Sunday, June 30, 2013

Abusing the power of the weak

by Amos Ramati

In some situations 'weakness' is being used as 'Power'.

There are various reasons for it: attracting attention, being in control or any other benefits one can gain from having 'POWER' over others (like special needs). A person can "victimize" himself in order to be in possession of this 'POWER'. By giving in to this "weakness-power game" the good will of the supporting person is being used for other goals than 'support' for the "victim". The 'POWER' can be so great that "ethical behaviour" will be ignored in favour of the "victim". Usually every attempt to restore this "ethical behaviour" is seen as unmoral.

What is typical for this kind of "victims" is that they will never accept advice or support that will actually help them solve the 'real problem'. By solving the 'real problem' the "victims" will lose their "POWER" and that is not the intention.

Those "victims" are usually looking for 'potential victims' that are ready to join their "game".

Most of the time it is a 'subconscious' process and not a conscious one.

Originally posted in "Einstein's Universe"
http://www.care2.com/c2c/groups/disc.html?gpp=645&pst=4480#4706

Sunday, June 23, 2013

persuasive appeals, propaganda, and fallacies

"I can't seem to get my head around persuasive appeals, propaganda, and fallacies as they connect to one another. I understand and can teach each of them separately, but I don't know how to connect them... Do you see propaganda falling under Aristotle's appeals, mostly pathos? Aren't propaganda techniques fallacies? Is the connotation of propaganda negative, but the appeals are considered effective?"
-- Deborah Herman

This made me think of if I need to look at the convincing and persuasion techniques as well, and propaganda, and appeal... Basically, all this: Social Control

And then I need to look at the AMOGing too...

Sunday, June 16, 2013

10 rules of engagement for Catholic apostolates adjusted for everyone

10 rules of engagement for Catholics

1) Prioritise the real world over the virtual world.
If you are spending more time interacting with people over the Internet than you do in the real world, then you need to seriously curtail your online activity.

2) Your serenity is more important than your involvement on the Internet.
If frequenting a blog or forum disturbs your peace and makes you anxious, uncharitable and/or unkind to those around you, you should simply stop going to that blog or forum.

3) Don't ever say anything on the Internet that you wouldn't say in person.

4) Don't write anything in anger.

5) Don't stereotype people.

6) Take at least one day off a week from the Internet.

7) Always assume the good intentions of others.
If someone writes something that could possibly be interpreted multiple ways, assume the best interpretation.

8) Remember who the real Enemy is.
It is not any one person you meet on-line, but attitudes, misconceptions, prejudices, ignorance, fear...

9) "a spoonful or honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar"
Even "stupid" people believe to be right. Telling them they are wrong, proving them wrong, telling them they are stupid, is not constructive, functional or "helpful", on the contrary.

10) If you want your point of view, beliefs and opinions to be heard, and change the world, don't just go to sites presenting your point of view

Sunday, June 9, 2013

How to Convince Someone to Believe in Anything


Convincing someone to believe what you say is no more than simply convincing this someone to either accept a new idea or update his knowledge or belief about an existing idea. Not all people will accept your ideas with the same degree, however there are still rules that every person is subject to and if used correctly, will increase your chance of convincing other people to believe what you say.
 
If the person you want to convince already has prior knowledge or experience of what you're trying to convince him with, then your primary goal is to shake his beliefs and proving him false and only then present him with your own idea. If the person does not have a previous idea about that thing, you can just start by presenting your own view right away.

Why Can't I Convince Other People?

Before learning how to convince someone to believe in something or to accept your idea, you should first know the reasons that generally make people oppose ideas:

* Belief Conflict:
If one of your friends told you that the earth does not in fact orbit the sun, what would be your There would be no way you could believe him since you already know that all eight planets orbit the sun, something which you have seen proven time and time again. You already have an opposing belief so the first obstacle facing your friend when trying to convince you is your own belief system.

* Knowledge:
The greater a person's knowledge about something, the harder will it be to convince him of something different. What do you think will happen if you tried to convince an astronomy professor that the sun is only 1000 km away from the earth? He'll never believe you because he already has deep knowledge of the subject and might have proven it scientifically himself. Thus the second obstacle to convincing people are their level of knowledge about what you're going to say. As you may have already noticed, the first two obstacles (prior belief and knowledge) can be grouped under one thing: having another belief that is contradicting with yours.

* Skeptics:
Skeptics are people who doubt almost everything and everyone. They just never accept anything unless they are truly sure of it. If you are dealing with a skeptic person then this will add further difficulties.

How to Convince Someone to Believe in Something

Based on the previous obstacles we can come up with counter techniques that can highly increase the probability of success when convincing someone.

Those techniques are:

* Shaking His Existing Belief:
The more assertive and confident you are while talking about your idea, the higher the possibility of shaking the other person's belief about that thing (given that he does not have much knowledge about it). Speak in a confident way, use confident body language and gestures and use a confident voice tone and you will find that the other person may start to doubt his own idea.

* Undermine His Knowledge Base:
Even if you were confident while talking, the other person's knowledge base could act as a barrier to your ideas. That's why convincing him that you know more than him is more important than trying to convince him of your idea itself because if you manage to convince him that you know more than he does, you will become a trusted source for his subconscious mind and it will become much easier to program him (see subconscious mind programming for more information on this). You don't need magic to do this, you just have to be ready with proper documentation and clues. The more clear your evidence is, the more you will be able to undermine his own knowledge base and so convince him to see your point of view.(See the power of knowledge in negotiations).

* Provide Proof for the Skeptic:
Contrary to common belief, skeptics can be made to believe in something new provided you have clear evidence to prove your idea. The more clues you can provide to strengthen your argument, the less skeptic the other person will be and so the easier he will be convinced.

* Program His Subconscious Mind:
The subconscious mind can be programmed by repetition: the more a command is repeated, the more it can shake an already existing belief provided that either the conscious mind is absent or that the source of the idea is trusted. For more information on programming someone's mind check out this guide. You can even program someone into falling in love with you, in my book, how to make someone fall in love with you I pointed out how can repeating certain words or phrases result in making someone fall in love with you. Its no magic, beliefs are formed by repetition and if you managed to repeat a certain belief enough times, the other person may actually start to believe in it too

* Believing in Your Idea:
Do you notice that when a person really believes in an idea he usually takes it to the light? The entrepreneur who always believed that his idea is worthy usually succeeds in building a very good business. The more you believe in your idea the more confident and, most importantly, convincing you will be when talking about it.

* Repetition and the Law of Attraction:
You can make the process of programming someone's mind distributed over time, that is each time you meet him you talk a little about your idea then leave him. The phrases you have said to him will not be removed by his subconscious mind, instead they will be stored until something enforces them. For example, if you kept telling your friend that he is a poor driver, he may not believe you until he happens to have an accident. When this happens, he will remember all of your comments about his driving skills and will be convinced that you are right.

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I think this is immoral.

Programming, manipulating, controlling people, and for what?

"Criticism and the law of attraction"?

Why would you want to convince your friends of that they are bad at something? I would want to convince my friends of that they are good at something!

There're websites about how to change other people's minds! I'm horrified and appalled.

Yeah... Stupid me...

I remind me of Pratchett's Leonardo of Quirm. "But no-one would actually USE them!"

Sunday, June 2, 2013

The Five Methods of Domination - Master suppression techniques

Instead of looking at who has posted and how it can be seen as an attack on you, read the text, relate to reality and see how it could be said of you, and make the conscious effort of stopping this kind of practice.

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The Five Methods of Domination:
Invisibility
Ridiculing
Withholding information
Dual punishment
Creating shame and guilt

The following text has been adapted for gender neutrality from the booklet "The Five Methods of Domination" by Berit Aas, (English translation by Lotta Larsson, Daphne Sandberg). Adaptation is © S. Jensen and H.C. Jensen, Södertälje 2005.

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**Making people feel invisible**

There is a discussion going on in a long thread. People post their opinion and reactions to others' postings. Then someone joins the discussion. He/she posts what he/she wants to say and waits for the responses. Nothing happens.

People continue discussing the matter as if he/she never posted anything. Later someone might refer to the posting, but keeps talking about the person as if he/she was not part of the discussion. The poster feels awkward and starts contemplating what he/she posted. Did he/she say something inappropriate? Or stupid?

Soon he/she wishes he/she had not posted anything at all.

This takes place when people are ignored or passed by.

It is a reminder to people that their opinions are unimportant and do not count as much as other people's opinions.

**Ridiculing / belittling**

Someone posts something.

He/she happens to use words or say something that can be turned into a joke -- like "rotating testies". People start joking about the testies and LOL a lot.

He/she tries again, but is once more stopped by jokes and laughter. He/she becomes upset and complains, and people defend themselves by belittling the offended person.

"That time of the month, is it?"
"It was just a joke. Don't you have a sense of humour?"
"Loosen up, don't take yourself so seriously!"

Some ways of belittling people and making them feel stupid is to say "I don't have time with this", "I cannot be bothered with this", "This is irrelevant, uninteresting, childish, stupid…" or "I don't have patience with you".

Ridiculing/belittling takes place when people's efforts and accomplishments are mocked and laughed at. It also occurs when people are compared to animals, like chicken, dogs or pigs.

Other examples are when people are said to be too sensitive or when their feelings and actions are characterised as typical for their gender/group/political affiliation/sexual orientation.

**Withholding information**

The discussions touch the same issue in several groups at the same time. Some of the groups might be closed. Some of the discussions are held in private, via e-mails, messaging, or chats. Most internet debate forums are international sites, so people participating are from many different time zones. Some people have to go to work, take care of family, are too tired or sick to stay in the discussion. Next time the issue is discussed, people who were privileged to get the information the first time, will say things like "you weren't there, so you have no right to say anything".

Another form of using the lack of information to dominate others is to disqualify a person simply because he/she does not have certain experience. "You are too young to understand", "if men had periods", "I have an academic education, you don't" or "easy for you to say, you are not a parent".

Withholding information takes place when people do not receive the same opportunity to take part of information.

One can also argue that withholding information takes place when people's work and accomplishments are ignored and not validated.

**Dual punishment**

In a group, people agree that personal matters should be dealt with in private, and not in public. Later something happens and a person has something personal to say to another person. He/she then writes a private note, as agreed, and next thing that happens is that the other person goes public with it, accusing the first person of harassing him/her with the "offensive" note.

Another situation is that a person complains about why everyone makes assumptions, and never asks. Next time something happens, another person asks for an explanation. He/she gets the answer "If you don't understand, it's no idea to try to explain, you wouldn't understand anyway."

Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

One example is when people are blamed for not taking care of something the society sees as their responsibility, and they are accused of the consequences of that, but at the same time they are accused of not taking part of the rest of the society as well.

**Creating shame and guilt**

Somebody suggests a different method of dealing with things. Someone misunderstands and reacts on the misunderstanding, accusing the person of trying to change the subject, taking attention from "important issues" -- or talking about how the person him/herself is not doing what is suggested. The person, who suggested the new method starts defending him/herself, trying to explain, but is interrupted with someone telling him/her that it doesn't matter, it isn't interesting, one couldn't be bothered with it or one doesn't have time with this kind of crap. The person feels foolish. It was probably a stupid suggestion.

Guilt and shame are induced through double punishment and belittling. People are told that their ideas and suggestions are not good enough. The reason the other people oppose people's ideas might be that:
- People think and do things differently
- People do not have access to information controlled by other people.

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These are the Five Methods of Domination. Our hope is that this knowledge will be enough to eliminate them. The methods of domination have fewer ramifications when you understand and recognize them.


Härskartekniker, motstrategier och främjartekniker (Master suppression techniques, counter strategies and master confirmation techniques)