And here, ladies and gents, we've gone a tad too far.
It is okay to not like what someone has done, and right now we can talk about it. But some decorum is still called for. Bring it back a few steps, please.
Looks like someone enjoyed her time in jail
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And here, ladies and gents, we've gone a tad too far.
It is okay to not like what someone has done, and right now we can talk about it. But some decorum is still called for. Bring it back a few steps, please.
Raloc
First Post
You don't find psychological manipulation to be nefarious? I would say that's your failing, not mine.
Regardless of how you feel about the government conducting psychological manipulation on citizens without their knowledge or consent (not even remotely ethical, and by definition, is nefarious) Kim whatever is a distraction from more important issues, and giving her the limelight for literally months over what amounts to a total non-issue outside of her podunk locality, is simply playing into that.
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tomBitonti
Hero
That is one bizarre executive order.
"By executive order, all class rooms are to use erasers with their chalk boards, as these have been shown to extend the useful lifetime of the chalk boards."
Psychology and behavioral science, has been used for government propaganda, both good and bad, since forever.
Thx!
TomB
Technically, he asked about whether the motivation was nefarious, not whether the tool itself was nefarious. Reading over that executive order, most of it isn't "psychological manipulation". It is more like "effective User Experience and marketing".
They talk, for example of having an agency consider "how the timing, frequency, presentation, and labeling of benefits, taxes, subsidies, and other incentives can more effectively and efficiently promote" people to save money, or complete education programs.
That's totally nefarious!
You don't like the idea that the government should prepare its materials and presentations based n how people actually think and take in information? You would prefer they remain *ignorant* of real human behavior when trying to serve the populace?
Even the most basic of e-mail marketers today count the rates at which you open e-mails, and how often you click through to the website, and how often you purchase something, so they can figure out what presentations work, and what don't. You think that the government should avoid availing themselves of that kind of information?
Raloc
First Post
And you don't think it's nefarious to treat citizens as little more than disposable resources to be marketed to, rather than performing their actual role, which is to provide services for said citizens.
Psychological manipulation is not a useful service, except to fascists, and should not be conducted in this fashion, no. If you are incapable of understanding such a concept, that's really not my problem.
Kramodlog
Naked and living in a barrel
That is not what the order says. Read it again.
What it is saying is that, for example, "default settings" of programs and policies should be changed. Instead of having people opting in a program as the default setting, people should be enrolled automatically and opting out should be the option.
People can make terrible choices in life for various reasons. Sometimes because of ignorance, sometimes its laziness, sometimes just bad info, etc. The book Nudge presents the reasons why people make bad choices all the time. Just changing the defaults of programs helps people make better choices while preserving liberty of choice.
The book sites among varous example a governmental retirement plan in Sweden. From memory, the government gave people money to invest in retirement plans. People got to choose their portfolio from the various ones the private sector created for the public. If someone didn't choose any portfolio, the governement had expert make a portfolio for those people as the default setting instead of not investing the money at all. The governement understood that for various reasons people didn't always take care of their retirement as they should and that some people wouldn't take the time to choose a vehicule to invest their moneuy. This is better than not investing the money at all (don't you agree?), but it also turned out that people who used the governement's portfolio had a better return on their investments than 97%* of the people who choose their portfolio. People aren't great at making choices when it comes to investments because of biases, lack of education on investments, superstition, lack of experience in the investment sector, etc.
Of course, feel free to panick and see nefarious conspiracies were there aren't any.
*From memory.
Homicidal_Squirrel
Adventurer
Depends on how you define psychological manipulation.
I'd say you failed to understand the purpose and scope of the executive order. Maybe you should read it again. It's not as scary and evil as you think.
It seems you also fail to see how it affects people in her "podunk locality." A crime is a crime regardless of where it takes place, and a violation of people's constitutional rights should not be swept aside and ignored because you don't feel it affects a significant enough number of people or occurs in a insignificant and small town.
The order basically boils down to telling agencies to make effective use of known behavioral science to improve the efficiency and quality of services being offered. IOW, experiential marketing.
That can mean a lot of things: using diffused lighting to soften shadows and minimize harshness, reducing eyestrain and overall stress- great for an agency's waiting room. Certain color combinations- like black/white/red- are high in contrast and attract attention- perfect for labeling key signage. Narrow aisles between tables or shelves have been shown to increase agitation and significantly minimize the amount of time spent browsing, so an agency that distributes a lot of fliers might want to make sure the space near those distribution points are free of clutter.
A personal acknowledgement of your presence within a minute or so of arrival has been shown to greatly improve the experiences of customers.
Etc.
That can mean a lot of things: using diffused lighting to soften shadows and minimize harshness, reducing eyestrain and overall stress- great for an agency's waiting room. Certain color combinations- like black/white/red- are high in contrast and attract attention- perfect for labeling key signage. Narrow aisles between tables or shelves have been shown to increase agitation and significantly minimize the amount of time spent browsing, so an agency that distributes a lot of fliers might want to make sure the space near those distribution points are free of clutter.
A personal acknowledgement of your presence within a minute or so of arrival has been shown to greatly improve the experiences of customers.
Etc.
To echo HS, the constitutional right to marry is NOT trivial. That this is playing out primarily in a small municpality is immaterial: there are literally dozens if not hundreds of similar battles being fought right now across the nation. Hers is just the worst exemplar to date. Other like-minded government officials are STILL trying various tactics to deny marriage equality, including "judicial nullification".
You may not realize it, but this is affecting hundreds of thousands of Americans right now, with millions awaiting final affirmation of their equality.
I think that, in the process of providing services to citizens, they must *interact* with the citizens - there is information to be distributed, choices to be made, and so on. I think that ought to be done taking the reality of human nature into account. I would like the government's approaches to things be reality-based.
I don't think there is anything about, "treating citizens as little more than disposable resources," anywhere in that order. I think that is something you are inserting, not found in the text.
Understanding human psychology is useful in determining what services you should offer, and how to present them and design processes around them so that people understand what is being offered, make well-informed choices, and can easily get the services they need.
The irony being - if they had a better handle on human behavior, they might have been able to present this order in a way that would more likely avoid reactions like the one you're displaying here.
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