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While serial daters and most really good sales people aren’t, I think most people would be shocked and disturbed by how easily manipulated we humans are. I was and still am and yet I still fall for it if the right buttons are pushed to get me to react instead of think.

According to the evolutionary psychologists, thinking is an evolutionary advantage, but it comes at the high cost of using up a lot of energy.

Since food is often scarce, the body is designed to store, not waste, energy,

As such, most of our thinking generally consists of previously worked out shortcuts: the quick assumptions and commonly used subroutines that get us through the day with our brains just moseying along.

Critical thinking is a learned skill. If we’re not curious and/or have a low survival instinct, we learn no more than we absolutely have to. We are often emotionally based decision makers who can be easily startled and manipulated by our emotions, if the right buttons are pushed.

For example, Sales 101: First get the prospect’s shields down and them in agreement with you by ramping up their emotions about an ongoing problem or need they have so that it is felt as a crisis that must be solved NOW, and then present a solution.

If you or they don’t have a crisis, then create one by constantly reminding prospective clients of the potential crisis/crises in their lives that you can solve, just like the termite/bug control guy did just now on the local radio commercial I just heard.

That’s what good people do. But if you’re evil, you can create a “crisis that must be solved” with a situationally appropriate, “human-caused” disaster that you set into motion, and then blame on and use against your enemies.

Push the right buttons and we are easily played. You really can fool all the people sometimes and some people all of the time.

Critical thinking is a learned skill. If we’re not curious and/or have a low survival instinct, we learn no more than we absolutely have to. We are often emotionally based decision makers who can be easily startled and manipulated by our emotions, if the right buttons are pushed.

You’re a misogynist! ;-)

"...First get the prospect’s shields down and them in agreement with you by ramping up their emotions about an ongoing problem or need they have so that it is felt as a crisis that must be solved NOW, and then present a solution.
If you or they don’t have a crisis, then create one by constantly reminding prospective clients of the potential crisis/crises in their lives that you can solve, just like the termite/bug control guy did just now on the local radio commercial I just heard.
That’s what good people do. But if you’re evil, you can create a “crisis that must be solved” with a situationally appropriate, “human-caused” disaster that you set into motion, and then blame on and use against your enemies.

Push the right buttons and we are easily played. You really can fool all the people sometimes and some people all of the time..."

Parts of that could have been forklifted out of Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. I despise and detest Alinsky's approach not because the implications regarding human behavior are or are not true, it is the deliberate targeting and manipulation of that behavior using active deception and outright lying that I despise. You make good points.