Friend Infected With Right Wing Brain Worms - What to Do?

Thanks for that, listened to the audio just now. Dovetails quite a lot I think. I'll look up the researchers mentioned in that too

The line about the sincere and the strategic being a false dichotomy. The thing about the how putting money on the table changes how people answer too (my cousin will never take my offer of a wager on anything - no matter how big or small the amount suggested)

The part about misinformation not being something top down is interesting. Have you seen the Sarcasmitron videos on Putin? He posits a somewhat inadvertent reverse misinformation pipeline from the mid 00's emanating from people like Lyndon LaRouche, with Putin as the recipient, and then reflected back to the West over the subsequent decade

I'm starting to worry that _I'm_ getting brain worms.

Worrying you have it is a pretty good prophylactic— who’s the last wingnut who ever conceded “hey folks I might be full of magic beans here”?

But some of these doofuses will absolutely put money on their professed unreality — I’m waiting to see if Biden wins so I can take the money of denialists who will continue to bet otherwise a full week after the fact like last time.

The piece got me thinking earlier about the study into doomsday type cult members before and after the judgement day comes and goes without incident. Before the event they "think" the cult's prophecies are true, and after the even they "believe" the cults prophecies are true - and this manifested in them being highly insular before the event and highly proselytizing after the event, where the performance or signaling became part of the belief

Belief kind of asks something of its adherents, you have to do something. Anyone can "believe" that pan of boiling water is hot, but can you believe its cold and put your hand in to prove it

we sort of touched on this in one of the religious thread that was bumped lately and people had very different views about what was meant and the range of things that could be meant by terms like belief and faith and i think you're veering slightly into territory there which almost demands that belief must mean the thing believed in isnt true or whatever

i think belief just "is" - absolutely independent of reality and a first order item in and of itself and anything less than this is more properly described as self delusion perhaps, or orneriness, or whats the word contrarianism or etc

You may be right, I'm thinking aloud based on the article Daniel linked more so than my own interactions, though there did seem a considerable amount of overlap, which is something we're unlikely to see from the likes of Sessegnon anytime soon

I think in the case of my cousin, contrarianism is definitely a part of it, but its more like a kind of a cosplaying or trying it on for size. But there is something else, an element of that which is believed is in some way hidden, a secret knowledge, which the ordinary man on the street can't see

there did seem a considerable amount of overlap, which is something we're unlikely to see from the likes of Sessegnon anytime soon

take it to ilf

my older brother's one of these guys...I think for him it's very much the appeal of knowing something the normies don't. he wants to be that guy in the corner going, "oh, you believe what you saw on TV..."

That's a huge part of it, yeah. And the community aspect of having others who also know your secret handshake.

But there is something else, an element of that which is believed is in some way hidden, a secret knowledge, which the ordinary man on the street can't see

This has come up before too right? The 'game' aspect. Don't ruin the game with your 'evidence'!

There's a huge desire of belonging and community I guess that drives this. Prior to the internet there were more isolated factions unified by radio shows like Art Bell's Coast to Coast and various crackpot authors, I guess.

The internet makes it very easy for these pockets to commune, fulfilling a basic need for many of these people. The article above does a compelling job of showing how social and survival motivations can hold conflicting world views depending on context.

The internet makes it very easy for these pockets to commune, fulfilling a basic need for many of these people. The article above does a compelling job of showing how social and survival motivations can hold conflicting world views depending on context.

― octobeard

i mean the thing of it is that i _am_ one of "those people". i'm not a proponent of horseshoe theory (or fishhook theory either), but if you're talking about radical rejection of the existing "empirical consensus"... that's something i've done. when someone is hurting and lonely and broken, repeating the facts over and over again like a mantra doesn't _work_. i've always been the sort of person who needs hope, and, well, it's been hard for me to find. if i work hard and i do everything i'm supposed to, surely things will work out, surely i can be _happy_. and i worked hard and did what i was supposed to and was given a whole heaping helping of privilege on top of that and i had professional career and a house and a car and a wife and i was miserable. and there was nothing more on offer. no other opportunity.

you look at a lot of the brain-worm people and they do have everything, and it isn't enough for them. it's what you do, you look around for people like you. you're lonely, you look for community, you say, ok, i will go to a church. and you can go to an episcopalian church and it's stuffy and everyone there is old and they perform ancient rituals, or you can go to this bright new megachurch that looks like a shopping mall and acts like a shopping mall and everybody is excited to see you and is making extravagant promises and who cares if they're lies? who fucking cares? one can go there and feel _not alone_, feel like _these are my people_, they _understand_. and that's your community, that's who you spend your time around, and other people say you're bad and wrong but they don't _understand_. and _that's_ what the "facts" are for, they're not there to _convince_ anybody, they're there to _defend_ the community, defend it against the attacks from outsiders. one feels marginalized, one feels besieged, and one is the midst of this great battle, great battle of great purpose. one is saving souls. one is making america great. what's the alternative on offer? "america is already great?" talk about believing lies, believing things not in evidence!

so much of what i grew up thinking of as "consensus liberal reality" is biases, prejudices, lies, presented as "fact". "fact": i am and always will be a "man", because i was born with an anatomically normal penis and testicles. that "fact" of theirs ripped at my soul for decades, wore me down, _hurt_ me. and then what? oh! it turns out they're wrong. what _else_, you know, what _else_ might they be wrong about? anything. _everything_.

when you need something, and nobody else is offering, one will grasp at any glimmer of hope. no matter what the cost. no matter if, in the end, it all turns out to be false hope. no matter if one winds up dying alone and bereft. fuck the future. i'm hurting _now_.

and, of course, there's something darker. crueler. all those lies hurt me and i am _angry_, and i hunger and thirst for _justice_. those Others, they prosper while I suffer, I suffer because of _what they have done to me_. pain, suffering, abuse, i was taught all of those things as normal, and it is a cycle, one wishes to do unto others as has been done unto them. sure. sure, i want vengeance. can i get it on the people who are _actually_ responsible, who have _actually_ done the harm? no, because at the end of the day nobody is responsible. at the end of the day, it's not _people_, it's a _system_. anybody you blame is on some level going to be a scapegoat. soros, murdoch, bezos, these people are not _people_ the vast majority of people, they are _ideas_. i, too, have seen myself turned into an Idea. you can't kill an idea, but you can turn that idea into a person and you can kill the person, and boy, that feels almost as good to a lot of people. dying for one's beliefs, at the end of the day, often isn't nearly as effective as killing some poor bastard for theirs.

i'm tired of being an idea. i'm hurting and lonely and i don't have the things i need in this life. you know, what else is on offer? whatever it is, i'll take it. truth, lies, i don't care. i'm _desperate_ for something, anything, that will let me _feel good_ again.

and that, that is how people who get brainworms feel.

Booming.

Powerful post. Thanks for sharing, Kate.

I firmly believe the deficit of IRL community is one of the biggest crises in society today, especially in the post-social media era. The need for communal, inclusive, and non-predatory Third Places feels more vital than ever as the 2nd Place, work, has merged with the home.

I haven't checked this but I read recently that the majority of people who protested against the stealing of the election on January 6 didn't actually vote in the election itself. I don't know if this is a manifestation or form of the above or not, but I thought it was interesting.

What I kind of got from it was the elections were rigged not necessarily in a factual sense but in a conceptual sense, and that all elections are rigged by their very nature (and possibly not even necessarily just by 'the other side'). This kind of conceptual conspiratorialism had a dampening effect on behaviour (they didn't vote, though it wasn't clear if they had in the past), but obviously also not a dampening effect on behaviour (they turned up to protest the results)

The latter is, admittedly, more exciting, and as stated or implied in a couple of the previous posts, why should we care so much about the truth, what has the truth ever done for us anyway

The question or whether one is harmed by believing a falsehood is central to Pascal's wager, isn't it?

Things can get muddied and conflated. I remember helping an older relative once who was struggling with a website. "Nothing happens when I click the button". Eventually it turned out they never clicked on the button, it just didn't look like something you could click on. But from their perspective even after the truth was revealed, "it didnt work" and "it didn't look like it would work" remained conflated . The factual part (was the button clicked or not) was part of a larger whole, not a fact that could be considered in isolation.

With the Democrats bringing back covid to win the election, I think "they are going to do this" and "its the kind of thing they would do" also occupy the same space, intertwined in a similar way. Something happened and something could have happened become enmeshed

The factual part (was the button clicked or not) was part of a larger whole, not a fact that could be considered in isolation.

i can confirm that it could tbh

Had an old friend I really admired message me recently about my "ramblings" on Israel to accuse me of "stoking the coals of hatred". It didn't make me feel good. It really sucks. I called him out for engaging with personal attacks rather than good-faithed questions/discussions, to which he denied any personal attacks. Maybe I'm being a little soft about it, but whatever, it sucks, I don't enjoy it.

Said "ramblings" are insta-story shares of The Guardian, CNN and Al Jazeera with minor commentary on "Hey, kinda funny the western world seeks no accountability for this and rewards it with billions in military aid ain't it?"

What makes it not good faith? He won't have perceived it necessarily as an attack?

From his perspective, you made a reductive and definitive statement, he messaged you about it, and then you said stop it with the attacks. I happen to agree with your statement but when I come across highly definitive statement I don't agree with, its actually kind of tough to know how to respond

anybody you blame is on some level going to be a scapegoat. soros, murdoch, bezos, these people are not _people_ the vast majority of people, they are _ideas_

This is interesting I think partly because those ppl are also being 'punished' in some way for not being media-friendly. So to varying extents the media encourages their targeting for not being accessible (for the wormed "If you're really famous you must not have reeeal power")

Trump and Musk, indeed Putin (and his , avoid this with their regular albeit v controlled media appearances. That extends to less powerful but still influential likes of Bannon and Farage, others discredited but who aren't allowed to fail or be media pariahs.

xp being accused of "stoking hatred" for pointing out there's a genocide going on is bad faith, yes

The Koch bros to me seem way more media-allergic than Soros, Murdoch, Bezos. Maybe a good test is if you could make a caricature of all of them from memory and see if someone else could match the names to them.

My mental image of the main pair of Koch Bros was always the two old man Muppets but wrinklier and with scowls.

Xp Anvil. What Rob said. When someone asks you to "take a good hard look in the mirror" for the crime of condemning the bombing of 13,000 kids.... I dunno if there's room for good-faith discussion? I've had conversations with people far on the otherside of how I view this, and was able to because they didn't come at me with "rambler, hatred stirer, have a look at yourself mate?" Garbage. I could even talk with 70yo far-right telegrams conspiracy "don't trust the media" types who didn't believe a word of anything I shared and saw it all as "pollywood". I don't even need good-faith! I just need a bare minimum of "I have enough respect for you as a person to at least pretend ill listen to you".

Thats fair enough! I'm judging second hand as I don't have the context of your friendship as you do. I had felt from your post that the combination of it being someone you admired and the fact they had messaged you suggested there was enough there to work with, but that doesn't make it necessarily the case

With things like this I think its good to try and reach for the most charitable interpretation possible and just not really acknowledge the other parts, but at the same time recognise sometimes it isn't possible, they're seeing something I just can't see or vice versa

fwiw H.P from the context you initially gave i read it as your friend being shitty and engaging in bad faith... not that you were even asking people to judge whether or not you were in the right, i was assuming that anyway haha

Xp we hadn't talked or seen each other for 5+ years. Fair point re: charitability. I try to do the same. But this was the second time he'd messaged and I didn't see it going anywhere after trying to engage fruitfully the first time, without finding a listening ear.

Thanks Kate

I really do think charitability and trying to dialogue is a good deed, something to always aspire to. But also, you can't burn yourself out on someone that hasn't proved willing to engage in dialogue previously (especially when their position to dialogue from is "I don't think we should criticise genocide because Hamas")

There's definitely no requirement to engage (especially if you hadn't talked in 5+ years which I didn't realize). But IF you do engage, I think you just kind of have to act as though they're in good faith regardless of whether they are

That being said, I don't really like this bad faith idea, I don't think it really gets us anywhere and it too easily digresses into perceived motivations of each party away from the thing itself, moving into the conceptual realm

I think thats partly a consequence of not seeing issues or topics as things in themselves, but as manifestations of much larger topics (feminism, capitalism, patriarchy, globalists, woke - depending on which meta-framework is subscribed to)

That being said, I don't really like this bad faith idea, I don't think it really gets us anywhere and it too easily digresses into perceived motivations of each party away from the thing itself, moving into the conceptual realm

I think thats partly a consequence of not seeing issues or topics as things in themselves, but as manifestations of much larger topics (feminism, capitalism, patriarchy, globalists, woke - depending on which meta-framework is subscribed to)

― anvil

i don't _like_ the bad faith idea either, but i kind of feel like it's the essence of brainworms, "right wing" or otherwise. to me, the definitive brainworm statement is "facts don't care about your feelings". when having feelings is a _fault_, one presents everything as a "fact". that's where a lot of _fragility_ comes from, it's people who can't just _feel_ things, they have to pour those feelings into _facts_ and then defend those facts as if their entire self-worth is based on it, because _that's the situation they've created for themselves_. that's how my existence somehow becomes a threat to someone else's womanhood - _i'm_ somehow responsible for _their_ feelings.

the israeli leadership is doing the shit they're doing to the palestinian people and it's terrible and if the 'friend' doesn't want to be reminded of that, he can fucking say so instead of making h.p responsible for the _friend's_ emotions. i guess that's what i'd say "bad faith" means to me.

it's people who can't just _feel_ things, they have to pour those feelings into _facts_ and then defend those facts as if their entire self-worth is based on it, because _that's the situation they've created for themselves_

well put

Yeah, that's a really good point

I wonder what happened to latebloomer's friend...

Good points Kate.

I think the terms "good faith" and "bad faith" have a lot of currency.
Good faith = willing to believe the most generous interpretation of what someone has said and willing to listen
Bad faith = believing the least generous interpretation of what someone has said and not willing to listen.

If something genuinely hits the "bad faith" criteria, I don't think it's a cop out to move on and not engage in a fruitless dialogue. Rather, I think it's wisdom. Obviously no one is a "perfect" judge of that criteria, and things aren't so black and white. Approaches to speech are always somewhere on the spectrum of good-bad faith. And everyone has a different line for where things cross over into bad-useless-to-dialogue faith. I try to keep mine as extreme as possible. But like everything, it depends which side of the bed I woke up on

These things are all judgement calls, I don't think there's a right or wrong to handling it.

In this particular exchange with the person, at what point did you decide they were in bad faith? And, while you can't see inside their mind it seems like their interpretation of what you posted was that you fell into the criteria of bad faith.

It feels like this is always going to lead to the same destination, that once one person concludes the other has acted in bad faith, they will act in such a way as to then lead the other to conclude the same about them. What we don't know here is who came to that conclusion first

(I'm not saying you're right or wrong to conclude that per se, obviously I have much less to go on here than you do)

Statistics prove that under conservative governments, murder and suicide rates go up

It would be nice if such statistics mattered to conservatives and had the power to guide their thinking, but they don't. They just want their perceived enemies to suffer because that's what they deserve.

Yes, presumably the 'right' people are dying under those circumstances.

(Which is to say the left people, ofc)

great post, as always, kate.

I think a lot about how the information age has transformed the way people argue, even when you're not doing it electronically. I watched a friend and a stranger argue about Palestine/Israel the other day and the stranger accused the friend, who shared an article and referred to another bit of reading, of bad faith arguing since she didn't lead her to exact sentences/paragraphs in the article and couldn't read the book in the middle of a conversation. basically wanting a screen grab of appropriate places in the book.

but like, this is what arguing was pre-internet! you'd have having a conversation in public, and you reference a book you read, or research you read, and the person arguing against you probably hasn't read those books so they just argue what they know, but maybe later on they read those books, and either dismiss them outright, or change their view. weirdly, that's how I wound up a leftist, simply because I started from more right-wing and centrist positions and over time, evolved.

now, arguing is treated as if there are definite, immutable facts for every topic known to man, they are all somehow miraculously stored in bite-sized internet articles that one can read within 5 minutes, and that posting the magic link instantly wins the debate. and if you can't do that, you're 'dodging'. posting a link to an article that editorializes and draws the conclusion for you so that you can instantly acquire the requisite expertise on a topic you knew nothing about five minutes ago...seems to be seen as the superior method. that's why I hate when people say "got a link?" in response to claims made - it presupposes that every topic has a ready made link that can answer every question and you don't have to, y'know, actually spend hours reading up on the topic.

when it comes to 'emotion' vs 'facts', it's of course another way conservatives have perverted the meaning of what an "emotional argument" is. an "emotional argument" is one where you solely rely on your feelings and biases to form a position, and you don't have factual basis for it. like someone saying "zipper merging is bad because you're cutting in front of me, jerk" when it's actually established as the most efficient way to merge.

conservatives, however, mean 'emotional' in the misogynist, patriarchal sense, they use it to mean a form of weakness. they mean "you're too sensitive and that sensitivity is clouding your thinking", just like an asshole husband tells his wife "oh, you're always too emotional" when she gets angry at him for something fucked up that he said or did. or insinuating the 'emotional' person is childlike and naive, that the 'adults' are the ones who have the 'real answers'. it's rubbish, too, of course, because almost all conservative moral panics are rooted in emotional outbursts, i.e. those idiots that believe there are no-go zones in Detroit ruled by Sharia law.

kate, the part of your post that spoke to me is pointing that this is intentional, these bad-faith assholes are trying to force people to debate their own existence because then they get to be hateful on their own terms. a gay comedian that performed a lot on the Fringe Festival cycle did a show back in 2012, around the time SCOTUS was ruling on same-sex marriage, and he said some woman who learned he was gay said she didn't know if she agreed with his 'politics', and he said "what fucking politics? I'm a gay man who's just trying to live. You are the one who made it political".

another friend (pansexual) also tried to start a conversation among peers decrying the inclusion of a known asshole TERF musician at a local music festival, and was told to keep "politics" out of the board, that it was 'out of bounds', and she replied "politics? all of you know someone who is trans. this is personal.", and basically got bullied out of the discussion.

bigots try to commodify those they oppress and force them to defend their own existence because it's how they win.

I watched a friend and a stranger argue about Palestine/Israel the other day and the stranger accused the friend, who shared an article and referred to another bit of reading, of bad faith arguing

arguing is treated as if there are definite, immutable facts for every topic known to man, they are all somehow miraculously stored in bite-sized internet articles that one can read within 5 minutes

I think the problem in these cases is that everything becomes bad faith, a different opinion isn't just a bad opinion (which could potentially be changed), its a bad faith opinion (which cannot be changed because its not even real). It isn't the facts that are considered immutable, its the beliefs (or rather the perception of others beliefs). The facts are flexible and malleable. People are never mistaken, they're flat out wrong - and not just wrong, but bad and wrong, its just the way they are and nothing can be done.

My dad is obsessed with rail strikes. There is always a rail strike, regardless of whether there is one or not. He is genuinely animated about this, even if there is no rail strike on the website its best to leave early because a rail strike could happen at a moments notice

A rail strike is currently happening and a rail strike could happen are the same thing. This means there is a rail strike every day of the year

Oh, to have rail infrastructure worthy of a strike!

really good thoughts as well, neando

honestly, i think for me it's more that the information age _hasn't_ transformed the way we argue, that people still argue the way we always have even though theoretically we can be, like, much better informed than we used to be.

i've been thinking about... well, i was remembering, for instance, the Old Days, that people used to argue endlessly about evolution on usenet. people would go on talk.origins and like... it's this tradition, i think is shitty, this tradition of Debate or Discourse... like, it's all emotional. it's just people throwing excuses at each other, trying to persuade each other emotionally, and coming up with all kinds of lies and excuses to do so. it's why people always used to hate lawyers, because if a good lawyer makes an argument it's not about determining Objective Truth. do people still hate lawyers? i don't know. i'm not sure if i ever hated lawyers. i don't hate lawyers now.

like someone saying "zipper merging is bad because you're cutting in front of me, jerk" when it's actually established as the most efficient way to merge.

zipper merging is fine as long as you _merge when everyone else does_ instead of driving so far ahead that you nearly run into someone just so you can cut in 50 feet later. that's my hot take.

conservatives, however, mean 'emotional' in the misogynist, patriarchal sense, they use it to mean a form of weakness. they mean "you're too sensitive and that sensitivity is clouding your thinking", just like an asshole husband tells his wife "oh, you're always too emotional" when she gets angry at him for something fucked up that he said or did.

and yeah for me this is also... like, you know, i think sometimes people still say "hysterical" as a put-down. i try not to do it but it comes into my head sometimes, when someone (probably me) is being really emotional. there's this whole field of argument in the humanist tradition centered around "the woman question", these very enlightened rational debates about the question of whether women should be _allowed_ to read and write, whether or not women have some _nature_ which precludes, or ought to preclude, our being _educated_. of course, most of the people taking part in these debates were men. that, to me, is emblematic of humanist, enlightenment thought, the way it _works_. i do see in internet arguments more continuity than change. debates over "the woman question" prefigure debates over "the gay question", "the trans question"... many others, no doubt, past and future - woman/gay/trans are just the examples that stand out as being particularly relevant to me.

i find that there's... kind of an upside to my existence being "political". i was going for a walk at a local park yesterday, and the folks i was with made it to a local landmark at the same time as some kids and their parents. i don't know what age. 11? 12? at least one was wearing a boy scout uniform. so i said "i used to be a boy scout", to nobody in particular. it wasn't a _debate_. it wasn't a _discussion_. politics is as simple as continuing to assert my existence. that's what allows people to _question their assumptions_. these parents see a middle-aged lady, older than them, who used to be a boy scout. more importantly, there's this kid who sees this old lady and _she_ used to be a boy scout. and that, i believe, is how people start questioning about what is and isn't true, what is and isn't possible.

the internet, when i was younger, opened my eyes and my mind to a whole new world of experiences and now, idk, i guess my mind ain't so open in that particular way. i'm still open in a lot of other ways. i just... i just am not sure what the internet has to _offer_ me right now... besides convenience, which is no small thing, or rather, many small things that add up to a great deal.