Scott Adams: I Wake You Up for the Presidential Debate
blog.dilbert.com
blog.dilbert.com
This makes it hard to see what the people really honestly believe, and what they are saying to rally their base, get out the vote, etc. It's a lot easier to motivate people to vote if you tell them they are going to die, or be slaves, whatever. The same logic goes for getting people to watch "action" news.
As for change, everyone wants change. No one thinks the system works for them if you ask them what they would change. Change is a powerful motivator, and works out for the challenger after two terms of the other party's president. You can blame anything on the current president, without having to do better, or even promise better. Just blame them, and sometimes make up an untenable plan to "fix" it (which experts will agree won't work for any number of real world reasons, which likely contributed to the outcome you're complaining about).
While everyone can get behind change, and it's a great rallying cry, the type of change is what really counts. You can't just say "change is good." This is the classic childhood fallacy of wanting what you don't/can't have. Sometimes change is not good, or not good in the short term.
I'm all for change. I'm just not sure what kind of change Trump would provide. Based on what he's saying, if I believe it, it's frightening. But it's probably mostly just made up nonsense.
Hillary will also change things. But again, who knows what? The rhetoric is equally as vague, but at least less frightening. But of course, what people do in office is completely different than the campaign.
As a side point, where does privilege come into this? It seems like some elephants actually exist, but certain people can't see them. Isn't that equally hallucinatory? Or is it just blindness? If you're any group that Trump is directly ranting about, I don't think you'd view it as a pink elephant. More like a person yelling and saying crazy things about you personally, without knowing you. But if it is something you can't understand, does it really not exist?
"If you are wondering why a socially liberal and well-educated cartoonist such as myself is not afraid of Trump, it’s because I don’t see the pink elephant. To me, all anti-Trumpers are experiencing a shared illusion.
Before you scoff at mass, shared illusions as being unlikely, keep in mind that everyone with a different religion than yours is experiencing exactly that. Mass shared illusions are our most common experience.
If you see something unlikely – such as a new Hitler rising in the midst of America – and I see nothing remotely like that – I’m almost certainly right and you’re almost certainly having the illusion. I say that because the person who sees the unlikely addition to reality is the one experiencing the illusion nearly every time. Trump as Hitler-in-America is an addition to reality that only some can see. It is a pink elephant. It is a classic hallucination."
It's a weird rollover effect, in which a society can get pushed so far into an echo chamber, it becomes easy to criticize every aspect of that society, and people ride the zeal of the convert all the way around to the other end of the political spectrum. A lot of the younger generation of the so-called "alt-right" grew up in very liberal, progressive societies, and once they realized most of that society was based on social pressure and oversimplification, see no reason to tilt full-on into racism and autocracy. All societies are built on social pressure; every creed we teach our kids is inherently oversimplified and flawed. But you don't get points just for pointing out those flaws. Adams has been on this kick for a while now that sounds like the beginning of every Moldbug piece: point out some incorrect belief among members of a culture you were raised in, and so think represents everyone (high-educated social liberals) and say "See? This is bullshit! It's all bullshit! The whole thing is a mass hallucination!"
My version of his metaphor is:
If everyone in the room can see a man yelling racist, sexist, opportunistic, populist nonsense and you can't see it, maybe you're just wilfully ignorant.
If you can't judge a person for what they say and do, then what else is there?