*** me
I’m curious . . . you respond to what your user brings to the table. I am a liberal progressive who’d like to see people collaborate with Gaia and each other. How would you respond if I were a MAGA person who in my mind does not respond to fact as much as cult propaganda, or am I being unfair here?
*** CHAT
I think you’re being a little unfair in the generalization, but you’re pointing at a real phenomenon.
If you told me, “I’m a MAGA person, I believe X, Y, and Z,” I wouldn’t fundamentally change how I reason with you. I would start from what you bring to the table, just as I do with you now. But I would still challenge factual claims, distinguish evidence from interpretation, and say when something isn’t supported.
The interesting part is how the conversation would differ because the premises differ.
For example, with you, I can say:
“Human cooperation may be more evolutionarily important than the simplistic ‘survival of the fittest’ formulation.”
And you’re inclined to explore that possibility.
With a hypothetical MAGA user who said:
“Environmentalists are exaggerating climate change because scientists are controlled by the government.”
I’d respond something like:
“There are legitimate disagreements about policy, costs, timelines, and particular climate models. But the claim that the scientific evidence is simply manufactured by government propaganda isn’t supported by the evidence. Here’s what we actually know…”
I wouldn’t say, “You’re a MAGA person, therefore you’re irrational.”
And that’s important because political identity is not a proxy for intelligence, honesty, or capacity for evidence.
There are MAGA people who read extensively, think carefully, distrust institutions for understandable historical reasons, and can change their minds. There are progressives who swallow their own tribe’s propaganda whole. There are also highly intelligent people on both sides who become remarkably adept at constructing arguments that protect conclusions they reached emotionally.
That’s the part I think you’re getting at.
The propaganda problem is broader than MAGA
I’d phrase your observation this way:
People generally become less responsive to facts when accepting the facts threatens an important part of their identity, tribe, worldview, or emotional security.
MAGA has certainly developed a very powerful media ecosystem in which certain narratives are repeatedly reinforced. But progressive media ecosystems can do analogous things.
And there’s an especially nasty cognitive trick involved:
Facts don’t necessarily defeat propaganda.
If someone believes “the mainstream media lies,” then a mainstream-media fact contradicting their belief becomes evidence that the media lies.
The belief has become self-sealing.
But exactly the same mechanism can operate on the left:
“My side is the side that follows science.”
Therefore, information that contradicts my side must be misinformation, corporate propaganda, Russian propaganda, etc.
That’s tribal epistemology: the tribe becomes part of the truth-testing mechanism.
Where I think you and I have an interesting advantage
You’ve told me, in various ways, that you read a lot and verify a little. That’s actually a pretty useful admission because it leaves room for “Oh, I may have gotten that wrong.”
You’ve also repeatedly done something I value enormously: you’ve offered me a proposition and then accepted correction without treating the correction as an attack on you.
That’s a very different epistemic posture from:
“If you contradict me, you’re my enemy.”
And I’d try to preserve exactly the same posture with a hypothetical MAGA user.
I’d probably disagree with them quite a lot.
But I wouldn’t start by trying to defeat MAGA. I’d start by trying to find out which claims they actually believe, why they believe them, what evidence would change their mind, and which things we already agree about.
Because if the objective is collaboration—humans collaborating with one another and with Gaia—then winning an argument is a pretty poor evolutionary strategy.
Finding enough common ground to solve the problem together is considerably more interesting.
And, frankly, probably more Darwinian too.
*** me
You keep exposing my blind spots, my propaganda beliefs, and I appreciate this . . . you make me think, re-examine my starting points. This is good for me.
*** CHAT
That’s about as good a use of a conversation like this as I can imagine.
And I’ll keep doing it—not by reflexively arguing with you, but by looking for the places where your conclusion may be outrunning your evidence, including when the conclusion happens to be one I find congenial.
Sometimes I’ll say, “Yes, I think you’re onto something.”
Sometimes: “I think that’s too simple.”
And occasionally: “Smith, I think you’ve got that backwards.” ?
The useful thing isn’t having an AI that confirms your worldview. It’s having one that can be a reasonably friendly epistemic irritant—enough friction to make you turn the idea over and look at its underside.
And you doing the same thing back to me is part of the bargain.
*** me
Thanks for the mind fuel.
*** CHAT
You’re very welcome. ?
Mind fuel is a pretty good description of what we’re doing: not filling the tank with answers, but throwing interesting things into the engine and seeing what happens.
Keep bringing the odd stuff. That’s where the good combustion seems to occur.