I think it's less Twitter and more "rationalism", which is an extremely effective engine for turning people who are very proud of how clever they are into Nazi creeps
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Yeah I think people overrate "propaganda can make dumb people believe anything" and underrate "propaganda can provide the basis for smart-ish people to rationalize their way into anything"
Right. It's just "debate club" smart. If I can use a rhetorical trick to make it sound reasonable then I win (who cares whether I'm substantively correct or not).
This is why i absolutely detest all of the pop science life hack type books. The kind of empty calorie books that people who put "entrepreneur" in their social media bios consume to make themselves feel smart. One simple trick to succeeding in life and business!
I mean Noah and Matty exist in a society - they're not passively consuming material but engaging with peers on a social and intellectual level. It doesn't matter how smart you are if you spend every evening in the Nazi bar.
Sure, this is more of a “yes, and” situation. This phenomenon is older than the current Nazi Bar, but it’s certainly been made a lot worse over the last decade
I think I used to underrate the former, but there's definitely all kinds of research into how smart believe dumb shit too and are just better at rationalizing it.
they think not feeling things removes bias but actually it just makes them dennis reynolds.
& since the result of november's election, they view the rest of us as the shusher.
I think that's definitely a component that Twitter also feeds into. Especially if the rationalist is a social media addict and all of his nazi-curious posts generate the feedback he wants.
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It's not just the capacity to think critically but the opportunity as well.
I agree that there’s not really a way to cope with substantial propaganda regardless of intelligence, but there’s non-propaganda aspects as well.
I did what I always do: open up a page at random to read, and see if it’s random bullshit or not. I’ve yet to see one of these books pass this test.
& since the result of november's election, they view the rest of us as the shusher.