How do you make an idea portable?
State it in terms that make it accessible to another group? Not universally portable, but improved a bit.
Portable Ideas
21–30 of 46 posts
Re: Portable Ideas
#22This is an insightful post. I think a stellar example of what you get when you run with this concept and try to use it as a tool to influence others is seen in the right wing propaganda machine in the U.S.
Often one has to sit back and wonder how reasonable, decent people can support horrible policies such as banning gay marriage, torture, and so on. At least part of the reason for this is because those in power who want to enact these policies have mastered the art of making them portable outside their own extremist spheres. They do this by "attaching" these ideas to more innocent, pure, and (generally) positive beliefs that are universally held by many conservatives, if not all Americans: love of country, love of God, the fear of harm to your children, belief in fairness, belief that hard work begets success, belief in the benefits of family and community, and so on.
The magic that makes it possible for decent, loving, hard working people to support things like torture is by making the idea of torture "portable" into their worldview, by hanging it onto one or more of these core beliefs. If you don't support torture, you're not protecting your children. If you support gay marriage, you're laying the groundwork for families to unravel. It's all bullshit, of course, but these are the root things people are being convinced of: not that torture is good, or that gay marriage is evil (though it often morphs into that), but that these things are natural conclusions based upon beliefs you already have. It takes the work of an evil genius to figure out how to connect these two things together and make them portable towards groups of people who have otherwise innocent and positive beliefs, but we see it happening every day.
Re: Portable Ideas
#23This is an insightful post. I think a stellar example of what you get when you run with this concept and try to use it as a tool to influence others is seen in the right wing propaganda machine in the U.S. Often one has to sit back and wonder how reasonable, decent people can support horrible policies such as banning gay marriage, torture, and so on. At least part of the reason for this is because those in power who…
V. insightful: One way to make an idea portable is to attach it to another idea that is strongly held in another “bubble."
Re: Portable Ideas
#24This is an insightful post. I think a stellar example of what you get when you run with this concept and try to use it as a tool to influence others is seen in the right wing propaganda machine in the U.S. Often one has to sit back and wonder how reasonable, decent people can support horrible policies such as banning gay marriage, torture, and so on. At least part of the reason for this is because those in power who…
V. insightful: One way to make an idea portable is to attach it to another idea that is strongly held in another “bubble."
Thanks. One thing I forgot to mention is that this becomes a self-perpetuating cycle by turning those holding the opposing viewpoint into enemies: if you're against torture, you are putting my children in harms way, if you are for gay marriage, you are destroying my family and community, etc.
Re: Portable Ideas
#25How do you make an idea portable?
Put a handle on it. Also, make sure it fits in the overhead bins.
Re: Portable Ideas
#26as an alternative to "going viral", I know a company that's trying to "go bacterial". Bacteria reproduce much more slowly than viruses - and yet they still have a viable contagion curve, and are at least as ubiquitous in nature as viruses.
Re: Portable Ideas
#27This is an insightful post. I think a stellar example of what you get when you run with this concept and try to use it as a tool to influence others is seen in the right wing propaganda machine in the U.S. Often one has to sit back and wonder how reasonable, decent people can support horrible policies such as banning gay marriage, torture, and so on. At least part of the reason for this is because those in power who…
Bear in mind that whatever it is the enlightened citizens of your enlightened country (presumably European) believe today, that country was far more right-wing than America until (approximately) 1945. Indeed for approximately the last millennium, these horrible right-wing ideas were considered normal and only a few people doubted them.
I can't be sure whether your country's mind was changed by our Eighth Air Force, or by our allies in the Red Army. Perhaps the first seeds of "change" were planted even earlier, by the British Navy. And of course we can't forget about Napoleon, now, can we?
What's certain, however, is that with the right application of military force, this same enlightened populace could be compelled to either return to its old views, or adopt new ones even more enlightened.
You should read more old books. It would teach you to be less confident in condemning people who disagree with you - as just about everyone born before the 20th century, in any country, did. Do you hate them all, and consider yourself morally superior? Really?
Re: Portable Ideas
#28This is an insightful post. I think a stellar example of what you get when you run with this concept and try to use it as a tool to influence others is seen in the right wing propaganda machine in the U.S. Often one has to sit back and wonder how reasonable, decent people can support horrible policies such as banning gay marriage, torture, and so on. At least part of the reason for this is because those in power who…
Bear in mind that whatever it is the enlightened citizens of your enlightened country (presumably European) believe today, that country was far more right-wing than America until (approximately) 1945. Indeed for approximately the last millennium, these horrible right-wing ideas were considered normal and only a few people doubted them. I can't be sure whether your country's mind was changed by our Eighth Air Force, o…
Whoa there. I'm just a (American) liberal who hates seeing Fox News et al manipulate and divide people by compelling them to believe fervently in things not by making convincing arguments, but by appealing to their higher ideals of fairness, safety, and justice, and painting those who oppose them as opposed to those ideals.
It's almost as if you didn't read my post at all. You claim that I hate the people who disagree with me, when the entire point of my post is that I can sympathize with those who disagree with me if their basic assumption is that their viewpoints say, on torture, are grounded in the (misguided, force-fed) belief that torture is necessary to protect family and country.
Re: Portable Ideas
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
V. insightful: One way to make an idea portable is to attach it to another idea that is strongly held in another “bubble."
Thanks. One thing I forgot to mention is that this becomes a self-perpetuating cycle by turning those holding the opposing viewpoint into enemies: if you're against torture, you are putting my children in harms way, if you are for gay marriage, you are destroying my family and community, etc.
Of course the real test of whether or not an individual learns anything from this concept is if you can identify how it's been used to affect your views.
Identifying it in those you disagree with is easy. How about how it affects you?
Re: Portable Ideas
#30This is an insightful post. I think a stellar example of what you get when you run with this concept and try to use it as a tool to influence others is seen in the right wing propaganda machine in the U.S. Often one has to sit back and wonder how reasonable, decent people can support horrible policies such as banning gay marriage, torture, and so on. At least part of the reason for this is because those in power who…
s/right wing propaganda/propaganda/gn
this is a basic principle of all propaganda, right wing, left wing, anti gay, pro gay, white suprematism, black power, the list goes on.
Let's give these banks just a little trillion dollars or our country would suffer. Let's burn just a few Jews in the furnace or they would sell our country. Let's take all the money from the rich and kill them and make everyone equal(ly poor). Let's bomb these Muslims into the Stone Age because they threat our children. Let's help those Muslims kill Serbs or World Democracy is in danger. Let's allow these morons squeeze our balls and tits or our airplanes would fall from the skies.
It's just marketing, a way to sell the bad idea to people and make them feel happy. It has nothing to do with right and left.