#‘not trying to persuade your vote but heres one million reasons why we should let shin live ahaha’

[hecksupremechips]

My ass was trying so hard not to jump up and down with glee playing yttd with my sister and getting to the shin reveal I was like MY GUY MY FUNNY LAD MY SILLY RABBIT

[dwestfieldblog]

A VERY REMOTE ENGLISH TEACHER

Where meditations, rants, reverie and absent seizures cross over... closer to one gun with one bullet, the rose of ruby and the cross of gold...uff, and MENTACIDE IN THE TIME OF MASQUES. Although I have never suffered from the guilty masochistic torture of ‘pleasure anxiety’, Bacchus hath indeed drowned more men than Neptune.  So I stopped drinking for 18 days to fool myself I was doing something positive and threw away enough things to be minimalist again. Arf. Beauty and/or function uber alles.  

Been treading water for three years and trying not to drown...big round of one hand clapping for the former poet. Meanwhile, in this temporary world and perception I have created of it, I am looking at a very possible exile one way or the other...my ‘plan’...a long phased withdrawal or hasty retreat. My wish is to stay, but once I leave, it might well be very hard to return.  Read as many metaphors as you want into that but in spite of my dislike of the conservatively minded Aristotle’s ‘either/or’ nonsense, there do indeed appear to be only two this time. And appear is the operative word. Appearances can be deceptive and emotions (unless raised and focused) cloud over what should be clear. Pain has a tendency to breed worry and fear too but let’s draw a veil over that for now eh? Suppress, suppress, release comes later...breathe deep and try not to cough, onward we go where the game gets rough...Just like Tom Thumbs Blues 65.  

Remember Roman Protasevich...As Lukasenko himself said...‘Belarus stood at the edge of an abyss and I helped it take a step forward’. Look good on your tombstone that will Al. Fecking outrageous the Indian PM only admitted in May that covid was transmitted in the air. He needs removing... as do two thirds of all the other world leaders East and West. Hello Bollsanaro. People are very easy to manipulate when they’re are scared or angry...and right now the world majority are both. But, ‘there is a crack in everything... that’s how the light gets in’... and ‘things could change’, doesn’t have to be for the worse. It can take decades to realise this as actual truth, but still nice to read and try internalise the following last week.’The odds actually favour the optimists, since dissipate structures are more likely to evolve into more information rich (intelligent?) forms than into primitive or chaotic forms.’ All my friends bar my best one are optimists..Hello you:-)

Ever onward deeper downward with Orban in Hungary and his mission of ‘Christian values’, which involves a familiar routine of arresting, beating and disappearing dissenters in the name of Christ and taking over the universities to replace professors with those who understand on which side their bread is buttered. Decent judges long gone. Nice fascist communism...and ex soldiers in France and the Czech republic warning of civil war...

And now spiraling we go into the black hole vortex of Disaster capitalism, ‘Let the bodies pile high’. There’s gold in them thar ills....ISLAND PARANOIA and PERFIDIOUS ALBION! A country which demands a contract, agrees, signs to it and then refuses to honour it. We look worse than ridiculous, we look deceitful. Gentlemen, your places please. Boris Johnson is a clumsy, inept, disgraceful charlatan, con merchant and LIAR. A blustering master bullshit artist, the only decent thing about his recent secret wedding is that now he legally has one less bastard child.  

Recently I read that British people are displaying signs of Stockholm syndrome...in that they dislike those who hold power over them and make the rules but during the time of pandemic, they are the ones who will release the saviour vaccine and get everything moving again. So rather than rocking the boat and daring to express dissent at the DIABOLICAL handling of the last 18 months, they have mostly kept quiet and voted for the same endlessly failing, corrupt and venal politicians who made a bad situation far worse. (That said, it bears repeating that there are a few million in the UK who didn’t quite understand that that the spread of a highly contagious airborne virus can be slowed by the wearing of masks/applying basic hygiene and even took offence at being told what should have made sense to any adult homo SAPIENS half capable of cogitating for themselves. Morons and scum. Same where you are?

By the way BBC...the colossal dearth of stories about the endless government failures in relation to Covid, death, corruption and the NHS...ever since they blackmailed you with threats of revoking the TV licence fee and got you to change Directors has been noted. Long may Have I Got News For You continue the satire and balance needed in a DEMOCRACY. Obey your public servants? Why, when they do not serve few but themselves? Power OF the people? Which ones...the mob? The same bleating pricks who follow populists?

Four eyed beanpole fop Rees Mogg, with his wonderful line that the benefits of Brexit will be seen ‘over the next fifty years’...well yes, that is why most people vote in democratic elections eh?...So they will be dead or ancient before the change they hoped for comes...and the politicians who lead them now, will have all long moved on to revolving door chairman of the board offshore limited liability company paradise. Bread today jam tomorrow fairytales. What I tell you three times is true.  

O, but the English do so love to be told what to do by dumb posh boys who treat them like dirt. Some are forelock tugging and some are self flagellating middle class upper class wannabes who will never get there but still feel proud they are not street level proles. Doby the house elf alien hamster Michael Gove found guilty of breaking the law. Nothing. Internal inquiries run by those connected to the money changing hands find nothing illegal. Corruption for all to see...and ignore. ‘Well, what can we do?’ The uselessly inept serial failure Dido Harding to be in charge of the National Health Service? (she of the collapsed Woolworths, Talk Talk and the 22 BILLION pound loss of the Covid Track and Trace program where non working consultants/insultants, were paid 1000 pounds a day). American style privatisation is coming where only the wealthy or criminal can afford to be repaired and well. Sick.  

Meanwhile, All our imported nurses out, and all the lobster red fat Spanish costa de la sol criminals back in. Great exchange, fair trade and forward thinking. The Kremlin are manipulating/supporting Scottish independence... I read years ago about their base in Edinburgh for Russia Today (the foul insert in The Daily Telegraph) and they were already encouraging it. Rees Smug has accelerated and supported their freedom with his snobbish utterances on countries in the UK other than England and their ‘foreign languages’. With every patronising, arrogant pronouncement, the Eton trifles fuel the fire in Scotland which has a long bitter history of being tortured, murdered and subjugated by their southern masters. Perhaps the chumocracy in Downing Street believe the Celts to be as easily cowed as the middle and working classes down south. Here’s hoping not. ‘Rebellious Scots to crush’? Not this time pal.

As for the future of Britain? A dystopian open prison where the lower social classes toil only at the pleasure of their masters. The higher caste getting richer and all others cast into a living Hell of debt, crime, and sickness. Serve until you die and be thankful we allow you to exist. Increasing in utter irrelevance to the world, other than as an example of how wrong a former democracy can go. This future started decades ago...its baobab roots truly deep now. Better education and critical thinking for the masses in the UK (or anywhere else) is highly unlikely now. Optimism huh? As long as I am not in England, I will still be able to tap into it, but once enclosed long term in the group mind there...trapped in a grey quagmire. Keep smiling...

Several weeks ago, I watched a video on YT of apparently English protestors running after the police in London, some attacking and throwing things, one pulling off the pandemic mask of an officer and all shouting abuse at the outnumbered cops who had to keep pulling back. As always, to get my caffeine rush of fury going, I read the comments and was surprised to see two or three from Chinese names. Almost all comments were against the government (fair enough) and dumb against the lock down, masks, vaccinations etc. Checking again, I saw the video had been posted by CGTN...a media company owned and run by the communist party in Beijing...and not one author of diatribes had mentioned this, nor speculated with a critical thought as to why such an organisation might enjoy turning people against their own democratically elected government (however mind rippingly foul and corrupt they are).

I copy pasted the Wikipedia paragraph about the company onto the page and hoped someone else would make the connection. I wouldn’t mind so much IF there were a credible and decent alternative other than the diseased populist poison for which the demonstrating goons chant. China really cares about the standard of democracy in Britain eh? Persuade your enemies to weaken themselves. Destroying countries by encouraging their ‘patriots’.

(That was written on the anniversary of Tienanmen Square...a few days later Xi Jinping gave a speech saying ‘...a lovable and respectable’ China must be presented to the world and must ‘expand its circle of friends’. Tell that to your teenage ‘dissidents’, Muslims, Falun Gong and Tibetans being tortured and brainwashed in prisons or being used for organ harvesting. Tell it to Hong Kong and Taiwan.) 

Unholy America...against abortion and the pill, sex education’s not Gods will and in the Name of Christ they kill...if truth be known, we’ve failed the test...but Jesus was a Socialist and Republican conservatives hate them. The founding fathers of America were Very clear about separation of church and state with damn good Reason. Another part time Christian, Mike Pompeo wants to be president. Q Onan deepstorm morons/Kremlin stool pigeons aka POLEZNYYE IDIOTY continue to push for Trump and his Big Lie...He with the brain where ‘In the left, nothing is right and in the right, nothing’s left.’ Arf.

Over the last two decades, the dumb have been finding their voice and are now louder and prouder of their dumbass ignorance. 74 million in the US alone, their egos unable to retreat in the face of endless evidence to the contrary, they all double down. Like children sticking their fingers in their grimy ears sing songing ‘la la la can’t hear you’. 74 million versions of Eric Cartman, loud, proud and wrong. And uuff, Megan Markle,  Majorie Taylor Greene, walking Picasso collage (bad car driver) Caitlin Jenner and Ivana Trump in politics...not exactly holding a proud lantern for women eh? I’d like to buy them for what they are worth and sell them for what they think they are worth. Not very PC?  

That was the point. Could easily been written about all of the men written about here too. Next examples follow...

Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones compete for who can be as mentally ill as trump. The Miami school where the husband and wife directors told teachers not to return if they had HAD their vaccine shots because their proximity to students was interfering with menstrual cycles and uuuufff...The sickness of utter mind buggering stupidity. I had my first shot, now waiting to turn reptilian when the 5G masts triangulate my position. Fnord. Covid appears to be killing more overweight meat eating males than females...perhaps testosterone is not useful for the coming Race of non binary mutant hermaphrodites...and look out for the end of the Y chromosome, coming to a temporary universe near you...in 4.6 million years. Yes, really.  

Glad Netanyahu is out at last, smug corruption is never a good look unless one is a rich criminal. Ha.  The Promised land of Israel...If I was in court for serial murder, breaking, entering and stealing and then defended my actions by saying that God had told me to do it, would the Judge; A. Call for a psychiatric report, B. Disregard the statement as unprovable and pass the appropriate sentence, C, say Ok mate, you’re free to go, good luck to you. ? Moses had a good schtick.

The law is only to punish the poor, do you feel as if you suffer from empathy? Once you know, you no longer need to believe. What does ‘reality’ seem to be? The more certain you are, the stupider you get and belief is the death of intelligence. The machine is running the engineers. What is the definition of rationality...the quality of being based on or in accordance with reason or logic. 

Nothing is, but thinking makes it so. Epicurus.  

EVERYTHING NOT COMPULSORY IS FORBIDDEN.

The glamour illusion of the mass of pointless hot influencers needs a constant renewing of the Banishing Ritual as much as all the pigslop bile coming from Fox News and Sky. Bloody long haired commie liberal faggot they cry against any not identical to them. Some days I have only flamethrowers of hatred for these idiots. Other days...not exactly self doubt, just questions...most of us seem to believe our opinions are more valid when there are emotions connected to them. Including me. Again, this seems like a very weak version of ‘truth’, unless disciplined, channeled and focused to a certain end.

Life appears to exist in order to become via chaos.

Most of us are working only not to be homeless, some because of the joy in our chosen work regardless of finances. Until ‘reality’ kicks in the door...the bondage gets tighter when you struggle. How much hardship is the individual willing to endure these days by choice? Surrounded by a universe of distraction and destruction, Maya mewling for our attention. Five years of Trump, rampant populism and Brexit doing a Hexagram 23 on democracy, compounded by the pandemic...all on top of ‘normal’ daily life. The ego feeds and the immune system breaks down. Hard to ignore without being on a mountain or in a parallel dimension and emotion free other than compassion. But BY GODDESS IT CAN AND WILL BE DONE. Ladies of Life Nin Khursag, Isis, Kali, Aradia...Love one, Love ALL. At very least have respect for thyself but be not thou proud of thine arrogance nor thy suffering.  

Or just Remember where you came from, what you were, seem to be and will become.

Heal, heal, more work to do, more love to give, more love to feel, Heal. Stay in drugs, eat your school and don’t do vegetables. Impose your own reality upon and through yourself, breathe, exhale, repeat, and continue, LOVE UNDER WILL. Experience and absorb but ‘It’s a house of tricks, ignore the world’’.

Stay well, be seeing you:-)

[politicaltheatre]

Kill The Messengers, pt.3

This week played out like some kind of twisted symphony, the end of American representative democracy as we’ve known it in four movements.

You have the first movement, establishing the world about to be threatened, perhaps even destroyed.

You have the second, when all hope seems lost.

You have the third, chaotic, confirmation of all that has come before, of the doom and gloom we have bare escaped, and yet showing a glimmer of light, a chance at hope renewed.

The fourth movement continues from the third, an explosion of energy, of promise for a better future.

This was the week that was.

The first movement, clearly - or not considering how it played out - was the Iowa Caucus coupled with a motif of war between the Democrats and Republicans in Washington in the impeachment trial’s closing arguments. The expectations set by the caucus and the pantomime on the Senate floor seemed crystal clear at the time. And then arrogance overwhelmed everything.

The arguments weren’t much of anything, really. The House managers laid out a thorough, well reasoned, and, aside from Adam Schiff, incredibly dull closing. Yes, Trump is corrupt. Yes, Trump violated United States laws and the Constitution itself. Yes, acquittal would mean violating any standard of the rule of law and make corruption the new standard of the republic.

Trump’s lawyers turned abruptly from that to complete farce. Richard Nixon, in his shameful, post-pardon exile, infamously said, “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal”. On Monday, Alan Dershowitz attempted to make the case that Nixon’s personal defense should be the law of the land. That’s how far we’ve come as a nation in forty years, how low our standards of behavior have been brought.

The Iowa Caucus has been around so long that its functioning has long been taken for granted. People go in a room, give their first choice, and then persuade, bully, and cajole their friends and neighbors to join them until some candidate comes out the winner. They do this all over the state in small groups and it takes time. Reporting it should take time.

And yet, in our impatient, smart phone driven new world, the idea that people should be allowed to take time with something is a thing of the past, like the rule of law. The corruption coursing through our culture at the moment has only exacerbated this, by making the chaos of reporting accurate information about a competition fodder for conspiracy theories and accusations of cheating. Everybody does it, right?

With a crisis like this comes an opportunity, and as in so many crises before that opportunity was seen as a money making one. Some geniuses who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign offered to bring Iowa’s ancient caucus system into the 21st century, and the result, predictably, went sideways.

HBO famously allowed untold millions of Americans steal its HBO GO streaming service through the use of borrowed passwords and other, less scrupulous methods. They did this for a year or so, until they knew that their highly anticipated stand alone streaming service, one not requiring cable TV, could handle the bandwidth. It cost them more money than we will ever know, but once HBO NOW launched, it never went down due to lack of bandwidth.

No one at Iowa’s Democratic Party and the Clinton veterans’ company, Shadow, Inc., thought to test their caucus app, either for bandwidth requirements or for bugs in the code. Oops.

Fortunately for the Democrats, Iowa is no more representative of them as a national party than it is representative of the nation as a whole. This embarrassment will only really last as long as it takes to count the results of the primary in New Hampshire.

The second movement, filling those of us who can feel it with sorrow and shame, encompassed a State of the Union address that had almost nothing to do with the state of this actual union and the vote less than a day later to acquit Trump.

Our expectations of State of the Union addresses is justifiably low. Rarely has anything ever been said or done that was not wholly calculated and lacking in any sense of authenticity. By that standard, Trump didn’t disappoint.

That, of course, is the only standard by which he did not, unless you count yourself among his base. Even more than any president before him, Trump has used presidential addresses as campaign opportunities, and he did so here. The low point - again, unless you just love Trump - was the pantomime award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh, a man who has made a fortune cultivating hatred and pitting Americans against each other.

In a way, Limbaugh is the perfect recipient of an award from Trump. He is openly racist, has bullied women, foreigners, and those with disabilities, and has lied shamelessly, all in the service of enriching himself. He is Trump.

Nancy Pelosi’s own pantomime of tearing up Trump’s speech at the end was no less calculated. It may well backfire, offering up justification to Trump’s base for every lie he’s told about Democrats, but she had to have thought about what she could possibly do knowing what was coming the next day to show that the Democrats weren’t just going to sit there and take it. She has her own base to worry about, and that of the eventual Democratic nominee in November.

What came the next day was no more surprising than hearing that “the state of the union is strong”. The only surprise, if it was even surprising, was that Utah Republican Mitt Romney voted to convict on abuse of power. He didn’t have to worry about Trump actually being convicted, and he did have to worry about his own reelection, and yet showing the courage to vote “Yes” on that one charge has cleared the low bar for courage we now hold.

His fellow Republican senators spent the day taking several, heavily scripted lines to justify voting “No”. The most laughable, offered up by a few including Maine’s possibly outgoing senator, Susan Collins, was that Trump must have learned his lesson. The most insidious, offered Ohio’s Rob Portman in an op-ed, was that he voted “No” because the time has come for America to put partisanship behind it and come together.

That’s a bit like punching someone in the mouth and insisting that he learn to turn the other cheek. While you’re punching him again in that other cheek. And picking his pocket. And laughing at him.

When Republican senators trotted out words and phrases such as “coming together”, “bipartisanship”, and “unity”, it was all coded language. What they meant, and have meant in their long journey further and further into political corruption, is “stop resisting”, “just go along”, and “consent”. They don’t want us to stop fighting, they want us to stop fighting back.

Barack Obama repeatedly tried to meet them half way, only to see Mitch McConnell and his House colleagues repeatedly move what they called “half way” further and further to the political right. There is no negotiating your way out of that trap, and there will be no campaigning against it if you give it the weight all of those senators voting “No” have been trying to give it.

So, there we were, a country watching corruption win and boast of its victory over the rule of law. It was enough to make a decent human being think that maybe those Republicans in Washington were right, that there isn’t any point fighting back, that we should just give in and take it.

The third movement is all about that feeling.

The lawsuit against Trump for violating the emoluments clause in the Constitution was dismissed because the Democrats filing it did not hold a majority in the House when they filed it. The same day, it came out that Trump has been charging the Secret Service thousands of dollars each night its agents stay at one of his hotels, which they must do when they guard him.

Trump gave a speech at a national prayer breakfast that was filled with nothing but hate. Well, almost nothing; he does love how he stuck it to those Democrats.

And then Trump began his campaign of vengeance against those who testified against him, firing Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, Vindman’s twin brother, and Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland. They violated the rule of omertà.

And yet, a glimmer of light breaks through.

The largest newspaper in Mitt Romney’s home state praised his courage. He may be as safe as a senator can be, a beloved Morman representing Utah, but he knew the point he was making to Republicans across the country and knew all too well how history would remember him.

There were also three Democratic senators in “red” states, Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin, Arizona’s Kirsten Cinema, and Alabama’s Doug Jones, who all voted to convict. Doug Jones is running for reelection. He may have nothing to lose, running in a state expected to vote heavily for Trump, but he showed courage nonetheless. He’ll campaign on this, and Sinema will campaign for whomever the Democratic nominee for Senate will be in Arizona.

Baldwin may have made the toughest choice among them, knowing that she will have to run point for whomever the Democratic presidential nominee is in an attempt to swing her state back in November.

This is why this impeachment will not be so easily put behind us. It is not because Trump will be campaigning on his acquittal but because the Democrats want Americans looking at how the Republicans in Congress protected him.

Corey Gardener voted to acquit Trump and his chance at reelection in Colorado may now be lower than Doug Jones in Alabama. It was a vote for corruption. It was a vote for a double standard, a set of rules for the rich and another for everyone else. And it will be a yoke Democrats hang around his neck and those of every Republican running in the Senate and the House.

Will they succeed? Well, let’s talk about the fourth movement.

Tonight in New Hampshire, seven Democrats are answering questions on a stage and very likely offering actual answers about how they will be better than Trump. Again, that’s a mighty low bar.

What should make you feel good, unless you are a fan of Donald Trump, are those results from Iowa. Young voters, notorious generation after generation for being all talk, showed up in droves. If they show up next week in New Hampshire and keep showing up, they are likely to tip the scales in the so-called “battleground” states.

They stayed home in 2016. The Democratic presidential candidate, who for some reason keeps on trying to insert herself into every conversation and who never seems able to accept accountability for her own failures, made that campaign all about her and failed. Based on the current field of Democrats - even Bloomberg - that won’t be the case.

Turnout is everything in an election, and what the Democrats - not the DNC, but the ones campaigning to be president right now - seem to understand is that they can’t rely on converting many who voted for Trump. They need to bring out their own voters and they need to give Trump’s 2016 voters a reason to stay home.

Impeachment may not seem like a sexy campaign issue, certainly not when you failed to convict, but it doesn’t have to be the central issue in the election. It will be there, always present, always a reminder of corruption and, most importantly, those who stood to support it.

Trump is emboldened now, yes, and taking his revenge while taking a bigger piece of the pie all for himself, and that will weigh on him and on every Republican running for Congress, not just in 2020 but in 2022 and 2024. The advantage Democrats have now is one that they only just started to have in 2018, one that they could not have had in 2016.

They now have evidence, a track record of corruption and greed and racism and abuse of power that has been so pervasive and so present that ignoring it has become more and more difficult.

Memory is powerful. It’s like the body developing anti-bodies in reaction to an illness. We know now what we’re fighting. We can recognize it. We can focus our energies against it. With enough anti-bodies, we build a defense and we defeat what would destroy us.

The right wing has long spoken in these terms, of invasion, of infestation, of outsiders threatening who we are and those things we love. The threat they want us to see is the “other”, always the “other”.

What we must ask, and what Democrats at long last seem to be heard asking, is why. The right wing wants us looking away, wants us looking at others, because they don’t want us looking at ourselves.

The greatest threat we face is from ourselves. We have an economy that rewards selfishness above accountability because we allow it. We have rising temperatures and weather systems increasingly out of balance because we allow it.

We have corruption because we allow it. We have abuse because we allow it. Donald Trump has carte blanche to be corrupt and to abuse power because we, the American people, have allowed it.

And we have the power to end it, if we so choose.

You impeach a corrupt president because corruption destroys us like a cancer. You fight bullies because you are not afraid. You stand up for the least powerful among us because that is what makes us all stronger. You share what you have because someday those people might be in a position to share with you.

Isn’t that America? Isn’t that the version we tell ourselves we want to be?

That was the lesson for this week. That was the point of impeachment. That is the core issue not only of this upcoming election but of the next one and the one after that.

Big finish.

- Daniel Ward

[sparky373]

My Brexit Post

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584 Over 5 million signatures. Hopefully you've signed it already. If you haven't, hopefully this post will help persuade you.

I've debated with people and shared a lot of posts about brexit but I figured I should actually explain my views.

I believe very strongly that we are better off in the EU than not. I honestly think the best course of action would be to ask the EU for an extension of a long enough time to carry out a Peoples Vote that would hopefully come out with remain as the dominant choice.

The position we are in now is precarious to say the least. We are on the cliff edge of dropping out of the EU without a deal. Some may say that's not a bad thing. I disagree. So let’s go through this point by point:

Trade Pretty much any expert who's looked at it says leaving the EU already has and will cause economic damage. Leaving without a deal would be far worse. Just by leaving we are weakening our position in the world. We will no longer be part of a 600 million strong trading block.

For those who don't understand why this is bad think about Unions. Before they existed labour conditions and pay were much worse than now. Unions prove that banding together in collective bargaining is much more effective that trying to strike deals on your own. The EU together is able to strike much more beneficial deals than individual countries on their own. Following that logic any deal we strike post brexit will not be as good as we had in the EU. Going into negotiations with larger economies like China and the US we will be at a BIG disadvantage and will get far less favourable terms than we currently enjoy.

May's current deal has us leaving the customs union and the single market. Currently we enjoy frictionless, tariff free trade with EU countries. And an exit that takes us out of those adds expensive barriers to trading with our largest import/export partner. Fees that businesses themselves will have to pay. (Hence why a lot of small & Medium businesses are worried about this)

Movement Given there are millions of british people living abroad in the EU. Free movement is something that has benefited UK citizens. Post brexit their future is uncertain.

Ever wanted to retire to Spain or France? We leave the EU and it gets much harder. Seen a job in the EU or been offered one? Prepare to have to go through visa processes that we don't have to at the minute. Want to visit non-EU countries? All our travel agreements are as an EU country so those will have to be redone.

But it works both ways. The UK relies on EU citizens coming over here to work. The NHS? All those jobs you don't want to do or think beneath you? Seasonal workers? propped up by EU citizens. It will be harder and there will be less incentive for them to come over post brexit even ignoring the seemingly rising xenophobia.

Laws People say we don't have control of our laws. We do for the vast majority of things. Parliament forcing amendments through so May had to get approval for the deal rather than negotiating in secret and forcing through something no one agreed with? Our government did that with their sovereignty. Some stuff does come from the EU. For example the EU working hours directive that stops companies making us work over 48 hours a week without our explicit consent. Tell me with a straight face a tory government would have implemented that without being forced to. And even the stuff that comes from the EU we have a say in. We are an EU member. That means we get a seat at the table and we get to vote on and if necessary veto EU legislation Those MEPs we send over. That’s their job. If they’re not doing it (*cough* Farage) it's not the EUs responsibility. It's ours. we vote those people out and replace them with people who will do their job just like with the UK parliament.

Leaving the EU means we'd still have to follow their regulations when trading with them. If we leave but stay in the single market or customs union we still have to follow their regulations. There's just one difference: We'd no longer have a say in making those laws!

What’s the phrase? Oh yh: You've got to be in it to win it.

When Washington D.C. is asking for statehood and complaining about taxation without representation, why are we actively trying to put ourselves in that position?

People seem convinced we'll leave and be able to strike the best possible deal with the EU. The best possible deal? We've already got it. Norway model? Switzerland? Turkey? Canada? WTO? All worse than what we currently enjoy.

Am I saying the EU is this perfect utopia? No Do I think the best option is to stay in the EU, have a say, and change it for the better from within? Hell yes.

More and more people are realising that leaving is not the right thing to do. So why are we still on a course to crash out with no deal?

The referendum There are many reasons Leave took the referendum: Some people have legitimate concerns, some people are racist, others voted not for brexit but as a protest, others because of all the fearmongering and lies. The argument that the country voted for our current situation is patently false. The referendum asked leave or remain (a stupidly simple question for such a complex issue)

It did not ask do you want to leave without a deal? It did not ask do you want to leave regardless of what the deal is?

Some people have legitimate concerns about the EU, fair enough but is it not better to stay and try to fix those issues than leave and cause uncertainty and major economic harm.

Some people, by their own admission on camera, voted leave not because they wanted to leave the EU, but as a protest against the government. They did not vote for Mays deal. They did not vote for no deal.

Some people voted leave because they believed the lies peddled by the leave campaign and the media. Many, when the falsehoods were exposed, said they would have voted differently. They do not want Mays deal. They do not want no deal.

David Cameron did not promise the referendum because he wanted people to have a choice about EU membership. He promised it because he feared losing seats to UKIP. The Tories played party politics with huge generational changes, thinking Leave wouldn’t possibly win, and they lost.

The media splashed the lies all over their pages not because they thought them true but because the wanted to sell papers and rich people didn’t want to be subject to upcoming EU legislation attacking tax havens.

All the big names and CEOs that told you Leaving was the best choice? The vast majority of them are moving overseas to avoid the harm. Funny that.

Let’s take a look at the lies: £350 million a week for the nhs? Lie we can put the money we currently pay into the EU to our own people? So far what’s being promised is less than now. e.g. stronger towns fund. Lie No one’s talking about leaving the single market or the customs union? Lie Brexit will be a breeze with no downsides? Lie We'll be better off on our own? So far it looks to be a lie Britain will still be open for business? Even before we leave we are already losing jobs as companies and organisations move to other EU countries so they can maintain access to that market rather than stay here.

The leave campaigns were fined for their lies A court declared that if the referendum hadn't been advisory it would have been struck down because of the lies So why are we still ploughing ahead?

Demographics If you look at the distribution of votes in the referendum it was overwhelmingly the case that older voters voted to leave while younger people voted to remain. The people that would have to live the longest with the result wanted to stay. While the people who wouldn't have to deal with it for long wanted to leave. If you look at eligible voters a fair amount of the older people have died since the referendum, meanwhile there are a lot of people who were too young to vote then that are now eligible. These are people who are having brexit thrust upon them without having had a say. The demographics have shifted; The vast majority of polls now show that remain would win if the people were asked again. You can understand why younger people think the older generation fucked us over.

ReMOANers There's a common brexiteer argument that remainers are to blame for the current situation. 'They didn’t accept the result and get behind it', 'They're sabotaging brexit'

To them I say: Shut Up

In any other situation if you see someone putting themselves on a course that will harm people you try to stop it. Even if they don't see it as harm. It would be antithetical of me to just let someone walk off a cliff, and people would judge me if I did. So why is this any different?

Ireland The Good Friday Agreement is the treaty that has kept peace in Ireland and stopped 'The Troubles'. The UK government is legally required to uphold it. No-one wants to see it fail. But that's what brexit will cause. Part of the agreement states that there must be regulatory alignment and no hard border. It is literally impossible to leave the EU fully and honour that.

Leave the EU completely, including the customs union and single market? Hard border, regulatory differences. Agreement broken

Have a border in the Irish sea? Divides Great Britain and Northern Ireland potentially causing a breakup of the UK which no one wants and causes a whole heap of issues (after all Scotland voted remain in their independence referendum after being promised by David Cameron that we'd stay in the EU)

Stay in the single market and Customs Unions? People will complain we didn’t leave fully, we still have to follow laws & regs but have no say in them

Stay in the EU? Agreement intact, best possible deal.

There's a reason why Ireland and the backstop have been and continue to be such a difficult topic. Because it is next to impossible to reconcile leaving the EU and keeping the Good Friday Agreement intact.

Membership fees People cite the fees we pay, as reason for leaving. They think we pay in more than they pay back. And yet those same people don’t say the same about spotify, netflix, internet, TV,... Because people recognise that there are more benefits to a membership than how much investment you get. The access to trade partners, the say in law-making. The economic and political benefits we get from being in the EU are massive and if anything are more than worth the fees we pay.

Theresa May Right now Theresa May is being a gigantic hypocrite. The (non-binding advisory) referendum? once in a lifetime, the people have spoken, brexit is the will of the people and must be carried out no matter what

Her defeated deal? Brought back to parliament as many times as she can get away with until MPs vote her way. Holding the country hostage against the cliff edge of no deal. Spewing hate that is getting MPs who don't agree with her assaulted in the streets

It is not undemocratic to ask people if they've changed their mind, especially when circumstances have changed. If anything it is supremely democratic.

The people voted to leave? They voted based on lies. They did not vote for Mays deal, they did not vote for no deal so how is it wrong to go back to the country and ask if they're ok with what has been negotiated or if they want to do something else?

In fact given people had so many different views of what brexit would be, none of the options for leaving commanded a majority.

The people want you to get on with brexit? Data says they don't.

If nothing else revoking Article 50 gives us time to work things out without the cloud of uncertainty and damage hanging over us. In a situation such as this is it not better to stay in a position of safety and keep the status quo, rather than jumping off a cliff and hoping there's a land of mattresses at the bottom?

Brexit was never going to be a good thing, the people telling you it would be lied to you. It's not a bad thing to admit you were wrong or that you fell for their fantasy. What is bad is refusing to admit when you're wrong to the detriment of yourself and everyone else .

The deal that we have at the moment ceases to exist if we leave. If we get out and then decide we made a mistake and want back in, then that deal no longer exists. We go back in as a normal member. No rebate, no opt-outs, none of the extras that we have now.

Hopefully these arguments will have helped you realise that we're better off in the EU and we should revoke Article 50

If not, then I don't know what to say and I doubt anything will change your mind.

Sometimes when something goes wrong in a plane, a fighter pilot refuses to eject thinking they can fix the issue. Right until they hit the ground. Don't be that pilot.

For those of you that have, I'll link to the petition again. Given Theresa May's stubborn refusal to even entertain the idea of a People's Vote, this may be our only chance at saving the country we all love.

For those who don't want to leave but don't think signing will do anything, even if it doesn't work at least you can look yourself in the eye and say you didn't stand idly by while the country went to shit.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584

[xtruss]

Meet Brittany Kaiser, Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower Releasing Troves of New Files from Data Firm

— January 7, 2020

New details are emerging about how the shadowy data firm Cambridge Analytica worked to manipulate voters across the globe, from the 2016 election in the United States to the Brexit campaign in Britain and elections in over 60 other countries, including Malaysia, Kenya and Brazil. A new trove of internal Cambridge Analytica documents and emails are being posted on Twitter detailing the company’s operations, including its work with President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton. The documents come from Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser, who worked at the firm for three-and-a-half years before leaving in 2018. We speak with Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, co-directors of the Oscar shortlisted documentary “The Great Hack”; Brittany Kaiser, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower featured in “The Great Hack” and author of “Targeted: The Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower’s Inside Story of How Big Data, Trump, and Facebook Broke Democracy and How It Can Happen Again”; and Emma Briant, a visiting research associate in human rights at Bard College whose upcoming book is titled “Propaganda Machine: Inside Cambridge Analytica and the Digital Influence Industry.”

AMY GOODMAN: New details are emerging about how the shadowy data firm Cambridge Analytica worked to manipulate voters across the globe, from the 2016 election in the United States to the Brexit campaign in Britain to elections in over 60 countries, including Ukraine, Malaysia, Kenya and Brazil.

Cambridge Analytica was founded by the right-wing billionaire Robert Mercer. Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon of Breitbart News was one of the company’s key strategists and claims to have named the company. The company collapsed in May 2018 after The Observer newspaper revealed the company had harvested some 87 million Facebook profiles without the users’ knowledge or consent. Cambridge Analytica used the data to sway voters during the 2016 campaign.

A new trove of internal Cambridge Analytica documents and emails are being posted on Twitter detailing the company’s operations across the globe, including its work with President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton. The documents come from Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser, who worked at the firm for three-and-a-half years before leaving in 2018. Kaiser is featured prominently in the Netflix documentary The Great Hack, which has been shortlisted for an Oscar. This is the trailer for the film.

DAVID CARROLL: Who has seen an advertisement that has convinced you that your microphone is listening to your conversations? All of your interactions, your credit card swipes, web searches, locations, likes, they’re all collected, in real time, into a trillion-dollar-a-year industry.

CAROLE CADWALLADR: The real game changer was Cambridge Analytica. They worked for the Trump campaign and for the Brexit campaign. They started using information warfare.

DAVID CARROLL: Cambridge Analytica claimed to have 5,000 data points on every American voter.

CAROLE CADWALLADR: I started tracking down all these Cambridge Analytica ex-employees.

CHRISTOPHER WYLIE: Someone else that you should be calling to the committee is Brittany Kaiser.

NEWSCASTER: Brittany Kaiser, once a key player inside Cambridge Analytica, casting herself as a whistleblower.

BRITTANY KAISER: The reason why Google and Facebook are the most powerful companies in the world is because last year data surpassed oil in value. Data is the most valuable asset on Earth. We targeted those whose minds we thought we could change, until they saw the world the way we wanted them to. I do know that their targeting tool was considered a weapon.

PAUL HILDER: There is a possibility that the American public had been experimented on.

DAVID CARROLL: This is becoming a criminal matter.

CHRISTOPHER WYLIE: When people see the extent of the surveillance, I think they’re going to be shocked.

BRITTANY KAISER’S MOTHER: And I still fear for your life.

BRITTANY KAISER: Yeah.

BRITTANY KAISER’S MOTHER: With the powerful people that are involved.

BRITTANY KAISER: But I can’t keep quiet just because it will make powerful people mad.

BRITTANY KAISER’S MOTHER: I know.

RAVI NAIK: Data rights should be considered just fundamental rights.

CAROLE CADWALLADR: This is about the integrity of our democracy. These platforms which were created to connect us have now been weaponized. It’s impossible to know what is what, because nothing is what it seems.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the trailer to the Netflix documentary The Great Hack. Well, we’re joined right now by four guests, by the film’s directors, Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer. They’re the co-directors of The Great Hack, which was just nominated for a BAFTA today. That’s t the British equivalent of the Oscars. And it has been shortlisted for the Oscars. Jehane’s past films with Karim Amer include The Square. She also did Control Room. Brittany Kaiser is the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower featured in the film. She’s the author of Targeted: The Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower’s Inside Story of How Big Data, Trump, and Facebook Broke Democracy and How It Can Happen Again. And we’re joined in Washington, D.C., by Emma Briant, visiting research associate in human rights at Bard College who specializes in researching propaganda. Her forthcoming book is called Propaganda Machine: Inside Cambridge Analytica and the Digital Influence Industry.

We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Brittany, you have just begun to release a trove of documents from Cambridge Analytica, involves scores of countries, including the United States, including John Bolton, including Iran. Talk about how — why you decided to begin this release and what are in these documents.

BRITTANY KAISER: Absolutely. I decided to release the Hindsight Files because it’s now 2020. I’ve been waiting and working with investigators and journalists around the world for the past two years. And what I’ve seen is that we don’t have enough change in order for voters to be protected, ahead of not just November, but in 27 days the first votes that are cast for the 2020 election.

I really think that digital literacy is the most important point that I’m trying to make here. If you understand the tactics and the strategies that are being used to manipulate you, then you can protect yourself from that. And I want to be able to empower voters ahead of casting their first vote this year.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about these documents, where they came from and what’s in them.

BRITTANY KAISER: These are all documents from my time at Cambridge Analytica. I worked at the company for over three years. So, it’s internal communications and negotiations for data-driven communications projects all around the world. It’s proposals, contracts and case studies of what has been done to intervene in democracy.

And I think it’s so important for people to understand that while sometimes these tactics are benign, sometimes they are incredibly malignant. And there’s evidence of voter suppression, fake news and disinformation, using racism, sexism.

And I just want to make sure that there is real action that is going to be taken, not just ahead of this next election, but for countries all around the world. We need privacy legislation so badly. We need to regulate Big Tech and have an ability to enforce our voting laws online, because right now we can’t. And unfortunately, companies like Facebook are not doing enough to protect us.

AMY GOODMAN: So, for people who are new to what Cambridge Analytica is, why don’t you describe why it is and why you have these documents, what Cambridge Analytica’s role was in all of these countries, including the United States?

BRITTANY KAISER: Absolutely. So, Cambridge Analytica was one of the companies under the SCL Group, Strategic Communication Laboratories. This is a company that has been around for over 25 years, and they started by using data-driven strategies in order to understand people’s psyche, how they make decisions and how they can be persuaded to take certain actions or to prevent people from taking certain actions.

AMY GOODMAN: It was a defense contractor.

BRITTANY KAISER: Originally they started in defense, yes. And once they found out how successful that was — that was actually in the Nelson Mandela election in ’93, ’94 in South Africa, they were preventing election violence for a defense contract — they realized that that was very useful in elections. And those strategies developed over two-and-a-half decades in order to no longer just do good things and good impact work, but, unfortunately, to undermine our democracies.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to a clip from the documentary The Great Hack. In this clip, the British journalist Carole Cadwalladr talks about Cambridge Analytica’s parent company SCL. We also hear the voice of former Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix, who was previously a director of SCL.

CAROLE CADWALLADR: SCL started out as a military contractor, SCL Defence.

ALEXANDER NIX: We have a fairly substantial defense business. We actually train the British Army, the British Navy, the U.S. Army, U.S. Special Forces. We train NATO, the CIA, State Department, Pentagon. It’s using research to influence behavior of hostile audiences. How do you persuade 14-to-30-year-old Muslim boys not to join al-Qaeda? Essentially communication warfare.

CAROLE CADWALLADR: They had worked in Afghanistan. They had worked in Iraq. They had worked in various places in Eastern Europe. But the real game changer was they started using information warfare in elections.

ALEXANDER NIX: There’s a lot of overlap, because it’s all the same methodology.

CAROLE CADWALLADR: All of the campaigns which Cambridge Analytica/SCL did for the developing world, it was all about practicing some new technology or trick, how to persuade people, how to suppress turnout or how to increase turnout. And then, it’s like, “OK, now I’ve got the hang of it. Let’s use it in Britain and America.”

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s a clip from The Great Hack. We’re going to go to break and then come back. We’re also joined by the directors. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Stay with us.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

— DemocracyNow.Org

[bookedsuccess]

DAY THIRTY SIX

The Book”The Power of Fifty Bits” in Three Sentences

Summary by James Clear

The human brain is wired for inattention and inertia. As a result, many people already have good intentions, but don’t follow through due to forgetfulness, procrastination, or a general lack of awareness. We can bridge the gap between our intentions and our behavior by using strategies to lock in our future behavior like active choice, pre-commitment, good design, reframing, and simplicity.

The Power of Fifty Bits summary

This is my book summary of The Power of Fifty Bits by Bob Nease. My notes are informal and often contain quotes from the book as well as my own thoughts. This summary also includes key lessons and important passages from the book.

The author, Bob Nease, was an engineer and this book was a result of many experiments not only on himself, but also on large populations.

Nease studied “decision analysis” at Stanford, which is essentially an engineering approach to economics and rational decision making.

“50 bits design” refers to the 10 million bits of information our brains process and that only 50 bits of that information is conscious thought.

Lots of decision making happens “under the radar.”

Our brains are extremely sensitive to losses, the group, and the present.

50 bits design assumes most people have good intentions and seeks to find strategies to activate those good intentions.

“The goal of this audiobook is to help you understand why we do what we do and to equip you with practical tools and a set of principles that you can use to change behavior for the better.”

Generally speaking, behavior is the “rate limiter” in our lives. We can usually get information, access, technology, and resources fast enough these days. But doing the right thing with all the resources at our disposal is a much harder task.

The human brain is wired for inattention and inertia.

The human brain prefers to focus on things that are either painful or pleasurable.

The intent-behavior gap: marketers, leaders, and designers often INFER what the user wants based on actual behaviors. In fact, most people aren’t paying close attention and so their actions are rarely an indication of their optimal preferences. Their is a gap between what they truly intend and what they actually do.

Because of the intent-behavior gap, we (marketers and business people) focus TONS of energy on persuading people’s intent to buy a given product or act in a given way. Nease argues that this logic is flawed because we are spending lots of time and money trying to market to an intention the user already believes in. They don’t need to be persuaded to believe in the value of education or in the productivity boost of better time management or in the health impact of eating better. They already have those good intentions. Now, they need to act on them.

What we need is to activate the good intentions that people already have.

We should expect people to forget and procrastinate often. Non-adherence is accidental, not deliberate. It’s just a result of our brain being wired for inattentiveness.

This reminds me of what Bryan Harris said about product launches. At any given time, your product is like number 150 on someone’s to-do list. They simply aren’t aware. The goal of a great product launch is to skyrocket your product up into the top 10 of your customer’s to-do list. They can only act once they are aware.

We should ask if our behaviors are adaptive or maladaptive to the current environment we find ourselves in. Often, behaviors that are adaptive to our environment seem “rational” (economic terms) and behaviors that are maladaptive to our environment seem “irrational” (psychology terms).

Example of priming? One study claimed people named “Dennis” are more likely to become dentists.

Asking people why they do what they do (for example, in a customer survey or focus group) can be a misleading way to get behavior or — at best — incomplete. People are only telling you the 50 bits of conscious thoughts that impact what they do. Everything else that impacts their behavior simply isn’t on their mind and won’t be mentioned.

We have three shortcuts that our brain uses frequently.

Brain Shortcut 1: Fit in. Humans have a strong urge to fit in and work with one another. For example, one reason many people buy green cars like a Toyota Prius is to “fit in” and showcase their personality and beliefs about living green. Additionally, we often keep track of who is doing the work in a group project or who pays for dinner because people want to feel like things are “fair.” We do not like cheaters or people who don’t contribute their fair share. Social contracts are very important to humans.

Brain Shortcut 2: Avoid losses. All losses have a reference point and our brains are wired to feel pain if we just miss that reference point. Examples: Wharton study found the professional golfers make more par putts (avoid bogey) than birdie putts (gains) even though both count for one stroke. Students are more likely to retry SAT if they narrowly miss a round number. Baseball players change strategy near end of season if close to batting .300. The key here is that the losses are close to the reference point. Losses that are far away don't cause the same pain and motivation. Winning a silver medal is more painful than bronze because you narrowly missed gold. With proper design, you can utilize this function of loss aversion to motivate good behaviors.

Note: loss aversion is another vote for small habits and one percent improvements because it is only narrow misses that prompt the feeling of loss aversion.

Brain Shortcut 3: hyperbolic discounting. We give more weight to long-term benefits when they are in the future and more weight to immediate pleasure when we are in the moment. This leads to a cycle of making earnest plans, procrastinating and choosing something outside the plan in the moment, making more earnest plans for the future, and so on. (I believe this is the same idea as time inconsistency.)

There are 7 strategies we can use to turn the good intentions we already have into consistent behaviors.

Strategy 1: Active choice. This strategy interrupts the user during a process or workflow and asks them to make an active choice about their preferences. For example, PetSmart interrupts the checkout process to ask users if they want to donate to “help save homeless animals.” Through that strategy alone, they raised over $40 million in a year. This is an interesting indication that there was a lot of latent demand to donate for homeless animals. People didn’t need to be convinced, they simply needed to be asked at a moment when they had the power to act. The rest of the time, the issue of donating simply wasn’t on their radar (even though the desire / intention was there). It’s important to note that this strategy asks you to make processes less seamless for the user, but the interruption occurs at an important and well-considered moment.

Strategy 2: Lock in good intentions for the future. Use pre-commitment and implementation intentions to secure good behaviors. Remove all of your TVs from your home. Throw out all sweets and candy. Voluntarily add your name to the “do not gamble” list. Take the drug antabuse to make yourself feel sick if you drink alcohol, etc.

Richard Thaler ran an experiment on pre-commitment and created an automatic 401k saving program that increased savings as employees earned raises. What they found was that people saved nearly double the amount they would have for retirement. Most people WANTED to save more, they just never got around to it when their pay increased because of inattention and inertia. Thaler’s plan made it automatic.

The author ran an implementation intentions study at Express Scripts to increase participation at the annual walk. People who pledged to walk were 3 times more likely to show up vs. those just saying they would walk.

When used as prescribed, the pill has a failure rate (i.e. unintended pregnancy) of only 1%. But in the real world, people delay getting prescriptions, forget to take it, etc. and the failure rate jumps to 9%. Meanwhile, implantable contraceptives (known as “long-acting reversible contraceptive methods”) have a failure rate in the real world of less than 1%. That is, they make contraception happen automatically everyday in the future once the decision to use them have been made. This technological fix makes the right behaviors automatic by shifting it to a one-time decision that bypasses our daily inattention and inertia.

Behavior-based commitments (e.g. “workout 3 days per week”) work better than outcome-based commitments (e.g. “lose 20 pounds”) because it is too easy to make exceptions in the moment when the outcome is in the future. Meanwhile, the behavior is also in the moment, so sticking to your behavior is a choice for the here and now. Of course, the outcome are often a natural consequence of the behavior as well.

Strategy 3: Let it ride. Make the default decision a better one. Rely on people to “opt out” rather than “opt in.” It’s the difference between requiring consent vs. assumed consent. Basically, people procrastinate on everything. In this way, you let people lock themselves into better behaviors. This is also a really compelling example of the fact that people aren’t paying attention. We live our lives with inattention and inertia.

Use the opt-out approach only when there will not be a ton of people wanting to opt-out.

Strategy 4: Get in the flow. Items that are most frequently bought are at eye level and on the displays at the ends of aisles. You post a sticky note on the mirror to remind yourself in the morning. Amazon adds recommendations beneath the items you are browsing. Netflix does the same with shows. Home delivery prescriptions coming with a message on the final refill that says on top of the cap: “Last refill. Call your doctor. New Rx needed.” These are all examples of injecting reminders into the normal flow of the user.

The power of getting in the flow is best when they user can act upon the reminder immediately. In other words, it should be a hot trigger.

Strategy 5: Reframe the choices. Consider if Petsmart asked customers to “donate to animal shelters” vs. “donate to save homeless pets.” It’s a small shift, but a big difference. Homeless pets is a very personal, emotional phrase and it leads to more action. Basically, this is just great copywriting. Word choice matters. This is especially big to consider when crafting behavior for businesses and governments.

Social norms messaging can shift behavior is a positive way. For example, showing people how they compared on energy consumption to their neighbors led to improvements in energy consumption. You have to be careful using this strategy though. Social norms mean some people are “in the group” and some people are “out of the group.” That “out of the group” segment can often react negatively to social norms messaging, which nullifies the positive impacts.

It is best to “bundle losses and enumerate gains.” Amazon Prime is a good example. They bundle all of the losses (shipping fees) into one yearly cost. Then, they enumerate gains by showing you the “free shipping” options every time you purchase. This matches with the philosophy of “stacking the pain” that I learned in business school.

Decoy options are another way to change behavior and nudge people toward a particular option.

Piggybacking is when you use pleasure in the present moment to pull people into behaviors that are better over the long term. One example was making toothpaste pleasant to use. One way to do this is to change the experience (like the toothpaste example). Another way to do it is with temptation bundling (Katy Milkman’s strategies).

When you are presenting multiple options to someone, you should offer them in order of decreasing effectiveness. That is, the most effective option is covered first. Then, the second most effective. And so on. This ensures that the entire conversation is framed around the topic of effectiveness and, thus, the person you are talking to can make a decision for what they want while always knowing what works best. Offering alternatives in a different order often colors the conversation and frames it around something besides effectiveness. For example, the conversation might be framed around the option you are currently using or around the option you are most familiar with already.

Write out, in plain language, the behavior you intend to follow.

Avoid deception. Ask yourself whether a reasonable person armed would feel deceived by the way you are presenting information or nudging behavior if they knew everything you did.

Typically, we use big data to change behavior by targeting specific populations and tailoring recommendations to them. Which segment should receive a coupon? And so on. These choices are often made from a marketing and persuasion standpoint. By realizing that most people fail to act because of forgetfulness and procrastination (not a lack of desire), you can open up new opportunities for using big data.

Fifty Bits Design assumes the best in people. There is no trickery or deception. It assumes people want the best and then simply presents them with better options and improves their ability to act on the good intentions they already have.

[talabib]

Popular Leadership Posts August 18, 2017

Must read posts from Inc.com

Want to Be Much Happier? Science Says Always Do Any 1 of These 8 Things

Google Is Giving Away Its Best Tools for Managers Absolutely Free

5 (and a Half) Ways to Motivate Work-From-Home Employees

Eliminate These Two Words to Help You Reach Your Full Potential

A Best-Selling Author Just Gave Some Brilliant Career Advice. Here It Is in 1 Sentence

6 Smart Ways to Disagree With Someone Respectfully

11 Things Your Company Can Do Instead of Acting Like Charlottesville Didn't Happen

Willpower Doesn't Work. Here's How to Actually Change Your Life

Here's the Ultimate Cold Email Template to Help You Land a Meeting With Anyone, No Matter How Busy or Successful

The 10 Commandments of Emotional Intelligence

5 of the Surprising Things the Richest Salespeople Do in Every Industry

Studies Found These 4 Management Traits Lead to Serious Health Problems for Employees

Become a Productivity Machine Just by Saying These Two Remarkably Powerful Words

A Top Navy SEAL Explains How the Experts Handle Mistakes

3 Easy Ways to Face Your Fears and Make Smarter Decisions

The 10 Fastest-Growing Companies in America in 2017

He Used to Sing in a Boy Band. Now He's Making Millions by Tweeting (a Lot)

18 Secrets From CEOs Whose Companies Won't Stop Growing

How America's Fastest-Growing Company Turned Video Games Into a $54 Million Cash Cow

The Complete Inc. 5000 List of America's Fastest-Growing Companies of 2017

How Chobani Inverted the American Entrepreneurial Model

The Founder of Under Armour Has Big Plans for 'Made in the USA'

Sheryl Sandberg Just Revealed That Facebook Is Run Like an Airline (Yes, an Airline)

7 Easy Things You Can Do to Change Your Life in 2 Months

Want to Be a Great Leader? A Navy SEAL Commander Says You Must Adopt This 1 Key Habit

5 Important Lessons People Usually Learn Too Late in Life

How This Once Homeless Refugee Built a Booming $12 Million Logistics Business--and Bought His Mom a House

7 Workspace Strategies for Remote Workers

The 1 Thing You Need to Do to Persuade Your Boss to Let You Work From Home

5 Tips to Better Engage Your Remote Employees Today

The Mental Trick You Can Use This Weekend to Become More Resilient and Confident

10 Pieces of Killer Advice From Famous Creative Geniuses

Someone Asked Warren Buffett for a Job--This Was His Perfect Response

The 3 Easiest Ways to Start Feeling Happier Today, According to Science

6 Surefire Signs Your Workplace Is Toxic

The $6 Wine Voted Best in the World Is Now in the U.S. (Yes, of Course It's at Walmart)

How This Upstart Ice Cream Company Began Outselling Ben & Jerry's and Haagen-Dazs

10 Cool Products to Take to the Beach (If You Just Have to Get Work Done)

Must read posts from Forbes

Never, Ever Take A Job Before Asking These Ten Questions

When Comparing Yourself To Others Turns Self-Destructive

Why Soft Skills Will Help You Get The Job And The Promotion

Culture (Re)Design Isn't Easy. Just Ask Uber

More Than What's On Paper: How Gaining Independence Created A Pathway To Success

How Do You Solve A Problem Like GOR?

Why Purpose Is Paramount To Business and Branding Success: A Walmart Case Study

Meet The Female Entrepreneur Who Builds Camps In Africa's Extreme Locations

12 Immutable Laws Of Extreme Velocity Sales

Culture Defines LinkedIn's Customer Experience

How I Foster Ownership On My Team

Why Millions of Americans Stay Out of the Workforce [Infographic]

13 Accountability Apps To Keep Your Goals From Slipping Through The Cracks

Meet A Young Entrepreneur Who Figured Out How To Spend Every Day With Cats

Four Traits That Make Millennials More Effective Leaders

Seven Things To Do If You Might Be A Workplace Bully

Good Leaders Do Not Need A Hammer

What Every Cannabis Entrepreneur And Investor Must Know To Succeed

Are You Prepared For Artificial Intelligence In The Future Workplace?

Solo Female Founders: 4 Fundraising Challenges Nobody Tells You About

4 Questions First-Time Managers Should Ask Themselves

Ten Unmistakable Signs Of A Toxic Work Environment

The Painful Career Mistake 90% Of People Make

5 Unexpected Places To Find Work

How This Ad Exec Is Crushing The Competition

To Create A Legendary Culture, Harness The 100-Employee Rule

How Leaders Build The Resilient Organizations Of Tomorrow: A Navy SEAL's Perspective

This 27-Year-Old Founder Is Helping Sick Children Heal With Video Games

Can A Leader Without Moral Authority Lead?

5 Great Companies That Get Corporate Culture Right

Looking For The Key To Team Excellence? Try Nick Saban's 'And' Or 'But' Philosophy

3 Strategies To Change Implicit Biases In A Negotiation

What Not To Ask In An Initial Job Interview

The Algorithm For Equality

How Unconscious Biases Are Undercutting Your Business

Are You Ready For The New Data And Analytics World Order?

Four Industry Trends Every Entrepreneur Should Be Watching Now

The Interview Skill Guaranteed To Give You An Edge

Five Ways To Engage Millennials Through Your Content Marketing

To Develop The Next Generation Of Leaders, Plan Ahead

Build Trust With Advice From A Counterintelligence Expert

Listening And Speaking: The Leader's Paradox

Why Hard Lessons Are Often the Best Ones

6 Ways To Know It's The Right Company, Before You Accept The Job

Top Roles In U.K. Companies Still A 'Closed Shop' If You Are Not White

The Four Modes of Thinking, and How They Impact Performance

10 Things Robots Can't Do Better Than Humans

3 Essential Lessons For Startup Founders From A Top Hong Kong VC

What The CEO Of An Exclusive Dating App Wants You To Know About Launching In A Crowded Market

Cheap Travel: 13 Places Where The Dollar Goes Far

Get Paid To Be Yourself: The Business Of Being Dame Dash

Outdated Tech Is Costing You More Than You Think

Must read posts from CEO briefing

Activist Investors Strike Again: Rosenfeld out at Mondelez

Lawmakers Shine Spotlight on Incentives in Foxconn's Factory Deal

Transformative Tech's People Factor: What Happens to Employees?

My First Job: Northwestern Mutual's Schlifske Scraped Paint off Trucks

The Practice of Microchipping Employees Raises Ethical, Privacy Concerns

Securing Capital for your Company to Grow and Innovate

CEO Positions of the Week

 Must read posts from HBR.org

How Senior Executives Stay Passionate About Their Work

How the U.S. Navy is Responding to Climate Change

3 Things Multinationals Don’t Understand About Africa’s Middle Class

5 Questions to Help Your Employees Find Their Inner Purpose

What 11 CEOs Have Learned About Championing Diversity

What the Science Actually Says About Gender Gaps in the Workplace

It’s Time to Tie Executive Compensation to Sustainability

How Gatorade Invented New Products by Revisiting Old Ones

The Dark Side of Resilience

Whiteboard Session: Clashing with a Coworker? Here’s What to Do

To Come Up with a Good Idea, Start by Imagining the Worst Idea Possible

Is Tesla Really a Disruptor? (And Why the Answer Matters)

Help Employees Create Knowledge — Not Just Share It

How One Insurance Firm Learned to Create an Innovation Culture

How Freelancers Can Make Sure They Get Paid on Time

Assessment: Are You Taking the Time Off That You Need?

When Male Unemployment Rates Rise, So Do Sexual Harassment Claims

What One Company Learned from Forcing Employees to Use Their Vacation Time

PE Firms Are Creating a New Role: Leadership Capital Partner

Why We Prefer Dominant Leaders in Uncertain Times

When to Listen to a Dire Warning

Must read posts from Real Leaders

Three Steps On The Road To Happiness.Ammar Charani has founded and invested in more than 26 startups – many seeking to change the world for the better. He knows about business but also knows that without inspiration and happiness it can be a hollow victory. He has developed three steps towards "Purposehood."Read More ›

Why the Corporation is Failing us And How to Restore Trust in it.

Encouragement versus Discouragement: A Personal Journey.

How Sustainable Luxury Can Save The Planet.

Ethics is not the Reason we Need More Women on Boards.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

[maryisnotmerry]

For Real?

With over three million Facebook fans and close to 100,000 Twitter followers, entertainer Mocha Uson is undeniably a social media superstar. She is also one of the biggest online cheerleaders of President-elect Rodrigo Duterte during the campaign period, together with the online fictional character Senyora Santibanez. In fact, she performed during Duterte’s miting de avance at the Luneta Park last May 9. – The Filipino Scribe

Margaux Uson known professionally as Mocha Uson or by her stage name Mocha, is a Filipino singer, dancer, model, and blogger best known as the lead vocalist of the Mocha Girls.

Some netizens are mad at her because of her pretentious display of intellectual competence as though she really knows something most especially during Pres. Duterte’s campaign. I also question her savvy that can only produce pointless tirades made confident by her stupid belief about herself, but I am more interested in her participation in Duterte’s campaign that was politically effective. She used her half-clad body, glamored skin, and sex appeal to attract voters and persuade them so they would vote for Duterte and never go with the other camp.

This is what we call social herding. ISIS used Yazidi and other non-Muslim women they kidnap in order for them to recruit their members and to make them on their side in Syria and Iraq. On the other hand, the Imperial Japanese Army institutionalized the sexual exploitation of “comfort women” to boost the morale of its soldiers and keep them determined in their imperialist mission because sex was one of the rewards during the Second World War. Ironic it may seem, but the world history is filled with cases of sex-fueled raids and conflicts.

Mocha Uson is considered to be a political herder most especially in social media since she used her sexy body and flowery words to persuade people and condition their minds. According to filipinoscribe.com, she was the “Osang” who kept the testosterone levels of Duterte’s macho supporters high and their minds closed and focused.

There are lots of points to be considered why Mocha Uson is to be criticized. She seems to be the opinion leader when it comes to priming the minds of the Filipinos. She has the guts to invade the world of journalism well in fact journalists are way too far from a blogger. She even influence her followers through her sex appeal. She herds them who want her or who want to be like her using her body not mind. This became the tool to escape reality and silence discontent.

Being an inspiring journalist, she should keep on her mind the principles of real journalism. It is not about sharing your thoughts and opinion. Yes, Mocha Uson can persuade a

​​nd shape people’s mind. But that doesn’t mean that she’s already “in” to be a part of it. Social media is a  powerful tool for a journalist. It is also the reason why people nowadays claim themselves to be one for they already try to influence other people.

The problem here is, Mocha Uson tries to give impact of the netizens through her thoughts, just merely a thought, without enough legal basis. It seems like you’re answering an exam without enough knowledge. Reacting is good, but as long as it is beneficial, there’s no harm in reacting.

I am not one of Mocha Uson’s basher nor critics. It’sjust that, as a journalism student and an aspirant media practitioner someday, I would love to advice the public what is journalism and what is not. I’m not saying that the social media superstar isn’t a reliable source. But people, wake up! She is just expressing her thoughts using her perception and how she views the issue by herself. And at some point, opinions are way too far from what is “real” reality.

Everyone is entitled with their opinion, but let us always keep in mind that opinions aren’t facts. And sometimes, it could also be a tool to wreck unity and peace to everyone.

[universeinform-blog]

Every House Republican who could sink the GOP health care bill

New Post has been published on https://universeinform.com/2017/03/21/every-house-republican-who-could-sink-the-gop-health-care-bill/

Every House Republican who could sink the GOP health care bill

On Thursday, House Republicans are slated to vote on the Yankee Health Care Act, the Republican plan to update Obamacare. Residence Speaker Paul Ryan can have the funds for to lose 21 Republican votes if he needs it to skip.

For the reason that Residence Republicans have long been united via their disdain for Obamacare, that would seem clean. But it ain’t be. Whilst the invoice turned into first brought on March 6, it drew criticism from a wide variety of companies — Fitness enterprise lobbies, conservatives, and moderate Republicans all came out in opposition to the regulation. The Congressional Budget Workplace expected that 24 million human beings would lose coverage if the bill had been enacted. Still, Ryan turned into able to unexpectedly usher his plan through 3 committees, from time to time inside the lifeless of night time.

Over the weekend, Ryan promised in reaction to the ongoing complaint to come up with a new edition of the legislation in time for the Thursday evening vote. It’s not but clean what, exactly, Ryan’s next version of the Yankee Health Care Act will trade. However, those Residence Republicans are the audience he’ll win over Even if Republicans are capable of passing the invoice within the Residence, the plan faces many challenges moving ahead. The margin of support wanted for the invoice skip is an awful lot tighter in the Senate, and 12 GOP senators have already expressed criticism. Furthermore, because Republicans are trying to skip their plan via the Budget reconciliation procedure, which might permit them to avoid a Democratic filibuster, they are restricted in what they are able to and can’t include the law. Should the bill make it to the Senate, Democrats will nearly simply argue that the plan violates these rules.

Is a House a Good Investment For You

Are you most of the crowd who is still taking into consideration in which to make investments the cash they earned from years of operating difficult? There can also have been unsolicited advises convincing you to place your proportion on various networking groups. A few may have even informed you to place up a startup employer. However is that this the maximum realistic element you may likely do to your money? Possibly, yes, if it’s your choice.

But, investing has its u.S.A.and downs relying upon the industry you’ll delve into. But, do that shopping for a residence or owning one is one of the maximum smart investments you’ll probably make. Why?

Homes may become apartment properties. With essential adjustments and with right leasing or condo documents, you could flip your home into a further profits stream. What is even proper is apartment charges have a tendency to increase on regular durations. There are men and women who regularly pass because of job modifications. They continuously look for Homes which they can hire, and yours can be their next condo Houses.

Depending on a home’s area, it may also be a super vacation residence.

Normally, households, in particular, those with kids, and those which embrace the idea of prolonged families – do like to have holiday houses. During unique durations of the yr, the house can serve as a reunion spot for spouse and children to accumulate. So, thinking of having a holiday residence? Must it be close to a beach, the woods, or Possibly one which offers mountain view or city view otherwise?

Home values Commonly growth. Consequently, in case you’re going to put your home for a resale – possibilities are you are going to get suitable profits. So that you higher ask your local real property agent which regions have markets wherein home charges enjoy surges. Typically, these regions consist of the ones wherein experts flock because of employment opportunities.

Buying a residence is likewise visible by using economic houses as a better funding than credit score cards. That is one motive why there are many lenders that charge low-hobby rates on home mortgages.

Are these reasons nonetheless no longer sufficient to persuade you ways correct of a funding is owning a residence? Any other bonus benefit of owning a house is the local community attachment you will construct. You’re starting to have pals who’ll later turn out to be your friends. Your acquaintances will possibly turn out to be near you want the own family. There can be A few form of emotional attachment.

Rebuilding the Republican Party – 2013 Flashback

Again in 2013, I don’t forget to have a conversation about politics at our think tank, the Republicans had simply misplaced and Barack Obama became reelected for another 4-years and each person in the media informed us that the Republican Celebration might not ever win another election and that it became over. Rapid forward nowadays and we see that it is the Democratic Celebration that is splintered and in need of a rebuild. So, allow’s talk about the pendulum of American Politics lets?

Returned in 2013 my fellow think tanker become considering precisely how the Republican Birthday celebration should win in 2016 and take Back the White House. He stated;

“If we truly focus on growing the energy of the states, it might finally gain traction and come to be increasingly more popular with the human beings. The Democratic Party is exceptional at playing the political game; for my part, I trust they may be ways extra aggressive than the Republican Party. There are strategies to without a doubt even out the struggle, however, we can talk that in the destiny.”

Indeed, Back then the media had allowed the Democrats to break out with way too much inside the way of populist socialist rhetoric. Of direction, maximum media is left-leaning so that is to be predicted. The Republican Birthday party doesn’t get it, crony capitalism is a part of the problem and the energy base is too into Neo-Conservatism as opposed to freedom, liberty and efficient and responsible governance, so I think this state is about prepared for a Ronald Reagan type, I just haven’t met all and sundry that has that level of passion or the capability to project it in the Birthday party. I for my part do, however, I don’t like politics, I see it as a rotten manner to run humanity,

But it does beat the alternative alternatives, doesn’t it? How approximately you, do you have political goals?

The assume tanker and I agreed, and we also took into consideration the troubles of time period limits and profession politicians, revolving doors and pay to play politics as properly. He pondered; “Is it viable that lots of them are out of contact with present day society?”

The extra I consider it, I agree with Jackson, Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Franklin, and Mason on this one. Our leaders ought to be of the people and do their duty for the human beings after which go Lower back to their homes and retire or be to be had if needed in the destiny as gentleman statesmen mentors as wanted. That’s what I suppose. And yes, I recoil at the revolving door too. that is so un-American, and it wreaks of corruption.

Tom Daschle is one that comes to mind, but there are so many instances now, I just need to puke; Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Franks, and the Clintons.

Controlling Your Health Care Costs in Retirement

It is no mystery that health care will become a bigger challenge for maximum folks as we get older. Greater ailments are probably to increase, this means that more money spent to go to fitness professionals and buy the medicinal drug. Even in case you remain healthful thru your later years, the costs of preventative care and preparing for capability unexpected health situations are growing.

Health-associated fees will possibly be one of the biggest additives of your retirement budget. You want to be organized to pay for complete coverage insurance and capability out-of-pocket prices for care. Here are 3 strategies that will help you manage this crucial expense in retirement.

Apprehend how Medicare works

The best information for Americans age 65 and older is that you qualify for Medicare. That makes extended dependence on health care offerings Extra low-priced. At age 65, most people mechanically qualify for Medicare Element A without charge, which in general provides coverage for sanatorium stays and professional nursing care. Medicare Component Bought to be purchased (about $109 consistent with the month in 2017 for maximum retirees). Element B covers the prices of visiting a medical doctor, however with a few deductibles. Many human beings buy extra insurance to use for out-of-pocket charges, along with a Component D prescription drug plan or a Medicare Complement policy.

With Medicare, timing is critical. Signing up while you first qualify for insurance will hold expenses at the bottom stage. in case you maintain insurance through your organization after turning 65, you can put off Medicare enrollment without risking past due penalties.

In case you retire prior to age sixty-five, you will want to buy insurance at the open marketplace to cover fitness-associated fees till you end up eligible for Medicare. Individual coverage tends to get Greater pricey as you grow older, so paintings the price into your retirement price range. some employers provide retiree medical health insurance as an advantage. Test together with your human sources branch to see if this feature is available to you.

Allocate sufficient finances for health care expenses

As you expand your retirement profits approach, ensure you have money set aside for health charges with a view to be your responsibility. By way of one estimate, the common sixty six-year-vintage couple will want to faucet Greater than 1/2 of their lifetime pre-tax Social Protection blessings to pay for health care fees in the course of retirement. the majority will probably have to rely on, in Element, on their personal financial savings to assist offset a few scientific fees.