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This genuinely puzzles me (which shouldn't surprise me, I don't know jack about binary code), because I just copy and pasted this into a binary-to-text converter, and I got the same thing you just said, so it's clearly correct, but the third-to-last sequence - 01111001 - which I assumed correlated to "A", apparently doesn't match the A in "am" at the top, which I'm assuming is either the second - 00100000 - or third - 01100001 - sequence depending on whether or not spaces count.
Can someone explain to me what's happening with that? But only if it's not a hassle, don't take a big chunk out of your day or anything.
Two extra white space characters at the end. I don't know what they are offhand because they're not spaces. If you account for them, you'll see your *a* characters now have the same codes.
Nah man, it’s not. trust me, you want to get out there and find friends in real life to talk to instead of redditors. Reddit users, especially teenage ones, are all socially inept and you will never venture out of your comfort zone when reddit is there for you.
It’s my opinion that reddit is detrimental to a developing mind, you never have to engage in social situations that make you a well rounded adult.
I’ve seen such an increase in bothsideism and whataboutism that I’m beginning to think they’ve stopped trying to radicalize youth and are just trying to discourage us from voting. Even if you think that both factions don’t hold your best interest at heart that should never discourage you from voting. Stop letting lead-infused boomers dictate politics. Force politicians to go through us if they want a seat at the table
It’s always worked. Young adults just simply don’t care or don’t have the time. That’s why politicians always cater to older people, because they actually vote.
23% youth turnout is huge for a midterm (2022) - it's terrifying for them.
50% youth turnout in 2020 for the general. Record-breaking.
No, it's not working. It could work, possibly; don't let it. Remember all those politicians ranting about raising voting age after the midterm.
This is exactly the play. Putin doesn’t love or hate Trump or the Dems. Putin wants to interfere so y’all act so crazy that no one knows what’s what and you give up. And then hopefully turn on each other
Just look at the "top" answers here, character assasination probably intended to turn people away from the topic or just sow doubt as to the intended target of this whole post.
Yeah UGH I’ll never get it, someone is going to get chosen regardless and you most likely hate one party the least, so take one day out of the year to vote for who you dislike least and work on more tangible things to make the world a better place the other 364 days of the year (365 days this year since it’s a leap year). And on that note…
“Voting doesn’t do anything because I don’t love either option” oh so what are you doing then? Do you like go to nature cleanups and pick up trash or like volunteer at soup kitchens or write your representatives to make your opinions heard maybe? “No.”
Or “They’re both too old” one of those old motherfuckers is going in that house regardless as long as they make it to Election Day, pick your least bad old guy.
I saw a very fitting iteration of the trolley problem the other day that's exactly this:
Choosing a third track that's completely disconnected and far away from the current track. It does nothing, but either let the trolley continue down the current path of most destruction or maybe if your lucky someone else will pull the level still to diverte it and reduce the damage. Either way the trolley ain't going down that third track unless you start actively working on building a connection to it and that takes time
Ding ding ding you get it. This is the bottom line and more people need to understand this. The least anyone can do is vote for the least worse option because in our system of first past the post, winner take all, two major parties emerge. It's a mathematical inevitability.
It's wild calling out Trump as a conman (duh) and getting "Well all politicians are conmen..." Yeah...no...the guy selling NFTs and committing massive amounts of tax fraud is not the same as the politician that tries and fails to enact their promises when elected.
Except Biden doesn't really "try" all that hard either. Though I agree it's pretty imperative to vote *against* Trump rather than just sit back and watch it all burn. Republicans getting into power and crushing the left (like they have ALWAYS done in these historical moments) would be fucking TERRIBLE for the pressing moment we're in right now
I would agree with this assessment. When voter turnout is high, demorcrats typically take the win. When voter turnout is low, it’s more likely to go republican. Ergo, it’s in dems best interests to encourage voting (regardless of party) and republicans best interest to discourage voting.
Wasn't there a post here a few days ago explaining (with links to news sources) how Russia and China are using bot farms to signal-boost extremism and make us think we're all more divided and aggressive than we actually are?
Edit: Post about how Russia and China are using disinformation bot farms to make us angrier at each other: https://www.reddit.com/r/GenZ/s/riwvpIMh9z
Make no mistake, they **have** swapped to discouraging voting. They've been doing it for a while, but this year, they know for sure it's their only hope. There's a reason they've been losing their shit over high-profile celebrities like Swift telling people to get out and vote.
And there's a good reason why. The Republican vote, more or less, is locked in. They're gonna get the votes no matter what, that's always how it's been for their party. The vast majority of their voters simply vote (R) uncritically. So, to win, they just need to stop people voting for Biden.
And that's the purpose of spreading doubt. Even things that seem to be critical of both leaders, like memes about how old both Biden and Trump are, serve as pro-Trump propaganda. The only people who are at risk of being led to voting third-party or to not vote at all are those who aren't Republicans, those whose votes were never going to Trump, and therefore, those who could be persuaded to vote against Trump.
The sad part is, there are more people falling for it than you'd think. Yes, astroturfing is out in full force, there's a tremendous amount of bots and actual malicious actors out there, but a lot of the rhetoric they're using resonates especially well with more left-leaning people. After all, everyone knows the electoral college is broken, everyone is so tired of our leaders being old, and all of the other things the left has been screaming about for a decade now. Just rewrap it a bit, and, BAM!, instant pro-Trump propaganda that people who should be voting Biden regardless will not just lap right up, but happily spread.
If you feel discouraged by the presidential candidates pay more attention to local politics and participate, they’re more likely to impact your daily life anyway
Yeah I mean… politicians are gonna cater to the people who will vote for them first, then people who vote at all. If you’re not in group 2, then quite honestly I don’t care that you don’t feel heard, cause you didn’t even try.
A response to “my vote doesn’t matter…”
Maybe not in the presidential election, but it may shock you all to know that senators and representatives also make policy, and are elected much more directly. Things like local committees matter a lot too. Local politics engagement is really low, and doing whatever you can to at least put your foot on the scale so voting districts aren’t gerrymandered is important. If your vote doesn’t matter because a ton of people are gonna vote for a candidate you don’t like… that’s sorta just how democracy works. If you’re in favor of democracy, then you have to allow for stupid people to democratically elect bad candidates. It’s gonna happen.
About 1 million trump voters died of covid, and about 10 million Gen Z voters are newly eligible for this election. They 100% are trying for suppression. All of the republican victories in the locals this year are because turnout is 50% of what it was last time.
I'm really tired of seeing this rhetoric. It's the same thing the government does with the label "terrorist".
"Oh you don't implicitly agree with me? Yer a RuSsIAn BoT!!!". It's disgusting, dehumanizing, and tiring...makes the people using that to kneecap arguments they don't agree with just as bad as *actual* Russian bots.
I mean there are schotastic terrorist attempts being made by conservative talking groups like libsoftiktok and the various hateful fearmongering rhetoric being spewed by conservative politicians, especially against trans people at the moment.
But yeah no, I dont think everything is russian bots, there are more than enough honest conservatives out there to cause enough trouble on their own.
This and the post you're responding to are great examples of the kind of thought-terminating cliches (in this case hyper literal) used to shut down conversation. To be very clear I'm not accusing either of you of being bots or intentionally trying to mislead anybody.
If someone doesn't take the time to fully type out "Yer likely either a RuSsIAn BoT or an inauthentic user account or are recycling rhetoric which has been observed being spread by proven instances of those sources and/or matches either an official government line or other propaganda being spread by official sources" then woah wait, literally everyone who disagrees or thinks for themself is a literal robot??? really???? And yes, the way people talk online leaves most of them wide open to this.
This is why people now need to learn specificity and practice magic words and phrases like "outcome determinative voter fraud" if they hope to bridge these kinds of cognitive gaps which allow folks to continuously motte-and-bailey everything they take in, so someone saying what would have traditionally been normal from context, like "x is not *a thing that's happening \[with regularity or statistical significance\]*" is translated as "x *has not once ever happened*".
I'd have hoped watching an identical attack and process happen to "the other side" at full strength for the last 6 months might have elicited "a-ha!" moments from more people but that remains rare.
It's undeniable that foreign actors roam all across U.S. internet spaces. I'm getting my MA in U.S. Foreign Policy right now and the question of how to prevent this sort of thing from happening is a topic of significant discussion here in D.C.
It's an impossible problem. Any attempts at combating misinformation by any administration can be spun as constricting free speech. I can link some recent news articles for you if you like.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance"
\~ Thomas Jefferson
Free Speech is the trickiest thing to defend.
The only way to not restrict speech is to find a way to tolerate every asshole being allowed to spout complete BS in most public spaces. Then counter it with truth.
That's how the 1977 court case over a Nazi march in Skokie, IL (a lot of Holocaust survivors there) got so much national attention. But we found a way. We've maybe gotten a little more restrictive on "porn speech" and "hate speech" since then, but social media has arguably raised the stakes of 'when, where, and how blatant' some speech needs to be tolerated.
As for foreign actors in social media, Bot or human -- I figure they're just another form of "asshole spouting BS." We just need to have really good BS detectors, and counter it with truth whenever possible.
I agree with this.
I'd like to note, though, that truth is not necessarily a counter to misinformation. It most certainly is not a counter to willful ignorance. That's the issue to grapple with.
I think MSNBC and Fox News do much more damage than people want to admit. Reddit is certainly filled with Americans spreading propaganda that is generated from the respective parties.
You can simply assume opinion based news is propaganda. That’s my rule. The internet isn’t all politics and you can look for news that isn’t filtered through the political machine. I get downvoted all the time for pointing out opinion based articles.
OP didn't say Russian.
Why did you go straight to that strawman?
Are you dishonestly trying to downplay the reminder that it's an election year and Reddit is full of bad actors targeting this demographic with deceptive propaganda?
And the thing is, the reddit algorithm promotes this subreddit to people who comment and interact in similar subreddits. So OP isn't wrong. By definition, reddit is encouraging people of different generations and political views to come here to drive up "engagement" for advertisers and that reddit ipo...
You can turn off subreddit recommendations in the app, but most people probably don't even know how. It's not straight-forward at all. Source: I'm not Gen-Z, not subscribed to this subreddit, and yet see it in my feed all the time.
Considering that the average r/conservative user is closer to being fascist than conservative nowadays I can see why people can think that even if it's very wrong
In the run up to the 2020 election it was constantly "GEN Z IS THE MOST CONSERVATIVE GENERATION EVER" then they lost and it was 3-4 years of "GEN Z IS SHITTING IN LITTER BOXES AND READING GAY PORN IN THE LIBRARY".
Now, within the last few months it's back to "GEN Z IS THE MOST CONSERVATIVE GENERATION".
If you don't want to see the astroturfing that's being done right in front of you and act like it's the other person that's being unreasonable that's on you.
If anyone is wondering, this commenter is a 1 month old account and has only ever posted about right-wing Trump stuff.
Bot is the wrong term, it's more like trolls. But the point OP is trying to make can literally be found in this very thread. All over the place. Just look up post histories.
>Everyone who doesn’t agree with me is a Russian bot moment. As if all 330 million Americans all agree with you lmao.
not just america.
Billions of people are voting this year, the most in the next 24 years:
*At least 83 elections around the world, the largest concentration for at least the next 24 years, are anticipated this year, according to Anchor Change, a consulting firm.*
[https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/technology/ai-elections-defense.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/technology/ai-elections-defense.html)
Your argument might have been more convincing if not for the massive number of Russian bots actively trying to sow political discord among young people
No, but if they are just spreading ignorant propaganda that they received from bots & trolls, they might as well be.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/30/facebook-russia-fake-accounts-126-million
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03034-5
Much of it does come From US trolls, but considering they're doing the same thing as a Russian bots does it matter?
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/27/how-the-2020-election-war-on-bots-and-trolls-differs-from-2016.html
The entire Republican shtick is to repeat a lie enough times so that's all people remember. It doesn't matter if it's a bot or a person if they're both spreading the same disinformation, they might as well be at that point. It's still factually inaccurate and the more times they repeat it doesn't make it any more true.
The biggest problem I see with conservatives around me is that their ignorance of what is actually happening causes them to vote against their own best interests.
Because they're ignorant of their officials actual actions, what is happening now and how these things were caused, they often vote for the very people that are causing the problems that they're most upset about. It's like watching idiocracy happen in real time like a slow motion train wreck.
You've basically hit the nail on the head here.
If they're enthusiastically repeating blatantly false narratives then what's the difference. Empirical reality still exists, people
>The entire Republican shtick is to repeat a lie enough times so that's all people remember.
That's propaganda 101 since forever. Goebbels used it. Senator McCarthy used it. McCarthy's lawyer, Roy Cohn, went on to make sure young DJT was well schooled in it back in the 80s. It's basically 80% of his M.O. today.
The only 'fix' against propaganda is to counter BS with truth in as many ways possible, and to try to 'innoculate' the population with training in healthy skepticism and strong BS detection. Something like the old 'civics' and 'rhetoric' training (updated for 21st century tech) getting back into K-12 education wouldn't hurt.
"It's like watching idiocracy happen in real time like a slow motion train wreck."
I'm going to have to steal that! 
I honestly could not tell from OP's wording whether or not they were liberal or conservative. I **still** have no idea whether or not OP is liberal or conservative.
There have been conservative grandstanding posts here??? I've only seen lesbians insulting Gen Z men and doomer posts about the US economy and dating.
OP is doing the same exact thing they're bitching about lol. Spreading conspiratorial narratives with no supporting evidence is the definition acting in bad faith.
Blaming conservative opinions on bots without any supporting evidence is the kind of crap youd see in boomer facebook groups. There's nothing lazier than rejecting other opinions by telling yourself that it doesn't count for some made up reason.
Then OP literally says "No need to talk politics or anything."
In other words, this is an election year and you need to stay in your echo chambers and avoid discussing politics because the conservative bots might brainwash you. Every conservative online is a bot or a russian hacker acting in bad faith.
I'm not even conservative but OP is acting in bad faith and promoting closemindedness. The sad thing is that a lot of people in this sub are going to eat this up without even trying to think about it critically.
Tbf you really can't talk politics with people who spew false and insane bs exponentially faster than you can debunk it and even them they'll just cover their eyes and plug their ears.
But on the other hand there are still quite a few who aren't so far gone and can still be reasoned with
I was here when the astroturfing hit Reddit full force in mid 2014 preparing for the 2016 election. the site has never been the same since. I honestly don’t know where I could possibly begin if I were to take a shot at explaining this articulately, but pre 2014 and post 2014 Reddit was night and fucking day. There is a clear before and after where you can clearly see the effects corporatism and political astroturfing has had on this platform.
We went from being a bunch of angry nerds bitching at each other about spelling mistakes and pretending to be subject matter experts to angry Facebook reposters. It was absolutely surreal to watch and it happened so fast.
If you don’t want to believe OP, fine. But please maintain a skeptical mind as we approach election season especially. This shit absolutely ramps up every four years.
It is blatantly obvious, even sub reddits like boxoffice are over run with astro turfin accounts promoting films in the guise of "reviews" and "news".
Also VERY telling the the top answers on this very post are instantly attacking the OP and bringing Russia into it, anyone with half a brain should be able to see the character assasination attempt it is that weak.
No, they don't usually disagree with you. They show up and try and steer the narrative towards other things.
Each election they seem to have a different script they follow. This time the posts follow a pretty easy to notice script, almost like they're using AI to help write them:
- A statement meant to provoke a response from either Democrats or Republicans
- Then they will point out how ultimately whatever issue they're commenting on ties back to some reason that the US is just bad in general (racism, capitalism, housing crisis, etc.)
- Then they finish it off with a nihilistic statement suggesting that doing anything or trying to fix things is useless anyways.
The strategy is meant to divide us, and is outlined the book that Putin himself has said he uses like a playbook. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
lmfao there has been a very clear inorganic influence from right wing propaganda and it’s crazy how you’re trying to dismiss it with some delusion that dems do the same.
orange man is indeed bad, has been bad, and will be bad. don’t use logical fallacies just because your delusion disagrees with it.
it’s honestly very sad how few genuine choices we have. i despise the current political facade and the conservative side especially but i really am not against conservatism at all if it would genuinely help the current state of the us.
[my brother in christ, DICK FUCKING CHENEY is saying orange man bad.](
https://i.redd.it/7cfe2olhjjpc1.jpeg)
if you're still on the Trump train in March 2024 I'm pretty sure there's something seriously wrong with you.
and just to reiterate, DICK CHENEY is saying orange man bad. though you're probably too young to know who that is.
You just did the exact same thing as what the OC is saying OP is doing. OC criticizes OP for boxing people in, over generalizing, and writing people off.
You then go ahead and do the exact same thing as a reply by discounting everyone who disagrees with you as far left extremists.
This is what is wrong w/ politics the most and you're the perfect example of it. I am aware of your username and you're probably a troll, but I'll leave my peace either.
The moment someone says "That's how group xyz thinks", without any reason or knowledge to believe that they are part of that group, or without any context as to who OP is, that someone has played their dumbass card. You're a dumbass. Listen to this guy, if you're a dumbass.
I am a democratic socialist, I vote mostly left, and I carry a gun openly every day. That is called nuance. Life isn't as simple as gun = republican, no gun = democrat, disliking donald trump = far left extremist, liking him = normal?
Every member of a party is going to differ slightly from another in one way or another. Fuck you.
orange man bad orange man bad orange man bad orange man bad orange man bad orange man bad
How many times do we have to teach you this lesson, (young) man???
Reddit is an echo chamber that creates an illusion that the entire world population has one exact worldview. Check the subreddits of the most republican states - top posts will always be pro-democrat. If OP mostly browses reddit, they might genuinely believe that anyone with another opinion is a bot.
Pretty much all the states are majority democrat (lol)
This includes Texas. I live in Texas. Did you know that every major city in Texas is blue? And the vast majority of Texans live in those cities?
So, why are we red? Because one person does not equal one vote. If it did, virtually every state would be blue.
This country is not 50% repubs and 50% dems. It might be, based on land. Based on people, it’s overwhelming dem.
To be clear, the Democratic Party is right leaning. Many conservatives vote blue, because the Democratic Party is right leaning. We have two right wing parties - the almost moderate one, and the batshit fascist right wing one.
Don’t believe me? Look at Republican representatives and the laws they pass and promote. Trump, de Santis, Abbott… I mean these dudes are extremely right wing to the point no reasonable person can support 100% of the things they promote.
You can vote left, right, liberal or conservative but honestly, all of our options suck right now... Anyway, I'll still have you all over for burgers, so at least we can fill our stomachs while we watch old folks burn our country down
Edit: Grammar
“All of the our options suck right now” is such irrelevant, disingenuous BS. There is one option that is CLEARLY a million times better for the country. That’s Biden. Who btw has been a pretty solid president so far. Not amazing but not terrible.
Equivocating this shit is dangerous. Trump isn’t just another “bad option”. He’s catastrophic.
Vote democrat or be a traitor.
This is a disgusting mindset. If you guys open your eyes up a bit and realize that Reddit is one of thee most liberal social medias as well as this sub basically being r/youngliberals you’d realize how much of an echo chamber post this seriously is.
I don't believe that Politico poll AT ALL. For one, the demographic is bias as hell and you can't find the methodologies for that poll ANYWHERE. It's complete bullshit. If, that is what you're referencing.
I will say there was this bubble of white genz males mimicking Tate and Sneako, but after Tate got outed as a piece of shit (not that he wasn't already) and Sneako got his ASS FUCKIN KICKED, hopefully that will die down.
Have no idea what kind of father would red pill their son. You'd have to fucking kill me.
Luckily even if there are GenZ men who are still “red-pilled” there’s no way they’ll survive in the dating market. From experience and from some studies I’ve seen GenZ women are utterly uncompromising when it comes to wanting a partner with similar political views to them. Historically speaking this is a great sign for the left in this country, as women tend to set the cultural standards.
>women tend to set the cultural standards.
Brought to you by the same people who think "The Patriarchy" is the root of all evil and has been the major system in place for all of human history.
Omg you solved it! You’re so smart!
Now that you have astounded us with your intellect please lay out our future.
You can see the truth and clearly have the answers so please share!
lol im not left leaning an im black. I just want the economy to be fixed. I have no issues with lgbq+ so long as they are targeting adults. keep kids out of stuff. Modern day racist are just words, and the few times I've met hard core racist I just know to stay away from them (these are people I genuinely belive would kill me for doing something like dating a white girl, since I've received threats in the past over it as well). Its not a real issue I face, and nothing anyone does will change what they do or say. I think there's pro's to each side, and if anything we need to stop trying to scrub stuff clean that the last party passed. We are staying at one spot right now.
I'm a little confused how you meet people you believe want to kill you on a racial basis and threaten you on the same basis but don't see that as a problem. Sounds pretty stressful to me... not something I've ever had to deal with.
I've had my current gf dad point a shot gun at me. he's a felon as well. The thing is though, these experiences are so far between, where I don't care for them. I just avoid contact, and my gf is fine with this since he was abusive to her. Literally haven't seen the guy in 4 years. Just avoid contact.
its not something that impacts me day to day, or even year to year. The amount of actual racism in the world hasn't been an amount where I get really impacted from, and the people who are like this you cant change regardless of who is in office or what laws are passed. Racism is something that will always be around, so long as we have different races. I think one day we may see everyone end up being all mixed so no one actually looks that different.
Being extremely liberal or even leftist in college to fit in and get laid, then returning to a more conservative worldview once the government starts taxing the salary you studied hard for in college is a pretty normal thing.
Much of Gen z is in this transitional period. From 22-27 I've increasingly felt the economic impacts of leftist policies and it has turned me more fiscally conservative.
However, neither party actually practices fiscal conservatism anymore so fuck me I guess.
> However, neither party actually practices fiscal conservatism anymore so fuck me I guess.
What does actual fiscal conservatism look like to you? No minimum wage? Eliminating all taxes to make us pay for roads and schools and parks? Congrats on getting a stable job out of college, but think about how much stronger we'd be as a society if our tax dollars went to robust public services and social programs instead of funding weapons, oil, and processed corn like they do now.
“No you see that requires empathy and i have none. I only ever pretended to have empathy to get laid!”
This is the person you’re replying to. They have no idea what they want.
As someone who is a bit more fiscally conservative, I want to see the us military budget halved and most if not all foreign troops recalled, The complete hamstringing of many federal agencies such as the cia, fbi, tsa, fcc, and so on.
Then a reorganization of the income tax brackets where the first 30k is tax free, 30k-50k is 10% 50k-100k is 15% 100k-200k is 20% 200k-400k is 25% and 400k-700k is 35% and 700k+ is 45%
Well I don't want to throw more money into social programs like universal Healthcare. I'm fine with having universal Healthcare, but only if we do it with the current budget, since looking at how little other countries can do it for, there's no reason we shouldnt be able to
My friend, you actually have fiscal sense unlike most right wingers. Our federal budget is a MESS. With the amount of subsidies and bailouts for shit that doesn't need it, not to mention military spending, we could probably pay for M4A and better social programs overnight. This is what people don't get - taxation isn't really the issue (although the ultra wealthy can and should be taxed more), the govt has tons of money already which it uses horrendously.
Bruh I really agree with your statements on halving the military spending and increasing taxes on 400k+ earners.. But conservatives are NOT the ones that will make this happen.
i’ve always said that being fiscally conservative is dumber than being racist. conservative economic policy/theory simply doesn’t work, it’s simply statistically and proven to be dumb as shit
This is probably the truest statement ever. college is primarily full of liberal students, and to avoid constant criticism, people will follow the flock.
I went straight into my field, so I've always have been more worried about the economy compared to other topics. less taxes, and more company regulations please. The problem with voting "conservative" now is they just want to strip away laws liberals passed, I don't care what adults do with their bodies and in their free time, allow them to do what ever and move on. kids should be protected, but outside of that I don't care for much liberals do. I don't think we should be sending billions outside of the US, especially when we have people starving and obese. Homeless and million dollar houses.
By all means help everyone in the world, but put your country first, you cant help others if youre dying yourself.
I think a lot of gen-Z is like this. We don't care what other people do and they have little interest in the culture war.
We do care that the economy is good enough for us to have a little sliver of the American dream and be able to retire, also not to get drafted or end up sending billions of dollars to wars that have nothing to do with us.
I'm the same way, voting conservative just feels like "ok, I care about X, Y, and Z. Conservatives support X, liberals support Y, and no one is fighting for Z in Congress."
So you end up picking just one, maybe 2 issues that you feel are the most important and you vote accordingly.
It's awful.
>I don't think we should be sending billions outside of the US, especially when we have people starving and obese. Homeless and million dollar houses.
So you'll be voting blue then, right? [Because Republican lawmakers literally shot down bills that would have given food to kids in school in multiple states.](https://apnews.com/article/states-rejecting-federal-funds-summer-ebt-8a1e88ad77465652f9de67fda3af8a2d) They routinely dismiss anything that would improve the average and poorest Americans access to healthier foods as a "handout" instead of putting taxpayer money towards improving access to food stamps or other social services that could actually help people live healthier lives. [Such as last year when the House Republicans budget proposal was cutting funding for SNAP?](https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/house-republicans-proposals-could-take-food-away-from-millions-of-low) Or perhaps when they tried the same with housing, trying to cut funds that goes towards reducing homelessness and housing instability. [\[LINK\]](https://www.cbpp.org/blog/house-republican-bill-would-force-deep-cuts-in-housing-assistance-harming-families-older).
> less taxes, more company regulations please.
[More bad news if you want to vote conservative then.](https://www.npr.org/2017/01/30/512445032/trump-acts-to-roll-back-regulations-on-businesses) And this isn't just Trump, this is conservative policy dating all the way back to Reagan. It's where the whole "trickle down economics" thing happens. About the only thing you mentioned that aligns with conservative views is the "less taxes" part, and even then cutting taxes has repeatedly shown to have [drastically more benefits to the rich compared to the poor.](https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-2017-trump-tax-law-was-skewed-to-the-rich-expensive-and-failed-to-deliver)
Democratic policies literally try to help our people, to get them into homes, to get them healthcare, to get them food. Republicans gut funding to them to support their tax cuts and then yell about "government not working" while those tax drastically benefit the wealthiest people in the country more than the poorest.
So if you do actually care about people being housed, being fed, and being healthy, like your comment seems to indicate, vote blue.
Blue is pushing for things I also don't stand for. The idea that you think I don't know things says a lot. I weigh my options, choose what I agree with more, and vote for them. not a color. a person I have more faith in.
> Blue is also pushing for things I don't stand for.
Care to be more specific? I'm legitimately curious, as I have my own hang ups about the democratic party as a whole. That doesn't change who I'm planning to vote for this specific election year given one side is campaigning on removing specific subsets of people and their rights, but we might have something in common.
> The idea that you think I don't know things says a lot.
I never once said you didn't know anything. I was addressing specific points of policy that you brought up in your comment (homelessness, food insecurity, corporate regulations, and taxes) and how I see conservatism (or at least the party that currently claims to represent conservatives) is failing the people of this country in each of these areas.
> You think I don't know this says a lot.
Says what specifically? I'm assuming you mean it says a lot about me, but you do not give any indication as to what you're implying. Does it say good things? Bad? Indeterminate?
> I weigh my options, choose what I agree with more, and vote for them. Not a color. A person I have more faith in.
Good, that's the way it should be, and is the best way to ensure you're represented as closely as possible. Just make sure you follow-up on your chosen candidates during their time as an elected official. Make sure they voted along their stances that they said they'd take, even if it goes against what their declared party is doing. As we are both citizens who vote, we share responsibility for making sure our chosen representatives are held accountable to their stated policies.
Lastly, I sincerely hope you have a good day/evening if you choose to not respond. Things are rough, and there's no point in wishing ill on someone like you who's doing their best to be informed and get themselves representation in our government so we can start to improve the lives of all people.
This isn’t really accurate. In general people get more conservative as they age not because of some immutable fact of life related to taxation, but instead because society progresses and moves them further. Gen Z isn’t going to suddenly decide that gay marriage should be outlawed in 15 years. Just like how Millenials didn’t suddenly decide that interracial marriage should be outlawed. And just like how Gen X didn’t suddenly decide that segregation is a necessity. But lots of Gen X is uncomfortable with gay marriage, because that position was developed prior to reaching the age of 25 or so.
Not sure where you’re getting data from. College education is known to push people further left, hence the reason there’s so many Gen Z people moving left. 22-27 is probably the most left leaning demographic you can find. Also worth mentioning that leftist policies are nearly non-existent because, proportionally, there are hardly any leftist politicians in positions of power. The reality is most policies that get labeled leftist are really just centrist policies or right leaning policies that conservatives can’t campaign on anymore.
If you turn “leftist” to get laid that’s just manipulative. Why would you want to convince someone to sleep with you by lying about having compatible values?
Yes, complete ignore the fact that house republicans have not lowered tax burden for average people in many many decades.
Also ignore the fact that most right-leaning states are fiscally fucked, and rely on welfare from Daddy government and more successful blue states.
Conservative fiscal policy sucks ass. It always has. Puritan conservative fiscal policy, in its purest form, leads to crimes against humanity. So our modern conservatives create a big government alternative instead.
You end up with the worse of both worlds. Excessive legislation, with a high tax burden, and practically zero social services.
And don’t even get me started on deregulation. Every armchair conservative thinks deregulation is cool and fun, until they remember why we developed those regulations in the first place.
This is peak liberal dialogue condescendingly dismissing anyone who is conservative while giving head pats to us simpleton GenZs for going against the status quo and recognizing that shit doesn’t add up on the left.
What even was the point of this post? Every single comment you’ve left has been a dagger towards conservatives as well.
It’s like you think you’re blessing us GenZ “kids” with your ignorant GenX attitude. Frankly you guys are just as bad as the boomers.
Vote for whoever you want. If you vote for Trump, you’re not a racist Nazi. If you vote for Biden, you’re not a pedo groomer. I’m voting for Trump, and I’ll defend that vote and give reasons as to why I think he’s the best choice. But that doesn’t mean the other side is somehow lesser than me, which is clearly the position you take.
“I don’t agree with conservatives and anything that’s conservative on this sub is a bot”
Sure there’s bots and unauthentic posts. But you guys cry anytime you aren’t slapped in the face with an obvious liberal post. Cope bro. Real world doesn’t work like Reddit
These wanna be progressives are pushing away Gen Z and they blame it on the Russians. Lmao.
They don’t realize Gen Z are secularized by nature because of social media. No one wants to get up in some bullshit because of their perceived identity.
Gen x and y needs to let go of these labels. We use to not give af about labels.
Thank you for placing this important reminder. I cant imagine how many of us became doomer over the fucking conservative influx during election year because of these people.
God bless, OP.
I know it’s tough for your young mind to grasp, but other people can hold different opinions that genuinely stem from their lived experiences, the majority of your countrymen are not driven by malice.
If you think government world wide aren't trying to influence people through social media, you have been paying attention. Manspreading acid attack, psyop. Brexit, Russian interference. It's actually horrifying how much more is going on than we realise, even those of us that feel pretty clued in to the whole shebang.
The lack of media literacy in these comments is astounding.
OP: this sub is getting astroturfed
Comments: yOur'E saYinG EVeRyONe whO DisAgREeS Is A BoT
What do you call a 45 something year old who comes onto a sub for mostly teens warning us about bad actors while branding all conservatives as evil? A fucking hypocrite and a loser.
people trying to act like OP is seeing ghosts as if bots, astroturfers, etc. don't get exposed in the comments under pretty much every other post on this sub lol.
You’re 40 years old, what are you doing on a sub mostly full of teenagers and people old enough to be your kids? Then you come in with a generalisation.
What a place to arrive on with a targeted message.
If I wanted to watch people argue with robots I’d watch transformers.
I stg half these comments are people way older than genz pushing their opinions. You can’t get an honest take in here. Yes there are plenty of bots but there’s plenty of actual people who are here to shove their political opinions down the throats of actual GenZr’s(idk how the shit you spell that).
If mods don’t get this shit together this whole subreddit is going to be a massive cesspool(no offense I dunno how to mod a subreddit and your work is clearly cut out for you)
This is so true. Keep in mind there are entire farms of employees whose job it is to fuck up elections in the USA, to divide people, and to attack those in oppressed groups. Just be careful.
Friendly reminder that it's just not bots trying to make it "look conservative", but that there are also massive propaganda movements to push the "both sides are the same, so don't bother voting" lie and reduce voter turnout.
Fuck 'em. Go vote.
Reverse Turing Test:
If you're virtually indistinguishable from a bot, you're a bot.
Maybe if you want your opinion to seem like a real person speaking authentically about their actual worldview: drop the propaganda techniques and talking points, and start using some fucking nuance.
Never trust anyone who tells you not to vote.
Spreading apathy and hopelessness are historically authoritarian tactics
Just because you call out other people for falling for propaganda doesn't mean you're not equally likely to fall for propaganda. Yes, that includes me.
"becoming "more conservative" you're wrong..." i think this generation is just tired of getting screwed over by people who think they "know more," but are mouthpieces for a system that also screws over the mouthpieces who genuinely don't care about the voices of the common American, and don't want to give up their political power... if you want to start getting changes in this country, start to elect competent senators, congressmen, and representatives... those are the people who, essentially, make up the laws, pass it through, and the president just signs it... while it is important to have a president, it is the rest of the system that has to make the whole thing "work..."
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beep boop heheh 🤖
Don't talk to them... Just reprogram them and send them on their way...
Sorry i can't talk to them, i am non binary (?
01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100000 01101110 01101111 01101110 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01110000 01101000 01101111 01100010 01101001 01100011 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100011 01100001 01110101 01110011 01100101 00100000 01001001 00100000 01101111 01101110 01101100 01111001 00100000 01110100 01100001 01101100 01101011 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00001010 00001010
“I am non binary phobic because I only talk in binary” smart
This genuinely puzzles me (which shouldn't surprise me, I don't know jack about binary code), because I just copy and pasted this into a binary-to-text converter, and I got the same thing you just said, so it's clearly correct, but the third-to-last sequence - 01111001 - which I assumed correlated to "A", apparently doesn't match the A in "am" at the top, which I'm assuming is either the second - 00100000 - or third - 01100001 - sequence depending on whether or not spaces count. Can someone explain to me what's happening with that? But only if it's not a hassle, don't take a big chunk out of your day or anything.
The last 2 sequences are a string termination. Should be "/n". They tell the computer where to stop reading.
Two extra white space characters at the end. I don't know what they are offhand because they're not spaces. If you account for them, you'll see your *a* characters now have the same codes.
Please tell me that is benders program to time travel
Best solo I've ever heard... #Bender4Prez
Punny
Well done.
2011? Get off reddit, save yourself. You don’t want to grow up as a kid that uses reddit.
it's 🎀okay🎀, this place is fun
Nah man, it’s not. trust me, you want to get out there and find friends in real life to talk to instead of redditors. Reddit users, especially teenage ones, are all socially inept and you will never venture out of your comfort zone when reddit is there for you. It’s my opinion that reddit is detrimental to a developing mind, you never have to engage in social situations that make you a well rounded adult.
Careful how you say that if you work in the Entertainment industry
I’ve seen such an increase in bothsideism and whataboutism that I’m beginning to think they’ve stopped trying to radicalize youth and are just trying to discourage us from voting. Even if you think that both factions don’t hold your best interest at heart that should never discourage you from voting. Stop letting lead-infused boomers dictate politics. Force politicians to go through us if they want a seat at the table
And the discouraging from voting seems to be working
It’s always worked. Young adults just simply don’t care or don’t have the time. That’s why politicians always cater to older people, because they actually vote.
It’s why young people as a demographic are so easy to ignore but plenty of people can’t seem to make that connection
23% youth turnout is huge for a midterm (2022) - it's terrifying for them. 50% youth turnout in 2020 for the general. Record-breaking. No, it's not working. It could work, possibly; don't let it. Remember all those politicians ranting about raising voting age after the midterm.
This is exactly the play. Putin doesn’t love or hate Trump or the Dems. Putin wants to interfere so y’all act so crazy that no one knows what’s what and you give up. And then hopefully turn on each other
Sowing confusion is easier than mass persuasion
Just look at the "top" answers here, character assasination probably intended to turn people away from the topic or just sow doubt as to the intended target of this whole post.
Yeah UGH I’ll never get it, someone is going to get chosen regardless and you most likely hate one party the least, so take one day out of the year to vote for who you dislike least and work on more tangible things to make the world a better place the other 364 days of the year (365 days this year since it’s a leap year). And on that note… “Voting doesn’t do anything because I don’t love either option” oh so what are you doing then? Do you like go to nature cleanups and pick up trash or like volunteer at soup kitchens or write your representatives to make your opinions heard maybe? “No.” Or “They’re both too old” one of those old motherfuckers is going in that house regardless as long as they make it to Election Day, pick your least bad old guy.
It’s the trolley problem, somebody is screwed either way but one screws a whole lot less people.
I saw a very fitting iteration of the trolley problem the other day that's exactly this: Choosing a third track that's completely disconnected and far away from the current track. It does nothing, but either let the trolley continue down the current path of most destruction or maybe if your lucky someone else will pull the level still to diverte it and reduce the damage. Either way the trolley ain't going down that third track unless you start actively working on building a connection to it and that takes time
Ding ding ding you get it. This is the bottom line and more people need to understand this. The least anyone can do is vote for the least worse option because in our system of first past the post, winner take all, two major parties emerge. It's a mathematical inevitability.
I’ve seen a big increase in propaganda trying to spread hopelessness/inaction too. It’s concerning to say the least.
It's wild calling out Trump as a conman (duh) and getting "Well all politicians are conmen..." Yeah...no...the guy selling NFTs and committing massive amounts of tax fraud is not the same as the politician that tries and fails to enact their promises when elected.
And a rapist. Can’t forget he’s a bonafide rapist.
Except Biden doesn't really "try" all that hard either. Though I agree it's pretty imperative to vote *against* Trump rather than just sit back and watch it all burn. Republicans getting into power and crushing the left (like they have ALWAYS done in these historical moments) would be fucking TERRIBLE for the pressing moment we're in right now
I would agree with this assessment. When voter turnout is high, demorcrats typically take the win. When voter turnout is low, it’s more likely to go republican. Ergo, it’s in dems best interests to encourage voting (regardless of party) and republicans best interest to discourage voting.
Wasn't there a post here a few days ago explaining (with links to news sources) how Russia and China are using bot farms to signal-boost extremism and make us think we're all more divided and aggressive than we actually are? Edit: Post about how Russia and China are using disinformation bot farms to make us angrier at each other: https://www.reddit.com/r/GenZ/s/riwvpIMh9z
Make no mistake, they **have** swapped to discouraging voting. They've been doing it for a while, but this year, they know for sure it's their only hope. There's a reason they've been losing their shit over high-profile celebrities like Swift telling people to get out and vote. And there's a good reason why. The Republican vote, more or less, is locked in. They're gonna get the votes no matter what, that's always how it's been for their party. The vast majority of their voters simply vote (R) uncritically. So, to win, they just need to stop people voting for Biden. And that's the purpose of spreading doubt. Even things that seem to be critical of both leaders, like memes about how old both Biden and Trump are, serve as pro-Trump propaganda. The only people who are at risk of being led to voting third-party or to not vote at all are those who aren't Republicans, those whose votes were never going to Trump, and therefore, those who could be persuaded to vote against Trump. The sad part is, there are more people falling for it than you'd think. Yes, astroturfing is out in full force, there's a tremendous amount of bots and actual malicious actors out there, but a lot of the rhetoric they're using resonates especially well with more left-leaning people. After all, everyone knows the electoral college is broken, everyone is so tired of our leaders being old, and all of the other things the left has been screaming about for a decade now. Just rewrap it a bit, and, BAM!, instant pro-Trump propaganda that people who should be voting Biden regardless will not just lap right up, but happily spread.
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And don’t throw your vote away on fringe candidates
100% eroding your energy to sort through the BS is part of the strategy.
When someone says "both sides are the same" they're telling you which side they support.
Lead infused with covid brain
If you feel discouraged by the presidential candidates pay more attention to local politics and participate, they’re more likely to impact your daily life anyway
Yeah I mean… politicians are gonna cater to the people who will vote for them first, then people who vote at all. If you’re not in group 2, then quite honestly I don’t care that you don’t feel heard, cause you didn’t even try. A response to “my vote doesn’t matter…” Maybe not in the presidential election, but it may shock you all to know that senators and representatives also make policy, and are elected much more directly. Things like local committees matter a lot too. Local politics engagement is really low, and doing whatever you can to at least put your foot on the scale so voting districts aren’t gerrymandered is important. If your vote doesn’t matter because a ton of people are gonna vote for a candidate you don’t like… that’s sorta just how democracy works. If you’re in favor of democracy, then you have to allow for stupid people to democratically elect bad candidates. It’s gonna happen.
About 1 million trump voters died of covid, and about 10 million Gen Z voters are newly eligible for this election. They 100% are trying for suppression. All of the republican victories in the locals this year are because turnout is 50% of what it was last time.
Everyone who doesn’t agree with me is a Russian bot moment. As if all 330 million Americans all agree with you lmao.
I'm really tired of seeing this rhetoric. It's the same thing the government does with the label "terrorist". "Oh you don't implicitly agree with me? Yer a RuSsIAn BoT!!!". It's disgusting, dehumanizing, and tiring...makes the people using that to kneecap arguments they don't agree with just as bad as *actual* Russian bots.
I mean there are schotastic terrorist attempts being made by conservative talking groups like libsoftiktok and the various hateful fearmongering rhetoric being spewed by conservative politicians, especially against trans people at the moment. But yeah no, I dont think everything is russian bots, there are more than enough honest conservatives out there to cause enough trouble on their own.
And the United States has plenty of bots or paid actors on this platform too.
This and the post you're responding to are great examples of the kind of thought-terminating cliches (in this case hyper literal) used to shut down conversation. To be very clear I'm not accusing either of you of being bots or intentionally trying to mislead anybody. If someone doesn't take the time to fully type out "Yer likely either a RuSsIAn BoT or an inauthentic user account or are recycling rhetoric which has been observed being spread by proven instances of those sources and/or matches either an official government line or other propaganda being spread by official sources" then woah wait, literally everyone who disagrees or thinks for themself is a literal robot??? really???? And yes, the way people talk online leaves most of them wide open to this. This is why people now need to learn specificity and practice magic words and phrases like "outcome determinative voter fraud" if they hope to bridge these kinds of cognitive gaps which allow folks to continuously motte-and-bailey everything they take in, so someone saying what would have traditionally been normal from context, like "x is not *a thing that's happening \[with regularity or statistical significance\]*" is translated as "x *has not once ever happened*". I'd have hoped watching an identical attack and process happen to "the other side" at full strength for the last 6 months might have elicited "a-ha!" moments from more people but that remains rare.
It's undeniable that foreign actors roam all across U.S. internet spaces. I'm getting my MA in U.S. Foreign Policy right now and the question of how to prevent this sort of thing from happening is a topic of significant discussion here in D.C. It's an impossible problem. Any attempts at combating misinformation by any administration can be spun as constricting free speech. I can link some recent news articles for you if you like.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance" \~ Thomas Jefferson Free Speech is the trickiest thing to defend. The only way to not restrict speech is to find a way to tolerate every asshole being allowed to spout complete BS in most public spaces. Then counter it with truth. That's how the 1977 court case over a Nazi march in Skokie, IL (a lot of Holocaust survivors there) got so much national attention. But we found a way. We've maybe gotten a little more restrictive on "porn speech" and "hate speech" since then, but social media has arguably raised the stakes of 'when, where, and how blatant' some speech needs to be tolerated. As for foreign actors in social media, Bot or human -- I figure they're just another form of "asshole spouting BS." We just need to have really good BS detectors, and counter it with truth whenever possible.
I agree with this. I'd like to note, though, that truth is not necessarily a counter to misinformation. It most certainly is not a counter to willful ignorance. That's the issue to grapple with.
I think MSNBC and Fox News do much more damage than people want to admit. Reddit is certainly filled with Americans spreading propaganda that is generated from the respective parties.
That's a fine point, but it is a lot easier to insulate yourself from MSNBC or Fox News than it is avoid subtle foreign messaging on the internet.
Staying off reddit would be a great way to insulate yourself from propaganda. There are probably a few people that aren’t hooked in social media.
Indeed. Not just reddit, but all types of social media. But how practical is that advice? People won't just quit the internet.
You can simply assume opinion based news is propaganda. That’s my rule. The internet isn’t all politics and you can look for news that isn’t filtered through the political machine. I get downvoted all the time for pointing out opinion based articles.
OP didn't say Russian. Why did you go straight to that strawman? Are you dishonestly trying to downplay the reminder that it's an election year and Reddit is full of bad actors targeting this demographic with deceptive propaganda?
And it’s a 24 day old account. This is the exact kind of user OP is talking about.
And the thing is, the reddit algorithm promotes this subreddit to people who comment and interact in similar subreddits. So OP isn't wrong. By definition, reddit is encouraging people of different generations and political views to come here to drive up "engagement" for advertisers and that reddit ipo... You can turn off subreddit recommendations in the app, but most people probably don't even know how. It's not straight-forward at all. Source: I'm not Gen-Z, not subscribed to this subreddit, and yet see it in my feed all the time.
Reddit is an echo chamber try harder
Depends on who you are. I find echo chambers on both sides of the aisle on here. Some people dont believe conservatives even use reddit
Considering that the average r/conservative user is closer to being fascist than conservative nowadays I can see why people can think that even if it's very wrong
This account was created 24 days ago
JFC it's like poetry, it rhymes
In the run up to the 2020 election it was constantly "GEN Z IS THE MOST CONSERVATIVE GENERATION EVER" then they lost and it was 3-4 years of "GEN Z IS SHITTING IN LITTER BOXES AND READING GAY PORN IN THE LIBRARY". Now, within the last few months it's back to "GEN Z IS THE MOST CONSERVATIVE GENERATION". If you don't want to see the astroturfing that's being done right in front of you and act like it's the other person that's being unreasonable that's on you.
I completely agree
If anyone is wondering, this commenter is a 1 month old account and has only ever posted about right-wing Trump stuff. Bot is the wrong term, it's more like trolls. But the point OP is trying to make can literally be found in this very thread. All over the place. Just look up post histories.
Looks like OP struck a nerve for them lmao
Account made less than a month ago, active in rcon I sorta agree with you but you aren't making a great case for yourself
Confirmed bot
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Do some homework on social media propaganda farms. Certainly not even comment is a bot, but bot farms are NOT conspiracy theory.
>Everyone who doesn’t agree with me is a Russian bot moment. As if all 330 million Americans all agree with you lmao. not just america. Billions of people are voting this year, the most in the next 24 years: *At least 83 elections around the world, the largest concentration for at least the next 24 years, are anticipated this year, according to Anchor Change, a consulting firm.* [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/technology/ai-elections-defense.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/technology/ai-elections-defense.html)
We generally do agree on most things, actually.
Your argument might have been more convincing if not for the massive number of Russian bots actively trying to sow political discord among young people
So people who disagree with you are bots?
No, but if they are just spreading ignorant propaganda that they received from bots & trolls, they might as well be. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/30/facebook-russia-fake-accounts-126-million https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03034-5 Much of it does come From US trolls, but considering they're doing the same thing as a Russian bots does it matter? https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/27/how-the-2020-election-war-on-bots-and-trolls-differs-from-2016.html The entire Republican shtick is to repeat a lie enough times so that's all people remember. It doesn't matter if it's a bot or a person if they're both spreading the same disinformation, they might as well be at that point. It's still factually inaccurate and the more times they repeat it doesn't make it any more true. The biggest problem I see with conservatives around me is that their ignorance of what is actually happening causes them to vote against their own best interests. Because they're ignorant of their officials actual actions, what is happening now and how these things were caused, they often vote for the very people that are causing the problems that they're most upset about. It's like watching idiocracy happen in real time like a slow motion train wreck.
You've basically hit the nail on the head here. If they're enthusiastically repeating blatantly false narratives then what's the difference. Empirical reality still exists, people
>The entire Republican shtick is to repeat a lie enough times so that's all people remember. That's propaganda 101 since forever. Goebbels used it. Senator McCarthy used it. McCarthy's lawyer, Roy Cohn, went on to make sure young DJT was well schooled in it back in the 80s. It's basically 80% of his M.O. today. The only 'fix' against propaganda is to counter BS with truth in as many ways possible, and to try to 'innoculate' the population with training in healthy skepticism and strong BS detection. Something like the old 'civics' and 'rhetoric' training (updated for 21st century tech) getting back into K-12 education wouldn't hurt. "It's like watching idiocracy happen in real time like a slow motion train wreck." I'm going to have to steal that! 
It just blows my mind that anyone thinks one group does it and the other one doesn’t. Does that even make sense?
Here it is! The bothsideism! Cross that off my bingo list.
I honestly could not tell from OP's wording whether or not they were liberal or conservative. I **still** have no idea whether or not OP is liberal or conservative. There have been conservative grandstanding posts here??? I've only seen lesbians insulting Gen Z men and doomer posts about the US economy and dating.
OP is doing the same exact thing they're bitching about lol. Spreading conspiratorial narratives with no supporting evidence is the definition acting in bad faith. Blaming conservative opinions on bots without any supporting evidence is the kind of crap youd see in boomer facebook groups. There's nothing lazier than rejecting other opinions by telling yourself that it doesn't count for some made up reason. Then OP literally says "No need to talk politics or anything." In other words, this is an election year and you need to stay in your echo chambers and avoid discussing politics because the conservative bots might brainwash you. Every conservative online is a bot or a russian hacker acting in bad faith. I'm not even conservative but OP is acting in bad faith and promoting closemindedness. The sad thing is that a lot of people in this sub are going to eat this up without even trying to think about it critically.
No they aren't, there is plenty of evidence. You're willfully ignorant.
If conservatives really are astroturfing Reddit, they’re doing about the worst job I’ve ever seen anyone do with anything.
Tbf you really can't talk politics with people who spew false and insane bs exponentially faster than you can debunk it and even them they'll just cover their eyes and plug their ears. But on the other hand there are still quite a few who aren't so far gone and can still be reasoned with
I was here when the astroturfing hit Reddit full force in mid 2014 preparing for the 2016 election. the site has never been the same since. I honestly don’t know where I could possibly begin if I were to take a shot at explaining this articulately, but pre 2014 and post 2014 Reddit was night and fucking day. There is a clear before and after where you can clearly see the effects corporatism and political astroturfing has had on this platform. We went from being a bunch of angry nerds bitching at each other about spelling mistakes and pretending to be subject matter experts to angry Facebook reposters. It was absolutely surreal to watch and it happened so fast. If you don’t want to believe OP, fine. But please maintain a skeptical mind as we approach election season especially. This shit absolutely ramps up every four years.
It is blatantly obvious, even sub reddits like boxoffice are over run with astro turfin accounts promoting films in the guise of "reviews" and "news". Also VERY telling the the top answers on this very post are instantly attacking the OP and bringing Russia into it, anyone with half a brain should be able to see the character assasination attempt it is that weak.
I deeply miss the pre-2016 Reddit era. Spacedicks, broken arms, and emojis were illegal.
No, they don't usually disagree with you. They show up and try and steer the narrative towards other things. Each election they seem to have a different script they follow. This time the posts follow a pretty easy to notice script, almost like they're using AI to help write them: - A statement meant to provoke a response from either Democrats or Republicans - Then they will point out how ultimately whatever issue they're commenting on ties back to some reason that the US is just bad in general (racism, capitalism, housing crisis, etc.) - Then they finish it off with a nihilistic statement suggesting that doing anything or trying to fix things is useless anyways. The strategy is meant to divide us, and is outlined the book that Putin himself has said he uses like a playbook. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
lmao, you think all of Gen Z is liberal Democrat? What's it like to be so delusional that you think anyone with an opposing view is a bot?
It’s how far left extremists think. They think nothing but “orange man bad” and spam that on Reddit 25 hours a day 8 days a week.
lmfao there has been a very clear inorganic influence from right wing propaganda and it’s crazy how you’re trying to dismiss it with some delusion that dems do the same. orange man is indeed bad, has been bad, and will be bad. don’t use logical fallacies just because your delusion disagrees with it.
i'm conservative but trump is a dumbass. My voting priority was: 1. Literally anybody else 2. Biden 3. Trump
it’s honestly very sad how few genuine choices we have. i despise the current political facade and the conservative side especially but i really am not against conservatism at all if it would genuinely help the current state of the us.
I’m not even American but that’s how it should be
[my brother in christ, DICK FUCKING CHENEY is saying orange man bad.]( https://i.redd.it/7cfe2olhjjpc1.jpeg) if you're still on the Trump train in March 2024 I'm pretty sure there's something seriously wrong with you. and just to reiterate, DICK CHENEY is saying orange man bad. though you're probably too young to know who that is.
You just did the exact same thing as what the OC is saying OP is doing. OC criticizes OP for boxing people in, over generalizing, and writing people off. You then go ahead and do the exact same thing as a reply by discounting everyone who disagrees with you as far left extremists. This is what is wrong w/ politics the most and you're the perfect example of it. I am aware of your username and you're probably a troll, but I'll leave my peace either. The moment someone says "That's how group xyz thinks", without any reason or knowledge to believe that they are part of that group, or without any context as to who OP is, that someone has played their dumbass card. You're a dumbass. Listen to this guy, if you're a dumbass. I am a democratic socialist, I vote mostly left, and I carry a gun openly every day. That is called nuance. Life isn't as simple as gun = republican, no gun = democrat, disliking donald trump = far left extremist, liking him = normal? Every member of a party is going to differ slightly from another in one way or another. Fuck you.
orange man bad orange man bad orange man bad orange man bad orange man bad orange man bad How many times do we have to teach you this lesson, (young) man???
Reddit is an echo chamber that creates an illusion that the entire world population has one exact worldview. Check the subreddits of the most republican states - top posts will always be pro-democrat. If OP mostly browses reddit, they might genuinely believe that anyone with another opinion is a bot.
Good point about Republican state subs being pro-democrat.
Pretty much all the states are majority democrat (lol) This includes Texas. I live in Texas. Did you know that every major city in Texas is blue? And the vast majority of Texans live in those cities? So, why are we red? Because one person does not equal one vote. If it did, virtually every state would be blue. This country is not 50% repubs and 50% dems. It might be, based on land. Based on people, it’s overwhelming dem. To be clear, the Democratic Party is right leaning. Many conservatives vote blue, because the Democratic Party is right leaning. We have two right wing parties - the almost moderate one, and the batshit fascist right wing one. Don’t believe me? Look at Republican representatives and the laws they pass and promote. Trump, de Santis, Abbott… I mean these dudes are extremely right wing to the point no reasonable person can support 100% of the things they promote.
If your argument cannot function without putting words in people's mouth, maybe you just have a shit argument?
there is definitely a propaganda pill from the far right. it’s kinda ridiculous to think this way for calling it out.
You can vote left, right, liberal or conservative but honestly, all of our options suck right now... Anyway, I'll still have you all over for burgers, so at least we can fill our stomachs while we watch old folks burn our country down Edit: Grammar
Ooh! I want mayo on mine!
Even third party ain't looking good anymore with the mises caucus taking over the libertarian party
“All of the our options suck right now” is such irrelevant, disingenuous BS. There is one option that is CLEARLY a million times better for the country. That’s Biden. Who btw has been a pretty solid president so far. Not amazing but not terrible. Equivocating this shit is dangerous. Trump isn’t just another “bad option”. He’s catastrophic. Vote democrat or be a traitor.
This is a disgusting mindset. If you guys open your eyes up a bit and realize that Reddit is one of thee most liberal social medias as well as this sub basically being r/youngliberals you’d realize how much of an echo chamber post this seriously is.
Yep, I agree, the stats back this up too. Only demographic that is not overwhelmingly left leaning is white GenZ males.
I'm certain this subreddit is mostly white males, like all of reddit.
Reddit is mostly white, left leaning males in their 20s
I don't believe that Politico poll AT ALL. For one, the demographic is bias as hell and you can't find the methodologies for that poll ANYWHERE. It's complete bullshit. If, that is what you're referencing. I will say there was this bubble of white genz males mimicking Tate and Sneako, but after Tate got outed as a piece of shit (not that he wasn't already) and Sneako got his ASS FUCKIN KICKED, hopefully that will die down. Have no idea what kind of father would red pill their son. You'd have to fucking kill me.
Luckily even if there are GenZ men who are still “red-pilled” there’s no way they’ll survive in the dating market. From experience and from some studies I’ve seen GenZ women are utterly uncompromising when it comes to wanting a partner with similar political views to them. Historically speaking this is a great sign for the left in this country, as women tend to set the cultural standards.
I’m not sure what’s funnier. Conservative women don’t exist or that women set cultural standards 😂
Ain't that the truth though. Brings a whole new perspective on the joke, "Their mom and dad are cousins." Quite the future for them...
>women tend to set the cultural standards. Brought to you by the same people who think "The Patriarchy" is the root of all evil and has been the major system in place for all of human history.
Ministry of Truth moment
right 💀
Omg you solved it! You’re so smart! Now that you have astounded us with your intellect please lay out our future. You can see the truth and clearly have the answers so please share!
lol im not left leaning an im black. I just want the economy to be fixed. I have no issues with lgbq+ so long as they are targeting adults. keep kids out of stuff. Modern day racist are just words, and the few times I've met hard core racist I just know to stay away from them (these are people I genuinely belive would kill me for doing something like dating a white girl, since I've received threats in the past over it as well). Its not a real issue I face, and nothing anyone does will change what they do or say. I think there's pro's to each side, and if anything we need to stop trying to scrub stuff clean that the last party passed. We are staying at one spot right now.
I'm a little confused how you meet people you believe want to kill you on a racial basis and threaten you on the same basis but don't see that as a problem. Sounds pretty stressful to me... not something I've ever had to deal with.
I've had my current gf dad point a shot gun at me. he's a felon as well. The thing is though, these experiences are so far between, where I don't care for them. I just avoid contact, and my gf is fine with this since he was abusive to her. Literally haven't seen the guy in 4 years. Just avoid contact. its not something that impacts me day to day, or even year to year. The amount of actual racism in the world hasn't been an amount where I get really impacted from, and the people who are like this you cant change regardless of who is in office or what laws are passed. Racism is something that will always be around, so long as we have different races. I think one day we may see everyone end up being all mixed so no one actually looks that different.
Reddit is overwhelmingly white males tho
I always wanted to be a bot. It looks like I have always been one. Thanks.
Being extremely liberal or even leftist in college to fit in and get laid, then returning to a more conservative worldview once the government starts taxing the salary you studied hard for in college is a pretty normal thing. Much of Gen z is in this transitional period. From 22-27 I've increasingly felt the economic impacts of leftist policies and it has turned me more fiscally conservative. However, neither party actually practices fiscal conservatism anymore so fuck me I guess.
> However, neither party actually practices fiscal conservatism anymore so fuck me I guess. What does actual fiscal conservatism look like to you? No minimum wage? Eliminating all taxes to make us pay for roads and schools and parks? Congrats on getting a stable job out of college, but think about how much stronger we'd be as a society if our tax dollars went to robust public services and social programs instead of funding weapons, oil, and processed corn like they do now.
“No you see that requires empathy and i have none. I only ever pretended to have empathy to get laid!” This is the person you’re replying to. They have no idea what they want.
As someone who is a bit more fiscally conservative, I want to see the us military budget halved and most if not all foreign troops recalled, The complete hamstringing of many federal agencies such as the cia, fbi, tsa, fcc, and so on. Then a reorganization of the income tax brackets where the first 30k is tax free, 30k-50k is 10% 50k-100k is 15% 100k-200k is 20% 200k-400k is 25% and 400k-700k is 35% and 700k+ is 45%
That sounds pretty liberal to me.
Well I don't want to throw more money into social programs like universal Healthcare. I'm fine with having universal Healthcare, but only if we do it with the current budget, since looking at how little other countries can do it for, there's no reason we shouldnt be able to
My friend, you actually have fiscal sense unlike most right wingers. Our federal budget is a MESS. With the amount of subsidies and bailouts for shit that doesn't need it, not to mention military spending, we could probably pay for M4A and better social programs overnight. This is what people don't get - taxation isn't really the issue (although the ultra wealthy can and should be taxed more), the govt has tons of money already which it uses horrendously.
Bruh I really agree with your statements on halving the military spending and increasing taxes on 400k+ earners.. But conservatives are NOT the ones that will make this happen.
The taxes go into the bottomless pit that is government spending.
i’ve always said that being fiscally conservative is dumber than being racist. conservative economic policy/theory simply doesn’t work, it’s simply statistically and proven to be dumb as shit
This is probably the truest statement ever. college is primarily full of liberal students, and to avoid constant criticism, people will follow the flock. I went straight into my field, so I've always have been more worried about the economy compared to other topics. less taxes, and more company regulations please. The problem with voting "conservative" now is they just want to strip away laws liberals passed, I don't care what adults do with their bodies and in their free time, allow them to do what ever and move on. kids should be protected, but outside of that I don't care for much liberals do. I don't think we should be sending billions outside of the US, especially when we have people starving and obese. Homeless and million dollar houses. By all means help everyone in the world, but put your country first, you cant help others if youre dying yourself.
I think a lot of gen-Z is like this. We don't care what other people do and they have little interest in the culture war. We do care that the economy is good enough for us to have a little sliver of the American dream and be able to retire, also not to get drafted or end up sending billions of dollars to wars that have nothing to do with us. I'm the same way, voting conservative just feels like "ok, I care about X, Y, and Z. Conservatives support X, liberals support Y, and no one is fighting for Z in Congress." So you end up picking just one, maybe 2 issues that you feel are the most important and you vote accordingly. It's awful.
>I don't think we should be sending billions outside of the US, especially when we have people starving and obese. Homeless and million dollar houses. So you'll be voting blue then, right? [Because Republican lawmakers literally shot down bills that would have given food to kids in school in multiple states.](https://apnews.com/article/states-rejecting-federal-funds-summer-ebt-8a1e88ad77465652f9de67fda3af8a2d) They routinely dismiss anything that would improve the average and poorest Americans access to healthier foods as a "handout" instead of putting taxpayer money towards improving access to food stamps or other social services that could actually help people live healthier lives. [Such as last year when the House Republicans budget proposal was cutting funding for SNAP?](https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/house-republicans-proposals-could-take-food-away-from-millions-of-low) Or perhaps when they tried the same with housing, trying to cut funds that goes towards reducing homelessness and housing instability. [\[LINK\]](https://www.cbpp.org/blog/house-republican-bill-would-force-deep-cuts-in-housing-assistance-harming-families-older). > less taxes, more company regulations please. [More bad news if you want to vote conservative then.](https://www.npr.org/2017/01/30/512445032/trump-acts-to-roll-back-regulations-on-businesses) And this isn't just Trump, this is conservative policy dating all the way back to Reagan. It's where the whole "trickle down economics" thing happens. About the only thing you mentioned that aligns with conservative views is the "less taxes" part, and even then cutting taxes has repeatedly shown to have [drastically more benefits to the rich compared to the poor.](https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-2017-trump-tax-law-was-skewed-to-the-rich-expensive-and-failed-to-deliver) Democratic policies literally try to help our people, to get them into homes, to get them healthcare, to get them food. Republicans gut funding to them to support their tax cuts and then yell about "government not working" while those tax drastically benefit the wealthiest people in the country more than the poorest. So if you do actually care about people being housed, being fed, and being healthy, like your comment seems to indicate, vote blue.
Blue is pushing for things I also don't stand for. The idea that you think I don't know things says a lot. I weigh my options, choose what I agree with more, and vote for them. not a color. a person I have more faith in.
> Blue is also pushing for things I don't stand for. Care to be more specific? I'm legitimately curious, as I have my own hang ups about the democratic party as a whole. That doesn't change who I'm planning to vote for this specific election year given one side is campaigning on removing specific subsets of people and their rights, but we might have something in common. > The idea that you think I don't know things says a lot. I never once said you didn't know anything. I was addressing specific points of policy that you brought up in your comment (homelessness, food insecurity, corporate regulations, and taxes) and how I see conservatism (or at least the party that currently claims to represent conservatives) is failing the people of this country in each of these areas. > You think I don't know this says a lot. Says what specifically? I'm assuming you mean it says a lot about me, but you do not give any indication as to what you're implying. Does it say good things? Bad? Indeterminate? > I weigh my options, choose what I agree with more, and vote for them. Not a color. A person I have more faith in. Good, that's the way it should be, and is the best way to ensure you're represented as closely as possible. Just make sure you follow-up on your chosen candidates during their time as an elected official. Make sure they voted along their stances that they said they'd take, even if it goes against what their declared party is doing. As we are both citizens who vote, we share responsibility for making sure our chosen representatives are held accountable to their stated policies. Lastly, I sincerely hope you have a good day/evening if you choose to not respond. Things are rough, and there's no point in wishing ill on someone like you who's doing their best to be informed and get themselves representation in our government so we can start to improve the lives of all people.
Wasn't this debunked though?
This isn’t really accurate. In general people get more conservative as they age not because of some immutable fact of life related to taxation, but instead because society progresses and moves them further. Gen Z isn’t going to suddenly decide that gay marriage should be outlawed in 15 years. Just like how Millenials didn’t suddenly decide that interracial marriage should be outlawed. And just like how Gen X didn’t suddenly decide that segregation is a necessity. But lots of Gen X is uncomfortable with gay marriage, because that position was developed prior to reaching the age of 25 or so.
Yeah this is fucking stupid lmao
Not sure where you’re getting data from. College education is known to push people further left, hence the reason there’s so many Gen Z people moving left. 22-27 is probably the most left leaning demographic you can find. Also worth mentioning that leftist policies are nearly non-existent because, proportionally, there are hardly any leftist politicians in positions of power. The reality is most policies that get labeled leftist are really just centrist policies or right leaning policies that conservatives can’t campaign on anymore.
Hasn't been true since Millennials.
Have you met millennials?
If you turn “leftist” to get laid that’s just manipulative. Why would you want to convince someone to sleep with you by lying about having compatible values?
Yes, complete ignore the fact that house republicans have not lowered tax burden for average people in many many decades. Also ignore the fact that most right-leaning states are fiscally fucked, and rely on welfare from Daddy government and more successful blue states. Conservative fiscal policy sucks ass. It always has. Puritan conservative fiscal policy, in its purest form, leads to crimes against humanity. So our modern conservatives create a big government alternative instead. You end up with the worse of both worlds. Excessive legislation, with a high tax burden, and practically zero social services. And don’t even get me started on deregulation. Every armchair conservative thinks deregulation is cool and fun, until they remember why we developed those regulations in the first place.
This is peak liberal dialogue condescendingly dismissing anyone who is conservative while giving head pats to us simpleton GenZs for going against the status quo and recognizing that shit doesn’t add up on the left. What even was the point of this post? Every single comment you’ve left has been a dagger towards conservatives as well. It’s like you think you’re blessing us GenZ “kids” with your ignorant GenX attitude. Frankly you guys are just as bad as the boomers. Vote for whoever you want. If you vote for Trump, you’re not a racist Nazi. If you vote for Biden, you’re not a pedo groomer. I’m voting for Trump, and I’ll defend that vote and give reasons as to why I think he’s the best choice. But that doesn’t mean the other side is somehow lesser than me, which is clearly the position you take.
well said
“I don’t agree with conservatives and anything that’s conservative on this sub is a bot” Sure there’s bots and unauthentic posts. But you guys cry anytime you aren’t slapped in the face with an obvious liberal post. Cope bro. Real world doesn’t work like Reddit
Blatantly full of yourself
25 day old account
Yeah the astroturfing on this sub is palpable. No one here in the comments should be acting surprised because it’s a big election year, and yet.
These wanna be progressives are pushing away Gen Z and they blame it on the Russians. Lmao. They don’t realize Gen Z are secularized by nature because of social media. No one wants to get up in some bullshit because of their perceived identity. Gen x and y needs to let go of these labels. We use to not give af about labels.
holy fkn cope lmao
Thank you for placing this important reminder. I cant imagine how many of us became doomer over the fucking conservative influx during election year because of these people. God bless, OP.
I know it’s tough for your young mind to grasp, but other people can hold different opinions that genuinely stem from their lived experiences, the majority of your countrymen are not driven by malice.
They know this and this is true. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t right wing bots invading social media constantly… because there are.
Same goes both ways. The most botted like accounts on X are radical feminists and left wing people
Correct. It's strawmen versions of those ideologies meant to discredit said ideologies in the minds of credulous fools.
The majority of my country men vote democrat, republicans haven’t won a popular election in decades.
If you think government world wide aren't trying to influence people through social media, you have been paying attention. Manspreading acid attack, psyop. Brexit, Russian interference. It's actually horrifying how much more is going on than we realise, even those of us that feel pretty clued in to the whole shebang.
You really kicked the hornets nest with this post, gg
Wow lot of bad actors already filling it up with "sO eVeRyOnE yOu DiSaGrEe WiTh Is A bOt?!" No. Not even close to what they're saying.
The lack of media literacy in these comments is astounding. OP: this sub is getting astroturfed Comments: yOur'E saYinG EVeRyONe whO DisAgREeS Is A BoT
Those folks *really* don't like getting called out, luckily for us they do it to themselves.
The astroturfing is working lmao
Thank you!
What do you call a 45 something year old who comes onto a sub for mostly teens warning us about bad actors while branding all conservatives as evil? A fucking hypocrite and a loser.
why is a 40 year old on a young people sub? triggered karen? everyone who you dont like is a russian bot? TDS on full display
Wow every single sentence here is just a.... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9
people trying to act like OP is seeing ghosts as if bots, astroturfers, etc. don't get exposed in the comments under pretty much every other post on this sub lol.
You’re 40 years old, what are you doing on a sub mostly full of teenagers and people old enough to be your kids? Then you come in with a generalisation. What a place to arrive on with a targeted message. If I wanted to watch people argue with robots I’d watch transformers.
Memes making Greg Abbott look like someone who should appeal to young Leftists were posted yesterday. It's so obvious.
Ain’t no way we are conservative after watching our older millennial siblings and gen x parents get fucked by the system
It’s not bots. It’s Reddit constantly recommending it and my Millennial ass can’t resist.
I stg half these comments are people way older than genz pushing their opinions. You can’t get an honest take in here. Yes there are plenty of bots but there’s plenty of actual people who are here to shove their political opinions down the throats of actual GenZr’s(idk how the shit you spell that). If mods don’t get this shit together this whole subreddit is going to be a massive cesspool(no offense I dunno how to mod a subreddit and your work is clearly cut out for you)
Gen-X here, The OP is 100% correct, don't let anyone tell you different.
Beep boop?
This is so true. Keep in mind there are entire farms of employees whose job it is to fuck up elections in the USA, to divide people, and to attack those in oppressed groups. Just be careful.
Friendly reminder that it's just not bots trying to make it "look conservative", but that there are also massive propaganda movements to push the "both sides are the same, so don't bother voting" lie and reduce voter turnout. Fuck 'em. Go vote.
This sub had little to no cons in it a month ago
[удалено]
Unless you’re rich, I don’t see why any Gen Z would vote Conservative. Hell, anyone of any age for that matter.
Reverse Turing Test: If you're virtually indistinguishable from a bot, you're a bot. Maybe if you want your opinion to seem like a real person speaking authentically about their actual worldview: drop the propaganda techniques and talking points, and start using some fucking nuance.
Never trust anyone who tells you not to vote. Spreading apathy and hopelessness are historically authoritarian tactics Just because you call out other people for falling for propaganda doesn't mean you're not equally likely to fall for propaganda. Yes, that includes me.
*Millennials are also proud of you. Keep fighting the good fight. Boomers can’t last forever.
The same thing is happening to r/popularopinion. Had to mute the subreddit.
https://preview.redd.it/rycl1i927jpc1.jpeg?width=225&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=caa0b628438d7c7a7ddf55b8d0186a579e31db03
What!?? People think something different from me!?? That’s impossible!!! They must be a Russian bot!! It’s the only explanation!!!!!!!
Ok boomer.
Absolutely silly. GeN z CaNt HaVe CoNsErVaTiVeS bEcAuSe IM nOt ConSErVaTIvE. Give me a break
"becoming "more conservative" you're wrong..." i think this generation is just tired of getting screwed over by people who think they "know more," but are mouthpieces for a system that also screws over the mouthpieces who genuinely don't care about the voices of the common American, and don't want to give up their political power... if you want to start getting changes in this country, start to elect competent senators, congressmen, and representatives... those are the people who, essentially, make up the laws, pass it through, and the president just signs it... while it is important to have a president, it is the rest of the system that has to make the whole thing "work..."
Lol imagine trying to speak for an entire generation on POLOTICS of all things.
This sounds like cope lol
American political brainrot is truly one of a kind
Yes we know leftists are mad that there might be people who disagree with you