Propaganda Antidote

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DanDare
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Re: Propaganda Antidote

Post by DanDare »

henry quirk wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 4:49 am
DanDare wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 4:12 am
henry quirk wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 5:43 pm

coupled with incoherency, no, not fitness

he's a houseplant...owned by china...with a whore as his second
Disgusting personal attacks should see you blocked from participation is philosophical debates. This is lowbrow and nonsensical.
I am lowbrow...take your complaints to management...my ears are deaf
Yes your ears do appear to be deaf. You were not called lowbrow. The personal attacks were. You committed low brow behaviour. I have no idea if you are one way or another.
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DanDare
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Re: Propaganda Antidote

Post by DanDare »

Walker wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 1:00 pm
DanDare wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 4:01 am
henry quirk wrote: Wed Nov 25, 2020 3:18 pm bottomline: you're the gatekeeper of your head

lots of folks wanna get in there and monkey around with the workings

up to you, only you, if they do
This is not an effective answer to the question, since you yourself may be the paragon of seeing through propaganda, but you will still be negatively impacted by those in your community who fall for it. Any solution must be widespread.
Censorship is propaganda through omission. In a free society, control of what you know and think is more effective and appropriate for the receiver, not the transmitter. Thinking and discrimination are necessary burdens of freedom.
Agreed. However it is sensible to attempt to persuade others to develop these skills and behaviours. Sitting in isolation with such skills is ineffective.
Skepdick
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Re: Propaganda Antidote

Post by Skepdick »

Skip wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 7:08 pm What is the benefit to Socrates of insisting on the examination of ideas?
What does Schopenhauer get out of characterizing the phenomenal world as the product of a blind and insatiable metaphysical will?
Are you implying that they didn't benefit or get anything out of it?

Then why did they bother doing it?
Skip wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 7:08 pm How have they co-ordinated and slanted these communications to persuade the public to do what for them?
You are currently talking about them. Centuries later. However they did it - it seems to have worked.
Skip wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 7:08 pm
Language is incomplete and is fundamentally about compression and omission
No. It's fundamentally about using verbal symbols to represent persons, locations, things, actions, events and ideas.
Language represents all those things - nobody is denying or rejecting that. It still represents all of those things incompletely.

So when you use language for representation, HOW do you decide what information to omit and what to include?
Skip wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 7:08 pm Show me how in the following examples I attempt to persuade whom to do what for me:
Balls are round.
100 C or 212 F.
a daffodil
Hello
I can't do that - the information is in your head, not mine. But if we ask these questions...

WHY are you saying the above?
WHAT intention or motive drove you to utter the above?
Skip wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 7:08 pm
The truth which you've chosen to include at the expense of the truth which you've chosen to omit is always amplified through your own volition.
Or maybe a function of function. If the question was "Which of these toys are balls?", it wouldn't be useful to the interlocutor (possibly someone who is uncertain of English) to tell him everything about oceanography.
Non-sequitur. There is no a priori question when you are merely reporting on events you've witnessed.

At best the general question is "What happened?", and so it's entirely on you to determine which details are relevant/important, and which details to omit.

Skip wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 7:08 pm If he waved "Hi!", he's not asking for a lecture on graphite production; he only wants a return greeting.
Or looking to start a conversation?
Skip wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 7:08 pm Including everything is always impossible anyway; in no situation is it necessary to include information on extraneous subjects, even if we lived long enough.
Nor is it conducive to communication to withhold information that your interlocutors may find relevant or important.
Skip wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 7:08 pm OTH, including and excluding specific relevant information on the topic under consideration serves a purpose. When the purpose it serves is to fill in gaps in the audience's knowledge it's education; when it responds to a point of interest the audience has expressed, it's conversation.
Did you notice how you suddenly changed contexts from the previous paragraph? I did...

The context was a conversation between two interlocutors. Now, suddenly, the context is about an "audience"?

You are talking cross-purposes...

Skip wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 7:08 pm When it distorts the news to convey a false version of events, it's propaganda.
But we already covered this. If you are omitting some information and including other information from the "version of events" - you are propagandising. You are making choices as to what is relevant on behalf of other people.

How and why have you chosen which pieces of information your audience is interested in, if you haven't asked your audience a priori?
Skip wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 7:08 pm Because you seem unclear on the concept.
So you are using distinctions to attain clarity. Weird.

because that's what I said...
Skepdick wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 10:24 am Because it's favourable to the interests to the purveyors - distinctions and unifications make communication more effective.
Which still leaves open the question of your interests and intents.

WHY do you want to communicate clearly? What end does it serve?
Skip wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 7:08 pm He wasn't trying to lead Germany to war, i don't think.
But he did have a goal/purpose...? Propaganda doesn't have to be about war. Does it?

Any agenda is sufficient.
Skip wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 7:08 pm Yes. I think he tried his damnedest to minimize distortion, but didn't much care who believed him.
Do you really believe that Nietzche is "unbiased and undistorted writing"?!? The very guy who promotes perspectivism?

And if he didn't care who believed him, why bother writing any books?
Skip wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 7:08 pm No. I attributed more honourable motives to his writing than you do.
Strawman. I never attributed any dishonour; or any moral connotation or denotation; to propaganda

That's all you. Seems you are trying to shift the goal posts now by extending your incomplete definition with moral adjectives.
artisticsolution
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Re: Propaganda Antidote

Post by artisticsolution »

Impenitent wrote: Tue Nov 24, 2020 2:10 am google for utopia

-Imp
Google for dystopia
commonsense
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Re: Propaganda Antidote

Post by commonsense »

RCSaunders wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 2:15 am
Sculptor wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 1:18 pm Do you think there ought to be no boundaries to what people can say and do? DO you think telling political lies, slander, false accusations and insults towards your political opponants are acceptible?
Not sure what, "acceptable," means. Those the slander and false accusations and insults are about certainly won't, "accept," them, and those who use such tactics are ignorant ignorant and evile. But they are only words. No one has to listen to them. It would be wrong to use force to prevent anyone from saying anything. Who decides which words are, "acceptible?" and which accusation are false, slander, or lies? If those with the power to regulate speech decide yours are lies, slander, false, or insulting, is that OK with you?

Anyway, it is impossible to say anything bad about any politician that overestimates the facts.
I agree and yet I would say that words have power to incite actions, e.g., to gas humans to death without apparent remorse.
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henry quirk
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Re: Propaganda Antidote

Post by henry quirk »

DanDare wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 6:08 am
henry quirk wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 4:49 am
DanDare wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 4:12 am

Disgusting personal attacks should see you blocked from participation is philosophical debates. This is lowbrow and nonsensical.
I am lowbrow...take your complaints to management...my ears are deaf
Yes your ears do appear to be deaf. You were not called lowbrow. The personal attacks were. You committed low brow behaviour. I have no idea if you are one way or another.
I have that there selective hearin'

I readily admit to bein' lowbrow

sure you do: cuz I told ya so
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henry quirk
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Re: Propaganda Antidote

Post by henry quirk »

I never said, nor do I believe, any such thing. Again, you distort and misrepresent truth.

oh...my...gosh

I'm a propagandist!


You brag about freedom and being a free-thinker

I never brag: I assert

and: I'm as close-minded as soul can be


yet you continually demonstrate how propaganda owns you -- directing your mind and driving your actions

I need to be exorcised: call the priest


You are in service to the agendas behind the propaganda, regardless of how you try to frame it.

if I'm in service: why ain't I gettin' paid?
Skip
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Re: Propaganda Antidote

Post by Skip »

Skepdick wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 9:50 am [Socrates.... Schopenhauer]
Are you implying that they didn't benefit or get anything out of it?
No. I was asking you what you think is the benefit toward which they directed their deliberate, concerted disinformation.
Then why did they bother doing it?
For the hell of it? How should I know each philosopher's, historian's, scientist's, teacher's and writer's motivation?
I'm suggesting - well, more than just suggesting; stating - that philosophers don't usually co-ordinate their efforts, don't usually distort their own ideas, though they may be disrespectful of one another's, don't usually lie, and don't usually publish their obscure maunderings with a view to riling up the pitchfork-wielding peasantry.
[How have they co-ordinated and slanted these communications to persuade the public to do what for them? ]
You are currently talking about them. Centuries later. However they did it - it seems to have worked.
Ah! So, there's a dead philosopher's society in the Underworld, colluding with MSM to infiltrate the future consciousness of nations!
Now, that's deep !

Language represents all those things - nobody is denying or rejecting that. It still represents all of those things incompletely.
So? If that makes all language propaganda, why bother having all those other words for the functions of language?
So when you use language for representation, HOW do you decide what information to omit and what to include?
I could have sworn I explained that. It depends on the function and context of the particular communication.
[Show me how in the following examples I attempt to persuade
Balls are round.
100 C or 212 F.
a daffodil
Hello ]
I can't do that - the information is in your head, not mine.
If you can't see the persuasion in the communication itself, then the persuasion is not in the communication. Then the communication is not propaganda.
But if we ask these questions...
WHY are you saying the above?
WHAT intention or motive drove you to utter the above?
Which I have already answered in what you consider to be a non sequitur. You assume that each utterance was out of the void, rather than in response to something that happened "a priori". But, of course, nothing happens in isolation; all communication is part of a continuous flow of events. Thus, propaganda isn't made up out of thin air: it's a fabric of disinformation woven from the strands of general preconception and misconception, history, current events, political climate, popular sentiment and the media available to broadcast communications.
WHY do you care about my motives? It didn't change your mind or persuade you to do anything. If it's not aimed at changing your mind or persuading you to do something, it's not propaganda. If it doesn't answer a question you asked or issue you raised or interest you expressed, it doesn't concern you.
[The truth which you've chosen to include at the expense of the truth which you've chosen to omit is always amplified through your own volition.]
[Or maybe a function of function.]
Non-sequitur. There is no a priori question when you are merely reporting on events you've witnessed.
A couple of lines ago, you had no idea why I wrote those things. Now you claim to know that I've witnesses Hello. I told you the a prioris of two of them. You still don't know the other two, though it wouldn't take a genius to guess.
At best the general question is "What happened?", and so it's entirely on you to determine which details are relevant/important, and which details to omit.
That's rather a broad question! Would take some context and framing to decide what's relevant. We really don't have time in a single lifespan to start with the Big Bang every time somebody asks "What happened?" Especially if what they really need to know is the boiling temperature of water.

If he waved "Hi!", he's not asking for a lecture on graphite production; he only wants a return greeting.]
Or looking to start a conversation?
Very possibly. So, my answering "Hello" signal that I have registered his presence and am benignly disposed. He now has the opportunity to make his intentions known.
[Including everything is impossible]
Nor is it conducive to communication to withhold information that your interlocutors may find relevant or important.
Then it is incumbent upon the interlocutor to follow up with more questions.
Personally, I have found that people are more often annoyed by too much unsolicited information than by brevity.
[OTH, including and excluding specific relevant information on the topic under consideration serves a purpose.]
[Did you notice how you suddenly changed contexts from the previous paragraph? I did...
Sharp!
The context was a conversation between two interlocutors. Now, suddenly, the context is about an "audience"?
It can be either. Or a lecture from parent to child. Or a study group with several people participating. Or a TED lecture. Or a protest with everybody shouting at once. Or a panel discussion. Or a debate. Or a magazine article. There are many kinds of communication, but i didn't want to type my fingers to the bone with examples for each.
You are talking cross-purposes...
Evidently.
So you are using distinctions to attain clarity. Weird.
I could think of no less weird method. Sorry.
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Sculptor
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Re: Propaganda Antidote

Post by Sculptor »

RCSaunders wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 2:15 am
Sculptor wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 1:18 pm Do you think there ought to be no boundaries to what people can say and do? DO you think telling political lies, slander, false accusations and insults towards your political opponants are acceptible?
Not sure what, "acceptable," means. Those the slander and false accusations and insults are about certainly won't, "accept," them, and those who use such tactics are ignorant ignorant and evile. But they are only words. .
Words are mightier than the sword.
And certian interest groups wield massive power through the media.
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Re: Propaganda Antidote

Post by Lacewing »

henry quirk wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 3:30 pm I'm a propagandist!
Agreed!
henry quirk wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 3:30 pmI never brag: I assert
Ah, just repeatedly making assertions about yourself... but there's no ego involved. :lol:
henry quirk wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 3:30 pmand: I'm as close-minded as soul can be
How does that offer intelligence, clarity, balance, or growth?
henry quirk wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 3:30 pm I need to be exorcised: call the priest
A priest can't exorcise foolishness.
henry quirk wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 3:30 pm if I'm in service: why ain't I gettin' paid?
Because what you've chosen to be in service to is full of lies which appear to be the payment you seek.
Last edited by Lacewing on Sun Nov 29, 2020 6:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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henry quirk
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Re: Propaganda Antidote

Post by henry quirk »

henry quirk wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 3:30 pmand: I'm as close-minded as soul can be
How does that offer intelligence, clarity, balance, or growth?

never promised you a rose garden
Impenitent
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Re: Propaganda Antidote

Post by Impenitent »

artisticsolution wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 1:00 pm
Impenitent wrote: Tue Nov 24, 2020 2:10 am google for utopia

-Imp
Google for dystopia
dystopia? the sainted google?!?

the ministry of truth has spoken

-Imp
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Re: Propaganda Antidote

Post by Immanuel Can »

commonsense wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 10:58 pm Out of the preceding posts in this thread, I recall the implication that since each individual is the gatekeeper of his own mind, the way to combat propaganda is for all individuals to critically evaluate their beliefs.

I see difficulties with such an approach, but nonetheless I want to know more importantly whether anyone has/had other strategies to neutralize or prevent the effects of propaganda.
It's important to be willing to hear your opposition's views.

You don't have to accept or approve of them, even in some sort of superficial politeness. That's dishonest. But not hearing them, not thinking about them, and not either changing your mind or letting them refine your own position by challenging it are recipes for groupthink and indoctrination. So I'd say that listening to the other side is one of those strategies.

Obviously, that implies that free speech is important. You opposition has to have the opportunity to speak to you in some format, or how do you get to hear them?
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Re: Propaganda Antidote

Post by Walker »

henry quirk wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 3:53 pm
Walker wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 2:50 pm A bit of purification is good for the soul, 'specially after Saturday night.
purification: hair of the dog?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2OrBhVMKrk
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Re: Propaganda Antidote

Post by Skepdick »

Skip wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 4:23 pm No. I was asking you what you think is the benefit toward which they directed their deliberate, concerted disinformation.
You are asking me to read the minds of dead Philosophers.

Any particular example I give you will be speculative.
Any opinion/perspective anyone BUT Kierkegaard gives you would be speculative.

If you insist on such level of precision, prepare to be generally disappointed.

I don't know what the benefit was, but it would be disingenuous to insist that there was none.
What sort of rational human does non-self-beneficial things?!?

Skip wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 4:23 pm For the hell of it? How should I know each philosopher's, historian's, scientist's, teacher's and writer's motivation?
Irony much? I am not asking you to know what their motivation was. I am simply asking whether you think they were motivated, and whether their writing served their motivation.
Skip wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 4:23 pm I'm suggesting - well, more than just suggesting; stating - that philosophers don't usually co-ordinate their efforts, don't usually distort their own ideas, though they may be disrespectful of one another's, don't usually lie, and don't usually publish their obscure maunderings with a view to riling up the pitchfork-wielding peasantry.
And I am suggesting you got it all wrong. The best way to rule over the pitchfork-wielding peasantry is by ruling them without them realising they are being ruled.

That's how persuasion/ideology works.

The ideas of Plato, Socrates and Arisrtotle still rule over Western Philosophy.

Great propaganda indeed!
Skip wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 4:23 pm Ah! So, there's a dead philosopher's society in the Underworld, colluding with MSM to infiltrate the future consciousness of nations!
Now, that's deep !
Quickly reaching for the absurd strawman, eh? Every philosopher proselytises. If they weren't interested in proselytism they wouldn't make any arguments.

Skip wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 4:23 pm So? If that makes all language propaganda, why bother having all those other words for the functions of language?
Because it makes propaganda more effective? The distinction without a difference is the Philosophers' favourite tool.
Skip wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 4:23 pm I could have sworn I explained that. It depends on the function and context of the particular communication.
So... framing. Are you perhaps familiar that in the social sciences another phrase for "framing" is agenda-setting?
Skip wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 4:23 pm If you can't see the persuasion in the communication itself, then the persuasion is not in the communication. Then the communication is not propaganda.
Seeming as "communication" is defined as "all the possible ways one mind can affect another" I don't see how that's even possible.

If you weren't trying to persuade me, or change my mind then why are you telling me all those things?
Skip wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 4:23 pm Which I have already answered in what you consider to be a non sequitur. You assume that each utterance was out of the void, rather than in response to something that happened "a priori".
That's not an answer. I can ask "Why?" for every a priori reason thereof. And onto infinite regress.

I am not asking "Why?" in the sense of "what are you trying to achieve?" (in your propaganda campaign).

Skip wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 4:23 pm But, of course, nothing happens in isolation; all communication is part of a continuous flow of events.
Sure, but ALL communication happens in an over-arching context. You don't just say stuff for the sake of saying stuff. Do you?

There's always a reason for communicating.
Skip wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 4:23 pm Thus, propaganda isn't made up out of thin air: it's a fabric of disinformation woven from the strands of general preconception and misconception, history, current events, political climate, popular sentiment and the media available to broadcast communications.
WHY do you care about my motives? It didn't change your mind or persuade you to do anything. If it's not aimed at changing your mind or persuading you to do something, it's not propaganda. If it doesn't answer a question you asked or issue you raised or interest you expressed, it doesn't concern you.
This is rather peculiar to me... you are now characterising "propaganda" exactly like ALL communication.

Because Shannon's definition of communication is EXPLICITLY "affecting another mind".

Perhaps you don't understand what communication is?

Skip wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 4:23 pm Non-sequitur. There is no a priori question when you are merely reporting on events you've witnessed.
A couple of lines ago, you had no idea why I wrote those things. Now you claim to know that I've witnesses Hello.
[/quote]
You seem to be struggling with reading comprehension. I didn't claim you have witnesses. I claim that you are reporting events that you've witnessed.

I hope (for your sake) that it's fucking true, because if you are "reporting" events that you HAVEN'T witnesses, then it's better you shut up and let others report?
Skip wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 4:23 pm That's rather a broad question! Would take some context and framing to decide what's relevant.
And framing is known as "agenda-setting". Awkward...

Skip wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 4:23 pm Especially if what they really need to know is the boiling temperature of water.
You seem to be assuming what they. "need to know" - I wonder if news reporters have the luxury...

Skip wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 4:23 pm Very possibly. So, my answering "Hello" signal that I have registered his presence and am benignly disposed. He now has the opportunity to make his intentions known.
So what are your intentions in communicating?

Skip wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 4:23 pm Then it is incumbent upon the interlocutor to follow up with more questions.
Not every communication medium allows for this. Simplex vs duplex...

How should a news reporter, or a historian incite such "follow up questions"?
How should a philosopher do that if nobody reads their works while they are alive? Poor Kierkegaard...
Skip wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 4:23 pm
Personally, I have found that people are more often annoyed by too much unsolicited information than by brevity.
I've found people even more annoyed when they are being lied to by omission.
Skip wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 4:23 pm It can be either. Or a lecture from parent to child. Or a study group with several people participating. Or a TED lecture. Or a protest with everybody shouting at once. Or a panel discussion. Or a debate. Or a magazine article. There are many kinds of communication, but i didn't want to type my fingers to the bone with examples for each.
There's just two types of communication that are really interesting though... duplex and simplex.

Dialogues and monologues.

Personally, the latter kind of communication/propaganda is much more potent. It's difficult to tell if people agree with an author, or whether they agree with their misunderstanding of an author, but to the people agreeing it makes no difference - it feeds their confirmation bias.
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