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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Propaganda doesn't totally rob people of ~~agency~~ free will (more accurate term), if it did this site wouldn't exist. People do have the capacity to develop critical thinking, skepticism, and a basic curiosity about the world that allow them to develop some resistance to propaganda.

You can hold people accountable for failing to even attempt to do this.

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[-] [email protected] 58 points 1 year ago

I think it would be unwise for this site to start believing that they're all special little geniuses who actually are immune to propaganda because they're just so correct about everything all the time.

[-] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

I agree no one is immune to propaganda. That's literally part of this post I made.

But does that mean I have to think someone who literally thinks forest fires are started by Jewish Space Lasers is equally a intelligent and critical as me?

[-] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Considering that the content of this post is tacitly holding ourselves up to be superior to other people, I think it's important to remind that no, actually, we are not so special. Let alone that any of us might have ended up believing very different things, we are all still vulnerable to being misled. Stay humble out there, Hexbear.

[-] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Considering that the content of this post is tacitly holding ourselves up to be superior to other people

You edited your comment so to reply to this part. Are you actually consistent in your life in NOT holding yourself as superior to other people who hold hogwash beliefs? Like if you've ever encountered an antivaxxer or a QAnon supporter, did you view and treat them with the same respect as you would a fellow socialist? Or did you at least hold them in some contempt for their maliciously ignorant beliefs?

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[-] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

It's not deflection, my post is literally saying we aren't immune to propaganda.

But, also that, not being 100% doesn't really give a free pass for people to repeatedly regurgitate easily debunk-able bullshit multiple times. I don't give Vaush or Destiny or Jordan Peterson fans a pass just because some hypothetical version of myself maybe would have fallen for those hucksters too. If we follow this logic to it's maxim I think you just end up at hard determinism. We can't really judge anyone for anything, that Neo-Nazi only ended up that way cuz his mom made him oatmeal instead of eggs one breakfast and that set off a chain of events that inevitably lead to him reading too much Stonetoss.

[-] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

what will our narwhal do and what time will it do it?

[-] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

The Hexbear pigpoopballs on moscow time.

[-] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago

you have material life dice rolls to start even asking questions shrug-outta-hecks

Just as mass propaganda of "everything is going great" hits a wall in the bottom part of society, "the everything is shit" hits similar wall in the owning part of society.

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[-] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The idea of personal responsibility to do and be everything right is inherently right-wing, people are products of their conditions. We are no more intelligent than normal people, we just got the info and chances to think differently

[-] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

Agency is not the same as Free Will. Agency merely means the "choice" happens internal to a being. A child has the agency to "choose" between a healthy snack and a cookie, but their behavior will largely be dependent on what they have been (actively OR passively) trained to do.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Fair point.

I think my argument stands tho.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

You can get angry at that child all you want for not making the "choice" you want, or not putting in the effort you expect. It's not gonna do a whole lotta good without substantive action.

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[-] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago
[-] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago
[-] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Sorry, in my day-to-day Australian life, I repeatedly run into Soviet propaganda from 90 years ago and eventually fell for it. :(

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[-] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Yes, I find the same goes for ads for example and addiction to social media etc. I'm not denying both are a problem in society but I don't like the assumption that everyone is equally affected by it or when people use it as a ready-made rationalisation for something im doing.

I also think your point can also be extended to say that generally right-wingers are also way more susceptible to it, even if to some extent we all are.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Us, we, the politically minded internet dwellers and the pmc/lanyard/neoliberal/boomer/chud/right wing psycho internet people are both hyper-aware of media. We're also hyper-aware of one another. We all tend to over-emphasize the importance of media (and therefore propaganda) in politics. That goes for traditional media like TV and new media like social media and podcasts.

Media has inserted itself as main method to know what's going on in the world for many people. That doesn't mean it's actually the only way or that it's the source of political action in the world.

Misinformation, data, propaganda, information, news, etc aren't as important to the way things are as it seems. It's not a battle between who gets to tell the story, it's the winners of the battle that get to tell the story and the winners are those who own the labor. There is demonstrable proof that illiterate, largely unread people can start and win a revolution. The question is whether that's true for the revolution to come. It'll be hard to say until it's over.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

The problem with change more broadly is that in order for someone to change, they have to WANT to change. I think a lot of people don't want to change. Change is scary. Change is hard. Change can end up being worse for the individual overall, it carries some risk. Many of us live in a society that largely pushes the idea that change and growth is bad, which is honestly the most insidious propaganda of them all. Folks have to take that first giant leap first and be willing to and open to change. Or they have to be forced into change via an upsetting of their material conditions.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

it's not enough to want to change, you need to be able to as well. for one example, someone with severe adhd and no access to (effective) therapy or medication isn't going to change shit, not matter how much they want to.

kill the protestant in your head.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

I can either understand why people in my life believe that Putin is Hitler 2.0 and it's our moral imperative to kill all Russians, and work against that narrative, or I can denounce them for having common brainworms that I (and most of this site) held until a few years ago.
Or are you talking about weirdos online?

[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago
[-] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

If someone tried to show me propaganda, I would simply say, "No thanks."

[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

People on this site literally do exactly this every day. Do you believe people in the DPRK get out and push trains?

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this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2024
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