this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2024
736 points (98.8% liked)

politics

19246 readers
2781 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] AeonFelis@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

It'd be more of a spin, or a lie of omission, at most. Either way it'd be less stupid.

[–] BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The Republican Party is like the lowest-effort scammers who send you spam full of typos, bad grammar, and an obvious malware link to click on. They don't want people with an ounce of brainpower voting for them because they'd be harder to fool down the line. By appealing to only the biggest morons who can't see through the most obvious lies, it'll be easier for the Republicans to strip away all their rights and kick us all in the face while blaming anyone else.

Just like the scammers, it's pathetically sad that there are so many people who barely pass as sentient so the scam can work.

[–] AeonFelis@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

This does not make an awful lot of sense. The reasons scammers have to filter for the dumbest victims don't apply to politicians:

  1. Scammers don't want to waste resources chasing bad leads. Sending the same email (or emails generated from the same template) to huge amounts of people is rather cheap, but when someone takes the bait at some point you'll need to assign an actual person to deal with it (I'm not 100% sure this reason still applies today, since you can use AI, but it may not take you all the way and it's still more expensive than generating an email from a template) and you'd rather not waste that effort if the chances to complete the grift are low.

    Politicians don't have that problem, because at not point do they need to go one-on-one with individual voters (the bottom feeder activists may do it, but that's a separate attack vector than party leadership going on media). Having the smart voters not buy into these announcements save them neither time nor money.

  2. If someone is going to figure out the scam, the scammer would prefer they do it as soon as possible. Of course, long after the scammer is gone is even better, and not at all is best, but if they can't get away with it - sooner is better than later. If you figure it out as soon as you get the email, you'll just ignore it - and maybe delete it and/or block the address. Most people won't even try to report it, and even if they do there is usually not much that can be done. But if you figure out the scam after you've started to send them money - you are going to want your money back. You'll have more information can potentially be used to track them (like the details of the account you transferred the money to). And you'll be better motivated to involve the authorities. It's safer to filter out the people who are smart enough to do that and make them leave before they have skin in the game.

    If you figure out your politician lied to you - what are you going to do? You can't rescind your vote. You can not vote for them in the next elections - but how is that worse than not voting for them to begin with? Worst you can do is vote for their opponent - but I fail to see why a disillusioned voter is more inclined toward that than a non-voter or someone who voted to a different party. "Yes, they've ruined the country, and if I was their supporter I'd punish them by voting to the other party - but since I didn't vote for them it's not really my problem so I'll just not vote".

  3. Scammers only really need a small fraction of their potential targets to take the bait, because they'll be stealing lots of money from each such target. Having too many victims can actually be risky because it raises the chance someone will do something about them. Maybe even someone competent.

    They can afford to filter.

    Politicians can't.

    Politicians compete against other politicians, and they need a plurality to win. They don't get to be picky. Even in the USA, the number of people with more than one brain cell is enough to tip an election's result. You can't just say "I don't care about the people I can't easily fool" because these people will for your opponent. The 16% who fall for scams won't get you your victory.

[–] Glytch@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

A lie of omission is still a lie.

[–] AeonFelis@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Yes, but a much more defensible one. To refute a lie of omission you need to present the omitted information and show how it is relevant. To refute a lie of actual falsehood you just have to present the truth and point out the contradiction.

I'm not saying he's not a liar, I'm just annoyed by his stupidity.