2y ago

Do you feel manipulated? By whom (or by what)?

Perhaps by those around you, by your company, by your community, by society, by a government, by your Lemmy instance,... It doesn't matter.

Please describe your experiences below. (no judgment) 😎

17 comments

By op, into posting
- By you, into upvoting
We are all manipulates by our governments and companies trying to sell us things. On a smaller scale we are manipulated by the people in our lives. Even non-maliciously. Persuasion is a normal part of life.
- Sure, but usually the term manipulation has a negative connotation.
  In a sense, when my kid asks for fruit, they are manipulating me. But that's not what anyone means. They mean a kind of devious persuasion.
  
  Yes, I understand and agree. But for sake of argument.. Fundamentally, what's the difference? I try to make you believe what I want you to. Maybe I'm selling you a used car. Maybe I'm trying to have sex with you. Maybe I want you to give me a fruit.
  The government wants to justify a war, think tanks want you to support certain policies, advertisers want you to buy their product.
  I think the only real difference is scale and "maliciousness". Your kid doesn't have the capacity for large scale manipulation and his goals aren't particularly harmful. However someone like Goebbels has both the capacity and very harmful goals.
Advertising + Marketing + Influencers
I just try to avoid them all as much as possible because they foul my mood
- Now that I'm in my 40s,I cannot stand any form of marketing. It all comes across as blatant lies
- I dont watch or listen to commercials, and Ive had ad blockers in some form since the early 00s even if it was just a custom hosts file.
  I wont watch regular tv with commercials and more than half the time will turn off youtube if watching thru a smart tv if they dont allow the ad skip. If Netflix had no ad tier, I'd have no Netflix.
By my ex wife.
24/7 news tv channels. Banning them really felt like taking a wheight off my shoulders
We all manipulate each other constantly. The problem is when it's predatory.
Manipulation is cooked into the culture where I live. Sometimes it makes me mad, sometimes it disgusts me, but I've had to deal with it more often than I'd like.

17 comments