#public opinion

[politijohn]

Begging to lose an election when you ignore voters this badly…

[huariqueje]

“LIED-ABOUT WARS Advertising campaigns, marketing schemes. The target is public opinion. Wars are sold the same way cars are, by lying. In August 1964, President Lyndon Johnson accused the Vietnamese of attacking two U.S. warships in the Tonkin Gulf. Then the president invaded Vietnam, sending planes and troops. He was acclaimed by journalists and by politicians, and his popularity sky-rocketed. The Democrats in power and the Republicans out of power became a single party united against Communist aggression. After the war had slaughtered Vietnamese in vast numbers, most of them women and children, Johnson’s secretary of defense, Robert McNamara, confessed that the Tonkin Gulf attack had never occurred. The dead did not revive. In March 2003, President George W. Bush accused Iraq of being on the verge of destroying the world with its weapons of mass destruction, “the most lethal weapons ever devised.” Then the president invaded Iraq, sending planes and troops. He was acclaimed by journalists and by politicians, and his popularity sky-rocketed. The Republicans in power and the Democrats out of power became a single party united against terrorist aggression. After the war had slaughtered Iraqis in vast numbers, most of them women and children, Bush confessed that the weapons of mass destruction never existed. “The most lethal weapons ever devised” were his own speeches. In the following elections, he won a second term. In my childhood, my mother used to tell me that a lie has no feet. She was misinformed.”

― Eduardo Galeano, Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

BuT tHe PuBlIc DoNt SuPpOrT tHe StRiKeS

[miracle-negative]

Hello guys! My final exam is about a month away- (*Cryinggg)

So, I'm going to post only artwork until the exam is over

Thx always everyone, Hav3 a miracle day!

[theculturedmarxist]

[feckcops]

The public wants to save the planet – as long as it doesn’t personally inconvenience them

“Back in July, Just Stop Oil (JSO) experienced something unusual – they found they were the ones being protested. An alternative group called Just Stop Pissing People Off attempted to block Just Stop Oil from engaging in disruptive protests and interrupted their events, saying that the climate crisis is real but that JSO is distracting and alienating people. The counter-protests tell us a great deal about Britain’s contradictory attitude to the climate crisis.

“Broadly, Brits understand that the climate crisis climate change is a major problem. 65% of us are worried about the climate crisis (versus just 28% who aren’t) while the same proportion supports the government’s aim of reducing Britain’s net carbon emissions to zero by 2050 ... Eight in 10 back more tree planting, subsidies for energy-efficient homes and higher taxes for high-carbon companies. 62% would support a requirement for all energy production to come from renewable sources. But this enthusiasm has its limits.

“When asked if they would back policies that would impose limits on what they personally can do, Brits quickly turn against them. For instance, two-thirds oppose the idea of a limit on how much meat they can buy, and a majority oppose banning petrol and diesel cars ... Even though 62% of voters back the idea of requiring all energy to be renewable, just 39% want to ban new North Sea oil fields, and a mere 32% want to prohibit the sale of gas boilers ...

“The British public is not as supportive of action on the climate crisis as many environmentalists would hope. We favour general, uncontentious ideas – net zero, tree-planting, tax rises on high-carbon companies – but when asked for our opinion on a climate policy that would directly affect us personally, we baulk. This is partly due to worries about the cost of living, but it’s also about avoiding personal inconvenience.

“Just Stop Pissing Everyone Off perfectly encapsulates the British attitude to the climate crisis: sure, it’s a problem, but not ours. As Homer Simpson once asked: ‘Can’t someone else do it?’”

[pratchettquotes]

"Your Ankh-Morpork soldiers aren't in a position to protect you, however."

"Sir, you are right. You could have me killed right now," said de Worde simply. "You know that. I know that. But you won't, for three reasons. The officers of Borogravia tend towards honor. Everyone says that. That's why they don't surrender. And I bleed most distressingly. And you don't need to, because everyone's interested in you! Suddenly, it's all changed!"

"Interested in us?"

"Sir, in a sense you could help a lot right now. Apparently, people back in Ankh-Morpork were amazed when...look, have you heard about what we call 'human interest,' sir?"

"No."

De Worde tried to explain. Blouse listened with his mouth open, and at the end, said:

"Have I got this right? Although many people have been killed and wounded in this wretched war, it's not been of much 'interest' to your readers? But it is now, just because of us? Because of a little skirmish in a town they've never heard of? And because of it, we're suddenly a 'plucky little country' and people are telling your newspaper that your great city should be on our side?"

"Yes, Lieutenant. We put out a second edition last night, you see."

Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment

[reality-detective]

[reasonsforhope]

"Major AI companies are racing to build superintelligent AI — for the benefit of you and me, they say. But did they ever pause to ask whether we actually want that?

Americans, by and large, don’t want it.

That’s the upshot of a new poll shared exclusively with Vox. The poll, commissioned by the think tank AI Policy Institute and conducted by YouGov, surveyed 1,118 Americans from across the age, gender, race, and political spectrums in early September. It reveals that 63 percent of voters say regulation should aim to actively prevent AI superintelligence.

Companies like OpenAI have made it clear that superintelligent AI — a system that is smarter than humans — is exactly what they’re trying to build. They call it artificial general intelligence (AGI) and they take it for granted that AGI should exist. “Our mission,” OpenAI’s website says, “is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.”

But there’s a deeply weird and seldom remarked upon fact here: It’s not at all obvious that we should want to create AGI — which, as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will be the first to tell you, comes with major risks, including the risk that all of humanity gets wiped out. And yet a handful of CEOs have decided, on behalf of everyone else, that AGI should exist.

Now, the only thing that gets discussed in public debate is how to control a hypothetical superhuman intelligence — not whether we actually want it. A premise has been ceded here that arguably never should have been...

Building AGI is a deeply political move. Why aren’t we treating it that way?

...Americans have learned a thing or two from the past decade in tech, and especially from the disastrous consequences of social media. They increasingly distrust tech executives and the idea that tech progress is positive by default. And they’re questioning whether the potential benefits of AGI justify the potential costs of developing it. After all, CEOs like Altman readily proclaim that AGI may well usher in mass unemployment, break the economic system, and change the entire world order. That’s if it doesn’t render us all extinct.

In the new AI Policy Institute/YouGov poll, the "better us [to have and invent it] than China” argument was presented five different ways in five different questions. Strikingly, each time, the majority of respondents rejected the argument. For example, 67 percent of voters said we should restrict how powerful AI models can become, even though that risks making American companies fall behind China. Only 14 percent disagreed.

Naturally, with any poll about a technology that doesn’t yet exist, there’s a bit of a challenge in interpreting the responses. But what a strong majority of the American public seems to be saying here is: just because we’re worried about a foreign power getting ahead, doesn’t mean that it makes sense to unleash upon ourselves a technology we think will severely harm us.

AGI, it turns out, is just not a popular idea in America.

“As we’re asking these poll questions and getting such lopsided results, it’s honestly a little bit surprising to me to see how lopsided it is,” Daniel Colson, the executive director of the AI Policy Institute, told me. “There’s actually quite a large disconnect between a lot of the elite discourse or discourse in the labs and what the American public wants.”

-via Vox, September 19, 2023

[groundrunner100]

Damn answer limit….

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

Most people are “very” or “extremely” concerned about the state of the natural world, a new global public opinion survey shows. 

Roughly 70 percent of 22,000 people polled online earlier this year agreed that human activities were pushing the Earth past “tipping points,” thresholds beyond which nature cannot recover, like loss of the Amazon rainforest or collapse of the Atlantic Ocean’s currents. The same number of respondents said the world needs to reduce carbon emissions within the next decade. 

Just under 40 percent of respondents said technological advances can solve environmental challenges. 

The Global Commons survey, conducted for two collectives of “economic thinkers” and scientists known as Earth4All and the Global Commons Alliance, polled people across 22 countries, including low-, middle- and high-income nations. The survey’s stated aim was to assess public opinion about “societal transformations” and “planetary stewardship.”

The results, released Thursday, highlight that people living under diverse circumstances seem to share worries about the health of ecosystems and the environmental problems future generations will inherit. 

But there were some regional differences. People living in emerging economies, including Kenya and India, perceived themselves to be more exposed to environmental and climate shocks, like drought, flooding and extreme weather. That group expressed higher levels of concern about the environment, though 59 percent of all respondents said they are “very” or “extremely” worried about “the state of nature today,” and another 29 percent are at least somewhat concerned.  

Americans are included in the global majority, but a more complex picture emerged in the details of the survey, conducted by Ipsos.

Roughly one in two Americans said they are not very or not at all exposed to environmental and climate change risks. Those perceptions contrast sharply with empirical evidence showing that climate change is having an impact in nearly every corner of the United States. A warming planet has intensified hurricanes battering coasts, droughts striking middle American farms and wildfires threatening homes and air quality across the country. And climate shocks are driving up prices of some food, like chocolate and olive oil, and consumer goods. 

Americans also largely believe they do not bear responsibility for global environmental problems. Only about 15 percent of U.S. respondents said that high- and middle-income Americans share responsibility for climate change and natural destruction. Instead, they attribute the most blame to businesses and governments of wealthy countries. 

Those survey responses suggest that at least half of Americans may not feel they have any skin in the game when it comes to addressing global environmental problems, according to Geoff Dabelko, a professor at Ohio University and expert in environmental policy and security. 

Translating concern about the environment to actual change requires people to believe they have something at stake, Dabelko said. “It’s troubling that Americans aren’t making that connection.”

[eretzyisrael]

Source

[mrkmciver]

#Most Dangerous Person

[mostlysignssomeportents]

"71% of Americans say they approve of labor unions. Only 40% of Americans say they approve of Joe Biden. Unions are more popular than the president, by a long mile. In fact, the popularity of organized labor is at a 60-year high."

-Hamilton Nolan