The internet, in fact, provides the best support ever for closing your mind to anything that doesn't align with your world view. You just have to google for pages that confirm your beliefs, finding sites and forums filled with people who think like you do. Then you can deceive yourself into believing that your views actually have a large support. ("Pretty much everyone I know online on every site I go believes it!")
The upshot is that "subtle influence" is not going to work on those who are crudely entrenching themselves into some camp or other. For instance, you're not going to "subtly influence" some denier into accepting human-caused global warming. Not as long as he can find plenty of others and keep believing that his social circle is an unbiased sample of the population.
The upshot is that "subtle influence" is not going to work on those who are crudely entrenching themselves into some camp or other. For instance, you're not going to "subtly influence" some denier into accepting human-caused global warming. Not as long as he can find plenty of others and keep believing that his social circle is an unbiased sample of the population.