How the hoax funnel works: Trump and those “fine people”
Commenter Kate recently alerted me to this good piece by Scott Adams entitled, “The ‘Fine People’ Hoax Funnel”. It’s well worth reading. I missed it first time around, but better late than never.
It’s not just applicable to the “fine people” myth. It spotlights techniques used by people to hold onto any pre-existing belief in the face of evidence to the contrary.
The “Hoax Funnel” explains a lot, including some experiences I’ve had with leftists on other subjects.
Reading Adams’ piece I find I encounter a similar persistent interpretive mistake of my own concerning Pres. Trump’s language, one which plagued me all through the primary season and a few months into the Presidency itself.
This error on my part — an error I had an awful time overcoming — concerns the second word in the title of Adams’ book “Win Bigly”. I couldn’t hear “bigly”, no matter how many times it was said, no matter who said it. I always heard “big league”, “big league” because I knew of no adverb “bigly”, but knew very well of “big league” used as a comparative or superlative in ordinary colloquial speech.
So it was that every time anyone said “bigly” my mind substituted “big league” autonomously. Didn’t even think about it. I even argued about it with people who sought (helpfully) to correct my error. They were right. I was wrong.
It was not until I ran into “bigly” in print, over and over (and even then, only with great difficulty, inconsistently) did I begin to correct my automatic inclination to make this mental substitution. Now, it’s just a thing. A stupid thing, granted, but many things are stupid things.
My wife and I like to start our day listening to Scott Adams’ podcast:
https://www.scottadamssays.com/
If you are a visual sort, you can catch that version at
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfpnY5NnBl-8L7SvICuYkYQ
He is entertaining as well as informative, and teaches you about human nature.
The “Fine People” hoax is core to the democrat/MSM delusion, and he has been fighting it for some time — he even got the Wikipedia entry modified to tell the truth.
He posted again the refutation of that hoax at this link
https://www.scottadamssays.com/2019/08/09/the-biden-campaign-admits-its-central-theme-is-a-lie/
It is well worth sending that to any thinking person on the left who believes the hoax. The unthinking ones just cannot read it because they suffer cognitive dissonance.
Here is the value of a CNN endorsement:
https://www.weaselzippers.us/428867-cnn-gave-glowing-interview-to-illegal-alien-evading-ice-who-killed-father-of-5-last-week/
Weaselzippers.us is a useful web site to see links to news that is covered with a pillow by the MSM until it stops moving.
@neo:
Thank you.
I have some relations who NEED to believe such nonsense. They fell flat on Covington, covered themselves in nonsense over Smollett, and “fine people” are the Nazis. I tell them the report is false and you can see reporters telling you this. You can read the transcript.
More to the point, so can everyone else. So when you’re wailing in agony over something which, on one level you know to be false, you NEED to be true, others know you’re…lying. Except if you really believe, it’s okay.
It’s one thing to lie when you’re pretty sure nobody else knows better.
It’s another when a lot of people are trying to tell you everybody knows better. I’ve seen a woman suffer a kind of “break” when confronted with the truth and the evidence everybody knows it. I think she knew it but NEEDED….