
Invisible Manipulators of the Mind - Vigier
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/04/20/kahneman-tversky-invisible-mind-manipulators/
======
nkurz
Kahneman recently (Feb 2017) wrote an online response addressing the
replication issues being experienced by some of the studies that form the
basis of Thinking Fast and Slow. It's one of the best responses to criticism
I've ever read:
[https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/2017/02/02/reconstruc...](https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-
of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/#comment-1454)

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notgood
Bah, the creators of those "invisible manipulators" have a mind just as weak
as the people they are trying to manipulate; Trump's fear mongering and proud-
of-his-own-stupidity personality is by itself a result of a culture that
rewards narcissism and sees money as a measure of success, regardless of how
many unethical things you did to get it.

Also, humans have been doing this for millenniums already, making you believe
not one but hundreds of irrational stories of what you must do and think, it's
called religion. And it's so successful that people are coerced into not being
critical of them by fear of being labeled as "intolerant" or "fascist" or any
other big bad word; it's so successful they don't even have to pay taxes
regardless of generating millions of dollars for its headmasters. It's so
successful that most Americans wouldn't even consider voting for an Atheist
for president[0]

[0] [http://www.people-press.org/2014/05/19/for-2016-hopefuls-
was...](http://www.people-press.org/2014/05/19/for-2016-hopefuls-washington-
experience-could-do-more-harm-than-good/)

~~~
losteric
Blame the politicians that set our nation's education priorities and funding.
Our K-12 system is geared towards churning out 20th century employees, not
educated citizens.

The entire education system, including college / trade schools / internships,
warrants refactoring for the 21st century.

~~~
MaxfordAndSons
Oh it's already getting refactored all right... but not towards the end of
educated citizens.

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jonathanstrange
The article is long but fairly interesting, repeating much of what Kahneman
said in _Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow_. But I have a few comments.

What is called 'nudging' in the political and policy making sphere and
portrayed positively is really the same as what advertisers and salesmen have
been doing for many decades and even centuries, and Kahneman has pointed that
out, too, of course.

However, "Libertarian Paternalism" is a misnomer for several reasons. First,
"libertarianism" is a highly misleading, US-centric label for certain brands
of liberalism. It's not a coherent political position and instead used by very
different people ranging from the right-wing authoritarian to the right-wing
liberal spectrum to endorse a diffuse and internally inconsistent mix of
cherry-picked elements of classical liberalism, general anti-federal
government sentiments and individual anarchism. Second, there is not much
liberal about nudging, since the the whole idea of nudging is to influence
people to do the 'right thing' by exploiting flaws and heuristics in their
decision making abilities, thereby limiting their actual choices. Real freedom
of choice requires the people to be well-informed and educated well enough
that the slow system can kick in. It's an old trick to ascribe some 'de jure'
choice that in reality does not amount to any real choices for various social
and external reasons, and then claim that people are free to choose whatever
they want. This has already been criticized in depth by Amartya Sen.

In the end, whether ads, propaganda, and nudging are acceptable or not hinges
pretty much on a moral evaluation of the goals of the nudger and the
circumstances and level of influence a group gains over another. There is
nothing wrong with making people slow down their car by subtle hints on the
driveway, so they don't accidentally run over children in an urban housing
zone. In other areas such as voting I cannot find anything positive about
nudging, since the fate of one's country should always be based on decisions
that are rational and as well-informed as possible, i.e., made primarily on
the basis of the slow system.

One (but not the only) criterion for distinguishing good and nefarious uses of
advertising/nudging is whether the person is lied to or not. Lying to people
in order to achieve a desirable outcome is generally unacceptable, according
to what many if not most people think, and I agree with them. There may be
exceptions under unusual circumstances, but generally I expect my policy
makers to take me as an adult individual and only put up a sign "Beware shark
attacks" whenever there is an actual danger of shark attacks.

~~~
sfRattan
>First, "libertarianism" is a highly misleading, US-centric label for certain
brands of liberalism. It's not a coherent political position and instead used
by very different people ranging from the right-wing authoritarian to the
right-wing liberal spectrum to endorse a diffuse and internally inconsistent
mix of cherry-picked elements of classical liberalism, general anti-federal
government sentiments and individual anarchism.

I'll give you that "libertarian" is an Americanism. But I'd remind you that
the term became necessary because the term "liberal" was co-opted by left
leaning politicians, FDR chief among them, and is now used in American
politics where "social democrat" would be used in Europe and much of the rest
of the world. And, insofar as any big-tent political movement can be
internally consistent at all, "libertarians" in the United States are leagues
beyond the Republican shotgun wedding of traditional religious social mores
with unfettered corporatism and the Democrat morass of supposedly aggrieved
parties jockeying for better position in the pecking order of protected
groups. Even to the extend that libertarians disagree with each other, we're
able to work together because the state has grown to such an extent that our
internal differences pale in comparison to that commonly identified problem.

Separately, a more strict criterion for distinguishing the good nudges from
the nefarious ones might be: do people who become aware of the nudging object
to its happening after some contemplation? (i.e. is there an objection
emerging from the "slow" system two?)

~~~
Xixi
I think the American use of "liberal" comes from social liberalism [1], which
is certainly to the left of classical liberalism. In Europe "liberal" is more
traditionally use to mean classical liberalism, hence the discrepancy. But
both usages seem proper to me.

That said, we've been hearing about social liberalism quite a lot over the
last few months in France. The left tends to brand itself as socialist, so
"social democrat" and "social liberal" are rather foreign to our traditional
political scene. But it is changing fast: the current president, Hollande, is
now usually depicted as a social democrat by the media, and the soon to become
president (according to the current polls [2]) Macron is usually depicted as a
social liberal.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism)

[2] At this point in time it seems hard to imagine that he would not win. But
of course things can change very quickly:
[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_sondages_sur_l%27%C3%...](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_sondages_sur_l%27%C3%A9lection_pr%C3%A9sidentielle_fran%C3%A7aise_de_2017#/media/File:Evolution_des_intentions_de_vote_%C3%A0_l%27%C3%A9lection_pr%C3%A9sidentielle_2017.png)

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jnsaff2
After the disaster of Flash Boys I really don't trust what he writes anymore.
I read Boomerang and The Big Short and they were fascinating but, after Flash
Boys was debunked to hell I have a suspicion that he is one of the writers
that is writing for big bucks and not truth. Someone who can captivate an
audience but is actually harming understanding of the world instead of
advancing it.

~~~
beagle3
Can you give a link to a debunking of Flash Boys that are you referring to?

~~~
jnsaff2
It's been discussed on HN a lot [0] but the goto book is Flash Boys Not So
Fast[1]

[0]
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=flash%20boys%20not%20so%20fast...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=flash%20boys%20not%20so%20fast&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=all)

[1] [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23570025-flash-
boys](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23570025-flash-boys)

