Social Manipulation and Engineering

We allow ourselves to be manipulated in order to do what someone else wants. Usually for profit or convenience. Political ads cost a lot of money and the reason is to sway our opinion.

We hear about social engineering with someone trying to get information in order to perpetuate some sort of fraud. They hack into computers after sending phishing emails or befriending people on social networking sites to get information. But this is just a updated version of the old con games.

Even Charles Dickens wrote about financial schemes in his novels where a seemingly well heeled person pretended to invest money for others and led to their ruin. It starts with the social manipulation. Everyone is more comfortable with people they trust. They trust certain types, including relatives, friends, religious peers, leaders, rich people and famous people. Advertisers give contracts to the famous to sell their products, which gets them more business than some average Joe. Even the fraudsters in Dickens novels went to great effort to look prosperous to their victims. The most famous ponzi schemer to date Bernie Madoff was able to manipulate people into giving him their money for years based on his status and reputation.

Not all manipulation is bad. If you can save a life or help someone by changing their behavior this is considered good.

This was a old 19th century nautical term meaning to tell a very embellished fanciful story. A yarn is a long tale. The sailors wove points of facts and points of fiction in their stories. During long voyages this was one way to occupy their time. It also means to make rope by spinning the untwisted yarns of rope fiber.

The meaning now is pretty much the same. Someone tells a story and twists it to give an intended interpretation. For instance it could be used to explain away an infraction. The audience of the tale would determine if they believed it to be spinning a yarn or a fantastic truth.

To tell a story with a particular slant or point of view. What is being told is not totally unbiased or pure fact. Particulars might be left out or added and given a specific interpretation. This will be done with a specific purpose in mind.

Many things that are written about and passed around as truth are anything but. They seemed to have been misrepresented in the past then got legs. There are probably all kinds of reasons as to in this day and age why it happens. Part of the reason in some cases is the air of authority about who tells the story. I remember when I was in high school and a teacher told the class this "true story'" in the end it happened to be one of the well worn ghost story urban legends of the day. Because it was from a teacher who swore it was true, gave it more credence than it would have normally gotten.

It's amazing that people will swear that certain things are true, that they heard it from a good friend, a very reliable source only to retell a long recycled and sometimes updated urban legend. One thing though about some urban legends. They are cautionary tales to warn you about certain careless and risky behaviors.

Many times we think we know the truth about a subject. Many things that are often repeated becomes fact. A lot of history is based on no eye witnesses and individual opinions. How surprised we are when we do research only to find out the truth.

Doublespeak is when the meaning of words and phrases are meant to hide the real meaning. When a job I had was downsizing and firing people. What they said was that they were "rightsizing" thus they had to "let people go."

Reading ancient history we are at the mercy of interpreters of ancient languages. Not only do most of us not know ancient languages we are unfamiliar with their customs. Even the current day interpreters have a problem with including their values on the history that they are trying to understand. Some words have different meanings now than it did previously.

I grew up watching religious epics at the movies and on TV. These were someones visual interpretation of religious stories.They add things for a better affect and come to conclusions that are not even implied in the books.

Many people watch feel good stories about angels who were once people and walk the earth doing good. Angels who help win baseball games for people, angels who are cute cherubs and not the fierce cherubim of the Bible. I personally liked the uplifting stories but had to remind myself that this was not from any holy books but from some media persons idea of a good story.

As with stories of vampires and demons of all kind with various magical powers. The solo hero or heroine usually saves the day with special powers and some side kicks. There is usually a "chosen one" to lead the charge. I prefer to see people use their brain and cooperation with others to solve their problems. People actually believe certain things are biblical instead of Bram Stoker. But again werewolves and vampires are a part of our culture due to the proliferation of stories about them. And they even evolved to fit a new romantic ideal and the original morality story line is lost. These new vampires are a long way from the original hideous evil Nosferatu and the negative implications. Some have souls and do good deeds and help mankind. They have super powers and are not affected by garlic, holy water, crucifixes or even killer sunlight. They can see their reflection in mirrors and are actually very fashionable. They fly without even turning into a bat. They don't get sick, don't age, so what not to like? The one thing left is the blood sucking. These new vamps don't even have the fangs that we are so familiar with. But even that is somewhat conquered. They can either raid blood banks, have volunteers give up a pint or they use stored or fresh animal blood. Animal blood drinking is still edgy but not for everyone. Blood puddings and other dishes dealing with it have been consumed by humans for a long time.

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Make no mistake about it, the consumer has and continues to be widely studied. Haven't you been to science museums or played optical illusion games. These are taken very serious in marketing. We all know that $9.99 is $10.00 yet our mind has us still concentrating on the left most digit and seeing the lower number. Certain shapes appear bigger. The shape of the bottle might make it look bigger than another even though they weigh the same. We also have the incredible shrinking cans. The can of tuna looks the same as it always did but now the weight keeps getting less every time you buy it.

Most farms are large and mechanized factories so why do most of the eggs and milk we buy have pictures of bucolic looking small farms like in the past? And then there is the bright colorful pictures on the packaging.

Beauty treatment ads are very interesting. They say their product is marvelous and
makes you look wonderful, but why is the person demonstrating it so air brushed that they don't look real? How is that showing the consumer what the product can do?

Even commercials in the newspapers and television market all type of medication to the public. Even medication that is used for real medical issues can now be used for cosmetic and beauty purposes. The marketing is of course for product familiarity

Handling something makes it closer to you buying, Like putting a pen in your hand makes it easier for you to sign a contract. Why does your insurance guy want to come to your house rather than email or fax the info.

Consumers using cash will spend less than those using a credit card. Even for as long as we have been using these cards, it doesn't feel like real money. With cash you can run out or have to make sure you have enough with you.

We seem to be very impressed with products with a lot of specifications even if we don't know what they mean. We seem to think that since it's on the package it has to be important. The marketers know this and use it as a way to influence us. The best thing to do is to research what features are important to you and which are really not useful.

Media has all types of advertisements for medications and procedures. It definitely is aimed at the consumer and not the clinicians. They do this for brand recognition so you will ask your doctor about what you saw. Media tells you that you have a problem with something then tells you they have the cure. They downplay the side effects. Some of the medical news we hear about might not be totally accurate, they pick bits and pieces of early research and extrapolate as to what they want the outcome to be. The sci fi effect happens with medicine. Because we see things on television and in the movies we think medicine is more advanced then it is and might have unrealistic expectations. Media goes in trends, now everything needs green tea in it or antioxidants. The real natural foods have what they have and are not enriched with the trendy nutrients.

These are about money and power. Scammers will call your house or email you trying to get your information. The prankster will try and convince you that your reality is different than it really is. This is to get you to do certain ridiculous things. There were previous pranks on fast food workers where they called up saying they were from the corporate headquarters and tell the workers to do a bunch of really bizarre things. A few refused but others did as they were told. There is one going around where someone calls visitors in hotel rooms telling them they are the front desk and again tells them they are in danger and to do very destructive things to the room to prevent injury. Many comply and in the end cause major damage. How are people going to act if there is real danger and real authorities call with instructions.

We have lost track of the seasons. How can the end of August be the last weekend of "summer". As we all should know summer ends on September 21. In New York school would begin around the second week in September. They would always tell us at the end of the school year, "see you in the fall." Of course it should be see you in "late summer." If teachers can't get it right how should students. Labor day is the end of the summer vacation commercial season, but the summer season continues on till the 21 of September. September is a mostly summer month but is mostly considered autumn.

The Christmas season used to start after Thanksgiving, now it is starting before Halloween. There is now a black Friday at the end of October. The decorations came out with the back to school supplies at the end of August, some before the Halloween decorations. Thanksgiving is almost forgotten.

Not long ago in a area near me there was a store that sold the most delicious fresh baked low calorie muffins. There they were lined up, all with the fat, caloric and probably cholesterol content on little placards of their food items. People said they went there specifically because of how good the muffins tasted and the fact that they were low calorie. Well someone didn't believe the signs (probably someone who bakes). They had the muffins tested and found out all the numbers were malarkey. The local news media confronted the shop manager and they gave some convoluted answer saying it was a honest mistake. In the end they said they would be more careful in how they label there products.

When the skeptic was asked why was there suspicion about the food. The answer was that it didn't taste like low calorie. One of the reasons people like highly fat and sugary foods is the taste. Low calorie foods can be good but usually there is a difference in taste.

Recently I read a woman was attacked in a parking lot at a mall in broad daylight. While she was fighting valiantly for her life there were people witnessing the attack. She finally fought him off and he fled. One of the bystanders came over to apologize. The reason he said he didn't help was because he thought it was a joke. People don't react now naturally to their environment because of many factors, one is that they might be on T.V. Or it might be a joke and they don't want to look foolish. So put cameras there and anything can happen uninterrupted.

We as a society are impressed with technology. The problem with technology is we might not know how things work and our decisions are clouded by that. We are left to depend on experts to explain things to us. What they explain might be true or a bunch of hooey. Another problem is whether the technology is accurate. Any piece of equipment needs upkeep and calibrations in order to be accurate. Just because it spews out data doesn't mean the data is correct or really means anything important. Also there is the human element. If the person using the equipment is not properly trained than there could be a problem.

There is something I consider the sci fi effect . We read books, magazines watch movies and television that depicts fantasy stories. The stories take more than artistic license. Some are purely science fiction, operative word is fiction. We hear the words and see the actions so often some people really think they exist. What happens is the world we live in is less advanced than some think it is. Snake oil salesmen know this and try to sell technology that doesn't exist in the real world.

People have spent many years in jail on misrepresented science. They didn't always know that some people have more than one type of DNA. Fingerprint reading and arson forensics are a learned skill and if the so-called experts are ill trained then people can be accused of crimes when they are innocent. Coroners in many areas are not even doctors. Lay people who make up a jury can be manipulated into thinking that the science is more advanced than it really is and that these people know what they are talking about.