“Is it really so easy to manage the expectations of people?”, I Asked. He began to expand on what he said before.
“Yes it is. It has been for some time. Not just through market incentives, but also through newspapers, television, and textbooks. We have shaped the information and culture, which people are exposed to. They believe they are making their own choices about how to live, but we have presented all the choices to them through the media.”
“Now with social networking, it’s become much easier to manage expectations. In the past we influence large groups of people, some of them fell through the cracks. Now, we can target people individually. People have a rather short memory. When we feed them with information that changes the past, they are much more willing to go along with the new story, rather than try to hold onto what they remember through their own experience. Patterns of social reinforcement enhances this trend. People would rather believe the official story than feel like they may be crazy or worse. The threat of exile from family and friends is too much for most people. They would rather believe what the people around them believe than to face constant ostracizing.
“The messages we create are tested on focus groups and sample populations, through A/B testing, and other forms of filtering and refinement. By the time a story is created, we know what words to emphasize and what associations to make, so that people believe the message without question. We submit the same story, in different variations, through several sources. This tailors the information to be believed by different types of people, as well as reinforcing the information by coming from multiple sources. We have also shaped language to reinforce the messages and solidify the beliefs. Instead of using the word capitalism, we say democracy. Therefor tying democracy to capitalism.”
It was becoming clearer to me how easy it is to manipulate people. I had learned some of this in college, but he made it sound much simpler than my professors had. He must have interpreted the look on my face, and my silence, as confusion, because he sighed and started giving me an example. He often assumed that I did not understand what he is talking about.
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