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I don’t think this kind of analysis is ever productive. Have you considered the possibility that they’ve been convinced not by subconscious machinations but by

I don’t think this kind of analysis is ever productive. Have you considered the possibility that they’ve been convinced not by subconscious machinations but by arguments they believe are valid? If someone went around saying that your beliefs come from subconscious influence operations, is there any way you could prove them wrong?

p_j_w 5y ago
>I don’t think this kind of analysis is ever productive. Not even if it's true?
- SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
  The problem is that it's always true. If you're open to changing your mind in response to evidence and arguments, then your current beliefs will depend on which information you've seen, and thus you will have been influenced by organizations who chose to promote information supporting their own beliefs. We're affected by the machinations of tech, but also the machinations of retailers and unions and political parties and editors and... I can imagine someone presenting this as an argument for being open-minded, and that might make sense. But in every instance I've seen, including this one, it was deployed as an argument that some specific belief should be disregarded because the people who hold it have been tricked. That kind of selective skepticism doesn't make sense.
  - p_j_w 5y ago
    >The problem is that it's always true. Is it, though? We've got here an article about a multibillion dollar company using its money and influence to peddle a view that's beneficial to them and trying very hard to make it look like it's not actually coming from them. This is absolutely not always the case. This is more than just run of the mill people being open to changing their minds then, is it? >in every instance I've seen, including this one, it was deployed as an argument that some specific belief should be disregarded I think you've misread the post above, because at no point in that comment was it suggested that said belief should be disregarded.
    - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
      > Is it, though? We've got here an article about a multibillion dollar company using its money and influence to peddle a view that's beneficial to them and trying very hard to make it look like it's not actually coming from them. This is absolutely not always the case. Every multibillion dollar organization I'm familiar with has a PR team who's responsible for shaping news coverage in ways that benefit the company. We just don't normally think about it this way. Nobody looks at the coordinated release of reviews about a week before video game launches and says "aha, Nintendo has dishonestly manipulated the media once again".
noah_buddy 5y ago
>If someone went around saying that your beliefs come from subconscious influence operations, is there any way you could prove them wrong? I get the point you're making that this seems like an individually unfalsifiable proposition. Fair point. It would require massive amounts of data to show the arc of people's beliefs and I'm not certain it's a tractable problem. That said, I already believe that many things I care about I only care about because they are issues that society (or rather members/organizations there within) dedicated time to considering. I think that discourse is inherently limited because attention span and time are limited and, as an extension, I believe that there are issues that most people/all people never think about but by metrics that we deem relative importance we'd find worth major consideration. I would give an example but you can understand the difficulty of describing something no one finds important that is important. By extension of the above, I believe that organizations, through concerted effort, are able to crowd out the marketplace of ideas (either at societal level or at organization level) with issues that they deem less threatening to their interests, so long as they have hooks that draw attention. I don't think this idea is particularly unbelievable because we can see similar concepts outlined by even the government in the forms of documents suggesting how to disrupt organizations [1]. I think that this idea also dove tails quite clearly with the concept of propaganda and mass media influence like that discussed by Chomsky. I would argue that there are many arguments that are valid (and sometimes valid from both sides) but at a societal level not productive. I think the American issue of abortion is a great example of this: would you agree that in 70 years of debating the issue, we as a society have made the implicit choice to not debate other issues? Not that we discuss nothing els, but certainly we'd have filled that time with some other issues if there had been a conclusive resolution on the issue. There is no resolution to the debate which is what makes it such an effective tool for politicians to rouse support, so why would they seek a longstanding resolution instead of this continue back and forth of the judiciary as members die and are added? I am happy to continue this conversation but I've rambled enough now and must work. [1] https://corporate-rebels.com/cia-field-manual/ https://corporate-rebels.com/cia-field-manual/

p_j_w 5y ago

>I don’t think this kind of analysis is ever productive. Not even if it's true?

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
The problem is that it's always true. If you're open to changing your mind in response to evidence and arguments, then your current beliefs will depend on which information you've seen, and thus you will have been influenced by organizations who chose to promote information supporting their own beliefs. We're affected by the machinations of tech, but also the machinations of retailers and unions and political parties and editors and... I can imagine someone presenting this as an argument for being open-minded, and that might make sense. But in every instance I've seen, including this one, it was deployed as an argument that some specific belief should be disregarded because the people who hold it have been tricked. That kind of selective skepticism doesn't make sense.
- p_j_w 5y ago
  >The problem is that it's always true. Is it, though? We've got here an article about a multibillion dollar company using its money and influence to peddle a view that's beneficial to them and trying very hard to make it look like it's not actually coming from them. This is absolutely not always the case. This is more than just run of the mill people being open to changing their minds then, is it? >in every instance I've seen, including this one, it was deployed as an argument that some specific belief should be disregarded I think you've misread the post above, because at no point in that comment was it suggested that said belief should be disregarded.
  - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
    > Is it, though? We've got here an article about a multibillion dollar company using its money and influence to peddle a view that's beneficial to them and trying very hard to make it look like it's not actually coming from them. This is absolutely not always the case. Every multibillion dollar organization I'm familiar with has a PR team who's responsible for shaping news coverage in ways that benefit the company. We just don't normally think about it this way. Nobody looks at the coordinated release of reviews about a week before video game launches and says "aha, Nintendo has dishonestly manipulated the media once again".

noah_buddy 5y ago

>If someone went around saying that your beliefs come from subconscious influence operations, is there any way you could prove them wrong? I get the point you're making that this seems like an individually unfalsifiable proposition. Fair point. It would require massive amounts of data to show the arc of people's beliefs and I'm not certain it's a tractable problem. That said, I already believe that many things I care about I only care about because they are issues that society (or rather members/organizations there within) dedicated time to considering. I think that discourse is inherently limited because attention span and time are limited and, as an extension, I believe that there are issues that most people/all people never think about but by metrics that we deem relative importance we'd find worth major consideration. I would give an example but you can understand the difficulty of describing something no one finds important that is important. By extension of the above, I believe that organizations, through concerted effort, are able to crowd out the marketplace of ideas (either at societal level or at organization level) with issues that they deem less threatening to their interests, so long as they have hooks that draw attention. I don't think this idea is particularly unbelievable because we can see similar concepts outlined by even the government in the forms of documents suggesting how to disrupt organizations [1]. I think that this idea also dove tails quite clearly with the concept of propaganda and mass media influence like that discussed by Chomsky. I would argue that there are many arguments that are valid (and sometimes valid from both sides) but at a societal level not productive. I think the American issue of abortion is a great example of this: would you agree that in 70 years of debating the issue, we as a society have made the implicit choice to not debate other issues? Not that we discuss nothing els, but certainly we'd have filled that time with some other issues if there had been a conclusive resolution on the issue. There is no resolution to the debate which is what makes it such an effective tool for politicians to rouse support, so why would they seek a longstanding resolution instead of this continue back and forth of the judiciary as members die and are added? I am happy to continue this conversation but I've rambled enough now and must work. [1] https://corporate-rebels.com/cia-field-manual/ https://corporate-rebels.com/cia-field-manual/