Linda > Recent Status Updates

“Novelty, transience, diversity, and acceleration are acknowledged as prime descriptors of civilized existence.” Now there’s a big city devotee talking snootily about elite living.

Information overload as explanation for Waco Tx disaster (80 Branch Davidians dying in self-immolation or group-induced gunshots): “The FBI had such an intelligence overload that …they just fell back on past practice- and since they didn’t have any experience with religion, they treated it like a standard barricade” - Prof Robert Louden

Interesting example from the 1991 coup created by government, military, and KGB officers against Mikhail Gorbachev. The Soviet populace decided against the expert authorities and in favor of freedom “within hours of the junta’s announcement”. After 3 days of barricades and strategic defiance, coup is over.

“When it comes to freedoms, it is more dangerous to have given for a while than never to have given at all…Should these now established freedoms become less available, there will be an especially hot variety of hell to pay.”

So if you get Washington/federal victories in schools, public places, housing and employment, but you can’t get respect at home (or at least freedom from the 78 lynchings per year?) - and if in 4 years there are 530 “acts of violence” designed to prevent your kids from being educated with others’ kids….yeah you might decide that peaceful protests weren’t working.

“The idea that newly experienced scarcity is the more powerful kind applies to situations well beyond the bounds of the cookie study…a primary cause of political turmoil and violence.” James C Davies thinks revolutions are brought about after a sharp reversal follows an increase in improving conditions, e.g. American colonists revolting after Brits demanded a cut of widespread prosperity.

So directly after the section on authority and how people are just the most compliant beings ever, when faced with someone who has a title…is the Scarcity chapter on the Terrible Twos and teenagers who defy authority and head straight for forbidden toys/forbidden love every chance they get. How is this dichotomy reconciled? It isn’t.

“When increasing scarcity - or anything else - interferes with our prior access to some item, we will react against the interference by wanting and trying to posses the item more than we did before.”

Still rings true per the De Beers market capture of the diamond trade. “Imperfections that would otherwise make for rubbish make for prized possessions when they bring along an abiding scarcity.”

The section on authority seems outdated. I don’t believe that the Milgram experiment would offer the same results if conducted today, nor would 95% of nurses unhesitatingly follow the doctor’s 20 mg order over the phone. After 30 years of being told the dangers of unthinking obedience, people hardly respect actual authorities anymore.

Simple and effective strategy to diffuse tension and reduce rivalry. “They constructed a series of situations in which competition between the groups would have harmed everyone’s interest; instead, cooperation was necessary for mutual benefit.” The one truck for an outing was stuck - a movie was too expensive to rent by the camp (so boys had to donate personally). They overcame together.

Fostering ill-will through group rivalry. “Simply separating the boys into two residence savings was enough to stimulate a ‘we versus they’ feeling between the groups; letting the boys assign names to the two groups (the Eagles and the Rattlers) accelerated the sense of rivalry.” Introducing cabin-against- cabin games “produced name-calling and confrontations”.

Singapore customers causing a bank run by sheer panic: “An unexpected bus strike had created an abnormally large crowd waiting at the bus stop in front of the bank that day.” Everyone assumed it was the bank, not the bus, with issues.

“These three natural characteristics of urban environments- their confusion, their populousness, and their low levels of acquaintanceship - fit in very well with the factors shown by research to decrease bystander aid.”

From secret conspirators to enthused evangelists. “Since the only acceptable form of truth had been undercut by physical truth, there was but one way out of the corner for the group. It had to establish another type of proof for the validity of its beliefs: social proof.”

The self-perpetuating need to believe. “The group members had gone too far, given up too much for their beliefs to see them destroyed; the shame, the economic cost, the mockery would be too great to bear.”

Failed predictions of end times result in strengthened group cohesion, “rather than disbanding in disillusion…with a fervor that is intensified, not diminished, by the clear disconfirmation of a central belief.” Montanists in Turkey, Anabaptists in Holland, Sabbataists of Izmir, Millerites in the U.S.

“Certain nightclub owners manufacture a brand of visible social proof for their clubs’ quality by creating long waiting lines outside when there is plenty of room inside.”

“We view a behavior as correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.”

“In referring to the fierce loyalty of Harley-Davidson motorcycle owners, one commentator has said. ‘If you can persuade your customers to tattoo your name on their chests, you’ll probably never have to worry about them shifting brands.’”

“Within the realm of compliance, securing an initial commitment is the key.”

“It should come as no surprise that people with a particularly strong proclivity toward consistency in their attitudes and actions fall frequent victim to consistency-based influence tactics.” Avoid foot-in-the-door or low-ball techniques.

“I have discovered a way to handle people who try to use the consistency principle on me. I just tell them exactly what they are doing.” Trying to trap people with their own words is just as bad, if not manipulatively worse, than affirming the principle of consistency. If only because it doesn’t fit the Golden Rule.

“We must be wary of the tendency to be automatically and unthinkingly consistent, for it lays us open to the maneuvers of those who want to exploit the mechanical commitment-consistency sequence for profit.”

The stupidity of hazing is that it enhances the group’s attractiveness by the Hell Week humiliation and degrading activity requirements. “one study of 54 tribal cultures found that those with the most dramatic and stringent initiation ceremonies were those with the greatest group solidarity”. Severity heightens commitment.

“Will you please call us if you change your plans?” Reduces no-show rates by 20% if people even make a verbal commitment.

Reduce chances of a hung jury by secret ballot initiatives rather than a show of hands.

If “public commitments tend to be lasting commitments “, why does this principle fail so spectacularly with politicians? They make so many fake promises that one more broken promise won’t matter? They don’t gain any social credit for the promises they do keep?

“Charitable organizations, for instance, will often use progressively escalating commitments to induce individuals to perform major favors.” Start small and build.

Works in churches and in used car buying situations. “Get the customer’s ok on paper. Get the money up front. Control ‘em. Control the deal. Ask ‘em if they would buy the car right now if the price is right.”