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#53 – How to detect bullshit. By Scott Berkun, August 9, 2006 Everyone lies: it’s just a question of how, when and why. From the relationship saving “yes, you do look thin in those pants” to the improbable “your table will be ready in 5 minutes”, manipulating the truth is part of the human condition. Accept it now. I’m positive that given our irrational nature and difficultly accepting tough truths, we’re collectively better off with some of our deceptions. They buffer us from each other (and from ourselves), avoid unnecessary conflicts, and keep the wonderful confusion of our psychologies tucked away from those who don’t care. White lies are the spackle of civilization, tucked into the dirty corners and crevices our necessary, but pretentiously inflexible idealisms create.

But lies, serious lies, should not be encouraged as they destroy trust, the binding force in all relationships. Why people BS: a primer Please note that in this tale nearly everyone lied. Ok, enough philosophy: lets get to detection. BS detection. Top 10 Conversation Hacks. 5 Ways To Hack Your Brain Into Awesomeness.

Much of the brain is still mysterious to modern science, possibly because modern science itself is using brains to analyze it. There are probably secrets the brain simply doesn't want us to know. But by no means should that stop us from tinkering around in there, using somewhat questionable and possibly dangerous techniques to make our brains do what we want. We can't vouch for any of these, either their effectiveness or safety. All we can say is that they sound awesome, since apparently you can make your brain... #5. So you just picked up the night shift at your local McDonald's, you have class every morning at 8am and you have no idea how you're going to make it through the day without looking like a guy straight out of Dawn of the Dead, minus the blood... hopefully.

"SLEEEEEEEEEP... uh... What if we told you there was a way to sleep for little more than two hours a day, and still feel more refreshed than taking a 12-hour siesta on a bed made entirely out of baby kitten fur? Holy Shit! 38 Ways To Win An Argument—Arthur Schopenhauer - The India Uncut Blog - India Uncut. For all of you who have ever been involved in an online debate in any way, Arthur Schopenhauer’s “38 Ways To Win An Argument” is indispensable. Most of these techniques will seem familiar to you, right from questioning the motive of a person making the argument instead of the argument itself (No. 35), exaggerating the propositions stated by the other person (No. 1) , misrepresenting the other person’s words (No. 2) and attacking a straw man instead (No. 3).

It’s a full handbook of intellectual dishonesty there. Indeed, I generally avoid online debates because they inevitably degenerate to No. 38. The full text is below the fold. Many thanks to my friend Nitin Pai for reintroducing me to it. 38 Ways To Win An Argumentby Arthur Schopenhauer 1 Carry your opponent’s proposition beyond its natural limits; exaggerate it. Phew. 120 Ways to Boost Your Brain Power. Here are 120 things you can do starting today to help you think faster, improve memory, comprehend information better and unleash your brain’s full potential. Solve puzzles and brainteasers.Cultivate ambidexterity. Use your non-dominant hand to brush your teeth, comb your hair or use the mouse. Write with both hands simultaneously. Switch hands for knife and fork.Embrace ambiguity. Learn to enjoy things like paradoxes and optical illusions.Learn mind mapping.Block one or more senses.

Readers’ Contributions Dance! Contribute your own tip! There are many, many ways to keep our brains sharp. Four Rules to Understand What Makes People Tick - Stepcase Lifehack. Breaking down human behavior into rules might seem like a gross simplification. But even with the complexities, it is easy to fall into the same mistakes. I’d argue that many heated fights, lost sales and broken hearts are caused by a few critical errors. If you make the wrong assumptions, you’ve lost before you begin. By keeping in mind these rules, you can avoid repeating the same mistakes. Rule One: People Mostly Care About Themselves People aren’t thinking about you.

I’ve used this example before but I believe it deserves repeating. Only a tiny sliver is devoted to empathy. This means that you occupy only a tiny percentage of a persons thoughts. Rule Two: People are Motivated by Selfish Altruism To say all behavior is strictly selfish would be misleading. By studying primates, researchers noticed four main categories of selfish altruism.

Dominance - Some primates will give help as a way of asserting dominance in the group. Rule Three: People Don’t Think Much Applying the Four Rules. Perfect Persuasive Messages. Craft messages that change minds using these 20 principles of persuasion, all based on established psychological research.

Perfection is hard to achieve in any walk of life and persuasion is no different. It relies on many things going just right at the crucial moment; the perfect synchronisation of source, message and audience. But even if perfection is unlikely, we all need to know what to aim for. To bring you the current series on the psychology of persuasion I’ve been reading lots of research, much more than is covered in recent posts. As I read, I noticed the same themes cropping up over and over again. Here are the most important points for crafting the perfect persuasive message, all of which have scientific evidence to back them up. Change minds You should be aware that many of these factors interact with each other. Argument strength is also critical.

Image credit: Maigh. 5 Ways To Hack Your Brain Into Awesomeness. Learn More While You Sleep So say you haven't followed that first step up there and choose to continue sleeping like other mere mortals. A very minor change in your schedule can still let you use your sleep patterns to your advantage, by making you smarter. Holy Shit, How Can I Do It? No, we're not talking about those scams where they have you put a tape recorder under your pillow and let it teach you Spanish while you're asleep.

What scientists have found out is if you need to remember a bunch of information (say, for a big exam), do NOT study right up until time for the exam. Study at least 24 hours before, and sleep on it. Note: "Sleep on it" is simply an expression. They did a study at Harvard that proved this technique works.

No, the participants who slept on it and had 24 hours for the information to fester in their brain did the best on the test, while those who only had 20 minutes did the worst. Wasting your time, nerds, go to sleep. How Does It Work? Memory is a funny thing.