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Comment by tmuir | Hacker News Reader

If you don't believe there are massive psychological exercises successfully influencing, and arguably radicalizing people, occurring on the internet, specifically on Reddit, you're being willfully ignorant. Or a Trump supporter, but I repeat myself.

I realize that the topic of brainwashing is loaded enough that any rational discussion of it can easily be derailed by someone by simply making the strawman you just made, by comparing my arguments to claiming the end of the world or collapse of America.

Isn't it ironic that you can easily spot a culture of victimhood in others, the psychological effects, the futility of it, but I imagine you don't see the same thing in your average revanchist conservative? The level of hatred and frothing at the mouth over 8 years of Barack Obama, fed by people like Donald Trump, Sean Hannity, Alex Jones, and other charlatans created a victim complex that seems to persist even now in many Trump supporters.

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Wow... instead of debating the pertinent points raised, you resort to name-calling.

Let's not pretend you're not attempting to gaslight me. I _returned_ name calling, as my interlocutor decided the easiest way to dismiss my claim was to frame it as chicken little proclaiming that the sky is falling. Then I debated his points.

Lets break it down point for point:

- lopmotr framed my comments as a conspiracy theory. I retorted that there is obvious evidence all over reddit that supports my claims.

- lopmotr brought up examples of victimhood as the causes for decline of states, and drew a line to whats happening in America with blacks as equivalent. I retorted that conservatism has this same victim complex, and that its ironic that people can see in others much easier than they can see in themselves.

As someone who is sympathetic to your argument, I disagree with your tactics. 'lopomotr' suggested that you might be falling prey to the same psychology that you are seeing in others. While it's probably impossible to be completely polite when doing this, I don't think he was trying to be rude. As you might guess, self-identified "conspiracy theorists" don't necessarily consider "conspiracy theory" to be purely an insult.

You, on the other hand, compromised your otherwise reasonable argument by flippantly claiming that approximately half the US voting public is "willfully ignorant". This is gratuitous "name calling", and el_cid was right to call your attention to this. I didn't vote for Trump, but have intelligent friends and relatives who did. Regardless of whether their choice was wrong, insults like this are counter productive to changing anyone's mind. So stop it.

Personally, I think you are right about much of the behavior you see on the right, but seem to be missing (or at least not mentioning) the equivalent online psychological tricks that mislead the left. As your penance, here's a story from someone one the right detailing how he sees some of the matters you are refering to: https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-politicization-of-the-fbi.... I thought it was an interesting read that I haven't seen in the mainstream press.

I'll admit that this theory is pretty out there, and I'm not going to continue to expound about it here. I'll also admit that I can easily get pretty worked up, and veer into the partisan, hair on fire rhetoric that is the very subject of my ire. I pledge to do better, and read your article.

I developed the roots of this idea over December '16, after several conversations with one of my life long friends I hadn't seen since a few months before the election. He's an attorney, and someone I know to be extremely bright. He voted Trump. The level of spite and shadenfreude in all of his arguments, and him repeating the phrase "I've never been so sure of anything in my life", in regards to his confidence in Trump to fulfill his campaign promises, was very jarring. All of these traits were completely foreign to my friend before Summer '16. He hadn't gotten less intelligent in any other avenue of his life.

I only came to this theory through the realization that susceptibility to public relations tactics, weaponized persuasion, whatever you want to call it, is not a matter of intelligence at all.

"Let's not pretend you're not attempting to gaslight me." "you can easily spot a culture of victimhood in others"

I think you should focus on continuing to build your case on reddit and then you should definitely return here in a few years once its ironclad!

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