Neo-Obscurantism Unmasked

Manipulation tactics

This page exposes all the psychological techniques employed by mass-media to disrupt their audience's perception and rational thought, in order to suppress truth and manipulate people into blindly following the will of corporations and governments.


Appeal to credentials

Accepting/rejecting a thesis on the basis of the formal titles possessed by their promoters.


Appeal to mass

Accepting/rejecting a thesis on the basis of how much time/people/effort was invested on it.


Argument mimicry

Blackwash dissenting arguments by coming up with blatantly fallacious ones which superficially resemble them.


Association / Dissociation

Repeatedly associating two different concepts in order to "train" people to think those concepts are equivalent. / Repeatedly contrasting two different concepts in order to "train" people to think those concepts are antithetic.


Bar shifting

Arbitrarily raise the bar of acceptable proof for alternative theories, while lowering it for mainstream ones.


Blackwashing / Whitewashing

Damaging the reputation of opponents in order to prevent people from agreeing or supporting them. / Cleaning the reputation of your allies in order to push people to agree and support them.


Circular denial

Using the "lack of evidence" as an excuse to prevent more evidence from being obtained.


Claimbulking

Treating everything as a "claim" in order to reduce the debate to a mere issue of sources and authority.


Colonization

Disseminating a narrative through any possible medium and in any possible aspect of life, in order to make sure it is constantly reinforced into in the minds of people and accepted as natural.


Controlled Opposition

Manufacturing a fake opposition in order to compete against the real one.


Deflective truth

Focusing attention on an undeniable truth in order to fallaciously use it as a justification for a wrong proposal.


Disinterpreting

When it's not possible to accuse opponents of spreading false informations, accusing them of spreading "misleading" ones.


Edulcoration / Vilification

Trying to make something look good by referring to it with good-sounding terms. / Trying to make something look bad by referring to it with bad-sounding terms.


False appeal to method

Trying to debunk a statement by appealing to a methodological principle that is real, but does not apply to the situation at hand.


Gradualism

Avoiding people's resistence against a governative/corporate agenda by slowly implementing it through a series of small individual steps.


Ideological segregation

Mixing truths and falsehoods by distributing them among two opposing ideological factions in order to promote infighting and prevent dialogue and cooperation.


Ideological shuffling

In times of a big ideological paradigm shift, manufacturing new ideologies/narratives from the elements of the previous ones, redistributing them in such a way to keep the good elements and bad ones mixed together.


Instigation

Depicting dissenters and their ideas as somehow "dangerous", in order to push people to hate them and discriminate against them.


Limited Hangout

(work in progress...)

Confessing a superficial part of the accusations in order to shift attention away from the most serious one, and build a pretense of honesty.


Ostentation of Indignation

Reacting in an astonished, almost offended way to dissenting views in order to give weak-minded audience the impression that they should feel ashamed for even considering them.


Ostentation of Overconfidence

Pretending overconfidence in order to give weak-minded audience the impression that the proposed thesis is so undeniable that no one in their right mind would ever doubt it.


Perpetual Emergency

(work in progress...)

Keep periodically creating alleged "emergencies" so that people will accept any solution presented to them.


Politicization

Tying dissenters to recessive political sides in order to slander them as "extremists" or otherwise ethically questionable people.


Pre-emptive strike

Depriving dissenters from the chance of accusing you by accusing them first.


Projective identification

Hiding the doctrinal nature of mainstream ideologies by avoiding labeling them, and making up labels for their skeptics instead.


Provocation

Taunting opponents in order to drive them into an impulsive emotional reaction, and damaging their own reputation by their own hands.


Ridiculing

Representing dissenters and their ideas in a caricatural way in order to turn them into laughstocks and prevent people from discussing them seriously.


Selective redefinition

Arbitrarily including/excluding particular cases into the scope of a definition in order to keep the mainstream narrative intact.


Selective referencing

Countering an inconvenient truth by switching attention from its primary source to a secundary reporter in order to give the impression of unreliability.


Selective reporting

Only mentioning informations that suit the mainstream narrative while hiding anything that doesn't.


Self-faking

Intentionally creating and spreading a fake or blatantly flawed statement in support of a dissenting view and, once it gained wide popularity, debunk it in order to destroy the whole subject's credibility.


Semantic hijacking

Changing the meaning of a word in order to manipulate people to promote things that go against their own ideals or interests.


Subliminality

Subtly promoting a narrative in an "invisible" way by hiding implicit references through the lines of other unrelated subjects.


Suppression of Alternatives

(work in progress...)

Treat a problem as if the officially promoted solution is the only possible one.


Tactical Reversion

Temporarily reverting to the original definition of "science" in order to avoid accountability for past "mistakes".


Trojan horse

Using someone's good reputation or visibility to promote harmful ideas in order to push people to agree with them. / Using someone's bad reputation and visibility to promote good ideas in order to prevent people from agreeing with them.


Two steps forward, one step backwards

Proposing an extreme measure that's sure to cause general backlash, then backpedaling by changing it to a milder version in order to make it seem reasonable by comparison.

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