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Researchers Develop Online Game That Teaches Players How To Spread Misinformation

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Cambridge researchers have built an online game, simply titled Bad News, in which players compete to become "a disinformation and fake news tycoon." By shedding light on the shady practices, they hope the game will "vaccinate" the public, and make people immune to the spread of untruths. Players of the fake news game must amass virtual Twitter followers by distorting the truth, planting falsehoods, dividing the united, and deflecting attention when rumbled. All the while, they must maintain credibility in the eyes of their audience. The game distills the art of undermining the truth into six key strategies. Once a player has demonstrated a knack for each, they are rewarded with a badge. In one round, players can opt to impersonate the president of the United States and fire off a tweet from a fake account. It declares war on North Korea complete with a #KimJongDone hashtag. At every step, players are asked if they are happy with their actions or feel, perhaps, the twinge of shame, an emotion that leads to the swift reminder that "if you want to become a master of disinformation, you've got to lose the goody two-shoes attitude." The work is due to be published in the Journal of Risk Research.

54 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Soooo ... by c6gunner · · Score: 4, Funny

    They reinvented twitter?

    1. Re:Soooo ... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Interesting

      With learning feedback, improving your disinformation skills. What could possibly go wrong?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  2. The people playing this game... by StevenMaurer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...aren't the ones who need "vaccination".

    1. Re:The people playing this game... by TimMD909 · · Score: 1

      ...aren't the ones who need "vaccination".

      I have vaccine for chemtrails if you'll pay for my Arduino and stepper motors... seems like a fair trade.

    2. Re:The people playing this game... by asylumx · · Score: 1

      What time & effort? For me, at least, it was just a little prick in the arm. I deal with little pricks all the time so it was just a normal day.

  3. Re:People are too stupid by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 2

    People are simply too stupid. The human species developed technology without wisdom, and killed itself. It's all over.

    It's not over yet. Those who manage to survive will learn from our mistakes. Humanity is the ultimate weed: killing all of us is quite a task. Just to hedge our bets, hopefully, Mars colonization and terraforming will take off in this century.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  4. Re:People are too stupid by TimMD909 · · Score: 1

    People are simply too stupid. The human species developed technology without wisdom, and killed itself. It's all over.

    Are you always this optimistic? You must have girls lining up at the door to be this positive about life.

  5. Re: People are too stupid by Falos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "If you're not reading news, you're uninformed.
    If you're reading news, you're misinformed."

    I assume the message is to make your own determinations from aggregate data, to not simply parrot like a mental human centipede.

    Ironically, a Retweet does exactly that.

  6. They have had this since 2003 by mdhoover · · Score: 1

    The game is called EvE Online

    If it is good enough for economic modelling, it sure is good enough for modelling "Fake News"

  7. Facebook will sue them by bobstreo · · Score: 1

    for infringing on their business model and trade secrets.

  8. Flawed Premise by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 1

    Gamers already know how to manipulate people, that's what multiplayer gaming is all about.

  9. Re: People are too stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    This is exactly the attitude the assholes are looking to create. No, you don't have to discount everything you haven't seen with your own eyes.

    Actual fake news, the bad shit, was the "Obama is a secret Muslim", "Clinton pedophile ring," horse shit that got spread around by conspiracy nuts.

    Trump took the description and made it his catchphrase to discredit stories he doesn't like.

    Just don't share conspiracy theories, for God's sake never watch Fox News, understand that MSNBC and the Daily Show will show you the perspective that fits their story, and otherwise just watch with a critical eye. It's not hard. It's not any different than what you've always had to do.

  10. Monopoly was created like this, and failed by aberglas · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The original game was created by anti-monopolist Elizabeth Magie to awaken people to the danger of uncontrolled capitalism -- in the game money always goes to money. But the effect was exactly the opposite, it encouraged capitalistic thinking.

    This game should be called "the Joy of Fake News".

    Incidentally, I wish the SJWs would never have coined the term, and would stop using it. Trump et. al. has done an excellent job of turning it around to mean anything they disagree with.

    1. Re:Monopoly was created like this, and failed by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1, Insightful

      That poll has 14% of Republicans trusting the media

      That's a higher percentage of journalists that were Republicans in 2014

      https://www.washingtonpost.com...

      What's happened is that the media have essentially given up on the pretense that they're objectively report on the news and instead decide to report on stories that fit their narrative as emotionally as possible and ignore ones that don't.

      So after a mass shooting CNN will get a bunch of kids on to demand gun control. They don't do the analogous think when an illegal immigrant killed Kathryn Steinle. Or when a Omar Mateen shoot up a gay bar. It's not like they get crying, photogenic kiddies on to demand a travel ban, border wall or an end to sanctuary cities.

      And the thing is once you know the double standard it's impossible to take CNN seriously as a news source anymore. That's not to say everything they say is fake, rather there are a lot of true things they will never say. And a lot of the things they do say are are too heavy on emotion and too light on facts.

      For example the left wing Washington Post fact checked Marco Rubio's claim that gun control would not have stopped mass shootings and found it was true

      https://www.washingtonpost.com...

      Will CNN present that as a counter point to the kids yelling "Hey, hey NRA! How many kids have you killed today?" ( The answer obviously being "Zero", unlike Planned Parenthood). Yeah, don't hold your breath. The Democrats know this of course which is why they didn't even try to implement gun control when they last had control of all three branches of government.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    2. Re:Monopoly was created like this, and failed by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, it is a reaction to the mainstream media outright lying. They've been caught so many times it's ridiculous, and here you are parroting the line that it doesn't exist. Glenn Thrush, the former senior staff writer at Politico was exposed by WikiLeaks as he ran an article by Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta prior to publishing. What was his punishment? He was hired by The New York Times as a political correspondent.

      Calling fake news fake news is fake news, according to the fake news. Journalists spread fake news all the time, whenever it satisfies their emotional needs and validates their pre-existing political biases. It's very menacing if journalists with the loudest claim to authoritative credibility are abusing their positions constantly to entrench falsehoods in the public's mind. Four Viral Claims Spread by Journalists on Twitter in the Last Week Alone That Are False.

      Recently, four big scoops were run by major news organizations â" written by top reporters and presumably churned through layers of scrupulous editing â" that turned out to be completely wrong: Reuters, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and others reported that the special counsel's office had subpoenaed Donald Trump's records from Deutsche Bank. They weren't. ABC reported that Trump had directed Michael Flynn to make contact with Russian officials before the election. He didn't. The New York Times ran a story that showed K.T. McFarland had acknowledged collusion. She didn't. Then CNN topped off the week by falsely reporting that the Trump campaign had been offered access to hacked Democratic National Committee emails before they were published.

      Forget your routine bias, these were four bombshells disseminated to millions of Americans by breathless anchors, pundits, and analysts, all of them feeding frenzied expectations about collusion that have now been internalized as indisputable truths by many. All four pieces, incidentally, are useless without their central faulty claims. Yet there they sit. And these are only four of dozens of other stories that have fizzled over the year.

      If we are to accept the special pleadings of journalists we have to believe these were all honest mistakes. They may be. But a person might then ask, why is it that every one of the dozens of honest mistakes are prejudiced in the very same way? Why hasn't there been a single major honest mistake that diminishes the Trump-Russia collusion story? Why is there never an honest mistake that indicts Democrats?

      When all the errors are in the bank's favor, you can be forgiven for thinking there's more at work than sloppy arithmetic.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    3. Re:Monopoly was created like this, and failed by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Wow, SJWs coined the term fake news? Is there anything you can't blame them for?

      Of course there isn't, because the definition of SJW is "someone I disagree with", i.e. it's a tool for allocating blame to whoever the reader despises. It's brilliant because it doesn't matter who the reader is, you don't have to guess what their political leanings are.

      They just assume the SJWs you were speaking of are whoever they blame for everything, and you get a knowing nod from all sides.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  11. It was bound to happen by grasshoppa · · Score: 2

    Someone went and actually built a better idiot.

    --
    Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
  12. Practice Makes Perfect by freudigst · · Score: 1

    Wow, if the kids could only practice long enough, they might become half as good at it as the mass media and U.S. government itself!

    I mean, how else are you going to cover up the pedophilia of your leading ranks and convince the public to risk vaccinating their own children, for nothing?

    Indoctrinate yourselves while you still can!

  13. Re:Politics simulator by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    "So, it's a politics simulator then?"

    It's called FoxSim.

  14. Liberals fact check, Conservatives don't. by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 3, Insightful

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/p...

    Horner was known for writing false stories and disseminating internet hoaxes that often went viral on Facebook and hoodwinked thousands of people.

    They included a story falsely claiming former President Obama was gay and a radical Muslim, and another saying protesters were being paid thousands of dollars to demonstrate at Donald Trump's campaign rallies.

    Horner took on greater prominence during the presidential election when false stories were widely shared on social media during the race between Trump and Hillary Clinton.

    In an interview with The Washington Post in 2016, Horner said he thought Trump won the White House because of him. Horner said Trump's supporters didn't fact-check his stories before posting them. ...

    The fake news mill over seas said the same thing. Liberals fact checked stories so the stories couldn't get traction. So after a short time, all their stories were targeted at convervatives.

    Like Mulder, conservatives wanted to believe.

    --
    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    1. Re:Liberals fact check, Conservatives don't. by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Liberals fact checked stories so the stories couldn't get traction.

      Quick, how many school shootings have there been this year so far? What would you believe if you just looked at Facebook and Twitter postings int he last few days?

      --
      The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
    2. Re:Liberals fact check, Conservatives don't. by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 2

      Interesting you brought that up. The graphic showing an incredible number of school shootings came thru our political discussion site and was *immediately* fact checked.

      https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DW...

      The data behind that graphic was posted within minutes...

      https://www.snopes.com/2018/02...

      [q]Firearm attacks during school hours: 7 (incidents resulting in injuries or deaths: 5)

      22 January: Italy High School, Italy, Texas â" A 16-year-old student opened fire with a semi-automatic handgun in the school cafeteria, wounding another student.

      22 January: NET Charter High School, Gentilly, Louisiana â" An unknown person fired shots at students from a vehicle in the school parking lot. One person was injured (though not by gunfire).

      23 January: Marshall County High School, Benton, Kentucky â" A 15-year-old student opened fire with a handgun on school grounds, killing two and injuring 17.

      25 January: Murphy High School, Mobile, Alabama â" A student fired a handgun into the air during a fight with another student. No injuries were reported.

      26 January: Dearborn High School, Dearborn, Michigan â" Shots were fired during a fight in the school parking lot. No injuries were reported.

      31 January: Lincoln High School, Philadelphia â" A fight during a basketball game resulted in the shooting death of a 32-year-old man outside the school.

      14 February: Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Parkland, Florida â" A 19-year-old former student opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle, killing 17 and injuring 14.

      Firearm attacks NOT occurring during school hours: 2 (incidents resulting in injuries or deaths: 2)

      20 January: Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina â" A 21-year-old was shot and killed during a fight at a party on school grounds.

      5 February: â" Oxon Hill High School, Oxon Hill, Maryland â" A student was shot and injured in the school parking lot during an attempted robbery.

      Shots fired during school hours, unknown reason: 2 (no injuries)

      10 January: California State University, San Bernardino, California â" Bullets were fired through a window, with no suspects or motive identified.

      8 February: Metropolitan High School, New York, NY â" A student fired a gun into the floor of a classroom.

      Unintentional gunfire during school hours: 3 (incidents resulting in injuries or deaths: 1)

      10 January: Greyson College, Denison, Texas â" A student fired a weapon belonging to an adviser, believing it wasnâ(TM)t loaded. No injuries were reported.

      1 February: Salvador B. Castro Middle School, Los Angeles â" A semi-automatic rifle brought to school by a 12-year-old student accidentally went off. Four students were injured.

      5 February: Harmony Learning Center, Maplewood, Minnesota â" A third-grader pressed the trigger of a law enforcement officerâ(TM)s handgun. The weapon went off but no one was injured.

      Suicide attempts during school hours: 1 (resulting in death)

      10 January: Coronado Elementary School, Sierra Vista, Arizona â" A middle school student shot himself in the bathroom of the school and was pronounced dead at the scene.

      Stray bullets hitting school buildings during school hours: 1 (no injuries)

      4 January: New Start High School, near Seattle â" Bullets fired by an unidentified shooter entered an administrative office. No injuries were reported.

      Stray bullets hitting school buildings NOT occurring during school hours: 1 (no injuries)

      15 January: Wiley College, Marshall, Texas â" Gunshots fired from a vehicle in the parking lot of a college dorm entered through a window, but did not injure residents.

      Even tho liberals are against guns, more are for factual data.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    3. Re:Liberals fact check, Conservatives don't. by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      Your statement is in direct contradiction to what I just did above which was to post the misleading news and then post the actual data.

      I also recommend watching and listening to a wide range of media. However, Fox has basically descended to a propaganda arm.. Frequently, when the entire world is presenting a news story, they completely ignore it (suppress it really) so people who rely on Fox only are not even aware the event occured.

      Wapo, The Economist, and the NY times are better sources than CNN and MSNBC. MSNBC actually has a fairly pro-wealthy bias. They'll talk about how you can't raise taxes on the "job creators" (in the face of evidence that the "job creators" mostly invest in China- and any investment in the west is mostly in government bonds).

      Two of the major creators of fake news said liberals don't bite and conservative/mr. trump fans do. One made thousands of dollars a month based on that observation. You can't ignore that fact.

      I used to be a conservative. Their hypocrisy and lying drove me from the republican party halfway thru my voting life.

      The so-called "fiscal conservatives" are already on target to add 7.8 trillion dollars to the debt. If this goes on, we are on track for them to add 32 trillion dollars to the debt.

      (and fact checking that- it looks like it's exploded since I read the prior article. Now it's 8.7 to 10 trillion dollars in new debt (just over 1 year into the Trump presidency).

      https://www.cnsnews.com/news/a...

      https://www.brookings.edu/opin...

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    4. Re:Liberals fact check, Conservatives don't. by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      A more nuanced position would be...

      Enough conservatives pass on stories without fact checking them that demonstrably false stories proliferate.
      Enough liberals fact check stories demonstrably false stories die out.

      Some conservatives do fact check. But not enough (please fact check more if you are conservative).
      Some liberals do not fact check. (please fact check more if you are liberal).

      Snopes and Politifact are good starting locations.

      Stay clear of Nunez new fake site.

      Here's a list of fact checking sites.

      http://guides.lib.berkeley.edu...

      Here's another list
      https://www.dailydot.com/layer...

      âoeBe skeptical. Check the author. Check the publisher. Check the sources,â noted Eugene Kiely of FactCheck.org. âoeYou have no idea how many people forward us emails that are anonymously written that made unsubstantiated claims with no sources. Same thing with some âstoriesâ(TM) and âreportsâ(TM) written and posted on partisan and advocacy websites. Who is behind the website? Whatâ(TM)s their agenda? How is it funded? How transparent is it? Does its articles and reports provide named sources of information with links to source material so readers can check the facts themselves? Reagan used to say, âTrust, but verify.â(TM) Iâ(TM)d say verify first, and then determine if the source is worthy of your trust.â

      The best partisan fact-checking sites
      Note: Partisan fact-checkers are those with a purported liberal or conservative bent.
      For conservatives who want to start slow before using non-partisan sites:

      NewsBusters

      NewsBusters is a website that devotes itself to âoecombating liberal media bias.â NewsBusters was launched by the Media Research Center in 2005, the same group behind CNSNews.com. It has been criticized by Media Matters and others for its questionable fact-checking techniques.

      For liberals who want to start slow before using non-partisan sites:

      Media Matters

      Media Matters is a media watchdog group that focuses on conservative news. Since its launch in 2004 in the height of the Bush administration, Media Matters has analyzed conservative media, including broadcast, radio, and print media for factual errors. Media Matters narrowed its focus on Fox News and a handful of other conservative news sites in 2011, in what Media Matters founder David Brock deemed as âoea war on Fox.â

      Editorâ(TM)s note: This article has been updated for relevance.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    5. Re:Liberals fact check, Conservatives don't. by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 1

      I prefer your more nuanced position, but still don't believe "Enough liberals fact check stories demonstrably false stories die out." What I find instead (and according to a Chrome plugin, my Facebook feed from about 1K people is pretty balanced along the political spectrum, so I see examples of 'em all) is that all sides post stupid stories, most of the misleading stories have some kernel of truth to them which allows an extreme partisan to argue it's accurate, but most of the lies are a matter of slanting or twisting in favor of an opinion, leaving out relevant information which would give a more accurate perspective.

      I don't see a retraction from politicians and celebrities like Bernie Sanders about their posting the 18 in 2018 propaganda. I do see a simple site: search for it on Google claims about 283,000 tweets with it and 686,000 Facebook posts, including 5 TV station and 3 "news" site posts in the top 10 (when I ran the search, YMMV). That doesn't indicate "died out" to me (but there is a scattering of debunkings caught in the first few pages of the results). I posted on Facebook a Washington Post debunking in response to a couple of people I know who posted variations on the meme (There is another "300 since 2013" version one had posted) and the response I got from the original posters was along the lines of copy/paste from the biased site explaining how they were a non-profit.

      Yet, it's an obvious attempt to deceive people who see "school shooting" and think "someone got shot and maybe even killed", not "some cop accidentally shot a wall from a holstered gun" and it's easily debunked. That's why I picked it, because despite how easy it is to debunk, people are still posting and re-sharing it by the thousands.

      --
      The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
  15. Re:... says guy with no evidence who writes fake n by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 2, Informative

    The story I was mentioning above.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2016/1...

    TBILISI, Georgia â" Jobless and with graduation looming, a computer science student at the premier university in the nation of Georgia decided early this year that money could be made from Americaâ(TM)s voracious appetite for passionately partisan political news. He set up a website, posted gushing stories about Hillary Clinton and waited for ad sales to soar.

    âoeI donâ(TM)t know why, but it did not work,â said the student, Beqa Latsabidze, 22, who was savvy enough to change course when he realized what did drive traffic: laudatory stories about Donald J. Trump that mixed real â" and completely fake â" news in a stew of anti-Clinton fervor.

    More than 6,000 miles away in Vancouver, a Canadian who runs a satirical website, John Egan, had made a similar observation. Mr. Eganâ(TM)s site, The Burrard Street Journal, offers sendups of the news, not fake news, and he is not trying to fool anyone. But he, too, discovered that writing about Mr. Trump was a âoegold mine.â His traffic soared and his work, notably a story that President Obama would move to Canada if Mr. Trump won, was plundered by Mr. Latsabidze and other internet entrepreneurs for their own websites.

    âoeItâ(TM)s all Trump,â Mr. Egan said by telephone. âoePeople go nuts for it.â

    If his pro-Clinton site had taken off, he said, he would have pressed on with that, but âoepeople did not engage,â so he focused on serving pro-Trump supporters instead. They, he quickly realized, were a far more receptive audience âoebecause they are angryâ and eager to read outrageous tales.

    âoeFor me, this is all about income, nothing more,â he added.

    ---

    So yup, conservatives and republicans went crazy reading fake pro-trump, anti clinton stories written by this guy's staff of writers. Unlike the 13 Russians just indicted, Beqa didn't even care politically. He was just trying to drive ad hits.

    --
    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  16. Re: People are too stupid by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1
    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  17. We REWARD Bullshit Click-Bait Artists. by geekmux · · Score: 1

    Until you get capitalism to stop recognizing Bullshit Click-Bait Artist as a valid job skill for any "news" agency, this little game of yours is nothing more than job training for a lucrative future career. Teaching kids to maintain credibility by lying, with a POTUS bonus round to try and incite a war against another country? What's next, Pipe Bombs in the Kitchen with Barney the Dinosaur? The sick irony of teaching violence as we have a nation marching against it right now.

    And no, you aren't going to "teach" the masses with this crap. They are blissfully ignorant, and rather enjoy it. You are going to create a new generation of con artists though. Congratulations. I'm sure that'll end well.

  18. Re: People are too stupid by MadKeithV · · Score: 1

    No it hasn't, at least not on actual tech stories.

  19. Re:Donald Trump's review by belthize · · Score: 1

    When multiple sitting senators don't count as confirmation there is no longer any such thing as confirmation. Any and everything can be discounted as 'they're lying'.

  20. Re: People are too stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    But it is not better to think every person is a conspirator.

    There was a study that showed that Americans trust each other a lot more than Russians trust each other and that impedes Russian growth.

    The study is the basis for the Russian strategy now -- cripple the US by making them distrust each other as much as Russians do.

    It's a really good strategy. It'll work, and there's nothing we can do about it.

  21. Re:People are too stupid by gnick · · Score: 1

    The rate of sexual assault is going up and the birth rate is going down because telling everyone to stay single means they spend their adult lives having drunken one night stands instead of having a family? ... We just need to import third worlders to get the birth rate up!

    You're worried about the birth rate? We're just a little under 2 children per mother, which seems just fine to me. Also, what do drunken one-night-stands have to do with sexual assault?

    --
    He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
  22. Re:People are too stupid by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

    We're just a little under 2 children per mother, which seems just fine to me.

    In Europe you'll find it depends a lot on ethnic groups. The white people have a low birth rate and the immigrants have a high one.

    In the US from what I can tell the religious conservatives have a higher birth rate than secular liberals.

    E.g.

    http://anepigone.blogspot.com/...

    The immigrants have larger families and may vote for the left but they despise its social agenda as much as I do. Probably more so.

    All this tells me the left's social deconstructivism is not going to be an issue long term. In the US that doesn't matter because you've got fast breeding conservative Christians to take over. In Europe the fast breeding religious conservatives are Muslim, and that is an issue.

    Also, what do drunken one-night-stands have to do with sexual assault?

    A lot. If both parties are wasted it's much harder to negotiate consent. Also some percentage of men don't care about consent when they're drunk. And drunken women are going to have a harder job fighting them off.

    Compare and contrast to the traditional US ideal where you're not expected to have sex until you're married. I'm not sure everyone did that, but they didn't expect to have drunken one night stands.

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  23. Re:People are too stupid by gnick · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...The white people have a low birth rate and the immigrants have a high one...the religious conservatives have a higher birth rate than secular liberals...The immigrants have larger families and may vote for the left...you've got fast breeding conservative Christians...In Europe the fast breeding religious conservatives are Muslim, and that is an issue.

    You seem to be saying that the problem isn't that there aren't enough children, just not the right type of children. I asked why you thought the rate needed to be higher and you responded by describing the breeders.

    If both parties are wasted it's much harder to negotiate consent.

    Maybe, but I've had drunken sex that I wouldn't trade for the world.

    --
    He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
  24. Good gravy by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1, Interesting

    At least in 1984 it's only the Two Minutes Hate. Don't you people ever get tired of this stuff?

    I've seen some sore losers in my life, but you are the sorest. Give ... it ... a ... rest.

    You lost because you sucked. Nobody cared about this "fake news", because there was more than enough real news that was highly unfavorable to you, despite the fervent loyalty (to you) of the news readers.

    BTW, if you really think these 8o Russians and their tiny Facebook ad buy decided the election, then I highly recommend that you hire them. They are the most amazing marketers ever.

    1. Re:Good gravy by zifn4b · · Score: 1

      BTW, if you really think these 8o Russians and their tiny Facebook ad buy decided the election, then I highly recommend that you hire them. They are the most amazing marketers ever.

      You really think these 80 russians were posting propaganda to Facebook in the same manner that Indians run scam call centers? Nay. They wrote software to spread the propaganda for them in a very highly efficient manner... botnet style...

      --
      We'll make great pets
    2. Re:Good gravy by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      BTW, if you really think these 8o Russians and their tiny Facebook ad buy decided the election, then I highly recommend that you hire them. They are the most amazing marketers ever.

      You really think these 80 russians were posting propaganda to Facebook in the same manner that Indians run scam call centers? Nay. They wrote software to spread the propaganda for them in a very highly efficient manner... botnet style...

      Then the Dems should hire them to do botnets. However they did it, it's the most amazing and cost effective campaign the world has ever seen, apparently.

    3. Re:Good gravy by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Their techniques are amazingly powerful and they are the world's best persuaders. We need to give them jobs, they are head and shoulders better at their jobs than anyone in our society. Right?

      When even the New Yorker is ridiculing the idea that there is some great Russia conspiracy, you know it's all over but the crying: https://www.newyorker.com/news...

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    4. Re:Good gravy by zifn4b · · Score: 1

      Then the Dems should hire them to do botnets. However they did it, it's the most amazing and cost effective campaign the world has ever seen, apparently.

      I'm not saying the Russians actually did that. I think that claim is probably is absurd. But IF they did do it, they certainly wouldn't do it in the manner you described. That would be stupid. The Russians aren't stupid. Their educational system in terms of STEM fields is much better than ours.

      --
      We'll make great pets
  25. Re:People are too stupid by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1, Troll

    You seem to be saying that the problem isn't that there aren't enough children, just not the right type of children. I asked why you thought the rate needed to be higher and you responded by describing the breeders.

    If the end result of SJW culture is that the SJWs don't have enough kids to be survive that's not a problem with me. Well it's not in the US at least because US Christian religious conservatives will replace them. If they get replaced with Muslim religious conservatives - and that's the most likely outcome in Europe - that's a huge problem.

    Not least for the SJWs because Muslims are a lot less tolerant of their social agenda than I am. All those LGBT types are going to end up getting the ISIS Free Water slides For Homosexuals treatment (Water slide and pool under construction )

    The US outcome is more benign - a world where Ben Shapiro types are the majority is not going to being throwing people off building for being gay.

    I.e. just saying 'the birth rate is fine' is missing the point. If some groups are breeding above the replacement rate and others are breeding way below it, that will affect the makeup of the society in the long run.

    Amusingly the only people who deny this are the secular liberal types. Who are not the ones breeding above replacement rate. Of course they're also keen on bringing in third worlders who tend to breed above the replacement rate.

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  26. A game? by zifn4b · · Score: 1

    So it's a game about a fictitious social media site full of memes... you don't need a game for that...

    --
    We'll make great pets
  27. Re:People are too stupid by gnick · · Score: 1

    So your solution to the rise of segments of the population that you find undesirable is to have a breeding race? To quote some words of wisdom that may help your strategy, "Where all the white women at?"

    --
    He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
  28. Spread Misinformation? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    A game about spreading miss information? Where do I sign up?

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  29. Misinformation? You don't say! by jcr · · Score: 1

    I got shitloads of misinformation shoved down my throat in school, mostly in "history" classes.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  30. Re:People are too stupid by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

    Natural selection is inherently 'a breeding race'. It doesn't matter whether you think you're in one or not - groups that breed above the replacement rate will end up outnumbering ones who don't.

    Or, as someone put it 'demographics is destiny'. At current trends Germany in 50-100 years time will look at lot different from Germany now. Of course if you don't have kids, that doesn't affect you. But if you do have kids it will affect them, or their kids.

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  31. Re:People are too stupid by gnick · · Score: 1

    Yesterday, a friend of mine posted a meme on FB accusing one of the Parkland survivors of being a “crisis actor”. I talked reason to him and he took it down. An alternate strategy would have been to ignore it, but have an extra child that I raise not to do things like that. I like my strategy better.

    You’re probably not going to talk a Muslim out of being a Muslim, but I’m not sure why you would. Most American Muslims are not trying to implement Sharia law. You’re definitely not going to talk an immigrant out of being an immigrant, but I don’t see why that’s a problem either. You might not like their general political slant, but trying to further your political beliefs by out-breeding your opponents instead of reasoning with them is stupid. Some “third worlders” are reproducing at rates that we’d be foolish to try to match. So what? Different people have different opinions based on different circumstances. Some of those opinions may be influenced by religious beliefs that you don’t agree with (Catholics & abortion come to mind.) If there are enough people whose opinion differs from yours, you might not get your way. Your country may differ from your imagined ideal. It happens all the time. Deal with it.

    --
    He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
  32. Re: People are too stupid by liquid_schwartz · · Score: 1, Insightful

    But it is not better to think every person is a conspirator.

    There was a study that showed that Americans trust each other a lot more than Russians trust each other and that impedes Russian growth.

    The study is the basis for the Russian strategy now -- cripple the US by making them distrust each other as much as Russians do.

    It's a really good strategy. It'll work, and there's nothing we can do about it.

    The Russians have the help of the 1%, and the left, which are both always pushing for diversity and mass immigration. Both lower social cohesion as shown even by left leaning sociologists. Want to fragment America, just let enough Spanish speakers who won't assimilate and you'll get your wish.

    Citation

    http://archive.boston.com/news...

  33. Is CNN suing for copyright infringement? by ghoul · · Score: 1

    This game is revealing private trade practices which give competitive advantage to MSM. Is noone suing them?

    --
    **Life is too short to be serious**
  34. Re: People are too stupid by PaulRivers10 · · Score: 1

    I wish I had points to upvote you, you're right - slashdot comments have always been like this. Maybe it's the Russians downvoting you. :-)

  35. Re: People are too stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Yup. Thanks for demonstrating that it definitely works and you're already seeing your countrymen as enemies.

  36. Re: People are too stupid by PaulRivers10 · · Score: 1

    You guys have fake strawman arguments down to a science that's for sure.

  37. Recruiting tactic by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

    All the top players will receive employment offers from the Banana Republicans!

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  38. Re:People are too stupid by scatbomb · · Score: 1

    "That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history." -A. Huxley

  39. Re:... says guy with no evidence who writes fake n by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

    True, false?

    No clue since it ias an AC who I'm promoting to visible level....

    "Disclaimer: I run a conservative leaning fake news site that makes well over $15k a month in crypto mining and ad revenue. I donate roughly $10k a month to local antifa groups around the country. I have a heavily decentralized network of authors that get paid handsomely writing for my sites.

    As much as reality hurts to acknowledge, the right is deeply mired in fiction. I too tried to play on the liberals, but I received the same treatment; on social media the stories fall apart and nobody clicks on them. Conservatives though have shared my articles over a billion times. I've even had complete bullshit I made up out of nowhere make it to Breitbart front page and Fox News. It's uncanny how manipulatable right wingers are if you touch them just right in the emotions.

    At least the money I earn goes to good causes though to continue to battle the easily manipulated, and I have a plan in place near 2018 election time to discredit a lot of conservative congressfolk in an effort to turn some votes around. With the reach I have on just one website I can probably flip some counties :)"

    --
    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.