Why are smart people fooled

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nonhocapito
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Re: Why are smart people fooled

Unread post by nonhocapito »

simonshack wrote:Do I consider myself 'unlucky' (as Nonho says) for doing so? No, not a bit. That's where I beg to differ a little from Nonho's viewpoint. Whereas we may baulk at considering ourselves 'smarter' than the average public, we cannot go as far as qualifying ourselves as 'unlucky'.

Paradoxically, I would only consider myself unlucky if this (now collective) propaganda research of ours gets to a point where it is embraced by the current 'scientific' community - and enters university classes.
Oh, let me explain myself better Simon: I do not consider myself unlucky, all the contrary. I was very careful in using quotes around the word "luck" because what I mean was just apparent lack of luck. Whatever the society (and not me) consider "luck", or a positive destiny. Whatever the "system" (and not me) declares so. My personal feeling, about my choices and my present destiny is in fact quite different.

What I was trying to say is that --sometimes-- it takes this apparent lack of fortune in our social, official lives -- this apparent "dropping out" of the system -- to get to the point where we can start to question things that maybe are normally left untouched. So I meant "unlucky" simply in this strict sense: people who by the accidents of life have found themselves in one moment or the other out of reach from the temptations and rules of the system, and who because of this are finally allowed to see things more clearly.

For the rest, I certainly appreciate your personal perspective. I think it is pretty natural that on a topic such as this one we all have to draw from our personal experiences, because it is just impossible to be objective or to pinpoint universal rules.
lux
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Re: Why are smart people fooled

Unread post by lux »

simonshack wrote:
Now, I can certainly appreciate Lux's quote which goes: "the smart ones who don't see through the propaganda are the ones that lack the courage and integrity to live with the truth, no matter what it might be." Believe it or not, I can understand (which is different from 'approve of') people who prefer to live in a cocoon of comfort, uncaring of the ugliness and perils of the world around them. However, I wouldn't accuse them of lacking of courage and integrity. I would just define them as useless passengers of this hijacked planet. Such people cannot be blamed for wishing to live life lightly - pretending humanity will take care of itself. They are a bit like those guests that linger longer in your house - just to enjoy the pleasure of being idle for a while. The problem is, you just can't demand to be a guest of this world forever: when shit comes to shovel, those who sit on their asses will be the first submerged. But not to sound as a glum preacher of impending doom, let me copy/paste an old quote of mine - from my Youtube channel:

OK, I say "lacking in courage and integrity" and you say "useless passenger ... wishing to live life lightly - pretending humanity will take care of itself."

So, I guess we're down to "cowardly and dishonest" vs "useless and delusional."

Maybe we're both right. :lol:
simonshack
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Re: Why are smart people fooled

Unread post by simonshack »

lux wrote: Maybe we're both right. :lol:
Maybe the 3 of us are! :)
fbenario
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Re: Why are smart people fooled

Unread post by fbenario »

lux wrote:Actually, I think it takes more than intelligence to see through the propaganda. It also takes courage and integrity.

An intelligent person may actually see through the propaganda but may live in denial of it as he/she lacks the courage and integrity to live with that truth.
This should be our motto, placed at the top of the homepage for every visitor to see.
waterwitch
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Re: Why are smart people fooled

Unread post by waterwitch »

Maybe smart people are fooled because they are simply not looking for deceit in the right places. When you go to buy a car from a show room, you are expecting the salesman to be using deceptive tactics to a degree and your antennae are out and tuned ready to cut through the BS. But when you go to the doctor for a diagnosis, you don't expect her to deliberately deceive you and tell you you have a terminal illness, when you don't. Therefore it would be very easy for a psychopathic doctor to fool you. But we all know this rarely happens. If the doctor does give you the wrong diagnosis, it is probably due to other reasons than psychopathy ( so perhaps lack of skill, bad diagnostic tool, false positives etc). So it doesn't make much sense, for the average person, to go through life seriously doubting and questioning what everyone says. We only tend to shift into sceptical mode, when we believe someone is seriously incompetent, misguided or has a hidden agenda. For most people, where it would seem prudent to doubt the car salesman, it would seem fantastical to doubt the reality of the car and speculate on the fact that it might be a holographic projection. It might seem wise to ask for a second opinion in the case of a terminal diagnosis, but only few people would doubt that the ideas of modern medicine in regard to the nature of the cell are mistaken, and that is the source of the misdiagnosis. We are good at doubting, but the hand and eye of the magician misdirects our attention. I'd like to introduce the ideas of Dr Ray Peat - a biologist and philosopher of science who has interesting ideas about quantam science, the nature of learning and the agenda of western science. Here's a link to one of his many online interviews: Enjoy
http://reader.mac.com/mobile/v1/http%3A ... 6version=1

[ADMIN: please make a link we can all view from a normal browser, thank you! -hp]
Maat
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Re: Why are smart people fooled

Unread post by Maat »

Selective Attention Test (1999)


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo

For those who haven't seen this before, it's an excellent demonstration of how our minds function and why the perps were so confident their Psy Ops and video fakery would work like a charm — especially when you watch all 7 of the perceptional experiments in sequence here (scroll down for 2nd & 3rd video sets): http://www.dansimons.com/videos.html
hoi.polloi
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Re: Why are smart people fooled

Unread post by hoi.polloi »

I guess I wasn't fooled by this since I observed the gorilla the first time. However maybe some people don't?
Maat
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Re: Why are smart people fooled

Unread post by Maat »

Yep, about half do see it the first time — but did you watch the later variation, "The Monkey Business Illusion", on the site link? Also, the "Movie Perception Tests" 1 & 2 (1997) and the "Gradual Change Test" (2000) that follow are particularly relevant as examples of how easily the media can slip stuff by so many.
nonhocapito
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Re: Why are smart people fooled

Unread post by nonhocapito »

Yes Maat. I have seen these videos before and they can be quite interesting, useful to put our visual confidence to the test. Even if they don't fool us, it is clear that this happens because we are trying our best not to be fooled, which is not the average behavior people have in front of the TV and especially in front of the news.

I wish they also took into consideration the importance of the emotional factor. We are pretty indifferent to the gorilla or the curtain color-- but what happens to our attention deficit when we are emotionally involved in what we see? Chances are our ability to spot subtleties doesn't get any better. When we analyze a 9/11 video we can watch it all the times we want, and eventually spot all the traces of fakery -- but the point was to create something to fool most of the people when shown that one time in the right emotional context. And with news-people acting like magicians, attracting our attention away from crucial details, it gets even harder to fight the packaged psychological weapon lobbed in our direction.

Personally I am not at all surprised that "smart" people are fooled because this is obviously a science -- propaganda is a science to fool people. It should be forbidden, and the people using it should be thrown in jail.
Maat
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Re: Why are smart people fooled

Unread post by Maat »

nonhocapito wrote:Yes Maat. I have seen these videos before and they can be quite interesting, useful to put our visual confidence to the test. Even if they don't fool us, it is clear that this happens because we are trying our best not to be fooled, which is not the average behavior people have in front of the TV and especially in front of the news.
You're right, Nonho. That's it exactly; not about being "smart" at all but where we focus our visual attention. When pre-alerted in any way, we are of course looking for an anomaly but thereby miss how many ball passes were actually made — it's virtually impossible to do both at once in a single viewing.
... When we analyze a 9/11 video we can watch it all the times we want, and eventually spot all the traces of fakery -- but the point was to create something to fool most of the people when shown that one time in the right emotional context. And with news-people acting like magicians, attracting our attention away from crucial details, it gets even harder to fight the packaged psychological weapon lobbed in our direction.

Personally I am not at all surprised that "smart" people are fooled because this is obviously a science -- propaganda is a science to fool people. It should be forbidden, and the people using it should be thrown in jail.
I agree, unfortunately those who can will continue to use our naturally selective perceptions (necessary for optimum, practical effectiveness in time and space) to their own advantage. <_<
lux
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Re: Why are smart people fooled

Unread post by lux »

The above video is interesting but I don't think it's about attention or perception but rather misdirection which is something else.

If you remove the trick at the beginning (the instruction to pay attention to certain motions) and show the video to people I doubt anyone would miss the gorilla. It's only the misdirection trick at the beginning that causes viewers to miss it, not the content or motions contained in the video.

I'm not saying that average people aren't easy to fool or that they are or aren't perceptive -- it's just that that video is really about misdirection, not attention or perception.

When I was a kid I was a performing stage magician and took the craft quite seriously at the time. Misdirection is a big part of "magic" but it is a deliberate trick and a form of subterfuge. It relies on certain perception habits that most people have but the funny thing is that misdirection works much better on adults than it does on children. One of the hardest things for a magician to do is perform for children because they haven't yet learned the bad habits that misdirection takes advantage of.
Maat
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Re: Why are smart people fooled

Unread post by Maat »

Yes Lux, I agree that misdirection is definitely the key there (and especially for magicians). But what about when no specific direction (of where to focus) is given, like the "Movie Perception Tests" or the "Gradual Change Test"?
reel.deal
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Re: Why are smart people fooled

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full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVlJv7ZkvGA

B)
hoi.polloi
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Re: Why are smart people fooled

Unread post by hoi.polloi »

Hilarious. :P
fbenario
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Re: Why are smart people fooled

Unread post by fbenario »

What a bunch of nice guys we're up against.
"War for Total Control

The Global Power Elite know full well what they are doing whilst most people don't, and they will do everything in their power to keep it that way. Here, then, are two global armies pitted against each other. "In this corner..." a tiny but extremely powerful elite controlling a huge machine to their benefit and our enslavement. "In that corner...", gigantic masses of mostly unaware people using that same machine but without understanding it, nor realising what it's really being used for.

It is today so embedded into society that, increasingly, every aspect of our lives are controlled by it: whether it be work done on the Internet, Intranets, E-Trade, managing your bank account, reserving your next flight and printing your boarding pass, doing research and fact-finding, or just plain entertainment and whiling the time away. It's a coin of which we are systematically shown only the "heads" side, i.e., all the benefits, magic, comfort and advantages of being hooked-in and on-line. "Life is so much easier now..." However, we're not shown the "tail" side that poses a dark and lurking danger: Total Control. The Info Cybersphere represents a super-structure for total control against which individuals can do little to escape from, unless awareness dawns on them.

The key weapon wielded against all peoples in every country is PsyWar – Psychological Warfare – that has successfully: (a) incorporated two, maybe three billion people into the IT Cybersphere allowing growing partial/total control over them, and (b) persuaded billions of people to willingly accept this. The rest of Mankind – the other 3 or 4 billion are "useless eaters" as David Rockefeller once called them – just don't count because they're too abjectly poor and are not part of any "market"; there's literally nothing the Corporate Overworld can sell to them. Thus, they are implicitly earmarked for controlled extermination over the next generation through war, disease, starvation, urban violence, environmental contamination, artificially induced "natural" disasters, or by just plain letting them waste away."

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28956
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