/sci/ - Science & Math

You often hear right-wing writers, journalists, etc. talk about 'propaganda', and even some of the more fringe, off-beat people on the left, but none of them can actually concretely explain what they mean by 'propaganda'. He seems more like a boogeyman conjured up by conspiracy theorists, then a valid concept. So would it be correct to say that the concept of 'propaganda' is a form of pseudoscience and/or conspiracy theory?

For example, you will often hear right-wing nutjobs talk about how 'propaganda' is supposedly being 'pushed' by the 'deep state', 'big pharma', 'the mainstream media, 'cultural Marxists', etc. But this doesn't hold up to scrutiny. If there was a coordinated effort by some secret network of 'elites' to shape public opinion and consumer psychology, and literally every major corporation, media company, and government agency were working to push the narrative by using le evil 'propaganda', then we would know by now and these people would be exposed. In other words, pushing 'propaganda' would just back-fire on any companies or government agencies that were involved in 'pushing' this 'propaganda'. Corporation, new agencies, the government, etc. ultimately have to answer to the public, so there is no reason to push 'propaganda' because the public would eventually find out, and when they did, it would just make these corporations/the government look bad.

I can understand why propaganda might have been an issue a long time ago like in the colonial Era and before the industrial revolution because back then most people were uneducated and illiterate, unless they were rich or royalty or something like that. Nowadays, though even the working classes are educated and literate, and most people are a lot more rational than they were in colonial times. Plus we have the internet and news, so if we found out that the government or le ebil 'cultural Marxists' were trying to brainwash us with propaganda, the whole world would find out almost immediately.

Here's a hypothetical question:

If you had a girl friend and she asked you to choose her halloween costume, what stupid shit would you make her wear?
breakthrough scientists preferred