Propaganda doesn't totally rob people of agency free will (more accurate term), if it did this site wouldn't exist. People do have the capacity to develop critical thinking, skepticism, and a basic curiosity about the world that allow them to develop some resistance to propaganda.

You can hold people accountable for failing to even attempt to do this.

  • Moonworm [any]
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    Considering that the content of this post is tacitly holding ourselves up to be superior to other people, I think it's important to remind that no, actually, we are not so special. Let alone that any of us might have ended up believing very different things, we are all still vulnerable to being misled. Stay humble out there, Hexbear.

    • Great_Leader_Is_Dead
      hexagon
      ·
      8 months ago

      Considering that the content of this post is tacitly holding ourselves up to be superior to other people

      You edited your comment so to reply to this part. Are you actually consistent in your life in NOT holding yourself as superior to other people who hold hogwash beliefs? Like if you've ever encountered an antivaxxer or a QAnon supporter, did you view and treat them with the same respect as you would a fellow socialist? Or did you at least hold them in some contempt for their maliciously ignorant beliefs?

      • Mokey [none/use name]
        ·
        8 months ago

        you can think they're a dumb stupid idiot and think they got to being there due to circumstances out of their control at the same time. you're trying to put this all in a neat box when it's actually pretty messy

        • Great_Leader_Is_Dead
          hexagon
          ·
          8 months ago

          they got to being there due to circumstances out of their control at the same time.

          Okay so nobody can be morally condemned for anything then cuz hard determinism? Got it. Let's ban the_dunk_tank and if anyone posts about how bad any political figure is they should be banned cuz no one is really bad all people are just victims of fate.

          • Mokey [none/use name]
            ·
            8 months ago

            Im sorry you think youre just built more different than everyone and thats why youre so great and good and leftist

            Its either you accept materialism or you dont

            You cant pick and choose this stuff because youre basically saying poor people should of just not done crimes or be poor if they have so much agency and are not in fact heavily shaped by their environment and community

            If thats true, how do you punish someone who acts out reactionary ideas? It obviously still has to happen. I think its all messy and cant be distilled into "bad people are bad" Some element of justice needs to be restorative which I think is a better outlook on life than straddling the kinda fashy "im better than everyone because im leftist"

            • Great_Leader_Is_Dead
              hexagon
              ·
              8 months ago

              You know what maybe you're right, but I will say I think people should be more consistent if this is the position we're gonna take. If I see you, or anyone else who gave me shit in this thread, use a term like "burgerbrain" anywhere else on here I'm calling it out.

              • Mokey [none/use name]
                ·
                edit-2
                8 months ago

                I think ur still misinterpreting what im saying, i think u can have burgerbrain and be a burgerbrain but i still think its not necessarily your fault and you have room for rehabilitation. Its like 50% sympathetic and 50% saying ur bad because it has to be that way out of necessity.

                Whats the point of thinking otherwise? Leftists are a minority and were fucked if ur innately a hecking good person or not. I think youre too attached to thinking in things as black or white

                Although, after a certain point if you know what leftism is and you choose to be a liberal after the fact and abandon socialism, you are a bad person. You had everything, you knew the how and why and you chose the wrong thing. I think a lot of politicians and pmc are under this

                • Great_Leader_Is_Dead
                  hexagon
                  ·
                  8 months ago

                  Honestly, I'm a bit hung over from St Patties and in regretting have made this post now.

                  I stand by the thrust of the title but otherwise I'm over what I said.

                  I need to take a nap.

    • Great_Leader_Is_Dead
      hexagon
      ·
      8 months ago

      It's not deflection, my post is literally saying we aren't immune to propaganda.

      But, also that, not being 100% doesn't really give a free pass for people to repeatedly regurgitate easily debunk-able bullshit multiple times. I don't give Vaush or Destiny or Jordan Peterson fans a pass just because some hypothetical version of myself maybe would have fallen for those hucksters too. If we follow this logic to it's maxim I think you just end up at hard determinism. We can't really judge anyone for anything, that Neo-Nazi only ended up that way cuz his mom made him oatmeal instead of eggs one breakfast and that set off a chain of events that inevitably lead to him reading too much Stonetoss.