There is a difference between trying to convince someone to spend money on your product vs trying to convince someone that your worldview and ideology is the right one (Trumpism) by using language that resonates with your values.
You wouldn’t be able to convert a progressive to become a Trumpist, but try it on folks on the fence and the probability is higher.
Same happened in the UK with Brexit. A weak West benefits Putin. The Russians have a lot of experience with disinformation campaigns. Look up Operation Infektion. Luckily it failed. The West is now more united, due to Putin’s miscalculation with the Ukraine war.
Further material: https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/professor-emma-l-b...
And watch the Cambridge Analytica documentary.
Both is propaganda, the difference stems from not only trying to frame things in a positive light as you commonly do with advertisement. The reason political propaganda is often more effective is the easy exploitation of negative caricatures combined with ingroup/outgroup effects and the errors of our brains. Be it cognitive biases or simply the inability to scale with complexity. So for example, if i get you to perceive yourself to be part of my ingroup, by having you react predictably with caricatures representing the outgroup (often with some "with us or against us" rhetorics) and manage to have you accept simplified stories, then i quite simply already won. Because i will be able to define who is and who isnt grouped in with the caricatures and how you think about anything they say.
This is very much about brainwashing. If i get you to think about stuff the way i framed it and stop you from communicating with people outside of the frame in a meaningful way, then i own you. And it works through you not wanting to challenge believes you started to identify with due to cognitive biases. Which is also how you recognize whether you are already in such a situation. By for example, believing every disagreement with sockpuppets is a "no" instead of a "yes, but...". Having an incomplete view of a situation is often just as easy to exploit as a wrong one.
Unfortunately this is just the start. This is very much an asymmetric battle with individuals on the loosing end in terms of complexity management and ease of adaptation. And even if you somehow managed to stay objective and got your hands on good information, you are still at threat of your attacker escalating to psychological warfare, for example overwhelming you with inputs to force you into either paralysis or predetermined reactions. And depending of how vicious your attacker is, white torture is also a possibility for further escalation.
Yes - spot on. And this was used during the Trump and Brexit campaigns.
However, brainwashing to me is when you can turn someone who originally is far away from your side and make them come over to your side. So maybe we just have a different definition of it.
I hope we can agree though that Trump was not good for the US - he created a lot of damage and used those tactics you mentioned to create division and in-fighting, which benefits the status quo and hinders societal progress.
I always wonder how can you ensure that people get factual information and how to change the system so politicians lose their jobs if they deliberately spread misinformation or lie. It's key for having a functioning democracy, voters need accurate and factual information.
>It’s not that strange actually. In fact, the difference between apophenia and science is just the scientific process and the reliance on proof. People make the connection before they know for a fact if it’s real or not. Maybe it is apophenia, maybe not. It’s a hypothesis. THEN YOU TEST IT. The facts determine the outcome and then, whether it feels good or not, you accept them. Even scientists may not want to let go of a good theory that just isn’t panning out. The feeling of correctness is over-powering. This is why people need to have peer-reviews. Colleagues need to be able to replicate results. Solutions need to be tested and the facts harnessed.
>In Q, the proof is more apophenia! Another arrow in the dirt in an endless cycle back to the central propaganda. It has to because there is no truth. The answer is whatever feels the best, makes the most sense, and helps the story. Any truth is just fuel for the propaganda and reinforces the conclusions of the apophenia and central narrative.
>It feels like it’s really happening. It especially seems so when cheered on by a curated fake “community” clapping you on the back and telling you you are a hero for every radical leap into the void you make.
Being opposed to something like this is very easy. And at the same time the ability to figure stuff out without political framing gets harder and harder as well. Its made only worse with propaganda on the political level being also very profitable. And even stuff with good intentions backfires.
Its a clusterfuck all around, stuff gets more and more complicated. We havent solved scaling problems in software development or companies and it seems political discourse cant handle either. In addition to problems becoming too complicated, you also have to stay realistic. If you just fire every politicians dealing with disinformation you have the old problem of replacing everyone with some magic competent new humans with authoritarians meanwhile racing onwards. Give people certain incentives and its hard to behave differently. People want to get reelected and peoples opinions are very easily swayed with some well made propaganda.
On the bright side, this should all be a rather easy fix as long as we can agree on meaning well and reality mattering more then wanting to feel right. Because that is how a really nice made frame looks and you might have to let go and try to be rational for a moment.
edit: tldr: Any attempt to ban missinformation would likely be a terrible idea, we will have to agree to wanting to fix it instead. And that is hopefully just a question of tooling.
And yes agree - banning misinformation isn't the answer.
So what are the solutions - how do make sure propaganda doesn't bubble to the top, but facts and truthful information does - so people can make informed decisions.
How do you avoid people like Trump, i.e. narcissistic self serving people rising to power and subverting democracy.
