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Sometimes someone will say: "I explicitly do not support X. I do support some things related to X", and then the response is "That guy's an X supporter!" I've seen this a lot with discussions around racism/trump, on both sides of the political spectrum. What's going on under...

Aella

@Aella_Girl

this? It seems like people are assuming that lots of people are actually (for example) trump supporters, know they're trump supporters, and are actively attempting to hide it from people, and 'giving it away' through other ideological hints.

11:00 PM · Oct 12, 2019

Replying to

In this world, ideological hints are equivalent to proof of actual support of the thing. What's going on here? Are there any studies on this? What personality types are more likely to do this? Is there any evolutionary benefit for this? Are hints ever reliable in this way?

@mwiik

Oct 12, 2019

Replying to

@Aella_Girl

You mean preference falsification? This has been a topic discussed multiple times on Eric Weinstein's podcasts, see especially those w/Peter Thiel & Timur Kuran twitter.com/search?q=from%

Dr. Poop Muscles, PhD

@Space_Boy_Ben

Oct 13, 2019

Replying to

@Aella_Girl

Many "neutral" nations/ powers during WWII did as much if not more to assist the Axis powers in their war efforts than direct open collaborators. A person can believe they're against pollution but fund oil drilling through investments & thus support it; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethi

Replying to

This led me down a rabbit hole of reading

@Timcast

's Twitter feed; he seems like a good example of someone who describes themselves as anti-Trump but who puts nearly all their energy into supporting Trumpist talking points. "secretly supports Trump" still seems unlikely tho.