Yes I sit here cowering waiting for the end of the world….again. Yet another prediction of the end of the world is being used to drive people into a direction they normally would not go into. Time and time again there is someone using fear and desperation to try to get you to think the way they want you to. While this tactic works in the short term after a while it is no longer effective. So there has to be a bigger disaster to fear in order to control your behavior.
Over my lifetime I have seen it quite a bit. In the 1960’s we had to fear the evil communists. In the 70’s it was an impending ice age. The the 80’s well to be honest disco was scary. In the 90’s it was drug cartels. Then Y2K. Then global warming. Now…again the end is near and fear is the driving force for change.
The reason is simple. It is so easy to bend your biological prediction mechanism into getting you to think the worse. This taps into the primal brain survival mechanism to get you to react without thinking. If they can bypass your thinking brain then they can push you like lemmings right off of the cliff.
We like into call this carrot and stick persuasion and it eventually backfires. The reason is that your brain adapts. In order to get you to react next time they need to generate more fear. Then you adapt again and they need more fear. Fear generates instant learning by getting you brain to react to a situation that is very novel and also very emotional.
Just like jellyfish floating with the current, people get pushed by their emotions and end up in places hey never thought they would. If I can get you to think the earth is warming up and then lead you into a prediction of how that is going to affect the world then you will start playing that prediction in your brain and it will bypass your rational thinking brain. If I can get you to see a terrorist behind every tree I can get you to gladly accept a cavity search before every flight.
You just have to keep beating people into submission every time you want them to do something. It is exhausting for them and you.
Real persuasion involves something much easier. It allows the illusion of choice while they voluntarily
do what you want them to do ….gladly. Why? Because you do something the fear driven persuaders cannot do. You understand..You deliver value. You make them feel good about what you have.
How can you do that? Stay tuned…. Big announcement in a few days.
PS I an in a car traveling home after a week at the beach so forgive any sloppy typing 🙂
BRAVO, it’s like approximately every ten years now, the’res a end of the world for people to be aware of and react to. Funny how it’s always just before everything goes to hell, that’s when a shit load of useless information comes out to try and back up these doomsday claims. I for one think, we should make this a holiday, every ten or so years we should have a celebration for doomsday. This issue is going to be brought up again, so why not have some fun with it, lets party and have fun and feel good with this. And if ever a day should come, we would be so used to celebrating it as a good thing that no one would care.. *HAPPY DOOMSDAY TOM AND KIM* AND A MERRY DOOMSDAY TO ALL =)