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>If "just persuade them with your good ideas" was a workable solution it would've worked at least once by now

If I have this right: your measurement for whether or not people are in their right mind is if they take to your specific ideas?

Have you considered the possibility that people are most often persuaded by good ideas and your ideas are awful?

And insofar as you present them in an ostensibly good light, you are lying somewhere in the presentation and people can see that.

To be clear, your perspective is that everyone else is a psychopath or so much dumber than you, personally, as to be led by psychopaths.

And it's not you that's dumber than most others, nor who is led by the psychopath(s), nor who is the psychopath that needs to advance their ideas by marginalizing people who have other ideas.

And the strategy is to marginalize people because...checks notes... your ideas are unpalatable to the population. For no good reason.

Why are your ideas unpalatable to the population, from their perspective?

Any good policy wonk will know that much, will be able to explain the opposition's reasons accurately and in detail, and will be able to steel-man their own argument utilizing that perspective.

Whereas a manipulative person will avoid that level of analysis.



You've demonstrated the problem with good ideas, and the vulnerabilities they have quite well. The parent poster said nothing of the sort, but you've:

* inserted a bunch of words into their mouth

* engaged in a gish-gallop

* insulted the person you are replying to

* accused the person you are replying to of lying

All of which are widely deployed techniques used to prevent good ideas from being heard, let alone from being adopted. It was probably unintentional, but it's pretty amazing how quickly you've made a case for why "good ideas" alone aren't sufficient by demonstrating all the ways savvy opponents can shut them down.




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