Do you think you’ve ever been manipulated? Most people would say no. The average person is going to tell you they have great common sense and they would know if somebody was manipulating them.
But in reality, every single person has been manipulated one way or another, almost daily.
Now let me set the straight, manipulation isn’t all bad. We can be manipulated into making smarter choices and healthier decisions. Like you might trick a toddler to eat vegetables by making them think it’s the best thing you’ve ever had. So there are definitely different levels to it.
I just finished up my book of the day, 'Everything Is Obvious,' by Duncan J. Watts, and I learned just how easy the human mind can be manipulated.
For example, did you know that if you're at a shop, and you're buying wine and if there's German music playing that you're more likely to buy German wine? And if they have French music playing in the background, you're more likely to buy French wine. That's how easily the human brain is influenced, and we've all inherited these basic tendencies.
I wanted to talk about a few concepts from the book that I think will be useful to you.
First is the idea of common sense.
Let's take a really practical issue. Just imagine we could solve any social issue in the world. Poverty is one of the biggest problems world wide.
How do you solve poverty? Common sense says throw money at it, right? Lack of money solved by money. But it doesn’t quite work out like that. Common sense is not always what works best.
There’s this fantasy that if only we had enough money to spend, the figure is usually put at $100 billion, we could completely remove all the slums in Africa in 10 years.
But look at what we have built with the first several billion dollars, low income housing projects. The projects have generally become way worse centers of delinquency, vandalism, and general social hopelessness than the slums that they were supposed to replace. Meaning commons sense did not work. It would have been better to not spend a penny. It actually created a bigger problem.
But I’m not here to talk about how we can solve the world’s issues, but to show you that every day we face countless decisions that have to be made. If your only solution to those problems is going by your gut instinct and what appears to be common sense, you're going to make a lot of mistakes.
Watt’s says in his book,
"Bad things happen to us not because we forget to use our common sense, but rather because of the incredible effectiveness of common sense in solving the problems of everyday life causes us to put more faith in it than it can bear."
image
Now, in everyday life common sense helps you. Simple problems. Things like, "should I eat off a dirty spoon or a clean spoon?" Common sense is the amalgamation of handed down traditions, some of them wise, some of them not. Growing up, your mom told you to wash your hands before you eat. Hundreds of years ago common sense did not dictate you needed to wash your hands. Doctors would go from the mortuary, where they were putting their hands in dead bodies performing autopsies, and then would immediately go and deliver babies. They couldn't figure out why infant mortality was so high, because common sense at that point had not stumbled upon the concept of invisible germs. Now today, that is just common sense.
The issue is there are a lot of problems that your parents couldn't give to you the answers to, right? Like if you're trying to become an entrepreneur, were you raised by parents and grandparents who were able to be effective entrepreneurs themselves and able to pass onto you all of these skills? Probably not.
I'm not political at all, but here’s what kills me about politics. Politicians are a bunch of dilettantes, amateurs, people who don't know what they're talking about that always acting from what they feel is common sense. But I’m going to ask a political question. Should we raise taxes or lower taxes?
The argument for raising taxes is that wealth will redistribute at some level. You're able to fund things that wouldn't normally be funded. But the tragedy of the commons is nobody will take care of the commons without taxes. But on the flip side there's an equally coherent and well thought out "common sense answer" that the actual solution is lower taxes because then you free up money and release the burden from business owners to go out and raise the general GDP. The general economy's level. So, the answer in general is not found in common sense.
What works against our brains and fights against us at almost every moment are these logical fallacies which lead to humans being manipulated.
The thing is, we typically don’t recognize when we’re making poor decisions until you realize that you’re being manipulated. There are a lot of outside influences like these that try to manipulate you, and it’s not just media, but also instinctual patterns that evolved in a world thousands and thousands of years ago. Thousands of generations ago your ancestors' brain had commons sense, but that common sense only worked in a tiny village. It doesn't work in a world of 7.3 billion people.
So, be very careful of just living off your common sense.
The SECOND concept I wanted to talk to you about is loss aversion.
Are you doing something now simply because you're afraid of losing it? This happens pretty often in relationships. People stay in horrible relationships because they’re afraid of being alone. They don’t want to lose the relationship they’re in, even though they know they’re miserable. They're not making effective decisions.
image
So how can you fight risk aversion? Well, look at fit people. How do they get strong and in shape? They train, they do repetition, they put some resistance on. They practice, they train every day so their body is becoming a little bit stronger each time. You have to do the same thing with your brain.
You need to periodically train yourself by just depriving yourself of something. For example, let's say you're scared about not being able to pay your car bill. Sell your car. Prove to yourself that it's not so bad to be deprived of the car.
When it comes to training your brain and being in control of your life, it's not something you could just grab one book and master, but each book you read pushes you closer to improving yourself. You have to find some exercises to train yourself. Put yourself in uncomfortable situations, do something you’re afraid of.
The THIRD cognitive bias that Watts talks about the Liking and Disliking bias. Another name for this is arguing ad hominem, and what it basically means is that us humans either disagree or agree with information based on if we like or dislike the person giving the message.
Let's say your mom and dad and your grandma. You probably really like them and care about them. It doesn't mean they're always right, you know? And then, we generally disbelieve information from people that we don't like their style. Again, we have weak minds that are easily manipulated.
Start getting into habits. Start seeking out the advice of people even if you don't like their style, and stop listening to people just because they make you feel good.
The logical fallacies go on and on, just like if you go to a gym, there are lots of different exercises. Some work the inside of your thighs, some do you delts, your lats, all these little specialized areas. You have to hone your skills, because the better you get, the more upside you will get.
You’ll be like a superhero in this world. While the rest of the world is scrambling and being manipulated by their own brain and outside forces, you'll be able to dominate.
image
Common sense is not common, it's trained. There's some inborn common sense when it comes to certain things, like don’t pet a barking and snarling dog or don’t touch fire, but outside of those things, most of your common sense is going to actually work against your happiness.
Take back the control. Think about how you think. Think about why you think.
You’re an unfinished sculpture and the artist, you just have to find the tools to bring out the masterpiece. It will take training to bring out the best in you.
Deep down, we probably do have the answers. There's just too much manipulative layers that have been layered onto us by the complexity of the modern world, but there's a way out. It's not as hard as people think.
Thank you for reading to the end. Till next time.
Stay Strong,
Semboze
gif