[radu_floricica]

Main problem with brexit was bubble. Even now, after so many years, you're saying that it's manipulation, simply because you don't personally know people who wanted it to happen. Who exist, I assure you.

> What I mean is – well, take creationists. According to Gallup polls, about 46% of Americans are creationists. Not just in the sense of believing God helped guide evolution. I mean they think evolution is a vile atheist lie and God created humans exactly as they exist right now. That’s half the country. > And I don’t have a single one of those people in my social circle. It’s not because I’m deliberately avoiding them; I’m pretty live-and-let-live politically, I wouldn’t ostracize someone just for some weird beliefs. And yet, even though I probably know about a hundred fifty people, I am pretty confident that not one of them is creationist. Odds of this happening by chance? 1/2^150 = 1/10^45 = approximately the chance of picking a particular atom if you are randomly selecting among all the atoms on Earth.

source: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...

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This being said, guarding my gps history like it's treasure does absolutely zilch to stop political manipulation, when you have stuff like corporate control over mainstream media and PR firms. See NYT's coverage of FTX, for a contemporary example.

Or, well... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksb3KD6DfSI

[ceejayoz]

No one doubts Brexiteers exist; they won the referendum.

How they came to that opinion is where the manipulation comes in.

[radu_floricica]

You're really saying that after reading the second half of my comment? Mainstream media is overwhelmingly progressive and not shy in being unsubtle, but somehow brexit did it all by being so freaking brilliant that it manipulated even more... somehow.

[ceejayoz]

We can pretend “mainstream media” in the UK doesn’t have things like The Sun in it if you like; no one asserts The Guardian was part of the Brexit full-court press.

You do these things with social media bots, trolls, misinformation, etc.

Brexit wasn’t brilliant. It was an empty slate people could project their worries on. That’s why actual implementation, where details mattered more than slogans, is where the difficulty lay.

[radu_floricica]

You know, the attitude of "plebes are plebes, they should be protected and carefully told what to think so they don't to stupid things like Brexit" is very un-democratic.

They had access to both sides' discourse. They voted. They made a choice.

Instead of taking this information and learning from it, you're just blaming the very progressive-leaning social media.

Oh, why am I even trying. It's ok, it was Big Corp, they're the ones to blame.