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I'll whole heartedly agree that there is no smoking gun to any of my theories. I don't equate this speech with violence. My point is just that situations that

by tmuir 9y ago

I'll whole heartedly agree that there is no smoking gun to any of my theories. I don't equate this speech with violence. My point is just that situations that result in mob violence can deteriorate at a rate far faster than rational voices can prevail. People are programmable. The level of fervor I see on some of these subreddits tells me that someone is programming these people. People are using the tools of psychology to achieve goals that would not be achievable otherwise. In the time elapsed since the programming of this particular group of people, two years ago, all of the protests I've seen from Trump's base have not been airing of grievances, but more of "lets go gloat in public and see if we can trigger the left.". Trumps base is triggered with shadenfreude, not anger. My point is that there is a singular event, Trump leaving office prematurely, that large groups of the right will inevitably interpret as a coup. If that very situation arises, then the calm, see-it-coming-a-mile-away, clear signs of trouble you envision, is suddenly hundreds of thousands of people in crisis mode. I realize that there is a spectrum of using psychology to influence people, and I can't tell you where the line is of too far, but can we agree that the line exists?

smsm42 9y ago
> I don't equate this speech with violence. Oh I don't say you do. I am saying the need of so many people to do it suggests there's a distinct lack of violence to point at, otherwise they'd be pointing at it, instead of pointing at words. And since these people are highly motivated to find anything to point at, their failure to find it suggests maybe there's indeed not much political mob violence to find. > The level of fervor I see on some of these subreddits tells me that someone is programming these people. For some definition of "programming", maybe. But for that definition, everybody who debates on the internet "programs" everybody else participating in the debate. It's just a nefariously sounding way of describing mundane things, just like writing "contains chemical compounds!" on food packaging. > People are using the tools of psychology to achieve goals that would not be achievable otherwise Not sure what you mean by "otherwise". People communicate. Some of them use knowledge of human psychology to make their message more persuasive. It's not something that appeared today or yesterday or this century or this millenium. Is it harder to convince somebody in something if you ignore human psychology? Of course. But there's nothing nefarious about it - it's like saying "people are using tools of physics and chemistry to achieve goals that would not be achievable otherwise". Sure they do, all power to them! That's why we spend all the big bucks financing the science! > My point is that there is a singular event, Trump leaving office prematurely, that large groups of the right will inevitably interpret as a coup. That would largely depend on the manner of said leaving, I'd assume. For example, if he becomes gravely ill or suddenly dies, that sounds unlikely. If Democrats win majority in Senate and House in the next election and decide immediately to impeach Trump "because he's bad", without a proof of any real crime committed - that sounds much more likely. But that would be a consequence of highly inappropriate behavior resulting in loss of trust in the democratic system by citizens. The cure for it is not to behave like that. If there's no such behavior then the history shows there would be no significant violence. I've heard rumors that Bush would cancel elections and institute martial law, then Obama would cancel elections, and no doubt I'll hear about Trump cancelling elections, and then whoever will be elected after Trump would cancel elections too. There's always talk about this, because it's easy. > I realize that there is a spectrum of using psychology to influence people, and I can't tell you where the line is of too far, but can we agree that the line exists? Not really. There's no "using psychology" but plain old persuasion, and no persuasion is "too far". Well, of course, if you use violent methods like torture, you can also achieve psychological effects, but if we're talking about persuasive speech alone, then there's nothing "too far" in that. There's no words that can make robots out of people, and in fact convincing somebody to change one's mind on a political question by just throwing words at them is really hard. Possible, but hard. People may be "programmable", but not very easily. Usually if they become convinced in something, there are a lot of reasons for it and a lot of background for it, not just some nefarious article on some forum.
- tmuir 9y ago
  "There's no words that can make robots out of people" How do you explain cults? How do you explain the effects of advertising? How do you explain the uniform levels of discipline achieved by basic training? How do you explain phone scammers? How do you explain the success of the public relations industry? How do you explain Bernie Madoff? How do you explain cigarette smokers? How do you explain the effects of what we refer to as echo chambers? Everyone of these consists of people being programmed or brainwashed in one way or another. You hear the word brainwashing and immediately think of someone thats hypnotized, or a zombie, the typical hollywood trope. But its a far more common thing. If you're interested in reading about this, there is a book by a psychologist named Robert Cialdini, called Influence, the Psychology of Persuasion. https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Robert-Cialdini/dp/006124189X https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Rober... One interesting persuasion trick is to start with extreme opening bids in negotiation, and then back off to what you really want. This is how the actors of Watergate were able to convince others to go along with the plan to break in to the Watergate. The original plan was far more involved, with a $1,000,000 budget, and included kidnappings. G Gordon Liddy used this as an extreme opening bid, and eventually convinced everyone that what eventually took place was a reasonable compromise. After, its not like they kidnapped anyone, and they only needed $250,000.
  - Karunamon 9y ago
    Most of your litany of questions can be answered by saying that nobody became a cultist by only reading words on a screen of what the cult believes. Take Scientology for instance. I have access to the whole of their printed words online, yet I am not a Scientologist. You wouldn't be either. You can sub out "Scientology" for any other cult or any other odious group (including race nationalists, terrorists, etc.) and the statement remains true. The reason being that nothing is being engaged here other than reading, writing, and thinking. No money is changing hands, no leader is demanding my obedience at literal or metaphorical gunpoint. In the case of a web forum the absolute worst thing that could happen to me is that I'll get rude comments or be unable to participate further. The only difference between discourse and propaganda is the aim of the people doing the talking. This is a subjective value judgment on what you think of the speech, and when it comes to analyzing it, this amounts to noise. Are you trying to propagandize at me? :)

by tmuir 9y ago

smsm42 9y ago

> I don't equate this speech with violence. Oh I don't say you do. I am saying the need of so many people to do it suggests there's a distinct lack of violence to point at, otherwise they'd be pointing at it, instead of pointing at words. And since these people are highly motivated to find anything to point at, their failure to find it suggests maybe there's indeed not much political mob violence to find. > The level of fervor I see on some of these subreddits tells me that someone is programming these people. For some definition of "programming", maybe. But for that definition, everybody who debates on the internet "programs" everybody else participating in the debate. It's just a nefariously sounding way of describing mundane things, just like writing "contains chemical compounds!" on food packaging. > People are using the tools of psychology to achieve goals that would not be achievable otherwise Not sure what you mean by "otherwise". People communicate. Some of them use knowledge of human psychology to make their message more persuasive. It's not something that appeared today or yesterday or this century or this millenium. Is it harder to convince somebody in something if you ignore human psychology? Of course. But there's nothing nefarious about it - it's like saying "people are using tools of physics and chemistry to achieve goals that would not be achievable otherwise". Sure they do, all power to them! That's why we spend all the big bucks financing the science! > My point is that there is a singular event, Trump leaving office prematurely, that large groups of the right will inevitably interpret as a coup. That would largely depend on the manner of said leaving, I'd assume. For example, if he becomes gravely ill or suddenly dies, that sounds unlikely. If Democrats win majority in Senate and House in the next election and decide immediately to impeach Trump "because he's bad", without a proof of any real crime committed - that sounds much more likely. But that would be a consequence of highly inappropriate behavior resulting in loss of trust in the democratic system by citizens. The cure for it is not to behave like that. If there's no such behavior then the history shows there would be no significant violence. I've heard rumors that Bush would cancel elections and institute martial law, then Obama would cancel elections, and no doubt I'll hear about Trump cancelling elections, and then whoever will be elected after Trump would cancel elections too. There's always talk about this, because it's easy. > I realize that there is a spectrum of using psychology to influence people, and I can't tell you where the line is of too far, but can we agree that the line exists? Not really. There's no "using psychology" but plain old persuasion, and no persuasion is "too far". Well, of course, if you use violent methods like torture, you can also achieve psychological effects, but if we're talking about persuasive speech alone, then there's nothing "too far" in that. There's no words that can make robots out of people, and in fact convincing somebody to change one's mind on a political question by just throwing words at them is really hard. Possible, but hard. People may be "programmable", but not very easily. Usually if they become convinced in something, there are a lot of reasons for it and a lot of background for it, not just some nefarious article on some forum.

tmuir 9y ago
"There's no words that can make robots out of people" How do you explain cults? How do you explain the effects of advertising? How do you explain the uniform levels of discipline achieved by basic training? How do you explain phone scammers? How do you explain the success of the public relations industry? How do you explain Bernie Madoff? How do you explain cigarette smokers? How do you explain the effects of what we refer to as echo chambers? Everyone of these consists of people being programmed or brainwashed in one way or another. You hear the word brainwashing and immediately think of someone thats hypnotized, or a zombie, the typical hollywood trope. But its a far more common thing. If you're interested in reading about this, there is a book by a psychologist named Robert Cialdini, called Influence, the Psychology of Persuasion. https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Robert-Cialdini/dp/006124189X https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Rober... One interesting persuasion trick is to start with extreme opening bids in negotiation, and then back off to what you really want. This is how the actors of Watergate were able to convince others to go along with the plan to break in to the Watergate. The original plan was far more involved, with a $1,000,000 budget, and included kidnappings. G Gordon Liddy used this as an extreme opening bid, and eventually convinced everyone that what eventually took place was a reasonable compromise. After, its not like they kidnapped anyone, and they only needed $250,000.
- Karunamon 9y ago
  Most of your litany of questions can be answered by saying that nobody became a cultist by only reading words on a screen of what the cult believes. Take Scientology for instance. I have access to the whole of their printed words online, yet I am not a Scientologist. You wouldn't be either. You can sub out "Scientology" for any other cult or any other odious group (including race nationalists, terrorists, etc.) and the statement remains true. The reason being that nothing is being engaged here other than reading, writing, and thinking. No money is changing hands, no leader is demanding my obedience at literal or metaphorical gunpoint. In the case of a web forum the absolute worst thing that could happen to me is that I'll get rude comments or be unable to participate further. The only difference between discourse and propaganda is the aim of the people doing the talking. This is a subjective value judgment on what you think of the speech, and when it comes to analyzing it, this amounts to noise. Are you trying to propagandize at me? :)