[coldtea]

>China can (and has) manipulate the hearts and minds of the American public—skewing their biases in a way that creates internal chaos and dissent, disrupting institutional order, and sewing distrust of thy neighbor

Nothing a tin-foil hat can't prevent

As if the public needed any manipulation. You can just read what actual public figures, journalists, and such have been openly saying for the last 15-20 years...

When a long-time political player, wife of a President, and presidential candidate calls a big chunk of the population "deplorables", when opposing candidates call for the jailing or even shooting of their opponent, or when the current President is saying what he says and doing what he does, you need more to get "chaos" and "distrust of the neighbor"?

[nikkwong]

No tin-foil hat needed. There is published research documenting that this is happening [0] on certain topics and there is a lot of reason to believe it is happening in others. Yes, I'm not saying China is the only source of the state of our domestic discontent; but it's fuel to the fire and will be used against us at times in the future when we need national cohesion. See also [1] a 60 minutes episode on a related thread of China infiltrating the US in other ways.

[0] https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/NCRI-Report_-...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43vxbytjDSM&themeRefresh=1

[SanjayMehta]

A Tin Dome which might actually work.

[godelski]

Two things can be true at the same time. It's not just China. Russia does it. So does Israel, many countries, as well as many institutions in the US, both public and private.

It's no secret they do this, they openly discuss it. The things they want can differ but they want to convince you of things. That's obvious.

What makes the game easy for political adversaries (both foreign and domestic) is they don't need to convince the public of a certain thing, they just drive contention. What many people call "engagement". You can see this in 2016 with Russia doing things like forming Facebook groups to spur on protests along with groups to organize counter protests to the protest they helped create. They're not trying to make you pro Russia or pro communist so much as just cause America to be chaotic, ensuring people care less when they do things like invade Ukraine. You also see it in the current administration which, developing the belief in a deep state and saying crazy things left and right so that nothing is to be believed and you're constantly distracted. While we're all talking about Greenland we're not talking about Epstein. Every week it's something new. Even Bannon discussed this strategy early on: throw a million things at them and they'll only be able to focus on a few. It's no surprise this creates chaos and confusion. We argue about the things not being discussed as if it's hidden information rather than logistic overload but there's also not a meaningful difference

The point isn't to convince you, it's to make you exhausted and apathetic