Facts also only work when people believe them. Yes sometimes you have situations where so much evidence is presented and people jump through hoops to avoid the best fitting solution, such as with the flat earthers. But many times people have been convinced to reject sources and methods or to prioritize one source or method above all others, or they are convinced that their preconceived biases are common sense and take that as a valid source.

Someone who was raised on right wing media is going to have a hard time ever seeing Wikipedia for what it is, a genuine attempt at a neutral and fact based information aggregator and summarizer, because it disagrees with the sources they trust and those sources say not to trust it. Sure it cites its sources in a way fox doesn’t, but those sources are often academic and also are likely in that person’s zone of disregard.

So how do you change that person’s mind? You begin breaking their trust in the right wing media (the right will do the same tactic, latching on to every loss of credibility in academia of liberal institutions). This can be intellectual by having them observe the ways in which their trusted institutions lie to them or changing their mind about something, or it can be emotional by swaying them through rhetoric or interpersonal connections. Asking sincere questions that put the gaps in the lies in focus is a particularly effective technique. But ultimately it’s about changing what they see as trustworthy and as a source of truth.

Well if the value of a belief is in its ability to predict the future and people are believing stuff that explains but cannot predict anything, then we can simply figure out a way to set ourselves up for success based on solid beliefs that accurately predict the future while they take increasing doses of cope.

I know it is not that easy but I try to live by that principle. I cannot refute someone’s belief that the entire universe started existence 10 minutes ago and everything from memories to tangible goods are simply created from nothing. I can however say that predicts nothing therefore I won’t engage.

That’s why it’s spiralled into a meme war. The problem is, the fronts are all quiet, and every side is only memeing internally.

Some sides send trolls to fracture the other sides from within. Other sides just tear themselves apart because performative virtue signalling is more important to them than progress. Still others are just echo chambers that huff each other’s fumes to reinforce their own delusions.

There’s no good-faith discussion being had. Most people aren’t capable of holding one, so it isn’t worth trying to engage.

Maybe we need specialized “information operations” cells which infiltrate right-wing spaces and spread deradicalization propaganda (like “follow the white rabbit”), but I feel like that would require more coordination and organization than the left is capable of…

That’s precisely what paves the way for the kakistocracy we’re living through now.

My hypothesis is that the reason we’ve been seeing a lot of significant assassination attempts come from people who had been far right but are recently disillusioned or having a leftward turn is that the right has been priming and training itself for political violence for years (since about Ruby Ridge and Waco) and been engaged in the behavior they’re justifying their training and rhetoric by saying they need to violently stop governments from acting this way. So you have people ready to do violence, prepared to stop overreaching or totalitarian governments, and when these people stop being blinded by the propaganda, they start to see that behavior in their party and the ones who were actually ready to do violence do it.