[smoll]

If most people are hard-wired to be duped, why does it feel like only recently people are getting even more conspicuously duped by their political leaders (a la Trump and Johnson)? Presumably this effect should have had a more uniformly distributed effect throughout history.

Is it solely due to the weaponization of technology for this means? Or are there other reasons for “why now”?

[huffmsa]

It's not increased, we're just more aware of deceptions.

Up until 100 years ago, you could go town to town scamming people and there'd be little cross town communication. Each town would know it had been duped, but you wouldn't know about other towns.

[jplayer01]

1) Accessibility

2) There's always been some measure of manipulation by political leaders in order to achieve certain goals. Obvious examples are the US in drumming up support for WW2 or the Vietnam war or ... well, any war, really. I don't think anything has really fundamentally changed since the "good old days", except people have realized that they can subvert democracy by just telling people what they want to hear. We have decades of history where you can say something and then do something else entirely, and this is just the natural extension of that. Political leaders, businesses, etc. have realized that there are no consequences for being bad actors, only benefits. Even if they are found out, they can influence the news in ways to make it blow over in a day, or they can tie up courts for years and years if it ever does go there (rare).

All I see is an inexorable march which started decades ago, and it's not going to stop here.

[paganel]

>1) Accessibility

This doesn't get mentioned as often as it should. I have read almost no critical analysis of the fact that cheap smartphones coupled with relatively cheap mobile Internet have brought the political discourse to lots and lots of more people, who otherwise most certainly would have switched the TV channel when the politics were on or who didn't read the politics section in the newspapers (if they used to read newspapers at all).

In other words, Facebook and Twitter by themselves would have meant nothing without the cheap Android phones.

[lordnacho]

> Or are there other reasons for “why now”?

Now because it's only been a short time since people could decide anything. Or at least were told that they could. How long since real parliamentary democracy, where say half of people who can currently vote were allowed to do so?

And in that time, the major outlets were few and gated by a journalistic system where you had to at least say something sensible and be judged by what some might call an elite, but others would call educated common sense.

Recently that status quo has fallen apart, and it's become clear that you don't need to have a message that is in any way cognizant of history, science, or any other established facts. The crazies at Speaker's Corner are now able to broadcast with a similar reach as people who've actually considered what to say.

Technology does indeed have a lot to do with this state of affairs, and is also alluded to in the article. That one nutter who says the world is flat online now causes others with the same inclinations to gain in confidence. Likewise with any number of ideas that would have quietly died.

[rzmnzm]

I don't agree. 'Yellow journalism' has been around for almost 150 years. The major differentiator was who had the money to print, and an audience to read.

It would be nice to think that a news organisation's respectability would translate into a greater audience, but you only have to look at the Sun, Fox, et all to see that is not the case.

An interesting story is more appealing than one that is not, even if it is not true. And the cost of reporting false information is a small retraction printed weeks later on page 10.

The decline of news media profitability has led to the state of journalism today, which mainly consists of twitter gossip mongers, producing content not much better than the crazies at speakers corner (and often worse).

[lm28469]

> only recently

Internet is probably part of it. You couldn't spread so much BS so far/fast/cheap even 30 years ago.

[carry_bit]

People can also be duped about their political leaders, not just by them.

It's much easier to tell that someone else has been duped if you haven't been duped the same way. Until recently the main dupers were playing for the same team, so it was harder to notice since there was no mainstream "other". Now they've split into separate teams, so now there is a mainstream "other" that people can easily notice.

[AnimalMuppet]

I'm tempted to say that it's because of the change in epistemology. If there is no such thing as real truth, if truth claims are really assertions of power, then there's no point trying to figure out the truth. And, once you no longer are looking for the truth, any lie will do. Pick whichever one you like best.

Now, that's been going on for a while. I think it's been getting worse over time, as fewer and fewer people believe in actual truth.

And if you think that it's just Trump and Johnson - if you think the insanity is only on one side - you haven't been paying attention.

[lucian1900]

It been happening all along, it's just a bit more mask off right now.

It always become more blatant as the contradictions of capitalism intensify and the status quo becomes untenable. You see the same in Western European propaganda from the 30s, particularly in the Weimar Republic.

[smoll]

Is it a pendulum then? When it’s less obvious is it still happening (and they just do a better job of hiding it from a more sensitive public) or is actual positive change happening?

There’s this saying that sunshine is the best disinfectant, but that somehow feels less true right now. It seems like you can be openly crooked in a democracy as long as you appeal to a sufficient majority for other reasons not related to your crookedness.

[lucian1900]

There is a kind of pendulum, the predictable and periodic failure of capitalism. Whenever a crisis happens, it's hard to sustain the fiction that capitalism is good for most of us. Some shift left, realising that billionaires are in control and can be defeated. Others shift right, mistakenly blaming those already oppressed (poor, immigrants, LGBT).

Sunshine is clearly not the best disinfectant, since we see fascist rhetoric and violence spreading. Repeating a lie enough can work, especially when people are already angry and desperate. And especially when it's merely an intensification of the same rhetoric that capitalism spreads anyway.

Put differently, after capitalism has shifted the Overton window to the right by enough, fascism becomes more generally acceptable.