... Engineered Consent

This video has been sent to us by one of our readers. It deals with the exactly the kind of subjects that made us start this blog. A lot of things that we do in our daily lives, a lot of thoughts and ideas that we might be having we designed and placed upon us by someone else. It is important to recognize that and attempt to live a bit more “examined life”. The title of the video “Century of Self” does not do justice to this four-hour program. One of its subtitle “Engineered Consent” makes much more sense. So, set a side a weekend afternoon and prepare to be shocked.

... (book review) Simple*ology

Mark Joyner. Simple*ology.

Easy Read for an Armchair Psychologist

The author claims to discover a “simple science of getting what you want”. The reality, unfortunately, is more than far from it. He does make a number of attempts to prove that there are existing alternatives to the ways we process information, but comes short of proposing a reliable system.

The writing style itself is somewhat of acquired taste – it is very conversational in nature. It may be quite annoying in the beginning, but eventually the reader will get used to it and even enjoy the unassuming tone.

There are a couple of interesting nuggets of serious psychological analysis coupled with assertions that most self-help books are nothing but pseudo-science.
All the way at the back the reader will find a four step action plan “to getting what you want”, but it is way too ordinary, perhaps even “simple”.
There were too many references to the website, which makes it almost undesirable to visit (to this day have not).

Overall, an interesting read with nice scientific references.
The value to the reader will greatly depend on the purpose of the purchase. If one intend to find out how do get what one wants – that would be a waste of money; if to spend an afternoon leafing through an easy book – go right ahead.

Btw, not sure why it was paired with The 4-Hour Workweek – the only thing that the two have in common is writing style.