Why Are Corrupt Politicians and Governments Believable in Movies?
456 sats \ 7 comments \ @kepford 15 Dec 2023 culture
This is a question I often think about when watching a popular movie or TV show where the plot includes a giant conspiracy, a corrupt politician, or other government agency gone wild. How can the masses believe in the system yet find these plot lines believable. How can the masses accept the premises of movies but reject reality that keeps punching them in the face.
What I have landed on is that it is far to unsettling for most people to accept that most of what they have been taught and believe are lies. That it isn't some small group of evil bad guys. That it is just how the world is. Its the system. It is working as designed and they are just a cog in it. Most people would rather just keep on pretending.
Its my belief that there is a limit to this. We have seen it play out with the U.S.S.R. People lost faith in that system and it fell apart. I only know what I have heard and read about the fall of communism but it seems like it was many years of failure that led to people deeply doubting the system. People pretending it worked. The plebs. Not the state. But at a certain point they could no longer live a lie. People lost complete faith in the state and it fell.
What do you think? Why are people asleep? Does it take losing everything for some people to wake up?
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360 sats \ 3 replies \ @SwearyDoctor 15 Dec 2023
One of the most important rules in sociological interviewing is, "don't ask people straight questions and believe their answers." There is this weird fallacy that when people say things, it comes from a direct pipe from their innermost beliefs. This is, of course, BS. We all know it is, really.
What happens here is this: People do very well know these people are corrupt. But there's a difference between knowing it implicitly, knowing it explicitly, and SAYING it. because saying it out loud commits you to things. Acknowledging things out loud comes with the pressure of having to change one's behavior toward the thing you just named.
There's an old experiment about violence on a bus. When ypu ask someone about witnessing, say, someone being cornered and robbed on a bus, many people would say they'd so something. In reality, nobody ever does. What actually happens is that people find alternative points of attention and concentrate on those, ignoring what's going on: looking very intently out the window, reading their newspaper (not so much looking at phones, for.. obvious reasons). They're creating this super forced impression "I'm too busy seeing other things, I don't notice". Of course they do, it's obvious that they do, any denial is completely unbelievable - but if you engaged with it, looked at it, others SAW you looking at it, you'd communicate: I know. Any inaction now becomes a stain on the person's character.
if you make it known, openly, that you believe in their corruption, you now have to openly live with the knowledge of living in a broken system; that becomes the narrative, and going on as before is a stain on your character. Openly clinging to the narrative that things are fine lets you go on about your day, toil away in your fiat job, do the rounds a good citizen is supposed to do.
(By the way, the USSR did not fall like this. There was actually a referendum in the USSR on the continued existence of it; 3/4 voted yes. )
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43 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 15 Dec 2023
I don't know as much about how sociologists get around "cheap talk" issues, but it is interesting how psychologists and economists have adopted radically different methodological approaches to it.
Psychology experiments notoriously depend on deception. They get the subjects doing one activity and convince them that it's the experiment, but in reality something else is going on that the researchers are interested in observing. The idea is that if the subjects are unaware of the true experiment they won't be dishonest in their responses.
Econ experiments explicitly eschew deception and instead rely on designing incentive compatible experiments. Where true responses are elicited through a payment structure that rewards them.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @rhombus 15 Dec 2023
What you referenced is known as the Bystander effect:
Thinking of or applying this effect to fiat usage is interesting.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 15 Dec 2023
Very solid logic.
On the USSR, I'm not arguing that a majority wanted it to fall. I'm saying that enough lost faith that it crumbled. Of course why they lost faith is obvious. It was terrible.
You just got through saying asking people what they want/believe doesn't work. Then you cite results of a vote. In a communist nation no less. They aren't gonna be honest.
My point is that the people were lying to themselves until they could no longer do that. Enough people wanted change and the system fell.
These are my impressions at least.
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492 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 15 Dec 2023
I'm not sure. I have different hypotheses. It's probably different reasons for different people.
  • Some people are just like "I don't like talking politics." Maybe these people have had bad experiences talking about these things. I can see that. Some of the "conspiracy theorists" (who I would say are partially or even mostly correct), do come off very strongly and aggressively, making people feel uncomfortable.
  • Some people have a hard time admitting the possibility of things that would force them to admit they're wrong / deceived / make them feel bad. We all know people like this. Even if the evidence is overwhelming, they simply will not accept something that makes them look bad or feel bad. These people are probably motivated by pride.
  • Some people are intellectually lazy. Even if something is plausible or true, they don't really want to expend any effort thinking about. If it requires them to put effort into changing how they live or how they think, they're not really interested in engaging with it. These people probably have other things going on in their lives that are more important to them.
In the end though, people will change when they feel like it will improve their lives. Part of the problem of acknowledging the truth about power is that it doesn't always have very practical implications. For the average pleb, probably the best way to a peaceful life is actually to give in to the regime's lies. Acknowledging the truth about their lies doesn't mean much if you can't do anything about it.
As bitcoiners, hopefully we can help people feel at least a small way that they can take back some of that power, by being financially self sovereign.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 15 Dec 2023
Great answer and well said. Yeah, I tend to make things sound like there is one answer when the truth is probably more like you say. Its different for different people. I know that's true from personal experience.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @faithandcredit 15 Dec 2023
human psychology :) the movies show them as baddies, which is what keeps things on an even keel IRL, right? right?
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