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Growing up, one of my criticisms of Orson Scott Card's "Enderverse" was how unrealistic it seemed that children could literally rise to power simply through pos

Growing up, one of my criticisms of Orson Scott Card's "Enderverse" was how unrealistic it seemed that children could literally rise to power simply through posting theories and arguments on the internet. How wrong I was.

agumonkey 1y ago
It should be studied how large (world scale) populations can flip with just the right amount of social struggle, populists, wealthy owners leveraging said populists, and new found gurus serving as grandiose ideal sources for the last two groups.
- imiric 1y ago
  The effectiveness of propaganda has been known for a long time. The advertising industry is built on the foundations laid by Edward Bernays a century ago, who applied the same psychological manipulation tactics of propaganda to advertising, which turned it into the trillion dollar meta-industry we know today. The same technology built for advertising is used for any other kind of psyop. Considering most people in industrialized nations carry a personal device with them at all times that can feed them content engineered to be as addicting as possible, with an agenda to influence their thoughts and behavior, it shouldn't be surprising that we're seeing sociopolitical instability in many countries, and megalomaniacs taking advantage of this opportunity to grasp power, inflate their wealth, and establish autocracies. This playbook was described well by an ex-KGB agent who specialized in propaganda in this 1984 interview[1]. I suggest watching the full interview. The timeline of what we're seeing today aligns well with the surge of adtech, social media, and smartphones. A nation can be fully destabilized in the span of a generation, and modern tools make this much easier and cheaper than Yuri Bezmenov could have predicted. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr5sTGxMUdo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr5sTGxMUdo
  - agumonkey 1y ago
    Yeah I've seen the interview. Still there's a little lesson here. 20th century made people thinking they were educated and advanced. But in fact it doesn't matter much...
tempestn 1y ago
One thing I'll say for the current era is that it has made a lot of such fiction appear more realistic in hindsight. Another example is the Silo book series, recently adapted to a series on Apple TV. I remember reading those books thinking it was insane than the people would act in such clearly counter-productive ways against their own interests, or that leadership would make up elaborate lies rather than just telling people the truth so they would see why certain actions were necessary. And now I'm watching the same plot a decade later, and it all hits home.
- Anthony-G 1y ago
  I’ve really enjoyed the TV series (so far). Would you recommend reading the books – either before or after watching future seasons? While watching the first two seasons, I still haven’t understood why the creators of the silos wouldn’t just have told people the truth to avoid the dysfunctionality that results from the cognitive dissonance that the leadership has to maintain. Telling the truth would also preclude the rebellions that keep recurring because the people realise that they’re being lied to. Is the rationale for the elaborate lies and rituals clearer in the books? On the other hand, I can understand why the leader of the post-apocalyptic bunker in Paradise goes to extreme lengths to lie to the residents about the outside world.
  - tempestn 1y ago
    It's been a long time since I read the books, but I recall thinking the same as you. And I'm not sure it does entirely make sense, but the world today has made me realize that both people in charge and the population at large can do incredibly damaging things, even directly against their own interests, that appear to make no sense at all. So even if something truly does make no sense, that doesn't make it unrealistic. That said, I do vaguely recall things making at least somewhat more sense eventually, but I've basically forgotten all the significant plot details (I'm not even 100% certain I finished the series; I may have caught up with the author and then forgotten about it), so I'm basically experiencing it all again for the first time.
    - 1y ago
pas 1y ago
But who actually did rise to power through posting? Trump inherited money, and spent years as a strange real-estate and projects guy (casinos, university), like Musk, who had more smarts for his projects, and so on. Well, Hitler and Szálasi (crazy Hungarian Nazi guy) and Lenin/Stalin come to mind as the closest actually, so maybe that's where OSC got the idea. Hm, now I'm curious who was the youngest elected head of state... edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_youngest_state_leaders_since_1900 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_youngest_state_leade...
twobitshifter 1y ago
>“Does a normal Ohio voter read . . . Mencius Moldbug? No,” Vance reportedly said one night at a bar during the 2021 National Conservatism Conference. “But do they agree with the broad thrust of where we think American public policy should go? Absolutely.” Apparently, if the right people read your ideas then they’ll get convinced that the rest of Ohio feels the same way?

agumonkey 1y ago

It should be studied how large (world scale) populations can flip with just the right amount of social struggle, populists, wealthy owners leveraging said populists, and new found gurus serving as grandiose ideal sources for the last two groups.

imiric 1y ago
The effectiveness of propaganda has been known for a long time. The advertising industry is built on the foundations laid by Edward Bernays a century ago, who applied the same psychological manipulation tactics of propaganda to advertising, which turned it into the trillion dollar meta-industry we know today. The same technology built for advertising is used for any other kind of psyop. Considering most people in industrialized nations carry a personal device with them at all times that can feed them content engineered to be as addicting as possible, with an agenda to influence their thoughts and behavior, it shouldn't be surprising that we're seeing sociopolitical instability in many countries, and megalomaniacs taking advantage of this opportunity to grasp power, inflate their wealth, and establish autocracies. This playbook was described well by an ex-KGB agent who specialized in propaganda in this 1984 interview[1]. I suggest watching the full interview. The timeline of what we're seeing today aligns well with the surge of adtech, social media, and smartphones. A nation can be fully destabilized in the span of a generation, and modern tools make this much easier and cheaper than Yuri Bezmenov could have predicted. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr5sTGxMUdo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr5sTGxMUdo
- agumonkey 1y ago
  Yeah I've seen the interview. Still there's a little lesson here. 20th century made people thinking they were educated and advanced. But in fact it doesn't matter much...

tempestn 1y ago

One thing I'll say for the current era is that it has made a lot of such fiction appear more realistic in hindsight. Another example is the Silo book series, recently adapted to a series on Apple TV. I remember reading those books thinking it was insane than the people would act in such clearly counter-productive ways against their own interests, or that leadership would make up elaborate lies rather than just telling people the truth so they would see why certain actions were necessary. And now I'm watching the same plot a decade later, and it all hits home.

Anthony-G 1y ago
I’ve really enjoyed the TV series (so far). Would you recommend reading the books – either before or after watching future seasons? While watching the first two seasons, I still haven’t understood why the creators of the silos wouldn’t just have told people the truth to avoid the dysfunctionality that results from the cognitive dissonance that the leadership has to maintain. Telling the truth would also preclude the rebellions that keep recurring because the people realise that they’re being lied to. Is the rationale for the elaborate lies and rituals clearer in the books? On the other hand, I can understand why the leader of the post-apocalyptic bunker in Paradise goes to extreme lengths to lie to the residents about the outside world.
- tempestn 1y ago
  It's been a long time since I read the books, but I recall thinking the same as you. And I'm not sure it does entirely make sense, but the world today has made me realize that both people in charge and the population at large can do incredibly damaging things, even directly against their own interests, that appear to make no sense at all. So even if something truly does make no sense, that doesn't make it unrealistic. That said, I do vaguely recall things making at least somewhat more sense eventually, but I've basically forgotten all the significant plot details (I'm not even 100% certain I finished the series; I may have caught up with the author and then forgotten about it), so I'm basically experiencing it all again for the first time.
  - 1y ago

pas 1y ago

But who actually did rise to power through posting? Trump inherited money, and spent years as a strange real-estate and projects guy (casinos, university), like Musk, who had more smarts for his projects, and so on. Well, Hitler and Szálasi (crazy Hungarian Nazi guy) and Lenin/Stalin come to mind as the closest actually, so maybe that's where OSC got the idea. Hm, now I'm curious who was the youngest elected head of state... edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_youngest_state_leaders_since_1900 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_youngest_state_leade...

twobitshifter 1y ago

>“Does a normal Ohio voter read . . . Mencius Moldbug? No,” Vance reportedly said one night at a bar during the 2021 National Conservatism Conference. “But do they agree with the broad thrust of where we think American public policy should go? Absolutely.” Apparently, if the right people read your ideas then they’ll get convinced that the rest of Ohio feels the same way?