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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   15618 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

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As a non-American, I certainly care about the US interfering in other countries by spreading disinformation. Even if it were my own government, I care about Twitter acting as a free propaganda arm of the government to give it more influence when I want it to have less influence in the world, because I don't think it is actually generally acting in my best interest when it does these things.

As a non-American, I certainly care about the US interfering in other countries by spreading disinformation.

Notice the languages: Russian and Arabic. The countries that speak those languages aren't shining models of democracy.

when I want it to have less influence in the world

The US also has influence in the world through normal ambassadors. This argument implies that the US must get rid of all of its ambassadors. It implies that the White House should never make any press releases. It implies that the US should never get involved in any treaties that are in its own interest. It implies that the US should never perform any military action anywhere, any time. "This is bad because it gives the US influence" is a ridiculously general argument which implies that the US should never do anything that has any political implications, at least not for its own benefit.

"This is bad because it gives the US influence" is a ridiculously general argument which implies that the US should never do anything that has any political implications, at least not for its own benefit.

It's a good thing I didn't say that then. I said the US has too much and therefore I care about it extending its influence in this specific way.

This is ridiculous. There is Ambassadorship, the act of making nice with other states, and then there's Empire, the act of cajoling and beating other states until they resemble your own. I like the idea of the US making a mutual-security-and-trade deal with the People's Republic of El Kazukistan; I'm not going to be happy when the reality of that mutual-security-and-trade deal turns out to be "US troops help the foreign government bulldoze their own people over when they start to protest for better wages from the 1452 McDonald's franchises that were opened in El Kazukistan last year."

If the US wants to dominate the world, it should at least do it the hard way and say it wants to outright annex a country or two, not merely build some military bases and establish non-voting territories.

This is ridiculous. There is Ambassadorship, the act of making nice with other states, and then there's Empire, the act of cajoling and beating other states until they resemble your own. I

The poster I was responding to did not make any such distinction; he referred to influence.

no one is objecting to influence in the form of merely making nice; be charitable, not pedantic

It's not pedantic. It's being vague about exactly what he objects to.

If he actually described specific types of influence that he didn't like, it would be possible to argue that propaganda didn't fit the description or that it fit the description but the description isn't very useful. There's a reason people here are asked to speak plainly.

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