Imagine an individual you trust, and another individual you do NOT trust (the reasons being irrelevant). Both make a simple, observable, statement to you: ‘It’s a clear day outside.’
Without an ability to verify, who do you believe?
Now imagine the same people make contrasting statements: Trust person says ‘It’s overcast outside,’ and No-Trust states ‘It’s a clear day outside.’
Again, you are unable to verify before making your decision of whom to trust (which your brain will make for you immediately, anyway). Whom do you believe?
Finally, you are able to witness external conditions PRIOR to the same two individuals making their statements. It IS clear outside, but Trust person says ‘It’s raining cats and dogs,’ and No-Trust says ‘It’s perfectly clear.’ What are your first thoughts? How do you rationalise that the individual you trusted has provided observably incorrect information to you?
Is it the source of the information you trust, or the content?
The perceptive duality of friend-enemy, insider-outside, saves us energy. We save that energy in a cognitive sense when we recognise that the source of the information we have received has been previously defined as a potential threat. Threats require an immediate response, and the safest such response is to disengage. (Confronted on the street with a person who is clearly much largely and angrier than we are, making explicit verbal and physical threats to harm us, I would suggest that few would choose to whip out a tape measure and politely ask to measure their biceps).
Disengaging in an informational sense means rejecting the package as a whole, without examining any of the content. (Bad wrapping paper = bad present. Toss over veranda into swimming pool). The content of the information is rejected based solely on the perceived trustworthiness of the source.
By making such a rejection, we save ourselves from having to expend the energy required to acknowledge, analyse, and ascribe value to, the content. That doesn’t sound like much effort, but consider how much information we are bombarded with now, in addition to the normal bodily function feedback mechanisms. Any energy saved is a blessing.
This rejection in order to save cognitive energy is the fate of much conservative informational content. It is recognised as a threat (constant projection-inspired propaganda from our competitors has seen us positioned as the negative side of the friend-enemy duality), and the recipient’s brain immediately disengages and rejects the package as a whole, without considering the veracity or usefulness of the contents. The recipient saves cognitive energy by not analysing the content of the information.
Unfortunately, the conservative information sender will continue to waste their energy by believing that the content of their information package will easily pass the recipient’s cognitive gate-keeping (Friend or enemy? Trusted or Not-Trusted?), and be analysed as-is.
For whatever reason, the conservative is unwilling or perhaps unable, to acknowledge that such cognitive gate-keeping exists, which is why they continue to focus on tweaking the content. The same content that is clogging – still wrapped – the swimming pool in the backyard, or wherever else the recipient discards the unwrapped, unexamined information they have received.
It is NOT the content of the message that is the barrier to more effective outcomes. It is the automatic identification of the SENDER of the content, which triggers the gatekeeping rejection response, that requires deconstruction and rebuilding.
Think back to the thought experiments at the beginning of this post: When the No-Trust person’s statement was observably correct, how did you process that? Was your very first thought: ‘No, that cannot be true. I must have misheard it?’ The easiest option in that circumstance would have been to reject their observation, and justify why the Trusted person responded in the way they did. It doesn’t make sense to believe someone you KNOW to be a threat; an enemy or outsider whose very existence jeopardises your safety. You expend your cognitive energy on analysing the non-threat, because your immediate reaction to the threat (the information from the No-Trust person, whose informational content was observably correct) has already rejected it.
Conservatives CANNOT sneak their information packages past the cognitive gatekeepers (after which the content can be analysed). The gatekeepers must be removed.
In the cadre of core disciples, this will be an uphill battle (in 20 feet of snow).
For those not programmed in detail, who have absorbed the hollow mantras only because there have been no effective counter-tactics, removing the gatekeeper could be viable.
HOW can the gatekeeper in the minds of these individuals be removed, so that the rational, empirical content of conservative information can enter? I only have simplistic, incomplete suggestions for that. Before you begin mocking my inadequacy in this regard, however, conservative messengers might choose to ask if the content they have put so much effort into, is being rejected prior to, or after, examination by the intended recipients.
Sorry Muddy, I found it difficult to understand the point you’re trying to make, if I understood it at all.
We all use heuristic reasoning, short-cutting the need to evaluate the veracity/falsity of information. We do so by firstly evaluating the source of the information:
Source good -> more likely to believe (never 100% certainty).
Source bad -> less likely to believe. (never 100% certainty).
One should always keep an open mind to the reality that NO source is ALWAYS good or ALWAYS bad.
We know that leftards have immense difficulty escaping their implicit biases, they have a closed mind and are unable to think like us.
Because we engage in critical thinking, we are more likely to discern truth from BS, but still need to be skeptical.
My heuristic is that I BELIEVE NOTHING from any one source at face value, regardless of its political leaning. Multiple, hopefully independent sources should be checked, before accepting any new information.
If I can’t, or don’t have the time to check, I apply critical thinking, based on prior knowledge and experience.
Most of the time, new information is simply unimportant, so, who cares?
Scott Adams has summarised these heuristics in several of his podcasts, giving rough percentages to the likelihood that any news is, or isn’t, complete BS.
That’s all we can do, there are no certainties.
Omniscience is for God.
Muddy
Put both the source and its probable access to the information each on a scale.
Rate the reliability of the source from A to E, and probable access to the information numerically, 1 to 5.
Reliable source, good access: A1, probably believe. Reliable source, poor access: A5, cross-check.
Unreliable source, good access: E1, cross-check. Unreliable source, poor access: E5, ignore.
With multiple other iterations in between.
A big part of the problem is having been disappointed, let down or flat out burnt by erstwhile ‘conservative messengers’ consistently for decades now. We need new messengers.
They say very little now that captures the imagination and the odd occasion they do, they walk it back or retrade us at the slightest hint of leftist opprobrium.
Someone wrote the other day that the ‘broad church’ was ok when everyone in it at least held to a common set of core principles. That is no longer the case, hasn’t been for many years. We need to find a new rock to anchor into, fund it, support it, nurture it – either that or hope for a well resourced, Trump like disrupter. Could be waiting a while.
Gilas.
It’s a thought I’ve been struggling to express for a long time, as others will attest.
Let’s pick a topic: Klimate Change.
Plenty of conservatives (including our very own Rafe) have spent a good deal of effort over the years presenting rational, logical, evidence-based arguments challenging the mainstream orthodoxy that Earth is a scoop of ice-cream about to change form from solid to liquid and run down our arms, dripping off our elbows.
Why is the issue still so dominant (unarguably, spending billions of taxpayers’ hard-earned, and undermining our traditional energy industry makes it so) after, what, three decades? Why are the efforts of ‘our’ many thinkers not making traction?
My theory is that the content of the rationalist/empiricist (conservative) approach is not even being examined, because conservatives have been slapped with the ‘outsider’ (climate denier, etc) label.
Hence the metaphor of an information ‘package,’ consisting of wrapping (which denotes the source) and content (the information itself).
The receiver sees the ‘Conservative’ label on the outside of the package, and, because they’ve been so conditioned to hearing that ‘deniers’ are a threat to society and the health of the planet, the first tendency is to reject the whole thing without unwrapping it and examining the contents (the evidence-based information challenging the emotion-based orthodoxy).
Let’s say you have a former partner/friend/business associate whose actions resulted in the breakdown of your relationship with them. They try to call you. The phone rings and you see their name & number. You just want to move on. Do you answer the call? Do you have their number listed as spam?
Back to the topic at hand: Conservative arguments (on almost any topic) are being identified as spam. If that continues, the conservative voice will not even be heard by the average person.
It’s a rough, simplistic theory, I know, and perhaps it has little or no validity. Anything is worth examining though. The alternative is to persist in doing the same thing we’ve been doing for decades, and expect a different result (luck, the universe, ‘magic happens’).
I don’t believe we are getting as much ‘mileage’ out of the efforts of people like Rafe, Jo Nova, (and many others, of course), as we could. That seems obvious. If the information they were producing had an effective outcome, we wouldn’t be facing such electrickery price increases, and the spending of further billions on destabilising our energy grid.
Oh, bollocks. All of the above simply makes things muddier.
There are Insiders and Outsiders. Our opponents have long branded us as Outsiders; a threat. That’s to be expected, of course. However, because conservatives have reacted to that defensively, without explaining why we are actually the Insiders, the ones who ……………………….
O.K. I’m going to have to simplify what is in my head. (Not easy).
Conservative messaging is NOT working.
We are so far from ‘winning.’
I don’t believe this is from a lack of effort, though.
It’s that the effort is being misdirected.
I’m trying to put forward ideas – admittedly abstract, ineffectively expressed, and poorly formed – that may prompts others to come up with a plan for re-direction.
Muddy is right. The response to rational arguments on The Conversation is so often along the lines of “That’s from Fox news” rather than an attempt at rational refutation. It’s their way of saying that point or report doesn’t warrant consideration.
Why isn’t the conservative messaging more successful?
That’s the question this post was providing a tentative answer to.
Easy. Work out which of them works for the government then believe the other one.
If both work for the government believe neither.
I realize Muddy that this is a serious question, but as a rule of thumb it’s going to be accurate more often than not.
On the question of climate rubbish we have this in the Paywallian today:
Dutton must ditch fringe, reclaim teal middle
Peter van Oneselen
No he’s totally and absolutely wrong. That is because Teals are wrong. And Teals are lefties. If Dutton moves to the left to try and woo the Teals all that will happen is the remaining Liberal Party conservative base will leave. Many of them already have, because they can’t in conscience vote for a party which is pushing lies.
Trump demonstrates what must be done: embrace true conservative positions and reject lies. Then you win the centre back with good policy and deprogram indoctrinated lefties one by one. That is the only political approach that can possibly work. Moving left won’t, that’s just digging the hole deeper.
Bruce @ 11:18…
Yep. It’s common sense. The minor conservative parties are stealing those voters that would have voted liberal in the past.
I don’t know who started labelling the libs as “stupid f’n liberals” but he/she was right.
Before we can speak to someone, we must have their attention.
To get attention, conservatives need to publicly apologise (bear with me; this is about tactics, not egos) for poor past messaging (especially to younger cohorts, which conservatives have mostly ignored because ‘it’s too hard (yes, we know about the capture of our institutions, but that’s an excuse), and reposition ourselves as the ‘side’ offering opportunity. Seizing the initiative will help to negate (in time) the narrative of conservatives as outsiders and threats, thus allowing more of the content of the messaging to be considered.
Who will do this repositioning? Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be many options. That doesn’t negate the necessity for a change of strategy though.
Both van Onselen and Howard are talking rubbish.
Van Onselen, because far from being “the middle”, the Teals are very much a left wing party, and must be destroyed by the Libs at the next election if they are to govern in their own right, or even be an effective opposition.
Howard, because the Libs are no “danger” of drifting to the right (unfortunately), but of retreating further to the left. The Hawke/Keating governments were more conservative or further to the right than the current Liberal Party.
For as long as Australian conservatives remain addicted to the nostalgia of the Lieboral Party, conservatism will remain locked in a cupboard, bereft of oxygen.
I realise it must seem pointless discussing strategy when there is currently no organised, well-resourced entity in this country willing and able to implement the same. However discussing possible future strategic options has two purposes: (1). It is more productive (in theory) than feeling sorry for ourselves and whining ‘It’s not fair,’ and (2). It may produce useful outcomes. Conservatives don’t lack intelligence, but I believe we’re stuck in a routine that doesn’t serve us as effectively as it once did (or as we thought it once did). It’s no longer the 1950s.
Forget about the festering zombie corpses of the Lieboral Party.
Focus on conservatism and what strategies could be used when a suitable political vehicle becomes available. How will we counteract the (very effective) emotive tactics of our opponents?
There was a meme on Powerline’s Week in Pictures a month or two ago. It read something like: ‘We used to think that ignorance was a result of a lack of access to information. Then we got the internet. Yeah … it wasn’t that.’
(This is not a criticism of those who have commented here about the Libs. Given the usual cryptic nature of my posts, I’m pleased that even a couple of people are commenting!).
Muddy
Aug 12, 2023 11:15 AM
Why isn’t the conservative messaging more successful?
That’s the question this post was providing a tentative answer to.
Thank you for uour replies, now I understand.
The simple and, most likely, correct answer is that all the issues which have captured World Governments’ attention have been manufactured into crises, in order to enhance and centralize Government power. All made easier with technology.
A dream, several centuries in the make.
As Cicero said: Cui bono?
So, to explain all this, follow the money, as well as the non-monetary incentives at play.
Crises, manufactured or real, will always provide a range of benefits to centralised power. A massive number of well-funded people and entities will grow and prosper by being seen to address each crisis.
The more, the better.
Together with Gramscian institutional capture, as well as MSM capture, we now have the Big Brother of 1984, only much more experienced and efficient
Conservatives, by their very nature, can provide rational solutions.
They can explain, and calmly offer rational solutions to these crises, but no one listens because there’s more money and power in perpetuating the “End of Days” narratives we are bombarded with every day.
There is no incentive in fixing problems that keep centralised power in charge, hence the rise of the Global Uniparty.
And because the MSM has become just another propaganda arm of Big Brother, we are whistling into hurricanes.
Control the MSM, control the World
We now live in a Post-Modern Marxist hellscape, all the incentives to improve and solve problems are drowned by the siren of Post-Modern Marxism, where language and sound economics have been destroyed, to prosecute hidden, dysfunctional agendas that only a minority (like us) can see.
The rest of the Gramsci-Marx-educated sheeples out there will only wake-up and listen to us when they realise they’ve been used and discarded by those in power.
And we are nowhere… nowhere, near that yet.
Just read some later posts..
Although most of what I wrote above is well known to all Cats, what I wanted to emphasise is that good news don’t sell papers, capture clicks or people’s attention.
Perpetual crises and free money will.
Just look at COVID as the perfect experiment.
Life in the West is still too comfortable.
The effects of Marxist idiocy are not being felt, yet.
Good, positive news will garner attention only after people feel the edge of starvation, badly decayed infrastructure or streets strewn with corpses.
Response? “that’s from Their ABC. Is that enough to reject it? If not, then you also must provide some evidence to reject Fox News (which is now a leftard organisation, anyway)”.
During covid the two remaining trusted groups were unmasked, governments of all stripes and the medical establishment. It will be much harder for them to pull the same stunt again, many millions now will have doubts about most, if not all, warnings, pronouncements and orders.
The most injurious to public trust was the insistence that vaccines will prevent contracting covid, then that it will stop the spread and then that it will make it much milder. None of those were proven to be true. Then came the coup de grace where side effects of the vaccines were experienced by a wide margin of the vaccinated populated yet denied by the medical establishment. The result of lost trust is already noted in reduced take up of any vaccines.
How do you again earn people’s trust? For starters admit fault, punish the liars by removing them from any power and influence.
The same trajectory will have to be experienced with regard to renewables and energy prices. Impoverish and hurt financially enough people and there will be a reaction. What is odd is that the same people who gave us the covid debacle are now pushing renewables and the Voice still insisting that we trust them. I’m glad that more than half the population is saying No.
Gilas & Crossie.
While I agree that nothing will change until we reach a crisis point, the problem will be the extent of the damage that occurred to finally produce that reaction. Take our electrickery grid, for example: Once that is shattered, and electricity becomes semi-permanently rationed (tied to a social credit score) – and then affordable only by the upper-middle class (with the taxpayer paying subsidies to those below that level of ‘comfort’), how can that course be reversed?
The other issue with ‘waiting for crisis/for our opponents to make a mistake’ is that I have no doubt they will still find a way to avoid taking responsibility. If they are not forced to take responsibility, they will find another scapegoat/s (evil conservatives who did not invest enough, and not early enough, in the ruinables fantasy).
It takes a lot to admit that you have been duped, and many will believe alternative propaganda. In other words: I’m not at all confident that the public will react with enough force to a crisis to change the trajectory. The covidiocy has been proof of that.
(Let’s not mention the control the state will have over ordinary citizens via the digital i.d., including the absence of cash. If banks in Canada can freeze the accounts of individuals because the gubbermint decides they resemble protestors, the same can happen here).
My concise response: If conservatives are to have any standing in the future, we cannot afford to wait for Armageddon. Will it be easy to rebuild on top of ashes?
Hence why I persist with this type of post.
Muddy
Aug 12, 2023 4:37 PM
While I agree that nothing will change until we reach a crisis point, the problem will be the extent of the damage that occurred to finally produce that reaction.
Yes, it will have to be massive enough to wake people from their sheeple-ish, “I’m all right, Jack!” torpor.
The other issue with ‘waiting for crisis/for our opponents to make a mistake’ is that I have no doubt they will still find a way to avoid taking responsibility.
Yes, but starvation, anarchy and bodies in the street will make our opponents’ efforts irrelevant.
I’m not at all confident that the public will react with enough force to a crisis to change the trajectory.
They will, eventually.
Have patience my friend.
We haven’t yet seen anything like what is required to finally deal with the Marxist bastards.
Past revolutions took several decades, even centuries, before the popular outrage became overwhelming.
Unfortunately, short of magically establishing alternative, popular media with massive penetration, I don’t believe this ship can avoid the iceberg.
A great thread Muddy
And I agree with what Gilas has said in the 3 posts
Why are non collectivists so terrified of a bunch of soft mincing ignorant illiterate innumerate anti-scientific ahistorical imbeciles that they would give a rodent’s backside what the latter might screech about?
Because the former are embarrassingly gutless and increasingly incapable of articulating the arguments against collectivism when called upon to do so.
Remember, “conservatives” – Collectivists never sleep.
Gilas my friend, I’m simply not willing to wait that long.
HOP Time™ cannot be implemented soon enough.
Speaking of – my first two guest posts on economics have now been envisioned and are underway.
“Crowding Out”
“Opportunity Cost”
The latter will essay examples that defy logical description and which should make anyone with a functioning brain very less than happy.
I don’t believe that more conservative media is the answer. It will be useful yes, but the media is like any other tool: Unless you know how to use it effectively for the desired purpose, the results will vary.
Hypothetically, let’s say we arrive at a unicorn-like 50-50 split in terms of ‘left’ & ‘right’ media. Our opponents will still kick our backside because their messaging is more targeted, and they undermine our image and credibility simultaneously with claiming they have the answers. Conservatives react defensively and rationally to the emotional triggers: How is that working?
(Again, I’m not arguing, just putting my thoughts out).
Muddy
Aug 12, 2023 6:23 PM
Unless you know how to use it effectively for the desired purpose, the results will vary.
Yes. We have all seen how the lying, Marxist MSM operate.
They wrote the textbook on systemic deceit, putting into practice Alinsky-ite teachings.
Conservative media just needs to copy, and improve on, their methods.
Playing by the “rules” is for imbeciles. Being the only virgin in the brothel is no winning strategy.
Hypothetically, let’s say we arrive at a unicorn-like 50-50 split in terms of ‘left’ & ‘right’ media. Our opponents will still kick our backside because their messaging is more targeted,
Why would they be better at this?
They are malevolent ideologues, well indoctrinated, but deeply ignorant of history, and deeply stupid.
They’ll be incapable of successfully dealing with an equivalent, more intelligent enemy which understands their m.o. and is prepared to stoop to a lower level than them.
I fully understand their methods, because they are so stupid, repetitive and predictable.
And I am sure i am not the only non-leftard who does.
and they undermine our image and credibility simultaneously with claiming they have the answers.
Yes, they have already been doing that, since, like, forever.
In a 50/50 media landscape they can easily be ridiculed and defeated, since we have the facts, they only have shallow BS.
We also have historical knowledge and perspective.. they wouldn’t stand a chance.. but it has to be 50/50 or better.
Conservatives react defensively and rationally to the emotional triggers: How is that working?
It doesn’t.
Apart from the 50/50 problem, it’s the reason we lose.
Gilas
check The Currency Lad’s thread Neocons predicted a destabilising purge could be in the offing
Rabz
Aug 12, 2023 6:12 PM
I’m simply not willing to wait that long.
HOP Time™ cannot be implemented soon enough.
No arguments from me.
I would happily do what Charles-Henry Sanson did in the 17th and 18th Cs, and for free.
And getting this done with the blessing and resources of our new State apparatus.
Getting there is the rather large flying-whale in the ointment problem..
And Gilas
are you, or have you ever been (LOL), the first iteration of a Gilas I ever saw at the Anna Raccoon site, now gone to God?
NFA
Aug 12, 2023 7:37 PM
are you, or have you ever been (LOL), the first iteration of a Gilas I ever saw at the Anna Raccoon site, now gone to God?
No, I’m not.
Just a simple Catallaxian, who has been dealing with woke-Marxist a##eholes since 2012.
I’m looking forward to your economics posts, Rabz. I don’t have a starting position on that topic, so I’m open to be edjamuhkayted.
Australian conservatives need to choose to be Ronin until a more loyal master appears. There are presently no Lords (or Ladies) worthy of our services.
what Muddy says Aug 12, 2023 8:05 PM
Contrarians-R-Us
A good example of this is Jon Stewart raising the lab leak on the Colbert show.
If Jesus, Buddha, Allah had provided this information that ecosystem would have disregarded it.
But because Stewart is/was one of the clubs most venerated darlings, it was huge news that went viral.
Good example, Bern. Cheers.
Stewart’s information received a hearing because he was an insider.
The conservative task is to reverse the insider-outsider perceptive framework:
To convince the middle-grounders (those who lean leftish due to the strength of our opponents’ tactics and the lack of effective opposition) that the outsiders (conservatives) are not the threat they have been portrayed to be, and that it is the core of insiders who are manipulative and not to be trusted.
Without the change in this perceptive duality, the conservative message has less of a chance to receive and audience.
Referring to one of my comments above, I realise – as most of us do – that we presently lack resourced, effective, political representation to implement this strategy (undermining the insider-outsider effect). However, we can build the expectation while we wait (impatiently, agreed) for a new, more reliable vehicle.
Especially given the braindead sheep I knew that swallowed the bat flu hysteria whole refused point blank to acknowledge it.
It reminds me of the Tom Cruise character in Tropic Thunder, one
0
His surname alone should have been the giveaway clue.
“Our opponents will still kick our backside because their messaging is more targeted, and they undermine our image and credibility simultaneously with claiming they have the answers. Conservatives react defensively and rationally to the emotional triggers: How is that working?”
The answer is self-evident, yet you appear to have missed it.
You don’t sway the mob with logic, you sway it with emotion – it really is that simple.
If you keep trying to fight emotional arguments with logical ones, you will keep losing.
Save the logic for after you have won and need the planning and implementation details.
Muddy:
How about we just do what the Left has done for decades – refuse to engage except on the most simplistic level – “Albo is a liar – he promised power prices would come down” and refuse to engage any further. Walking away, or threatening verbal or physical violence is what they do. It’s time we stopped with the maiden Aunt methods and start pushing them instead.
Gilas:
Careful making statements like that – you’ll get labelled as a Catastropharian and therefore Politically Unreliable.
Muddy – Brilliant Post with many good replies. I’ve saved the entire lot and will print it out when it’s closed.
Kneel.
If you see my 6pm 13 Aug comment on the ‘My great grandmother thread,’ you’ll note that I made a statement concerning emotions and rationality.
Robert.
Refusing to engage would at least be more effective than the long-standing, defensive ‘no we didn’t, no we’re not’ conservative reaction. This achieves nothing because it is passive.
At the very least, conservatives need to pause, ask ourselves why and how we are NOT winning, and come up with alternative tactics. Almost ANYTHING different is worth a try, surely?
Routine and ritual is psychologically comfortable, but the unicorn fairies are not going to magically save us if only we wait JUST A LITTLE BIT LONGER.
Decay waits for no-one.
Next stop: rigor mortis?
Thanks to everyone for their comments.
It seems as though the thread has dribbled to a close.
On the question of climate rubbish we have this in the Paywallian today:
Dutton must ditch fringe, reclaim teal middle
Peter van Oneselen
Here it is without paywall – I’ve not read it and no longer read anything POW writes – too much time for too little of interest.
https://todayspaper.theaustralian.com.au/infinity/article_popover_share.aspx?guid=8dc304b2-d7be-4175-8169-b31ca304e3ba
Try PVO not POW!