> the most compelling content wins the most reach regardless of its origin or intent.

“Winning” means you have successfully manipulated a person who has so little capacity for reasoning that they will react to and make decisions from propaganda

If the plurality of humans have no ability or desire to actively resist manipulation then they are living in the world they are satisfied with

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Eextra953 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Propaganda works on people with all levels of 'capacity for reasoning'. No one is immune to it. Also, a feature of good propaganda is that it gets through a persons bullshit filter so that they are not even aware that they are being manipulated. The article points out the current use of Lego propaganda as examples of governments updating their tools so that they get their message across to more people.

This is important because it lets pluralities build from people who are not aware they are being manipulated. Pluralities can lead to majorities and majorities, in a democratic system, create power. All this to say: I don't think those who have fallen for propaganda are living in a world they are satisfied with but instead that they are living in a world they've been told they are satisfied with and a lack of counter narratives have not shown them a better way. Consider that propaganda gets busted out whenever something isn't naturally popular or beneficial to most people, that is why we see propaganda most used around military efforts.

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AndrewKemendo 8 hours ago | parent [-]

If someone is continuing to put themselves into situations and contexts where they are overloaded with propaganda, then that indicates they lack a core level of discernment

The idea that people cannot have agency while being subjected to propaganda is totally fucking absurd and demonstrably not true

there are millions of examples of people who can discern propaganda and make decisions based on ground truth data

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pixl97 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>put themselves into situations and contexts where they are overloaded with propaganda,

Ah, yes, most of us are independently wealthy and have the financial freedom to avoid working in lobbies blasting fox news all day.

Yes, people can have agency if they choose to, most choose not to because it takes a massive fuckton of energy to do so. But you created society all by yourself from first principles right? Oh you didn't.

The thing is, especially in the modern world with so much media everywhere all the time, we are being subjected to propaganda in nearly everything we do. News, advertizing, lifestyle, all are imbued with propaganda. Some of it's obvious to you and you can quickly discount it. Other parts of it are something you've grown up with and you don't even have the first clue that it is propaganda.

Simply put your feeble human mind cannot comprehend nor perceive the ground truth of all reality and therefore we're subject to the biased and filtered information we receive from others.

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AndrewKemendo 4 hours ago | parent [-]

When you view having control of your mind and body some kind of impossible standard for only the materially wealthy then you are truly lost

	▲	pixl97 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Na dawn, your arrogance is off the charts and your self delusion infinite.
	▲	rexpop 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. — Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

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don_esteban 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

For sure, there are plenty of such people. They are still very small minority.

Almost everybody I know has a tendency to not overly check the statements that broadly align with their world view, and be dismissive (as propaganda, without doing the work to check the ground truth data) of statements that are contrary.

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franklinter 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Propaganda works very well on smart people too. Here's how it often works: smart people like to be well informed. They drink a steady drip of "news" covering a wide range of topics. They therefore have a wide but shallow understanding of current events.

The topics are usually chosen for them (editor or algorithm). The news is packaged up for them to form an opinion at a glance (headline/social media post). They lack a deep understanding and so most things pass as largely believable, if at times a bit of a stretch. Topics they know deeply are almost always "covered poorly," but not the topics they don't know deeply.

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AndrewKemendo 8 hours ago | parent [-]

All you did was describe the fact that people who present as intelligent aren’t actually intelligent

I’m very well aware of a lot of people who are not subject to propaganda - you wouldn’t consider them particularly “fun “to be around because usually they are dedicated and focused on something that they actually believe in like being a monk

I know literally zero monks especially in the tibetan tradition that cannot clock propaganda immediately - you could make a strong argument that Buddhism itself is propaganda and I would actually largely concur with you there in the broad sense however in the sense that we’re describing it is a context that you find yourself overwhelmed by

Oh and then if you actually are that smart then you would have read the following quote:

“ If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do, you’re misinformed.”

Your bar for “smart people” is probably way lower than it should be if you include people who can’t discriminate between measurable repeatible data and propaganda

https://marktwainstudies.com/the-apocryphal-twain/if-you-don...

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bigbadfeline 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> it should be if you include people who can’t discriminate between measurable repeatible data and propaganda

You severely underestimate the cost and effort involved in finding and processing "measurable repeatable data". In fact, for most politically important issues such don't exist, be it for reasons of impossible or insufficient repeatability or lack of access to the few places that may have it.

The vast majority of smart people cannot have access to, or process such data, in amount of time that doesn't risk their existence.

Besides, historical repeatability is kind of a moot point, history doesn't really repeat although farces are common.

> I know literally zero monks especially in the tibetan tradition that cannot clock propaganda immediately

That only shows that you don't quite have an idea how ubiquitous propaganda is, and you accept a lot of it as truth.

> you could make a strong argument that Buddhism itself is propaganda

OK, so they don't "clock propaganda immediately". Moreover, the whole of Buddhism isn't propaganda, the world is quite complicated compared to the abilities of the individual human mind, the long and arduous history of science should tell you that much.

'stevenwoo' below wrote something you might benefit from:

"the post hoc analysis in Jacques Ellul’s book Propaganda makes several compelling arguments that propaganda is omnipresent and difficult for the great part of public to counter and misplaced confidence in one’s own judgment is often the Achilles heel that allows propaganda to insinuate itself in one’s brain."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47663236

	▲	AndrewKemendo 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		There’s an equilibrium point that is available One that is more skeptical as a general concept. However this comes at a significant cost most people choose not to bear

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franklinter 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>All you did was describe the fact that people who present as intelligent aren’t actually intelligent

This is false.

> I’m very well aware of a lot of people who are not subject to propaganda ... [for example] a monk

This supports my point. Monks are not known for trying to "stay informed" the way many people (yes, including intelligent people) do.

	▲	AndrewKemendo 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No all you need to do is view the world through the eyes of a 7 year old and ask why This is just being a scientist at all possible levels of your life and it’s achievable It doesn’t take any special capabilities to do Monks are regular people too

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stevenwoo 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The analysis of 1960 trends leading to belief that religion and racism divides would diminish is laughable but the post hoc analysis in Jacques Ellul’s book Propaganda makes several compelling arguments that propaganda is omnipresent and difficult for the great part of public to counter and misplaced confidence in one’s own judgment is often the Achilles heel that allows propaganda to insinuate itself in one’s brain. I mentioned this book in another comment today but it’s uncannily relevant.