A related query... Are those people susceptible to botification the same ones who would have joined cults in the past? And what ever happened to cults? It seems to me that there are fewer than there used to be. Have they turned into online groups of some sort?
Transgender ideology is a massive cult. From it's NO DEBATE responses to reasonable questions, its followers mindless devotion to Tiktok "medical knowledge" (eg: puberty blockers are 100% reversible!", to its destruction of the health (and lives) of children, it's proponents repeating what megaphone screamers tell them to say at trans pride marches (UKA gay pride events), its true believers are deeply ingrained in cult behavior.
Yes, in many ways they seem similar, but in some other ways they don't. The most important difference I see is the lack of a cult leader. There doesn't appear to be some guru at the top controlling things. Maybe there is and I've just never looked close enough to see the cult-like organization underlying the movement (it would explain a lot.)
Thanks to the internet, cults no longer need one leader. Influencers abound. Having many leaders who repeat the same mantras doesn't mean transgender ideology isn't a cult. The behavior of the adherents is what gives it away.
Tim Pool, anti-woke podcaster, mentioned something related a few years ago: the "DEAD INTERNET". Accounts of old, feeble, sick or dead people are hacked (or cloned) by troll farms and used to vomit mental sewage, troll scripts on social media.
From what I can tell after reading 1,000s of these b0ts, mostly "woke" social justice warrior types (but also some right wing ASTROTURF b0ts) they rely on emotive-subjective narratives to try to piss people off and "increase engagement". Such b0t armies ignore objective facts that contradict their confirmation biases, or flat out lie about objective facts. A variant are attack b0tz that are hyper toxic and use insults, frequently obscene, to go after critics of their group/ideology.
I'm pretty sure that major social media platforms could get rid of at least 90% of the b0tz.
I've been calling all the AWFLs I know "NPR totebags" as they all have the exact same beliefs and ideas spoken in the same exact jargon, all of it formed and processed by the algorithms which have replaced their brains.
But BOTS is much better, much more catholic and comprehensive.
I have a theory about why some people become botified: that feeling of overwhelm when the social media onslaught prevents someone from making sense of the world is scary, destabilizing and depressing. It is far more comfortable to join a team and allow that team's ideology to frame/explain the world than it is to live in the discomfort, do more research and discuss the topics with others. Many many many of my west coast friends and family are apparently incapable of doing that work.
It will be interesting to see how the George Floyd case is reviewed in this study as the evidence suggests the Minnesota court, influenced by Democrat party politics and fear, got the result wrong and that Officer Chauvin and his comrades are actually NOT guilty in the fentanyl induced death Floyd. Pardons are likely coming.
This promises to be one of the most interesting reads of the year. Finally some social science with question marks.
I do also hope that the study will cover these kinds of psychological/social behaviour in a broader range than the examples you mention, because it appears to me that, while it is quite difficult to perceive from inside our academic-intellectual echo chambers saturated with the pathologies of progressive cults, the exact same happens in environments saturated with the pathologies of reactionary cults. And then there are the cults that are not specifically identifiable as progressive or reactionary but could lean to either of these polarities under any given circumstance, or spawn a whole new popular delusion of their own.
I suspect that the tribal apes that we are do much, though not all, that is described on one side in that new Alliance Theory (https://comm.ucla.edu/2024/12/03/strange-bedfellows/), and on the other side in the models that explain how tribalism shapes our beliefs and consequent behaviours.
The phenomenon that you describe has been happening by and large in the whole of the West, not just in America; and in different but similar ways in other countries as well... in absence of field studies, interviews with foreign students about the impact of social media in their countries seem to point in that direction, as well as the numerous studies that exist on the effects of social media on collective extreme behaviours especially in Africa and South East Asia (as far as I know). Almost everybody has a cellphone, and so almost everybody is online being flooded.
I suspect (from exclusively philosophical and historical scholarship, but not complete ignorance of psychology and sociology at least on the level of epistemology) that we are at one of those turns in which a technological revolution drives a social upheaval and disruption.
As I walk with my head constantly turned back, I cannot avoid seeing the similarities with the effects of the explosion of newspaper consumption in the 19th Century. It goes like this:
1) Humans like to get angry and are attracted to bad news more than good news. A large number, if fed such regularly, become addicted to it.
2) Newspapers are businesses, they must sell. Bad angry news sell. Journalists are driven to find as much bad angry news they can, and embellish if not completely invent them, so that their paper can sell more copies. The News of the World is born. Now people can have their prejudices confirmed, and embrace new ones, with the support of what is now called "public opinion". Different papers, different "public opinions" -- but the paradox is completely lost on the readers.
Otto von Bismark, who was a more canny man than peace could support, used this situation to get the war with France that he wanted to unify Germany under the Prussian crown: he encouraged the perception of an intolerable slight with a false dispatch, and the French press roused the people to a frothing rage to the point that, despite not being prepared and having no interest in war, the French government and Napoleon III were forced by public opinion to declare war on Prussia. It ended with possibly the worst defeat in the history of France, which led to the Paris Commune, which contributed to re-igniting the flood of social unrest and increasing polarisation that gave us such afflictions as Communism and Fascism 50 years later.
Now it seems we are again in a state of affairs in which widespread and fast communication triggers the worst inclinations of a large part of mankind and pushes people back into blind tribal behaviours encouraged by the perception of public approval.
If you can shed more light on the reasons and mechanisms of this, you will be my heroes forever. And maybe we can even find out means to avoid the worst, knowing how it happens.
Sorry for the length. Good at keeping it short, I have never been. Feel free to delete if irrelevant.
Interesting theory and some good examples. But, wouldn't the most widespread cases in terms of number (or percentage) of adherents be the extreme right wing: WEF, stolen elections, scientific results determined by funding, climate scientists making millions, ...? One estimate had about 70% of Republicans and leaners as believing that Biden stole the election. Or perhaps I'm spending too much time browsing right wing Facebook pages, including here in Canada (I'm too old and verbose for other platforms). Perhaps susceptibility to Botification varies?
Authoritarianism and a belief in conspiracy theories (in the pejorative sense) is definitely a problem on the right. However, those on the left generally use social media more than those on the right, so *botification* probably occurs more on the left, not because the left is more vulnerable to being botified per se, but because they put themselves in the situation that produces botification more frequently. Nonetheless, I have no doubt that it also occurs on the right (e.g., the Haitian pet-eating panic).
Not only does everyone have personal experience with how difficult it can be to change people's minds, but there's also empirical research showing why this is the case. A new study in Current Biology explains why some people seem to be constitutionally incapable of admitting they're wrong. The study shows the underlying mechanism behind being bull-headed, and there may be some ways to get better at recognizing when you're wrong.
...
cont. excerpts
New research published in Current Biology on December 18, 2018, confirms this feeling: people with radical beliefs actually think differently than those without. Specifically, radicals have less metacognitive sensitivity than moderates.
Metacognition refers to the ability to be aware of and analyze one’s own thinking. Metacognitive sensitivity is similar, but more specific: it refers to the ability to distinguish between one’s correct and incorrect judgements. The new paper, titled “Metacognitive Failure as a Feature of Holding Radical Beliefs,” shows that radicals have measurably less metacognitive sensitivity than moderates.
Most Left wing conspiracy theories tend to gain greater social acceptance through repetition or the ideas laundry of academia, particularly the critical theory studies. For example, Dr Raj Chetty's research on social mobility found that the single biggest source of racial structural disparities was due to the rates of fathers in specific neighbourhoods. Of course, structural racism does exist in other areas, but generally the large majority of racial structural disparities are not due to racism, implicit bias or ingroup preference, even though virtually all non-White people will encounter racism, implicit bias and ingroup preference during their lives and careers in the West.
There is also a false binary in relation to climate change. Most socially conservative people don't deny that climate change is happening, they simply maintain that it's a long term serious problem (not an existential threat- at least until 2100) which doesn't merit some of the extreme trade-offs being imposed by governments. Most are in favour of more nuclear and point to the accurate reality that nuclear is more expensive in the West due to extreme regulatory environments (Asia can build nuclear cheaply, safely, and quickly). Those areas which have pursued solar and wind to the exclusion of nuclear are the energy and climate failures (the UK, Germany), whilst other areas like France (high nuclear) and Sweden (70% nuclear and hydro) are the energy and climate successes.
There is a great essay by the Notes on Growth substack which shows exactly how to build nuclear in the West. It's called 'Why Regulators need a 'red team'. Anyway, my main point is that many Left wing conspiracy theories are more subtle and contain a grain of truth, or have gained social acceptance through ideological normalisation. They are largely invisible, even though they have little empirical basis. Shelby Steele calls them 'poetic truths'- things which seems as though they must be true, but are not. The actual numbers of unarmed Black men shot by police (as well as the unarmed White men shot by police) would be a good example.
1. This is a warning. You have violated the "keep it short" rule, which limits responses to about 300 words. The full list of rules are linked under "Commenting." I will not delete this, as a first offense, but subsequent excess posts will simply be deleted.
2. You have also violated the "keep it relevant" rule. This is a long, rambling discourse on a hodgepodge of topics. That is also a delete-worthy offense, though, again, as a first offense, I am leaving this up.
I’ve changed it now. I hope the new version meets your standards. I was responding to a criticism which argued that conspiracy theories were more common on the Right. My point was that many Left wing conspiracy theories are largely invisible due to normalisation.
Hey, if you'd like to try a guest post here on your thematic point -- acknowledging abundant evidence of rightwing conspiracy theories but pointing out that the seeming Right>Left difference is at least to some extent due to the more camouflaged nature of leftwing conspiracy theories -- I'd consider posting it (you can post it both at your Substack and I can repost it here; this is a great way for different audiences to get exposure to your stuff). I'd add this: The extreme left dominance of MSM & academia probably also contributes to the apparent Right>Left difference, making it very difficult to evaluate whether there is a real underlying difference (in either direction).
A related query... Are those people susceptible to botification the same ones who would have joined cults in the past? And what ever happened to cults? It seems to me that there are fewer than there used to be. Have they turned into online groups of some sort?
Transgender ideology is a massive cult. From it's NO DEBATE responses to reasonable questions, its followers mindless devotion to Tiktok "medical knowledge" (eg: puberty blockers are 100% reversible!", to its destruction of the health (and lives) of children, it's proponents repeating what megaphone screamers tell them to say at trans pride marches (UKA gay pride events), its true believers are deeply ingrained in cult behavior.
Yes, in many ways they seem similar, but in some other ways they don't. The most important difference I see is the lack of a cult leader. There doesn't appear to be some guru at the top controlling things. Maybe there is and I've just never looked close enough to see the cult-like organization underlying the movement (it would explain a lot.)
Thanks to the internet, cults no longer need one leader. Influencers abound. Having many leaders who repeat the same mantras doesn't mean transgender ideology isn't a cult. The behavior of the adherents is what gives it away.
Tim Pool, anti-woke podcaster, mentioned something related a few years ago: the "DEAD INTERNET". Accounts of old, feeble, sick or dead people are hacked (or cloned) by troll farms and used to vomit mental sewage, troll scripts on social media.
From what I can tell after reading 1,000s of these b0ts, mostly "woke" social justice warrior types (but also some right wing ASTROTURF b0ts) they rely on emotive-subjective narratives to try to piss people off and "increase engagement". Such b0t armies ignore objective facts that contradict their confirmation biases, or flat out lie about objective facts. A variant are attack b0tz that are hyper toxic and use insults, frequently obscene, to go after critics of their group/ideology.
I'm pretty sure that major social media platforms could get rid of at least 90% of the b0tz.
Yes!
I've been calling all the AWFLs I know "NPR totebags" as they all have the exact same beliefs and ideas spoken in the same exact jargon, all of it formed and processed by the algorithms which have replaced their brains.
But BOTS is much better, much more catholic and comprehensive.
BOTS! it is
Thanks and all praise to Lee Jussim.
I have a theory about why some people become botified: that feeling of overwhelm when the social media onslaught prevents someone from making sense of the world is scary, destabilizing and depressing. It is far more comfortable to join a team and allow that team's ideology to frame/explain the world than it is to live in the discomfort, do more research and discuss the topics with others. Many many many of my west coast friends and family are apparently incapable of doing that work.
It will be interesting to see how the George Floyd case is reviewed in this study as the evidence suggests the Minnesota court, influenced by Democrat party politics and fear, got the result wrong and that Officer Chauvin and his comrades are actually NOT guilty in the fentanyl induced death Floyd. Pardons are likely coming.
This promises to be one of the most interesting reads of the year. Finally some social science with question marks.
I do also hope that the study will cover these kinds of psychological/social behaviour in a broader range than the examples you mention, because it appears to me that, while it is quite difficult to perceive from inside our academic-intellectual echo chambers saturated with the pathologies of progressive cults, the exact same happens in environments saturated with the pathologies of reactionary cults. And then there are the cults that are not specifically identifiable as progressive or reactionary but could lean to either of these polarities under any given circumstance, or spawn a whole new popular delusion of their own.
I suspect that the tribal apes that we are do much, though not all, that is described on one side in that new Alliance Theory (https://comm.ucla.edu/2024/12/03/strange-bedfellows/), and on the other side in the models that explain how tribalism shapes our beliefs and consequent behaviours.
The phenomenon that you describe has been happening by and large in the whole of the West, not just in America; and in different but similar ways in other countries as well... in absence of field studies, interviews with foreign students about the impact of social media in their countries seem to point in that direction, as well as the numerous studies that exist on the effects of social media on collective extreme behaviours especially in Africa and South East Asia (as far as I know). Almost everybody has a cellphone, and so almost everybody is online being flooded.
I suspect (from exclusively philosophical and historical scholarship, but not complete ignorance of psychology and sociology at least on the level of epistemology) that we are at one of those turns in which a technological revolution drives a social upheaval and disruption.
As I walk with my head constantly turned back, I cannot avoid seeing the similarities with the effects of the explosion of newspaper consumption in the 19th Century. It goes like this:
1) Humans like to get angry and are attracted to bad news more than good news. A large number, if fed such regularly, become addicted to it.
2) Newspapers are businesses, they must sell. Bad angry news sell. Journalists are driven to find as much bad angry news they can, and embellish if not completely invent them, so that their paper can sell more copies. The News of the World is born. Now people can have their prejudices confirmed, and embrace new ones, with the support of what is now called "public opinion". Different papers, different "public opinions" -- but the paradox is completely lost on the readers.
Otto von Bismark, who was a more canny man than peace could support, used this situation to get the war with France that he wanted to unify Germany under the Prussian crown: he encouraged the perception of an intolerable slight with a false dispatch, and the French press roused the people to a frothing rage to the point that, despite not being prepared and having no interest in war, the French government and Napoleon III were forced by public opinion to declare war on Prussia. It ended with possibly the worst defeat in the history of France, which led to the Paris Commune, which contributed to re-igniting the flood of social unrest and increasing polarisation that gave us such afflictions as Communism and Fascism 50 years later.
Now it seems we are again in a state of affairs in which widespread and fast communication triggers the worst inclinations of a large part of mankind and pushes people back into blind tribal behaviours encouraged by the perception of public approval.
If you can shed more light on the reasons and mechanisms of this, you will be my heroes forever. And maybe we can even find out means to avoid the worst, knowing how it happens.
Sorry for the length. Good at keeping it short, I have never been. Feel free to delete if irrelevant.
Interesting theory and some good examples. But, wouldn't the most widespread cases in terms of number (or percentage) of adherents be the extreme right wing: WEF, stolen elections, scientific results determined by funding, climate scientists making millions, ...? One estimate had about 70% of Republicans and leaners as believing that Biden stole the election. Or perhaps I'm spending too much time browsing right wing Facebook pages, including here in Canada (I'm too old and verbose for other platforms). Perhaps susceptibility to Botification varies?
Authoritarianism and a belief in conspiracy theories (in the pejorative sense) is definitely a problem on the right. However, those on the left generally use social media more than those on the right, so *botification* probably occurs more on the left, not because the left is more vulnerable to being botified per se, but because they put themselves in the situation that produces botification more frequently. Nonetheless, I have no doubt that it also occurs on the right (e.g., the Haitian pet-eating panic).
This classic refers to ALL extremists/radicals as lacking metacognitive capabilities.
https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/radicals-are-worse-at-metacognition/
bigthink.com/neuropsych/radicals-are-worse-at-metacognition/
excerpt:
Neuropsych — February 15, 2019
Why radicals can’t recognize when they’re wrong
Key Takeaways
Not only does everyone have personal experience with how difficult it can be to change people's minds, but there's also empirical research showing why this is the case. A new study in Current Biology explains why some people seem to be constitutionally incapable of admitting they're wrong. The study shows the underlying mechanism behind being bull-headed, and there may be some ways to get better at recognizing when you're wrong.
...
cont. excerpts
New research published in Current Biology on December 18, 2018, confirms this feeling: people with radical beliefs actually think differently than those without. Specifically, radicals have less metacognitive sensitivity than moderates.
Metacognition refers to the ability to be aware of and analyze one’s own thinking. Metacognitive sensitivity is similar, but more specific: it refers to the ability to distinguish between one’s correct and incorrect judgements. The new paper, titled “Metacognitive Failure as a Feature of Holding Radical Beliefs,” shows that radicals have measurably less metacognitive sensitivity than moderates.
[ https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(18)31420-9 ]
Most Left wing conspiracy theories tend to gain greater social acceptance through repetition or the ideas laundry of academia, particularly the critical theory studies. For example, Dr Raj Chetty's research on social mobility found that the single biggest source of racial structural disparities was due to the rates of fathers in specific neighbourhoods. Of course, structural racism does exist in other areas, but generally the large majority of racial structural disparities are not due to racism, implicit bias or ingroup preference, even though virtually all non-White people will encounter racism, implicit bias and ingroup preference during their lives and careers in the West.
There is also a false binary in relation to climate change. Most socially conservative people don't deny that climate change is happening, they simply maintain that it's a long term serious problem (not an existential threat- at least until 2100) which doesn't merit some of the extreme trade-offs being imposed by governments. Most are in favour of more nuclear and point to the accurate reality that nuclear is more expensive in the West due to extreme regulatory environments (Asia can build nuclear cheaply, safely, and quickly). Those areas which have pursued solar and wind to the exclusion of nuclear are the energy and climate failures (the UK, Germany), whilst other areas like France (high nuclear) and Sweden (70% nuclear and hydro) are the energy and climate successes.
There is a great essay by the Notes on Growth substack which shows exactly how to build nuclear in the West. It's called 'Why Regulators need a 'red team'. Anyway, my main point is that many Left wing conspiracy theories are more subtle and contain a grain of truth, or have gained social acceptance through ideological normalisation. They are largely invisible, even though they have little empirical basis. Shelby Steele calls them 'poetic truths'- things which seems as though they must be true, but are not. The actual numbers of unarmed Black men shot by police (as well as the unarmed White men shot by police) would be a good example.
1. This is a warning. You have violated the "keep it short" rule, which limits responses to about 300 words. The full list of rules are linked under "Commenting." I will not delete this, as a first offense, but subsequent excess posts will simply be deleted.
2. You have also violated the "keep it relevant" rule. This is a long, rambling discourse on a hodgepodge of topics. That is also a delete-worthy offense, though, again, as a first offense, I am leaving this up.
I’ve changed it now. I hope the new version meets your standards. I was responding to a criticism which argued that conspiracy theories were more common on the Right. My point was that many Left wing conspiracy theories are largely invisible due to normalisation.
Thanks. I'm sorry about the TLDR. It's a tendency. I will try to remember in future if I comment on your threads. I will change the thread.
Hey, if you'd like to try a guest post here on your thematic point -- acknowledging abundant evidence of rightwing conspiracy theories but pointing out that the seeming Right>Left difference is at least to some extent due to the more camouflaged nature of leftwing conspiracy theories -- I'd consider posting it (you can post it both at your Substack and I can repost it here; this is a great way for different audiences to get exposure to your stuff). I'd add this: The extreme left dominance of MSM & academia probably also contributes to the apparent Right>Left difference, making it very difficult to evaluate whether there is a real underlying difference (in either direction).
Cool! I’ll give the subject some deeper thought and write a short essay on the subject and then drop a comment when I’ve done it!