Before we had Madison Avenue, we had "mainstream religion" and before we had "mainstream religion" we had tribal totems and before we had tribal totems we had the family talisman.
Choice is frightening and free will is terrifying. We are pack mammals and we respond eagerly to the alpha pair and this is a permanent truth regardless of the shape of society. We have the safety of the group so long as we are willing to live within the rules.
The only thing that has changed is the potential reach of the diktat. It is, now, inescapeable. Resistance requires finding a community of resisters. Which then imposes its own rules for membership, protection and approval.
Fascinating, what one learns from nature, and the ways one can do that. I enjoy crochet, and enjoy trying to make creatures as realistic as I can manage, and after frustration with the patterns freely available online, I started just pulling up photos of whatever animal I was trying to craft, and I began to notice that, for example, a wild hare is anatomically similar to a deer. It's just the proportions that differ. We think there are infinite forms but there really are only a few basic models and everything builds on those.
And this, too, with the human condition or as your own Substack has it, the Human Code. It's hardwired. Even if any particular charismatic leader--sectarian or secular--has good motives and a healthy message, that will degrade as followers adapt it to their own purposes. The hunger to cure disease is a form of desire to master the opponent and bend it to one's will. No surprise that "public health experts" share certain personality traits with, say, Genghis Khan...
Our postmodernist over-educated morons who are primarily thwarted by the human impulse towards tribalism, as they try to impose a global order, must be ridiculed out of power everywhere. Ridicule, not anger, though of course it's fueled by it. Laugh until they shrivel, and undermine them everywhere at every opportunity. Don't be trapped by anger; be freed by mirth.
But it can leave the plausibility of the opponent. They're not "wrong," they're just outnumbered, etc. etc. etc. and can claim an unjust defeat. Mass ridicule unmans them so to speak. (Ridicule by Obama of course did fuel Trump's Presidential campaign which ended up being great revenge if eaten boiling hot, but that's another discussion.) You want to demonstrate before the entire world that they have nothing at all on their side except raw lust for power.
That worked out well for the Jews in the 1940s, and I'm sure the founders thought it a shame that they could have just ridiculed harder. There is a time and place where ridicule and satire can be effective, but there is nothing more decisive than the appropriate display that a population is willing to die, or kill for their goals. When a government has the monopoly on information, they simply don't care; and you end up with North Korea. That strategy was a blip as to the cause of the Soviet Unions fall...or maybe it only takes 70 years and millions of murdered citizens for it to work.
Americans are talking like forget would much rather die fighting for a free America than end up in New World Order commie death camp. I won't end up in that hell on earth
What a world we live in... It's a constant battle with this stuff... I think, for me, in 2010 is when I really became aware of how affected I was by packaging and advertisements. Strangely, it's because when I got back from Iraq, I felt really overwhelmed by all the options for simple things like shampoo and deodorant and had to figure out how to deal with that. I stopped reading magazines and started trying to shield myself from ads -- doing things like covering my eyes and not looking.
Then the same thing with the internet. So it's always this weird thing for me, like if I go to youtube or anything similar, I am doing this thing of "Don't look down, don't look at the suggested videos."
I think I've managed to avoid a lot because of that... even the browser I use automatically blocks out ads and commercials, so any site I go to, my browser doesn't even load them.
I don't think I've looked into this stuff as deeply as you have, but I've always been embarrassingly aware of some weaknesses I have; some things I'm prone to believing.
And also, BHerr, have you heard of the Dead Internet Theory? I only recently learned of this... and learned how useless search engines are. I did some experiments yesterday and shocked to realize that most search engines only turn up less than 500 results, even for general terms like "exercise." Google lies to you, saying there are millions or billions of results, when in reality there's only about 400. They only tell you the real results when you get to the last pages. Like hitting a dead end when you thought the world was limitless.
Feels like The Truman Show. I know it's just lies about search results, saying there are billions when it only gives a few hundred at most. But now I keep wondering about if they're lying about how many people are in the world? We're told it's billions... but what if it isn't? I mean, there's still a lot of people... but what if there are really far fewer than we've been lead to believe?
Excellent piece. It reminds of this article Rolf Dobelli wrote several years ago. Almost no one will read it because itâs thirteen pages and most peoples brains are now wired for 5-10 minute max read.
Thank you Charles! I'll read that today because maybe I'm a mental masochist, it maybe I just like looking for the truth. But seriously, this tangled web of manipulation, human behavior, marketing, facts, "news".. It's absolutely fascinating to me how the powers that be have captured all of the machinery and have turned people's minds into literal putty.
I tend not to trust anyone who says "Don't read this; it's bad for you!" Sure, any hard drive is likely to get scrambled at one point or another from too much data. That's why in general we all need more sleep.
But I like following little bits of information found in "the news" down interesting little rabbit holes. I wouldn't have found Substack without a tremendous amount of timewasting online. Reading public Twitter feeds and threads; discovering that someone or other had been banned from Twitter by references on still- or then-unbanned accts and then discovering their Substacks so I could figure out what all the controversy was about; using odd little bits of news or information from all that timewasting to write my fiction stories.
Turbulent feelings are useful if one can find a creative outlet for them. Fury and desire for justice and/or revenge are great fuel for writing.
Seems to me that many people writing these sorts of prescriptions first got themselves extremely well-informed, and often quite rich and influential, and then tell the rest of us to disengage. Why might that be?
Tons of psychology at work in those videos, especially the Pegg video - The words he chose when speaking to Simon were very specific - he used the words "By Creating" which, when pronuonced quickly has the word Bike in it. He also mentioned "BM x-box". Those are subliminal messages which got reinforced by the touching of his shoulder with very specific timing. The touching was first done when Simon was reminiscing about a positive experience, so in effect Simon was conditioned to feel positive with touch, which was timed to the words "BMX" and "Bike"..... The shoulder touching was used the same way in the first video as well. It would not work on everybody, but it would work on a lot of people. Marketing is amazing stuff.....Wrote a piece a few month back if you have some extra time...
Yeah, the amount of different things that he's doing at the same time is insane. Glad you were able to catch many of them. So much subliminal, but also so much misdirection, leading, suggestion, NLP, anchoring...it's astounding.
If you knew someone who was this good at manipulation, would you ever be able to trust them? How lonely that could be for someone who has a reputation as a master manipulator.
This reminds me of the book âBlinkâ by Malcolm Gladwell. Iâve only read the first few pages so far, but I can relate to an art expertâs explanation of why he judged a sculpture to be fake:
âBecause when he first laid eyes on it, he said, he felt a wave of âintuitive repulsion.â â We must cultivate our instincts and intuition about the manipulation that bombards us constantly, so that we are repulsed right away rather than becoming captive to it.
Yeah. I especially like in the last video, it shows a guy who doesn't fall for the trick the rest of them do. In this video, it's 1 out of 4 people who stays clear headed, and I think, sadly, that's pretty accurate with the trend of people globally.
How did so many fall for this? same damn thing happened mid 60s when virtually every bishop in the world signed document after document of blatant heresy... And then almost every lay person followed them into great apostasy.
I think satan involved, with Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary protecting a small number. Both times
I had protestans one end of of block, Scientologists at the other end. (I'm sedevscantist)... Loved it. They wanted to convert me, I wanted to convert the. When smoke cleared, both groups had left their post. C'mon
Before we had Madison Avenue, we had "mainstream religion" and before we had "mainstream religion" we had tribal totems and before we had tribal totems we had the family talisman.
Choice is frightening and free will is terrifying. We are pack mammals and we respond eagerly to the alpha pair and this is a permanent truth regardless of the shape of society. We have the safety of the group so long as we are willing to live within the rules.
The only thing that has changed is the potential reach of the diktat. It is, now, inescapeable. Resistance requires finding a community of resisters. Which then imposes its own rules for membership, protection and approval.
Fascinating, what one learns from nature, and the ways one can do that. I enjoy crochet, and enjoy trying to make creatures as realistic as I can manage, and after frustration with the patterns freely available online, I started just pulling up photos of whatever animal I was trying to craft, and I began to notice that, for example, a wild hare is anatomically similar to a deer. It's just the proportions that differ. We think there are infinite forms but there really are only a few basic models and everything builds on those.
And this, too, with the human condition or as your own Substack has it, the Human Code. It's hardwired. Even if any particular charismatic leader--sectarian or secular--has good motives and a healthy message, that will degrade as followers adapt it to their own purposes. The hunger to cure disease is a form of desire to master the opponent and bend it to one's will. No surprise that "public health experts" share certain personality traits with, say, Genghis Khan...
Our postmodernist over-educated morons who are primarily thwarted by the human impulse towards tribalism, as they try to impose a global order, must be ridiculed out of power everywhere. Ridicule, not anger, though of course it's fueled by it. Laugh until they shrivel, and undermine them everywhere at every opportunity. Don't be trapped by anger; be freed by mirth.
Yeah, these people hate ridicule. Who are WE, the peasants, to ridicule and question such power, such lofty ideals?
"No surprise that "public health experts" share certain personality traits with, say, Genghis Khan..." <<<<< SAVAGE and accurate. đđ˛
Though historically, anger based action is very decisive...
But it can leave the plausibility of the opponent. They're not "wrong," they're just outnumbered, etc. etc. etc. and can claim an unjust defeat. Mass ridicule unmans them so to speak. (Ridicule by Obama of course did fuel Trump's Presidential campaign which ended up being great revenge if eaten boiling hot, but that's another discussion.) You want to demonstrate before the entire world that they have nothing at all on their side except raw lust for power.
That worked out well for the Jews in the 1940s, and I'm sure the founders thought it a shame that they could have just ridiculed harder. There is a time and place where ridicule and satire can be effective, but there is nothing more decisive than the appropriate display that a population is willing to die, or kill for their goals. When a government has the monopoly on information, they simply don't care; and you end up with North Korea. That strategy was a blip as to the cause of the Soviet Unions fall...or maybe it only takes 70 years and millions of murdered citizens for it to work.
Americans are talking like forget would much rather die fighting for a free America than end up in New World Order commie death camp. I won't end up in that hell on earth
What a world we live in... It's a constant battle with this stuff... I think, for me, in 2010 is when I really became aware of how affected I was by packaging and advertisements. Strangely, it's because when I got back from Iraq, I felt really overwhelmed by all the options for simple things like shampoo and deodorant and had to figure out how to deal with that. I stopped reading magazines and started trying to shield myself from ads -- doing things like covering my eyes and not looking.
Then the same thing with the internet. So it's always this weird thing for me, like if I go to youtube or anything similar, I am doing this thing of "Don't look down, don't look at the suggested videos."
I think I've managed to avoid a lot because of that... even the browser I use automatically blocks out ads and commercials, so any site I go to, my browser doesn't even load them.
I don't think I've looked into this stuff as deeply as you have, but I've always been embarrassingly aware of some weaknesses I have; some things I'm prone to believing.
And also, BHerr, have you heard of the Dead Internet Theory? I only recently learned of this... and learned how useless search engines are. I did some experiments yesterday and shocked to realize that most search engines only turn up less than 500 results, even for general terms like "exercise." Google lies to you, saying there are millions or billions of results, when in reality there's only about 400. They only tell you the real results when you get to the last pages. Like hitting a dead end when you thought the world was limitless.
Feels like The Truman Show. I know it's just lies about search results, saying there are billions when it only gives a few hundred at most. But now I keep wondering about if they're lying about how many people are in the world? We're told it's billions... but what if it isn't? I mean, there's still a lot of people... but what if there are really far fewer than we've been lead to believe?
I have not read about the Dead Internet Theory, but I will now! Thank you for that nugget.
I also use a browser that hides or blocks ads. I watch as little TV as possible and pay for some premium services so I don't have to see ads.
Mostly, I try to be as disconnected as humanly possible while doing the realistic and necessary things I have or choose to do.
You've got a great mind, I'm glad to see you're publishing your own stuff. I'll sub when it's going!
Excellent piece. It reminds of this article Rolf Dobelli wrote several years ago. Almost no one will read it because itâs thirteen pages and most peoples brains are now wired for 5-10 minute max read.
https://www.gwern.net/docs/culture/2010-dobelli.pdf
Thank you Charles! I'll read that today because maybe I'm a mental masochist, it maybe I just like looking for the truth. But seriously, this tangled web of manipulation, human behavior, marketing, facts, "news".. It's absolutely fascinating to me how the powers that be have captured all of the machinery and have turned people's minds into literal putty.
I tend not to trust anyone who says "Don't read this; it's bad for you!" Sure, any hard drive is likely to get scrambled at one point or another from too much data. That's why in general we all need more sleep.
But I like following little bits of information found in "the news" down interesting little rabbit holes. I wouldn't have found Substack without a tremendous amount of timewasting online. Reading public Twitter feeds and threads; discovering that someone or other had been banned from Twitter by references on still- or then-unbanned accts and then discovering their Substacks so I could figure out what all the controversy was about; using odd little bits of news or information from all that timewasting to write my fiction stories.
Turbulent feelings are useful if one can find a creative outlet for them. Fury and desire for justice and/or revenge are great fuel for writing.
Seems to me that many people writing these sorts of prescriptions first got themselves extremely well-informed, and often quite rich and influential, and then tell the rest of us to disengage. Why might that be?
Tons of psychology at work in those videos, especially the Pegg video - The words he chose when speaking to Simon were very specific - he used the words "By Creating" which, when pronuonced quickly has the word Bike in it. He also mentioned "BM x-box". Those are subliminal messages which got reinforced by the touching of his shoulder with very specific timing. The touching was first done when Simon was reminiscing about a positive experience, so in effect Simon was conditioned to feel positive with touch, which was timed to the words "BMX" and "Bike"..... The shoulder touching was used the same way in the first video as well. It would not work on everybody, but it would work on a lot of people. Marketing is amazing stuff.....Wrote a piece a few month back if you have some extra time...
https://bagholder.substack.com/p/marketing-101?s=w
Yeah, the amount of different things that he's doing at the same time is insane. Glad you were able to catch many of them. So much subliminal, but also so much misdirection, leading, suggestion, NLP, anchoring...it's astounding.
If you knew someone who was this good at manipulation, would you ever be able to trust them? How lonely that could be for someone who has a reputation as a master manipulator.
I will definitely check out your article!
234, he wouldn't get past this from me: it is freaking blue. The rays bouncing off have already been calculated into definition. It's blue
Fascinating article!
This reminds me of the book âBlinkâ by Malcolm Gladwell. Iâve only read the first few pages so far, but I can relate to an art expertâs explanation of why he judged a sculpture to be fake:
âBecause when he first laid eyes on it, he said, he felt a wave of âintuitive repulsion.â â We must cultivate our instincts and intuition about the manipulation that bombards us constantly, so that we are repulsed right away rather than becoming captive to it.
Thanks! I think I read Blink once, but it's been a while.
i read his 2006 book trick of the mind, hes a very interesting guy
im not one of the group and never have been so i think that protects me from this sort of hypnosis but its bloody amazing to watch
Yeah. I especially like in the last video, it shows a guy who doesn't fall for the trick the rest of them do. In this video, it's 1 out of 4 people who stays clear headed, and I think, sadly, that's pretty accurate with the trend of people globally.
long time since i read his book but yea he seemed to say somewhere around 1 in 4 or 5
Make me believe I am Walt Frazier, 1973.
How did so many fall for this? same damn thing happened mid 60s when virtually every bishop in the world signed document after document of blatant heresy... And then almost every lay person followed them into great apostasy.
I think satan involved, with Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary protecting a small number. Both times
I had protestans one end of of block, Scientologists at the other end. (I'm sedevscantist)... Loved it. They wanted to convert me, I wanted to convert the. When smoke cleared, both groups had left their post. C'mon