Hacker News Reader

To this day the medical establishment leans heavily on rhetoric like this over dialectic.

Bernays’s Propaganda[1] isn’t just a good book on the subject, it was literally an advertisement for his services.

> "You can get practically any idea accepted," Bernays explained, "if doctors are in favour. The public is willing to accept it because a doctor is an authority to most people, regardless of how much he knows or doesn't know."

Doctors should try telling people to get flu and COVID vaccines. Oh wait..

64%+ of the entire diverse population of the USA got at least one shot of, from a layman's perspective, some kind of new experimental wonder drug. In under a year. That is an example of effective persuasion.

Then came the internet echo chambers and that authority shifted.

Don’t forget his laudable work with the American Tobacco Company to encourage women to smoke. Truly a champion of gender equality.

https://fcpp.org/2021/11/09/how-bernays-changed-the-world-th...

The story as told by Bernays himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pyyP2chM8k