"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
So how do propose we pick "the truth"? This is the problem we now face: Truth has been labeled relative.
A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
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Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
#22Some religious books are extremely repetitive. So repetitive that it seemed to me to be a form of intellectual violence against the reader.
Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
#23If you think that this is something limited to what evil Trump is doing, you are a fool and you don't understand yourself or the world around you at all.
Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
#24Repetition makes lies seem true, but repetition also makes truth seem true. All persuasion (and indoctrination) happens through repetition, whether in a classroom setting, a forum like this one, or in sales. This realization is also deeply depressing, because it means you're doomed to repeat yourself over and over if you want to persuade people. Let's take Noam Chomsky for instance. He gives more than a hundred talks…
Another example is Ronald Reagan. I can't remember who said it, but one of the people around him was asked how he managed to become president and known as the great communicator, and the reply was along the lines of, "he made the same speech [1] every week for 25 years."
Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
#25All the best salesmen know this innately.
And the best parents
Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
#26This works mostly/only for the undecided.
Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
#27I've heard that many times but I wonder if it's true. The article cites studies but I didn't bother to check the studies themselves. It cites some contemporary anecdotes but I didn't bother to check if they were accurate. It seems to confirm my experience so I'll accept it as reasonable.
The article is clearly trying to put Trump in a bad light and other comments here are applying it to other politicians and corporations. I think the important point is that repetition doesn't discriminate truth but can be dangerous because it can seem like it does. On important issues there is no substitute for research and accurate methods to interpret new data.
Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
#28>Hitler's rules sound vaguely familiar. I don't think comparing Hillary to Hitler is that appropriate.
Can I ask you a question? Are you trolling or what are your aiming here? Now it's of course downvoted to oblivion, but I'd like to know why even here, amongst smart people, we go down into so cheap comments and even try to defend changes that will eventually make lifes of people like me a living hell.
Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
#29Repetition makes lies seem true, but repetition also makes truth seem true. All persuasion (and indoctrination) happens through repetition, whether in a classroom setting, a forum like this one, or in sales. This realization is also deeply depressing, because it means you're doomed to repeat yourself over and over if you want to persuade people. Let's take Noam Chomsky for instance. He gives more than a hundred talks…
I take your point, but I think it's a bit of an overstatement to say that all persuasion happens through repetition. Maybe I'm a bit full of myself, but I like to think that with sound enough logic, I could be persuaded from my position by hearing an argument only once.
That would probably be the distinction I would draw between persuasion in general and indoctrination / brainwashing. Of course, generally indoctrination and brainwashing seem to have a much higher rate of success in changing minds, which is indeed depressing.
Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
#30"His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."…
Bear in mind that this is contemporary writing. They likely wrote it in such a way with the goal of forming this comparison in your mind. I think one needs to look at older writings to get a take that isn't designed to reinforce the constructed media narrative du jour. Even then its hard to get decent info on this topic because its always been so morally charged. Nothing obscures reality worse than moral concerns. Ed…
And yet they didn't single out a specific figure, nor did the poster above. As you say, there may well be more than one party someone might apply this description to.
Apparently a specific comparison formed in your mind, though, for some mysterious reason.
Probably just "constructed media narrative du jour," right? Certainly not because the person might actually be a quintessential example that stands out from everyone else so well that you already knew who people were likely talking about without anyone being named (yet, strangely, apparently want to deny that person should be considered for such a comparison at all).
> Nothing obscures reality worse than moral concerns.
It's not really clear that it's possible to separate human concerns from moral concerns, and I can only imagine someone arriving at the conclusion that "nothing obscures reality worse" by searching a pretty narrow set of reality-obscuring hazards.