Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?
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Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?
 
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CNN's home page is taken to clustering stories. In their big cover story at the moment, The main headline is that Trump mocks intelligence agencies over the claims regarding Russian hacking. "Mocks" is a not-egregious interpretations of thing things Trump has said, so that seems like straightforward reporting. A subheading says that Assange claims he did not get at-issue emails he posted to Wikileaks from Russia. This is still relatively straightforward reporting. What Assange stated was that he did not get the emails from a state or state actor, which (if true) still leaves open the possibility that person who performed the hack was Russian or someone in Russia at the time. The final headline in the cluster is "Ex-CIA spokesman: Trump believes Julian Assange over the CIA". The latter headline (and associated story) ports in an odd assumption not present in the prior stories: The assumption that Trump's statements are with respect to the truth of the situation. I'm not sure why that is still a thing people are thinking. In contrast with that, I would say - based on the previous stories and other associated reports, and Trump's general behavior - that Trump's statements regarding Russian hacking evidences only that he thinks the best way to play the situation is to not publically blame Russia. That seems like a reasonable play, regardless of what Trump thinks and who he trusts. I can't see anything Trump would gain by publicly blaming Russia, and it is also unclear to me what the U.S. would have to gain by Trump publicly blaming Putin. If Trump thinks they hacked the DNC, one would think he would ask the spy communities and the diplomatic communities for advice about how to handle that behind the scenes, countering spycraft with spycraft. There is nothing for an incoming president to gain by trying to call Putin out, in public, with scant evidence, the details of which would be inaccessible to most of the public anyway. (CNN was recently called out for running a story about Russian hacking that used pictures for the video game Fallout 4, presumably because they thought people would connect with that as a representation of what "hacking" looked like.) Even if the intelligence community had iron clad proof, that everyone could understand and believe beyond a reasonable doubt (which they don't), it would only heighten questions about the legitimacy of Trump's win. At this point, that wouldn't be a win for Trump, or the country. Are we really going to get four years of the media trying to treat everything Trumps says as if it is a factual claim he deeply believes? Was this ever a viable assumption for any president? Were are the commentaries we would see if it were any other (recent) president, talking about how he might or might not believe it, but he's backed into a political corner, and is probably making the right move? ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?
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Eric writes: “Are we really going to get four years of the media trying to treat everything Trumps says as if it is a factual claim he deeply believes?” It is relevant if his supporters believe his actions come from core values that are in line with theirs. Is his drama `hyperbole truth’ (that to them is benign) or is it
there a pattern of lying that will eventually falsify that belief and show him to be something other than what they thought? For example, if they came to believe he and his administration has contempt for them like they believe Mrs. Clinton and her band
of elites do. It seems to me his constant uninhibited contradictions and incomplete ideas are appealing to some: It makes them feel ok about their own behavior and reckon “Hey, he’s just a [pig of a] guy like me.” That said, sure, it is naïve to think that
his fanatical supporters could be persuaded anyway (and the people reading their newspapers probably already are), so why get all spun-up about it?
I think it is better is the media collectively develops a storyline about him. That is what worked for him, that he could lock in minds around a story, even if it was false.
For example, explain why did he invent and persist with the birther thing? (Because he knew there was a racist audience that could be manipulated.) The media should integrate a lot of sources of context into a coherent picture of this man, and not just
fire off these fact on-offs that come across like cheap shots to his sympathizers. What, if any, long-term motives does he have, and how are his current and historical actions and statements consistent with those motives? Not what it is, but what it means.
Doing this with evidence and repeated examples is what makes this reporting and not just editorializing.
Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?
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In reply to this post by Eric Charles-2
Exactly why does anyone believe anything the "intelligence" community asserts to be the "truth?"
Two concrete reasons I doubt their veracity at the moment: 1) I have met several members of Cozy Bear (when I was in Moscow the week before the election) who readily admit the DNC hack and demonstrated many others. They also expressed frustration that they had not been able to hack Donald - because he does not use email or much tech at all - except twitter. Cozy bear is not a state agency and although the state is aware of their existence and ignores it as long as their actions are outside of Russia. It is at most state ignored/tolerated and most definitely not state or state sponsored. 2) the power utility laptop reported as part of some "Grizzly Steppe" Russian cyber warfare initiative. Intelligence community said that they had code fragments to prove it. In reality the only thing on the laptop was an IP address associated with a "suspicious" site in Russia.
BTW - it is well known that almost the entire power grid is infected with malware (Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and even North Korean) and has been for the past 5-10 years. Just as the power grids of those countries are infected with US malware. MAD has moved from nuclear to electric.
davew
On Wed, Jan 4, 2017, at 08:48 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?
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Administrator
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On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 9:39 AM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:
Ars Technica at least, believes the white house hacking report was a fail:
-- Owen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?
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In reply to this post by Eric Charles-2
“Even if the intelligence community had iron clad proof, that everyone could understand and believe beyond a reasonable doubt (which they don't),
it would only heighten questions about the legitimacy of Trump's win. At this point, that wouldn't be a win for Trump, or the country.” For some narrow, short-sighted, definition of “win for the country”. Is it a lose if your kid goes to the principal’s office for abusing his classmates, or goes to jail for a night for drunken bad behavior?
In the long term it is a win if we learn there are consequences to things and stop doing those things. The supposed Russian hacking thing is a sideshow to the real problem of Trump’s conflict of interests in so many countries, esp. his outstanding debts
to foreign banks. Who really has their finger on him and how does his intend to use his new power in relation to that? No one wants to dig into the hacking thing very deep because at the end of the day it proves nothing. States do nasty things. Yes, we
get that. Our networks and infrastructure are not particularly secure and like our shipping ports there are productivity consequences to being more cautious. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?
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Is it a lose if your kid goes to the principal’s office for abusing his classmates, or goes to jail for a night for drunken bad behavior? Sure... the situation would be improved, and we would call it a win, if we could send Putin to the principles office... Part of my point was exactly that it seems unlikely a public accusation by Trump would do anything towards getting Putin to "learn there are consequences to things and stop doing those things." Does anyone think Obama's sending home a handful of diplomats did that? This is especially true as there is not any suggestion that votes were altered. If there were implications of that, it would necessarily throw the election into question, and have huge political implications. But that isn't among the things Russia is accused of. Instead, they are accused (by some) of an effort to selectively search for and release true reproductions of material authored by people in the inner circle of the Democratic Party, which is not itself a state entity. While there is reason to think the released material had implications for how the election played out, the material doesn't even rise to the level of a propaganda effort in the traditional sense of the spreading of false information or even false implications, and it is not a direct attack on the democratic process. In terms of its criminal nature, such an act should be viewed similar to hacking the email system at a start-up company, and releasing embarrassing (but accurate) materials regarding ongoing operations, shortly before an IPO. That said, I fully agree with your take that this is a sideshow compared to many more important issues that could be covered by the news. On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 12:21 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?
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Well, I wasn’t talking about Putin. I’m talking about Thiel’s remark: "[..] our education culminates with the knowledge that the broader education of the body politic has become a fool’s errand."
Whether Trump is really legitimate (in a deep way) or not isn’t just a question of undisturbed counting, it is whether voters care more about facts or their feelings.
Does our democracy really have any more grounding than Netflix suggesting new movies to watch? Do people care more about unknowable intentions or knowable behaviors? If we as a democracy make terrible choices, at some point Karma has to close the loop.
It seems to me that will be the next phase of things. Trump is just the instrument.
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]]
On Behalf Of Eric Charles Is it a lose if your kid goes to the principal’s office for abusing his classmates, or goes to jail for a night for drunken bad behavior? Sure... the situation would be improved, and we would call it a win, if we could send Putin to the principles office... Part of my point was exactly that it seems unlikely a public accusation by Trump would do anything towards getting Putin
to "learn there are consequences to things and stop doing those things." Does anyone think Obama's sending home a handful of diplomats did that?
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?
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In reply to this post by Eric Charles-2
I think I am responding to Eric Charles, It appears as you suggest rather trivial… Yet it does contain a rather startling component. Accusation This need not be based on truth it seems or context. Accusation by itself draws to itself Gullible believers that then they are encouraged to riot , abuse others, or start phony wars. The demagogue uses these people as Vicious Weapons for a time then he loses control and perishes or slinks off stage. Is the Accusation a convenient excuse for brutality , lynching or riots. No one much discusses the Accusation’s properties itself. Always leaving a false binary between truth or falsehood. The accusation serves a purpose even if the truth-state is unclear. Just why do people choose to believe an accusation without evidence… To believe a false accusation or clouded insinuation seems to give license to vile actions against arbitrary targets. Is an Accusation then a Social Weapon regardless of truth. Once an Accusation is unleashed does anyone escape unharmed. vib From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Eric Charles Is it a lose if your kid goes to the principal’s office for abusing his classmates, or goes to jail for a night for drunken bad behavior? Sure... the situation would be improved, and we would call it a win, if we could send Putin to the principles office... Part of my point was exactly that it seems unlikely a public accusation by Trump would do anything towards getting Putin to "learn there are consequences to things and stop doing those things." Does anyone think Obama's sending home a handful of diplomats did that? This is especially true as there is not any suggestion that votes were altered. If there were implications of that, it would necessarily throw the election into question, and have huge political implications. But that isn't among the things Russia is accused of. Instead, they are accused (by some) of an effort to selectively search for and release true reproductions of material authored by people in the inner circle of the Democratic Party, which is not itself a state entity. While there is reason to think the released material had implications for how the election played out, the material doesn't even rise to the level of a propaganda effort in the traditional sense of the spreading of false information or even false implications, and it is not a direct attack on the democratic process. In terms of its criminal nature, such an act should be viewed similar to hacking the email system at a start-up company, and releasing embarrassing (but accurate) materials regarding ongoing operations, shortly before an IPO. That said, I fully agree with your take that this is a sideshow compared to many more important issues that could be covered by the news.
U.S. Marine Corps On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 12:21 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote: “Even if the intelligence community had iron clad proof, that everyone could understand and believe beyond a reasonable doubt (which they don't), it would only heighten questions about the legitimacy of Trump's win. At this point, that wouldn't be a win for Trump, or the country.” For some narrow, short-sighted, definition of “win for the country”. Is it a lose if your kid goes to the principal’s office for abusing his classmates, or goes to jail for a night for drunken bad behavior? In the long term it is a win if we learn there are consequences to things and stop doing those things. The supposed Russian hacking thing is a sideshow to the real problem of Trump’s conflict of interests in so many countries, esp. his outstanding debts to foreign banks. Who really has their finger on him and how does his intend to use his new power in relation to that? No one wants to dig into the hacking thing very deep because at the end of the day it proves nothing. States do nasty things. Yes, we get that. Our networks and infrastructure are not particularly secure and like our shipping ports there are productivity consequences to being more cautious. Marcus
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?
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Let me put aside Putin or any other boogeyman. There is the separate question of how to cope with people -- powerful or not -- who make frequent or outrageous
accusations. Do you sit there with the moral high ground and do nothing due to the objections you cite? You can do that, but I say that is a form of wishful thinking; it is pacifism. Or do you progress the social arms race? Do you make pre-emptive attacks
instead of playing defense? Do you modulate your rules in light of the fact your opponent demonstrates no regard for any sort of civil behavior? I read you to say that you would not. From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]]
On Behalf Of Vladimyr Burachynsky I think I am responding to Eric Charles, It appears as you suggest rather trivial… Yet it does contain a rather startling component. Accusation This need not be based on truth it seems or context. Accusation by itself draws to itself Gullible believers that then they are encouraged to riot , abuse others, or start phony wars. The demagogue uses these people as Vicious Weapons for a time then he loses control and perishes or slinks off stage. Is the Accusation a convenient excuse for brutality , lynching or riots. No one much discusses the Accusation’s properties itself. Always leaving
a false binary between truth or falsehood. The accusation serves a purpose even if the truth-state is unclear.
Just why do people choose to believe an accusation without evidence… To believe a false accusation or clouded insinuation seems to give license to vile actions against arbitrary targets. Is an Accusation then a Social Weapon regardless of truth. Once an Accusation is unleashed does anyone escape unharmed. vib From: Friam [[hidden email]]
On Behalf Of Eric Charles Is it a lose if your kid goes to the principal’s office for abusing his classmates, or goes to jail for a night for drunken bad behavior? Sure... the situation would be improved, and we would call it a win, if we could send Putin to the principles office... Part of my point was exactly that it seems unlikely a public accusation by Trump would do anything
towards getting Putin to "learn there are consequences to things and stop doing those things." Does anyone think Obama's sending home a handful of diplomats did that?
This is especially true as there is not any suggestion that votes were altered. If there were implications of that, it would necessarily throw the election into question, and have huge political implications. But that
isn't among the things Russia is accused of. Instead, they are accused (by some) of an effort to selectively search for and release true reproductions of material authored by people in the inner circle of the Democratic Party, which is not itself a state entity.
While there is reason to think the released material had implications for how the election played out, the material doesn't even rise to the level of a propaganda effort in the traditional sense of the spreading of false information or even false implications,
and it is not a direct attack on the democratic process. In terms of its criminal nature, such an act should be viewed similar to hacking the email system at a start-up company, and releasing embarrassing (but accurate) materials regarding ongoing operations,
shortly before an IPO. That said, I fully agree with your take that this is a sideshow compared to many more important issues that could be covered by the news.
U.S. Marine Corps On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 12:21 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote: “Even if the intelligence community had iron clad proof, that everyone could understand
and believe beyond a reasonable doubt (which they don't), it would only heighten questions about the legitimacy of Trump's win. At this point, that wouldn't be a win for Trump, or the country.” For some narrow, short-sighted, definition of “win for the country”. Is it a lose if your kid goes to the principal’s office for abusing his classmates,
or goes to jail for a night for drunken bad behavior? In the long term it is a win if we learn there are consequences to things and stop doing those things. The supposed Russian hacking thing is a sideshow to the real problem of Trump’s conflict of interests
in so many countries, esp. his outstanding debts to foreign banks. Who really has their finger on him and how does his intend to use his new power in relation to that? No one wants to dig into the hacking thing very deep because at the end of the day it
proves nothing. States do nasty things. Yes, we get that. Our networks and infrastructure are not particularly secure and like our shipping ports there are productivity consequences to being more cautious. Marcus
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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In reply to this post by Eric Charles-2
On 01/04/2017 10:15 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
> Sure... the situation would be improved, and we would call it a win, if we could send Putin to the principles office... Part of my point was exactly that it seems unlikely a public accusation by Trump would do anything towards getting Putin to "learn there are consequences to things and stop doing those things." Does anyone think Obama's sending home a handful of diplomats did that? Not to pile on ... but it seems we know that tit-for-tat isn't necessarily always the best strategy in games. But since there is no free lunch, we also know that it's a decent default. No, Putin won't change his ways just because we titted after he tatted. But _not_ titting requires some longer term strategy. Not only that, we have a long history of tit-for-tat in our spycraft. So, I'll answer your question with another one. Do we really think Trump has a long-term strategy for playing any type of game with Putin? On 01/04/2017 08:25 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > The media should integrate a lot of sources of context into a coherent picture of this man, and not just fire off these fact on-offs that come across like cheap shots to his sympathizers. What, if any, long-term motives does he have, and how are his current and historical actions and statements consistent with those motives? Not what it is, but what it means. Doing this with evidence and repeated examples is what makes this reporting and not just editorializing. I believe our incoming Cheeto-in-Chief is purely reactive. Any memory he might have is occupied by logging all his "enemies" who have "slighted" him in one way or another, leaving no memory for strategy. It'll take a lot of work to demonstrate (to me) that he has an understanding of strategy at all. (Tactics are another matter, of course. Anyone who lives to 70 has demonstrated some understanding of tactics.) However, as long as he surrounds himself with actual strategists, they (and the "deep state") provide a good chance that no matter what nonsense goes on inside Trump's head, post-hoc analysis will show a relatively stable system. If he _reacts_ in a singularly biased way (e.g. listening to Bannon more than Tillerson, say), then we'll see significant instability. None of that will imply Trump has any kind of strategy at all, though. He'll just jump up and tweet about any factoid that goes his way and claim it as part of his plan. Any factoid that doesn't fit the narrative will be "rigged" or simply ignored. This raises, yet again, the logical possibility of philosophical zombies ... and challenges the behaviorist model. If Trump _appears_ for all intents and purposes to have a strategy, does he actually have a strategy? >8^D Is the holographic principle reliable? -- ☣ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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