el gato (and everyone else here), I think you will especially appreciate Laura Dodsworth’s and Patrick Fagan’s “Free Your Mind: The New World of Manipulation & How to Resist It” given your interest in not only psychological manipulation techniques such as nudging but also in helping to build cognitive defenses against these tactics.
Laura’s “A State of Fear” was already required reading in my 12-step recovery program from menticide (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/letter-to-the-menticided-a-12-step), but “Free Your Mind” transitions from exposure of behavioral psychology techniques in practice to equipping us with the tools to help identify and resist such attempts in the future.
Here are a few Q&A’s Laura and Patrick did about the book:
A book by a U of Chicago Nobel Laureate in Econ, Richard Thaler, and a Law Prof from Harvard , Cass Sunstein, that is basically a How-To for BigGov Policy Makers can subtly encourage We the Little People to do all the right things.
Mrs. Pi had a HS classmate visit us a few years back. She's an economist for the Salvadoran government and some of the women started talking about books. I think they were mostly thinking 50 Shades kinda stuff but she picked this book as a recent favorite.
I thought it might be one of the most evil admissions I'd ever heard.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
Funny, I have had an instinctive loathing for Cass Sunstein for years - he's even more loathsome than Milton Friedman in my book. When I learned he designed a particular question on the sign-up for Affordable Care Act insurance (to which I was subjected for 3 yrs), I was determined to always answer the opposite way from how he designed it. (I was reading Naked Capitalism and Lambert Strether around that time, & knew what to look for).
"Funny, I have had an instinctive loathing for Cass Sunstein for years"
He is loathsome.
"he's even more loathsome than Milton Friedman in my book."
Wait - wut?
Milton Friedman is most definitely still running the show. I don't think there can be another kind of show without coercion or, as Señor Gato notes right herely, Nudge. Which I guess are Just microcoercions. *strikes deep thinking pose*
Health Affairs is a highly influential Behavioral Health publication for the System Lords. Justice John Roberts cited it in his ACA (Obamacare) decision:
And Sunstein coauthored one of the earliest Behavioral Science "plans" to "Nudge/Coerce" compliance. For a greater good. It's always for a greater good, you know:
Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response
Aww, thank you, Paul, and I’m grateful to know you found it of value!
Fortunately, the ghosting/whisper campaign/sabotage appears isolated to one person, and now that I understand she is a narcissist with histrionic personality disorder, I am relieved to no longer be associated with her.
In response to my upstander piece, several people recommended the book “In Sheep’s Clothing,” which I am finding highly illuminating and am hoping it will help me more easily identify covert aggressors going forward.
I think the first part of being resistant to manipulation is admitting you're vulnerable to it. Hence the first part of your article about menticide. I think it is one of the reasons I don't have many friends. I do listen.
In grade school, I used to laugh with friends about saying "the fifth dentist thought the other 4 had no idea what they were talking about" in regards to advertising. But if you are interested in advertising, and the parody of it, you see how it can be extended into other things.
Such humility is crucial to overcoming our cognitive biases, Jimmy, and that is exactly the vulnerability Mickey Z. and I discussed on Post-Woke last month:
I have been called ignorant, willfully ignorant, doubly willfully ignorant with a slice of racism, uneducated, selfish, stupid, and of course a Chronic sufferer from the Dunning Kruger Effect who I believe went on tour with Bachman Turner Overdrive.
I am constantly talking about the ineffectiveness of masks, but spend way too much time talking about seat belts, condoms, and apparently respirators that firemen wear. Personally if it comes to it, I am for.Fireman respirators for all over masks because at least then you can see the full person's face when you mark it for future reference on who to sell time share property to.
I'll tackle the Chomsky article soon™, but I had to take exception to what he said about ad hominem attacks. Take it from someone who knows an insult when he hears one, there are ways to respond to them.
i'm fans of all of them and good friends with jay. but they seem to be rare birds over at casa del cardinal and have suffered for their outspoken honesty.
Forgot that the Stanford Indians changed their name in a fit of wokeness -- back in 1972. Says something about the place, that they were 50 years 'ahead of the times.'
Husband's parents transferred to us, we unknowing (at time when we did not have $$$ to have 2nd vehicle--late 90's), title to a very old Fiesta, whose colors we described as "rust with accents of white". Husband drove it as his car; said " It keeps me humble" (wife says not a problem with this guy. Modesty is his name.)
Wasn't it the Toyota & Datsun cars from that era that were rust buckets after the first rain? I remember reading that they had bought a lot of second hand metal from ocean going ship scrap yards in India and it was too contaminated with salt to properly clean. Don't know if that's true or not.
IIRC, most of the Japanese manufacturers had little sponge like things in the fenders and quarter panels then (for what reason I don't know). They'd hold onto the road salt and rust from inside out.
Both of them (I had a Datsun B210 pickemup truck back in the day) were bad but Honda, too. Dad had a '77 Honda Civic used in about 1981, right when I was about to start driving.
"Big Kitty".... One of my fave cartoons featured an older couple seated on a sofa across from a visitor.
The couple are covered with obvious rows of stitches and bandages and are accompanied by a Siamese licking her (who else) paws. The visitor asks, "Oh! A Siamese...is she friendly?"
When all this is over, let's make sure that Stanford University's reputation (and other "elite" universities) finds itself in the same ditch that IG Farben's was tossed in nearly 80 year ago.
It won’t be over until people stop buying in to it and say “enough”. The more of us that become ungovernable and do not comply, the sooner it will be “over”. The question is when it IS over, what will we be left with? What will our world look like, because it’s going to get way worse before it gets better!
I tend to be an empiricist, and compare my experiences with ratings. Works pretty well. Part of critical thinking. Ultimately, take NOTHING for granted, assume NOTHING. Learn to trust yourself.
That and a great line from a John Cusack movie "Hi Infidelity." To paraphrase, he admits that throughout his life he has been going by his gut, and that over time and consideration he's realized his guts have s for brains.
There was a recent MacHesit offer, cloud space...20 TB for 100.00 lifetime. Sounded great.
Too great.
So I looked up the reviews. What good is all that storage if it takes dial up model speeds to upload and download it? Oh and customer service...good luck getting a response!
Nudge. The Conservative Woman is a fantastic information source, experienced investigative journalists, unafraid. They did a brilliant three-part series in 2021 on the UK's behavioural health "fear amplification" that the US also employed for pandemic control - we all "suffered" from "optimism bias" and the Rx was Fear. The "sophisticates" knew better, as Obama's spokesperson said about unmasked guests at his Martha's Vineyard birthday party. Leaders putting masks on for the cameras, then taking them off when finished with public statements, and traveling to see families after telling everyone else to stay home.
They even shared a fancy little table produced by UK authorities showing the plug-and-play app for any behavioral science campaign. Pandemic. QR Code surveillance, Digital Currency, Climate. Gender. Energy. Food. All-purpose. Want some totalitarianism in your nation? There's an app for that!:
The UK and US responses were nearly identical. Both had established sister Social and Behavioral Science 'Nudge Units' at the same time under Obama and Cameron. And leaned heavily into them for the "pandemic emergency." A product of Bernays, Laswell, and the other prominent pioneering propagandists of a century ago. Goebbels was a big fan. They learned how to weaponize human psychology to control entire populations.
Answer to quiz ~ 1 do not take any shots, 2 do not take any shots, 3 do not take any shots.
Is there an exception for tequila?
*slices lime, slides salt shaker Mickey's way*
It's 5 o'clock somewhere, dude!
Of course.
She means, just take the whole damn bottle.
Unless of course they're alcoholic and you're American or Korean
I was about to ask "so not a drinker?"
el gato (and everyone else here), I think you will especially appreciate Laura Dodsworth’s and Patrick Fagan’s “Free Your Mind: The New World of Manipulation & How to Resist It” given your interest in not only psychological manipulation techniques such as nudging but also in helping to build cognitive defenses against these tactics.
Laura’s “A State of Fear” was already required reading in my 12-step recovery program from menticide (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/letter-to-the-menticided-a-12-step), but “Free Your Mind” transitions from exposure of behavioral psychology techniques in practice to equipping us with the tools to help identify and resist such attempts in the future.
Here are a few Q&A’s Laura and Patrick did about the book:
• https://lauradodsworth.substack.com/p/a-peek-inside-our-minds
• https://lauradodsworth.substack.com/p/a-peek-inside-our-minds-part-ii
• https://lauradodsworth.substack.com/p/why-do-we-need-to-free-our-minds
Looks like a good counter to this: https://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X
A book by a U of Chicago Nobel Laureate in Econ, Richard Thaler, and a Law Prof from Harvard , Cass Sunstein, that is basically a How-To for BigGov Policy Makers can subtly encourage We the Little People to do all the right things.
Mrs. Pi had a HS classmate visit us a few years back. She's an economist for the Salvadoran government and some of the women started talking about books. I think they were mostly thinking 50 Shades kinda stuff but she picked this book as a recent favorite.
I thought it might be one of the most evil admissions I'd ever heard.
Now, that *is* a revealing admission—and thank you for the heads-up, Pi Guy! I always find it helpful to study the enemy’s playbook.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/17976-if-you-know-the-enemy-and-know-yourself-you-need
🎯
Funny, I have had an instinctive loathing for Cass Sunstein for years - he's even more loathsome than Milton Friedman in my book. When I learned he designed a particular question on the sign-up for Affordable Care Act insurance (to which I was subjected for 3 yrs), I was determined to always answer the opposite way from how he designed it. (I was reading Naked Capitalism and Lambert Strether around that time, & knew what to look for).
Gotta ask...why throw shade at Milton Friedman??
Is he Mr. (Samantha) Power or is she Mrs. Sunstein?
Mr. Power has been busy lately, wrote a book recently titled:
"How to Make Freedom into Slavery"
errr... my bad, I meant titled:
"How to Interpret the Constitution,"
Cass Sunstein, August, 2023
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/cass-r-sunstein/how-to-interpret-the-constitution/
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4405238
"Funny, I have had an instinctive loathing for Cass Sunstein for years"
He is loathsome.
"he's even more loathsome than Milton Friedman in my book."
Wait - wut?
Milton Friedman is most definitely still running the show. I don't think there can be another kind of show without coercion or, as Señor Gato notes right herely, Nudge. Which I guess are Just microcoercions. *strikes deep thinking pose*
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/milton-friedman-shovels-vs-spoons-story/
Health Affairs is a highly influential Behavioral Health publication for the System Lords. Justice John Roberts cited it in his ACA (Obamacare) decision:
https://www.healthaffairs.org/about
HA even published a story about how masks failed during the Spanish Flu - but we needed them anyways, for the psychological impact:
https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/flu-masks-failed-1918-but-we-need-them-now
And Sunstein coauthored one of the earliest Behavioral Science "plans" to "Nudge/Coerce" compliance. For a greater good. It's always for a greater good, you know:
Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response
Nature Human Behavior, April 30, 2020
https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/s41562-020-0884-z
I read it (actually bought it, as the library had no copy). Worth even putting more money into their pockets to get a look at their methods.
I bought it on Kindle. Indeed, worth it.
As noted in my reply to Margaret Anna Alice above, “If you know the enemy and know yourself,..."
Your Menticide piece is a Tour de Force. I shared it often. Intrigued about the ghosting by other substackers too. Keep up your sterling work!
Aww, thank you, Paul, and I’m grateful to know you found it of value!
Fortunately, the ghosting/whisper campaign/sabotage appears isolated to one person, and now that I understand she is a narcissist with histrionic personality disorder, I am relieved to no longer be associated with her.
In response to my upstander piece, several people recommended the book “In Sheep’s Clothing,” which I am finding highly illuminating and am hoping it will help me more easily identify covert aggressors going forward.
I think the first part of being resistant to manipulation is admitting you're vulnerable to it. Hence the first part of your article about menticide. I think it is one of the reasons I don't have many friends. I do listen.
In grade school, I used to laugh with friends about saying "the fifth dentist thought the other 4 had no idea what they were talking about" in regards to advertising. But if you are interested in advertising, and the parody of it, you see how it can be extended into other things.
Such humility is crucial to overcoming our cognitive biases, Jimmy, and that is exactly the vulnerability Mickey Z. and I discussed on Post-Woke last month:
• “What Noam Chomsky Can Teach Us About Freedom of Speech” (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/what-noam-chomsky-can-teach-us-about)
I have been called ignorant, willfully ignorant, doubly willfully ignorant with a slice of racism, uneducated, selfish, stupid, and of course a Chronic sufferer from the Dunning Kruger Effect who I believe went on tour with Bachman Turner Overdrive.
I am constantly talking about the ineffectiveness of masks, but spend way too much time talking about seat belts, condoms, and apparently respirators that firemen wear. Personally if it comes to it, I am for.Fireman respirators for all over masks because at least then you can see the full person's face when you mark it for future reference on who to sell time share property to.
I'll tackle the Chomsky article soon™, but I had to take exception to what he said about ad hominem attacks. Take it from someone who knows an insult when he hears one, there are ways to respond to them.
😂👍
If a whole book is 'tl;dr' maybe try music:
Funkadelic - "Free Your Mind, and Your Ass Will Follow"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zZfbkUkodY
😹🕺
Dare I ask, what you think of Stanford’s Scott atlas, Jay Battacharya, John Ioannidis, Michael Levitt? Because if these guys are wrong, I give up.
i'm fans of all of them and good friends with jay. but they seem to be rare birds over at casa del cardinal and have suffered for their outspoken honesty.
Thank you.
Forgot that the Stanford Indians changed their name in a fit of wokeness -- back in 1972. Says something about the place, that they were 50 years 'ahead of the times.'
"buy now and Og throw in free rust undercoating!"
Too bad Honda didn't know about this high-tech magic in the 70s.
Heard dat. Thankfully my '77 Accord was gray so duct tape was a pretty good match color-wise.
I bet Rust was a popular paint choice, too.
Husband's parents transferred to us, we unknowing (at time when we did not have $$$ to have 2nd vehicle--late 90's), title to a very old Fiesta, whose colors we described as "rust with accents of white". Husband drove it as his car; said " It keeps me humble" (wife says not a problem with this guy. Modesty is his name.)
I had a rusty white Monza. It had an 8-track!
> buy now and Og throw in free rust undercoating!
Seems as good a place as any to drop this link:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=B2LLB9CGfLs
That's beautiful, man.
What a great movie.
Still laughing!!!! One of my favorite scenes.
Wasn't it the Toyota & Datsun cars from that era that were rust buckets after the first rain? I remember reading that they had bought a lot of second hand metal from ocean going ship scrap yards in India and it was too contaminated with salt to properly clean. Don't know if that's true or not.
IIRC, most of the Japanese manufacturers had little sponge like things in the fenders and quarter panels then (for what reason I don't know). They'd hold onto the road salt and rust from inside out.
Both of them (I had a Datsun B210 pickemup truck back in the day) were bad but Honda, too. Dad had a '77 Honda Civic used in about 1981, right when I was about to start driving.
Stick shift. Not many of those any more.
"Big Kitty".... One of my fave cartoons featured an older couple seated on a sofa across from a visitor.
The couple are covered with obvious rows of stitches and bandages and are accompanied by a Siamese licking her (who else) paws. The visitor asks, "Oh! A Siamese...is she friendly?"
My grandparents had a Siamese named Chan. Those cats are assholes.
A version w/ same vibe 🙂 --> arthive.net/res/media/img/oy1000/work/6b6/60266@2x.webp
The very same one. Uncanny.
Gotta love the Far Side.
Hence your added pair of misleading details didn't confuse the omnipotent google search 😏
When all this is over, let's make sure that Stanford University's reputation (and other "elite" universities) finds itself in the same ditch that IG Farben's was tossed in nearly 80 year ago.
Is it ever going to be over?
Nothing this bad lasts forever. Sadly I foresee a lot of suffering and death before the end.
It won’t be over until people stop buying in to it and say “enough”. The more of us that become ungovernable and do not comply, the sooner it will be “over”. The question is when it IS over, what will we be left with? What will our world look like, because it’s going to get way worse before it gets better!
Relevant
https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Hippies-Shower-Stephen-Kruiser/dp/1729480586
2018 publish date… somebody sure saw the writing on the wall!
I tend to be an empiricist, and compare my experiences with ratings. Works pretty well. Part of critical thinking. Ultimately, take NOTHING for granted, assume NOTHING. Learn to trust yourself.
"I tend to be an empiricist, and compare my experiences with ratings."
This is the way.
Start here and work your way forward:
Jeremiah 17:9
King James Version
9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
That and a great line from a John Cusack movie "Hi Infidelity." To paraphrase, he admits that throughout his life he has been going by his gut, and that over time and consideration he's realized his guts have s for brains.
I only read the 1 star ratings.
this is the way. Its so much easier find out what's happening when you're told who is the bad guy.
I just look in the mirror. LOL
There was a recent MacHesit offer, cloud space...20 TB for 100.00 lifetime. Sounded great.
Too great.
So I looked up the reviews. What good is all that storage if it takes dial up model speeds to upload and download it? Oh and customer service...good luck getting a response!
The Gato remains unmatched in bringing a smile on the darkest of subjects - from Twitter linking post:
"stanford university center for applied totalitarian media studies."
Movie critic ratings are a always a good guide when read inversely
Kind of like, people lose more credibility in my eyes by the amount of bumper stickers on their car.
IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, and YOU!
I don’t worry about this for myself but I do for the masses.
You might have already let the bad guys win when you think of other people you don't know as "the masses."
I'd worry about it more, but those who want the red pill either have it or need to be given it IRL.
So say we all!
Nudge. The Conservative Woman is a fantastic information source, experienced investigative journalists, unafraid. They did a brilliant three-part series in 2021 on the UK's behavioural health "fear amplification" that the US also employed for pandemic control - we all "suffered" from "optimism bias" and the Rx was Fear. The "sophisticates" knew better, as Obama's spokesperson said about unmasked guests at his Martha's Vineyard birthday party. Leaders putting masks on for the cameras, then taking them off when finished with public statements, and traveling to see families after telling everyone else to stay home.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/sages-covert-coup/
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/sages-covert-coup-part-two-project-fear/
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/sages-covert-coup-part-three-the-mass-behavourial-science-experiment/
They even shared a fancy little table produced by UK authorities showing the plug-and-play app for any behavioral science campaign. Pandemic. QR Code surveillance, Digital Currency, Climate. Gender. Energy. Food. All-purpose. Want some totalitarianism in your nation? There's an app for that!:
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/sage.png
The UK and US responses were nearly identical. Both had established sister Social and Behavioral Science 'Nudge Units' at the same time under Obama and Cameron. And leaned heavily into them for the "pandemic emergency." A product of Bernays, Laswell, and the other prominent pioneering propagandists of a century ago. Goebbels was a big fan. They learned how to weaponize human psychology to control entire populations.
Lies are used to cover evil only. No one acting for the good need ever lie.
The Abiline Paradox, one of my favorites, right there next to duality.
I have TIL moment pretty much every day here at Casa de Gato.
"(lyrics borrowed from tom lehrer)"
Obligatory: "There's Yttrium, Ytterbium, Actinium, Rubidium..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2cfju6GTNs