Comment by zahlman

> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

TFA is about the meta level of what persuasive arguments look like.

I see several examples in the comments here of people appearing to share their favourite object examples of how such and such nefarious force is causing people to believe bad things with propaganda — according to them and the sources they trust. If you do this, you are missing the point completely.

Instead, consider privately examining the opposed memeplex to understand why someone else might find it convincing — how their values might be understood, charitably. Re-evaluate how you know what you know; recognize the basis of your own position, and assess the soundness of that "structure" (as the author terms it). Recognize who you need to implicitly trust, and how much, in order to accept that reasoning. Consider why other people might not trust the same authorities you do. (Consider the possibility that other people might be able to trace direct harm done to themselves, to those authorities.) Recognize that reasoning from entirely absurd premises is still reasoning; consider that others do reason. This is why your own (sane, to you) premise does not resonate: it does not fit in that framework.

> So when you encounter someone whose worldview seems impenetrable, remember: you’re not just arguing with a person, you’re engaging with a living, self-stabilizing information pattern—one that is enacted and protected by the very architecture of human cognition.

> Truth matters—but it survives and spreads only when it is woven into a structure that people can inhabit.

Time spent on the Internet complaining about others' structures, is not time spent weaving truth into them. On the contrary, should those others see you, you will only activate their defense mechanisms.