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Barley asked in EnvironmentGlobal Warming · 1 decade ago

Is a robot going to "answer" this question?

a leaked email details the company who unleashes an "army of sockpuppets with sophisticated persona management" on on-line posts.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/16/945768/-U...

Update:

Do robots troll the internet to find articles on global warming and then answer or comment on them? With phony ids?

I've long suspected that some commenters were paid, presumably by fossil fuel businesses or their representatives.. I've noticed that many answers to questions posed on this board were short, vapid, and lacking facts or references. It didn't occur to me that these responses were automatically generated.

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  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    Hi, Barley. Been on here for several months, and I've found it pretty obvious that the deniers are heavily sockpuppeted. What we see is the equivalent of a denial of service attack. In this case, it's a denial of truth attack.

    We are seeing an unholy amalgam of business interests, political interests, social conservatives, and power-seeking demagogues. The agenda is to attack the very notion of any sort of science or objective truth. The purpose is to gain or preserve power, apparently at any cost. The energy groups are preserving their wealth, power, and prestige. The social conservatives are trying to force religion into education and politics in a clear bid to turn the US into a cheap version of a fundamentalist theocracy. The economic conservatives are trying to return the country "to its original intent", and in so doing will strive to recreate the effectively feudal system that prevailed some hundreds of years ago - with themselves on top, of course. Look at the distribution of wealth in the US over the course of its history. Feudalism is apparently very big.

    In none of these cases is objective truth the goal; rather it is the enemy. The goal is subjective truth, and the people who are pushing these ideas believe they control their particular subjective truths. Their only way to [maintain] power is to destroy objective reality in the minds of their adherents. They will use everything they can to do this, based on recent performances.

    Now, to your specific question: no a robot wouldn't answer the original question - it had no keywords in in. Your additional details mentioned global warming, so it's possible one ot more will, now.

    Finally, it's been my experience that these sorts of questions go nowhere. I've tried a couple indirect questions, and only got hammered with misunderstandings. It's a good question. It belongs in global warming. I hope it gets traction, but I am afraid it won't. I wish you the best of luck with this. all you need do is read the comments on any weather or climate related article in the news, anywhere.

  • ?
    Lv 4
    5 years ago

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  • 1 decade ago

    <<standby mode cancelled: Yahoo answers/global warming question detected:>>

    <<link included in question: Link uploaded>>

    <<response protocol determined; additional data required>>

    <<response question transmitted>>

    <<what the f**k's this got to do with global warming?>>

    <<standby mode: awaiting response>>

  • 1 decade ago

    Well we have reasons to suspect HAL will be onto this one.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/article/government-and-bi...

  • 1 decade ago

    Only the robot with know for sure.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    "That does not compute"

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