Boy how times have changed...

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Erischan said:
Your account name is very accurate. Why does every thread have some skeptic idiot who needs to provide a counterpoint to the most obvious and banal common sense?
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"The middle east was violent and unstable before social media" is not a hot or even lukewarm take outside of sites like this.
 
Pointless Pedant said:
"The middle east was violent and unstable before social media" is not a hot or even lukewarm take outside of sites like this.
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"Things have gotten worse since 2000" isn't either and yet here you are with muh devils advocacy against it.
 
Erischan said:
"Things have gotten worse since 2000" isn't either and yet here you are with muh devils advocacy against it.
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Depends on the country. That would be a common view in the USA (and I would agree that there has been an American decline since 9/11 too), but a very unpopular one in most of Asia.
 
Pointless Pedant said:
Depends on the country. That would be a common view in the USA (and I would agree that there has been an American decline since 9/11 too), but a very unpopular one in most of Asia.
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No one you are talking to is from Asia and no one gives a shit about a counterperspective. You are not deep for saying "ackshually..."
 
Pointless Pedant said:
Social media helped organise the demonstrations a bit but it certainly didn't cause them. Syria had an Islamic uprising in 1982 too, but that was crushed quickly with the Hama massacre.
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Pointless Pedant said:
"The middle east was violent and unstable before social media" is not a hot or even lukewarm take outside of sites like this.
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And social media was like pouring gasoline on the fire, the 2011 Arab Spring revolts were absolutely a result of the social media age.
 
Dom Cruise said:
And social media was like pouring gasoline on the fire, the 2011 Arab Spring revolts were absolutely a result of the social media age.
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Given the long history of Islamist unrest going back to the Ikhwan during the formation of Saudi Arabia, I really doubt it. They just used the media of their generation rather than rallying everyone through the mosques like in the old days.
 
@Hollywood Hulk Hogan circa March 2014
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@Judge Holden circa April 2014
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Pointless Pedant said:
Given the long history of Islamist unrest going back to the Ikhwan during the formation of Saudi Arabia, I really doubt it. They just used the media of their generation rather than rallying everyone through the mosques like in the old days.
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Disagree with you on this and I'm gonna have to agree with @Dom Cruise on the fact that social media added a whole new dimension to the Arab Spring since it spread so far and so fast.

It started in Tunisia close to the start of 2011 and by the autumn of that same year, Egypt had a full-circle revolution, Libya was in ruins and Gaddafi was gang-raped and murdered by a mob of his own former subjects, while Syria was rapidly dissolving into a civil war that rages on to this very day.

Social media is also why Occupy Wall Street sprang up as a nationwide phenomenon overnight.

If it weren't for social media, I doubt it would've spread as far or as effectively as it did. Part of why it was so effective was because everything happened nearly all at once as opposed to the "slow burn" timeframe of previous revolutions. IIRC, Syria was one of the last major countries to be plunged into the Arab Spring chaos and that's part of why Al-Assad is still alive and in power (that and he has Russian and Iranian support)

It can be argued that preexisting conflicts made the Arab Spring a lot worse but social media is what made it an Arab Spring and not just a Tunisian Spring or an Egyptian Spring
 
Syaoran Li said:
Disagree with you on this and I'm gonna have to agree with @Dom Cruise on the fact that social media added a whole new dimension to the Arab Spring since it spread so far and so fast.

It started in Tunisia close to the start of 2011 and by the autumn of that same year, Egypt had a full-circle revolution, Libya was in ruins and Gaddafi was gang-raped and murdered by a mob of his own former subjects, while Syria was rapidly dissolving into a civil war that rages on to this very day.

Social media is also why Occupy Wall Street sprang up as a nationwide phenomenon overnight.

If it weren't for social media, I doubt it would've spread as far or as effectively as it did. Part of why it was so effective was because everything happened nearly all at once as opposed to the "slow burn" timeframe of previous revolutions. IIRC, Syria was one of the last major countries to be plunged into the Arab Spring chaos and that's part of why Al-Assad is still alive and in power (that and he has Russian and Iranian support)

It can be argued that preexisting conflicts made the Arab Spring a lot worse but social media is what made it an Arab Spring and not just a Tunisian Spring or an Egyptian Spring
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The 1989 Autumn of Nations and the revolutions of 1848 suggest otherwise. Also it didn't happen that quickly. The protests in Tunisia started in 2010 and the full circle revolution in Egypt took 3 years. Sisi didn't seize power until 2013.

I wouldn't say Syria was one of the last either, they were just lucky to have allies supporting them. Subsequently, there were revolutions in Algeria and Sudan in 2019. Algeria just swapped Bouteflika out for Tabbun and carried on, while Sudan was completely overthrown with Al Bashir replaced by a more moderate military junta that dismantled some of the excesses of Islamic law.
 
Pointless Pedant said:
The 1989 Autumn of Nations and the revolutions of 1848 suggest otherwise. Also it didn't happen that quickly. The protests in Tunisia started in 2010 and the full circle revolution in Egypt took 3 years. Sisi didn't seize power until 2013.

I wouldn't say Syria was one of the last either, they were just lucky to have allies supporting them. Subsequently, there were revolutions in Algeria and Sudan in 2019. Algeria just swapped Bouteflika out for Tabbun and carried on, while Sudan was completely overthrown with Al Bashir replaced by a more moderate military junta that dismantled some of the excesses of Islamic law.
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The Revolutions of 1848 were one of those perfect storm occurrences and the 1989 Autumn of Nations hinged on a domino effect that resulted from the Soviet Union's terminal decline.

When you think about it, 1989 and 2011's sweeping waves of revolutions were both freak perfect storms that usually hinged on a specific X-factor or black swan event such as the decline of a superpower or the rise of social media.

Tunisia started in 2010 but IIRC, it was late into the year and the bulk of the Arab Spring was in 2011 and 2012 and during Occupy, people pointed out the direct parallels between OWS and the Arab Spring because of social media.

I've kind of got a pet theory about the Woke Left becoming as powerful as they are because the corporate establishment was worried enough about Occupy that they decided to coopt it and have a whole new stable of useful idiots.

Obviously, I don't think the bigwigs felt Occupy would get as bloody as the Arab Spring did but they did see it as a threat when it first emerged.

I'd consider the 2019 revolutions in Algeria and Sudan to be separate from the Arab Spring but that's just me
 
Syaoran Li said:
The Revolutions of 1848 were one of those perfect storm occurrences and the 1989 Autumn of Nations hinged on a domino effect that resulted from the Soviet Union's terminal decline.

When you think about it, 1989 and 2011's sweeping waves of revolutions were both freak perfect storms that usually hinged on a specific X-factor or black swan event such as the decline of a superpower or the rise of social media.

Tunisia started in 2010 but IIRC, it was late into the year and the bulk of the Arab Spring was in 2011 and 2012 and during Occupy, people pointed out the direct parallels between OWS and the Arab Spring because of social media.

I've kind of got a pet theory about the Woke Left becoming as powerful as they are because the corporate establishment was worried enough about Occupy that they decided to coopt it and have a whole new stable of useful idiots.

Obviously, I don't think the bigwigs felt Occupy would get as bloody as the Arab Spring did but they did see it as a threat when it first emerged.

I'd consider the 2019 revolutions in Algeria and Sudan to be separate from the Arab Spring but that's just me
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Occupy and the Arab Spring were coincidences. Occupy was a reaction to the 2008 recession, while the Arab Spring was a combination of decades of economic stagnation and bad weather. A drought in Syria had driven angry rural people into the cities, where they gathered to rebel in 2011. Given a lot of the revolutionaries were trying to introduce Islamist governments rather than socialist ones, it's safe to say the motivations were very different.

Notably, Yemen, an extremely poor country with little internet access, also had revolutions in 2011 and then 2015, the latter of which led to the civil war they're stuck in now. The unrest in the middle east never ended and carries on to this day. Libya's civil war is ongoing and while Syria's is over the country is left in ruins.
 
Pointless Pedant said:
Occupy and the Arab Spring were coincidences. Occupy was a reaction to the 2008 recession, while the Arab Spring was a combination of decades of economic stagnation and bad weather. A drought in Syria had driven angry rural people into the cities, where they gathered to rebel in 2011. Given a lot of the revolutionaries were trying to introduce Islamist governments rather than socialist ones, it's safe to say the motivations were very different.

Notably, Yemen, an extremely poor country with little internet access, also had revolutions in 2011 and then 2015, the latter of which led to the civil war they're stuck in now. The unrest in the middle east never ended and carries on to this day. Libya's civil war is ongoing and while Syria's is over the country is left in ruins.
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I think you're missing the point, I never said Occupy was connected to the Arab Spring. What I said was they both spread rapidly because of social media (barring the Yemen example but that's because the Middle Easy is notoriously unstable as you've said)

Occupy was a direct result of the Great Recession but what was interesting is that it coincided with the Arab Spring and the parallels the two otherwise unrelated and dissimilar protests did have in common were all because of social media and the role it played in organizing it.

That's why the corporations made sure that Occupy was snuffed out. Social media as a tool of activism was still a fairly new concept in 2011.
 
Syaoran Li said:
I think you're missing the point, I never said Occupy was connected to the Arab Spring. What I said was they both spread rapidly because of social media (barring the Yemen example but that's because the Middle Easy is notoriously unstable as you've said)

Occupy was a direct result of the Great Recession but what was interesting is that it coincided with the Arab Spring and the parallels the two otherwise unrelated and dissimilar protests did have in common were all because of social media and the role it played in organizing it.

That's why the corporations made sure that Occupy was snuffed out. Social media as a tool of activism was still a fairly new concept in 2011.
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The bigger problem with Occupy is that it didn't have any clear and specific demands. No Democratic congress critter could run on Occupy platform, because there wasn't really one other than a general desire for increased banking regulation. People like Sanders and AOC did run on similar platforms a few years later, but only once organisations like the DSA had actually made a formal platform for these proposals.
 
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