posted on November 08, 2018 07:38 PM by
u/pipster818
56
u/DELETED64 pointsat 1541706329.000000
Trump: “Hm, I have millions of supporters who uncritically accept
anything I say. I’m going to say something that I know is false because
it will benefit me in some way.”
Galaxy-brained “rationalist”: “Is that really lying, though?”
I used to sneer just at their sheer pretension, but now I’m starting
to think I loathe these people.
It isn't worth your time to loathe a rat. They show up, they eat through your pantry, you chase them out. But at the end of the day, the rat is just doing all it knows how to do. It makes no more sense to loathe a rat than to loathe a rainstorm.
These people are neither animals nor natural phenomena. They are people who are presumably capable of moral reasoning. Rats are not full of hatred for their fellow rats.
How do we squeeze the most benefit out of the slightest sliver of
doubt?
Nah, the middle class tax cut before the mid-term that Trump was
telling everyone a month ago, despite Congress out of session, wasn’t to
deceive mid-term voters, it was hyperbole and you
just aren’t in on the joke.
No joke, Trump is a credulity buffet. Supporters can pick and choose what to believe for themselves and the rest is [hyperbole, trolling, out of context, whatever] and h8rs are eating the "fake news" rations.
> Trump is a credulity buffet. Supporters can pick and choose what to believe for themselves and the rest is [hyperbole, trolling, out of context, whatever]
I forget what I was watching, but someone had put together a montage of Trump supports talking about The Wall(tm), expressing every conceivable position on it. It was hilarious/scary watching one lady look at the interviewer like an idiot for even having to ask whether there would be a literal wall spanning the border. "Within a month of Trump becoming president!" And then cut to this guy going, "It's fake news. Everyone knows it's not about an actual wall. 'The Wall' is a metaphor, it's about immigration policy. You can't build a wall across the whole border!"
And even further, when supporters are confronted with other supporters who have radically different interpretations of the political agenda, or confronted with Trump's occasional statements which unambiguously alienate their interpretation, the general tendency isn't to realize that it's all bullshit and to jump ship, though a few do, but to compromise on their interpretation and double-down on trust in Trump, the man, himself. And, behold, a principle-optional cult of personality.
I bet quite a few second-amendmenters found ways to rationalize themselves back into the fold after Trump's statement in favor of seizing guns "before" due process. I think that's not a rare event but the name of the game since the primaries of Trump's consolidation of the GOP.
> but to compromise on their interpretation and double-down on trust in Trump, the man, himself. And, behold, a principle-optional cult of personality.
It's almost like undermining people's confidence in their ability to acquire reliable information is a mainstay of psychological engineering that aims to produce servility.
> Trump's statement in favor of seizing guns "before" due process
Haha, I'd forgotten about that one. Classic.
Even worse, this whole thing, I'd say, gets by regardless of Trump's or his campaign's intentions. His base engineers and regulates itself. The mechanisms of the psychological engineering were already in place when he swept the party.
[First of all, I think it's offensive that you refer to them as "concentration camps."](https://twitter.com/jessehawken/status/1009271740571283456?lang=en)
Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in between, THIS is face of people drunk with truth!
/)\_(\\
SSC Rationalism ===> American Fascism are a buy-one-get-one-free deal these days.
This is more defensible for news organizations, which can rarely speak authoritatively about Trump's *motives.* And the difference between a *lie* and a *falsehood* is precisely motive.
It's not at all excusable if you are asserting intention, as the quoted commenter does.
There's also a big difference between a corporate news entity and being the head of state. Lying so often and so brazenly should be an impeachable offence in a democracy, alas.
Well, it's also that he doesn't lie in the classical sense; what he does is *bullshit*. To lie properly, you have to know the truth and then deliberately conceal it. To bullshit, you just have to flap your gums without regard for the truth.
Even taking the guy’s word that Trump is bullshitting, Frankfurt
makes the case that bullshitting is worse than lying:
Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of
themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is
true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the
conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant.
Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms,
excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner’s
capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least
acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt
writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.
Trump: “Hm, I have millions of supporters who uncritically accept anything I say. I’m going to say something that I know is false because it will benefit me in some way.”
Galaxy-brained “rationalist”: “Is that really lying, though?”
I used to sneer just at their sheer pretension, but now I’m starting to think I loathe these people.
How do we squeeze the most benefit out of the slightest sliver of doubt?
Nah, the middle class tax cut before the mid-term that Trump was telling everyone a month ago, despite Congress out of session, wasn’t to deceive mid-term voters, it was hyperbole and you just aren’t in on the joke.
“Whelp, I already joined one stupid cult…”
[deleted]
I think the phrase “X is doing too much work here” is doing too much work here.
Even taking the guy’s word that Trump is bullshitting, Frankfurt makes the case that bullshitting is worse than lying:
The hilarious part is that /r/slatestarcodex are themselves deceived by ‘hyperbole’ such as “there was no collusion”.
https://imgur.com/gFoGhnr