Trump, Modi, Quora and AYUSH

 A few years ago I discovered a site called Quora. I searched for something on Google and it took me to an answer on Quora. For those who are not familiar with it, Quora is a site where people can post questions and other people can answer them. I found it intriguing and looked at some of the questions and the answers posted. Some of the answers looked vague and long drawn. More an attempt to seek attention than a real answer to the question by someone who knows about the subject. I created an account and answered some of the simple medical questions.

Apparently, people like simple factual answers. If people like your answers they upvote them. Depending on how many of you answers are read and how many are upvoted, you can become an expert on a topic. Soon I was an expert on about 20 different topics ranging from liver transplantation to astronomy to Terry Pratchett to cricket.

By now I was also posting answers to questions about politics (still brief and factual) and religion (ditto).

Unlike Facebook and Twitter, there is no fact-checking on Quora. Their policy is known as BNBR (Be Nice, Be Respectful). You can lie shamelessly as long as you do it nicely and respectfully. On the other hand a factual answer to a question may be perceived as 'not nice' or 'not respectful'.

By now I had a following of over 35,000 people and it turns out that factual answers to some questions are perceived as 'not nice' or 'not respectful' by a lot of people. More and more people started reporting my answers as violating the BNBR policy. In fact the most popular answers were also the most likely to be reported.

The Admins warned me that they were getting a lot of complaints about my answers and that they were going to ban me for 7 days and then if I did not become nice and respectful, they would ban me permanently.

One of the answers which elicited the most complaints was about whether Modi and Trump were similar. I got most of my observations in the answer right in 2016. Let me reproduce it now with the additional benefit of hindsight.

Madeleine Albright describes fascism beautifully in her book. From the time of Hitler and Mussolini, fascists have been using the same strategies and they work every time. It does not take intelligence or planning to use those strategies. They just fall into place automatically for a sufficiently deplorable person who finds themselves in a position of power.

1. The key is to divide people. You have to make the majority believe that they are threatened by the minority. Hitler picked the Jewish people. Modi picked Muslims. Trump's approach is as indiscriminate as a monkey flinging feces in a tantrum. He is xenophobic as he demonstrated when he spoke about 'rapists and murderers' crossing the border as a motive to 'build he wall'. Incidentally this is something Modi has also mooted. The wall being on the border with Bangladesh. Sometimes it's just racism as when he was calling for black youths falsely accused of a murder in Central Park to be executed or referring to 'shithole countries'. Sometimes it's sexism. Remember 'grab em' by the pussy'? In any case the idea is to persuade the majority (Hindus in India, White people in the US) that they are threatened, that they're going to lose their position of privilege and 'I alone can save you'.
2. These are typically people of low intelligence and dubious education. Modi and so many others in his party have claimed fake degrees. Trump got someone to take the SAT for him. Insecure about their own intelligence, they project a disdain for genuine competence. They select people to key positions for their ideology rather than their expertise. Modi forced Raghuram Rajan to resign because he knew he was not going to agree to the hare-brained demonetization scheme. Trump disparaged Fauci and appointed Scott Atlas to advise him about the response to the Covid crisis.
3. They have a 'reality distortion field'. They believe what they want to believe. That's part of the reason why they can lie confidently. They actually believe the lies they make up. Modi actually believes that he's a brilliant leader and great economist. Trump believes that he has 'a very big brain' and he's a great businessman. He believes that he won this election and was defrauded by Hugo Chavez. They are slow to come to terms with reality. Their ability to lie confidently convinces their followers who tend to be people who are not good at thinking for themselves.
4. They are very certain about everything. As Russell pointed out, the problem with humans is that those who know a lot are most uncertain while those who know little are absolutely sure of themselves. This is more technically known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. This also results in a very charismatic confidence which is more convincing to a lot of people than the genuine doubt of those who know how much they know and how much they do not know. You only have to listen to Fauci and Atlas to get a demonstration of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Fauci, the leading expert in the world in the field of Epidemiology is clear about the uncertainties in his predictions. Scott Atlas is dead sure of everything he says.
5. They never take responsibility for failures or mistakes. I don't need to elaborate. After all Trump said it out loud. They look for scapegoats. Anyone who gets close to them is risking becoming the scapegoat when things go South.

The only difference between Modi and Trump is that Modi got his election before the Covid crisis. Imagine if Covid had not demonstrated Trumps incompetence to everyone, if the election had been in 2019, he would have won easily just like Modi did.

In any case, it seems Quora has a lot of Mod and Trump devotees. My answer was both upvoted and reported enough times that I was banned permanently.

Of course a few other factually correct answers might also have contributed. For instance someone posted a question asking about the best homoeopath for liver problems in Mumbai. I posted the absolutely accurate answer: 'Don't worry they're all equally good. Exactly equally.'