Lionel

Finland is winning the war on fake news. What it’s learned may be crucial to Western democracy Russia's neighbor has developed a plan for countering misinformation. Can it be exported to the rest of the world?

More reading about the anti-disinformation education in Finland:

edition.cnn.com/interactive/...

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/j...

www.printmag.com/culturally-r...

Cancelling someone and not trusting them to represent you are different.

Pete's an obviously smart guy trying to do a lot of things I think would be miles better than what we've got.

He also has thrown progressives under the bus without remorse, and never, ever apologizes. Not very trustworthy.

20, more than I expected!

All that to say the obvious: taxing wealth is crucial to a fair, functioning society. It corrects for economic imbalances and tolerates some wealth concentration.

But too much wealth in a few hands is unbearable, and drops the living standard for everyone else.

It has to stop.

This is a useful way to think about wealth; in a fair global economy, the median ought to trend towards 1 world-wide regardless of global wealth or population size.

Raising the floor suggests poverty reduction, while too many extremely rich individuals push down the ceiling.

There is about $470 trillion of wealth in the world (per UBS). Split 8 billion ways, that is $58,750 per person, a person-share of global wealth.

A median American adult holds around 2 person shares, 30 times the median in India at 0.07.

Musk is hoarding over $400b, ~7m/.08% of all shares.

If you get one of these, find the real account and ask the impersonator to message you on that account / platform where their identity is vetted.

It would take them under a minute to send their 'donation link' on that other platform, but they'll suddenly go silent. So far it has worked every time.

Clue 2: The account DMs you with flattery about your posts, and eventually offers to send a donation link.

These accounts are targeting pro-Palestinian users. Again, a real journalist would publicly post if they had an effective call to action - they wouldn't DM random people out of the blue.

Clue 1: The account looks like an accurate but partial mirror of a large Instagram account.

Googling their name is quick and shows if they have a huge social media following.

People with half a million followers aren't individually reaching out to you to get a donation, they'd just post about it.

Recently I've received scam requests from accounts impersonating Palestinian journalists.

This makes me furious since people need help and scams poison the well. To help with information literacy, I'm sharing how I deal with these.

I've also linked an account I trust regarding real calls for help.

You definitely know much more than I do; I just remember doing some online reading the first time I saw someone admonished online for not practicing "real" Zen and was so confused.

I grew up in a town with a lot of Buddhists and new agers, and had never encountered that rhetoric before.

It's amazing how everything he touches turns into tacky dictator chic.

Unfortunately modern scholarship into Dogen/Zen's lineage has been used by some people to wage an often derogatory online crusade. I started seeing it a few years ago.

I'm no scholar, but you might look for Critical Buddhism by James Shields. That's the book I've been wanting to check out about it.

We have to fix this place so we can stop funding Israeli genocide in Gaza. To restore our humanity and dignity.

There has to be a binding principle to cut across our differences, and being pro-democracy is powerful common ground - regardless of political differences. We can't let the fascists win.

The idea that some people don't deserve suffrage lies at the root of authoritarianism. That some people don't deserve a say.

The modern right's systematic voter suppression is both a symptom is the obvious evidence that they don't believe in democracy. They'll exploit the rules to dismantle it.

But that doesn't mean Trump's administration and the movement supporting him isn't anti-democratic. Medhi Hasan's 'Surrounded' video showcased the kind of christo-fascism that has been brewing. Violent authoritarianism. Nazi shit.

They want to use the rules to destroy the rules. We can't let them.

I think what can be taken from that is that while minority rule is certainly possible, dismantling the rules that grant it is much, much harder.

History so far has shown that our system is too big, complex, and mercurial for any political movement to keep power indefinitely.

But ratification is not so easy to exploit, and US authoritarianism rests on constant electoral abuse - not the raw, goose-stepping rule true fascists are thirsty for.

It's little comfort while ICE is literally kidnapping us and our institutions are wrecked. Maybe none - but it is still true.

Unfortunately US democracy is baroque, and vulnerable to authoritarian exploitation. Trump is impulsive, but the Right's will to autocracy has been patient, forty years in the making.

Even without him, we'd eventually have faced this kind of structural capture and soft coup we're experiencing.

Democracy is a *huge compromise* since it is rules-based and - apart from protecting those rules - policy agnostic.

Being democratic does not mean being a moral or just society; but for all the shameful parts of our constitution, I do believe it is structured to gradually grant suffrage.

I was thinking recreational-slutty rather than commercial-slutty, but I can absolutely see that

These AI lentils are haunting me

I wonder if there is a cohort of friendly, hot slutty people online that are extremely frustrated because they've been totally drowned out by bots.

Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1.  Purpose and

Trump just signed an Executive Order to round up the unhoused and place them in interment camps. We're at that stage of a fascist dictatorship.

How effectively the right turned "woke" into a slur, and how readily most people ate that up, will never cease to amaze me.

I guess that's the going rate for a solid right-ward push on the Overton window...

Heartening to hear you say that.

I'm just stunned at how talking like this even ten years ago would make someone an irredeemable pariah, but today this guy crowdfunding $15 grand overnight. It makes me feel like I'm not doing nearly enough.

I'm terrified that these Jubilee videos are just helping these people give audiences and spread their horrific ideas around even more.

Medhi Hasan did amazing given the circumstances, though.

How many posts to unlock "screed"?

I suppose even if they had been inarguably successful at the time, maintaining democracy and fighting hateful ideology from seeping into power is a never-ending fight that each successive generation has to grapple with.