Ask HN: Why hasn't x86 caught up with Apple M series?
440 points by stephenheron 4d ago 616 comments
Ask HN: Best codebases to study to learn software design?
107 points by pixelworm 6d ago 92 comments
Pentagon Docs: US Wants to "Suppress Dissenting Arguments" Using AI Propaganda
95 Qem 50 8/30/2025, 1:10:11 AM theintercept.com ↗
> We characterize the contemporary Russian model for propaganda as “the firehose of falsehood” because of two of its distinctive features: high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions. In the words of one observer, “[N]ew Russian propaganda entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.”
> Contemporary Russian propaganda has at least two other distinctive features. It is also rapid, continuous, and repetitive, and it lacks commitment to consistency.
> Interestingly, several of these features run directly counter to the conventional wisdom on effective influence and communication from government or defense sources, which traditionally emphasize the importance of truth, credibility, and the avoidance of contradiction.3 Despite ignoring these traditional principles, Russia seems to have enjoyed some success under its contemporary propaganda model, either through more direct persuasion and influence or by engaging in obfuscation, confusion, and the disruption or diminution of truthful reporting and messaging.
* https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html
Basically every country is working on this technology. The US is doing it. China is doing it. Russia is doing it. Europe is doing it.
Propaganda is everywhere
They're building the Ministry of Truth.
If you need an AI and propaganda to convince someone instead of neutral, rational, and educational means - then guess what, you are in the wrong.
I'd be shocked if this wasn't already happening. Both with domestic and foreign targets.
We've been doing propaganda for a century. The methods are changing.
Just like a good documentary, selecting which set of true, objective facts to insert into one’s attention and narrative can perfectly serve an agenda.
The war has been going on for years with no big changes. I recently stopped watching these videos because it’s obvious they’re propaganda.
Just because it sounds good doesn’t make it true.
Even the "we're not Trump" EU are still gaslighting about the genocide, amongst other things.
To be honest, it's been going on for effectively forever.
See operation mockingbird -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
> the board would have no operational authority or capability but would collect best practices for dissemination to DHS organizations already tasked with defending against disinformation threats,
> the board would not monitor American citizens
> the board would study policy questions, best practices, and academic research on disinformation, and then submit guidance to the DHS secretary on how different DHS agencies should conduct analysis of online content.
> the board would monitor disinformation spread by "foreign states such as Russia, China, and Iran" and "transnational criminal organizations and human smuggling organizations", and disinformation spread during natural disasters (listing as an example misinformation spread about the safety of drinking water during Hurricane Sandy). The DHS added that "The Department is deeply committed to doing all of its work in a way that protects Americans' freedom of speech, civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy."
> the DGB announced that it would provide quarterly reports to the United States Congress.
There was zero benefit of a doubt given by the GOP, and merely the idea of trying to work against foreign influence seemingly unacceptable. Anything to drum up more fear, and frankly, to give quarter to the destabilizing awful elements of this planet.
Tulso Gabbard called this the Ministry of Truth. But she's also the one who has left America utterly defenseless by ending all safeguards against international disinformation, by shutting down CISA cyber security protection, and by being a fountain of rank disgusting disinformation weaponizing intelligence agencies for base political gain again and again and again. She has close ties to Russia and in my opinion is working for them. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
It's all spin, no bite. The endless fear mongering of the GOP is preventing even basic security of the nation.
If Phillip morris is running a bot farm or paying people to tell others that smoking is healthy and doesn't cause cancer, then we have a duty to call that disinformation and strive to correct it. And I'm sure someone will be along shortly to tell me about the growing lung cancer rates in nonsmokers or that lung cancer is more deadly in nonsmokers.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defe...
And it's been one of the ones he's been actively trying to enforce:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/21/health/trans-community-trump-...
https://19thnews.org/2025/03/trump-anti-trans-executive-orde...
Shit, here's an article from TODAY if you want to say these measures are no longer high-priority:
https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/school-board-sues-tru...
I'm not aware of any agency with the authority to do so.
One could argue that the changes require that the material be originally intended for foreign consumption, but how does one prove "intent?"
https://www.usagm.gov/who-we-are/oversight/legislation/smith...
On a side note, it is interesting to see how quickly America's elites turned against free speech after Israel takes a few Ls online for murdering "lesser beings that don't actually exist" in the middle east. Maybe their support was akin to how Martin Luther thought publishing the Bible would result in everyone having the same opinion as him.
That's why they jailed, beat, firebombed, and finally just shot him in the head.
ETA: Didn't have my glasses on. Wrong Martin Luther.
There is a fundamental difference between the private sector and the government performing these actions.
(Bill Gates getting his car legalized is a great non-controversial example of how this had been the case for a LONG time.)
This feels like the war on drugs and it won't end well in that nobody wins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party
And the USSR had its propaganda arm too. The US also effectively did this but without the same labels criticizing them - for example recently when the Biden administration was pressuring tech companies to censor or ban opinions they didn’t like.
The fact that AI may now be used for this purpose isn’t offensive. It’s that governments (or corporations or any other group) interfere with free speech much more broadly than we think, and don’t just limit that to a few exceptions. Whether the use people or AI, it’s wrong.