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Comment by forgottenpass | Hacker News Reader

I read the first half of this. I can't decide if I think Doctorow is dancing around the more important idea that goes unsaid, or if this really is the best way to present it so people will accept it.

Everyone is a whole lot more susceptible to propaganda than anyone admits. Doctorow presents this as Klansman getting the message that Trump is their guy. Mao, Goebbels and any other obvious-baddies are perfect for making the point. By pretending like it doesn't happen TO YOU, you'll accept that it can possibly happen to humans (that are not you).

But it happens to everybody, all the time.

The only propaganda we notice is the stuff that is so far from targeting us we see it's comically incongruity. But propaganda isn't meant for the hard sell. Propaganda doesn't change your mind. Propaganda gets you to cross the threshold and do something you were already positioned to do, by giving you meaning for doing it.

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Agreed, and in an earlier comment I intimated that Doctorow doesn’t really object to propaganda, he just objects to other people’s propaganda. (And his objection in fact contains some propaganda itself.)

I kinda got that impression as I was reading it, but had hoped I was wrong.

There is a line of criticism I see often that goes something like this "$thing is convincing people $bad_idea." (Sorry for the vague way of presenting this, but I can't abstract it more clearly.)

I take that criticism and see the natural next step as reducing the amount of influence that $thing has over people in specific, and in general give them the tools to evaluate unfounded ideas and manipulation. I find this conclusion blindingly obvious, and is where I depart from would-be political allies who conclude with the same obviousness: "lets re-engineer $thing to manipulatively spread $good_idea."

> I kinda got that impression as I was reading it, but had hoped I was wrong.

Absolutely hilarious that all it took was one anonymous comment to "convince" you of this despite the fact that you hoped you were wrong. This thread made me lol so thanks for that.

That comment didn't convince me of anything. I didn't push back either.

He's so guilty of this on his social media accounts that I had to stop following him entirely.

I recently stopped following him on Twitter for the same reason, it's just excessive.

> Propaganda doesn't change your mind, it gets you to cross the threshold and do something you were already positioned to do, by giving you meaning for doing it.

Read the rest of the article, it kinda goes there.

Propaganda also acts by wearing you down, shaping your perceptions over time, and influencing so many people around you that you lose sight of where “real” is on the first place. Sometimes propaganda only seeks to demoralize you or disengage you.

Don’t underestimate it.

> Propaganda also acts by wearing you down, shaping your perceptions over time, and influencing so many people around you that you lose sight of where “real” is on the first place.

Essentially, gaslighting you. Gaslighting the whole society, in fact.

Pretty much, and by manipulating society broadly you empower that society to add to the pressure exerted by the propaganda itself.

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