Maybe? Perhaps? Possibly?

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Tools to Manipulate

In most cities you come across these people in the streets, protestors, those trying to stop you for a moment, wanting you to sign a petition, to inform you on a certain subject or whatever it is they want.

Today I had a conversation with one of those “obama-nazi protesting” persons (if you could call them that) whom you see in the streets protesting against obama and talking about the whole “obama deception” thing

The guy was an educated individual, possibly mid 20’s and looks like your average college student. We agreed on many theoretical ideas about open mindedness and society being stuck in a culture of narrow mindedness.

I wanted to help him because he seemed like a smart guy, with good intentions and I do believe that people should be more aware of what is going on in politics (myself included). So, to help him, I said that if he wants to attract more people to his “kiosk”, he should get some people to pretend to be talking to him or to simply be paying attention to him because “If others are doing it, then it must be right”, the concept of social proof, popularized by Robert Cialdini in his book Influence.

To this, he completely resented my proposal and thought the idea was blasphemous, fake and manipulative.

So, I said, aren’t the people you’re fighting against doing the same?

Naturally he said that he didn’t want to lower himself to use the same “evil” tools as his opponents. Essentially he believed he was better than that. (in this context I would admit he’s right, but that’s because I posed the wrong question and set the wrong frame. Essentially what I should have asked him what his goal was (which is to inform people on this subject), and how could he accomplish it, since pretty much 99.9% of people simply walked passed him thinking he’s a nut job of some sort, which I mentioned to him, though he doesn’t care).

ANYWAYS.

To illustrate the point, I had a perfect example from the book I’m currently reading; Exploiting Chaos by Jeremy Gutsche.

I opened up the book and as soon as he saw the title, he moaned: “exploiting chaos, oh my god, you’ve got to be kidding me”.

Im not.

I find the page im looking for.

an excerpt from the book:

“To scare people into driving slower, cardboard cutouts [of children] were placed dangerously close to the road.”


This is actually the same image thats in the book, where you can see the fake child pretty damn close to the road.

Thus, because of the stimulus of the fake child, drivers would slow down in residential neighbourhoods.

It’s a tool to condition. Sure its not a real child, but what if it was? That’s the whole point, no?

Again, he completely resented the idea and told me that that was equivalent to reducing humans to dogs.

(In the grand scheme of things, personally, I don’t think humans are much more important than dogs (or who knows))

He said he believes in authenticity (which I agreed with him). But, If people aren’t stopping by, then no one is going to get informed. That’s hiss loss (perhaps all our losses?) and people will continue living their lives as is.

Humans are not so different than dogs. Sometimes all it takes is a little reinforcer.

He says that people should think for themselves and should stop acting like “sheep”. Naturally, I think we are all sheep in one way or an other, there's no way we can be innovators in every domain (thats pretty much impossible to do in this day & age). The thing to do, is to condition ourselves properly, so that they have the right ideals from the start. What if we were to condition society to lead or to think for themselves? Or for everyone actively participate in politics? What if taking initiative was the norm? What if all rules and barriers were removed? Apparently people drive better without lines on the ground, so who knows?

Its up to you to find out, the tools are out there!

Quantity over quality

More Gladwell. Simply can't get enough. You can tell that at this point he was still working on or finishing up with Outliers.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/conference/2007/gladwell

I love this concept about quantity over quality because lately its been conceived as being the other way around, for everything (pretty much), though, the truth is, life is subjective and so are the concepts that we use.

This is obvious now, but new technologies and social networking have made it much easier to access high volumes of knowledge in a small period of time, as well for new ideologies to quickly become common notions. Because of this, I wonder if one day we will be able to come to world wide decisions at an instant's notice, as if the world was one thinking human being. Every decision would be like contemplating life or death for our specie. Because really, each decision we make as individuals either prolongs our lifespan or shortens it, or how I like to say "its do or die".

your horoscope – it isn’t just witchcraft

I go downtown just about everyday, and everyday as I walk into the metro I pick up a copy of the metro newspaper to get my daily dose of Sudoku. Now next to the Sudoku puzzle there’s the horoscope section. I’ve never really cared about my horoscope because I’ve always thought it to be bogus. Though today as I was about to do my puzzle I remembered that this cute girl in highschool told me she checked her horoscope on a daily basis. So because of that thought(mostly the thought of that girl) and out of curiosity, I checked what the fortune teller had to tell me today, she said:

“Chance of love & problems will arise at work.”

Hmmm. I had originally read this when I had started my shift at the canteen. Now, reflecting on it at home, my day at work went great, mostly because it rained and no one bothered me so I could just read and write. As for love, well the night was still young at the time, but I suppose my luck ran out today. It seems destiny had other things in mind for me. No surprise, no disappointment. Like I said I never really cared for this stuff.

Though. Consider this.

Thousands of people (probably millions) read their horoscopes daily – religiously, and will testify to their manifestations.

I used to believe that such people were insane, lunatics, old fashioned people that still believed in witch craft, ghosts and trolls.

But after learning about the concept of priming, a term deriving from social psychology (which I first read about from Gladwell), I realized that these people aren’t so crazy after all.

Priming is the act of psychologically preparing yourself and entering a certain state of mind. For example before going out, people like to “pre drink” to get themselves feeling good for when they go out, that is one example of priming. Though priming isn’t always intentional. You could be having a conversation and someone brings up the word sex, all of a sudden your mind starts running on about sex, and thus you’re now horny.

Essentially horoscopes are self-fulfilling prophecies. Your mind gets stimulated (primed) in accordance with whatever your horoscope had to say. The more you are reminded of something, the more likely you are to pick up on it when it appears, and to place emphasis on it. Either you notice it happening more often, or you tend to dramatize the stimulus like a snowball effect and whatever the “event” may be is portrayed much more meaningfully. Most of this is happening subconsciously. The technical term for this is called your RAS (reticular activation system) or a less sophisticated term would be the blue car effect. The blue car effect is when you buy a blue car and all of a sudden you start noticing all the blue cars around you.

“There are approximately 2 billion pieces of data coming through your five senses every second. To maintain your sanity, this deluge is filtered through a network of cells in your brain so that only a very minute proportion of the information gets through to the rest of the brain. This network is called the Reticular Activation System or RAS for short. The RAS works like an antenna, noticing stimuli and alerting your brain to pay attention.” (from NLP for Dummies)

Reading your horoscope activates your RAS to whatever your horoscope has just told you.

Thus, there is some truth to horoscopes, but only on a psychological level.

Though there’s a problem with horoscopes. That problem would be that they often have negative attributes, for example my horoscope said “problems will arise at work”. From reading that I could essentially prime myself into having problems at work today! How terrible is that! People who read their horoscopes early in morning are even more susceptible to being thrown off their tracks for the rest of the day.

If you read your horoscope regularly, I would suggest stopping. Not until all the gypsy fortune tellers start speaking strictly positively should you start reading them.

A good replacement for your horoscope would be a quote of the day or some positive music to prime you into a good mood for the rest of the day.

In the self help section - where you'll find marketing techniques

What is marketing? How can you define it?

I can't. I just can't simply pin point marketing to one thing, its everything. Its how you present yourself, its how you interact with others(your customers), its your value and product, the list goes fucking on - its everything about everything.

I have a friend who is an entrepreneur and we were just discussing how he needs to hire someone to do some marketing behind his company. I asked him why? What do you need a marketer for? And he says "to market my company". So what does that mean?!?!??! And he can't precisely tell me.

I ask him is it advertising you need? No. He says he can't fucking get any sales and/or recognition. He's tried giving away software to produce awareness, and now hes asking me if I want to do telemarketing for him. I tell him that's the worst fucking idea hes ever had. If he wants to be making any sales, he should be calling people himself, not by some contractually paid employee that hes just going to end up firing.

I tell him maybe its just his product. If his product truly was purple then awareness would form by itself(he does have a website & adwords). Perhaps he should just quit while he's ahead.

And he agrees. Perhaps he should just quit.

So my conclusion is that marketing doesn't truly exist. Its like time or god, its subjective, its left for interpretation, IT JUST IS. Everyone has their own approach and answer. Someone who is a "marketer" as a profession would simply have to be a sage - a guru at life.

We're all marketers, the only way to be the best marketer is to be the best person you can be.

So if your company isn't working, perhaps some change and personal growth is what you need.

tee heee heee