Jan 6 is unlikely to have been unrelated to “data-fueled neurotargeting” (title is over dramatic imo).
First impression information really sticks in people’s minds (I heard x and then you tell me y in conflict with x, I will believe x more easily). And targeting is doing this daily.
Republican voters talk more about the democrats than democrats do, democratic voters talk about republicans than democrats do. Obsession with the other is what happens in the current gridlock, and the most unproductive congress in history.
My theory on Trump supporters is that it's confirmation bias and sunk cost fallacy.
Centrist Republicans and independents supported Donald Trump in 2016 because Hillary Clinton was a weak candidate. They may not have agreed or liked Trump as a person, but they voted for him.
But then, as Trump said and did increasingly extreme things, they had to create a narrative that post-hoc justified their support.
And he made 'The world is out to get him. He's been treated unfairly. Everyone else is lying' easier than 'I was taken in by a con man, who turned out to be even worse than I thought.'
Which is how 'I don't like the man, but I support his policies' voters became 'Everything about Jan 6 was fine' voters.
And why I try to inculcate a 'I am not a member of any political team or identity' in myself. Politics should be about policy, not brand.
You require a majority to institute a policy. Practically zero people believe in policies identical to yours. The only way for you to get any of your policy preferences is to find people whose policies you can live with, and who can live with yours. You will usually disagree with them, but they're better than the people who hate most of your policies and will do exactly the opposite.
That fact would seem to make democracy barely tenable at best. It becomes entirely untenable when you can't even identify your own brand any more.
There are tens of millions of people who would say "Of course I would never vote for a felon who attempted to overthrow an election." But they will find a "but...", for reasons that are objectively irrational but completely coherent in their own heads.
I point that out because, whatever policy you want, you're going to need brand-mates. A lot of them. The more you need, the more you people you'll dislike having on your side. But it's unlikely to be beneficial to say, "Forget it, I'll take the greater of two evils."
Flags won’t hoist or wave themselves, red flags doubly so, and they’re a useful determinant of which way the political winds are blowing, and whether they’re shifting.
Another movie from that same era I enjoy is The Pentagon Wars about the development of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. It’s one of the better made for TV movies I can remember.
complicating matters is that the world IS out to get him. it doesn't actually matter all that much that he deserves it, especially since to his followers, pretty much everybody in power deserves it, so the fact that all this stuff is only happening to their guy proves to them that the thing you ACTUALLY go down for, is being their guy.
further, if you trust the glowies post-Snowden, idk what to tell you. Trump said he'd drain the swamp, and the swamp fought back and won.
unfortunately for people who do believe in the corruption of the three letter agencies, Trump's tactic of undermining democracy itself (however much we do have) in order to appease his narcissism is actually worse than the career spooks in control of the government (and much of the media narrative; the FBI Agent / CIA analyst to "political contributor" pipeline is not hidden at all, you only need pay attention to the people the major news networks call "experts" on all sorts of topics)
It’s shorthand for agents of the state and those who do their bidding or act on their behalf directly or by proxy, especially federal agents. It was coined by the TempleOS guy, apparently.
> The term was coined by computer programmer Terry A. Davis, who allegedly believed that the CIA was stalking and harassing him. "Glowie" is often used in online forums to refer to government agents, especially undercover operatives who infiltrate online extremist spaces.
> "Glow in the dark" and its derivative terms have been used to refer to various groups: newcomers that do not fit in with the culture of certain forums and are thus suspected to have bad intentions, journalists who report on extremist groups, tech companies that collect users' personal data, and others.
Jan 6th was done via what as near as I can tell are cult indoctrination and mass scale rabble rousing techniques as old as civilization. If newer tech like this was used it was to boost the effect.
I think it’s possible that the I AM cult was the template for some of it like Qanon. Look into the tail end of that cults saga when they tried to set up a march on DC to set up their cult leader as king. Flynn and a few others have made direct references to it such as Flynn’s weird I AM inspired prayers at Q events.
As Hubbard said… want to get rich and powerful, start a religion.
us vs them has an ad cross section too! … read the article?
Think about the last time you used someone else’s device in your family, or watch them use it… listen to the “news” they get and ask if they get different news than you. Ask why they believe what they believe, unjudgementally and with curiosity. This fact finding mission will surprise you.
It might be true certain people are less discerning than you, but I can guarantee that the small difference in discerning is not a linear effect in the distortion they see the world with.
I see bullshit across the political spectrum, but the Q cult was kind of unique. I don’t see an obvious left wing analog at least today in the US.
If you consider totalitarian communism left wing then you can see analogs in Maoism and Leninism. That was a long time ago in other countries though. The US seems to have a more vibrant totalitarian cult scene on the far right today than on the left.
First impression information really sticks in people’s minds (I heard x and then you tell me y in conflict with x, I will believe x more easily). And targeting is doing this daily.
Republican voters talk more about the democrats than democrats do, democratic voters talk about republicans than democrats do. Obsession with the other is what happens in the current gridlock, and the most unproductive congress in history.