Persuasion

Mind changing, individually and at scale

2017-06-07 — 2025-08-21

adversarial
bounded compute
communicating
cooperation
culture
mind
wonk
Wherein the mechanics of influencing multitudes are delineated in sober fashion, and the coupling of individual persuasion with propagative dynamics, exemplified by deep canvassing and AI tools, is examined.
Figure 1

Handy terms and concepts in the realm of persuasion at scale. Persuasion at scale mixes persuading individuals with causing those opinions to propagate. These processes are coupled in a deep, confusing way by the fact that “in-groups” and “out-groups” differ a lot in how people adopt opinions.

1 Mass opinion dynamics

I wrote a blog post about this that I’ll probably use to update this notebook one day.

2 How to

Miscellaneous remedial argumentation (slightly spammy): Eric Barker’s This Is How To Change Someone’s Mind: 6 Secrets From Research advocates self-awareness:

If absolutely nothing else works, they might just be a totally unreachable zealot. Or it could be that…

You’re the zealot. And if you are unwilling to give any serious consideration to this possibility, that’s a big red flag. Nobody thinks they’re the problem — and that’s the problem. After all, you’re the one reading articles about how to change people’s minds, aren’t you? (Yes, I plead guilty to being an accomplice.) It’s just a possibility to consider, but if you’re serious about having fewer arguments to the death, it’s a good idea to make sure you’re really a victim and not Patient Zero. So what do you do if you think you might be Typhoid Mary?

Consider the beliefs you usually argue about. Now ask yourself disconfirmation questions. Write down the answers. Show them to a friend who has a different perspective than you on the topic. Does your pal feel those responses pass the implausibility sniff test?

Derek Black is the ex–Stormfront white supremacist who changed his mind and wrote about it.

Interesting case study: Change My View.

A place to post an opinion you accept may be flawed, in an effort to understand other perspectives on the issue. Enter with a mindset for conversation, not debate.

Dylan Marron’s Conversations with People Who Hate Me

a podcast where he calls up the people behind negative comments on the internet.

3 Deep canvassing

Fascinating backstory.

4 Via AI

See AI persuasion for a discussion of AI-augmented persuasion.

5 References

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