Types of propaganda, propaganda techniques, and propaganda strategies (2017) | Hacker News Reader

Types of propaganda, propaganda techniques, and propaganda strategies (2017)

factmyth.com

256 pointsjhabdas236 comments

There's a lot of good content in this article focused on the media. The media is highly visible and well-documented, so it makes sense.

I'd like to see more content about indoctrination and propaganda happening in US education. This to me is much more insidious as it takes an impressionable populace (kids and young adults) and provides an authority figure (teachers and professors) that are largely hidden from public view and gives them a lot of room to provide whatever narrative they like about politics, history, or just about any subject.

The impact of shouting matches happening on cable news and Twitter seem like a rounding error compared to the decades-long indoctrination that happens during one's education.

Do private schools not have propaganda?

Student have over a dozen teachers over the course of education. If they "provide whatever narrative they like " it seems students would get a diverse range of perspectives. Not to mention all the perspectives they get from other authorities like their churches, clubs, family members, and... every adult they encounter, and every book too.

Most private schools - in the US at least - are religious, so I'd argue they're peddling propaganda as a matter of course (though not all such schools require students to participate in the propagandization).

Yes. Private school do have 'propaganda' - but that's perfectly ok if it aligns with the parent's wishes. As the parents, we have the right to chose how our children are raised.

I don't know. Sure, you are raising your kids, but they are going to be adults, some with kids, some without - and that is going to require some information.

I think it is a grave injustice to children to, for example, not introduce them to a variety of religions so that they can better understand folks they might run into. Same for not having comprehensive sex education: It matters little to me that a parent thinks some sex - or birth control - is a sin: The child still needs to learn about it so that they can make good decisions even if it goes against the parents' beliefs. Some parents want girls to just learn to cook and clean, and demand an emphasis on such classes.

And so on.

I'm not convinced it is entirely your right to do as you please with your children: To me, it is only OK so long it is healthy for the child and doesn't infringe on their rights... which they should have, and the US refuses to give.

They do, but the parents have more of a say, since they're paying for it. And, since they can afford it, they have a choice of schools should their complaints fall on deaf ears.

Right, so effectively you are getting more propaganda from one point of view. At least when there is conflicting propaganda, there's some hope.

I don't think the goal with public education should be allowing wildly conflicting propaganda.

I wasn't saying it was.

Most private schools are still required to follow a state mandated curriculum in many areas, and are still hiring from the same pool of indoctrinated teachers. You could make a propaganda light private school, but that would need to be your explicit goal.

Sure, children will encounter a diverse range of ideas. Schooling dominates in time spent with, and it is the one most likely to reward or punish a child for regurgitating an ideology.

The private schools in Los Angeles definitely push political agendas.

Susan Jacoby[1] made the case that the lack of a federal/national education system (the constitution makes it a state responsibility) historically results from Americans' fears of indoctrination by such an education system -- specifically that their children would not be properly indoctrinated into their religion, or worse, be indoctrinated into someone else's religion.

[1] Age of American Unreason

That's strange. There's no federal system because of 9th amendment issues. And there was no federal right in the original constitution because universal education is a fairly new concept.

So, the American Civil Religion?

Dangerous History Podcast with Prof CJ https://profcj.org/ep124/

"Ever get the sense that the government and politics in the United States is kinda cult-y? If so, CJ thinks your spidey sense is justifiably tingling, and what you’re picking up on is the phenomenon known as the civil religion.

Join CJ as he discusses:

The concept of civil religion

The origins of the American civil religion, and a brief word on the scholarship on the concept

Some of the overtly religious elements that can be found in American government and politics, including: dogmas, rituals, sacred texts, holy places, sermons, sacrifices, sacred days, spells/mantras/incantations/prayers, music, sacred histories/narratives, temples, symbols/totems, priests, and saints

The ways in which people of different cultural and ideological predilections can — just like with conventional religion — interpret the civil religion in order to make it fit their preferences

How voting fits into this civil religion, and why CJ thinks a reasonable person should reject the civil religion — whether they are theists or not

I think that Prof just described every human civilization that ever existed?

What some educational systems are missing is a class on how to identify propaganda, just like this blog post. Sometimes this is covered in a logic course that covers logical reasoning, logical fallacies, etc. How these techniques are used in advertising, news stories, etc.

Philosophy and sociology should be moved earlier in the curriculum. I gained much from studying Descartes and Bertrand Russell, and learning propositional logic. The school system did not teach me those things until after I graduated high school. Had those teachings come earlier I may not have been as susceptible to propaganda at such a young age as I was.

> The media is highly visible and well-documented

Sort of. Social media feeds and ads are ephemeral and customized to the specific user. This makes transparency hard, unless the network provides access.

Critical Race Theory as I have read about it being applied in schools teaches youth that they are inherently racist (note this is only taught to the white children) and that the minorities get to share their anecdotal, lived experience while the white students stand by and are not permitted to say anything.

I find the entire formula to be a groundwork for severe social damage. It certainly does not build bridges. Nor does it pave the way towards compassion and understanding.

> Critical Race Theory as I have read about it being applied in schools

Critical Race Theory isn’t applied in K-12 schools (at least not as a thing that is taught, it can certainly inform education policy and approaches to policymaking), nor has anyone proposed teaching it there, and anything you’ve read about it being taught there is a complete and utter fabrication for propaganda purposes.

> teaches youth that they are inherently racist (note this is only taught to the white children)

CRT doesn't include the idea that people are inherently racist, and is, indeed, an outgrowth of critical legal studies and shares CLS’s focus on institutional rather than personal forces. People being racist is largely outside the focus of CRT, which is centrally about how social institutions can be racist, often independently or even contrary to the values of the people currently comprising the institutions.

The anti-anti-racists have been claiming people advocating against racism are teaching white children that they are inherently racist long before they attributed that to CRT. CRT has just been adopted as the new buzzword to which anti-anti-racists apply their standard arguments, just as “cancel culture” recently became the label to which all the arguments that the Right had been tieing to “political correctness” since the 1980s became attached.

Yeah, that's not what Critical Race Theory is or how it could be applied to schools.

The irony of you bringing this up in the context of propaganda is amusing.

There's a good short interview NPR did today with Gloria Ladson-Billings, who has been working on applying critical race theory for education policy for over a couple of decades: https://www.npr.org/2021/06/22/1009182206/academic-who-broug...

Be careful out there. There's a lot of propaganda out there.

Having seen the media about crt, as well as the way it's applied and the attitudes of its adherents, its pretty close to the truth.

And its hard to argue with the result. Whatever is going on, that particular strain of "crt" is virulently spreading.

"The media about crt"

s/media/propaganda/

Keep in mind you're being fed a narrative. CRT has been around for decades, and isn't something you can apply in a grade school curriculum (as Gloria Ladson-Billings said, it isn't something you teach in undergrad at college... it's a subject for post graduate study/research). There's a reason you're hearing about this now.

You attacked probably the weakest part of that entire statement.

Your claim that it's a subject for post graduate study/research might have been true at one point, but many of it's principles have been leaking into multiple levels of society, and in my opinion, to the detriment of society.

Firstly, the focus on storytelling over data that is a hallmark of CRT. This has clearly metastasized. Note the prevalence of personal narratives, and the use of personal narrative to explicitly supplant other sources of truth that's common in today's conveyances.

Then look at intersectionality. The US is literally fractured along identity lines, with people literally pulling that separation and interaction of the various subidentitites to war with one another. Look at the slow march towards "male gays are oppressors" that you see on LBGT communities AND the mainstream media [1].

How punctuality and other such professional merits are now just white people's oppression [2] and that any acceptance of such is considered internalized racism?

Reparations and separation (CHAZ, general talk) anyone? Also common themes in academic CRT.

It's pretty clear to me, building from the principles of CRT, and the common themes in their papers have punctured that academic bubble into the mainstream. We're hearing about it now because of this. I certainly don't like it.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/white-gay-privilege-ex...

[2] https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_bias_of_professionalism_...

> You attacked probably the weakest part of that entire statement.

I wasn't intending to attack.

> Your claim that it's a subject for post graduate study/research might have been true at one point, but many of it's principles have been leaking into multiple levels of society, and in my opinion, to the detriment of society.

It's not my claim, and the "principles" you're talking about aren't CRT principles.

> Firstly, the focus on storytelling over data that is a hallmark of CRT. This has clearly metastasized. Note the prevalence of personal narratives, and the use of personal narrative to explicitly supplant other sources of truth that's common in today's conveyances.

The idea of a narrative being an important aspect of history education goes back... essentially forever. It doesn't trace back to CRT. It's a core principle of CRT because it predates it... and of course there's the whole thing about certain stories being excluded from our narratives.

> How punctuality and other such professional merits are now just white people's oppression [2] and that any acceptance of such is considered internalized racism?

The narrative on punctuality that is currently making the rounds is deliberately misframing the context. There's a reality (that has been studied) about how racism colours the application and enforcement things like punctuality. It's not that punctuality is intrinsically a tool for oppression, but rather how systemic racism plays out through things as trivial as punctuality.

There may indeed be a lot of the thinking here that has percolated out "into the mainstream". That's kind of the point of these things. You would expect that most ideas would get around throughout society. But no one worries about String Theory being taught in grade school, and the idea of actively trying to ensure it doesn't somehow slip in to the curriculum in grade school is laughable. If you can get students to the mental headspace where you can even begin to examine CRT, you're doing an amazing job as an educator, and I kind of don't care what you proceed to expose them to at that point.

Do you remember all the concern about CRT in 2018? All the brawls at boards of education? The 1100 times that it was mentioned on FOX News in just the first half of that year? Yeah, me neither. Yet somehow, I'm supposed to believe a narrative that there's been some massive nationwide covert shift in school boards, school administrations, and teachers that was executed without any turn over, public policy, etc.? I'm sorry. It's a lot easier to believe that the narrative about CRT is propaganda that plays a role in a larger, otherwise unrelated, political landscape.

> I certainly don't like it.

...and that's the crux of it. We're used to the propaganda we've been fed, and the idea of it changing in anyway is just really upsetting.

>I wasn't intending to attack.

Your argument was targeted there, avoiding the core argument. That's all I meant by that.

>It's not my claim, and the "principles" you're talking about aren't CRT principles.

They're common themes in CRT, to the point where they're basically all that's talked about.

>The idea of a narrative being an important aspect of history education goes back... essentially forever. It doesn't trace back to CRT. It's a core principle of CRT because it predates it... and of course there's the whole thing about certain stories being excluded from our narratives.

Critical theory is distinct for it's deliberate supplanting of other forms of truth with the extremely flexible "lived experience". This is one of it's hallmarks, that "lived experience" takes precedence over all, and it shows in their argumentation style.

>The narrative on punctuality that is currently making the rounds is deliberately misframing the context. There's a reality (that has been studied) about how racism colours the application and enforcement things like punctuality. It's not that punctuality is intrinsically a tool for oppression, but rather how systemic racism plays out through things as trivial as punctuality.

See, that's where I reject that entire premise. It's like saying academic competency as a value is discrimination since there are cultures that prioritize, and thus do better at it. Furthermore, I've seen explicit claims that punctuality, as well as professionalism, or even mathematical competence is racism. It's not misframing the context if it's literally done in this way, on a regular basis.

>Do you remember all the concern about CRT in 2018? All the brawls at boards of education? The 1100 times that it was mentioned on FOX News in just the first half of that year? Yeah, me neither. Yet somehow, I'm supposed to believe a narrative that there's been some massive nationwide covert shift in school boards, school administrations, and teachers that was executed without any turn over, public policy, etc.? I'm sorry. It's a lot easier to believe that the narrative about CRT is propaganda that plays a role in a larger, otherwise unrelated, political landscape.

I've been following for far longer than that. Sokal's well known 1996 hoax was a fantastic example, and the later grievance studies hoaxes, amongst other critiques, do not give me a good impression of their field, nor of their soundness of theory. And, taking a leaf from critical theory's book, my "lived experience' is that that I've seen those same themes have been percolating through the system bit by bit to create the current virulent cult.

That you think that I see this is a recent phenomenon and am just obviously misinformed, or that you immediately jump to "you clearly get your news from fox propaganda" just comes off as extremely condescending to me. Hell, I don't even reside in the US, and my news consumption was largely left-aligned for the time where I consumed mass-market news.

The Jews were once seen as the evil oppressive cabal, whose influence and "corruption" seeped everywhere. It's the same strategy of defining your enemy that has stood the test of time, but this time it comes dressed in different clothes.

> That you think that I see this is a recent phenomenon and am just obviously misinformed, or that you immediately jump to "you clearly get your news from fox propaganda" just comes off as extremely condescending to me.

When I asked you about CRT, you referred to "the media about CRT", rather than CRT itself. Forgive me for thinking that meant the media was the source of your understanding. I don't think you "clearly get your news from FOX propaganda". I mentioned FOX News as a specific example of a dramatic and obvious shift, as evidence of there being propaganda, not any assumption about where you get your news from. For all I know you get your news from carrier pigeons, but that's beside the point.

Apologies on that one, I did correct (and elaborate on) that bit in an earlier comment, but it's pretty easy to miss (Or it might have been a different thread). I'm referring to the use of CRT by the media (not the reporting of CRT by the media), as well as the gradual encroachment of CRT themes into everyday communities and other such discussion spaces.

Thanks for the apology. Much appreciated.

> Do you remember all the concern about CRT in 2018?

I do actually. I don't really watch news, so I'm not sure what they were saying, but I do remember the concerns. I got interested in this topic in like 2015-2016, if not earlier.

You can take The College Fix as example. It's a news website specifically focused on education and they were talking about it for a long time. Think of them what you will, it's beside the point, but the concerns about education were undeniably there.

Come on, when was the first time all of you heard about the concept of white privilege? I'm willing to bet that for most people here who haven't been living under a rock it was way before 2019.

> Think of them what you will, it's beside the point, but the concerns about education were undeniably there.

Yes, as I said, people have be studying this for decades... and then suddenly, in one year, there is a broad belief that there's a need to pass legislation about it across the country.

I get the overall idea of what CRT is and it's basically in the same vein as for example The Culture of Critique. Some of it might be fair points, to some of it I have strong objections, but the bottom line is that children are not mentally and emotionally mature enough to deal with subjects like that. Hell, the same thing can be even said about a lot, if not most, of adults. It's almost impossible to have any reasonable debate around what these actually say, without throwing around words like racist, anti-white, anti-semite, etc. I'm opposed to censoring anything, but just in principle, neither of them should be taught to children, it's a terrible idea. Period.

The NPR interview doesn't really say anything interesting or new to me. All of it applies to The Culture of Critique too. Putting whether these theories are actually true aside for a moment, my point is that if you are opposed to teaching children something like CofC then you should be opposed to CRT as well.

To illustrate my point better, let's take the CNN article on what CRT is: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/01/us/critical-race-theory-e...

Here is how CRT is defined, which isn't exactly the most charitable definition of CRT I've ever read, and it frankly sounds completely terrible, but just to demonstrate a point:

> Critical race theorists believe that racism is an everyday experience for most people of color, and that a large part of society has no interest in doing away with it because it benefits White elites.

Now let's change some races around:

> Critical race theorists believe that racism is an everyday experience for most White people, and that a large part of society has no interest in doing away with it because it benefits Jewish elites.

And this is roughly the conclusion CofC reaches too. So honest question, assuming you can come up with something to substantiate this claim (to keep the discussion simple), would you also be fine with this? Just in principle.

> but the bottom line is that children are not mentally and emotionally mature enough to deal with subjects like that

Which is why you can't possibly introduce it in to grade school curriculum. The very idea is laughable.

...and to your question, I think you're missing the point of CRT. The point is to look at the systemic effects that may otherwise go unobserved because they aren't experienced by the majority. Swapping it around so that it is the experience of the majority takes it out of that context and makes it pretty much a joke.

It happens to focus on groups that are currently minorities, but it's not so much about the demographic makeup, but about power. And majority does not equate to power. That's just false, and it'd contradict Marxism, or even something like the colonization of Africa, among other historical events. I don't know the history of Africa in depth, so correct me if I'm wrong, but my assumption is that the European colonizers at the time didn't have to reach the majority of the population to take over the power there. What I'm essentially asking is whether you'd be fine with putting the blame (again, just in principle, so we don't have to debate the validity of such theories) on the Jewish elites for the way things are and the Jewish people for upholding such system, because it doesn't impact them negatively, because they believe it benefits them, because they fear the backlash, and so on and so forth.

But I guess your other comment already answers that, so if you're opposed to practices like the one below, then we're in agreement:

> A public school system in New York has introduced a new curriculum to teach that 'all white people play a part in perpetuating systemic racism', and show kindergarten classes videos of black children shot and killed by police, instructing them about the dangers of police brutality.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/buffalo-schools-claim-all-...

Appeal to authority just in case, it was fact-checked by Newsweek and ruled as true: https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-are-buffalo-schools-teac...

> And majority does not equate to power.

Fair.

CRT is a new [political] spin on an old evolved trait in all human beings(and in some non-human life forms). That trait is "pack mentality"; the idea that a single organism has a higher survival rate when in a pack. Example: lone wolf VS pack wolf - the lone wolf has a higher mortality rate. Expulsion of a pack wolf from the pack invariably leads to a shorter lifespan for the expelled wolf. This works in humans also... eg, a tribe of humans can hunt larger mammals, which results in more food security for the tribe. A single human cannot do this, and has no safety net when they are physically unable to hunt/gather.

Whether CRT is right/wrong is another issue altogether...but it's just another lens on a very old behavior trait of species that have survived over long periods of time.

100% i think it was peter thiel who i heard say something to the effect of “if 90% of the most recent supreme court justices went to hardvard/yale, you have to ask yourself what are they teaching there?”

and on the other side, i witnessed what the chicago public school system says to the kids (remote learning) and holy shit. it was like something from 1984. gotta start preparing us to not own anything and like it some time…..

The bigger concern is that professional educators are being overruled by politicians about what is in the curriculum. Such as the recent wave of anti-Critical Race Theories laws being handed down because of a panic created by right-wing media.

Educators, i.e. teachers, are being coerced into imposing CRT onto students by school boards and since teachers have little leverage, they have to comply. The CRT's tenets are identical to those in Stalin's USSR and Mao's China. Just read the wiki pages about the two regimes and see the striking similarities. I think the reason CRT has started getting so much flak is that it's reached the phase when it needs to impose its key technique known as "self criticism" (in USSR) and "struggle sessions" (in China). Americans have noticed that something is off and got agitated.

No. The panic is not created by the media. I don't want my kids to be taught how White people are racists, or "people of color" are oppressed. Even I am not a White.

Yes, it is.

"As Media Matters has previously noted, Fox News’ current obsession with “critical race theory” has been a year in making. What once was a slow trickle of monthly mentions has developed into a full blown assault. Since February, month over month mentions of the theory have more than doubled on Fox News as the network has begun to spin an illusion of what it is and where it’s being taught (in reality, critical race theory is not generally taught in K-12). Coverage of the theory sharply increased in March, with 107 mentions on the network according to data from Kinetiq media monitoring service. The following month, network figures and guests mentioned it 226 times, and by May, the number had increased to 537 mentions. Not even halfway through June, there’s already been 408 mentions on the network.

Just last week, Fox mentioned “critical race theory” a record 244 times -- an increase from the previous record high of 170 mentions the week before."

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-has-mentioned-crit...

Your logic is very very strange. Because Fox mentioned it, it must be created by Fox?

Fox is known for the "People are saying" propaganda that makes something seem like it's everywhere to build consensus.

But it's truly "everywhere". There are too many photos of those crazy presentations come out almost every week. Maybe you think it's not widely spread. But those crazy nuts are being adopted by many places. Parents are rightfully concerned.

It must be everywhere. Everyone is talking about it. It's all you hear about. We must be right.

https://www.theonion.com/conservative-man-tearfully-informs-...

Yes. I should wait for it to be literally everywhere, untill then I can be concerned.

Where did you hear that kids are being taught those things?

This kind of training on teachers is everywhere. Which is also wrong. Shall I wait on it? Or are you saying it is ok for those things to be taught in teacher training, but only wrong when it is taught to kids?

I'm saying that children aren't being taught the things you say they're being taught.

You casting doubt on the poster's assertions makes me incredibly angry. You clearly don't know anything about what's going on in public schools yet you pretend to be wiser than the poster about it.

I have a kid in a public high school. He has shared pictures, video, links, and schedules. Also I have visited local high schools and seen the messaging being delivered on the walls. These schools have one mission right now, above anything else: crank out social-justice warriors; get some reliable street troops on the ground for leftist causes.

Do NOT dare to tell me it is not like I describe.

1. Special presentations carved out from academic class time every day for black history month, with presentations about white privilege and other fodder to cultivate racial grievance.

2. A week devoted to BLM during that month, with similar time carved out each day from many classes for a presentation that included justifications for hate against white people and exhortations about how you should become an "Ally". Including a black poet that read that she was justified in calling white people "the devil" and lumped all white people who didn't jump to BLM action into the category of aggressors that deserve the violence of BLM protests.

3. "Open" class discussions after such presentations where everyone is called on to share their thoughts, but of course only certain thoughts are permissible and discipline is doled out to those who disagree.

4. A school-wide presentation by the "equity association" that re-enacted all the horrible things white people do to black people, such as saying they like fried chicken and watermelon, to demonstrate just how bad white people are all the time.

5. Gay pride month where they devoted more class time to special presentations and discussions, like Bill Nye saying that in addition to that little "sex" thing, there's also all these other more important dimensions like "gender" that need to be dwelled on.

6. Time off granted if you join a walk-out for preferred causes like global warming activism.

7. Posters around school lauding the actions of "world-changing" demonstrators. All leftist demonstrators of course.

8. Lots and lots of "No human is illegal" signs all over.

9. In my kid's school, at least one classroom decorated from top to bottom with Black Panther publicity and aggressive black-defiance messages.

10. In my spouse's teacher training, 100% of the time has been spent on "anti-bias" and "equity" training. Where no problem existed in the least.

11. School district hiring 6-figure "diversity consultants" by the dozen, all of whom will do nothing except arrange presentations such as I cited above. And then they claim to need a new tax levy to hire enough teachers or pay them decently.

So whatever you've seen in terms of CRT quizzes and stereotype pyramids, what you don't understand is that it's way worse than that. It's not just obnoxiously flooding kids with racial stereotypes. It's not just that that is a topic that is 100% unrelated to education. It's that they are cultivating racial grievance. And they are pitting student against student to get it done as completely as possible.

I'm a mild-mannered guy. And I've never been so pissed off in my life.

> 6. Time off granted if you join a walk-out for preferred causes like global warming activism.

Oh wow some things just do not change. 20 years ago, South Park did an episode on the Iraq War. The teacher told the students, "in class today we'll be doing 2 hours of math problems, OR you can join the walk out protesting the war." Obviously the kids run out of school celebrating.[0]

[0]https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0705933/

Thanks. My oldest kid is at the second grade now, so I don't see those stuff directly. But I am very very concerned.

I have another in middle school, same district. It's only about 5-10% as pronounced there as in the high schools.

The next logical step, at least per how it happened in USSR/China, will be asking students to fill out questionnaires about their attitude to BLM/CRT, recording the list of intellectual dissenters and talking to parents and their employers about the problematic behavior of their children. If we get that far, the step after that will be encouraging students to report their friends who've been noticed in insufficient support of the regime.

Do you mean like Florida Republican governor DeSantis just signed into law? Where students and faculty have to submit their political beliefs to the state in a non-anonymous manner?

I've read the bill he signed and couldn't find there anything like that.

Spot on. Reporting peers is already encouraged in many schools and even colleges.

Yes, Republican governor Ron DeSantis just signed a law that requires students and faculty to report their political beliefs to the state non-anonymously. Super scary stuff for sure.

Where did I say they're being taught?

It was sort of implied as part of the conversation, but I see where I misread that.

When teachers are taught those crazy stuff, I think concerned parents should be openly against it. And I totally agree those things should be banned from public education and teacher training. Simply put, I don't want any of those crap to get close to my kids.

"Things your parents don't want you to know about" is like catnip for teenagers. A kind of Streisand effect.

I actually do share the concern that fairly far-right wing people are politicizing education.

But - CRT in it's applied form ultimately turns into 'propaganda' and there should be some legislative parameters around it.

The basic CRT premise of 'Minorities who live in Majority Culture are suppressed in systematic ways, and that we should be more sensitive to that and it's historical impact' ... is definitely fair.

So there's a legit grounding in aspects of CRT.

If that were it, then then this would be a good thing.

But the rhetorical application of CRT gets pretty vicious, pretty quickly, and it turns to the language of 'race war' almost instantly.

In particular, using terminology such as 'White Supremacy' which is normally associated with 'Men in White Pointy Hats' as purposefully toxic language, the tactic of castigating anyone who doesn't support their cause as 'upholding White Supremacy' and therefore racism etc. are common.

Controversial foundational elements such as rejecting liberal and enlightenment values (literally objective truth) in favour of one's own 'realized or expressed truth' in addition to issues such as rejecting the foundation of the written word etc..

There's been a few debates here on HN, but there is documentation from school boards on 'how the teaching of Math upholds White Supremacy' because it ostensibly implies 'linear thinking', 'predicate knowledge' and other artifacts of supposed 'White Supremacy'. The response to this particularly bad form of CRT on HN usually comes in the form of discounting classical teaching pedagogy as being possibly too 'stifled' - but that has absolutely nothing to do with race and there is no evidence whatsoever to back it up. In reality - certain groups (Hispanics, Blacks) do poorly, and other groups - including minorities/people of colour (Whites, Asians) do just fine under the same pedagogy and what's more likely is that kids who show up for class, who have good parents, who want to learn etc. (i.e. the obvious things) do just fine. CRT 'in practice' in this situation is unsubstantiated, anti-scientific, anti-progressive ideological rubbish in making excuses for kids who don't do well in math. It's 'good intentions run ideologically wild'.

Last week a New Jersey school board opted to remove the names of all holidays from their calendar and replace them with just 'Holiday'. This one is actually a pretty good example of the intersection of CRT and the effete values of school administrators: July 4, Easter, Memorial Day are just 'too controversial' for our kids to be exposed to, therefore, we'll just mark them as 'Holiday'.

That to me represents a kind of ideological 'crossing of the line': if our educators are interested in making sure kids hear about slavery and segregation, that seems reasonable. Important, actually. But erasing civic holidays because of concerns of CRT is I think 'radical', and there are people in every school board in America who would like to follow suit and CRT gives them basically the impetus to 'Be on the right side of history' (in their view) despite the 'Ugly, angry, overtly traditional parents' (again view of the teachers).

There's a little bit of a postmodern aspect to CRT - it's a 'turning inside out' kind of ideology, allowing adherents to basically refute anything and everything part of he 'conventional narrative' and replace it with ... well whatever they want. This is what makes it scary.

CRT has some valid intellectual underpinnings, but it ends up being like ugly Red Hat Trumpism for the Left. I actually support some aspects of it but I have no trust in the education system to use it responsibly.

Unfortunately, I think the 'sides' are talking past each other I don't see any consensus developing just yet.

I agree with most of what you said, but I don't think CRT has anything value intellectually. Reasonable thinking on race issues is very difficult, I don't think CRT positively contribute to any of that. CRT is in itself radical, if you remove radical thoughts from CRT, then it is no longer CRT.

>It's 'good intentions run ideologically wild'.

I would characterize it differently. The core issue with CRT is that it's an attempt to frame everything in an oppressor-oppressed framework. Perhaps it might have more nuanced takes, but whenever I see it, whether in the wild, the media, or (thankfully rarely) in person, it takes that oppresor-oppressed binary and explains any negative impact on such.

As you've mentioned, Asians do well, as do Indians. Both cultures value education highly, resulting in a heavy, often overwhelming approach to their children (Neither is a monolithic bloc, but the trends are pretty well characterized here). It does happen that the environment they're in is amenable to this, with academic achievements conferring access to a bevy of advantages. CRT could argue this that the academic focus is in a domain selected to disadvantage (insert selected group).

However, even if an academic focus is actually objectively (or in it's weaker form, generally) advantageous to the individual or society, CRT would continue to see it as an issue, as long as it disadvantages said group.

Of course, then the question is what cultural end metric you consider "good", but that's a whole different ball game.

The worst kind of propaganda is that which makes certain topics taboo, regardless of merit. For instance, if your idea that propaganda is pushed in schools gains traction among the populace, the idea would then be associated with the "other side", either liberals or conservatives in our case, and would then mark you as being on the wrong team. Its a pernicious form of propaganda that has escalated with the last presidential election.

EDIT: curious about the opinions of anyone who down voted this.

> indoctrination and propaganda happening in US education

What evidence do you have that it is happening and on what scale?

My teachers, all that I recall, never presented any opinion or perspective as truth. It was always about thinking critically for ourselves. If, for example, they presented a well-established view on the sinking of the Maine, it was as material for our analysis and evaluation.

There are slides circulating on Twitter, apparently snapped during presentations given to educators in the context of diversity training, exhorting viewers to understand, say, punctuality as a manifestation of white supremacy.

Set aside for a moment the very fair questions one can ask about the trustworthiness of these images. Ignore for now whether this was shown to 5 or 5000 eductors, etc.

Let's just assume such instructions were in fact given to educators on some non-negligible scale.

Would that be evidence enough for you?

> Let's just assume such instructions were in fact given to educators on some non-negligible scale.

IMHO, and pertinent to the OP: That is out of textbook of how mis- and disinformation impacts human thinking: Observe something emotionally provocative and follow the urge to dive in, regardless of the reality: 'What if it's true???" I've trained myself not to do it.

I'm always interested in valuable, credible information. (And to be clear, it's not your job to educate me - that's my job - but it is your job to backup what you say.)

> slides circulating on Twitter

Is there any place where amount of propaganda is greater, in the history of the world, than on social media such as Twitter? It must be orders of magnitude beyond anything ever. Serious question: Why are you reading it? It's like digging through a garbage dump for coins.

You seem to deny there is any propaganda or indoctrination happening in U.S. education.

A commenter asked what it would take to change your mind, and offers a hypothetical scenario as a test (which may have some basis in reality, but excludes that from consideration), and you refused to consider it.

Do you think there is any sort of evidence, if demonstrated adequately, that would change your mind? What sort of evidence would be sufficient?

> You seem to deny there is any propaganda or indoctrination happening in U.S. education.

Heck no, everybody knows American schools have been indoctrinating kids into robber-baron capitalism, "Manifest Destiny" imperialism, trickle-down economics, Christianity and other stupid shit like that for ages.

Wait, what -- that wasn't the propaganda or indoctrination you meant?

I'm not defending myself against baseless allegations, if that's what you are seeking.

They made a claim, not me. Let's see some evidence or it's just, effectively, propaganda. Anybody can say anything without evidence.

You challenged the notion of "indoctrination and propaganda happening in US education" (from the parent comment). You simply made a counter-claim to the parent commenter, to the effect that you know none of your teachers ever presented opinion as truth.

Another commenter asks you whether, hypothetically, a certain kind of training were given to teachers would change your opinion.

Who is making a claim here?

Man, if you're trying to defend teachers, you're doing a sufficiently terrible job that I'd almost think you were deliberately strawmanning.

You've effectively responded to a hypothetical "if teachers were converted to propaganda machines, would that be propaganda" with evasion that makes you sound like you have something to hide.

It's interesting that people are taking the approach of attacking me personally, which violates HN's guidelines.

They made a claim of something happening in reality, not hypothetically.

That's a real thing, though. In fact, some legislatures are so concerned that they've started passing laws prohibiting propaganda. Example is the recent HB3979 bill:

https://legiscan.com/TX/text/HB3979/id/2339637

> In fact, some legislatures are so concerned that they've started passing laws prohibiting propaganda. Example is the recent HB3979 bill

But that law:

(1) Nowhere prohibits propaganda, by name or in effect,

(2) mandates teaching propaganda, and specifically teaching various propaganda documents, opinion/analysis works, and campaign presentations (the Federalist Papers, Democracy in America, the first Lincoln-Douglas debate) ahistorically as “founding documents of the United States” rather than as propaganda, controversial opinion, etc.

It does explicitly prohibit policies mandating teaching current events, though. But not propaganda.

So I would disagree with both of those points.

For part 2) it says they 'must teach those foundational concepts and supporting documents' (i.e. Constitution) but it doesn't say how. I'm not sure if that counts as 'must teach propaganda'.

For part 1) The Boards are prohibited from requiring teachers to teach current events via an ideological nature, but it does not prohibit teachers from teaching anything - rather they must teach the subject from a variety of viewpoints without taking sides.

"(2) teachers who choose to discuss current events or widely debated and currently controversial issues of public policy or social affairs shall, to the best of their ability, strive to explore such issues from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective;"

And prohibiting things like giving credit for activist projects etc.. If parents want to get their kids involved in activism, that's perfectly fine but I don't think that's the school's job.

Honestly, I don't like that we feel such a document needs to exist, but I think it's pretty fair, neutral and civic.

As a parent, I would be happy if this were already the 'policy' at my school board.

> some legislatures are so concerned that they've started passing laws prohibiting propaganda. Example is the recent HB3979 bill:

> https://legiscan.com/TX/text/HB3979/id/2339637

If you are aware of that bill, you know that it's potentially a product of the conservative reactionary movement, which demonizes anything liberal and attacks with everything they've got.

That doesn't mean propaganda doesn't exist in education, but isn't it a bit disingenuous to present the bill only as a product of 'concern' and omit political movement with which it's widely associated? Isn't that disninformation?

I'm asking a genuine question, given the context.

The bill's language is very simple and reasonable, e.g. "members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex." I don't really see where this bill attempts to demonize anything.

It's telling, perhaps, that the parent comment doesn't address the question, misrepresents what I wrote, and continues to misrepresent the bill.

Is there a particular statement in the bill you deem wrong?

The evidence that radicals have already successfully overtaken Western universities is overwhelming, and the evidence that these radicals are in the process of taking over secondary education is also readily available for anyone who is interested.

If you are actually looking for some eyewitness accounts, Jordan Peterson has many podcasts where he interviews specific people that have experienced the ideological takeover themselves, including:

* Yeonmi Park: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yqa-SdJtT4

* Dr. Rima Azar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIw8mH7ZpFY

* Bret Weinstein: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O_gW4VWZ5c

He has also interviewed one person who lost his job fighting the takeover in high school:

* Paul Rossi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysQBegyQP8A

He's also interviewed a self-identified liberal and former employee of New York Times that witnessed the takeover at the Times. Starting at minute 8 the conversation diverges into talking about her experience at University.

* Bari Weiss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFTA9MJZ4KY&t=12s

Bari Weiss says it herself in this podcast, loosely quoted since I don't remember it exactly: If you as a liberal can't see the danger in what is happening, then you have your blinders on.

I would say the same holds true of people who can't see the takeover in education, which is already mostly complete.

Edit: I found the Bari Weiss quote at 43:06: "I have to be honest. At this point, if one can't see the way that this language has been hijacked and used as a kind of trojan horse strategy to smuggle in a hardened, zero-sum identity politics view of the world, to smuggle in a view of the world in which we have collective guilt or collective innocence literally based on the circumstances of our birth, that smuggle in a deeply anti-capitalist position, to smuggle in essentially a leftist illiberalism, then, I'm sorry. You have blinders on! The evidence is so overwhelming at this point.... I think it's because admitting that's true, is extremely psychologically scary, and socially scary, if you are a liberal."

There's no evidence in the parent, just the opinions of a few political actors.

> radicals have already successfully overtaken Western universities

Ironically, this uses techniques from the OP. It's an emotional appeal - calling people radicals, catastrophizing, etc. - but there's no evidence and really no information. Hyperbole eliminates information; it's like screaming 'we're all going to die!'.

If eyewitness accounts are not evidence, what would pass as evidence to you? Anyone with children in public school has seen this. Do you really need a peer reviewed study on every piece of information to form a worldview?

> If eyewitness accounts are not evidence

What a few people in the whole country say is necessarily credible and is evidence of a widespread trend? Wow. Do you know what you can find people saying, especially on the Internet?

It's surprising that people, especially on HN where evidence is commonplace, and especially in a discussion on propaganda, are so triggered by that. Note that almost nobody in this thread is discussing the facts of the original claim, they all are trying to change the subject to me.

> Anyone with children in public school has seen this.

What I read is, 'I'm so sure that I haven't even looked for or at evidence.' It's not a good sign.

Fact and reason are the difference between burning witches at the stake on one hand, and justice, fairness, truth, law, and science on the other.

> What I read is, 'I'm so sure that I haven't even looked for or at evidence.' It's not a good sign.

What you should read is that there is so much obvious evidence, easily available, that asking for more of it can only be interpreted as bad faith. I am certain that there is no evidence that fits your standard, because short of "Study: Schools taken over by radicals" you would not accept it. A scientific study like this would never be funded, even if this were a question for science (it isn't), for many reasons.

A google search of the relevant terms would turn up dozens of egregious instances. Have you looked?

Jordan Peterson is the worst kind of bloviating bullshitter pushing divisive bad faith talking points designed to muddy and degrade debate, in my ever so humble opinion.

I don't agree with everything Jordan says. In fact, as a religious person, I find his attempts to redefine religion as a form of atheism with psychology-based respect for religious instinct to be offensive. But, I don't believe a single thing you just said. I believe Jordan has and continues to do more good than I ever will in 100 of my own lifetimes, despite his flaws.

Once you learn the propaganda techniques, you start seeing it everywhere in the mainstream media. I used to think about 10% of the mainstream media was propaganda, now it seems like about 90%.

I do the same. I look at advertising and marketing completely different now. The enemy of propaganda is an educated public that is capable of critical thinking.

This is one of my favorite YouTube videos. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KewaCcYF9nY

I majored in Media Studies in college...it's literally all bullshit propaganda. Even if the underlying story is true, they twist and warp the facts and selectively cover events based on the agenda they are pushing.

All media is owned by probably 5 people....but the general population eats that shit up and seems to get offended if you inform them of that.

Can you support any of this, or are we just using some of the techniques in the OP?

Not surprising. You have these nepotistic rags espousing hatred for the working class which the upper-middle class eats up.

> Once you learn the propaganda techniques, you start seeing it everywhere in the mainstream media.

I think it heavily depends on what media you see. The best journalism generally avoids it (i.e., the straight news side). Most journalism isn't in the top few percentile, but you don't need to read anything less than the best. I stick to the best, and when I encounter lesser stuff (e.g., I was visiting relatives and CNN was on TV), it's shocking and depressing how obviously bad it is. (BTW, one good source I discovered on that trip: BBC World News television - actually excellent cable news!)

But the opinion pages of even the best news sources (e.g., NY Times, Wall St Journal) are 99% exercises in propaganda; it almost defines opinion in the news. It's disgusting to me that they brazenly deceive their readers, but it's ok because it says 'opinion'.

However, where I see propaganda far more is online, not in the news media. I see it comments and blog posts, etc., including in this forum, sadly. The focus on the professional news media is odd to me; and in fact, and ironically, de-legitimizing the professional news media is a widespread propaganda campaign from a specific political grouping.

The BBC's World Service and non-UK coverage is generally pretty fantastic, but unfortunately they can no longer be trusted for anything related to the UK, speaking as a Brit.

By nature of their primary funding source (a "tax" levied on those who watch TV in the UK through the government, which thus controls their purse strings), they tend to be very soft on whoever the governing party is, especially at present. For one, Laura Kuenssberg, their political editor, has had a lot of allegations of bias against the current opposition party, some of which have been upheld in enquiries. She's also ended up serving as an unofficial mouthpiece for leaks from the conservative party on a number of occasions, parroting party talking points uncritically.

I remember ProPublica's story from a few days ago.

It was the very definition of propaganda: clearly biased, obviously wrong to anybody who has the slightest idea about finance and obviously working hard to push a foregone conclusion against an imagined enemy ("The Rich").

To my dismay, mainstream media, including the BBC, picked up the story as if it was anything else than bad journalism, thus offering it credibility. Because as flawed as it was, it served their cause.

> It was the very definition of propaganda: clearly biased, obviously wrong to anybody who has the slightest idea about finance and obviously working hard to push a foregone conclusion against an imagined enemy ("The Rich").

That repeats what a blog post on HN's front page said, but that doesn't make it true. It was the blog poster who didn't understand finance, as many on HN commented, and their argument was weak in many other ways. Also, the conclusion about ProPublica's motives has no evidence - even if the article is inaccurate in that way, there are many possible reasons why. It's an appeal to emotion when we start saying "the slightest idea", "obviously", and "imagined enemy", not to fact and reason.

Even the allegations don't necessarily fit the definition of propaganda; bias or even deceit are not necessarily propaganda.

Why are people so ready to believe that a carefully researched story, rich in evidence, is wrong and take at face value a ranting blog post, with no evidence or research, by some anonymous person?

The answer is, that is how propaganda works: An appeal to emotion, and many other tactics described in the OP, were in that blog post. That is killing our society, IMHO.

BBC is biased in what it chooses to cover/not cover. You can have reasonably objective coverage but still carry water for the propaganda machine.

Once you learn to spot it, you can never un-see it. It's damn near maddening to try to even describe this to someone who is unaware.

You seem to be conflating "propaganda" with "opinion". And also conflating "propaganda techniques" with "communication".

There is obviously some overlap. Propaganda is inherently opinionated and basic communication techniques used to convey any story of course also work with propaganda.

No, propaganda is weaponised rhetoric designed to obfuscate the truth while promoting compliant beliefs and expedient behaviours.

This is not about differences of opinion. It's about whether the population is allowed to have an independent opinion at all.

In the US it simply isn't. There's a gigantic shrieking fog-horn of pro-corporate anti-democratic extremism on one side, and a smaller but more shrill progressive air horn on the other.

Between those two it's very hard to debate anything on its merits. Most positions are tribally one-vs-the-other, wrapped in triggering rhetoric and imagery, and powered by stock cut-and-paste memes, opinions, and predigested talking points.

None of that is about communication.

There are reasons for all of this. Some are reasonable, some are toxic. But that's a different issues.

It doesn't change the fact that propaganda is the default media mode in the US - not just in the mainstream media and in advertising, but also in the form of the interactions and quality of relationship that are typically promoted on social media.

I agree with you that propaganda is weaponized rhetoric designed to obfuscate the truth while promoting specific beliefs and behaviors.

My point (in response to the parent comment stating that 90% of all "mainstream media" is propaganda) is that the assertion "90% of mainstream media is propaganda" seems to be stretching the definition of propaganda from the reasonable one which you have brought up to something more like "propaganda is rhetoric to promote beliefs".

To me, that original comment seems to be more similar to weaponized rhetoric (in this case, designed to promote the belief that "mainstream" media is untrustworthy) than to earnest communication or expression of opinion.

Not at all. It's obvious in the "news" stories.

Why the classification "mainstream" media? Is non mainstream media qualitatively different?

I consider media outlets mainstream when they are all owned and controlled by one of the big groups like Sinclair. E.g., if they've ever made it into one of those montages where all the anchors from all over the country say the same catch phrases. I think they're different, because they anchors cannot say what they know to be true, but must stick to the script even when they know it's wrong, or they get fired. The smaller independent outlets can push propaganda as well, but they're not forced to, and their outreach is a small fraction of the conglomerates.

I called out mainstream media, as people often assume it is more reliable than the non-mainstream media.

> I called out mainstream media, as people often assume it is more reliable than the non-mainstream media.

It's pretty ambiguous: Where do you draw the line between them, and what evidence do you have about their relative reliability. The professional journalism I see, e.g. news sections in established newspapers, is far more accurate and honest than the non-mainstream stuff I see.

I believe non mainstream media is easier to recognize as propaganda or at least heavily biased, while mainstream media is oftentimes considered "unbiased" and "objective".

"unbiased"/"objective" = Status quo Propaganda

That's what the propagandists say: Everything is propaganda. It's self-justifying.

But it's not true. There actually is bias and subjectivity, and various degrees of them.

Most "non mainstream" media companies are actually owned by the big mainstream media companies. For example, look at everything Disney owns.

It's quantitatively different. Propaganda is most effective when its reach is maximized because having it appear in all mediums gives it the appearance of legitimacy.

Of course. It's not 90% owned by 6 companies.

Doesn't propaganda require intent? You may be seeing bias but that isn't the same as propaganda.

The intent is pretty clear. You can distinguish it from sloppy journalism fairly easily. Especially when the stories from one particular outfit all slant the same way.

I am sorry but I have no idea how one would come to the conclusion that 90% of journalists are engaging in intentional propaganda. I can understand if you think they have unconscious biases that influence their work, but believing 90% of the profession ix trying to actively manipulate you is just disconnected from reality.

> believing 90% of the profession ix trying to actively manipulate you is just disconnected from reality.

As I wrote in the opening post, once one learns about how the propaganda is done, what the techniques are, you start recognizing it all over the place.

It's like when I took some courses in sales techniques. Then, I'd go to buy a car, and sure enough, the salesmens' pitches were right out of those courses. I never recognized them for what they were before.

Becoming aware of when someone is trying to manipulate you, how they are doing it, and why it works is kind of a superpower.

Just FYI this has name: The frequency illusion aka the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon. It’s a common cognitive bias.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion

i don't think that's an example of the frequency illusion. it's only a bias if you are actively dismissing the counter arguments. in the example of car salesman, i don't think it's controversial to say that they do in fact employ tactics that makes you more likely to purchase a car.

But as I mentioned in my opening post, propaganda generally requires intent to manipulate. So you are not only recognizing techniques, you are assuming intentionality and motive for usage of those techniques. That is the part I don't buy.

I don't want to necessarily pick on the left here, but the most in-your-face example is all the so-called 'wokeness' in the media. This is a conscious effort to promote the 'inclusiveness' or however you want to phrase it. It's discussed openly how do you want people to react to what you publish. Have you ever considered that it might be your own personal biases that you don't see it?

I don't want to necessarily pick on the right here, but the most in-your-face example is all the so-called 'rationality' in the media. This is a conscious effort to promote the 'reactionary tribalism' or however you want to phrase it.

You should try to consider what unnoticed propaganda has led you to (apparently) separate "wokeness," as a concept, from just "being polite" or "treating people with respect".

It is closely related to the similar discussions had over "political correctness".

How does one distinguish between propoganda and universally accepted truth? It's not propaganda that tomorrow is Wednesday. Basically everyone will tell you it is and want you to believe it is. Same with planetary roundness. Is that propaganda too? Let's say for the sake of argument, all of the ideals driving "wokeness" are actually rooted in the truth. Would it still be propaganda? How would you know?

> How does one distinguish between propoganda and universally accepted truth?

One tell is when they quote anonymous sources => propaganda. Another is using unconfirmed reports. Another is when the only source has a heavy incentive to misrepresent. Another is when the statistics make no sense, or do not support the thrust of the story.

It goes on and on.

>One tell is when they quote anonymous sources => propaganda. Another is using unconfirmed reports.

This just shows a total lack of understanding for how journalism works.

Truth and propaganda are not mutually exclusive.

Edit: Finally when we got an actually interesting topic to discuss among the ocean of controversies everyone forgets in a week and tech equivalents of cute animal pictures, mods suddenly decided to limit my account and I can no longer respond to anything. I don't want to deal with this BS, bye.

Last response, since I can't respond directly to shuntress:

Feel free to post examples of right-leaning media doing it. Like for example the mask idiocy, because your example doesn't make any sense. As I said, it wasn't my intention on picking on the left here. It's just that the 'mainstream' right don't have the 'activist spirit' like the left or the fringes have, so it happens behind the closed doors and saying the same about the right would be technically a mere speculation on my part. Activism on the other hand happens out in the open on the internet and you can see all the tactics for yourself. Also I'd love to refute the 'wokeness' meaning 'being polite', but that would probably be a somewhat longer discussion and given the situation I'm unable to do it. You can thank the mods.

Okay, fair enough. My question is, really, "what makes something propaganda?"

What percentage of the media do you think engages in this "wokeness" propaganda? It is certainly nowhere even close to 90%.

Of course, it can't be anywhere near close to 90% as it's limited to just the left-leaning media, which is probably at most half of all media. I don't know the exact numbers, but I repeat again, it's only the most in-your-face example and the propaganda doesn't end on 'wokeness'.

You mean like how every left-leaning media publication said the lab-leak hypothesis was debunked, even though there was not a shred of evidence to substantiate debunking?

If every single left-leaning media said the lab-leak hypothesis was debunked it should be easy for you to give me one citation.

It's harder since they've all gone back and stealth-edited their articles.

Here's one example from PaulG: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1396769717805780994

Jeez those are some minor edits. This whole lab leak theory is turning into a major vindication talking point for the right but it's all built on a straw man as far as I can tell. And no one brings up things like hydroxychloroquine any more. Everything is framed as left vs right when it doesn't have to be just to increase polarization and outrage.

The problem is the hypothesis was dismissed without evidence and any suggestion for further inquery branded you an anti-science. The irony is unbelievable.

That's the victimization story that the right tells itself but I haven't seen much evidence that it happened.

Interesting. The article defines propaganda differently than the dictionary.

The article: "Propaganda is information (delivered through any medium) designed to persuade, manipulate emotion, and change opinion rather than to inform using logical truths and facts."

The dictionary: "information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view."

It requires someone's intent. People happily regurgitate the propaganda they've been indoctrinated with, without recognizing it as such.

Or rationalize it as a right thing to do. The end justifies the means and such.

> Doesn't propaganda require intent?

Not at all. In fact, effective propaganda will have its targets repeating it explicitly and internalizing it as a frame to other things. If nobody did that, propaganda wouldn't matter.

Bias doesn't exist without intent. Even implicit bias implies intent.

This is not accurate.

Especially regarding implicit bias. Implicit bias is specifically distinct from "regular" bias because is not deliberate and lacks intent.

Of course there's intent, it is just subconscious.

Intent is there, people talk about it openly.

I'll do you one better. If you learn the history of media, then you'll realize why you see propaganda everywhere. Even more simply, one only has to ask why would anyone create a media company? Why did Trump threaten to create a media company after losing the election? To get the "truth" out there? Or get his propaganda out there? Every mainstream media company, in the US, Europe, China, Russia, etc was created the wealthy or politically elite. Once you understand this, everything falls into place and you can move on with your life. It's sad so many people waste their lives over news/media that exists to manipulate and control them. How many relationships, friendships, lives have been ruined by media?

You see it even more on social media.

It does feel like the propaganda to genuine news ratio has increased markedly roughly since the Trump presidency, however. That's worrying for many reasons, not the least that increases in propaganda are what one might describe as leading indicators of quite shitty times.

> Thus, understanding propaganda to guard yourself against it requires not only the use of sound and cogent logic and a set of facts, it requires being on guard against emotional responses.

This, I believe, is so important to living in the modern era of constant information and media consumption at our fingertips. Reading (or even participating in) arguments online is one thing I see a lot of. Tons of emotional responses with plenty of bias and assumptions being made. But those are pretty easy to avoid if you just don't get yourself involved and watch from the sidelines. Good arguments where both sides are participating in open discussion with facts, logic, and open minds are a pleasure. It's what drew me to HN years ago.

What isn't easy to avoid (at least for me), is the propaganda being regurgitated by those around me. One side of my family is very deep into conspiracy thinking. They have zero trust for the media, other than a single outlet which they listen and watch every day. When I see this side of the family, I listen to what they have to say, but they don't seem to have any taste for logic, facts, or reasoning. Open discussion is off the table unless it caters to what they want to hear or already believe. Any evidence to the contrary is dismissed and not believed. It seems to me like there is no way to get through to them, no way to open their minds, no way to propose viable alternatives to their thinking.

How does one go about opening the minds of those already deeply influenced by propaganda? I have their trust, they still come to me and voice their ideas, however farfetched they may seem. Even if they know I don't believe them, they still open discussion with me. But I cannot seem to find a way to engage in their arguments while involving reasoning.

p.s. This became a rant, but I do want to improve the communication between myself and this side of the family. I don't want to (and can't really) just cut them off, they are nice people that just happen to have some wild beliefs.

I am in a somewhat similar situation. I've come to the conclusion that the relationship, the human connection, keeping that open is the most important thing.

Some part of their brain knows that what they're into is deeply flawed but ultimately only they themselves can find their way out.

> How does one go about opening the minds of those already deeply influenced by propaganda? I have their trust, they still come to me and voice their ideas, however farfetched they may seem. Even if they know I don't believe them, they still open discussion with me. But I cannot seem to find a way to engage in their arguments while involving reasoning.

Maybe you can checkout their single source of information, and make them promise to checkout the other side too...

Both will benefit from checking out alternate sources that opine opposite to our current biases.

We will disagree with most of them, but then, one can basically find out what is factually true or not from a simple comparison, see which facts have been omitted in the reporting, and then make up their minds.

Adding to this:

- understand that in the others minds you are the one deeply influenced by propaganda.

- try to create a bridge, something you can a agree on.

- if the other person is a logical thinker you might apply to that. Even when you don't know who or what to trust you can go a step further. Example: The two identical twins in the intersection, one always lies, one always tells the truth. You need to know the way to Rome but you can only ask one question.

- be aware that sometimes it might be you who should cross the bridge. I've already done so anf it feels great afterwards.

Honestly, the answer is gaslighting.

They trust you, they trust this source.

State the idea that you want them to believe, and then back it up with a manufactured argument from this source they trust.

They won't remember if it was ever said. They just know that they trust you, and they trust your source.

Use this power responsible.

The best comprehensive list of propaganda techniques I've ever seen was in the "Academic Games" game of Propaganda:

https://www.agloa.org/prop-docs/ See linked PDFs.

More info:

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5647/propaganda-game

Imagine thinking this...

>"Propaganda is information (delivered through any medium) designed to persuade, manipulate emotion, and change opinion rather than to inform using logical truths and facts. The aim of propaganda is to change minds via the use of emotion, misinformation, disinformation, truths, half-truths, and cleverly selected facts; not to enlighten (although one can technically propagandize true information, using emotion to sell truth, this generally isn’t what we are talking about when we use the term “propaganda”

Then saying this...

>Propaganda isn’t bad by its nature (after-all, almost any content that relays information can be considered a form of propaganda).

What the fuck. No, any content that relays information is NOT a form of propaganda.

Information is not — by itself — a form of propaganda, but any "content that relays information" (e.g. an article that uses a chosen subset of the available information about something to expose a point of view) can be considered a form of propaganda.

> No, any content that relays information is NOT a form of propaganda.

Except... that's the literal meaning of propaganda (it's literally Italian for "propagation"). It's only in the Cold War era (only relatively recently in the time-span of history) that "propaganda" have added that negative connotation.

Trying to spin a strict definition of propaganda to include all propagation of information is disingenuous, regardless of where the original word came from.

And even then you're wrong, you have to go back much earlier to find the shift in definition of the term. The negative connotation that led to our modern definition originated in the French Revolution, not the Cold War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda#cite_ref-13

> Academic Barbara Diggs-Brown conceives that the negative connotations of the term “propaganda” are associated with the earlier social and political transformations that occurred during the French Revolutionary period movement of 1789 to 1799 between the start and the middle portion of the 19th century, in a time where the word started to be used in a nonclerical and political context.

Before the French Revolution the term was used by the Catholic church and was considered "an ancient and honorable term".

https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-hist...

WWI & II made the modern definition we know today popular, but both the American and French revolution guided it there.

The War on Sensemaking is a great series of videos on propaganda and the information ecology in the modern social media driven world. I highly recommend it.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7LqaotiGWjQ

I like how their description of "Refuting the central point" is "refuting the central point" without explicitly telling us how that is different from "Refutation".

Also "Name Calling" is a form of "Ad Hominem".

And why is "using quotes" higher up than "reasoning and supporting evidence"?

Also, isn't the entire pyramid about the level of counter argument? So, contradiction is inherent in the process. It really seems like "Counteragrument", "Refutation", and "Refuting the central point" are all about the same thing. And if they are different then "Refutation" and "Counterargument" are ordered wrong. Because I think using reasoning and supporting evidence would be stronger than quotes.

So, really, this pyramid could be like 4 layers. Ad-hominem, Tone Policing, Simple Contradiction, Counter Argument

And yet, Ad Hominem is useful, especially since certain channels are clearly propaganda.

Is it a shortcut? Yes. But as the blogpost points out, misinformation spreads far more quickly than truth. Its easier to shortcut and label certain outlets as propaganda channels, to help focus the discussion on the few channels which are reliable (Associated Press is good and neutral, and mainly factual)

Ad hominem is never useful.

It doesn't tell me anything about the other side and tells me more about you. You don't like the other side. That's what I now know.

And misinformation usually has one of the problems that would put it further down the pyramid than actual arguments. It's usually ad hominem or tone policing itself. Or sometimes just a straight up lie.

And pointing out those elements would fall under Counter Argument.

Not everything negative is ad hominem.

> You don't like the other side. That's what I now know.

And that's very useful for establishing which sources we should rely upon in a shared discussion.

My sister's husband was quoting Breitbart news to me. I let him know that I believed that was a propaganda channel. In many discussions, its very important to establish who is, or isn't, a trusted source of information.

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There are others who quote Elon Musk's tweets to me. Many of those tweets have no basis in reality IMO, so I let them know that I don't trust them, and I ask them for another source of information.

> And that's very useful for establishing which sources we should rely upon in a shared discussion.

Not necessarily. If someone doesn't like the dictionary, for example, then you're not really dealing with someone who is looking for actual information about the definitions of words.

Calling Breitbart a propaganda channel doesn't say anything except you think "propaganda" is a negative word and you don't like Breitbart. If you would instead have told him of the many times it promoted misinformation and conjectural outrage over substance and you don't feel like sifting through the chaff for any possible wheat so by default you don't treat Breitbart as a source of reliable news. That would be different.

Just need to turn on CNN or MSNBC right now for modern examples of propaganda.

Don't think they really care about left or right, they use politics as a vehicle to keep the masses divided and therefore under control. It also shifts focus away from the growing class gap and how the upper classes are hoarding wealth.

or npr and nytimes, two outlets that especially harp on their "fact-based", "independent" reporting, but is as message-controlled as every other (e.g., covid fearmongering is still being peddled as hard as ever).

(Tangential) I'm in Brazil [1] for the first time and was intrigued to learn that the word for "advertising" is "propaganda". Of course anyone who has read Edward Bernays or seen Century of the Self will know the connection, but interesting nonetheless!

[1] I also learned that they spell it "Brasil" here.

It's a 1 hour read. I'd recommend to start a brief intro into Herman-Chomsky propaganda model:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model

Five filters. One big media theory. Consent is being manufactured around you all the time.

Noam Chomsky - The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34LGPIXvU5M

It's a topic that's never been so relevant, IMO, because of the unprecedented scale at which the propaganda industries (AKA PR/"Think Tanks"/"Dark Money"/Outreach programs/"Strategic Communications", etc.) now operate.

For insight into how it works, I prefer the more systematic approach of "Propaganda Principles"[1] to the linked site, however.

https://propagandaprinciples.wordpress.com/propaganda-techni...

> Selective truth: restrictive use of data or facts to sway opinion that might not be swayed if all the data or facts were given.

This is usually interpreted as presenting only half of a story, but the more common and powerful use is in presenting the whole story, while simply ignoring unfavorable stories, and promoting favorable ones. Is a murder front-page news, or a footnote? Depends on the murder.

Selective Truth is the primary form of misinformation today.

Respectable outlets have to generally tell the 'truth'.

But - they can chose the stories they want to highlight, and leave out facts entirely.

A neat example I like to use is the CBC's coverage of the 'trail of tears' story - which is the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous women from the 1960's to 2000, about 3000 went missing, somewhat higher than the norm. for Canada.

What they never highlight in coverage, is that 1) about 8500 Aboriginal Men went missing during the same time and 2) that almost universally, the assailants in attacks against against Aboriginal Women are in fact, Aboriginal Men.

When I bring up the facts, which I had to research myself - people seemed to be shocked and dismayed as though 'Men's deaths don't matter' - just because they happen to be a part of a group where others are committing violence, and, that somehow the fact that the violence seems to be entirely focused within the community is 'of no concern'.

In reality, most CBC watchers (Canadians) would be enlightened by the fact 'even more' Aboriginal men are dying that they deserve our sympathy in that regard, and especially that the troubles are focused within the community which is incredibly relevant because it helps inform solutions.

Imagine growing up and spending 25 years being exposed to '1/2 truths' like this?

It's surprisingly more common than not in many media outlets covering anything remotely sensitive to the point where I've developed a 'Spidey Sense' and frankly spend only 1 minute on Google to uncover highly relevant facts that should have likely been included.

I feel that this kind of thing is more important than the nature of propaganda highlighted in the article, because for the most part, classical propaganda is not nearly as common as those presenting a form of 'leaning bias' on sensitive issues.

The Government isn't very good at most propaganda these days, and I think we all know that Corporate advertising is 'propaganda' at least by this definition. We are mostly not aware of how consistent the bias is in the press, and how narratives are created there, which is why maybe it deserves more scrutiny.

I found this to be quite useless for understanding modern propaganda efforts. Mostly this is just telling subjects of propaganda that they are dumb, and they should be less dumb. As usual, this view on other people is incorrect. A proper treatment of actual propaganda efforts, as it is widely practiced, would not be allowed on this site.

Many books have been written about ‘influence’ and other soft power methods. They are a waste of time. In the real world, consent is manufactured by prescribing rewards and punishments. It’s entirely behavioral.

Examples abound. Think of everything you ‘know’, which you have examined zero primary source evidence of, but would have failed a primary school class if you didn’t ‘know’ it. This continues well into adult life and work. The actual truth, or even the actual attitudes and beliefs, are irrelevant. Behavioral consent methods work flawlessly without any requirement to convince the subject.

This is the real secret of propaganda. It’s all you need to know. It works because you don’t have a choice.

On a similar note, the FBI's Elicitation brochure is a good overview of how people may attempt to convince you to reveal confidential information: https://ucr.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence/elicitat...

The most annoying common form of propaganda is the association fallacy, which is a more subtle form of the ad hominem fallacy [1].

It works like this:

A. You believe X.

B. A crazy person also believes/believed X.

C. You are a crazy person.

D. Optionally: I won't consider your argument unless you tell me why being a crazy person is ok. Why do you support doing crazy people things like being a serial killer?

Example:

A. You are against cigarette smoking.

B. The Nazis were also against cigarette smoking[2].

C. Therefore you are a Nazi.

D. Optionally: I won't consider your argument unless you tell me why being a Nazi is ok. Why do you support anti-semitism?

This is by far the most common bullshit argument I get when talking with people about controversial topics.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy#Guilt_by_a...

[2]https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/251213.The_Nazi_War_on_C...

Just a little side note to this. You can tell a big propaganda push is coming when the news reports.

Police are saying that person who is obviously crazy and did <bad thing> also happened to believe in X.

Coming up. A special report where we look at all the crazy people who believe X.

Did <historical bad guy> believe in X? Find out next as we explore history.

Should the statue of historical person be removed because he believed X?

And so on and so forth.

That's extremely common, and used viciously in pop culture typically to demonize someone not sufficiently radical enough on an issue.

But it's not really propaganda.

Propaganda is defeated by shedding light on it. It requires constant vigilance.

One of the problems with HN (don't hate me Dang) is that we aren't permitted to call out propaganda as this article suggests we do. It all happens behind the scenes and as a result, its inherently unseen. It needs to be seen. We almost needs a wall of shame for groups/orgs caught engaging in PR.

there are so many ads on this blog it is hilarious and counter-messaging to the post?

> Propaganda isn’t bad by its nature (after-all, almost any content that relays information can be considered a form of propaganda).

I have to disagree, propaganda is bad, as its aim isn't to inform, but to manipulate through dishonesty.

You're using a different definition than the article. It's developed a negative connotation, but originally it referred to any dissemination of information made to influence public opinion. It refers to the motivation, not the content. Even citing true, non-misleading statistics in order to accomplish something good for society is propaganda, according to the old meaning. ("Propaganda" comes from a word that literally just means "propagate".)

I don't know why people are saying the article uses a morally neutral definition of propaganda. It starts with saying "Propaganda is information (delivered through any medium) designed to persuade, manipulate emotion, and change opinion rather than to inform using logical truths and facts. The aim of propaganda is to change minds via the use of emotion, misinformation, disinformation, truths, half-truths, and cleverly selected facts; not to enlighten (although one can technically propagandize true information, using emotion to sell truth, this generally isn’t what we are talking about when we use the term “propaganda”)".

The article's core purpose is to describe manipulative and insincere propaganda strategies so that the reader learns defenses against these strategies. This is very much in line with the negative definition of propaganda, and not just the very general "propagate information" definition.

How do we classify messaging campaigns the government puts out that aren't particularly manipulative or harmful? For instance, are posters telling people to wear mosquito repellent and to drain pools of standing water be considered propaganda? My understanding is that they would. But it fails the manipulative test. I don't know if we have a good word in the vernacular for the kinds of messaging I'm talking about. Public Service Announcement?

> but to manipulate through dishonesty.

That's a narrow view of propaganda. You can manipulate through honesty as well.

I think you are taking a wide view of "honesty".

Is it dishonest for reporters to report factually-accurate on sensational crimes if the reporting leads people to believe sensational crimes happen often? Which circle of hell do I end up in for posting about Shark Week on social media?

That's still being dishonest by omission about relative danger. I meant like the "lead paint is harmful" example that klyrs gave. Getting people to check for lead in their homes is also manipulation, but it's positive.

"Don't eat lead paintchips, they cause brain damage" is an example of honest and beneficial propaganda

Propaganda has bad reputation partially because it is associated with world war 2. Prior to that, it was freely used without negative connotations.

Think about it like this. Parents manipulate their children all the time to make them do things they don't want to do. They do not do it honestly, but it certainly it not perceived a societal harm despite inherent dishonesty.

Manipulating your own children (probably not good if you want functional kids) is a private affair without a political agenda.

One can’t simply relay absolutely all of the information. By choosing which information to relay, you could say one already engages in propaganda, selective spread of information[0]. The choice reflects one’s opinion on what you should pay attention to, which is conceptually not that different from propaganda.

[0] Quoting the article, “The art of propaganda is not telling lies, but rather selecting the truth you require and giving it mixed up with some truths the audience wants to hear.”

There is a difference between not relaying all information and selecting info or misrepresenting info used for an agenda.

How is not relaying all information different from selecting information to relat?

As to misrepresenting information, the same subset of information could be seen as fair by one group and misrepresentation by another group.

What matters is the purpose of the activity. If one consistently spreads selective information from which one stands to gain in terms of money or power, I’d say that’s a problem, whether you call it propaganda or not. On the other hand, other types of selective information we could call “propaganda” (e.g., anti-drug or pro-savings commercials) might actually be beneficial to the society.

PR is a PR term for propaganda. I think it was coined by Bernays.

After WW2 propaganda got a bit of a bad name for itself so it renamed itself public relations. Anything that talks about propaganda and not PR is out of date, but still valid.

This is fantastic, well done. (emotional appeal)

This article misses the two most important bits of info in understanding propaganda, and how people work.

1. Most effective communication is "propaganda"

As outlined in "Thinking Fast and Slow" (and in numerous other places), there are two ways of thinking: the quick instinctive "gut," and the slow, considered, logical mind. People, especially the kind of people that read HN, tend to deify the latter and villainize the former, but the truth is both have value. Furthermore, the "gut" actually has MORE value overall, since being able to sit down and carefully consider every aspect of a situation or concept is a luxury that is often impractical.

"Propaganda" is simply anything that speaks to this instinctive mind. Sales is propaganda. Dating/pursuing someone is propaganda. Trying to get a child to calm down when they're afraid or angry is propaganda. People sneer at making "emotional appeals" and appealing to "base instincts," but the reality is that humans spend most of their time living in world of emotion and instinct, not fact. Speaking to the instinctive mind is a more effective way to persuade someone, because the instinctive mind has more power in most people. That doesn't make it inherently bad. Talking directly to a person's "gut" is simple effective communication, which can be used for good or bad end.

2. Logic is a luxury, not a silver bullet

Almost every discussion of this topic inevitably frames it the same way: there are dark, sinister forces using "propaganda" to manipulate the vulnerable, and we must fight back by teaching people to think logically! Elevate yourself above base instinct, see everything with the cool remove of a Vulcan, and you will triumph, in yourself, and in winning arguments with others.

The reality is that the world, and people, don't work like this. Logic, reason and facts are not trump cards. Quite the opposite: they require a cool, friendly and reserved setting to work, and are thus mostly useless in any situation other than one between friends that mutually respect and understand each other.

The language of most of humanity, most of the time, is "propaganda," ie an appeal to instinct. Victory doesn't lie in trying to stomp this out like a Victorian trying to purge their sex drive, but rather in accepting it, understanding it, in yourself and others, and learning to speak in its language. Careful rational thinking is great, we wouldn't have all the advancements we do without it. But most people don't spend their free time reading research papers. They watch movies or TV, or play video games. Some even still read books.

Stop treating "propaganda" as a dark tool of the evil one. Bad guys use what works, and speaking to instinct works. If you want to fight them (and more importantly, to just lead a richer life) learn to do the same.

That's almost the canonical definition of evil in occultism, though: the animalistic part of the human gravitating to matter is the evil, the rational part ascending to abstract spirit is the good. Hence the typical meaning of upsidedown symbols. I'd agree, though, that most people are still heavily attached to their animalistic nature.

> The aim of propaganda is to change minds via the use of emotion, misinformation, disinformation, truths, half-truths, and cleverly selected facts; not to enlighten (although one can technically propagandize true information, using emotion to sell truth, this generally isn’t what we are talking about when we use the term “propaganda”).

My understanding is that experts consider the aim of propaganda to be confusing and paralyzing the enemy, preventing effective communication, debate and decision-making.

For example, after 2016, the widespread, hyper-inflammatory trolling and attacks prevented the discussion of politics. Many forums I know, including HN to an extent, simply banned it. To this day, many issues are very difficult to discuss (e.g., Trump, racism, etc.); you can't share information, discuss things, because the discussions seem to blow up (and even mentioning that those issues exist might provoke something here - please don't). That's effective propaganda.

It's not clear to me that the author has real knowledge of propaganda beyond their own observations and theories. There is a lot of better research and knowledge out there.

interesting! do you have a good entry point into said better research and knowledge?

Ah, I dreaded this question. Not at my fingertips. I would look up a university curriculum. Here is something I do have at my fingertips:

https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/ijoc-political-communication-comput...

"this page has gone awol" aka 404 :-/

bummer.

Have read some of the source materials on the propaganda they talk about, and what I've found it comes down to is criticism of the nonsense is basically a tarpit.

The bit about Putin's propaganda guy is super interesting, as what he's doing makes complete sense within other frameworks. The advantage these propagandists have is they believe one simple thing and it's very easy to signal, operationalize, and organize around. It's basically nihilism.

The article does get a couple things wrong e.g.:

> Big Lie: Using a complex array of events to justify an action or narrative. What you do is take a carefully selected collection of truths, lies, and half-truths that all seem to tell a story (which is actually revised history) and use them to construct a story that eventually supplants the public’s accurate perception of the underlying events.

The Big Lie tactic is (as I remember reading in Cialdini, maybe?) something necessarily absurd like Kim Jong Il hitting 11 consecutive hole-in-one shots on a golf course, where if you can't contain your disgust at how absurd that sounds, and you have some sense of self where it is offensive for you to believe it, you mark yourself out for isolation and attack. The Big Lie is primarily a tactic to get people to react, and the people whose identities are still anchored to truth are potential resistance leaders, so this lets them paint themselves as targets. It's also called a "wedge issue," and is the complementary tactic to dogwhistles and watchwords. It is also close to a "scissor statement," which is a statement that only has polarized and opposing interpretations. (HN thread on scissor statements: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21190508)

There are also some standard sales and negotiation tactics thrown in there, and oddly, some of their own tactics to create a slant are written into it.

However, the goal of a propagandist is to hold your attention and it doesn't matter what you actually think, because as long as the propagandist has your attention, you are passified by their noise and not acting against them or in your own interest. Arguing the logic or principles? Engaged. Outraged? Engaged. Have a side? Engaged. Ditched family and friends over politics? Engaged. The job of a propagandist is to manage your attention and make the stories you tell yourself the ones they taught you, they don't actually care what you think, only that above all you do nothing, and so small squads of less than 10 people at a time can seem to control entire cities.

The best filter against propaganda is attitude. The question, "how do I benefit if they are wrong?" goes a long way to establishing the necessary personal boundaries that keep you from spending too much time mesmerized. Having an axiomatic truth as a co-ordinate or waypoint for who you are prevents you from being completely submerged by narrative. Deflecting arguments helps as well because they are mainly bait for a tarpit, and as Dale Carnigie said, "nobody wins an argument." If your reaction to something is angry or excitable, you are downstream of someone trying to get inside your head.

Anyway, it's a good and important article on a pet topic, so my advice for dealing with propaganda is: it's your attention they want, only ever give it on your own terms.

>All states essentially sell their Civil Religion (ours being one of liberty, equality, and capitalism in a two party system). This is normal.

pretty painful trying to read the rest of the article after this as the author clearly sees certain kinds of propaganda as objective good.

* zero-cost abstractions

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* trait-based generics

* pattern matching

* type inference

* minimal runtime

* efficient C bindings

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