Well said. I hesitate to say I’ve studied this but it’s been a subject of passion of mine for some time now, and I’ve written long write-ups on how to, as you say exactly, inoculate people from mis/disinformation. However, once people lose their anchor to reality, it is extremely hard to get them back.
Are there ways out of our predicament? Maybe. And that’s a big maybe. Our moves have to be perfect from hereon out but even so… We may be beyond the point of no return and now the whole thing may have to come crashing down.
On a widespread scale, or say individually with someone you know?
Generally speaking, you need to treat it like a substance addiction. For these people, this alternate reality is an escapism; the reaction of anger to fear & disgust is actually a physical addiction; the neural pathways become entrenched and habituated to an extent that anything counter this quite literally takes more mental effort to trudge through — like going off the beaten path and into the jungle.
What this means is cutting off the source and putting them into rehab; in this case, rehab being you having their undivided attention for a couple weeks until you can break through. As you can see, the problem is that (1) You are competing with someone who has a cellphone in their hands 24/7 and you cannot compete with that, time-wise. (2) Even if you can convince this person to go out on a camping trip with you, it takes a certain tact and relationship to actually raise this without entirely burning the bridge and having them shut down.
People fall down this rabbit-hole most frequently due to self-loathing or trauma. It’s why the likes of incels are such easy targets. Lonely, young men being told wrong advice get upset that said advice isn’t working and they just get increasingly radicalized. It’s just another example of Shock Doctrine as described by Naomi Klein. When people are broken down and at their most vulnerable, they are most susceptible to radical changes in personality.
It’s another reason why men in their mid-life crisis also run through this. “It’s the immigrant to blame for me being jobless; not me!”
My family across several generations shifted from being Republican to progressive Democrat. The circumstances for us was unique and I don’t even know if we could’ve broken out in this day compared to 20-years-ago.
The other boring answer is good education, but that’s a long-term investment that takes so long to yield results, and even that is being undermined at every turn. Healthy community; healthy idols can be anchors. They have for me, anyway.
You might be interested in the documentary, “The Brainwashing of My Dad.” It ends on a somewhat positive note.
The deprogramming things I’ve looked at require a person to be with the person being deprogrammed almost all the time. You have to be able to shut down their bullshit immediately, and that’s if they already trust you. It’s basically impossible for most of us to do because we have fucking jobs.
Well said. I hesitate to say I’ve studied this but it’s been a subject of passion of mine for some time now, and I’ve written long write-ups on how to, as you say exactly, inoculate people from mis/disinformation. However, once people lose their anchor to reality, it is extremely hard to get them back.
Are there ways out of our predicament? Maybe. And that’s a big maybe. Our moves have to be perfect from hereon out but even so… We may be beyond the point of no return and now the whole thing may have to come crashing down.
Have you learned anything useful on inoculation and deprogramming? I’ve been looking as well but haven’t found much.
Is it like you say, have a true set of idea anchors? But still what if it’s a false anchor?
On a widespread scale, or say individually with someone you know?
Generally speaking, you need to treat it like a substance addiction. For these people, this alternate reality is an escapism; the reaction of anger to fear & disgust is actually a physical addiction; the neural pathways become entrenched and habituated to an extent that anything counter this quite literally takes more mental effort to trudge through — like going off the beaten path and into the jungle.
What this means is cutting off the source and putting them into rehab; in this case, rehab being you having their undivided attention for a couple weeks until you can break through. As you can see, the problem is that (1) You are competing with someone who has a cellphone in their hands 24/7 and you cannot compete with that, time-wise. (2) Even if you can convince this person to go out on a camping trip with you, it takes a certain tact and relationship to actually raise this without entirely burning the bridge and having them shut down.
People fall down this rabbit-hole most frequently due to self-loathing or trauma. It’s why the likes of incels are such easy targets. Lonely, young men being told wrong advice get upset that said advice isn’t working and they just get increasingly radicalized. It’s just another example of Shock Doctrine as described by Naomi Klein. When people are broken down and at their most vulnerable, they are most susceptible to radical changes in personality.
It’s another reason why men in their mid-life crisis also run through this. “It’s the immigrant to blame for me being jobless; not me!”
My family across several generations shifted from being Republican to progressive Democrat. The circumstances for us was unique and I don’t even know if we could’ve broken out in this day compared to 20-years-ago.
The other boring answer is good education, but that’s a long-term investment that takes so long to yield results, and even that is being undermined at every turn. Healthy community; healthy idols can be anchors. They have for me, anyway.
You might be interested in the documentary, “The Brainwashing of My Dad.” It ends on a somewhat positive note.
I’ll check out the documentary, and thanks for your reply.
I agree, my working conclusion for a while has been that I can’t compete with the phone and to focus on my wellbeing by reducing contact.
The deprogramming things I’ve looked at require a person to be with the person being deprogrammed almost all the time. You have to be able to shut down their bullshit immediately, and that’s if they already trust you. It’s basically impossible for most of us to do because we have fucking jobs.