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Comment by Inconel | Hacker News Reader

Genuine question for someone with a better understanding of psychology, or the kind of propaganda employed by authoritarian regimes, but what purpose does this serve? I can't imagine you can actually convince someone to suddenly like the CCP or Xi Jinping through something like this. Is it simply a tool to show who's in charge?

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Bingo.

In an authoritarian situation it literally doesn't matter if you believe what you're saying. You just say it to get through the day.

It's not like a scifi movie where every little thing is monitored, the game is you just don't cause yourself (or perhaps more importantly your pals or family) trouble and try to "get yours" and live something resembling a decent/self-actualized life.

For the regime, those kind of performative statements sets a good example & makes the problem go away

They drown you with extremist views so that when you encounter softer but still pro-China views, you'll be more accepting of them because they seem more "reasonable".

Some people call this "moving the Overton window": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

Brainwashing. They do it starting with preschool. Kids get to sing songs about how great the country, the party and its leader are. It's all quite militarized. In camps like these it's surely worse, their purpose is to break these people. It's psychological torture, not re-education.

Gaslighting is effective. This is a different more extreme version.

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