Imagine you’re in a room and it starts to fill with smoke. It’s just a little at first but you can see it creeping in through the vents. The other people with you in the room seem unalarmed. When you point it out to them, they just shrug their shoulders. Soon, the air is thick with the smoke and you can no longer clearly see the other people. You appeal to them again but still, nothing. They respond with indifference. They seem completely fine with the situation. What do you do?
Excellent. The final paragraph sums it nicely. We were taught to rely on the government, the media, the medical system, the police, etc, for everything. Now they are all telling us that something is good when we know in our hearts it is not. Trust your gut. It has helped preserve humanity for millennia. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck!
The piece missing from this is fear. Many people are conditioned from an early age to fear the reactions of other people. It's not just 'going along with the crowd', It's 'what will the crowd do to me if I object?' This is so unconscious in most people that they would strongly deny having any fear if challenged on it. But you see this time and time again in life. People do things because they are afraid of what the group might do to them if they resist. The more people who appear to agree on something, the more of a risk it is for one person to disagree. Usually there have to be reassurances or structures in place to protect them before they will take that risk. It makes sense if you think about it, that individuals alone will not risk going against the crowd.
The most disturbing scenes are those of people collapsing after the jab, clearly getting anaphylactic reaction. And yet people around are still sitting on their chairs waiting for their jab like nothing happened!! It’s mind boggling. I’d be the first to run out of that room the moment I saw such thing (if you ever find me in that room to begin with), but people still wait for their jab regardless of the clear evidence of danger to their own existence. Unfathomable...
Dear Damian, very good article on this important subject - I'd like to translate into german and publish it on my Blog (www.laufpass.com) - setting links to your substack-page. ok4U? Kind regards, wolfgang
This reminds me of the experiment in the Doctors waiting room, I think I saw it on YouTube. A bell went off, and the paid actors stood up and then sat down again. After the third bell the other people in the room stood up for the bell too, then as the paid actors trickled out of the waiting room (having been called for 'appointments') they wanted to see what happened. It continued. And it continued, and continued, nobody asked what they were doing, or why.
More than this, not only are the people in the room ignoring the danger they are actively screaming at you to do so as well and vilifying you if you dare to object. It’s no wonder so many have gone against their beliefs 😢
Robert Cialdini in his book "Influence" calls this persuasion technique "social proof". It's ingrained in us look for cues from other people as to how to appropriately behave; even small kids will show less fear towards dogs when they're with other kids who don't show fear.
When uncertainty reigns, we're most likely to start looking to cues from other people. --Which, as you've pointed out, can lead to destructive behavior.
He points out that it's critical to keep this tendency in check and to not put 'social proof' into autopilot. It's pretty disconcerting that scientists and doctors are taking the vaccine en masse, despite their deep misgivings. Maybe their thinking is along the lines of "well, a lot of people are going along with this, so idk, maybe I'll suspend my judgment and play along too."
Excellent. The final paragraph sums it nicely. We were taught to rely on the government, the media, the medical system, the police, etc, for everything. Now they are all telling us that something is good when we know in our hearts it is not. Trust your gut. It has helped preserve humanity for millennia. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck!
The piece missing from this is fear. Many people are conditioned from an early age to fear the reactions of other people. It's not just 'going along with the crowd', It's 'what will the crowd do to me if I object?' This is so unconscious in most people that they would strongly deny having any fear if challenged on it. But you see this time and time again in life. People do things because they are afraid of what the group might do to them if they resist. The more people who appear to agree on something, the more of a risk it is for one person to disagree. Usually there have to be reassurances or structures in place to protect them before they will take that risk. It makes sense if you think about it, that individuals alone will not risk going against the crowd.
The most disturbing scenes are those of people collapsing after the jab, clearly getting anaphylactic reaction. And yet people around are still sitting on their chairs waiting for their jab like nothing happened!! It’s mind boggling. I’d be the first to run out of that room the moment I saw such thing (if you ever find me in that room to begin with), but people still wait for their jab regardless of the clear evidence of danger to their own existence. Unfathomable...
Dear Damian, very good article on this important subject - I'd like to translate into german and publish it on my Blog (www.laufpass.com) - setting links to your substack-page. ok4U? Kind regards, wolfgang
This reminds me of the experiment in the Doctors waiting room, I think I saw it on YouTube. A bell went off, and the paid actors stood up and then sat down again. After the third bell the other people in the room stood up for the bell too, then as the paid actors trickled out of the waiting room (having been called for 'appointments') they wanted to see what happened. It continued. And it continued, and continued, nobody asked what they were doing, or why.
More than this, not only are the people in the room ignoring the danger they are actively screaming at you to do so as well and vilifying you if you dare to object. It’s no wonder so many have gone against their beliefs 😢
Robert Cialdini in his book "Influence" calls this persuasion technique "social proof". It's ingrained in us look for cues from other people as to how to appropriately behave; even small kids will show less fear towards dogs when they're with other kids who don't show fear.
When uncertainty reigns, we're most likely to start looking to cues from other people. --Which, as you've pointed out, can lead to destructive behavior.
He points out that it's critical to keep this tendency in check and to not put 'social proof' into autopilot. It's pretty disconcerting that scientists and doctors are taking the vaccine en masse, despite their deep misgivings. Maybe their thinking is along the lines of "well, a lot of people are going along with this, so idk, maybe I'll suspend my judgment and play along too."
Hi Damian
I referenced this piece a while back in an article I co-wrote a few months ago.
May I please use the image that you used for this post?
Best Rusere