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You just make a fundamental change in your argument.
Initially, you said "And the root cause of people being scared of guns is guns killing so many people.". In that statement you are clearly intimating the "root cause" is "guns".
Now you've said it's "people killing so many people with guns" so the cause is now "people".
I'm glad you agree with my point now. Maybe next time I can teach you how ad hominem does not help you win an argument.

Otherwise known as "reframing". This isn't a new concept, but it is interesting that it's being taught to executives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

http://changingminds.org/techn...

http://stress.about.com/od/pos...

http://www.psychologytoday.com...

I wonder where they came from? It's not like they came from our schools, our churches, our towns, or anything like that. I think they're alien invaders. I'm working on how they use mind control techniques to get good, honest, logical people like us to vote for them.

It's really not hard at all. Here, have a look at some of the usual techniques.

The risk of dying in a plane crash is tiny to start with -- about 1 in 11 million -- and the risk of being the victim of a terrorist attack is smaller still

Consider the following situation: Henry is a traveller in the United States, who is about to go on a flight to New York. Is it more likely that he would die from a plane crash, or die from a plane crash caused by a terrorist action.

The quirky thing about how humans think is that if you set up a question like this, many people will pick the second option, even though it is more specific.

If you present the question like that, it sounds like you're presenting two mutually-exclusive options, even though (as phrased) they're not. I think there's a natural tendency to assume the first option is meant to exclude the second. Hence it's kind of a trick question.

The risk of dying in a plane crash is tiny to start with -- about 1 in 11 million -- and the risk of being the victim of a terrorist attack is smaller still

Consider the following situation: Henry is a traveller in the United States, who is about to go on a flight to New York. Is it more likely that he would die from a plane crash, or die from a plane crash caused by a terrorist action.

The quirky thing about how humans think is that if you set up a question like this, many people will pick the second option, even though it is more specific.

Dude, you have serious issues. Projection would be my first guess.

Very insightful post. You're very right, belief IS the single-most powerful motivator in ANYONE.

Like you said, that's why placebos work (This is medicine). It's also why:
- the 12-step AA program works (God will will save me),
- why America works (All men, including me, are created equal),
- and even why our financial system works (My money actually has tangible value).
But that's no excuse for being gullible.

Belief doesn't have to be a mysterious force we cannot control. Whether we're ruled by logic or by emotion, we can identify the EXACT reasons why we believe what we believe. The AA program and placebos work because positive thinking leads to success, America works because if we believe in it we'll work towards achieving it, and our financial system isn't working because interest is the root of all evil. There's a whole spectrum of belief, from absolute knowledge backed by scientific evidence on one end to blind faith backed by emotional zeal on the other.

It's no coincidence people like Hitler, L. Ron Hubbard of Scientology and Jim Jones of Jonestown appeal directly to people beliefs. Forget what you already believe, accept my version of the truth instead. From wikipedia, on the ritual suicide in Jonestown:

Jones made reference to the cries and screams: "I don't care how many screams you hear, I don't care how many anguished cries, death is a million times preferable to ten more days of this life. If you knew what was ahead of you -- if you knew what was ahead of you, you'd be glad to be stepping over tonight." However, survivor Odell Rhodes stated that while the poison was squirted in some children's' mouths, there was no panic or emotional outburst and people looked like they were "in a trance".

Dude, you've just scratched the surface with the "abusal of ancient words...". Take a look at ChangingMinds.org. There's a whole system of values that cause people to believe what they do. This site is all about techniques to change these beliefs.

Reminds me of the Kubler-Ross Grief Cycle.

Shock, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Testing, Acceptance

This is part of the "Bargaining" phase.

http://changingminds.org/disciplines/change_management/kubler_ross/bargaining_stage.htm

1. You are being manipulated.
2. The degree to which you're aware of this fact determines your ability to choose.

Persuasion is nothing new or necessarily evil. We tend to modify our own environment for our own benefit. That environment often contains people.

Unless you're planning to take action to change the situation, crying about it is a waste of time. If you don't like it, do something about it. Learn to recongize other people trying to get you to do what they want. Use the knowledge to get them to do what you want. If you want them to leave you alone, convince them to do that.

Some reading to get you started:

• A vast, fairly neutrally presented collection of methods.
• A somewhat more cynical collection of cons

Lumping all that share characteristics under a label is a pretty good definition of "adjective", and "noun". It's what those words are for. It's only dumb to use that label in invalid ways. We have lists of invalid ways.

Criticizing a group for characteristics its members actually share is one thing.

It's an entirely different thing to condemn an entire culture based on its most contemptible products.

The Scientology guy was just using the "Broken Record Technique" which is spectacularly annoying, to great affect. The problem for the BBC guy is that he was not prepared for this, and lost it completely, and loses face, which means that he is still a way off OT III, I reckon.

This selection technique is not new. It's not unique to Google, and they didn't invent this "algorithm". It's called biodata, and it's quite common.

Actually, I think it's wonderful that Microsoft thinks so highly of Slashdot as a source of opinion leaders that they'd plant you here to address concerns and answer questions. You are wonderfully knowledgable about Vista and Office 2007, providing all sorts of useful information about how the Office 2007 fonts are designed, exactly how your old macros will be carried over, even minutia such as exactly how many pixels the MS-Ribbon(TM) will occupy.

I especially love how you end every post with some variation on "you are spreading FUD, drink the Kool Aid before you criticize it". It's really a novel approach.

You even provide a link to get the Kool Aid! How helpful you are!

Here here! There is no shame is saying that people deserve to be safe, and that there are many valid threats at a federal, state and local level (to be addressed accordingly).

There's no shame maybe, but a bit of disproportional craziness is involved. See the availability heuristic. People are demanding safety, but they fail to realize they ARE safe from terrorism. Do you realize that statistically speaking, there were 5,500 permanent injuries due to car crashes in the US on September 11th alone, and every day before and after this? We accept seat belts, and we can just as easily accept impenetrable cockpit doors. But when we start acting like our first priority as a nation is to focus on terrorism everyday then we are reacting in a crazed emotional ferver with no correspondence to facts which represent the relative scale of the problem.

In the last 12 years, we've had two significant terrorist attacks inside the U.S., one due to a small group of criminals from another country, and one due to a small group of criminals from the U.S. Terrorism is barely a speck in comparison to the other problems we've faced in this time period, and the number of people who have suffered and died from natural disasters we didn't manage, wars we started, diseases we underfunded research for, and accidents within our borders.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is either reacting illogically or pushing an alternate agenda.

Freud was dead, but in the '50s, his theories were all the rage in the US.

From: http://changingminds.org/analysis/betty_crockers_e gg.htm

Betty Crocker's Egg

Analysis > Betty Crocker's Egg

The story

In the early 50s Freud's psychotherapeutic approaches were sweeping America, even to the point where the CIA was trying to use it for mass-control of the population. Although these alarming mind-control experiments had limited success at best, there were some notable successes, particularly in promotion.

A place where it proved successful was in the unassuming kitchens of middle-class families. Betty Crocker Foods had produced an instant cake-mix. All you needed to do was to add water to the supplied powder. By today's standards, the result was probably quite unpalatable, but then, it was something of a miracle.

The problem was that the miracle mixture did not sell. Undaunted, Betty turned to the new science of psychoanalysis to help solve the problem.

The conclusion of the psychoanalysts that she employed was that the although the average American housewife very much appreciated the convenience of the cake mix, she felt guilty at deceiving her husband and other guests into thinking she had worked hard for them when, in fact, she had done very little work.

Their answer: add an egg.

An egg also has the connotation of life and birth, making the creation of the cake more meaningful -- the housewife thus 'gives birth' for her husband.

Changing the recipe to add an egg to the mixture (which was suitably modified to make space for one egg's worth of protein and cholesterol) offered the guilty housewife a way out. By doing more than adding water, by adding a real ingredient, she could assuage her guilt.

The result: sales soared.

Freud 1, Housewives 0
Comment

Was it all so Freudian? Were the housewives feeling guilty? Maybe -- but there are other explanations. For example:

        * Eggs are known for their nutritional value. Adding nutrition would seem to result in a better cake.
        * It may assuage guilt to add an egg, but the Freudian 'birth' stuff could be theoretical nonsense.
        * Doing work adds investment to the process, thus creating a sense of ownership.

The bottom line, however, is that it worked. In today's pre-packaged economy, there may be opportunity for purveyors of instant, one-shot goods to add a little activity into the process that actually increases sales.
See also

Interestingly enough, my wife does this work. It works quite well, actually. The agreements get into the 80-90% range. And of course you store all the data: If you get 9 happies and 1 tired from your research population, your software might be considered accurate if it comes up with 90% happy, 10% tired (you can look at this in different ways, which way you prefer is just that, a preference).

You also don't have to trust the emotions of the subjects in a couple of ways:

1) You can sample a large enough population to weed out liars statistically.
2) You can sample the subjects and MRI them to verify the consistency of what is going on in their brains.

There are also well established ways to elicit common emotions: as one example, you can show people sad movies, and get them fairly easily to become sad and show a sad expression. Again, you can verify your reliability fairly well by MRI.

As to studying the range of emotions, maybe you start with only the top 6:
http://changingminds.org/explanations/emotions/bas ic%20emotions.htm

Lots of people study emotions, and there is a lot of well established strong statistical work in the field.

This books is one of the more respected in the field, and can link you to a lot of the studies that have been done already:
http://print.google.com/print?id=dXMs_dloSEcC&oi=f nd&pg=PA3&sig=O6kOK6Z196gNc4MS0AmWq7ERPiE

the platforms most of their customer base would prefer

I don't know why you think Iran shuns technology, Iran has a lot of colleges and technical schools, engineers, and high internet penetration. Persian blogs are more populous than a lot of Western countries. They also have a renowned film community, Persian films win international film festival awards. Don't confuse Islam with Christianity, Islam never had a serious problem with science the way Christianity did.

Female circumcision is still practiced today IN AFRICA, by not only a small amount of Muslims but Christians and Animists as well. It's not a religious thing, it's an African tradition and the Islamic scholars have condemned the practice for ages.

Husbands are allowed to kill their wives only on suspicion of cheating? That doesn't make sense, Islamic law requires 4 witnesses before an adulterer gets the death penalty. I don't believe what you said, please show me proof.

You can't blame Islam when different religions live together. Terrorism and fanaticism is not specific to Islam. All religions produce violent adherents. For example, Buddhist monks of Mandalay committed rioting, arson, and killing innocent people over a stone thrown into a Buddhist monastery, as happened in Burma in October of 2002. Poor minority Muslims were beaten up and killed because of alleged disrespect to the sacred monastery, someone threw a stone and the monks mistakenly blamed the Muslims. Wait, what about the "Bloodthirsty Jewish terrorist" (Ariel Sharon's words, not mine) who opened fire on a bunch of innocent Arabs on a bus just last week?

Your "qualitative analysis" is all screwed up. 1.5 Billion Muslims in the world today, and you're blaming the interpretation of Islam for a handful of incidents. Do you blame the entire Catholic church of about the same number of followers because of a bunch of priests? Do you avoid airplanes because out of the thousands flying in the sky this very second, you only hear about plane crashes? Go and read about "Availability Heuristic," because that's the mistake you're making.

While the grandfather poster or whatever did use the wrong word with "ethics". You also don't seem to know what ethics are.

Morals are of a personal nature, ethics are generally of a professional nature and quite codified.

here is a good definition

Very true. This phenomenon is called the overjustification effect, and is well researched and known in psychological fields. Basically, people enjoy things much better with intrinsic reasons than with extrinsic reasons. In this case, the extrinsic motivator is the money involved with playing video games, which can kill instrinic motivation.

From another perspective, most students probably wouldn't study if not for tests and grades (an extrinsic motivator).