[mooglevich]

What do you think a good faith person trying to persuade should do with this information?

(Legit question, not trying to throw out a gotcha. I've been wracking my brain about this, since I spiritually agree w/ you that throwing zingers aren't gonna help us all get on the same page, but I've been at a loss as to how to actually discuss these topics with people that seemed to have been taken in by...whatever it is that's going on.)

[BugsJustFindMe]

You're probably not going to find this satisfying, but, online? For sure nothing.

Even in person, I'm not sure that there really is a way to persuade someone to change their politics in the modern media landscape, even if you get a lot of time alone with them one on one in person and you do everything right, because of what we know about media inundation and how people begin from their gut feelings and then work backwards to retcon details that align with those feelings.

You will have conversations where it seems like you've made some kind of progress, where it seems like you've earned some kind of credibility, where it seems like you've gained some kind of ground, and then the next day they will regress because the new thing they just saw will confirm their original vibes and the interpositions you created will be pushed out of mind and forgotten.

And this will happen over and over because the world is psychotically overrun by messaging from media empires that make mindbogglingly large amounts of money from outright conning people.

So, unless you have a few anti-billionaire billionaire friends thinking of starting media empires in your pocket, possibly the one thing you can do is run for local government.

[lovich]

> You're probably not going to find this satisfying, but, online? For sure nothing.

Then why tone police the original poster? If these people are unconvinceable then why not enjoy the catharsis?

[credit_guy]

I agree with the policing thing. I do that from time to time. Hacker News is one (maybe the only one) good place on the internet. Let's try to keep it like that. Snarky remarks are clearly against this site's guidelines. And for good reason: they do not change anyone's mind, and can result in polarizing responses. That's not what HN needs.

[BugsJustFindMe]

I presently view that kind of cathartic expression as worse than neutral and actively harmful. That's not the same as being able to change someone's mind, but it's also still bad.

[lovich]

I legitimately do not understand the idea that it’s harmful if you simultaneously argue that it has no effect on anyone but catharsis for the poster.

If it doesn’t change anyone’s mind then why care?

If it does change someone’s mind then why argue against it? Unless you mean to say that you think it’s actively changing people’s mind in the opposite direction of the original posters intent

[cyanydeez]

There are definitely right wing talking points being shrouded as centrist or other fascism.

Like one thing that I see often are the "they deserve this right-wing grift". Like, there's a lot of people who quickly love to do victim blaming when there's now like one near left mainstream media (NBC) and the remainder are all some right wing grooming station.

There's definitely a center that needs to be reminded that they're currently surrounded by right wing propaganda and they're all trying to move the overton window.

You're right the far right is far gone, but the rest of civil society is still drifting, from apathy or misdirection or serious grift or be grifted realities.

[BugsJustFindMe]

Ok, let's imagine that I agree with what you just said...

Given your stated premise of the major media landscape being manipulative right-wing grooming stations hiding behind veneers of centrism and the unimaginable power that carries with it, what do you think can legitimately counter the state of things you described other than an empire-shifting media effort that would take financial investments on the scale of an entire small nation state?

If they're uninformed, how much can you actually inform them against the background? If they're uncaring, still, after everything, how can you make them care? If they're undecided, still, after everything, how will you get them to decide?

[bigbadfeline]

> how much can you actually inform them against the background?

Depends on who you is, in the sense of how many. You seem to be unaware of that choice.

[BugsJustFindMe]

How many of me does it take to reverse https://www.pewresearch.org/chart/sotnm-cable-newsroom-spend... or https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241107961040/en/New...

What's our message? What's our reach? Are we coordinated? Are we effective?

[AnimalMuppet]

All the media except NBS is a "right wing grooming station"? Seriously? CNN? AP News? Reuters? Huffpo? They're all grooming people for the right wing?

I mean, I agree that the right wing is pumping out propaganda and trying to move the overton window, but I think you are seriously mistaken about where the media is at.

[cyanydeez]

Well, you're right in that we have to assume the right wing ibllionaire who bought CNN will ensure their editorial view point is properly aligned.

But lets be honest, you want to believe that there's some happy push and pull between left and right instead of a heavy handed skew into far right.

It's not just good business as Fox has demonstrated, it's also good _self interest_ to go into the conservative business.

I'm sorry.

[bigbadfeline]

> All the media except NBS is a "right wing grooming station"? Seriously? CNN? AP News? Reuters? Huffpo?

Ever heard of "good cop, bad cop"? Look it up.

[bigbadfeline]

> What do you think a good faith person trying to persuade should do with this information? (Legit question...I've been wracking my brain about this)

I can tell you that but it depends on what you are trying to be convincing about. You seem to assume you have all the answers and persuasion is all that remains, but as I said, it depends, you might actually need to first figure out what's worthy of persuasion.

[FireBeyond]

This is the challenge. I made similar remarks around the reversal of Roe.

On one side you have people throwing arguments that even they know to be a lie, like "post-birth abortions up to 1 month", and when I said "You know, I'm done engaging in good faith with that type of argument", I found many, even here, said that that was my failing, not theirs:

> It's not really a choice but a demonstration of intelligence and empathy. Still, if you deliberately decide to remain ignorant, or simply fail to understand the opposition's position even despite your best efforts, it shouldn't surprise you when you also fail to convince people your position is the correct one.

Like huh? It is okay for them to be objectively dishonest, and have zero shred of empathy, curiosity for my position, but refusing to engage on a good faith basis is a failing of mine?

> Once you reach this stage, your commentary pretty much just becomes elaborate whining, which makes a poor impression of yourself and actually pushes people away from your position.

This is literally idiocracy in the making.

If I make a poor impression on people by repeatedly shutting down their horseshit about doctors performing "abortions" up to a week or a month after birth, or that babies are being harvested in the basement of a pizza parlor for their adrenachrome, and you're more concerned about how I should be "understanding" of that perspective, again, you're also supporting the idiocracy.

[psunavy03]

Legit answer . . . drop the snark. That's the quickest way to take the person you're trying to persuade and just piss them off and make them double down.

No one changes their mind because someone allegedly "destroyed" or "wrecked" them; that's toxic social media-driven nonsense. If anything, snark and condescension just entrench people's beliefs because "I'm right and that guy's just an arrogant asshole."

The conservative feeling of being punched down on exists because for the longest time, pop-culturally they were. Jon Stewart, John Oliver, and that whole crew play great to a certain educated liberal crowd, but it turns out people really really don't like being the butt of the pop culture jokes.

[invalidOrTaken]

A good faith person who was also informed would be aware that this is basically a criticism of Romney-era neocon policies, and that agenda is no longer the animating force of the GOP (and was soundly defeated despite the wishes of the great and the good of the party establishment). In the far-right circles I frequent, the sentiment is, basically, "Triple, quadruple, quintuple the national debt, and crash the economy, if that's what it takes to halt immigration and have a country again, rather than an economic zone."

It was not free-market sentiment that propelled Trump to the WH.

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

Great point. I don't know that I'd say people want a crash, but that they are ambivalent to a crash as long as legal and illegal immigration are stopped and rolled back.