Yep.

::rant incoming::

Their psyops game is horrendously effective, and it makes me furious.

And because it’s so effective, it makes sense for them to continue it, to continue to fracture the English-speaking world.

(It’s also cheap compared to manufacturing weapons…get a bunch of laptops, hire a bunch of trolls for a slightly-better-than-average wage in some local currency doing a job that ISN’T hard labor, which probably seems cushy. Put them in a room, and have them do a script. Very cheap compared to actually designing and manufacturing real weapons, or doing real logistics for war, etc. Cheap and effective = huge incentive for continuing indefinitely.)

The goal I’ve noticed is to make no place online safe. Poison everything. Texts in this particular case, make PoC in America and elsewhere apt to vent and lash out because of the pressure, but also they also poison forums, social media of any and all stripes, etc. Divide and conquer, anyone, everyone, everywhere.

Have a hobby? They’ll slide into the hobby discussion sites and start flame wars.

(I saw this happen a lot on Reddit’s Star Trek sub. Why was that sub a target? My suspicion is that it’s because Star Trek is a comfort show for a lot of people over generations and across nationalities in the West, and also acts as a way to promote Western values of tolerance and thoughtfulness and curiosity, so they want to poison the comforting retreat people go to when they can’t stand the overt hopelessness of the political or news subs.)

It happens with all sorts of loves and hobbies too. Have a favorite team, a favorite book, a favorite movie and want to just geek out over it? They slide into that and start shit.

And it’s really insidious sometimes…they’ll take an already-hot topic and start up a new thread with wording that makes them look clueless but not aggressive. So because they’re not obviously an asshole, people hop in giving them the benefit of the doubt and the flame war on (whatever topic specific to that interest) ignites again.

Unless the mods know how to spot that and moderate (which is fairly rare)…but even if that happens, the problem there is that if the mods do their jobs, a true clueless newbie coming in won’t know the history of this or that topic and will accidentally get hit by a sudden banhammer without knowing why…which in its way also starts shit, because the real person caught in the net gets their feelings hurt. So it’s a catch-22…bad mods, and an online social space is easily manipulated to become a cesspool, but good mods sometimes also accidentally catch a real person in their net…so shit STILL goes down and poisons the well.

Nations doing psyops shit online play both sides, too. So they won’t always start shit by posting a far-right viewpoint…they’ll choose a lefty viewpoint too, it costs them nothing to lie, but they’ll speckle it in with enough “tinder” that flames still ignite. Or they’ll have multiple accounts responding to each other.

The only reason I notice this, btw, is because I was a geek in fandoms BEFORE this sort of manipulation started, so I remember what a “legit” forum SHOULD look like. Like, there were always trolls and people with shitty social skills…but it was a very different type of trolling than this psyops shit we see now, because real people with real egos and desires and motivations were behind it. It had a different rise and fall, a different pattern. I guess it was more like real life–with allowances that people will say things anonymously that they’d never say face to face?

Younger folks who have never known a “good” and sane discussion forum think the toxicity and hopelessness online everywhere in every topic is NORMAL. But it’s not.

(When Lemmy was unknown, it was more like the forums of old, but now it’s on various antagonists’ radar there’s been an uptick of bad actors starting shit in comments.)

I’ve come to view this stuff as people trying to cast spells. Basically, if you do a ritual and write magic words, maybe what you want will come true.

In the ancient days you summoned demons and angels. Now you invoke the Secretary of State or something.

I read that as Miette and did a melodramatic voiceover in my head.

I’ve been finding the crazy building in arid environments odd, because even aside from forest fires, if your water supply dries up, you’re going to have to uproot and move to a state or location with a reliable water source. And you’ll be part of a big mass of climate migrants at that point.

This picture is too cute for something so horrific.

Because most people run on their personal experiences, and don’t do great when they have to think very far ahead or extrapolate and make connections.

If you’re lucky enough to be born into a conservative home that’s not bugshit crazy, and you’re lucky enough to not be TOO smart, neurodivergent, gay/lesbian/trans/etc. then you’ve probably never seen the full ugly face of conservatism because you were treated nicely.

Lots of conservatives will treat you perfectly politely…if they get to know you, and as long as you look white and clean-cut enough. As long as you give the right social signifiers, basically.

Most of my ex-conservative friends group was driven away from conservative family because we were abused in some obvious fashion, were gay/lesbian/trans, were neurodivergent, etc. We were different in ways that, ultimately, after a lot of pain, forced us to cut ties with family. (It was never our first choice though.)

But a woman who was lucky to be born into a family that treats her halfway decently won’t experience that sort of ugliness until an emergency happens and it’s leopards-eating-faces time.

And it’s VERY hard to rock the boat BEFORE something bad happens to you, when you know rocking it will have really bad consequences immediately. People don’t like to be shunned or kicked out of families, so if they’re not treated TOO badly they’ll toe the line and conform out of fear of the unknown and fear of losing everything they have and know.

“That look tasteful” is the hard part, haha.

I turn myself inside out in so many ways and places to “be a good person” that when I’m McSuburb land and someone’s letting their nasty rotten fruit fall onto the ground from a branch hanging over onto the public sidewalk to rot on the ground with wasps and flies, I’m going to take some.

I value myself, a real living human being, AT LEAST as much as the vermin feasting on people’s fallen fruit.

Am I going to denude the whole tree? No, I’m not an asshole. But if you’re letting rats and flies and maggots eat it and it’s getting all over my shoes as I walk past…I’m going to rate myself at least as worthy as a maggot.

If the homeowner was truly bothered they’d trim the tree to keep it out of public spaces.

Random addition to your post…

There’s early/limited studies suggesting the drug valproate, which is used for bipolar and epilepsy sometimes, can re-open the perfect pitch acquisition capabilities of the human brain even if the individual is no longer an infant and has aged past the language acquisition stage of childhood development.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3848041/

Different use of it in an 8 year old girl with language regression: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11230735/

Doesn’t help you now I’m sure, but I’ve found gently banging around the rim or lid of a jar on the concrete outside usually loosens the seal enough to open the jar.

(Outside on concrete because I don’t want to dent anything inside.)

I finally realized this guy’s name reminds me of some in house menswear brand at Sears or K-Mart or some other department store that suffered and wheezed and whimpered before going out of business.

Dungeons and (bad) Dragons