Brexit

Comment Deleted by Site Moderator

How well informed do you consider yourself to be?

comment by it'sonlyagame (U6426)
posted 8 minutes ago
How well informed do you consider yourself to be?
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Not well enough to know that that was Denzel Washington and not Morgan Freeman

I think Cummins was very astute and clever in many areas
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I don't think Cummings is anything close to being the genius he thinks he is.

He's very driven, he's good at simplifying sound-bites, and he's good with social-media. It's a limited skill-set, but very valuable for elections. But if you read his blog, it's a mess, & more oddball than genius, from where I'm sitting.

I don't think "low-information" is just more polite, it's more accurate. "Intelligence" is a much more complex concept than we like to pretend. Exam results and IQ tests are an over-simplification, and tend to favour the kind of people who devise the tests (though they may be useful for some functions for which we don't have anything better).

A friend of mine has few academic qualifications, but her emotional intelligence is amazing. She can pick up signals from people, about what's troubling them, or what's informing their relationships, in no time flat.

We don't value that kind of intelligence because it's not easily commodified, but the insights she picks up from it are astonishing, and always turn out to be true.
It's instinctive, and I suspect we could find valuable uses for it (other than just 'psychologist' ).

Equally, I play football with some highly qualified people whose spatial intelligence on a football pitch is appalling, and with other, lowly-qualified people who instinctively know where to run, and when.

I don't even like to classify intelligence, I think we're only in the foot-hills of even defining what it is.

comment by Jobyfox (U4183)
posted 41 minutes ago
comment by Wessie Road (U10652)
posted 20 minutes ago
"Metropolitan elite" was a term coined by Cummings (or his aides) to disparage the big cities which mostly supported Remain.

It's a nonsense phrase: you can't have an elite consisting of half the electorate. And it was coined by people who went to public school and had influential jobs, and er...lived in cities.

But the one talent Cummings has is the ability to simplify messaging, like that nonsense on the side of the bus. He doesn't care if it's true, or if it stands up to any scrutiny, he just wants a clear message that sets a tone. And it works.

It's a nonsense, but we've reached a point in electioneering strategy where the tone of the messaging mattters more than any actual message.

I don't think intelligence comes into it.
I think there is such a thing as folk-wisdom, and that it's a valid ballast for over-analysis. But the level of gas-lighting, aided by social media, has thrown a grenade into the middle of it, and people are voting for mirages.

British democracy was widely admired until relatively recently, but it's not coping very well with a divided electorate (as per the post-referendum fiasco), and is now widely regarded as a comical sh1t-show.

Unless there's radical reform, I'm not optimistic.
The UK is deeply fragmented, along several different lines (as is the ruling party), and if anything, the dividing lines are growing deeper, and the fragments smaller.
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I think Cummins was very astute and clever in many areas. His use of Cambridge Analytica to target individuals through social media with simple, respectable, soundbites was genius. Many were manipulated without even knowing it.

I’m not sure about the comment about intelligence though. It does make a difference. The political strategy of targeting the stupid masses or, more politely termed, low information voters is not a new phenomenon. It’s just that now those people are directly reachable through social media in a way that they never were before. For example: a shared list of ten reasons to leave the EU could often easily be deconstructed with carefully presented facts - but they simply aren’t as persuasive as simple, fatuous, soundbites that have already been shared a million times.
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https://bylinetimes.com/2020/09/30/trump-cummings-and-cambridge-analytica-the-digital-threat-to-democracy/

Comment Deleted by Site Moderator

comment by Michael, this isn't right. 😭 (U10408)
posted 13 minutes ago

Informed on news and ideas, but not enough to conclusively side with many issues.
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I don't see a problem with siding, but not to the extent that you refuse to question your own beliefs and positions.

Comment Deleted by Site Moderator

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/09/30/trump-cummings-and-cambridge-analytica-the-digital-threat-to-democracy
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The thing about this stuff is that the tabloids have been doing it for years, and we're so used to it, nobody bats an eyelid.

OK, social media is more targeted, and less visible (though there's some debate as to how effective it really is), but if you're leader of any party that they don't approve of (and usually there's only one party they approve of), you and your family are going to get trashed, usually with complete BS.

I was no fan of Milliband, I think he's a dork, but the stuff about his Dad and his wife was disgusting, and had the same aim of voter-suppression as Cambridge Analytica are now being criticised for.

comment by Michael, this isn't right. 😭 (U10408)
posted 12 minutes ago
comment by it'sonlyagame (U6426)
posted 6 minutes ago
comment by Michael, this isn't right. 😭 (U10408)
posted 13 minutes ago

Informed on news and ideas, but not enough to conclusively side with many issues.
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I don't see a problem with siding, but not to the extent that you refuse to question your own beliefs and positions.
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Right. But I think we are seeing less and less of the questioning these days... or is that just social media. 🤷‍♂️
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I don't know. I barely use them.