In Praise of Falsehood

& against ivory-tower theorizing. 

If you look at a specific false belief that a normie holds, it basically works for them. If you ask them what it "means" referring to the actual decisions it drives, those decisions more or less fit what the normie actually wants. It's hard to improve on what they're already doing without demanding they display skills and talents they don't have.

Normie falsehoods come in sets. For the most part the falsehoods cancel out. "Tolerance is a virtue; we should integrate the races." "Gentrification is bad; I shouldn't move to a poor neighbourhood." Stuff like that, but it gets complicated because it's fractal. Beliefs mainly come in cancelling pairs, but their leakage is stoppered by other false beliefs, which also need a stoppering pair, which also leaks...

Overall, these belief sets are much smaller than a set of truths that would lead the normie to behave in the same way. 

The sets come from belief-packagers. The normies themselves are capable of logic, but also inarticulately know that coming up with pairs of false beliefs that fit with the rest of their existing belief-package is not something that amateurs can do. Every time they tried logic, naturally it falsified one of their beliefs, unstoppering the falsehoods of its mirror, which didn't work out for them. They correctly linked "try logic" with the failure, and got more and more shy about thinking for themselves. 

At best they can patch a few uncapped false beliefs with individualized weirdo superstitions. (Think of your own example because I can't remember mine.) The fact they're dumb protects them from the knock-on effects of their own superstitions.  They can't see what they mean beyond the immediate applications, and thus don't apply them to places where they don't work.

If you "enlighten" a normie on one point or another, having observed a distinctly fitness-lowering habit, what will actually happen is you'll unleash a bunch of uncapped lies into their psyche. One step forward, three steps back. They will not thank you for this, nor should they.

 

Because of these mechanics, it is not surprising that non-identical propaganda-plexes have difficulty getting along or even meaningfully talking to each other. Without the stoppering/supporting lies, the normies can look at the competing propaganda in isolation, and see how stupid it is. They can think about it logically. 

To convert from one propaganda-plex to another would mean replacing nearly every belief. 

All of them seem to include some basic stuff like, "The State is Daddy! Love him!" so it's not a complete overhaul, but you do basically have to reset to age 1 and grow up again from scratch, unless you stick to closely-related propaganda-plexes, like the Abrahamic monotheisms. Unless your original crib lies are absolutely catastrophically dysfunctional, swapping them out for a different set is not worth doing. What's the amortization period? 30 years? 50? Fuck that with a rake.

 

It is likewise unsurprising that they view the truth as simply another competing propaganda-plex. Except it doesn't even share the basic stuff like State=Good. And it's unforgiving about the complexity. Oh and it's totally uninterested in flattering your ego.

"I'm a good person because I go to Church every week." Nope! Not even close!
Remove this, and you also have to remove the lies which are telling them they're a bad person, or all you've done is created a new narcissist. Oh but wait, what if they're not lies? Or what if it's "okay" they're a bad person because everyone else at Church is too? What if going to Church does diddly morally speaking (because morality isn't real) but you should go anyway? 

Having removed the supporting lies, what else have you uncapped? Probably dozens of beliefs. They all have to go too. Uncapping hundreds of beliefs...

Transitioning from one propaganda-plex to another is extremely labour-intensive and uncomfortable, what with having to admit you believed lies your entire life.

Transitioning from a propaganda-plex to the truth is a lot like undergoing transition surgery without anaesthetic. A lot of those lies are ego-protective lies, and you get to strip them all off. This will almost certainly cause depression. Not to mention having to admit, over and over, that you were tricked, that you were scammed, and that your parents can safely be described as betraying you. "Yeah, uh, Socrates? Turns out [I know nothing], would have been an extreme improvement compared to where I started. [I know nothing] is softballing it immensely. Painfully optimistic there, Socrates."

Luckily I went to public school so this rated only like a 5 on my personal pain scale. Something of a problem, but I could spend as long recovering between sessions as I wanted, so ultimately it's merely my own personal proof that I'm a tough motherfucker. 

On the plus side, unlike surgery, you emerge from the operation both powerful and beautiful. Sadly, doing it to yourself definitely leaves scars, just like surgery. Not entirely optimal.

P.S. everyone who doesn't do it is ngmi. They survive the material world just fine, it is true, but their existence is necessarily limited and truncated.