[ExI] control again

[William Flynn Wallace]

On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 4:14 PM SR Ballard <sen.otaku at gmail.com> wrote:

> Religion.
>
> what is the most successful way of leading people, changing their
> behaviors, including letting go of their money, and no psychologist came to
> mind (unless it was Watson in his later career), no technique of
> conditioning, reinforcement or punishment.
>
>
> SR Ballard
>

I will not disagree, but I would call what religion does marketing.
Religions were cobbled together out of various things and included what
people consider important: family, violence, sex, forgiveness, punishment,
and many more.  The religions were headed by gods or at least highly
influential people - Confucius, Buddha, to give the religion an aura of
awe.  What do people love?  A tragic story; a meaning of life; spending
eternity in Heaven; forgiveness for sins; destruction of enemies...........

Madison Ave. can't compete with gods, I think, so maybe you are right.
Marketers do, however, use the same principles to attract people, only at a
lower level.  bill w

>
> On Jun 12, 2019, at 2:41 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> In The Blank Slate, Pinker offers us ways to take some aspects of our
> human nature and make a better society.  I got to thinking:  what is the
> most successful way of leading people, changing their behaviors, including
> letting go of their money, and no psychologist came to mind (unless it was
> Watson in his later career), no technique of conditioning, reinforcement or
> punishment.
>
> Then the idea struck me:  what influences everybody, everyday, in
> significant ways, including spending their money?
>
> Marketing.  Don't try to get people to change by forcing them in some way,
> making laws as an example. (yeah, if you've got them by the balls, their
> hearts and minds will follow, but that's wrong in so many ways),  Sell them
> the ideas.  Great ideas will sell themselves to people and once some are
> sold, others will follow.
>
> So my vote for most effective manipulator of behavior of all time, without
> doing anything authoritarian, immoral, or forcing, is Madison Avenue.
>
> If you, like me, are someone who can be easily led by the right
> situations, and can never be effectively pushed (which creates a powerful
> counterforce in me), then it has to be marketing for the selling of ideas.
> Freely chosen things are usually much preferred to those demanded.  (Are
> they really free choices is a philosophical question, not a practical one.)
>
> There's gotta be a way to make buttloads of money out of this!
>
> bill w
>
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