this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2026
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Look, I'm gonna be real with you, I've yet to be able to get through the entirety of this thing because every time I push past something I find silly I eventually go back to it and find something else that makes me throw my hands up in the air and the cycle repeats. Maybe they land on a correct assumption at the end, but I wouldn't know because as far as I've gotten it reads like someone that just can't imagine that their logical well thought arguments aren't taken seriously by people who have no reason to consider them an authority on anything.🤷
We already have a science dedicated to the manipulation and persuasion of people, it's called marketing. If you want to know why people believe what they believe and how to manipulate them go read some of the sociopathic studies out there that are literally monitoring biological feedback like brainwaves and pupil dilation.
Anyone who is talking about "choices" as if they are something that is controllable and made in the moment has no business talking about why people believe things. We are children of inertia, there is no homonculus sitting in your head pulling levers like a Pixar movie. The expectation you're gonna brake that lifelong inertia with a simple logical argument when everything else in the world is telling them otherwise, isn't just naive, it's conceited as hell.
And you might be thinking, wow Joebyethen, that's quite the thing to say after writing all that. Who are you expecting to convince? Not a soul. Lol. This is just the vent I've been wanting to make for the past, what? 3 years I keep seeing the damn article passed around.
I'm done now.
I don’t think the author has that expectation. Do you believe that people don’t make choices? Do you not make choices? Why do people break out of inertias then?
I'm really just venting. Rather not get into a big defense of why I don't believe in Free Will tonight, if it's all the same to you.
As for why... I would say a competing set of beliefs and behaviors that grow over time, or trauma. I'm not saying people can't change but if it's happening from some debate bro situation, that's more likely right place right time than anything else.
Fair
This is literally a huge portion of the author's point. Also, consider that this seems to be in contradiction with the insinuation of:
Because right there you explain why a logical argument (or evidence, etc.) might not be taken seriously.
The point of the article, I think, isn't that people are not propagandized, it's that part of the reason they don't reject that propaganda is that they recognize on some level that it benefits them.
I understand that, but I was considering the propaganda to be under the umbrella of the maintenance of the aforementioned "lifelong inertia".
To clarify, I was agreeing with you. Sorry, I realize that wasn't clear in my reply.
Well that's great, but I wouldn't know, I can't get through it!
tbh, it's like I'm reading a complaint by this guy. 
My opinion of it is also not helped that it seems like it often gets shared as a reason why convincing people can't ever be done in the imperial core and thus no other tactic should be tried. But that's not the authors fault I know, just my impression.🤷 It's never here's what we should try instead, it's always brainwashing isn't real, here's a link.
If you want to speak in terms of a text you're probably more familiar with, what does "no investigation" entail?
I'm easily one of the biggest proponents of the essay, but my point in discussing it most of the time is to fight against misanthropic ideas about the people being "sheeple" or whatever that are fundamentally sub-rational, and instead that we simply need to engage on a more empathetic basis, trying to understand why people believe what they do in order to find more constructive ways of engaging with them.
Yeah no shit. As I've said I've attempted reading this multiple times.
And that sounds like a better discussion that puts it in a better light, but I've never seen it happen.🤷 Matter of fact, I would say the opposite typically happens and the argument instead becomes something closer the hopelessness of reaching labor aristocracy or some shit.
it's not that you can't reach the labor aristocracy, it's that a lot of them have a visceral reaction to arguments against western propaganda that means they refuse to hear or consider what you have to say. i know i've done it before. the article explains why
The issue is that not having empathy and trying to go about these discussions in an overly "academic" manner is usually pretty worthless outside of niche cases where you've basically just gotten lucky because the other person was in a place to have that kind of discussion. Obviously there are some doomer third worldists on the board, but I've never agreed with them and if you read even 8 - 9 paragraphs into the essay, the author explicitly does not either.
Heard. I'll try to keep that in mind on my next attempt. Whenever the hell that is. Lol. thanks.