[doufus]

Do not assume people r rationale. This is a modern idea driven by models of computation and other irrelvancies. People r primarily irrational. e.g. look at ticket sales after a major airline accident. statistically nothing has changed of course. Risk perception is enormously irrational.

We also have a tendency to think that much smarter people than u and i know what they're doing and are looking after our interests. i.e. the
gov't, scientists etc know it all and will fix it. This is part of the denial matra.

It's Wrong. This assumes that we share the same interests and that they have the answers (when there may be none).

The interests of gov't and their network of oil industry buddies are centred around making money for themslves and their campaign coffers.
Those interests are different from the masses who will feel the brunt of PO.

There isn't much to be done with those in denial. They have too much
invested in the status quo and facts will never shift them.

Take them along slowly. Do your preps in silence. There's no satisfaction
in being right about PO. It's a bit like being right about your father's
cancer diagnosis. Somehow "i told u so" doesn't sound right.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('doufus', 'T')here's no satisfaction
in being right about PO. It's a bit like being right about your father's
cancer diagnosis. Somehow "i told u so" doesn't sound right.

[doufus]

In my experience, people are receptive or not. They see the logic or they don't. The more energy/evidence u provide the more they resist.

As I said, it's not a matter of good logic or evidence. There's a lot
denial that has to be worked thru to reach an acceptance. Even
the very logical can put up a lot defensiveness- witness the people on
this board still looking for THAT technology that will save us.

My advice- give it a shot and then leave them to stew. If their defensiveness
is high then they'll repair the breach u created and go on with business
as usual. If they are receptive they'll do the research and draw their
own conclusions.

[CarlinsDarlin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')here's no satisfaction
in being right about PO. It's a bit like being right about your father's
cancer diagnosis. Somehow "i told u so" doesn't sound right.

[doufus]

Another part of the education problem is "problem saturation". The media is full of disaster. It's hard for people to discern the difference in a soup
of gloom and doom. Also, it takes work and attention away from
enjoying their lives. Many people have been told we're in deep doo doo
from ozone holes, pollution, species loss, pesticides in the food supply
etc etc. Yet we're still breathing!

[highboom]

you're right doufus and that's the problem... sensational newsreporting moves us from one breathtaking catastrophic event to the next even before the first was even over with. The average newscycle on a noteworthy story (say Rove and the cia officer) is about what 3 days? Even on important issues... As long as everythings' ok people won't pay attention. They're lost in thier xbox and computer game worlds.

The real problem though is when people panic. When they've been decieved for so long and finally realize what's come upon them they panic, and unlike those of us here who've known about the problem for some time, have gotten over the panic stage, and can continue to think rationally. Remember when ascroft told everyone to buy duct tape and there was an imminant attack? Everyone rushed out, bought the duct tape, and didn't think twice about it. But a rational person would have said "hmm... the only thing duct tape is good for right now is to strangle myself with"

Just a thought.

[turmoil]

In short, there are things we can agree to disagree on due to the uncertainty of the future. Education and religion are major factors of disagreement. Also, personal opinions of the purpose of the human species can also lead to disagreement.

Unfortunately it's true that people believe what they want to believe. Thomas Paine said it best: "Time makes more converts than reason."

Here’s a few more:

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same god who has endowed with sense, reason, and intellect, has intended us to forego their use." - Galileo Galilei

"Facts do not cease to exist just because they are ignored." - Alduous Huxley

"It is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasent and to embrace what is obivously false but comforting." - H. L. Mencken

"The chief source of problems is solutions" - Eric Sevareid's Law

And last but certainly not least, "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Professor Albert Bartlett

I think I'll close with a haiku:

Blindness becomes us
Deception will be our demise
Who are we fooling

[elgayna]

interesting post. I started researching peakoil 'by accident' as I came accros the site while looking for something completely different. My partner had been telling me about it for years and I just told him 'yeah yeah' as he is a bit of a 'conspiracy theorist'. So when I started reading about it, it really opened my eyes. I for one have also always sort of trusted the government etc etc but the more I read, the more sceptical I have become. (I also started a long thread on this site about 'how do you decide what the truth is' which provided me with some entertaining insights into other peoples way of thinking) I do talk to people I know about peakoil, but people seem to be more interested in terrorism these days.

[AmericanEmpire]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') do talk to people I know about peakoil, but people seem to be more interested in terrorism these days.

[backstop]

The thread has touched on three points that seem to me worth classifying so they can be better explored.

a/. Personal Denial

b/. Denial Propaganda

c/. Distraction Propaganda


While there is of course a real psychological condition of denial (a.), what we see over both PO & GW is really different. Look at the strength of the evidence and testimonials now being ignored, and then look how willing people are to get frantic over an issue just as soon as it gains media hype . . . .

I think what we see is the result of the two modes of propaganda, (b. & c.), together perhaps with an underlying cultural drift into ever-more uniformity of mind and distrust of unconventional thinkers.

(So much tidier to give the people mental ear-plugs than to have to go shooting messengers).

It would seem naive in the extreme to assume that the propagandists of denial are not spread through society pretty widely to ensure that the required volume is maintained. This is quite readily managed in the commercial media, where censorship-by-recruitment has long been the norm, but the internet poses a very different challenge with its unwelcome capacity to rapidly diseminate new perspectives.

I've no interest in raising paranoia, but I think we need to consider just what more effective means of influence over sites such as this is open to the propagandists of denial than to insert trained employees as members ? Over minor issues in minor websites it seems unlikely to be worth the costs, but over the critical issues of PO & GW, it has to be another matter.

Just think, you may have the honour of participating in a site that the status quo thinks it's worth trying to deflect !

regards,

Backstop

[Kent]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('backstop', 'I')'ve no interest in raising paranoia, but I think we need to consider just what more effective means of influence over sites such as this is open to the propagandists of denial than to insert trained employees as members ?

[gg3]

Backstop, your last point is a case in point of the problem we're trying to address here: over-magnifying small events, missing large ones. The powers that "be" could care less about this BBS; we are not "market share," we are a tiny little "niche;" and planting spies to influence us is far too costly for the return on investment. All they have to do is keep marketing their schlock to the masses and manipulating the mass media. We are less than nothing to them. They don't care about us, they don't have to, they own the TV stations.

If you want to get people to budge out of the brainwash, the first thing you have to do is detox them from television addiction.

Go here: www.tvbegone.com TV-B-Gone is a little device you can point at a television, that rapidly scans through all the remote-control codes for "off." When it hits the one that controls that make & model of TV, the TV switches off. Very useful in public places that have TVs going all the time. Just go 'round remotely turning off televisions and watch how people react. Very interesting. BTW, full disclosure: the guy who invented this thing is a friend of mine. However I have no economic stake in his company or the product.

[elgayna]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', '
')
If you want to get people to budge out of the brainwash, the first thing you have to do is detox them from television addiction.

Go here: www.tvbegone.com TV-B-Gone is a little device you can point at a television, that rapidly scans through all the remote-control codes for "off." When it hits the one that controls that make & model of TV, the TV switches off. Very useful in public places that have TVs going all the time. Just go 'round remotely turning off televisions and watch how people react. Very interesting. BTW, full disclosure: the guy who invented this thing is a friend of mine. However I have no economic stake in his company or the product.

[backstop]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kent', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('backstop', 'I')'ve no interest in raising paranoia, but I think we need to consider just what more effective means of influence over sites such as this is open to the propagandists of denial than to insert trained employees as members ?