Lovely. A psychological study on how to manipulate people into supporting your social agenda.
How about using, you know, reason? Treating them like adults? Give them pros and cons so they can make a rational decision?
How about using, you know, reason? Treating them like adults? Give them pros and cons so they can make a rational decision?
There are far fewer "adults" than you might think.
As one spiritual master said: "Most people tell you they want to get out of kindergarten, but don’t believe them. Don’t believe them! All they want you to do is to mend their broken toys. “Give me back my wife. Give me back my job. Give me back my money. Give me back my reputation, my success.” This is what they want; they want their toys replaced. That’s all. Even the best psychologist will tell you that, that people don’t really want to be cured. What they want is relief; a cure is painful."
This article frames motivation as based on either a positive or negative self-image, but it doesn't question whether motivation based on self-image is the best option.
I haven't seen any evidence that self-image is universally the primary motivation across cultures, so the degree to which people are motivated by it would seem to be influenced by the way things are presented.
Reason is one other potential motivation that could be considered a special case of acting in accordance with perceived transcendent principles. Loyalty to others or aspirations for collective achievements are other motivations that are not always centered on self-image. These aren't inherently more valuable, and they can be just as positive or negative as self-image, but they present alternatives.
If that actually worked we wouldn't be having this conversation. People, particularly in large groups, use emotion, tribalism and ego protection over reason.
If reason and fact worked well to change minds, we wouldn't have idiots "rolling coal".
Yeah that totally works.
I drive a prius, and several times I have seen coal rollers cross several lanes of traffic to sit in front of me with their stacks spewing. They don't know anything about me other than the brand of car I choose, but it's enough to make them go out of their way. It's got to be a positive reinforcement mechanism.
I think the reason why you can't have a rational discussion is that it will play directly into this cycle! Give someone a choice between an uncomfortable analysis of their own behavior versus a pleasurable peel out with yet another frustrated do-gooder in their wake, and they'll choose the latter each time.
Honestly I think they'll just have to get bored before they stop.
Frustration among the people they perceive to be trying to screw them over is the key part you're missing.
>They don't know anything about me other than the brand of car I choose
Whether you like it or not the things you do, including the car you choose to buy, send a signal. The signal happens to not be accurate in your case.
Right, but the original conversation was in respect to giving people the tools and information they need to make good decisions.
At this point those tools and that information has been out there for a long time.
So if they perceive that people are trying to screw them over, then we've just come full circle and proved the point - Treating them like adults and giving them pros and cons so they can make a rational decision has not worked.
This might not be a morally bad thing, or an overall net negative in terms of utility; when politicians are bad enough, executing them really does have an affect on the upper class. But it's seditious, which is why folks don't want to talk about it; they don't want to be arrested nor first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
The amount of abuse that the upper class has committed upon the typical person is so large that there's no way to peacefully empower them anymore. 10% of the USA is impoverished, 30% cannot afford to own housing, 40% are financially insecure, and our Pareto 80/20 distribution of wealth has slid over the past two decades to nearly 90/10 [0]. Honestly, that last number doesn't stress it enough: Fewer than a thousand people have over half the wealth of the USA [1] and it gets worse with each recession.
Rationally, how would you correct this situation? The guillotine crowd has a solution, and the only cons are that it's illegal and that it can get out of control quite quickly. Meanwhile, the closest thing to a mainstream political solution comes from Bernie and the Democratic Socialists, and their reforms are widely unpopular among the political establishment.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...
[1] https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2011/mar/10/michael-mo...