America not being a dictatorship doesn’t a matter to anyone else besides it’s citizens.

Most American allies depend on the US for defense, the US is the largest economy in the world, and the US is the largest ideological counterpart to countries like Russia - who want to use force to annihilate both dissent and opposition.

It absolutely matters to most well-informed citizens of any country the world over how we conduct ourselves because it does directly impact them. That’s part of the reason we should be better than we are.

The… world want [sic]… for America to not…

I mean, you’re preaching to the choir. Most folk here didn’t want to send their kids to die in 'Nam or Afghanistan. Vets didn’t sign up to risk their lives for opium fields. American citizens were duped too.

We’re on the same side here.

Do you really think the gouvernement doesn’t inject propaganda on social media ?

I didn’t say that, but they take out ad campaigns and use PR firms like a normal company. Twitter does not work for the US government and the US government does not rig the algorithm it uses for feeds. The Washington Post is not controlled by the US government. Amazon is not controlled by the US government.

The distinction between that and what China or Russia does is important. They own the media. They own the companies. They own every method of communication and every interaction between their people. And they leverage that direct power to control narratives to say things like “Taiwan belongs to China” and “Ukraine belongs to Russia” and “Tianemen Square never happened”.

Meanwhile, you can see all the atrocities the US government did on Wikipedia. Sometimes even on the websites of the state itself. Reparations are discussed, sometimes won. Protesters fight with, yes, the risk of state violence, but not of tanks turning them into pudding that’s washed down the gutters. And with that knowledge, we can shape our own future democratically. Putin and Xi cannot be voted out.

All this is a long-winded way to say:

• The US government engages in propaganda.
• The US government’s propaganda, compared to authoritarian states, is heavily restricted and far more reliant on consensual participation. It’s also widely criticized and (almost) universally hated.
• The propaganda used by authoritarian states like China is actively leveraged to commit outright genocide and deny atrocities. It cannot be publicly criticized or opposed.
• Therefore, the scale and impact of propaganda is different and that difference must be considered.

Poverty, lack of education, the US overthrew multiple democratically elected leaders during the red scare by funding extremist groups to commit coups, harsh environment.

Who in the world said western state propaganda was a good thing? Military recruitment and political ads are pretty universally hated.

I might also add that western tech giants and media aren’t directly owned by the state, nor is the state a dictatorship, so it’s a little different? You think Elon’s Twitter is on the same side as Bidens Executive is on the same side as the conservative Congress?

For instance: it could help remote villages or third world countries. But Starlink costs a pretty penny in western money those places lack. Otherwise they would already have traditional infrastructure.

Oh, okay, so I’m not crazy!

Saw this scrolling down /c/all and immediately noticed something was off with the tiny leg on the left. The only obviously weird thing (to me) was the planters on the left have the suspending wires attached to the leaves. I still wasn’t sure if it was AI generated.

In a few years these are going to be absolutely indistinguishable. What a time to be alive!