

Impending National Distraction, aka Public Relations 101 - cwilson
https://medium.com/surveillance-state/7fae51440170

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eksith
I'm reminded of a something Neil deGrasse Tyson once said of optical illusions
: "They should be called _BRAIN FAILURES!_ " We get a lot of them and they're
not all optical.

People hate unhappy, depressing or otherwise hopeless situations and will seek
out the easiest outlet to escape. I think it's a survival mechanism of sorts
where you're more focused on being happy and alive vs. disillusioned and not
procreating.

We're genetically ill-equipped for righteous indignation by and large so
X-Idol-Housewives-Celebrity-Factor-Dance will do nicely in a time of genuine
crisis.

~~~
cwilson
Or alternatively, a much bigger crisis (which is scary).

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dclusin
I have a different and more pessimistic perspective. My pessimism is actually
derived from my Facebook feed as well. I haven't seen a single posting about
PRISM or any discussion of the massive surveillance state that we have created
from people outside of the technology industry. My facebook friends consist
largely of people whom I've grown up with or known since childhood. I have
approximately 226 FB friends and of those approximately 20 are developers. The
only posts even mentioning these shenanigans are from a few of those
developers. YMMV I guess.

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JumpCrisscross
Ditto, almost all the substantive debate I see comes from the British, French,
German, and Chinese press.

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waster
Yeah, it seems to me there is some tradeoff that could likely be expressed in
a mathematical equation between distracting the public and therefore in theory
not jeopardizing the status quo of intelligence gathering, and the cost of a
too-large distraction. Not that it would necessarily be a simple equation
(what's the cost of jeopardizing the status quo of intelligence gathering? No
clear way to say for certain that a specific capability would necessarily head
off future calamity, with the possible exception of really clear cases, which
I think must exist at times. And what's the true cost of, say, military
action? There's the direct. There's the fallout (literal and figurative -
benefit to weapons manufacturing, damage/benefit to trade, injured veterans,
reduced/increased spending from a scared public...)). But I think I would love
to see that equation.

Edit: Closed parentheses.

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gasull
Maybe the war in Syria will be the distraction.

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ChuckMcM
It sounds really tinfoil hatish to say that but I worry about that too.
Nothing like jumping into war to take the citizens minds off what ever it is
they are going on about. I'd prefer it was some sort of 'good news'
distraction of course.

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anigbrowl
That is tinfoil hattish. The Syria situation has been brewing for years, and
the strategic factors that make it into a hard problem run back decades. I'm
surprised we've managed to keep out of it this long.

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ChuckMcM
I don't disagree. I keep hoping that passing meaningful immigration reform is
the actual distraction planned.

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anigbrowl
That too has been in the works for many, many years. The public is
distractable, but as I've repeatedly pointed out, only a small section of the
public cares all that much about this issue to begin with. It's not logical to
posit that everything else in DC is taking place in relation to the NSA
scandal, any more than it was logical to assume that everything in DC revolved
around the Benghazi thing last year. Now, a major new administration
initiative that appeared out of the blue in the last 2-3 weeks would probably
be a distraction, but it's unrealistic to expect every part of government to
stop what its doing until everyone has argued out the NSA issue.

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btbuildem
Let's hope they don't resort to bombing a major city in an effort to whip up
fear and xenophobia..

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mtowle
Too bad the Royal Wedding already happened. Friday night that weekend would've
been perfect.

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cwilson
At first I thought you meant the Red Wedding (Game of Thrones), then realized
this was not a typo, but both are still 100% applicable.

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BadassFractal
Quick, have a celebrity reveal a naked breast in public. Nothing will provoke
more outrage.

