My misadventures at PCSX2 discord

[wexter]

China only developed because Xi Jingping advocated for western capitalism

Deng Xiaoping crushed the Tiananmen Square uprising and then pivoted the economy towards "Capitalism." Chinese capitalism (leveraged based theft) is based on "relationships" between insiders; the state is concerned with face, stability, and continuity. "Chinese capitalism" can extract money and wealth but it is not concerned with a profit imperative.

He came to prize loyalty more than competence and to rely more on personal ties than on ties of organization- that was said about Chiang Kai-shek the same could be said culturally today or about Xi.

If you want an understanding of street level China; take a look at ADV China

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNPa8 ... uT9859GVhg

Xi Jinping has concentrated power at an unprecedented scale not seen since the cultural revolution. Face and exceptionalism looks to roll back "the great humiliation" which China experienced at the hands of the Japanese (and before that the Western Powers during the time of the Boxer Rebellion, Korea was also a humiliation, so is Taiwan). There is too much to go into here.

Xi is also moving away from "Chinese capitalism" - not that I like Chamath Palihapitiya, but he and David Sachs are not wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUTYYY4RtYc

Peter Z below is not totally correct - nor is he saying anything new - but its well organized;

https://www.amazon.com/End-World-Just-B ... 006323047X

[eltomas2003]

China only developed because Xi Jingping advocated for western capitalism

Deng Xiaoping crushed the Tiananmen Square uprising and then pivoted the economy towards "Capitalism." Chinese capitalism (leveraged based theft) is based on "relationships" between insiders; the state is concerned with face, stability, and continuity. "Chinese capitalism" can extract money and wealth but it is not concerned with a profit imperative.

He came to prize loyalty more than competence and to rely more on personal ties than on ties of organization- that was said about Chiang Kai-shek the same could be said culturally today or about Xi.

If you want an understanding of street level China; take a look at ADV China

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNPa8 ... uT9859GVhg

Xi Jinping has concentrated power at an unprecedented scale not seen since the cultural revolution. Face and exceptionalism looks to roll back "the great humiliation" which China experienced at the hands of the Japanese (and before that the Western Powers during the time of the Boxer Rebellion, Korea was also a humiliation, so is Taiwan). There is too much to go into here.

Xi is also moving away from "Chinese capitalism" - not that I like Chamath Palihapitiya, but he and David Sachs are not wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUTYYY4RtYc

Peter Z below is not totally correct - nor is he saying anything new - but its well organized;

https://www.amazon.com/End-World-Just-B ... 006323047X

It's a shame that informed people like you are a rare and diminishing breed.

[badmachine]

Then how can we reverse our path of destruction?

Repentance.

Then how can we make the world smart again?

you cant fix others but you can improve yourself. read (real books), exercise, and strengthen yourself for hard times.

hth :^)

[wexter]

Then how can we reverse our path of destruction?

Repentance.

Then how can we make the world smart again?

you cant fix others but you can improve yourself. read (real books), exercise, and strengthen yourself for hard times.

hth :^)

REAL BOOKS - or "primary sources" a primary source would be ADV China. There is quite a bit to be learned by two young guys who were big supporters of China riding motorcycles across the country (being embedded with the people), and then fleeing for their lives.

Even "bad" sources of information (incorrect sources of information) can have good "elements" and insights.

Have all the "correct information" of the world at your fingertips, it does not mean you understand anything whatsoever! Understanding requires at least critical thinking.

A good "critical thinking" resource might be "The Fog of War." Robert McNamara reflects on differences between his "at the time perceptions" vs his reflective understanding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgA98V1Ubk8


Decades ago, I had a big fight with a Cornell educated professor who did her doctoral thesis on the "efficiencies of Japan." Having worked there in person I was like WTF! She was like, "all of US manufacturing is modeling itself after the Japanese."

--They push inventory to warehouses abroad without demand
--Paper is piled up to the ceiling in the offices
--Many folks had "window seats"
--There was "no real profit imperative" if it took six people to screw in a light-bulb (perfectly) they would have done it. An example would be no potholes on the street and if a pothole was encountered a guy was directing traffic around it.
--They also hid big mistakes - lest they lose face .

[Yuge_weiner]

I could have told you--this would be a waste of time. DIscord is no different from WP or Reddit. Run by tiny dictators who are probably crazier than you. The result is totally predictable.

Absolutely correct. Doesn't matter what server. They are ALL like that and the userbase is one of the worst ever in the history of the internet. Most of the time even if you try to have any actual conversation the first thing you will encounter is some kind of reddit bot sock account that is just there to invalidate users and cry for an admin who will be more than happy to abuse their priviledges the second you tell them to fuck off or ignore them. There's no winning there.

The tools that operation earnest voice created where operators have 10+ randomly generated sock accounts with a plausible post history connecting them have long since been improved and used on discord for years now.

[ericbarbour]

The tools that operation earnest voice created where operators have 10+ randomly generated sock accounts with a plausible post history connecting them have long since been improved and used on discord for years now.

You nailed it. I'm now convinced that the only "social media" websites that really succeed are the ones where moderation and administration allows, or even outright encourages, the use of software bots and loads of unmarked sockpuppets. And abuse of moderation authority.

a) controlling the userbase on something like Reddit, with its 50 million logins every day, would be impossible without automation.

b) you have to find loads of unpaid labor to handle moderation, even though labor is already minimized. Paying people to do it will bankrupt a startup quickly. So, the only choice, as Jimbo Wales discovered back in 2001, is to encourage basement incels and crazy people with time on their hands to do the moderation. And they absolutely want to be able to abuse their authority. So everything has to be set up to let them abuse authority. With either complete screwed-down opacity (Reddit, Discord, YouTube, Twitter with or without Musk) or false transparency (all Wikimedia projects, whatever Wikia/Fandom is calling itself today, some forums).

c) Facebook/Instagram and Tiktok are "special cases"--they operate exactly like paranoid and censorious military dictatorships. Pure top-down control. Tiktok is literally controlled by a real military dictatorship. All those protests in China today are just beginning, I suspect it's only a matter of time before the PLA starts gunning down thousands of people in the streets and filling up unmarked mass graves. Given half a chance, Mark Zuckerberg would LOVE to do that to his critics and "disruptive users".

[eltomas2003]

I could have told you--this would be a waste of time. DIscord is no different from WP or Reddit. Run by tiny dictators who are probably crazier than you. The result is totally predictable.

Absolutely correct. Doesn't matter what server. They are ALL like that and the userbase is one of the worst ever in the history of the internet. Most of the time even if you try to have any actual conversation the first thing you will encounter is some kind of reddit bot sock account that is just there to invalidate users and cry for an admin who will be more than happy to abuse their priviledges the second you tell them to fuck off or ignore them. There's no winning there.

The tools that operation earnest voice created where operators have 10+ randomly generated sock accounts with a plausible post history connecting them have long since been improved and used on discord for years now.

These relations have gotten this bad
https://imgur.com/user/JuanManuelHernandez/posts
https://imgur.com/gallery/gwTnLtS

When I tried to appeal my unfair sanctions on discord through the PCSX2 reddit, my posts got removed and I got banned with no chance to appeal.
The PCSX2 forum appeal was met with callous admin and I was quickly shut off.
When I tried to have a civil conversation in the off-topic server, people cried out that I was an "Elon Bot" and told me to leave in a churlish way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y62s1Mr4y1A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSAu3gXDils
Why won't they allow people like me to share ideas to improve society?

[Yuge_weiner]

The tools that operation earnest voice created where operators have 10+ randomly generated sock accounts with a plausible post history connecting them have long since been improved and used on discord for years now.

You nailed it. I'm now convinced that the only "social media" websites that really succeed are the ones where moderation and administration allows, or even outright encourages, the use of software bots and loads of unmarked sockpuppets. And abuse of moderation authority.

a) controlling the userbase on something like Reddit, with its 50 million logins every day, would be impossible without automation.

b) you have to find loads of unpaid labor to handle moderation, even though labor is already minimized. Paying people to do it will bankrupt a startup quickly. So, the only choice, as Jimbo Wales discovered back in 2001, is to encourage basement incels and crazy people with time on their hands to do the moderation. And they absolutely want to be able to abuse their authority. So everything has to be set up to let them abuse authority. With either complete screwed-down opacity (Reddit, Discord, YouTube, Twitter with or without Musk) or false transparency (all Wikimedia projects, whatever Wikia/Fandom is calling itself today, some forums).

c) Facebook/Instagram and Tiktok are "special cases"--they operate exactly like paranoid and censorious military dictatorships. Pure top-down control. Tiktok is literally controlled by a real military dictatorship. All those protests in China today are just beginning, I suspect it's only a matter of time before the PLA starts gunning down thousands of people in the streets and filling up unmarked mass graves. Given half a chance, Mark Zuckerberg would LOVE to do that to his critics and "disruptive users".

I've also seen a huge uptick in shilling specific spambot programs in a place I used to moderate at with an aggressive push in bots on imageboards. The SOP is still the same, but the owner of that board can kiss my ass. "I don't give a damn about what happens on other sites" when I was just warning him about several discord servers I stumbled upon that were organizing raids on the board and were constantly shitting up threads and the board at large with weaponized autism and harassing other users.

Of course like every other big brained move out there, he got rid of the one staff member doing anything about it while he disappeared for months at a time. Then will predictably go "all hope is lost, nothing can be done!" when it really isn't. Sometime in the future like all these spook honeypots do.