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It sounds like part of what you're saying is that undercurrents are more powerful for change than the currents themselves. This is very interesting, and if true, speaks to some sort of profoundly strange with our world or our culture. I feel like this could be worthy of someone writing some kind of political science thesis about this. I'd love to know more about why that's the case, has it always been the case, are there nuances, what things work better for undercurrents vs overcurrents, is it because of our unprecedented online culture, and what this means for how future political movements should be trying to accomplish their ends.
Well, this is probably my libertarian, mottezian, contrarian-style behavior coming out, but I can't stand the fact that you're probably right about this, that optics rule our world more than truth.
I have a more charitable but patronizing view of the general populace, I guess, which basically says 'Most people don't have the time, inclination, or ability to understand most issues deeply, and relying on hueristics when they need to form an opinion or take a side is not actually crazy given that. To a first-order approximation, 'this person seems cruel and/or crazy, their side is probably wrong' is a pretty good hueristic, and a lot of our cultural problems come from more-engaged people realizing that normies are using that heuristic and trying to manipulate their sensory inputs in order to trigger it on their opponents'.
Which is to say, most people do care about being directed by the truth, they're just not competent to discern it.
(which I don't exclude myself from, that's why I check in on arguments from places that disagree with me, just in case)
Of course, maybe that reduces down to your sentiment, anyway.
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