2018 January
-
Survey: Should the cell in the lower left be included? https://i.imgur.com/ufM0FqG.png
(Click photos to view full-size)
This poll has ended with 25 votes.
- 24% Yes
- 76% No
2017 January
-
... I totally didn't google "jedi kittens"
Quoted Pierre Tito Galla's Facebook post:the answer to these two questions can be found in Disini, et al vs. Secretary of Justice, et al -- the SC decision on the constitutionality of the Cybercrime Prevention Act.
- Wala.
- Wala.
ok na tayo, ha. wag masyadong magbabad sa idea ng porn.
(Click photos to view full-size)
2016 December
-
I don't necessarily agree with a lot of Scott Adams' ideas, but I like how a lot of his descriptions of Trump's techniques could be applied to a certain local politician...
Quoted Coby Lim's Facebook post:(Click photos to view full-size)
HOW TO USE MASS PERSUASION TECHNIQUES TO BECOME PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (and to become a great cartoonist)
How can you use mass hypnosis to control 60,000,000 people so they vote for you to become the leader of the world?
Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, knows the answer and has known it for years.
So I called him and asked. I needed to know. He told me how Trump won. And he told me how anyone can use these persuasion techniques to improve their lives.
What if you can get people to do whatever you want just by using the right words and subtly hypnotizing everyone you meet?
It sounds like a science fiction novel. But it's true. It's what happened, and it happens every day. Who are the victims? You're the victim.
Scott Adams predicted in September 2015(!) that Donald Trump would become President because, "he is the best master persuader I have ever seen."
Scott Adams trained as a hypnotist and master persuader for years.
"Once you realize that everyone is completely irrational," Scott Adams told me, "your life gets a lot easier.
"You can start to use the principles behind this to see why people really do things, as opposed to using rational facts, and then use that to your advantage.
"Understanding that people are irrational has made my life a lot better."
But how did he predict a year and a half ago that Trump would win? I needed to know how. And how I could do it.
Trump was the unlikely choice to be President. Just like Scott was the unlikely choice to be one of the world's most popular cartoonists with Dilbert.
But we can all learn the skills that Scott learned.
Scott heard a story that made him want to change his life in his 20s. His mother had delivered birth to his sister without the use of anesthetics.
She was hypnotized. "She felt no pain," Scott said.
So Scott, in his 20s, learned all the techniques of hypnosis.
"You mean," I said, "You can take a gold watch and swing it in front of their eyes and make them do what you want?"
"That has never happened," Scott said, "Except in movies.
"What you learn is that basically everything people do is completely irrational. And then they rationalize it later.
"Like, they might say they voted for Trump because of his policies but this is just a rationalization. Everyone is irrational and everyone is subject to persuasion."
Everything seemed against Trump. But somehow he beat 16 candidates in the primaries and one big candidate in the election.
And, Scott says, all the theories as to why he won have been wrong.
So I called him up and asked him what happened. And he told me:
- THE LINGUISTIC KILL SHOT
"Trump described everyone using two techniques:
- words that had never been used in politics before
- words that were visual. So every time you looked at the candidate being described you would look for confirmation bias."
Example: Jeb Bush he described as "low energy". "Low energy" had never been used to describe a candidate before so they stood out.
And whenever you looked Jeb, unless he was jumping around, you would automatically look for clues that showed he was low energy.
Trump systematically did this with everyone who was frontrunner against him, including "Crooked Hillary" which referred both to her legal troubles and the persistent rumors that she was sick.
- CHARISMA = POWER + EMPATHY
Scott said, "Trump clearly had the Power part down. But he was low on Empathy.
"So he used polling to figure out what the critical issue was for the most amount of people and came up with Immigration. By going with this issue he proved he had empathy with his base.
"Expect him as President to try to show empathy to a much larger group of people."
- OVERSELLING THE STORY
"Trump consistently oversold his point. For instance, 'Build a Wall'."
He used hyperbole because it's the direction that counts.
"It didn't matter that the facts didn't support him. His base was listening to the direction while all the media was getting bogged down in the weeds.
"And in many cases, he would back down. He would recognize if he oversold too much and back down on it.
"But again, the media would show his views for free because he was so outlandish and his supporters would note the direction, not the facts."
I asked Scott: What would happen to Trump if a "Rick Perry" situation occurred like in 2012, where Perry couldn't name the 3 cabinet departments he wanted to eliminate and that destroyed his campaign?
Scott said, "If Trump was stumbling to name the three he would just say, 'You know what? There are 10 cabinet positions I'd eliminate! You probably can guess the ones I'm talking about."
"And then while everyone would be scratching their heads trying to figure out if there are even ten cabinet departments, his supporters would be just note the direction."
- AUDACITY
Early on he would say things that were so audacious nobody could believe a Presidential candidate would be saying these things.
But people got used to it. It got him free media coverage which allowed him to spend less than half of what Hillary spent.
It allowed him to consistently say audacious and outlandish things throughout the campaign without upsetting his base.
- EMBRACE THE ARGUMENT
If you just outright reject someone, they won't even pay attention to what you say.
But with everyone he spoke with, he would start off agreeing with them and then start to turn people towards supporting his ideas.
Even with Hillary, he would say: "She has great experience" before following it up with, "but after 30 years, what has changed?"
- TALENT STACK
Scott said, "I'm not the funniest guy in the room. And I'm not the best at drawing. But I'm pretty good at both and that's where Dilbert comes from.
"It's really hard to be the best in the world at one thing," Scott told me, "But if you are 'pretty good' at a bunch of things and use them together, you can succeed.
"Trump has one of the best talent stacks I've ever seen. He's not the smartest guy in the room, but he's pretty good at public speaking, business smarts, humor, hiring and firing, politics, etc."
Again, he didn't know as much as the other candidates about every political issue.
"Expect him to get to know the facts that are important once he is President. But he was pretty good at knowing what was going on and combined that with the other "pretty good" things in his talent stack."
- BLAME OTHERS FOR PEOPLE'S SUFFERING
"While Hillary was focusing on 'I'm With Her' and 'Let's make history with the first woman President', Trump was focusing on 'Draining the Swamp' and 'Let's Make America Great Again'.
These were much more powerful persuasion messages."
DID HILLARY HAVE A CHANCE?
How could Hillary have fought better using her own persuasion techniques?
"Hillary was running a strong persuasion game in the summer," Scott told me. "She might even have won if she stuck with it."
" 'Dangerous Donald' was scary for people. But then her campaign leaked the Billy Bush video and even though it caused Trump to dip in the polls, it wasn't as bad as portraying him as a madman at the nuclear controls. Ironically, that bad news actually helped Trump."
My podcast with Scott comes out later today.
I wanted to learn other things from him. Like how can I, or anyone, learn these persuasion techniques.
What are the easiest techniques to learn?
He told me on the podcast. Plus he was very honest and told me a trick he uses with the women he dates.
Does any of this mean Trump is going to be good or bad?
This article isn't about that. It's just about what Trump, and all political candidates, do to win elections. Trump, according to Scott, was just particularly good at it. "The best I've ever seen".
Is it bad that people are irrational? That facts don't matter?
Yes.
But it's the reality. Our brains were built to hunt for food in scary and uncertain situations.
In our more complex society, we still respond to primitive emotions even if they are now irrational.
Do I want to be better at persuading so my life is better? Of course.
The reality is: I'm easily influenced and have to constantly remind myself everyone has an agenda all the time.
I don't think it matters who is President. There are too many forces at work to check and balance everything.
But it does matter how I react, how I build my life day by day. It's my choice (I hope) whether or not I have a good impact on others.
Or not. Maybe Scott hypnotized me into writing this. In which case, he did an excellent job.
Scott Adams Persuasion Books List:
(this is from his blog)
Chapter 1 - Things You Can Stop Believing
The first chapter is designed to make you skeptical about your ability to comprehend reality. If you are already a hardcore skeptic, you can skip this chapter.
- An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural - by James Randi
- They Got It Wrong: History: All the Facts that Turned Out to be Myths Hardcover - by Emma Marriott [I have not read this book but anything in the genre of “wrong history” will work.]
Chapter 2 - Stretching your Imagination
These books are selected to open your mind for what follows. If you have experience with LSD or mushrooms, you might not need this chapter. (Yes, I am serious.)
-Jonathan Livingston Seagull - by Richard Bach -God’s Debris: A Thought Experiment - by Scott Adams -Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah - by Richard Bach
Chapter 3 - The Moist Robot Hypothesis
The Moist Robot Hypothesis first appears in my book that is listed below. The idea is that humans are biological machines, subject to cause and effect.
According to this view, free will is an illusion and humans can be programmed once you understand our user interface.
With this chapter I ease you into the notion that humans are mindless robots by showing you how we are influenced by design, habit, emotion, food, and words.
Until you accept the Moist Robot view of the world it will be hard to use your tools of persuasion effectively because you will doubt your own effectiveness and people will detect your doubt. Confidence is an important part of the process of influence.
- The Design of Everyday Things - by Don Norma
- What Every BODY is Saying - by Joe Navarro
- The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business - by Charles Duhigg
- Influence - by Robert B. Cialdini PhD
- Thinking, Fast and Slow - by Daniel Kahneman
- Salt Sugar Fat - by Michael Moss
- Steve Jobs - by Walter Isaacson [The whole book is good, but look for the part where I appear on Jobs’ radar screen. That’s the part where you understand that hypnotists can identify each other by their tells.]
- How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life- by Scott Adams
- Free Will - by Sam Harris
Chapter 4 - Active Persuasion
This chapter gets into the details of how to influence people. My opinion is that you will be less effective with these tools if you do not have a full understanding of our moist robot nature introduced above.
- Impossible to Ignore - Dr. Carmen Simon (NEW)
- Trump: The Art of the Deal - Donald J. Trump
- Win Your Case: How to Present, Persuade, and Prevail–Every Place, Every Time - by Gerry Spence
- Awaken the Giant Within: How to Take Immediate Control of Your ---Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial - by Tony Robbins
- How to Win Friends & Influence People - by Dale Carnegie (Better yet, take a Dale Carnegie class near you. It will change your life. Trust me.)
- How to Write a Good Advertisement - by Victor O. Schwab
- The Secret to Selling Anything - by Harry Browne
- The One Sentence Persuasion Course - 27 Words to Make the World Do Your Bidding - by Blair Warren
- Reframing: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Transformation of -Meaning- by Richard Bandler , John Grinder (This is included for completeness. Much of the NLP field has exaggerated claims, but there is some strong reality at the base of it.)
- How to Hypnotise Anyone - Confessions of a Rogue Hypnotist - by ---The Rogue Hypnotist
- Hypnosis and Accelerated Learning - by Pierre Clement (This is the school of hypnosis I learned in hypnosis class. It comes from Ericksonian hypnosis. See next book on list.)
- Speak Ericksonian: Mastering the Hypnotic Methods of Milton Erickson - by Richard Nongard, James Hazlerig (Erickson was the father of modern hypnosis. Any book about his methods would be interesting.)
How good is Scott at predicting things? The attached Dilbert cartoon he drew 26 years ago.
-
David Ramirez Liss Ramgurl Raymond Lirag Christine 'Tin' Rabe Michael Daniel V. Samson buti pala vinisit na natin last time!
Quoted Gundam Guy's Facebook post:Life-size Gundam Statue Will Be Closing On March 5th 2017
VIEW MORE INFO: https://goo.gl/AE5Vbz
WEBSTORE: www.gginfinite.com
#gundam #gunpla
(Click photos to view full-size)
2016 November
-
It's like he's describing his own future
Quoted Filipino Freethinkers's Facebook post:'As for the abuses committed during Marcos’ 14-year dictatorship, which saw thousands of people murdered, tortured and jailed and the nation’s coffers looted, Duterte claimed this “has yet to be proven by a competent court.”'
https://interaksyon.philstar.com/article/134127/marcos-abuses-not-yet-proven---duterte
-
Well, both sides can spout conspiracy theories I guess
Quoted Bernard Ong's Facebook post:INJUSTICE SECRETARY IGNORES BIGGEST FISH
Secretary Aguirre is a small-time thinker. He said De Lima is the common denominator in the killings of Espinosa, a Cebu cop, and drug lord Tony Co inside Bilibid.
If he looked at the broader pattern, there is a much bigger common denominator across 1000+ Davao unresolved killings, 4700+ drug-related killings since May 2016, A bigger fish that should be reeled in by the long hook-and-line of justice.
Q: Who has the motive?
A: The guy who keeps saying "Obosen para matapos na" on the pretext of protecting future generations from drugs
Q: Who has the means?
A: The guy who controls the security services - specifically PNP - which is led by hand-picked appointee familiar with Davao Death Squad tactics
Q: Who has the track record?
A: 1000+ unresolved killings in Davao
Now let's zoom specifically into the case of Mayor Espinosa.
Q: Who has the motive?
A1: The Official Theory: The guys implicated in Espinosa's supposed affidavit - generals, politicians, senator.
But who made the affidavit? The mayor's brother - Ramon - said “I asked my brother, ‘Did you really make the affidavit?’ And he told me, the affidavit was ready-made. It was prepared by someone else, and I was just asked to affix my signature on it.” Seems like a worthless list prepared to fit prior narratives of political witch-hunt & faulty Drug Matrix. Fabricated evidence.
A2: The Alternative Theory: One guy already openly admitted in his Oct 4 speech in Makati that he had ordered the killing of Espinosa due to drug links but Espinosa cheated death by surrendering to PNP that time:
“Talagang order ko sa kanya, patayin mo. As in patayin mo. May isa akong team na, sa Army, sabi ko, patayin ninyo, wherever he is. Sa harap ng simbahan, patayin mo, lalo na sa cemetery, kasi mas malapit na lang itulak mo na ang putang ina niya."
Only in the Philippines would PNP and DOJ officials not consider as prime suspect the one guy who openly bragged about giving the order to kill.
Q: Who has the means?
A: Only someone sufficiently high up the chain of command can give orders to barge into jail, overpower other PNP officers guarding the jail, shoot in-mates, and feel they can get away with it - because they control other levers of justice such as investigators, lawyers, judges. And if things go wrong, there is always that guarantee of "full pardon, with promotion to boot" in the back pocket. Only one person can inspire such impunity with a guarantee of immunity.
Secretary Aguirre should stop chasing sardines. There is much bigger fish to fry.
-
(Click photos to view full-size)
2016 October
-
My problem with non-digital art
Quoted Adult Children's Facebook post:(Click photos to view full-size)
-
a moment's escape
(Click photos to view full-size)
2016 August
-
Michael pakicheck nga ang math nito haha. Parang malabo sakin yung relevance ng unang assumption sa 2nd paragraph nya, and doesn't it contradict the second assumption?
In any case, the more fun thing I learned here is that the DDB's own website with an estimate of 1.3M drug addicts as of 2012 contradicts the president's claim that there are 3.7M drug addicts haha
Quoted Coby Lim's Facebook post:[A fun problem in statistics]
According to the Office of the President's Dangerous Drug Board, it is estimated that there are 1.3 million drug users in the Philippines[1]. Our current population is 102,250,133[2], which means around 1.27% of Filipinos are drug users. Let's say our government can identify if a drug user is actually a drug user 100% of the time. Let's also say that they can identify if a civilian is innocent 99% of the time (which is very generous).
a) If I get a citizen who is believed to be a drug dealer and kill him, what is the probability that he/she was innocent?
b) If 2000 people have been killed, around how many were innocent?
Answers:
a) 43.7%
b) 874 innocent people
Footnotes:
[1] http://www.ddb.gov.ph/research-statistics/46-sidebar/58-facts-on-drugs
[2] http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/philippines-population/
-
(Click photos to view full-size)
2016 April
-
I would like to look back on today and say, "I have accomplished nothing."
(Click photos to view full-size)
-
Ang sakit sa bangs. Not just yung posted na images, but even yung mga comments defending such behavior. Rampant examples of violent mentality, anti-intellectualism/smart-shaming, disrespect for women, and even poor grammar (sorry na, grammar nazi). To my pro-Duterte friends, please reassure me na hindi ganyan ang mga taga-Davao and that pinapaglitan nyo din ang mga supporters pag ganyan sila
Quoted Renee Karunungan's Facebook post:Well, I discovered 200++ messages since I posted my campaign against Duterte. Some were respectful and trying to have a good conversation but these...oh my. Can't believe people wish other people to be raped and murdered because of stating one's opinions and facts. Kaloka kayo. P.S. Nakakatakot ang Pilipinas mas dahil sa inyo. Lagi niyong sinasabi na gusto nito ng disiplina. Congratulations for being such great examples of how you want the Philippines to be.
(Importer's note: The linked FB album had 72+ images of screenshots of terrible messages. In the interest of space and the reader's sanity, they have not been included in this import.)
-
D:
Quoted Philippine Collegian's Facebook post:UPDATE: Fire alarm has reached "Task Force Alpha," one level above the fifth alarm, according to SF04 Jose Felipe Arreza of the QC Fire Department. The alarm level may again be raised soon. Around 20 firetrucks are now trying to put out the fire gutting the Faculty Center.
(Click photos to view full-size)
2016 March
-
An important reminder to all hardcore supporters of presidential and vice-presidential candidates: if your objective is to convince others of your opinion, learn to express it rationally. Wag puro puso ang pairalin, marami nang nasaktan sa ganyan. 😉
(Click photos to view full-size)
2016 February
-
Now let's get a few things clear, because Facebook has just become so toxic:
Celebrating EDSA does not mean we're celebrating the Aquinos
Despising Ferdinand Marcos does not mean admiring Cory Aquino
Opposing Bongbong Marcos does not mean supporting Mar Roxas or Noynoy Aquino
Enjoying democracy is not the same as lacking in discipline
Desiring peace and order does not mean discarding civil liberties
If you can't wrap your head around that, then I'm sorry for you.
2016 January
-
(Click photos to view full-size)
2015 November
-
This is how I normally pose in casual conversation
Quoted Liss Ramgurl's Facebook post:(Click photos to view full-size)
2014 February
2011 June
-
Jose Marciano Patino wrote:
Roy, ok ba yung Duels of the Planeswalkers? Is it better than MTGO? Narinig ko kasi na not all cards in standard ay nasa Duels. Can you tell me more on how you get cards, and the gameplay, etc.
It is cheaper than MTGO, not better 😛 Pero medyo masaya rin sya. Merong set of premade decks tapos when you win a match (either vs computer in the campaign or online), you unlock additional sideboard cards so pwede mo icustomize ung decks. At the start a small set of decks lang ang available, you unlock the others by playing sa campaign. Tapos ung cards nya hindi sya nagfofollow ng standard, in fact marami syang cards from throughout Magic's history.
Kung bibili ka, you should get the 2012 version which is coming out tomorrow (you can preorder it today and get free hats sa TF2 or something 😛) Yung gameplay (at least sa 2011 version, not sure about 2012) is medyo simplified compared sa regular Magic, i.e. walang upkeep step or end of turn step, tapos may timer sya (default 20 seconds) within which you need to respond to spells/effects otherwise magpass na ng priority (this is to keep the game moving at a regular pace). Yung multiplayer is up to four players, and merong coop campaign for two players playing on the same machine (nde ko pa nasubukan, I think it's like 2HG)
If you like Magic, it's kind of a no-brainer to buy it, kasi $9.99 lang naman, and you get to play some decks with powerful cards, i.e. kung sa MTGO it will cost you some significant cash to do that.