fezziwig comments on How would you take over Rome? - Less Wrong

25 Post author: Yvain 14 March 2012 04:24PM

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Comment author: fezziwig 21 March 2012 08:57:22PM *  1 point [-]

Luckily these folks would not yet have been immunized to Nazi-style propaganda campaigns or other forms of indoctrination.

As GLaDOS points out, nobody's really immune, as such, but it wasn't a new tactic. 'Demagogue' is a Greek word, and the techniques involved had been known for centuries before 1AD. Take the brothers Grachii as your bar; if you can manipulate public opinion more smoothly than they did, you might have a shot.

Comment author: pedanterrific 21 March 2012 10:15:19PM 1 point [-]

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Comment author: Logos01 22 March 2012 07:14:11PM -1 points [-]

Immunization does not provide perfect immunity. I was referring to the specific techniques and methods used by the Nazis for propagandizing; broadcasts, posters plastered everywhere, and so on, and so on. People today are relatively immunized against blithely trusting the validity of government-sponsored statements. This was not true before that time.

Comment author: wedrifid 22 March 2012 07:18:12PM 1 point [-]

People today are relatively immunized against blithely trusting the validity of government-sponsored statements. This was not true before that time.

My model of humanity has them cynical enough that they stopped being blithely trusting of the validity of government-sponsored statements about ten minutes after the emergence in prehistory of something which could be loosely described as 'government'.

Comment author: Logos01 22 March 2012 07:23:20PM *  1 point [-]

The history of the efficacy of the propaganda used by both the "Axis Powers" in WWII and the Allies in WWII would tend to conflict with your model, insofar as I understand both sets of data.

"Rosie the Riveter" was a purely government-sponsored fabrication, and yet women signed up to work in factories by the thousands as a result of said campaign. German introduction of anti-semitism literally introduced the practice in Japan -- beforehand the Japanese people had a view of Jews that was quite the opposite (i.e.; that they were a 'superior people') ... which is why before the German/Japanese alliance got fully implemented, the Japanese had an active recruiting campaign for Jewish persons.

There are a vast swathe of such examples from that era. None of these techniques are effective today. See: "Tobacco is Whack-o", "This is your brain on drugs", etc., etc..