The Boiling Frog: Gradual Normalisation

Authoritarian and totalitarian states, like the twilight evolving into dawn, work gradually, slowly raising the temperature, until eventually we boiling frogs become comfortable with our hellish lots. Then, when the Disinfolklore Galaxies’ designers ordain it, we can be activated to go forth and kill or be killed in the name of some pointless war conjured into being by Disinfolklore.

Source: Counter Disinfolklore

Disinfolklore uses both urgency (panic reactions) and gradual normalisation (the boiling frog). Patience enables us to recognise both tactics. The sudden urgency (“WW3 in five days!”) is detected by the impatience it demands. The slow normalisation (“we’ve always been at war with…”) is detected by the patience it demands — patience to track the gradual shift, to remember what was normal before, to resist the incremental surrender of standards.

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