What is it about these messages that is making them so sticky? Is it volume, medium, semantic construction, social proof?
I'm hoping this link's threads manage to remain intellectually directed because I'm really curious what people here think.
There are actually parties involved with huge financial interest who want to sell masks, vaccines, PCR tests, etc.. If they are successful in convincing the people that their offered products are a solution for the pandemic, they can make a huge profit, so it pays for them to financially support their narrative. For the sceptics there is not much money to be made if they succeed.
So for masks, vaccines, tests, etc you have the opinion of people who sincerely think this is the right solution PLUS the marketing budget of companies with financial interest. On the opposite side you only have the opinion of people who are sincerely sceptical.
In Germany we had some politicians suddenly became very active in the mask business. In Bavaria there was even an FFP2 mandate (which didn't achieve shit) to support their mask industry.
Some of the skeptics have been selling supplements and miracle cures for autism, cancer, and anything else you can think of for years.
Others are leveraging anti-masking for political gain.
There’s plenty of budget on the anti-mask/anti-vax side of things.
For the sceptics, the money to be made is coming from tourism / small businesses. Small businesses are probably incapable to organise themselves, so that leaves big companies in tourism.
If I were Booking.com or a flight company, for example, I would support the anti-vax side of things.
On the mask / vaccine side, you have big pharma / big tech / the government.
Not really, no. It's pretty clear Republican politicians have been able to seize on the issue in a way Democrats have not. That may be a bit on the Democrats' tendency towards disarray in general, but if you want to be a prominent Republican right now, you're probably not gonna talk about being pro-vaccination too much.
> If I were Booking.com or a flight company, for example, I would support the anti-vax side of things.
That seems unlikely, given the damage to their businesses low vaccination rates cause. I recently traveled to French Polynesia; vaccination was all but required. Ten day quarantine if you aren't. They know what "people are dying there" headlines do to tourism.
> On the mask / vaccine side, you have big pharma / big tech / the government.
Big tech has been significantly responsible for the spread of anti-vax and anti-mask beliefs.
https://www.republicanleader.senate.gov/newsroom/press-relea...
He's the most prominent Republican politician in the country.
He really isn't. There's at least one you're missing.
McConnell's currently trying to avoid having his party shut down the government over vaccine mandates.
https://www.kget.com/news/local-news/house-minority-leader-k...
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/16/trump-americans-cov...
Yes, Trump is the one.
If you're counting Trump, you're reading "you're probably not gonna talk about being pro-vaccination too much" very differently than I intended. Trump similarily gave the occasional half-hearted "you should wear a mask" statement, but pretending he's a masking advocate would be silly.
His latest half-hearted attempt at promoting vaccination resulted in booing from the crowd, and he hasn't really touched that live wire since. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-booed-al...
How does that make sense? How does a more vulnerable population help booking.com? You'd think they'd want to overcome the pandemic too?
Sure, they might be anti-lockdown, and might get lumped with anti-vax, but there is less than zero benefit for travel-related companies in advocating against vaccinations.
HN has its fringes just like anywhere else. And just like anywhere else they tend to be noisy. Anything with a hint of politics attached to it is best ignored (which I'm obviously failing at).
To your question, I'm not sure I know the full story but I have a theory. If you're at all familiar with the public intellectual Jordan Peterson, you probably know of his polemics against 'Postmodern Neomarxism'[1]. Given that Peterson is a self-described american pragmatist, which defines truth more similarly to postmodernism than most schools of though, I wondered why he would hold such animosity to a philosophy so similar to his own. Someone did in fact ask him about this a while back. His answer was unfortunately rushed, but if I understood it correctly he believes pragmatism describes truth as 'what is most beneficial to believe' while postmodernism describes truth as 'the winner of a Darwinian conflict against other versions of truth'.
If that is an accurate description, then I think it's quite obvious: messages informed by a postmodern tradition are more 'sticky' because they have been selected for maximum sticky-ness, which is related to the wellbeing of the host but not identical. Competing messages have been selected for maximum benefit to the host, which is related to the ease with which they stick but is not identical.
[1]As an aside: a lot of readers would have had the mental equivalent of an immune response the moment the saw 'Jordan Peterson'. The use of the unflattering descriptor 'polemics' to describe him immediately thereafter is a deliberate attempt to modify the vector so as to convince those readers in particular to allow the message through regardless. Fans of Peterson would of course read on despite this, as they tend to engage in discussions involving him with friendly or unfriendly parties. Note that this use of language only affects the vector with which I delivered my idea, the payload relates to variance in memetic selection and is independent of how it is packaged. This is a very simple example of how I understand memetic warfare working - I hope our memetic immune systems are strengthened by this demonstration.
The right has more uniformity in terms of messaging. They seem to be able to more succinctly distill their messages. They leverage emotional affect. They target a wider swath of values, as opposed to the monotone drone of "fairness".
Besides the technical aspects of propaganda, what really fascinates me is how well they've transmitted the meta techniques of effective messaging. I can name dozens of right wing intellectuals, but I falter with the left. Does Zizek count? Lex Fridman? Sam Harris? Does AOC write books or have a podcast?