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fatherboxx)
Boris Galerkin posted:You use differential equations to model literally anything and everything that changes in one way or another (eg, over time). In terms of modeling, differential equations is like “basic math”. It’s not a scary thing unless you’re afraid of Greek letters for some reason. Again, not to defend the paper, but Bar Ran Dun is correct that it's using control theory.
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Jun 18, 2023 12:33
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Discendo Vox posted:Again, not to defend the paper, but Bar Ran Dun is correct that it's using control theory. I think the point is that the reaction takes a decidedly conspiratorial tone with all the fuss about "omg military research lab" and "jeez, differential equations!". Like they've discovered some kind of brain control gun or something. Social media manipulation is in such a "well, duh" place that it seems unnecessary to invoke it in such an over-the-top way to explain a guy in Houston with a Z sign.
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Jun 18, 2023 14:01
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There is a surprising amount of pushback at the idea of governments studying and deploying propaganda. At the most basic level, that's what propaganda is.
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Jun 18, 2023 14:02
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Russia: Has multiple troll farms actively spreading misinformation and propaganda, affecting elections, world events, etc. US: Some dude wrote a paper using math Both sides are at fault here people!
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Jun 18, 2023 14:19
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Cpt_Obvious posted:There is a surprising amount of pushback at the idea of governments studying and deploying propaganda. At the most basic level, that's what propaganda is. Amazing username/post combo here. Where's this pushback you're seeing? I'm sure most of us read Manufacturing Consent at some point.
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Jun 18, 2023 14:20
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Bar Ran Dun posted:That’s not what makes it government the “Air Force Research Laboratory” is what does that. That's not any less ridiculous. The Air Force, as part of the larger DOD, funds a huge amount of basic scientific and development because Congress has for various reasons chosen them to administer a large fraction of the federal research budget. For example, they run one of (or maybe the?) largest breast cancer research program in the world because Congress mandated it. It would be a mistake to apply your logic and try to conclude they're weaponizing breast cancer or whatever simply because it's within the air force. You need to look at the actual program doing the research and see what it's purpose is, not just the overall DoD.
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Jun 18, 2023 14:21
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saratoga posted:That's not any less ridiculous. The Air Force, as part of the larger DOD, funds a huge amount of basic scientific and development because Congress has for various reasons chosen them to administer a large fraction of the federal research budget. For example, they run one of (or maybe the?) largest breast cancer research program in the world because Congress mandated it. It would be a mistake to apply your logic and try to conclude they're weaponizing breast cancer or whatever simply because it's within the air force. You need to look at the actual program doing the research and see what it's purpose is, not just the overall DoD. Just as a random personal example, my dad's medical research into basic functions of certain types of cells was funded primarily by the Navy (until Gingrich made them build some ships they didn't want and they abruptly cut the funding to help pay for them).
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Jun 18, 2023 14:32
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spankmeister posted:Russia: Has multiple troll farms actively spreading misinformation and propaganda, affecting elections, world events, etc. we also do the same thing, we just suck at it quote:Importantly, the data also shows the limitations of using inauthentic tactics to
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Jun 18, 2023 14:50
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frankly I'm more surprised that a bunch identified were even fairly well established. I'd be very surprised if anyone's info ops are having more than a tiny percent of their accounts gaining literally any traction at all also i haven't seen that report since it came out but it is very much a pro read Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Jun 18, 2023 |
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Jun 18, 2023 14:54
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fatherboxx posted:Apparently the document that Putin shakes here was allegedly signed by Ukrainian delegation (but not ratified by Ukrainian government) says that Ukraine agrees to the neutral status and cuts its military numbers. Putin insists that he believed them so much that he ordered to forces to leave Kyiv outskirts and other neighbouring regions but Ukraine did not uphold its part and not surrendered. Sh-shut up, we didn't get owned, we actually meant to pull out all along.
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Jun 18, 2023 15:02
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Qtotonibudinibudet posted:we also do the same thing, we just suck at it Do we suck at it or have we learned that the military has more legitimacy than random whackos (sock puppets) on the internet?
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Jun 18, 2023 15:18
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We just need a mathematical model to figure out how much random sock puppet accounts shift the Overton window and we're there on controlling public opinion.
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Jun 18, 2023 16:04
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Paladinus posted:Not to mention that the document is dated April 15, whereas the retreat began in late March. Also, the talks already publicly broke down at the begin of April. This was a last ditch effort to get things back on track that didn't go anywhere--circa April 15-17 the Ukrainian side was complaining that the Russian side had unilaterally changed their terms from the consensus that they were approaching at the end of March and that the new offer was a non-starter. Russia almost immediately started banging the propaganda drum and said that they had offered peace terms and Ukraine hadn't even responded; Ukraine rebutted that it wasn't even an offer, which tracks with your interpretation.
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Jun 18, 2023 16:10
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Ive been hearing « perfidious west sabotaged peace » literally since April 22, besides the known nazi Zelenskiy won’t stop till he’s genocided Crimea ( )Excited for round two of that from the so-left-I’m-z crowd
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Jun 18, 2023 16:16
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fatherboxx posted:Took Putin a year but he finally decided to air grievances regarding the failed negotiations and retreat from Kyiv. Of course they need to invade countries, they can't trust anyone!
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Jun 18, 2023 16:21
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StumblyWumbly posted:This reminds me of the argument about eastward expansion of NATO, where Russia is just shocked that a private, nonbinding assurance is broken 9 years later. Also, the thing that was in fact signed and on paper was the NATO-Russia Founding Act in which both parties promise to have "respect for sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all states and their inherent right to choose the means to ensure their own security".
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Jun 18, 2023 16:26
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Anyone have any good sources of info on the current offensive? Last year I got all of my updates through this thread, but it seems like it’s mostly just discussions of weapons systems and more tangential stuff these days… I’m learning about the incremental gains mostly through mainstream news sites now.
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Jun 18, 2023 16:29
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Armacham posted:Erdogan only wins elections because of all the Turkish people in other countries voting. Eh this varies, some Turkish expat communities are virulently anti-Erdogan, but yeah I think the biggest and most relevant ones (Central Europe, namely Germany) are very pro-Erdogan.
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Jun 18, 2023 16:49
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WarpedLichen posted:We just need a mathematical model to figure out how much random sock puppet accounts shift the Overton window and we're there on controlling public opinion. With.... d-d-differential equations? 
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Jun 18, 2023 17:04
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Grape posted:Eh this varies, some Turkish expat communities are virulently anti-Erdogan, but yeah I think the biggest and most relevant ones (Central Europe, namely Germany) are very pro-Erdogan. I’m pretty involved in the russian immigrant community here and there is pretty much no one but a few olds that likes Putin. Turns out you can’t really paint a continent spanning community with one brush. Also I suspect both groups are less pro-dictator in the US than there equivalents in central and for russians, especially eastern Europe
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Jun 18, 2023 17:11
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MeinPanzer posted:Anyone have any good sources of info on the current offensive? Last year I got all of my updates through this thread, but it seems like it’s mostly just discussions of weapons systems and more tangential stuff these days… I’m learning about the incremental gains mostly through mainstream news sites now. The easiest way to keep up is to just read https://www.understandingwar.org/. They have a daily OSINT update. Usually, a day behind due to them having to aggregate and verify before writing their own report If you want to be on the F5 cutting edge then you have to do the Twitter trawl yourself and decide for yourself what is or is not reliable enough to bother with. I usually follow https://twitter.com/RALee85 and https://twitter.com/DefMon3. They won't post trash. I also read the Rybar english account too for the Russian perspective. Despite being pro-Russian Rybar is usually not too bad and if I see what appears to be big claims by pro-Ukraininan accounts, I see what Rybar is or not saying in the same area. The truth is nothing major is happening. Fighting appears to be going on daily in several areas but the Russian fortifications haven't been tested yet. They are still fighting over the forward areas before the main fortifications begin. The Ukrainians also aren't really attacking in large numbers. The Russians aren't really reporting anything more than company or battalion-sized attacks, a lot of them at night. It seems reasonably clear from social media posting on both sides that the western-trained and equipped brigades have not been seriously committed.
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Jun 18, 2023 17:28
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:I’m pretty involved in the russian immigrant community here and there is pretty much no one but a few olds that likes Putin. Turns out you can’t really paint a continent spanning community with one brush. There was a map of Turkish expat votes for one of Erdogan's creepy power extending amendment things a few years back that really told a story about each community abroad. Is there any Russian equivalent I wonder? Are have those elections been too borked for too long to have meaningful open data?
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Jun 18, 2023 17:42
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MeinPanzer posted:Anyone have any good sources of info on the current offensive? Last year I got all of my updates through this thread, but it seems like it’s mostly just discussions of weapons systems and more tangential stuff these days… I’m learning about the incremental gains mostly through mainstream news sites now. Andrew Perpetua recently produced a daily update map, showing line changes and when. You can find the link in this tweet. https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1670274241835483137?s=20
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Jun 18, 2023 17:46
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:I’m pretty involved in the russian immigrant community here and there is pretty much no one but a few olds that likes Putin. Turns out you can’t really paint a continent spanning community with one brush. I've gotten into some weird discussions with Russian friends of friends, all young ex-pats with family still in Russia. Years ago, I got into a big argument with one who said Putin wouldn't have poisoned Yushchenko because he doesn't care about Ukraine (lol). It was extra weird because she added "I'm not a Putin fan, he killed my boyfriend, but..." Another friend who has a Russian wife and was planning to move to Moscow for lower cost living, and early in the war he went way deep into Mearsheimer to justify Putin's invasion as "just regular big boy politics, what can u do?" I got the impression it wasn't that they thought Putin was doing good work, but they really wanted to be proud of Russia, or at least push back on the idea that its Lawful Evil at best, so they end up covering for Putin. E: The Russian Jews I know, a completely separate group, are all definitely on the "gently caress Putin" train StumblyWumbly fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Jun 18, 2023 |
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Jun 18, 2023 17:48
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MikeC posted:The easiest way to keep up is to just read https://www.understandingwar.org/. They have a daily OSINT update. Usually, a day behind due to them having to aggregate and verify before writing their own report I think it says something that Rybar is frequently cited by more respectable sources for where the current advance is taking place, their data might skew Russian but it's not entirely out of touch with reality either. Most info about the current offense tends to be from Russian sources because of Ukrainian opsec, stuff like we can confirm Ukraine have major presence in P'yatykhatky because there's a video of Russians shelling Ukrainian equipment there or Russians complaining about losing ground on telegram. We will see what happens once the Russian fighting retreat gets to their first major trench system, but hopefully all the logistics damage the Ukrainians are doing in the back lines with Stormshadows will bear fruit by then. I've also enjoyed reading the cit team updates, which are more delayed but also tend to have more coverage on what pro Russian telegram sources are saying: https://notes.citeam.org/dispatch-jun-15-17
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Jun 18, 2023 17:59
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MeinPanzer posted:Anyone have any good sources of info on the current offensive? Last year I got all of my updates through this thread, but it seems like it’s mostly just discussions of weapons systems and more tangential stuff these days… I’m learning about the incremental gains mostly through mainstream news sites now. I use Ukrinform to stay up-to-date on Ukrainian news in general: https://www.ukrinform.net/ There's not much to report, though. The Ukrainians have made some minor progress in the past few days, but they haven't liberated any settlements of note. Today it was claimed that they'd taken the village of Piatykhatky, but this now appears not to be the case: https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/18/7407364/
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Jun 18, 2023 18:02
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spankmeister posted:Both sides are at fault here people! I very much think only one side is at fault! That doesn’t change that we came up with this stuff. fatherboxx posted:Congratulations at discovering targeted advertising, it is not black magic, just additional settings. The larger arc of these systems is that we used them in the Arab Spring, there was a transfer of knowledge and possibly technology to western right wing consultancies, who (eg.Cambridge Analytica) used them in the lead up to the Brexit vote. Then right wing groups (more important) and foreign(less important eg. Russia) used them in 2016 elections. It not just advertising. Something like an individual being able to pretend to be a group with persona management software isn’t merely advertising. saratoga posted:That's not any less ridiculous. The Air Force, as part of the larger DOD, funds a huge amount of basic scientific and development because Congress has for various reasons chosen them to administer a large fraction of the federal research budget. For example, they run one of (or maybe the?) largest breast cancer research program in the world because Congress mandated it. It would be a mistake to apply your logic and try to conclude they're weaponizing breast cancer or whatever simply because it's within the air force. You need to look at the actual program doing the research and see what it's purpose is, not just the overall DoD. You’re ignoring the forest. It’s a factual statement that we had units specifically for this during the Arab Spring. It started as part of the war on terror. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks I’m going to let it go . It’s not a good topic for this thread.
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Jun 18, 2023 18:08
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StumblyWumbly posted:I've gotten into some weird discussions with Russian friends of friends, all young ex-pats with family still in Russia. Years ago, I got into a big argument with one who said Putin wouldn't have poisoned Yushchenko because he doesn't care about Ukraine (lol). It was extra weird because she added "I'm not a Putin fan, he killed my boyfriend, but..." There is this book, "Putin's people" https://www.booky.fi/tuote/kalle_kniivila/putinin_vakea_venajan_hiljainen_enemmisto/9789522645609 which is series of interviews with people from Russia in different social classes, ages and statuses. In 2016 when this was published, it was generally agreed by all the interviewees that Putin might not be ideal, but he is "better than most of the recent ones" usually referring to Yeltsin and Gorbachev, and that Putin should stay indefinitely as electing someone completely new might get them another Yeltsin and cause the 90's troubles and financial collapse. "It isn't exactly great but it isn't bad either so lets not rock the boat" so to say. That sentiment isn't easily going away, especially since the common folk isn't exposed to western media, and in general does not seem to care, or have learned not to care, about the government as long as there is food on the table, mobile phones and car works, constant heat, water and electricity, you can get a job, and education, and there is stuff to buy in the markets and you can afford it. Because during the 90's collapse which many still remember, many people didn't have those things.
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Jun 18, 2023 18:14
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Bar Ran Dun posted:You’re ignoring the forest. You can't just say 'it doesn't matter that I misunderstood the evidence for my argument because I still think I'm right. Go figure out for me how I can prove it to you'. Well you can, but expect to be ignored.
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Jun 18, 2023 20:18
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Bar Ran Dun posted:I very much think only one side is at fault! That doesn’t change that we came up with this stuff. Maybe I'm missing the arc of your argument here. Is the assertion that the US and various other Western governments have sock puppets managing public opinion on the war with Ukraine and other topics? I think that's a pretty reasonable statement to make. Controlling and managing public opinion and narrative has been important for a very long time and it would be borderline irresponsible to let the media sphere be only shaped by Russian dis info operations. I think we would need more evidence that there's an ongoing op and what ends they are trying to achieve than a statement that such ops have been done in the past. I mean realistically there is no single source of truth free of external influence and its easy to fall into the nothing is real conspiracy camp if you take that line of reasoning too far.
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Jun 18, 2023 21:03
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Grape posted:There was a map of Turkish expat votes for one of Erdogan's creepy power extending amendment things a few years back that really told a story about each community abroad. Is there any Russian equivalent I wonder? Are have those elections been too borked for too long to have meaningful open data? russian election results, especially presidential elections, have been skewed for quite some time for a variety of reasons, but you can still track trends and qualitative stated voter positions`1 StumblyWumbly posted:Another friend who has a Russian wife and was planning to move to Moscow for lower cost living
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Jun 18, 2023 21:57
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saratoga posted:You can't just say 'it doesn't matter that I misunderstood the evidence for my argument because I still think I'm right. Go figure out for me how I can prove it to you'. Well you can, but expect to be ignored. It’s fact this is a thing that was done by CENTCOM. You are hyper focusing on a detail when I’ve posted links to reporting clearly supporting the US government has done this starting with the war on terror. The detail you’re stuck on is irrelevant to the larger point. From the 2011 Guardian article: “The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities – known to users of social media as "sock puppets" – could also encourage other governments, private companies and non-government organisations to do the same. The Centcom contract stipulates that each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers should be able to operate false identities from their workstations "without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries". WarpedLichen posted:Is the assertion that the US and various other Western governments have sock puppets managing public opinion on the war with Ukraine and other topics? The assertion is that Russia almost certainly does it too and that it’s just a part of war now. And then that Russian propaganda popping up in places that seems abnormal or random like Houston, isn’t abnormal or random it’s just a consequence that this type of propaganda is a thing now.
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Jun 18, 2023 22:10
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Grape posted:There was a map of Turkish expat votes for one of Erdogan's creepy power extending amendment things a few years back that really told a story about each community abroad. Is there any Russian equivalent I wonder? Are have those elections been too borked for too long to have meaningful open data? russian election results, especially presidential elections, have been skewed for quite some time for a variety of reasons. you can still track trends and qualitative stated voter positions. tl;dr you have some expected opposition-minded expats, but a lot of people that vote for putin more as a show of support for russia in an environment they consider hostile to the russian nation. there are also plenty of post-soviet olds that vote on nostalgia vibes and support putin's restoration of empire tack raw per-precinct data is available (VPN into serbia or whatever; like many russian state sites, requests from US IPs are currently binned) but a pain to analyze because they just give you precinct numbers, which you'd then have to collate with info about what those precincts actually are. find an academic librarian if you're really curious; any good analysis is gonna be buried in some obscure poli sci journal if available at all. wikipedia has a self-sourced data map that indicates the aggregrate expat vote is generally more pro-putin than many domestic regions, but that's not particularly useful absent turnout figures alongside it StumblyWumbly posted:Another friend who has a Russian wife and was planning to move to Moscow for lower cost living i mean, while probably technically not wrong if they can work remote and pull a foreign salary, lol at the idea of moving to Moscow for low cost of living
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Jun 18, 2023 22:24
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Bar Ran Dun posted:It’s fact this is a thing that was done by CENTCOM. ... From the 2011 Guardian article: Second-rate affiliate marketing organisations were doing this in 2006 and telling everyone who would listen how clever it was. If the US military only started doing it in 2011 they were quite far behind the curve. People seem to be discovering that these technologies exist with about a decade of lag time. All the fuss about Cambridge Analytica doing targeted advertising. Again, welcome to 2006. And people discovering there are these things called cookies that track your activity across the internet! The only thing that shocked me was that people thought that Facebook marketing was worthwhile now. When did that happen.
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Jun 18, 2023 22:38
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edit: removed video too gratuitous my apologies Russia picked up a trick from their time in Syria. Guessing they didn't find it useful to fix a T54, so instead they turned it into a VBIED. Fortunately it hits a mine first, and then the Ukrainians RPG it. A massive explosion follows with a wilson cloud that fills the whole view of the drone recording the event. I hope the troops in the trenches were ok, it looked like the sort of explosion that just the concussion from some distance would be fatal. Orthanc6 fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Jun 18, 2023 |
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Jun 18, 2023 23:08
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Did not post for a long while. I've been planning to share some stories that happened to me recently in Hungary. Having a Russian wife does put me in some very uncomfortable situations, but not the way you might think. In February we visited a small town in Hungary with a small group of Russians, to attend an end of winter celebration. We sat in a small local bar drinking beer when a group of Hungarians next to us leaned over and asked "Are you speaking Russian?" to which we answered "Yes" and the next thing that came out of their mouth was "Go Putin!" and raised their glasses to a toast. We smiled at them, turned back to our drinks and felt really fuckin ashamed, while those guys continued to discuss how they hate Zelensky and want to smash his face in just when they see him on TV. I don't even know which is worse, that they think if someone is speaking Russian that can only be a Russian or that they think all Russians are warmongering Putin lovers.... Then a month ago with some Russian friends we went to a restaurant. The waiter came to take out order, and he asked where are we from and when the friends said "Russia" he grabbed my shoulder and told me in my face "You shouldn't be afraid that we might spit on your food, we are with Putin here. I have an Ukranian house mate, and I tell him every day if he doesn't behave I will gently caress him up like Putin does his country." In the end I shouldn't be surprised because 90% of Hungarian media is spreading the Russian propaganda. The government just started a new campaign with billboards and youtube adverts claiming that the EU and all the opposition parties are "Warmongers" and "Will push the country into the war" while all Orban and Putin wants is peace. Two days ago they said the US ambassador to Hungary is a warmonger who supports the war. Qtotonibudinibudet posted:i mean, while probably technically not wrong if they can work remote and pull a foreign salary, lol at the idea of moving to Moscow for low cost of living We had some viral fakes going around on the Hungarian socials about some Russian woman shopping in Moscow for pennies, showing the receipt etc. Meanwhile the government claims that all the inflation (highest in the EU, with almost 50% on food products) is because of the "disastrous sanctions of the EU". I know that the whole cheap living in Russia thing is bullshit, because I still have friends and relatives living there. And then the other day a Russian friend born and raised in Estonia messages me that she is thinking about moving to Hungary with her family, because Estonian inflation is so terrible, and she heard on TV that Orban made a special deal with the Russians on oil so we are living like kings with no inflation. After I tried to confront her with reality, she had a fit yelling she had it with all this EU liberal bullshit, and would much prefer to move to Russia to get rid of it all, and live cheap. Nenonen posted:Koinkidinkly this is important for Viktor Orban as well. The Hungarians abroad who vote for Orban are ethnic Hungarians who never actually lived in the country. When Orban came into power the second time, his first move was giving citizenship and voting rights to all ethnic Hungarians in the neighboring countries. Last elections 94% voted on Orban, strictly with mail in ballots. Edit: Oh yeah, this happened Wednesday. The Hungarian Minister of Foreign affairs https://telex.hu/english/2023/06/14/szijjarto-if-trump-had-won-the-elections-this-war-would-not-have-broken-out with a rebel yell she QQd fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Jun 18, 2023 |
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Jun 18, 2023 23:12
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Thanks for sharing. Those sound like awful situations.
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Jun 19, 2023 02:10
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I didn't realize it was that bad. Sorry to hear
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Jun 19, 2023 02:22
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with a rebel yell she QQd posted:We had some viral fakes going around on the Hungarian socials about some Russian woman shopping in Moscow for pennies, showing the receipt etc. Meanwhile the government claims that all the inflation (highest in the EU, with almost 50% on food products) is because of the "disastrous sanctions of the EU". I know that the whole cheap living in Russia thing is bullshit, because I still have friends and relatives living there. much of russia does have way lower cost of living than the rest of europe, but moscow is extreme levels of "imperial center where all the rich people live", with way higher cost of living than most of a country noted for its stark wealth disparities
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Jun 19, 2023 02:24
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with a rebel yell she QQd posted:Did not post for a long while. All of this makes me very sad. We are in the midst of a global cold war. It's not East vs. West, but democracy vs authoritarianism. Authoritarianism is winning slowly but surely. They've figured out how to exploit the weaknesses of democracy and freedom of speech extremely effectively. And they have plenty of powerful domestic allies in every country.
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Jun 19, 2023 06:35
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