in conditions of widespread preference falsification, dissent is startlingly powerful; a few people pointing out the emperor’s nudity emboldens more, which can quickly cascade to the point of toppling regimes
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counterculturalists of all stripes tend to misidentify this as a feature of dissent, not as a feature of preference falsification. dissent against a position actually held tends to strengthen it, often even when it is weakly held, if the dissenter is disagreeable
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the prince, then, should always employ shills to dissent against those positions which serve him that the people best agree with. this requires an absence of wishful thinking about what the people believe, by which we may distinguish the prince from an ordinary narcissist
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Replying to @chaosprime
Evil Overlord List #109: "Have plucky youngsters in strange clothes REGULARLY climb monuments in my capital and denounce me, claim to know the secret of my power, rally the masses to rebellion, etc. That way, the citizens will be jaded in case the real thing ever comes along."
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Replying to @EliCourtwright @chaosprime
On further reflection, this example doesn't apply. The Evil Overlord entry assumes preference falsification, whereas "employ shills to dissent" assumes actual disagreement. Same strategy for the opposite scenario, so still an interesting parallel I suppose.
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presumably there are things the people are falsifying their preferences about; don't have your shills whine about those have them whine about things everybody knows are true, to both discredit dissent as an activity and reinforce that the other things are too scary to fuck with
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