On Nextdoor I often run into MAGA thinking, which I need to look at occasionally in order to understand it. These people seem to inhabit an alternate reality in their minds. They think that the mainstream news coverage of Trump, ICE, immigration, and similar topics is fictional. The fantasy extends to their neighbors, claiming that all of us who attend protests against the government’s outrages are paid to go.

I find myself bouncing among different explanations for them. Are they brainwashed by podcasters? Has journalism gotten so bad that many people completely disbelieve the news? Do they lie to show off to their peer group? Is it to con everyone else? Have they surrendered their personal identity, and with it any concept of truth and falsehood?

There are other groups that show similar patterns. On the left side, there are the people who claim as established fact that Trump has sexually abused children. When Biden announced the novel economic theory that inflation is caused by greed rather than government policies, a lot of people quickly adopted it. Some groups, like flat Earthers, are weirder but less harmful. Some flat Earthers spin elaborate arguments that supposedly prove our world is pizza-shaped, even though hiding that “fact” would require a massive conspiracy. Other people believe that the position of stars in the sky when we’re born has a significant influence on our lives.

Most of these people seem to live otherwise normal lives, though I wonder if flat Earthers ever fly to other continents or use satellite-based devices. MAGAs, though, have a more thorough alternate reality. They believe that the election results and the reports of MAGA brutality are fictions delivered by a vast conspiracy. They think the tens of thousands of people across the country engaging in protests are all getting paid by George Soros. If they’re consistent, they’d have to think that whole court documents ruling against improper prosecution are being forged and posted. It’s a cult mindset, and the White Queen is a realist by comparison.

All of these groups have a worldview to which facts are required to conform. They’d rather throw out mountains of evidence than discard their belief. Maybe we can imagine what this is like by thinking what we’d do if something contrary to the normal, common-sense, scientific worldview happened. Suppose the events of Ghostbusters really occurred and a giant marshmallow man rampaged through the streets of New York while a hole opened in the sky. Most of us would brush it off as a hoax. Even reporting and videos by a major news outlet would leave me skeptical.

Having doubts would be reasonable. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Members of these groups just have different ideas of what’s “extraordinary.” For flat Earthers, it’s extraordinary for the world to be round. For MAGAs, it’s extraordinary that immigrants who have fallen behind on their paperwork or have seen their status arbitrarily revoked might not be killers and rapists. How they got to that state of mind is the harder question.

I’d best leave that question for another post, or for someone else to answer.

Update: Aaron Ross Powell posted a piece on the same day as this article, on treating history as a kind of fannish lore. This part struck me: “They enjoy feeling like the worldbuilding they’ve done is coherent, and they hate the incoherence introduced by critical examination or diverse perspectives. It’s not about veracity.” An invented world can feel more consistent than reality, because people are often inconsistent. Myths often are simple and neat, the way we wish the truth would be.

I’ve been reading about a psychological notion called “inoculation theory.” The idea is that just as people can gain immunity to a disease by being exposed to a weakened pathogen, they may develop resistance to a point of view as a result of hearing weak arguments for it. Most discussions of the idea that I’ve seen focus on doing this intentionally, but it also works when people hear bad attempts to convince them.

Suppose there’s some position for which you’ve heard only ridiculous arguments. After a while, you’ll stop paying attention to any arguments for it, even if one of them actually presents a good case. If someone claims to have solid evidence that 9/11 was an inside job, Trump won the 2020 election, or the Moon landings were faked, are you going to spend much time listening? Probably not. Usually that’s a rational response; if there were good arguments for these claims, you’d have heard them before. But if you get all your information from your social media bubble, genuinely good arguments can be drowned out by the ridiculous ones. People love to repost bad arguments to expose them to ridicule. Others repost whatever favors their cause without verifying it, and readers stop paying attention.

A bad argument can be worse than silence. In a well-known story, the townspeople are “inoculated” against the boy’s cries of “Wolf!” When you offer weak or invalid claims to a skeptical audience, they’ll assume you have nothing better to offer.

Returning, inevitably, to Donald Trump, I’d like to give two examples I’ve often seen. One is the claim that he’s a “pedophile.” While there have been accusations, he hasn’t been charged with a crime, and I haven’t seen strong supporting evidence. If that’s the worst you can say about him, you’ll only convince his supporters that you don’t have a good case against him.

A second example is the statement that’s he’s a “felon.” He has been convicted of a felony, but it’s not one that gets most people excited. He didn’t report hush money as a campaign expense. It isn’t obvious to non-lawyers and non-accountants that he was required to, and some lawyers without an axe to grind have called the case dubious. These two claims are far weaker than the undisputed facts that he ordered civilian boats sunk without a legal process, started a war, pardoned everyone who broke into the Capitol to support his election claim, and threatened to destroy a civilization.

It’s also possible to inoculate people against words and concepts. Some people toss “Communist!” around as an all-purpose comeback; others use “Racist!” After a while, listeners treat the words as noise, whether they apply or not.

Some people say that more arguments are always better. They aren’t, if the arguments are weak. People have limits on their attention span and patience. If you strain both, you lose your audience, and you’ll have a hard time getting it back.

Update: I just found another good article on this issue: “The paradox of argument strength” in Nature.

In the long view of world history, there has been gradual progress toward more well-being and freedom. It’s hard to see it right now, since the past couple of decades have seen a decline, but the long-term trend remains. In many countries you can usually travel freely, criticize the government, and follow the religion of your choice. Four hundred years ago you wouldn’t have seen much of that anywhere.

What has made it possible is people who think. They’ve shown that people who are free to make choices are better off than people under the heel of authority. Often they’ve been inconsistent, but they’ve pointed the world in the right direction.

Most people find thinking uncomfortable, though. It carries the risk of discovering one’s beliefs are wrong. It means uncertainty about what to do. Most people would rather have a set of beliefs which they don’t need to question. They’ll think only within safe bounds, on matters that don’t challenge their worldview. In most cases this just means laziness, but some actively reject reason. They don’t aim to understand reality, but to shape it by making assertions. They’re anti-thinkers.

“Mr. Shouter” in my earlier post is a perfect example of the anti-thinker. Anyone who disagrees with him is a “liar” and “Communist.” He thinks his conclusions are valid because he proclaims them loudly, and disagreement with him is proof of evil.

What can you do with such people? Trying to persuade them just wastes your time and raises your blood pressure. Still, it’s important to discourage them and limit their influence, especially if there’s an audience. Don’t lose your temper or resort to cursing or violence. Keep the high ground. You can say “You don’t know what you’re talking about” or “I’ll come back when you have some reasons to offer.” If you’re dealing with really nasty stuff, such as advocacy of violence, you can say, “That’s not only wrong, it’s disgusting.” Then walk away from the discussion.

Don’t assume anyone who disagrees is an anti-thinker, though. People can be confused and honestly have the facts wrong, and sometimes what sounds weird turns out to be right. Some people are intellectually lazy but not aggressively irrational. But when you encounter refusal to present a coherent case, appeal to emotions alone, accusations against you, and the appeal to authority, you’re facing an anti-thinker. Unless it’s to demolish their case for an audience, such people aren’t worth your time and don’t deserve your attention.

Turning your back deprives them of the respect they think they’re entitled to. It encourages others to think more clearly. To whatever level you make a difference, you’re pushing the general discourse in a better direction.

Of course, reflect on what you’re saying, and don’t dismiss people too quickly. You can be wrong, too. Sometimes you’ll need to improve your arguments or change your conclusions.