patrick.net

The only way to break through a mindset is to convince the other party of your good will in spite of the issues. Any perceived hostility dooms your effort to failure.

On the other hand, propagandists in the opposition will try to trap you into a mold of having to be "nice" (exhibit good will) to them. For example, the right-wing is trying to indoctrinate the voters that they should dislike "negative" campaign ads, where "negative" really means any ad that speaks the truth about their candidate or issue.

Another example: the right wing successfully painted Obama into a corner where he has to be "nice" to them (and Wall St bankers) so that they will "collaborate" with him. It has been very successful. Just tell Obama that he is not nice enough or inclusive enough, and he will cave in every time. It worked for at least 4 out of Obama's 7 years so far.

In other words, the right wing was exploiting Obama's subtext (or mindset?) that he is a reasonable and inclusive kind of guy to control Obama with propaganda. That should count as one of the most cunning and evil propaganda campaigns ever. Only well into his 2nd term. Obama started to wisen up.

Bernie Sanders seems much more resistant to this kind of propaganda claptrap, as exhibited by his willingness to mouth "Noooooo" and shake his head into the camera when Hillary Clinton says something massively false. If Al Gore had mouthed "Nooooo" to George W. Bush during that debate when instead he sighed audibly at the incorrigible lies of Bush, he would have won and become president, even with rigged vote counts. Instead, Al Gore was derided by the right-wing media for his "sigh", and that sigh became a focal point of the election thereafter, making him look weak. Donald Trump would NEVER sigh.

From my perspective, there are three ideas in the OP.

1) People tend to agree with their peers, and consequently groups of peers start to share similar views on a number of topics. This seems to me to be hard wired into us. It happens a lot on the level of small group of friends. It happens more or less in larger groups. People take sides adamantly a lot in national politics, but I think there is something else going on here. Here, I think it is more driven by listening to sources that tend to be marketing wings of one party or another.
2) You go off and apply this to Islam. Well, here, we're talking about our country against another country, which is #1 applied to yet a larger group. In this case, we are on distinct sides with a shared military fighting on our behalf.
3) The text (literal things that people say) and subtext (language they use) has been written about on this board. I agree with you that the subtext / language is very important. It does depend on a landscape where subgroups have an us against them mentality already established.

The only way to break through a mindset is to convince the other party of your good will in spite of the issues. Any perceived hostility dooms your effort to failure.

This is why I use tact when discussing these sensitive issues,

You are really discussing memes.

https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_dangerous_memes?language=en#t-907684

at 12:15 he mentions the beginnings of radical Islam.

Reality mentioned a while back how the Christian religion took over the Roman empire through memes. Albeit much of their success was also through their ability to print their materials.

I contend that economics has been taken over by the Keynesian meme. I think that Keynesians get 10 to 1 more attention than MMTs and 100 to 1 more attention than Austrians.

I hear what you are saying regarding good communication skills, but still disagree on the point about terrorism being a one way street.

Yeah, debate is reduced to this and pretty sure that the she beast claims discrimination/harassment/rape etc.

www.youtube.com/embed/g67z_xBe07Q

Another thing with the internet, is that it allows people with differing opinion than the feminazi sponsored one to speak about it. People can openly talk about the unfairness of child support and alimony laws and many other topics that cannot be talked in public. As such free speech has flourished.

justme says

On the other hand, propagandists in the opposition will try to trap you into a mold of having to be "nice" (exhibit good will) to them. For example, the right-wing is trying to indoctrinate the voters that they should dislike "negative" campaign ads, where "negative" really means any ad that speaks the truth about their candidate or issue.

yes, the other side will demand "respect" which often is just a codeword for conformity to their point of view. but you can stick to your own point and still present it in a sympathetic way.

for example, in PC circles (ny times, npr) it must absolutely never be mentioned that most terrorism worldwide (deliberate murder of random civilians) is islamic terrorism. to do so would be to "disrespect" islam in the PC view. yet the very strong connection between islam and terrorism is a fact, and so should not be denied. to be sympathetic, we should point out that the majority of victims of islamic terrorism are in fact other muslims.

Mindsets are syndromes of opinions, where by syndrome I mean "a combination of symptoms resulting from a single cause or so commonly occurring together as to constitute a distinct clinical picture."

So I guess I wonder whether opinions are the foundation that forms a mindset, as you say, Patrick, or mindset is the foundation for forming opinions. I tend rather to think of a mindset as a system/framework of beliefs that form the foundation for how one evaluates and analyses and accepts/rejects new information. Another way of describing it might be to say that a mindset is a set of postulates (as in mathematics) that are assumed by a certain person to be true.

Example of a postulate of right-wingers and libertarians: "The government can never do anything right".

--------------

Wikipedia seems to agree somewhat with my definition, if not exactly. Here is a quick excerpt of what Wikipedia says about Mindsets and Subtexts:

Mindset: In decision theory and general systems theory, a mindset is a set of assumptions, methods, or notations held by one or more people or groups of people that is so established that it creates a powerful incentive within these people or groups to continue to adopt or accept prior behaviors, choices, or tools.

Subtext undertone is any content of a creative work which is not announced explicitly by the characters or author, but is implicit or becomes something understood by the observer of the work as the production unfolds. Subtext can also refer to the thoughts and motives of the characters which are only covered in an aside. Subtext can also be used to imply controversial subjects without specifically alienating people from the fiction, often through use of metaphor. Especially in light of their inherently ambiguous and self-referential character, many authors have explicitly used subtexts (or subtexts about subtexts) in humor.

OR

The author David Baboulene, in his practical academic work on Story Theory — The Story Book —[4] defines subtext as "the result of any form of gap in knowledge between any of the participants in a story; for example, between the author and a character, between two characters or between the audience and at least one character.

Mindsets are syndromes of opinions, where by syndrome I mean "a combination of symptoms resulting from a single cause or so commonly occurring together as to constitute a distinct clinical picture."

A mindset, by that definition, is not necessarily a bad thing, and is unavoidable anyway. The acceptance of any philosophy is a mindset. To think about a subject matter deeply and for a long time is to create a mindset.

Not all mindsets are equal. The mindset that all people have the same rights including the right to live is superior to the mindset that all infidels must die. I've always said that western culture is superior to Middle East Islamic culture. Both cultures are mindset.

Mindset are battlegrounds. The mindset of abolition had to wage war against the mindset of slavery. The mindset of liberty must wage war against the mindset of absolute state power. The mindset of rationality must battle against the mindset of bigotry and superstition. And the later mindsets must die. This is progress.

I'm all for the touchy-feeling, let's discuss our difference approach for anything except atrocities. Slavery, torture, bigotry, jihad, and genocide are atrocities. One does not get touchy-feely with people who support such atrocities. In the last Republican debate, Trump proposed committing genocide and stealing oil from other nations. That's not a mindset I can negotiate with. Nor can I negotiate with the mindset of anyone who honor kills rape victims and blows up civilians. Such mindsets must be destroyed. Part of the way to destroy such mindsets is to make sure they do not infect the next generation.

thunderlips11 says

Video

I was going to say at least they aren't spreading, but 2:02.

Cross-ex debate has been bullshit since at least the late 1980s. It's suppose to give practical experience in the art of research and debate, but honestly, if any debate were held like a high school or college debate, the debaters would be laughed off stage.

The video narrators says he doesn't know what the "Asian kid from the 1990s" at 2:02 was doing. That guy was "spreading", speaking as fast as he can to make as many small arguments within the time allotted for his speech so that the other team cannot have enough time to address every stupid argument and thus must "drop" some of the arguments. Some really dumb judges, which unfortunately is a majority, hold the position that no argument, no matter how stupid or poorly supported, is an automatic win if not addressed specifically. This turns many "debate" into a competition to see which side can speak fastest even if it's completely incoherent.

In real life, people would just think you are weird and would not follow what you are saying or care to do so. The fact that spreading exists in hs and college debate demonstrates how little it prepares people for real-world policy debate. It's a shame because the original intent of the organization is to teach several useful skills including research, planning, critical thought, crafting arguments, debate theory, speech, and cross-examination. Of course the research part has been made obsolete by Google. Research is trivially easy today.

Ironman says

and little pussys on Patnet hide behind "ignore".

If it upsets you, it makes us happy!

Besides, blocking a troll isn't the same thing as blocking sincere opposing views. You are damn lucky that Patrick is so tolerant. There's no other site that would tolerate you.

The community is actually the core component of any mindset.

I explained it here: http://patrick.net/?p=1227976&c=991579#comment-991579
Human brain biases necessary for tribes survival are now the basis for propaganda.
The use of shared group beliefs is a propaganda technique. People have very low defenses against beliefs shared by their tribe(s).

YesYNot says

You go off and apply this to Islam. Well, here, we're talking about our country against another country

Islam (and other religions), politics, or countries all share the use of the same propaganda techniques.
In the case of Islam they are very heavy on group think (group dynamic, fear of infidels), and repetitions (praying 5 times a day).

thunderlips11 says

White Privilege

I'm all for it.

One has to have a mind to have a mindset.

P N Dr Lo R says

thunderlips11 says

White Privilege

I'm all for it.

Me too.

mell says

P N Dr Lo R says

thunderlips11 says

White Privilege

I'm all for it.

Me too.

might be nice if it actually existed.

thunderlips11 says

WOW.

What the Fuck is that? It sounds like the Fat Boys reading shit from the Post Modern Jargon Generator really fast and interlaced with slang.

I don't know. I don't speak jig.