It IS the fault of consumers because we are such an incredibly stupid species that we continually elect representatives who do nothing about the problem and we also enslave trillions of animals while destroying our health and environment in the process. We are a truly moronic species
It'd be interesting to see if it's possible to gather the data you'd need to be able to automatically trace the spread of memes like this. If you can identify the provenance, and the network of groups and people used to propagate these ideas, it could be possible to effectively counter them at scale.
The trouble I see is that ad tech is politically, morally, and ethically agnostic, and so awesomely powerful tools for mass distribution of memes are made available to anyone that can pay. There's an arms race between transparency and placement, between freedom of speech and mass manipulation.
Qanon made expert use of social media and ad tech, and successfully scrambled the brains of tens of millions of people who shouldn't have been made vulnerable. Similar spheres of influence and control exist around all of the major social and legacy media institutions, from Facebook to CNN to Sinclair media. These abstract clusters of humanity are subjected to information siloing and controlled exposure to memes.
In most cases, there's an institutional algorithm at play, without a person or cabal explicitly in charge, so the marketing and advertising professionals responsible for the skillful deployment of any given idea never feel any sense of culpability for the side effects. Reddit and its use by the dnc , or Facebook by the rnc shows the effects of political power augmented by optimized attention capture.
"Carbon footprint" and personal recycling are seemingly simple concepts, but they're almost fractal in their interactions with our psychology . Information about the facts of what's happening in the world is blasted out, available for anyone in the world, but through the use of platforms and attention capture, we're subtly nudged into interpretations and narratives intended to deflect accountability.
The idea of media bubbles seems to be another example of corporate diversion, implying people are responsible for how they're being manipulated. Maybe FAANG shouldn't be enabling the manipulation and escalating the use of attention capture tools.
The fundamental issue seems to be private data harvesting and allowing targeted advertisement. That's the information that allows manipulation to be scaled, and abused at scale.
The only solutions I see are either escalating an arms race between automated personal curation and institutional ad tech, or correctly limiting the use and collection of private data through legislation. I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to be able to escape their bubbles through better tools and behaviors, so we need laws that are going to radically disrupt the status quo of big tech.
You're trying to pull the "carbon footprint" nonsense on those politicians, while they do the only thing that will actually help (introduce global legislation).
Most people that harp on about this seem to be climate change deniers as otherwise the "hypocrisy" doesn't really exist.
It's about as hypocritical as driving a car with leaded gasoline to a vote to phase out leaded gasoline. Voting on the regulation is infinitely more impactful, both for or against, than any private car usage avoided.
Not when they deliberately exclude discussion of the world's largest polluter. The US military pollutes more than 140 countries combined. That discussion is off table:
As the world’s biggest polluter, our armed forces create 750,000 tons of toxic waste every year in the form of depleted uranium, oil, jet fuels, pesticides, defoliants, lead and other chemicals
So I like metrics, and carbon footprint is kind of a metric, but I don't like it.
The problem is that it bundles the avoidable and less avoidable carbon and attaches it to the end process you control rather than the e.g. electricity supply which you don't have direct control over.
This is the key propaganda achievement I think, connecting "heating your home" or other things you think positively about to "outputting carbon" and so encouraging the idea that giving up stuff you like is required.
But, if you switch to a heat pump, inductive stove, and renewable power you can dramatically cut your "carbon footprint" while improving your life and saving money.
Technically you can figure this out from "carbon footprint" info, but it's all phrased as what you can do as an individual, not what we can do as a global society, and at that level you don't have much option except opting out in many cases.
I encourage people to make small improvements to their life that benefit everyone, like commuting by bicycle or using electric vehicles, but the answer always has been collective action, which is what scares most of the "climate change deniers". They'd rather the world burn than become more democratic and efficient if it threatens their current status.
7 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 20.7 ms ] threadThe trouble I see is that ad tech is politically, morally, and ethically agnostic, and so awesomely powerful tools for mass distribution of memes are made available to anyone that can pay. There's an arms race between transparency and placement, between freedom of speech and mass manipulation.
Qanon made expert use of social media and ad tech, and successfully scrambled the brains of tens of millions of people who shouldn't have been made vulnerable. Similar spheres of influence and control exist around all of the major social and legacy media institutions, from Facebook to CNN to Sinclair media. These abstract clusters of humanity are subjected to information siloing and controlled exposure to memes.
In most cases, there's an institutional algorithm at play, without a person or cabal explicitly in charge, so the marketing and advertising professionals responsible for the skillful deployment of any given idea never feel any sense of culpability for the side effects. Reddit and its use by the dnc , or Facebook by the rnc shows the effects of political power augmented by optimized attention capture.
"Carbon footprint" and personal recycling are seemingly simple concepts, but they're almost fractal in their interactions with our psychology . Information about the facts of what's happening in the world is blasted out, available for anyone in the world, but through the use of platforms and attention capture, we're subtly nudged into interpretations and narratives intended to deflect accountability.
The idea of media bubbles seems to be another example of corporate diversion, implying people are responsible for how they're being manipulated. Maybe FAANG shouldn't be enabling the manipulation and escalating the use of attention capture tools.
The fundamental issue seems to be private data harvesting and allowing targeted advertisement. That's the information that allows manipulation to be scaled, and abused at scale.
The only solutions I see are either escalating an arms race between automated personal curation and institutional ad tech, or correctly limiting the use and collection of private data through legislation. I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to be able to escape their bubbles through better tools and behaviors, so we need laws that are going to radically disrupt the status quo of big tech.
https://auto.hindustantimes.com/auto/news/when-joe-biden-and...
Or my all time favorite is the Google Climate Change summit as the peak of hypocrisy:
https://pagesix.com/2019/07/30/a-listers-flock-to-google-sum...
You're trying to pull the "carbon footprint" nonsense on those politicians, while they do the only thing that will actually help (introduce global legislation).
Most people that harp on about this seem to be climate change deniers as otherwise the "hypocrisy" doesn't really exist.
It's about as hypocritical as driving a car with leaded gasoline to a vote to phase out leaded gasoline. Voting on the regulation is infinitely more impactful, both for or against, than any private car usage avoided.
As the world’s biggest polluter, our armed forces create 750,000 tons of toxic waste every year in the form of depleted uranium, oil, jet fuels, pesticides, defoliants, lead and other chemicals
https://weaversway.coop/shuttle-online/2020/04/us-military-w...
The problem is that it bundles the avoidable and less avoidable carbon and attaches it to the end process you control rather than the e.g. electricity supply which you don't have direct control over.
This is the key propaganda achievement I think, connecting "heating your home" or other things you think positively about to "outputting carbon" and so encouraging the idea that giving up stuff you like is required.
But, if you switch to a heat pump, inductive stove, and renewable power you can dramatically cut your "carbon footprint" while improving your life and saving money.
Technically you can figure this out from "carbon footprint" info, but it's all phrased as what you can do as an individual, not what we can do as a global society, and at that level you don't have much option except opting out in many cases.
I encourage people to make small improvements to their life that benefit everyone, like commuting by bicycle or using electric vehicles, but the answer always has been collective action, which is what scares most of the "climate change deniers". They'd rather the world burn than become more democratic and efficient if it threatens their current status.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/maine-becomes-first-sta...
This is what they (successfully) were trying to delay.