The Accusations Are True ATS - I Do Have An Agenda And I Have Been Manipulating You! My Confession.

reply to post by PatrickGarrow17


Ah yes ads are a big method of manipulation, but what exactly is the effort for? People are tasked with competing with one another for survival, the general population will deny your existence if you have no money. In order to obtain money one must convince another to hand over a portion of theirs, they might tempt you with shiny trinkets or whatever people buy and sell.

Ads are a method by which people or groups of people come together and devise to ensure their own survival, obtain money. People will do whatever it takes in order to survive so they need to put their words in your head and convince you to help them survive, give them money. Ads resort to dirty tactics, if you're attracted to scantily clad women then seeing a Pepsi next to one might subconsciously associate arousal with Pepsi and thus make you more likely to purchase the Pepsi and help those at Pepsico ensure that they will not go broke and thus have everything taken from them. Many in the public don't like ads, but don't realize that they ask for ads for if the advertisers did not advertise then they'd be killed by the public.

reply to post by PatheticAyTeEs


Why are you messing with heff? He posted this as a social experiment of sorts and it was clever and pretty well thought out.

Originally posted by Hefficide


Not all communication is manipulation, but much of it is.

100% right, of course.

Its been going on a LONG time, my friend.

There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print.

I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.

The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?

We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes. ~John Swinton 1880

I think that the word 'manipulation' has negative connotations and some of us don't like to think that we manipulate others or are manipulated ourselves.

However, as already stated, every single one of us manipulates and is manipulated, whether we like it or not. It's part of the way we communicate. It's the way we transmit and receive. Sympathy, emotional reactions, expressing ourselves are all directly linked to 'manipulation' on a conscious or unconscious level.

Of course some are very aware of this and hone their manipulation skills to perfection, whether for entertainment, business, politics or serial killing.

Do we not start manipulating before we can even talk? Don't we learn as babies that when we cry our mothers will come running?

Or is manipulation just an unfortunate side effect of human interaction that we can't communicate without?

Anyway, these are just my thoughts and I enjoyed the OP and reading the replies...

Gnobody

reply to post by PatheticAyTeEs

Heff is good people and I enjoy his posts. This thread is no different. I just think it's a well put together thread and its an interesting experiment in peoples reactions.

LOVED THAT, WELL DONE!!

Thanks for the reminder. Got any tricks I can use as a restaurant server??

reply to post by MidnightSunshine


Actually I managed a restaurant for about a decade and have an entire laundry list of 'em! If you're serious U2U me in a day or two and I'll work up a list.

~Heff

reply to post by Gnobody


I think that some of the best manipulators do not even know what they are doing. Children absorb a lot of knowledge and at the earliest ages children can learn that their parents can be controlled, parents who bow before the every whim of a baby teach the baby about the master/slave relationship. As children grow they learn more of the master/slave relationship by watching their parents and their peers manipulate others, they might get a free sandwich by screaming and ridiculing their waiter, they might make their spouse take out the trash by refusing intimacy, etc. As children grow they learn how to survive, many must resort to a variety of forms of manipulation otherwise they're likely to be cast out of society and left for dead.

Many people say they do not like to be manipulated, but they ask to be manipulated for if one does not manipulate they will be killed.

Edit: It's good to note that many parents allow their children to control them as a method of survival. The general population loves to use children as ammunition against someone. If a parent lets their child alone for just a few moments and that child cuts themselves on a tree branch then the public will ridicule the parent, forcing the parent to give control to the child.

reply to post by Symbiot


Agreed.

More on advertising:

-473.4 million spent by 2012 Presidential Candidates.
-157.2 by Obama
-79.5 by Romney

Rest of majority by Super-Pacs: American Crossraods, Restore our future, Americans for Prosperity etc.

79% of ads negative, 21% positive (horrendous)

19.6 mil total spent from 9/10-9/16.
www.washingtonpost.com...

20 million per week, if extrapolated to a year would put election campaign spending on par with a fortune 500 company of 1 billion yearly advertising. Difference, of course, is this advertising will see no return profits (ideally).


Advertising campaigns represent overt manipulation on mass scale. An important aspect of this thread, though, is that every interaction between people results in some change to those involved. I think is an intellectual leap that people go through at some point in their lives. Realizing that their actions and words have an effect. Being 21, this realization is somewhat recent for me. It is why I'd like to live my life in a way that "manipulates" those around me toward progress.

Of course, this endeavor is contingent on my version of progress being the right one.

Originally posted by Symbiot
reply to post by Gnobody

 

As children grow they learn more of the master/slave relationship by watching their parents and their peers manipulate others........

Children are MASTERS, in the art of Manipulation.

Period.

As a father of three, I have to deprogram myself, on a daily!!!!

reply to post by PatrickGarrow17


It's not all manipulation, giving your honest opinion is one thing, but hurting someone physically or emotionally as a means to make them follow your lead is another. It's one thing to say "I disagree with you and here's why" and another to say "Screw you, get out and don't come back until you do and say as I tell you to do and say."

reply to post by sonnny1


Children have several things going for them. Many of them are "cute" which gives them a leg up in the puppy face area. At the same time, like I mentioned in my edit, the masses are viscous when children are involved, they're always viscous, but more so with children. A parent might do something the public views as poor parenting at any moment and must keep their children from making them look bad.

Edit: I do not have children, but I cringe when I hear people ridiculing parents with a crying baby. Babies cry, it's a fact of nature and no parent is bad simply because their baby is crying. I've heard people insinuate that babies should be left home so as not to disturb them, but then if the parent leaves the child home it's breaking the law.

When you get to the higher spiritual sites you will get the pro disinformation channelers.

reply to post by frenzy4444



Hi Frenzy, I'm curious as to what these higher spiritual sites are that you are referring to?

To my knowledge disinformation is everywhere at large. As far as ATS is concernced it offers a bit of everything. There is a world that meets together here at ATS in all their differing views towards the aim of growth and learning. Sometimes, there are pleasant surprises that spur one's sleeping eyes from the dreamy world of ignorance and denial.

This is serving to expand minds regardless and for the benefit of all seeking.

I don't care I honestly have never paid attention to anything you have posted

Originally posted by Symbiot
reply to post by sonnny1

 

Children have several things going for them. Many of them are "cute" which gives them a leg up in the puppy face area. At the same time, like I mentioned in my edit, the masses are viscous when children are involved, they're always viscous, but more so with children. A parent might do something the public views as poor parenting at any moment and must keep their children from making them look bad.

Funny how "me", is always the end users triumph, when it comes to agenda, also. The focus, the drive. The self righteous "Pat on the Back". I don't know if its human necessity, to always be right, and never be wrong, but I do know children have only their peers, and Parents to blame, when it comes down to it. Ego also plays a part. MHO

Trying to analyze this, has made me think deeper, at the root cause. I am sure though, someone who has taken up Psychology, could point me in the right direction.

reply to post by Symbiot


I think manipulation is a word that has an unfair negative connotation. A person effects the people and environment around them whether they intend to or not. Might as well have some conscious purpose.

reply to post by CoolStoryMan


And yet you felt the need to post!

Is this some sort of post modern nihilistic anarchy cliche living art thing? I'm curious. I mean I don't eat at Long John Silvers - but I don't feel a need to wander into their store to discuss the fact.

~Heff