The thing is people were persuaded to GAF. We hear “driven by bots” and we think “oh so it was fake.” But bots are merely the PR mechanism of choice in 2025. In prior decades it might have been AM radio and a bunch of press releases faxed around or influence networks pumping the talk shows for airtime or church networks getting people riled up from the pulpit. But the game has always been the same. It’s only the tools that have changed.

I thought it was stupid but not stupid enough to boycott

When you strip away real people caring, this is what it looks like when you're left with just the bots. They chose bi-partisan for this, because they always choose bi-partisan. Someone screaming alone isn't worth much.

My uncle blew a lid at dinner over Cracker Barrel. They believe whatever their media tells them.

My solace is I know what gift card to get him for Christmas.

lol, people really do care about the fonts.

It’s pretty basic when you dig into the social psychology.

A classic outside the internet experiment would be a waiting room that starts to fill with smoke. Smoke starts to leak in at the ceiling. People see it. The variable is when the confederate (word for person who is an experimenter hire) gets up and leaves. Seeing someone leave, not the smoke itself, even as it builds up in the room, is a far better predictor of human behavior in that moment. People will take this farther than you’d think, waiting and then waiting some more, until a social cue occurs.

Online is different, yes, but our social wiring doesn’t just go away. And now, the numbers of social cues are far, far easier to manipulate. I don’t know if they’re cheaper, but the numbers side of it is disturbing.

I've noticed that they're adjusting this way of doing things. It's not just anger anymore, they're using boredom. They'll go into long diatribes that have a hint of a point, but they're so long that people give up. This gets people to either be bored and leave or get distracted into a mental vacation. It also can bury the things they want buried.

My parents are the clowns that eat up bot manipulation posts. I have never seen them go anywhere to eat. But somehow they were CB masters. Their friend group is just as stupid to. They buy into rage bait like children and most of us kids are just done with them. It’s pathetic.