For instance, prisoners were frequently asked to make statements so mildly anti-American or pro-Communist as to seem inconsequential (“The United States is not perfect.” “In a Communist country, unemployment is not a problem.”). But once these minor requests were complied with, the men found themselves pushed to submit to related yet more substantive requests. A man who had just agreed with his Chinese interrogator that the United States is not perfect might then be asked to indicate some of the ways in which he thought this was the case. Once he had so explained himself, he might be asked to make a list of these “problems with America” and to sign his name to it. Later he might be asked to read his list in a discussion group with other prisoners. “After all, it’s what you really believe, isn’t it?” Still later he might be asked to write an essay expanding on his list and discussing these problems in greater detail.
I mean, hearing about a gay guy doing this creeps me out as a straight guy, but really a lot of this is going on in bars as we speak and is generally a mutually satisfying experience.
Yes, and no. Being "too direct" can be fantastically effective if you can back it up with sufficient confidence, and can manage to make it look natural rather than creepy.
It works exactly because the confidence and making it look natural thing is rare enough to make you stand out in a way that often produces very rapid and strong attraction. E.g. in a bar, it shocked me years ago when I realised how easy it is to get random women to make out with you just by going up to them and telling them you want to, and start to lean in slowly but surely (slowly, because unless you want things to end badly you want to make sure it is easy for her to leave/tell you to fuck off or similar if she doesn't want to). And often your best bet is actually when you get rejected initially. That is when you really prove whether you're just confident and having fun vs. being a creepy: if you laugh it off and seem to not care, it amps attraction; if you act as if you were caught doing something bad, she will treat you as if you were caught doing something bad.
But the fundamental difference is end-goal: It is "easy" to create quick, strong rushes of attraction (e.g. lifting a woman up on the dance floor and swirl her around out of the blue; or help an old lady across the road in front of her or any number of simple things can amp attraction massively), but the quick rushes of attraction subside equally quickly if you can't keep up the tempo (and most of us have no hope in hell of that).
The systematic, incremental approach on the other hand is much easier to make last: You don't just amp up attraction, which can be very fleeting, but you get her (or him) used to acting a certain way around you, and you around her/him, and you get the person used to complying, and used to acting a certain way around you, and our desire for consistency is intensely strong and helps reinforce our willingness (or desire) to act the same way. People also tend to mirror the strongest "frame": If the person with the most confident demeanour acts as if someone is totally natural, people will tend to "fall in line" and accept it as natural too (and then rationalise why to themselves even if they are totally unaware of any reason). Couple that with innate desires to please and for attention etc. and it becomes scarily powerful in the wrong hands...
This is a great technique because most people's beliefs about most things are shallow and weak. Anyone even slightly versed will quickly flip those ("You know what we call a system with no unemployment? Slavery.") but you can chip away at what seems like very fundamental convictions (democracy, human rights, capitalism, heliocentrism...) with relative ease because most people have never been confronted with any half-intelligent criticism of those.
Partially, it's a problem of our education system rewarding recitation of canonical answers. Fundamentally, humans have not evolved to be philosophers.
The worst part, when applied to how we reason, is that being smarter can actually make it worse. I've sometimes found myself arguing for some downright idiotic positions because I made an uninformed declaration early in the conversation, and then found myself compelled to defend it. If I were dumber, I might run out of things to say and stop talking in those situations. Instead, I have from time to time actually convinced people - or at least convinced them that my ignorant position was worth considering.
Certainly the trope is common in fiction. See: The Mentalist (both the protagonist and antagonist share this ability) and several Agatha Christie novels with similar storylines.
This guy sounds like a real-life Red John; able to subtly re-wire people's thinking so that they actually want to do what he suggests.
I have only ever experienced this in the formulaic pattern of dark-arts sales tactics. Israeli companies selling cosmetic products from the Dead Sea are notorious for making a superficial connection with their potential customers and then exploiting that connection for a sale. But those tactics aren't hard to see through and resist. Quite scary to think that someone who has mastered those techniques could actually alter my preferences simply with the power of suggestion.
Seems with the popularity of sites like chatroulette and cam4 more and more guys are either secretly or openingly experimenting with their curious sides.
*Why is this getting downvoted are hacker newers homophobic? The author notes how much the encounter excited him and how he thought about how it excited him throughout the years. I don't see this being an unreasonable question to ask.
— № 2, The Prisoner, The Chimes of Big Ben
http://www.orangecoast.com/webexclusives/2013/09/24/a-factch...
You can't help but feel outrage that nobody stopped him... that the public wasn't sufficiently warned that any of these boys, these kids could have known there was a serial-killer stalking them.
When the police officers (John Balcerzak and Joseph Gabrish) arrived, Dahmer managed to convince the them that it was a gay lovers' quarrel and the officers let Dahmer take Sinthasomphone home again.
Can you imagine the horror of escaping torment and certain death, only to be handed right back to your tormenter by the police?
For instance, when they caught him, the front passenger seat of his car was apparently bloodsoaked, but was never matched to any known/suspected victim. A fair amount of evidence suggests that he had at least a part-time accomplice as well. All sorts of unknowns, as he still maintains complete innocence to this day.
He had been killing people in Oregon, on business trips up there and the folks up there theorized that something like this was happening and had been working credit card gas purchase, car rental, and airline ticket info and from what I read, right around the time he got arrested in Ca. his name was coming to the top in Oregon.
Some things to think about related to the experiences of the author. At the time of coming into contact with Randy Kraft he had already killed at least 20 people, and during that year had committed at least 5 separate murders. Pretty sobering to think about.
Also, reading these details I can't help but be extremely critical of the criminal justice system's failures in regards to the case. There were so many opportunities to catch Kraft in the earlier days of his "exploits" that were wasted by either poor police work or poor judgment of the district attorney.
That's not disturbing at all.
"Shortly after his enrollment as a freshman at Claremont Men's College, Kraft enrolled in the Claremont Reserve Officers Training Corps[16] and he regularly attended demonstrations in favor of the Vietnam War and — in 1964 — for the election of conservative presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. Kraft later declared these actions were merely a mimic of his parents' political views and not his own, describing his second year at Claremont as being when he abandoned "last gasp" of conservative ideology.[16] The same year, Kraft entered his first known homosexual relationship."
But it's interesting to think why is author still alive. Is killer possessive gay that is willing to kill guys that are ignoring/rejecting him? Because author didn't reject him as many others that are now in the grave?
Also, even if author is wrong, really interesting and non-intrusive emotional overview.
I do have two questions, though:
1. Polaroid wasn't making a black and white integral film in 1980, and FujiFilm didn't make instant film until 1981. Kodak's instant film was color. So how did Kraft produce an instant B+W image?
2. Did you really drink 2-3 beers and then get on a motorbike?
2) We used to do a lot, lot, lot worse than that in the USMC in those pre-MADD days. Different era.
Fun fact - same motorcycle, I was struck by lightning on it several months later, riding home from California (to Ga) on I-70 in Missouri. This was following my discharge (actually, end of active service) in late August.
2-3 beers over the length of time in the story would leave you well below the legal limit and your motor skills would not be impaired unless you never have alcohol, which he clearly stated wasn't the case.
Tldr. Cut the melodrama. It's like being shocked when someone has a beer and walks down some stairs.
The name of the linked article is "Center Of The Universe". Not sure why they want the two titles to match but they do now.
Could it be that this is done by an automated script? :/
