Manipulation, Lies, Propaganda, Opinions and Beliefs

Definitions:

Lies

A lie is the intentional act of conveying information assumed to be false, regardless of whether the information is actually true. The key element is the speaker’s perception of its falsity.

Facts/Actualities

Objective information or events that have occurred. Facts exist independently of interpretation, perception, or perspective – they are what actually happened, not someone’s account, observation, recall, or description.

Manipulation

The intentional act of influencing someone’s decisions or actions without their full awareness or understanding of the manipulator’s intent.

Propaganda

The deliberate effort to shape people’s thoughts or actions to align with specific goals, often without their full awareness of the intended consequences. It may involve truths, “half-truths”, or outright lies to persuade individuals toward a particular outcome.

Truthful information

Information can be broadly categorized into two types: information you provide yourself and information received from external sources. For example, if you say, “I dropped the stone,” and you actually did, that is truthful information. However, if someone else says, “He dropped the stone,” it becomes a statement referring to an event that may or may not have occurred. Even if they witnessed the event, their perception could be flawed due to human limitations – our minds can ignore sensory details, misinterpret what we observe due to the lack of complete information, or fill in gaps with visualized elements.
As a result, nearly all information exists on a spectrum of truthfulness rather than being completely true or entirely false. The validity of a statement can increase with supporting evidence and logical arguments, but reaching an absolute truth requires an extraordinary amount of corroborating data. In most cases, achieving a definitive, unquestionable truth is an impractical goal when assessing the validity of any information or claim, so each proof or additional piece of information can only serve as making the statements/conclusions more true or more false.

Agenda

[TODO] can be true, but mostly not all the information in order to force the conclusions in a certain direction

Why people crave to be manipulated

As explained in this article about sensory recall people increasingly avoid logical thinking and instead rely on direct access to the information. This behavior favors repeated or highly interconnected data, which the brain, based on how it works, can access more easily. This tendency pushes logic – evaluating information based on what you already know – aside. Over thousands of years, this trend has led to the widespread acceptance and abundance of flawed information being all around us. Even if we attempt to analyze it logically, we often fail because it’s impossible to reach a correct conclusion based on such initial data, leaving people to seek alternative ways to assess and assign value to the information they receive (and the conclusions their reach or agree upon). Common approaches include:

• Trusting sources with perceived authority (e.g., TV reporters, influencers, teachers, or public figures)
• Interpreting superficial signs (e.g., body language) as proof of honesty or dishonesty (even if these are signs of something completely different in actuality)
• Relying on someone’s confidence/believes as a proxy for credibility
• Using repeated exposure to information as a substitute for validation

Regardless of the source, information is either accurate or inaccurate, in whole or in part. The origin of the information does not determine its validity, but can only aid in its assessment.

For instance, when someone looks up to their left (a sign of visualizing something, in most cases), it is often interpreted as indication of truthfulness. However, visualizing – even when attempting to recall a past event – does not confirm the accuracy of the memory, the validity of the information or the person’s intent, whether they aim to share accurate information, actual conclusion based or their relevant knowledge or to deliberately deceive.

[TODO] missing gestures from my side, why and how it’s perceived

[TODO] Also, it seems the current evolution of organisms to rely on other sensory information but visual (because visual information is not an actual property of the object, but how it interacts with another object – the photon, and thus life has evolved to rely more on other cues like auditory or olfactory. Currently if you do experiments [TODO add links] you may see how people almost instantly catch any deviations from their expectations if the auditory or olfactory information does not match, but in most cases ignore such conflicts if the information came from the visual sensors. [TODO possible reasons why and how]

So, in a world where people are unable to draw conclusions from the information they possess – due to the avoidance of logical thinking and reliance on flawed data – they turn to alternatives, non-logical forms of validation to assess the credibility of that information. Examples follow below.

A few approaches to achieve manipulation

Fear/negativity

Creating fear or emphasizing negative outcomes encourages emotional responses over rational thinking. Fear bypasses logic, making people more likely to accept proposed solutions or information, regardless of its validity. This is due to how life evolved – in order for something to survive (being it a single cell organism or multicellular like animals and humans) – it needs to avoid anything that can cause it harm or impede its survival, thus any such source is a powerful stimuli to do something else.

Validation by the numbers

if a lot of people are saying/believing something people tend to follow and accept it as true. This “sheep”-like behavior, though rooted in the evolution with a lot of benefits, they are not suited for society full of individuals that don’t mind exploiting or harming anyone else if it’ll be in their own benefit

List statement after statement

Seeking a “common ground” (confirmation bias) by presenting a list of statements until you can reach one to agree upon – often without any proof or evidence – is a common tactic to build a sense of trust. This approach discourages skepticism and logical thinking, as people tend to accept the entire list without scrutinizing each point. This happens not because logical thinking is inherently more taxing but because people have grown accustomed to relying on sensory recall and familiar patterns of thought. Additionally, genuine logical conclusions often conflict with widely accepted ideas, making people more inclined to bypass deeper analysis.

Sounds good, but means nothing

Using vague, feel-good language or slogans appeals to emotions while lacking substantive meaning. Phrases like “We need change” or “For the greater good” sound agreeable but are open to interpretation, enabling the manipulator to steer the narrative as desired as this achieve a sense of “common ground” and eases or removes the need of proof of the next information and conclusions.

Overloading with information

Bombarding someone with excessive data creates cognitive fatigue, reducing their ability to analyze critically. This makes them more likely to accept the manipulator’s conclusions without question. This is mainly due to the reliance on the habit of sensory recall as without it each piece of information is logically connected with everything you know so far, and if a conflict arises – it’s obvious right away and does not cause additional fatigue.

Appealing to authority

Citing experts or authority figures, regardless of the relevance, accuracy or correctness of their opinions, theories or conclusions, lends perceived credibility. People are less likely to question information if it appears to have institutional or expert backing. Again, due to the habit of reliance upon received information instead of logical evaluation of it.

Make them invest in you

[TODO] no matter how small. Due to children/species survival

Beliefs

Anybody can use the word “believe”. No one is forced to only use it for things that are actually true or probable or good. Its use, especially when accompanied by evidence, can inadvertently validate its use in contexts where no proof or reasoning is provided. This blurs the line between factual information, valid conclusions, and outright falsehoods, manipulations, or egotistical claims, making it harder for people to distinguish between them.

So what does it mean to believe in something – it means to be lacking evidence and logic support that validates the statement, but still accepting it as 100% and even more – due to the lack of proof – people often try to make others accept/agree with their beliefs as a form of validation – on both the statement and the self-esteem of the person.

[TODO rewrite] People don’t and can’t know anything – for instance they can see a plane fly and yet not know how it does it, so they assume that the fact that they can’t think of a reason/solution does not mean it can be done – thus, they assume that anything is possible even when they (or anyone else they know of) can not reason how it could be possible. So, people use their inability to explain something as a proof that anything is possible.

For example, many scientists might say, “I believe these are the results of the study,” or “I believe this is what the data shows,” instead of stating, “The study results are…” or “This is what the data shows.” While these individuals may base their conclusions on data, experiments, and logical reasoning, their phrasing can unintentionally reinforce the legitimacy of others using “believe” to support claims without evidence or logical basis.

Why people use this word and practice

• Habit and peer conformity
• Inability to accurately predict outcomes – people often struggle to evaluate situations beyond a binary perspective – things are perceived as either true or false, possible or impossible, with little consideration for the spectrum in between. However, reality is far more nuanced. For instance, as explained in these examples of perspective and probabilities, the likelihood of absolute outcomes (0% or 100%) diminishes as complexity increases. At the level of fundamental forces of nature, events are nearly guaranteed to occur as expected due to the lack of external variables. However, as systems grow more complex – encompassing protons, atoms, molecules, objects, and living beings – the sheer number of internal and external factors makes achieving a 0% or 100% guaranteed outcome practically impossible.
• Again, inability to accurately and logically assess the information

Opinions

Anybody who has the ability to communicate (verbal or nonverbal) can say exactly anything. Our biology does not limit our ability to speak, write or gesture certain words or ideas and thus when people usually say “everyone has a right to an opinion” is practically meaningless. An opinion by definition is not an argumented or reasoned conclusion, it’s not a statement of fact, it’s not a valid theory – in most cases an opinion is the way a person wants/feels something is or isn’t, usually based on limited information that is most often biased or based on nothing at all.

[TODO]
– to not be opinion a statement needs explanation/proof/arguments
– to not be opinion the person should be able to withdraw (realize it’s false) if counter argument is given that he/she can’t argue against
– a statement (argumented or not) does not provide truth, but something more true than the current information

Why and how are we predisposed to manipulations and addictions

[TODO]

[TODO Humane?]

Herd mentality

[TODO] gathering all relative information is not only almost always impossible, but time consuming and this behavior probably evolved to allow individual animals to benefit from the actions of others, but this was before intentions could’ve been misleading and with a deviant intent

[TODO]

Idolization, Conformity, Influencers and compliancy

The complexity of an organism’s behavioral repertoire tends to increase with its size and the extent of its interaction with the environment. While simple organisms, such as bacteria, may exhibit basic behaviors primarily focused on resource acquisition and reproduction, larger and more complex organisms require a broader range of adaptive strategies. For example, a fox must master intricate motor skills, such as locomotion and vocalization, as well as complex social behaviors, including concealment, threat displays, dominance assertion, and courtship rituals. Given the complexity and potential risks associated with acquiring these behaviors through individual trial and error, social learning, particularly imitation of conspecific adults (e.g., parents), represents an efficient and adaptive strategy for acquiring essential skills and behaviors.

While social learning through imitation is an efficient mechanism for acquiring fundamental skills and behaviors, reliance on mimicry beyond the initial stages of development may increase susceptibility to manipulation. After acquiring a foundational understanding of the environment, the development of independent thinking becomes crucial. Over-reliance on mimicry can impede the development of actual thought and decision-making, potentially rendering individuals vulnerable to manipulation. Therefore, a shift from imitative learning to thinking is essential for all intelligent life.

Some examples

[TODO EXAMPLES]
– doctors recommending cigarettes (like the Marlboro videos)
– “this is impossible” (for instance Mercedes CEO claims on EV trucks)
– article titles that say one thing, but in the article there isn’t any proof of it at all or the opposite is proven
– smear campaigns
– individual’s titles like “doctor”, “professor”, “P.E.” and so on.. Used so that the information/conclusions they provides needs as little proof or explanation, or not even at all, as possible
– add references to current, probably unintentional, acts of spreading propaganda/manipulations. For instance in Russian-Ukranian war and/or trump
– add example for Musk falling for such practices and heavily contributing
– One Hundred Authors Against Einstein was published in 1931. When asked to comment on this denunciation of relativity by so many scientists, Einstein replied that to defeat relativity one did not need the word of 100 scientists, just one fact. (source)