Dystopia often begins with the words "For the betterment of mankind"...

For those of you that have followed any of my writings over the past few years it should be very obvious that I am no fan of Socialism, Communism, and Marxism. I find myself compelled to write out against them several times throughout the years. Why? It should be painfully obvious how large swathes of the population seem to be buying into the same tired old sales techniques for these movements. The places that seem to resist it the most are places that are only now recovering from histories of communism, and/or socialism.

My biggest problem with them is that I believe good ideas do not require force. If your ideology cannot exist without forcing compliance out of portions of the population then it is not an idea worth pursuing as far as I am concerned.

So why write about this now?

I watched the Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant series again recently. I also watched all of The Hunger Games series recently. I noticed something this time around that I hadn't really noticed before.

What were the speaking and talking points of the evil tyrants controlling the world and that were driving the misery that was the dystopia?

They were all speaking from the socialist, Marxist, or Communist playbook.

Tell the people how they must help everyone else. Enslave their minds to the idea that they are obligated to providing for the other people, even if they themselves must struggle. As with real life historical analogs hiding behind this narrative were always a ruling class of people that lived off of the deluded masses efforts as the misled masses could virtue signal about doing their duty and think they are good people.

After that I found myself wondering how often our tales of dystopia, misery, and oppression are driven by masses that have been manipulated into thinking by sacrificing and forcing others to sacrifice they are making a better world. From my cursory analysis it seems like this is actually often the case.

There is a collection of logical fallacies that are used to manipulate the masses and bring these things to pass. One of the more common is The Argument from Authority fallacy. The conditioning to not question the validity of a statement or idea depending upon whether the person that presented it is seen as an authority figure. The information often can be quite incorrect, but still be treated as correct simply due to the person that presented it.

As the number of people believing a thing increase then soon the next logical fallacy trotted out to manipulate people is The Argument of Popularity fallacy (aka Bandwagon). This idea is often wrapped in terms and labels such as popular, consensus, etc. The idea is that the idea or concept must be accurate simply due to the number of people believing it is true. The problem here is that in reality a false thing remains false regardless of how many people may decide it is true. The inverse is also the case where things that are true remain true regardless of the number of people that believe it is false. Facts do not alter simply due to popular belief. Though the lie can often be what people choose to push forward.

If the education system can be significantly eroded such that people learn less and less about critical thinking and thus likely are no longer taught how to identify these fallacies it opens the door wide for two other rather pernicious fallacies.

The Argument from Emotion fallacy is such that because it feels right it must be right. It tends to lead people into believing what their emotions would indicate as opposed to what reason dictates. It can be wielded as a weapon and used to challenge dissenters as being evil or misguided because they disagree. This does not require facts. It is in this environment that one merely need accuse a target the population dislikes and it is treated as factual and true even if it was completely fabricated and not true. This is the realm where a person is guilty until proven innocent. It can be particularly nasty and become a place where a person is not allowed to prove themselves innocent. They are accused, pronounced guilty, and not allowed to even attempt to defend themselves. The masses of the mind controlled will have already made up their mind because it feels true.

The final fallacy I like to point out is known as the Appeal to the Stone. This is the act of labeling a concept as absurd, or a person as insane without requiring any supporting evidence to back up this claim. It is used as a dismissal. It could be something like a harrumph sound followed by a phrases such as "conspiracy theory", "heretic", "blasphemer", or "denier". It may even hijack labels that in the past have had meaning and use them so frequently and without thought that they lose actual meaning and become nothing more than a rapid appeal to the stone. Today these are often things such as "racist", "Nazi", "homophobe", "islamophobe", and "troll".

Troll is one that I find particularly annoying. It is casually used to describe someone that disagrees. It is more often than not used on someone when it doesn't apply. Trolling is not the same as disagreement. If you cannot get someone to agree with you and they persist in their ideas and challenges that does not make them a troll. In fact, in the act of labeling such people troll you are the one more akin to a troll. You see a troll really was once called a flamer, and other things in the early days of the internet. It is someone who says things to intentionally get a rise out of people. It has nothing to do with agreement or disagreement. They will seek to say the things they know will get a rise. I tend to be one of those that feeds trolls. Why? I want to make certain it is not simply disagreement. Most of the time that is all it is. One technique I use to make that final determination is to see what happens if I suddenly agree with them on something they have stated. If my agreement results in them suddenly changing their mind so they can remain in opposition then it is likely they are trolling. This isn't as common as people like to think. It happens, but more often than not someone calls another person a troll simply because that person challenges them and disagrees and they get frustrated they can't find a way to change the person's mind.

All of these fallacies are rampant in today's society. Those using them most often in the education system, and on media are steering people towards Socialism, Marxism, and Communism.

This is dangerous. I stand by the simple statement.

Good ideas don't require force.