Manipulated

Per Almanac readers’ feedback, it’s those lists that hit the spot (similar to US News and World Report college ranking or Forbes billionaires list).

Here is my list:

• It’s zero interest, use it or “lose it”. This is puppy-dog sales. How much are the balance-transfer fees? they hope no one read those winding fine-print disclaimers
• You owe it to yourself to have a prosperous life (Crystal Cathedral – Health and Wealth Gospel – ends up in Vietnamese Catholics’ hands). Who wouldn’t want to be prospered and multiplied! Curse the day Job was born. Jesus died for you, in return you owe Him an unpayable debt including your life i.e. time, money, energy and vote. Everything doesn’t belong to you (who was supposedly and already dead, hence, whatever time left from here on out, is ours. We got a direct line on that Red Phone: e.g. “we need babies”, “we need arranged marriages” e.g. the church of the Moonies’ mass wedding, keeping and replenishing “sheep”, Louisiana Jet-hopping pastor, Miami laying-of-hands on the Anointed…)
• Instead of testament, they touted testosterone, instead of humility victory (winning), Jesus John Wayne, Good Friday Palm Sunday, Theo-crats Techno-crats (seniors’ gullibility…weekly automatic withdrawal way past their deaths – classic multi-step close i.e. talk tough (big) but collect/hook tolls (small) from many (scale) with increasing voltage (look at the instigating groupies, they gave billions)
• The majority of the people think this or that, hence you should follow those with most “Like”; proof positive, quantity over quality, conformity push e.g. NYC conformity experiment – planted actor looks up to the top of skyline to form critical mass (free samples to early-adopters to create momentum), the lines experiment, the shock treatment by professor Stanley Milgram. After all, we’re social animals (a pillow for a vote). We sleep like sheep. Conformity leads to deformity.
• Cognitive dissonance: your hero, your teacher, your idol endorsed this, hence, you MUST follow in their footsteps (parent, teacher themselves had bad influencers to begin with – hand-me-down sub-standard wisdom e.g. survival of the strongest, richest, fastest). More on Factfulness by Hans Rosling)
• The machine (GPS) told you to drive straight … over and down to the cliff. Machine is always right. Way to go Waymo. Follow its instructions for directions. You must obey it (then why do we need to update the software version? What’s the release year and version?) More computing power, hence, more accurate, not absolute (singularity is here? or near?). Again, cognitive dissonance if we’re to “question” the machine. BTW, we do get punished (by accrued interest) or pulled over by the cops when ignoring traffic signs (traffic school or electric shock, Skinner behavior modification in Stanford prison.)
• People of color are lazy, underdeveloped countries don’t speak English, hence, are “underdeveloped”, if not less intelligent – let’s exploit and optimize the exchange rates via BPO, or in-shoring FOB cheap labor and borrowed OPM. This is a colonial variable, dressed up in new clothes, with new “non-white” supervisors (Crossing Over) people-machine hybrid to evade racist charges
• Take those online classes (short-term vocational degrees) with promises of low investment/ high return: ITT, Art Institute etc… while burying the complexity of human behavior, labor market and career flux that baffle even the FED who are in possession of more accurate data (social proof – our alumni were hired at … similar profile suggested automatically per recommending software) on this very Linkedin platform to enrich Hoffman.
• The US always wins. Well, look at yours truly, who barely got here; It’s the “house” – the system- that always wins per deep capitalization and technological industrial complex
• Garage start-ups want to change the world (do no evil, organize the world’s information, think different, connecting the mass), Silicon Unicorn …only to end up caving and catering to Wall Street instinct and interest e.g. “Greed is good”; meanwhile, dead to those pronounced world-changing passion i.e. the greater good and noble cause
• Half-truths, State-sponsored funneling techniques (Yes, Yes, yes until they are least resistant) “yes”. The ill-thought-out final “yes”, has been planned out with machine=precision and patience all along by grifters (principle of consistency).
• Con men and cultic figures rely on crowd-chanting, anticipate weak personalities and exhaustion (which leads to de-individuation) to drive herd instinct. BTW, on re-watching “To Kill a Mockingbird”, I found a heroine in “Scout” who averted a mob lynching at the county jail (“I go to school with your son” etc… the mob man as if awoke from a trance, decided to turn everyone around). It’s easier to cash in on mass hysteria (the Law of the Average). They manipulate and massage their audience (FUD) i.e. fear, uncertainty and doubt: ” they – the others – are coming for you”. A page ripped out of Goebbels, Hitler’s chief propagandist. BTW, a high percentage of poor people seeking sanctuary have been children of destitute, our modern-day Ann Franks (Biden’s latest border policies). Haitian speak French. Do you? on this edit, government shutdown is forcing kids to eat trick-or-treat candies for lunch. What a society that touts its nobility and high=church.
• The list goes on and on. Check out “Influence” (view his TED talk on pre-suasion), often redressed with new spokesperson, varied combination of psychological manipulation techniques (authority figure clad in uniform…. In current Engineering Age, High Priest = the computer. A classic Bait and Switch: Sales sign indicates price reduction (I have just been had by Southwest one-way from $49 click bait) but at the cash register” the machine says here, it’s not on sale”
• Like a network rerun for a new demographic segment: “Insanity in individuals is somewhat rare. But in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule” Nietzsche. How should we then live? “Only the paranoid will survive” per Andy Grove (Intel finally gets its plants re-shored, in time to join the throng behind Nvidia. BTW, where is GE (that used to Bring Good Things to Life).
• This Memorial Day, we remember those who died for the ideal of a free people and free thoughts. May they rest, unencumbered and unaffected by those re-incarnated dust-off deceit, smoke and mirror, dazzling props and wardrobe, incense and snake-oil chameleon and con men who are always on the lookout for fresh converts with “voluntary servitude” (stimuli-responses) “respond to the call”, “ask not”…as they are lured in to the trap of the Law of Average. It’s the institution stupid.
• Remember to Pause (between stimulus and share) before Post (Response).