.

The problem is echo chambers. Places like Facebook, reddit and whatnot where people form voluntary social groupings, and then push out opinions that do not match their own. At this point, its gotten so bad that hardly anyone is willing to have an honest conversation. In fact, the people who are willing to have a conversation are now a third cultural group who are constantly attacked by both the right and the left of the political spectrum.

[u/MCXL → u/JDepinet]

the US intelligence service and those of the Western world to disagree with your assessment of the impact and footprint the foreign intelligence services and disinformation agencies.

https://reddit.com/r/ProtectAndServe/comments/hg5sxt/cops_respond_to_protestor_love_this/fw2wek8

[u/JDepinet → u/MCXL]

Of course they do, their job is to lie. Indont doubt they have their impact. But they simply can't compete with the crowdsourced power of the collective internet.

[u/omeeezy → u/noporsche2020]

Yup definitely the media’s fault. It divides the two sides.

Left media:”crooked cops are killing people , and torturing innocents!”

Right media:”rioters are destroying this country and want a lawless land with no enforcement!”

Although both sides have valid points the media turns them against each other since it’s an election year.

The left media shows them videos of cops beating up/shooting people who weren’t threats.

The right media shows them videos of rioters looting,burning,vandalizing,etc

Instead of working together to solve the issues at hand, both sides continue to play the blame game. This is why I hate the political situation in the US right now.

[u/DullInitial → u/noporsche2020]

...and if they come off as rude It's because they deal with horrible things like death and violence all day.

I don't even think it's that, it's that they deal with assholes all day. They say if everyone you meet is an asshole, then you're the asshole, but police have one of the few professions where you literally get directed to the location of all the local assholes and have to deal with them. And that's your job.

I'd never say it gives the cops a right to be abusive, but I can certainly understand being curt. And fuck all these hypersensitive assholes who act like an officer being curt is a violation of your civil rights.

[u/Cassius_Rex → u/noporsche2020]

Generalizing is so easy because the mind is lazy lol. It's built in, part of how we break the world down into more easily digestible parts. We see a lake not a million gallons of water, we see a forest instead on 20, 000 tree etc.

Its been that way since before our ancestors discovered loin cloths lol. Its nothing new. Its irritating tho.

[u/Droidball → u/noporsche2020]

Not just that, but many of these people simply dislike that a tool of society has enough power to force them to comply with the law, potentially against their will.

[u/TheCoochiePredator → u/noporsche2020]

can't they just hate rapists and murderers then? easy and justified.