How The World Works

[Jim Naseum]

Chapter 1

 

"In a famous 1951 experiment led by Swarthmore's Solomon Asch, 76% of people conformed at least once to what they heard other people arguing was the correct length of a line on a scale right in front of their face, even though it was plainly wrong. The people arguing for the incorrect measurement were all plants, but overall, 33% of participants went along with the group, even though they were spouting nonsense. A follow-up study in a 1955Journal of Abnormal Psychology report found even under anonymous conditions, about 23% of people preferred to believe what people were saying about the line rather than the evidence in front of their own eyes."

 

 

[T2K]

Yeah, it's called the Bill O'Really Show. It's on FuxNews channel.

 

Keith

[wvu80]

In before the lock!  I'm calling it now. 

 

I can see this thread turning to politics, fast! 

+++

 

Hey Jo Steph, what are you doing taking a psych 101 course at your age? 

[Jim Naseum]

Chapter 2

 

For the first 65,000 years of Man events were driven by FOOD. For the last 8,000 years events (the course of history) was and continues to be driven by MONEY. A primal shift (we learned how to stockpile food!). No, it's not parties and politics. No, it's not ideology and -isms. No, it's not religion, and it certainly is not armies. It is just money. 

 

"You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don't know where the **** it's gonna take you" - Detective Freamon - "The Wire."

 

This applies locally, and globally. It applies to individuals and it applies to nations and governments. It applies to science, religion, politics, history, art, literature, and absolutely everything man-made you see in the phenomenal world.

 

You may have to peel twenty layers off the onion to get to it, but in the core of an event or historical phenomenon, there will be someone waving money.

 

And that means, almost everything we think we know about cause.....is mistaken.

[jimjimbo]

You forgot to add...."In my humble opinion"....

 

Given your Chapter 1 and 2, not really interested in your Chapter 3.

[Jim Naseum]

Chapter 3

 

Magical Thinking

 

The belief in cause without scientific explanation. If you couple that with scientific skepticism, you have a recipe in which the only source of belief is propaganda (call it Public Relations and Advertising, if you prefer). 

 

Science used to be taught in schools. Once you are out of school, there is limited opportunity to be taught new science. The media takes over our education. What the media teaches is 99% magical thinking. First off, there is advertising. No one should have trouble seeing that it is all magical thinking. Then, there is programming, which of course is fictional. And finally, we get to news and politics, which is 100% magical thinking. Pols "say things" and the media "repeats what they say." That, in a nutshell is how popular political belief is formulated. 

 

The slight paradox involved is that people do use and believe in technology, but not the underlying science. 

 

The animating and motivating forces in the world, the ones with all the money, rely heavily on this strategy of using the media, and they use all their powers to promote more magical thinking and scientific skepticism throughout the world. 

 

No one can help but notice that the rise of magical thinking in the 20th and 21st centuries corresponds directly to the growth of TV and other media. 

[CECAA850]

You forgot to add...."In my humble opinion"....

 

Given your Chapter 1 and 2, not really interested in your Chapter 3.

 

Good call.

[Don Richard]

Sounds like the beginning of a cable thread

[babadono]

Sounds like the beginning of a cable thread

No, balanced and unbalanced interfaces!

[jimjimbo]

Sounds like the beginning of a cable thread

Nah, relatively speaking, cable threads are much more coherent.

[Arrow#422]

Chapter 1

 

"In a famous 1951 experiment led by Swarthmore's Solomon Asch, 76% of people conformed at least once to what they heard other people arguing was the correct length of a line on a scale right in front of their face, even though it was plainly wrong. The people arguing for the incorrect measurement were all plants, but overall, 33% of participants went along with the group, even though they were spouting nonsense. A follow-up study in a 1955Journal of Abnormal Psychology report found even under anonymous conditions, about 23% of people preferred to believe what people were saying about the line rather than the evidence in front of their own eyes."

How many of the 33% in the 1951 experiment, and how many of the 23% in the 1955 follow-up study did so for the sake of avoiding a confrontation?

Special interest individuals & groups have always been spinning propaganda messages through media since their inception.  On the lowest level think advertising for product that stimulates a buying instinct.  On a larger scale, it could include news media supporting economic, foreign policy, etc.  The masses either blindly accept was is being feed to them and get on that bandwagon, or rise above the BS by means of diversity in their informational sources.  It has been said that If one could control ALL media, they theoretically could then control the entire world.

Edited January 18, 2016 by Arrow#422

[CECAA850]

[Jim Naseum]

How many of the 33% in the 1951 experiment, and how many of the 23% in the 1955 follow-up study did so for the sake of avoiding a confrontation?

 

 

I liked your comment a lot.

 

I hope it was all of them, and not the inability to read a ruler. The point being made wasn't about the reason, just the phenomenon of people rejecting an obvious truth, and falling in line to a mistaken belief. It's an important and vital part of seeing how things work. Why history unfolds as it does right in the face of contradictory evidence. To simplify, you can get people to go along with just about anything if you apply even the slightest cost to disagree. To simplify even further, this phenomenon is the source of the axiom: people are sheep.

 

While being entirely true (demonstrated by science), you will never find any one individual who will admit it by saying, "Baaaah!" This is almost never accounted for in disciplines like economics, which loves to refer to the "rational actor" in various laws and principles. There are precious few "rational actors."

[Jim Naseum]

Chapter 4

 

Misanthropy Runs the World

 

Obviously the world isn't a collection of random events. There's a logic, a strategy, an intelligence and intention that powers events even when you can't see it, name it, or point to it.  And that intention hates Mankind with a vengeance. By hate, I mean wants to destroy and eliminate as much of the raw mass of humanity as possible to leave in place an untouched Paradise for the few who deserve it. That's the misanthropic force that is in the center of history.

 

Here, have another cigarette. Here, join us in another war. Here, have another cup of sugar. That's the heart of civilization talking through it's dozen layers of machinery and the functionaries behind them. Those are tiny benign examples of a means I couldn't possible express in words in this venue, but they point to the idea. You'll have to use your imaginations to multiply by a few orders of magnitude to get the real offering.

 

Misanthropy is actually taught worldwide as an inherent feature of mankind in order to disguise it's artificial source. It goes like this: "Man is a greedy killer. Always was, always will be." And because of features 1, 3 and 3 previously mentioned, people swallow that hook, line and sinker. 

[Arrow#422]

 

How many of the 33% in the 1951 experiment, and how many of the 23% in the 1955 follow-up study did so for the sake of avoiding a confrontation?

 

 

I liked your comment a lot.

 

I hope it was all of them, and not the inability to read a ruler. The point being made wasn't about the reason, just the phenomenon of people rejecting an obvious truth, and falling in line to a mistaken belief. It's an important and vital part of seeing how things work. Why history unfolds as it does right in the face of contradictory evidence. To simplify, you can get people to go along with just about anything if you apply even the slightest cost to disagree. To simplify even further, this phenomenon is the source of the axiom: people are sheep.

 

While being entirely true (demonstrated by science), you will never find any one individual who will admit it by saying, "Baaaah!" This is almost never accounted for in disciplines like economics, which loves to refer to the "rational actor" in various laws and principles. There are precious few "rational actors."

 

 

……or free thinkers.

 

It is becoming more & more difficult to dis-associate one's self from the constant barrage of information, disinformation (noise as I like to call it), or even one's self interest - Thus, the potential for drawing accurate conclusions is greatly hampered which adds greatly to media success.

Edited January 18, 2016 by Arrow#422

[Arrow#422]

Here is a book that touches on the thought that history isn't just a sequence of random events, but rather quite well planned (out) by those in control of the money and news sources.

 

Radical thinking?  Not necessarily.  

Possible?  Sure.

Probable?  Unknown & unproven.

 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Unseen-Hand-Introduction-Conspiratorial/dp/0961413506

 

Happy reading.

Edited January 18, 2016 by Arrow#422

[oldtimer]

Hurry only 11 left.

[Arrow#422]

[Jim Naseum]

Here is a book that touches on the thought that history isn't just a sequence of random events, but rather quite well planned (out) by those in control of the money and news sources.

 

Radical thinking?  Not necessarily.  

Possible?  Sure.

Probable?  Unknown & unproven.

 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Unseen-Hand-Introduction-Conspiratorial/dp/0961413506

 

Happy reading.

 

I certainly do not subscribe to accidental history, but neither do I subscribe to secret societies that form deep conspiracy. It's an unnecessary addition to the reasoning for "purposeful history." The moment you say the word "conspiracy" in America, you are besieged by the magical thinking crowd like a swarm of bees that have been trained to use the word as a cudgel upon those who believe events are accidental.

 

More than secret groups I believe in shared interest. When you have $500B dollars in your control, you find you have certain interests in common with others who have $500B dollars to control. These interests don't coincide with the interests of the shmucks working for a paycheck and trying to raise families. These interests coalesce through myriad institutions that can be mapped as a "network" of magnificent influence, which is why people mistake it for a secret group.

 

This kind of wealth creates very thick insulation from humanity. And the disease of misanthropy sets in.

Edited January 18, 2016 by jo56steph74

[Arrow#422]

Shared interest - agreed.

Secret society - I'm not eating at the same table as the $500M crowd, so I could consider that group to be quite secretive from my perspective.

 

Define, explain, compare it in any which way you choose.

 

"Birds of a feather, flock together"