Over at MoonofAlabama, b (would-be heir to billmon, probably the best socio-political blogger to ever put finger to keyboard) recently penned an engaging editorial, "The West is Past". The headline is creative hyperbole but does make the solid point that the USA and Britain by driving Russia and China together have created for themselves a difficult situation which could result in losing Europe. Not soon as it appears that either the funds to bribe Euro politicians are bottomless or that our politicians are very inexpensive wholesale by the bushel.
What surprised me was not b’s editorial but the reaction of veteran MoonofAlabama commenters. It appears they are died in the wool anarchists. A main thrust of comments on this article ostensibly about the infighting and decadence of the G7 was to cast stones at the Silk Road.
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How to defang machine enhanced human trolls
Over at MoonofAlabama.org, the publisher b faces an ongoing battle with ever more sophisticated professional posters. These posters appear to be part of the (dis)information services of one government or another (US DoD, MI5 among others have openly advertised such vacancies over at least the last two years.
The rules over at MoA are fairly strict. Simple name calling or out and out falsehood or MSM appeals to authority (i.e. NY Times) won’t fly there. So visiting would-be trolls are always experimenting with new techniques.
The latest tactic is early thread jacking. There’s a character by the name of Paul who always posts an anti-Russia or anti-Putin diatribe, whatever the post subject. Defanging his venom always grabs the attention of a few of the keenest mind and any thread quickly goes off track. If the deliberate derailing wasn’t bad enough, “Paul” now posts first on a regular basis, killing every thread dead in his tracks. Whoever is posting as Paul is clearly using software to get new post alerts.