[AKN #107] You Are Being Manipulated Every Time You Read Something
LAUGH: A Simpler Time, LOVE: How High You Can Jump Depending Where You Are Standing In The Solar System
Sup homies?
Exciting news. I don’t have melanoma. Wooo!
Yep. Last week was just another entry in a long history of freaking myself the fuck out by reading WebMD.
I swear the mole looked identical to the medical textbook pictures of “get this skin growth looked at immediately.”
I began telling myself a story about how sun exposure lead to the mutation of this childhood mole1 and now I was most likely somewhere between Stage 1 and Stage 3 cancer.
In my mind, the only question was whether or not my lymph nodes were already swollen or not. “Hard to tell,” I reasoned.
Funny how our minds can convince ourselves of some catastrophic reality after developing some faux expertise by reading a couple blog posts.
In reality, my irregular skin growth was just a mole growing inside of another mole. Moleception. Which is quite normal.
However, removing my dark skin spot revealed a different medical anomaly.
You see, before that procedure it was believed that I couldn’t become any more white.
But after the procedure, it was confirmed that I was whiter than ever before as I immediately booked tickets to attend a polo match this fall.
At the very least, maybe some random person reading this will learn a thing or two about irregular mole growth and suddenly get their actual dangerous growth looked at.
Then I might be a hero instead of a hypochondriac.
On to the newsletter!
LIVE: You Are Being Manipulated Every Time You Read Something
A hand crafted, artisanal post by me
Last week, Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was searched.
If you followed the instantaneous reporting of the events, two versions of the story presented themselves:
The FBI raided Donald Trump’s property.
The FBI served and then carried out a search warrant on Donald Trump’s property.
Let’s put aside the facts for a second2 because I want to focus on a different point.
Namely, are those two sentences the same thing?
Well…maybe? I guess technically? I mean I wasn't there.
But like all raids would require a search warrant and all search warrants perhaps could be seen as a raid by the person getting searched. So I could see a world in which these two ways are describing the same set of events.
However, does raid and serving a warrant feel the same way?
Absolutely not. And that is the point.
When you envision a raid, you envision someone busting down doors, pointing guns, and generally bamboozling someone.
When you envision the execution of a routine warrant, you see the ho hum operation of a police force politely knocking on a door and serving someone some papers.
Again, that is the point. The author has chosen to describe the events in a certain way in order to subtlety nudge you towards their way of thinking.
A raid feels unfair. Executing a search warrants feels like someone just doing their job.
This is emotive conjugation. Which is a fancy way of saying “we use certain words and phrases for the purpose of conjuring up your emotions.”
It is often called Russell's conjugation in honour of philosopher Bertrand Russell, who used the following examples to describe the phenomenon:
I am firm, you are obstinate, he is a pig-headed fool.
I am righteously indignant, you are annoyed, he is making a fuss over nothing.
I have reconsidered the matter, you have changed your mind, he has gone back on his word.
This is the magician’s slight of hand of the persuader.
Without you even realizing it, the person talking to you is guiding how you should think about a situation.
And once you see it, you see it everywhere.
Did a child get gender reassignment surgery or gender reaffirming surgery?
Are you pro life or pro choice?
Is the New York Post a tabloid newspaper or America’s oldest newspaper?
Regardless of how you feel about any of these issues, you should realize this is what is happening.
You are a tangled yarn ball of emotions and the person who is communicating with you is finding a particular thread and pulling on it because they know how they want you to feel.
Except for me.
I, of course, only give you objective facts and let you decide for yourself ;)
LAUGH: A Simpler Time
A curated joke I found wading through the cesspool of the Internet
Take me back to the days of laser tag.
LOVE: How High You Can Jump Depending Where You Are Standing In The Solar System
Something I have been loving
Fitness influencers should start selling a program which will “skyrocket your vertical jump” and the entire program is just sending you to Mars moon, Phobos.
CLOSING TIME
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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are strictly my own. Who else’s would they be?
Manipulatively Yours,
K.Rapp
Did you know a mole is just a cluster of pigment-forming cells called melanocytes? Pretty fun right?
But as far as I understand the facts support the second phrasing more than the first. Like a raid should have involved like busting down doors and pointing guns at people, right?