Over time, people learn which patterns reliably produce attention and emotional connection and repeat them reflexively. Language hardens, and uncertainty starts to read as disloyalty rather than inquiry.

Over time, people learn which patterns reliably produce attention and emotional connection and repeat them reflexively. Language hardens, and uncertainty starts to read as disloyalty rather than inquiry.

These moves reliably produce small affective rewards, which encourage sharing and reuse. They’re tied to moments of feeling vindicated, morally indignant, aligned, mournful, irritated, caring, etc.

What struck me was that persuasion wasn’t happening at the level of belief change or argument really but through moves that steer attention, enforce restrictive categorization, and mark evaluative stance, often all at once.

Like I just saw a post that said “You cannot kill a belief. It only makes it stronger”, paired with the face of [-c-k-], and I caught myself thinking, why does this do nothing for me? But then I’d talk to people IRL and they’d say versions of this, sometimes while crying--also confusing tbh

I wish.

I have a dumb thought that this could be a book.

It's really prevalent.

And for the folks who are like "but what a contradiction! Didn't he cheer on Brexit? He's losing it!" White Americans believe they are European. They also think they are British. And they also know next to nothing about the EU. Smoosh it all together.