Nonviolent Civil Resistance - The 3.5% Rule

[Group9]

Actually, I think the case could be made that it’s better the way it is now. Every network and media has pretty much put it’s bias, whether to the left or right, on full display. No more having to worry about some news outlet trying to subtly influence your thinking; it’s all in your face now. It’s yellow journalism, as invented by Randolf Hearst, perfected and adopted universally.

Really, it’s a lot more honest.

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by Group9

Actually, I think the case could be made that it’s better the way it is now. Every network and media has pretty much put it’s bias, whether to the left or right, on full display. No more having to worry about some news outlet trying to subtly influence your thinking; it’s all in your face now. It’s yellow journalism, as invented by Randolf Hearst, perfected and adopted universally.

Really, it’s a lot more honest.

I'm not sure it is. We get it, but most people tend to trust the sources within their bubble as if all of their reporting is fact.

It is only those who go the extra mile to question the source who develop an understanding of bias, and learn to put their news through a "filter" of sorts.

Our news isn't better than the Hearst model, it's just more refined for our particular bubbles. Telling us what we want to hear may be even more dangerous.

Ever notice how the mediums are mixed now? Cable news gleans the newspaper headlines, and chooses the select ones to repeat every half an hour. And they do this every day. Was better when there were multiple sources.

[GordMay]

The phrase, Yellow Journalism, was coined in the 1890s, to describe the tactics employed in furious competition between two New York City newspapers, the “World” and the “Journal”.
Joseph Pulitzer had purchased the New York World in 1883 and, using colourful, sensational reporting and crusades against political corruption and social injustice, had won the largest newspaper circulation in the country.

His supremacy was challenged in 1895 when William Randolph Hearst, the son of a California mining tycoon, moved into New York City and bought the rival Journal. Hearst, who had already built the San Francisco Examiner into a hugely successful mass-circulation paper, soon made it plain that he intended to do the same in New York City by outdoing his competitors in sensationalism, crusades, and Sunday features.
He hired some staff away from Pulitzer’s paper, including Richard F. Outcault, a cartoonist who had drawn an immensely popular comic picture series, The Yellow Kid, for the Sunday World. After Outcault’s defection, the comic was drawn for the World by George B. Luks, and the two rival picture series excited so much attention that the competition between the two newspapers came to be described as “yellow journalism.”
The era of yellow journalism may be said to have ended shortly after the turn of the century, with the World’s gradual retirement from the competition in sensationalism.
Some techniques of the yellow-journalism period, however, became more or less permanent and widespread, such as banner headlines, coloured comics, and copious illustration; in other media, most notably television and the Internet, many of the sensationalist practices of yellow journalism have become more commonplace.
➥ https://publicdomainreview.org/colle...-19th-century/

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by Group9

Actually, I think the case could be made that it’s better the way it is now. Every network and media has pretty much put it’s bias, whether to the left or right, on full display. No more having to worry about some news outlet trying to subtly influence your thinking; it’s all in your face now. It’s yellow journalism, as invented by Randolf Hearst, perfected and adopted universally.

Really, it’s a lot more honest.

Who cares about honest except for the person who can only think in the here and now.

Back to the 3.5% concept. If there's anything the internet era taught us about manipulating other peoples' business (i.e. the world's second oldest profession), it's that dividing (+/- conquering) your adversary can be done on the cheap when you know which select few to target to foment divide.

It's open source that extreme narratives contained in both dominant movements in the US have been grossly manipulated by all manner of social media action by at least one other country in the current time. It's not that the extremists of the conservatives and liberals are in bed with the adversary. Rather an astute adversary will select the narrative of divisive but popular thought leaders from both sides and then go to social media...taking the respective extreme perspectives "to the next level" in a manner that provides positive feedback to the erstwhile derpy extremist thought leaders making them more popular (while further widening schisms). The thought leader pats himself on the back for being so popular, at best not having a clue of what's going on.

In the Cold War/pre-internet era, you had to have operatives on the ground talking to lots of people trying to sniff out not only which radical thought leaders existed, but you had to have a very good feel for the local populace's reception of the competing extremist narratives. Very difficult at best. Contrast this with the internet era where you can hire a couple high school computer nerds who knows nothing about politics to run algorithms to give you precision data that intel operators through history couldn't even dream of. And this is what is being done. There's a reason that the head of the US's principle adversary is scheming to close off his country's internet...it's to protect against this. China really never left the Cold War (at least at the highest levels) and have attempted to protect China with firewalls from day 1 of the net, albeit with less concern about a US divisive threat insofar as China knows the US buys all it's crap from China with no incentive to destablize China. Russia in contrast offers the US little strategically (while otherwise acting as a mass importer/dumper of civilian ammunition to the US...where's Joseph McCarthy when you really need him).

So no, I don't think that the divisiveness in information presentation to the community is a good idea unless people know when they're being played. But history teaches us that people are ordinarily incapable of ever accepting this conclusion. People will dutifully take themselves to a grave...unable to ever comprehend to the end that they've been played.

[barnakiel]

Well, wise words just so limited by the perspective. Some govts are soft and will bend while others are hard and will crunch a resistance that is just 3.5% !!!!!!!!!!


If the opposite were true, then women, blacks and elderly citizens would be in a much better position today, throughout the world! And they are not.


Good stuff. Good discussion too.


Regards,
barnakiel

[crooks]

"the reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefor all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

I love that quote.

I have spent my life in LE.

My take is that we need to spend more on the front side of life and it will save a ton shii on the backside.

[Group9]

Originally Posted by Singularity

People will dutifully take themselves to a grave...unable to ever comprehend to the end that they've been played.

I arrested a really good con man one time, and he told me that the very best person to run a con on, was one who had already been a victim of a con. Because, he knew that if they were stupid enough to fall for it once, they would probably fall for it again.

The Democras and the Republicans have adopted this same strategy, with great success.

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by Group9

I arrested a really good con man one time, and he told me that the very best person to run a con on, was one who had already been a victim of a con. Because, he knew that if they were stupid enough to fall for it once, they would probably fall for it again.

The Democras and the Republicans have adopted this same strategy, with great success.

Both sides have resolved themselves to calling each other names instead of solving problems.

Much easier than actually doing anything, and possibly more effective in keeping yourself in office.

We need another party: the "do something" party, though maybe most people are more content with the government not doing too much.

[GordMay]

“Realize that every pressing social issue is solved through civil discourse if you ignore virtually all of human history"
➥ https://twitter.com/TheOnion/status/1011703428333043712
➥ https://www.theonion.com/tips-for-st...ons-1827147411

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by GordMay

“Realize that every pressing social issue is solved through civil discourse if you ignore virtually all of human history"

Civil discourse tends to work right up until people forget the alternative.

[barnakiel]

I am watching Erica's speech once again.


I think now, that within the frame given in her speech, she is likely right. I think she is.



The problem is that we take her 3.5% out of context and try to apply elsewhere. Or at least I do.


So I must give it to Erica she is one of these people who impress me with her ability, skills and education.


She is what she is even when some proportion of her listeners may be dumb, under-educated and willing to jump to quick conclusions, then return to Netflix stuff episode XICMV.


b.

[Group9]

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

Civil discourse tends to work right up until people forget the alternative.

Civil discourse works right up until one side realizes they are not going to get what they want.

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by Group9

Civil discourse works right up until one side realizes they are not going to get what they want.

In the past, compromise was a decent alternative.

These days, political parties tend to try and de-humanize the other party to the point where there is no way any kind of agreement can take place, and the result is "winner take all/loser says process wasn't valid". Politicians then don't have to do anything to stay in office but blame the other party for no action taking place on any issue, and people are encouraged to vote their tribe while only listening to one side's perspective on any issue.

I think the downside of that approach is obvious.

[barnakiel]

I am imagining 3.5% cruisers insisting on HR prices being to high. Over years, sure Mr. Rassy will discover his blunder and start selling his boats at lower prices ... errrrrr ....????? Oh, really.



How about black citizens of the USA? 20% ages ago and still like 10% today. Definitely non violent and definitely civil and resilient. Still at the bottom of the social ladder there. 200 years down the road!



You must look at who is talking. The 3.5% fable is good for capitalists and for governments. Keeping people calm and nice and working hard. Meanwhile some illusory 3.5% will solve their problems. Sure.


On my boat, if the deck is dirty and needs cleaning up, I do not wait for 3.5% of my mind to tell me this will get solved with civil resistance. No, I grab the hose and the brush and clean the mess.


The way to solve problems is by doing what it takes. You want clean deck then clean it. You are unhappy with a govt or institution, topple it.


Act. Now.


(I need a new LPG cartridge today and it is a 15lbs tank to a 2mile station and back. No funky 3.5% of my resistance will help. I have to grab that flask and walk that mile),



ymmv



b.

[barnakiel]

Do look closely at the video and follow what she is saying. In that narrow aspect, she is right. But we must avoid getting her ideas out of her original meaning.


I have not read the book ;-) as it is not available in local library nor from my friends here.



In the video she does not say how and if she excluded the problem of 'correlation not implying causation'.


Just think of it, there could be an external factor driving both discussed things (civil resistance / governance change). A drives B and C. B and C grow at the same rate. Easy to make that silly mistake and believe B drives C. Nothing further from the truth. But a trick well known and much used and abused by agents.



Imagine: a rich imperialistic government fuels civil resistance in a poor country while imposing trade sanctions on their government. The govt topples.


Now, did the civil movement cause the system change or was it something else. Unfortunately, the video does not touch this. Too bad I do not have that book.


Cheers,
b.