Led by the Nose

“Nobody and nothing will stop Russia on the road to strengthening democracy and ensuring human rights and freedoms.”
Vladimir Putin

Led by the nose.

Let’s say that you are home from work and a little tired. You log into Facebook to see if there are any messages. And, let’s say, that you like dogs; dogs who play fetch and there is a link right there. And then another. And then there is one of Mike Pence who has a dog who loves to play fetch. The dog’s name is Rex and he’s adorable. Mike Pence isn’t a bad guy, he’s one of us.

Let’s say that you play the World of Warcraft. You love to read about future patches. One article says that you have to read this other article on Five Celebrities who play WoW. One of them is the son of Ted Cruz and Ted approves! He even watches his son play. Ted ain’t so bad, he’s one of us. Heck, send the article to all of your friends. Amazing!

Let’s say that you grew up in a libral household. Your parents applauded Roe v Wade. You firmly believe that a woman has the right to choose an abortion and the right to get one. To bolster your arguments at work, you decide to research. Somehow, you find yourself reading about a woman who has gotten six abortions in two years, on the tax payers dollar, your dollar and she is abusing a system. Maybe not ALL women should have the right to choose.

A magician can pull out a deck of cards, shuffle them and fan them out. He will say “pick a card, any card” and you believe, really believe that you are making a solid choice even a random choice. It is called a “push” and that magician will get you to pick the card he wants nine times out of ten. And you thought that you were in control; the trick must be later.

What if you sat down to play a grandmaster at chess only to discover that he’d been studying you for five years. Not only does he know your first move but your first fifteen moves. It is not a fair game and he’s a genius at it. Do you expect to win, win at all?

What if you were to learn that you didn’t randomly learn about Mike Pence and Rex. But, instead, someone knowing your habits led you there because they wanted to change your mind, your opinion and it worked and you didn’t know it. We all love dogs

What if you knew that dishonest people were trying to lead you, to make you change your mind, to make you doubt and fear. Those guys already know your fifteen first moves. They know how to “push” to get you to click on the choice that they want. And it wasn’t just you, it was 50 million people!

But you know your own mind, right? No one could change that, you are too smart to be led. You are only checking to see pictures of your sister’s new baby. Or a dog playing fetch. Harmless.

I think that, clearly, the answer is to not play the game at all.