Minority Rules: 10% is the tipping point?

[Elihu]

which will make them easier to find

hope so, and i hope its the right 10%.

yikes...

[Stephen Morgan]

What if the 10% are socially irrelevant?

What is "socially irrelevent".

You and me is socially irrelevant, in that we have little influence on the formation of opinion.

Ahh then we aren't socially irrelevent in this case. Every human interacts with other humans. Thats the method of transmission.

Our diffuse mutual influence has a far lesser effect than the industrialised opinionifying of the international media elite. One gets wetter when sprayed with a hose than when walking in the rain.

[Stephen Morgan]

Indeed. That's basically what I was going to say.

The irrelevancy is the relevance in its early forms. Yet it could be like quantum mechanics where you kill it because you're looking at it too much.

Technocracy?

That's not how quantum stuff works. Technocracy is apolitical governance, governance with a single fixed philosophy which aims to increase efficiency in achieving that predetermined aim, therefore differing from democracy in that the latter is based on the popular determination of the aims and methods of governance.

[Hammer of Los]

What a load of absolute rubbish.

The Army must have money to burn to fund such vacuous so-called "research."

Then again, maybe it's a good thing that the Army uses such flaky and ill defined "theories" to underpin its psyops programs.

[justdrew]

to be of any use, the model would need to be expanded to factor in non human-to-human interactions. media influances. or as hugh would point out, parasocial interactions.

also the ideas being tracked would need to be more fully characterised, with whole sets of properties defined as well as their spectrum of potential values.

then also model the built-in but changeable 'immunization' any given agent may already have.

[vanlose kid]

What a load of absolute rubbish.

The Army must have money to burn to fund such vacuous so-called "research."

Then again, maybe it's a good thing that the Army uses such flaky and ill defined "theories" to underpin its psyops programs.

if 10% believe that the tipping point is 10% then once they believe we will have reached the tipping point to where everyone believes that the tipping point is 10%.

now why is this absolute rubbish?

*

[Wombaticus Rex]

"Influentials" was only 1/3rd of The Tipping Point, though...I mean, I hated that book...although Gladwell isn't nearly as dumb as Thomas Friedman...but to Gladwell's credit, he did at least have a more fleshed-out theory than just the "Influencers" material that Duncan Watts took issue with.

I think both Watts and Gladwell missed a lot of sociology research that is more interesting than their argument, because of both of them want it to be about people when it's really about systems. Which is to say that context and structure have more to do with these things than identity does. You can be an "Influencer" in the right setting and in fact I'd guarantee you all are, several times a week. In other contexts, we're all repeating nodes, little monkey mimesis machines...which probably happens way more often.

But Gladwell wanted to talk about people so he conflated their temporary roles in a system with their actual identities, which made it easy for Duncan Watts to cherry pick the thesis. What's sad is that it's already "Case Closed" on this because it came to binary trap where either Gladwell is "right" or Duncan "debunked" him and either way, all the real meat is not being dealt with at all.

Which I'm kind of okay with, really.

[Wombaticus Rex]

The research has broad implications for understanding how opinion spreads. "There are clearly situations in which it helps to know how to efficiently spread some opinion or how to suppress a developing opinion," said Associate Professor of Physics and co-author of the paper Gyorgy Korniss. "Some examples might be the need to quickly convince a town to move before a hurricane or spread new information on the prevention of disease in a rural village."

God that is such a gem, though....sure, daug, sure. That is definitely what it will be used for.

[Plutonia]

Unfortunately, I don't have time to get into it today, and sorry if this is a bit confused, I'm in a rush:

People do willfully and effectively influence other people's beliefs, values and actions - love-bombing, NLP, consensus building etc. People will align themselves with the chorus. They will persist in believing the first explanation they encounter, in the face of masses of contradicting, subsequent information.

My first thought when I came across that article is that it's more than convenient for some people to believe it as it prima facie justifies the ballooning "persona management" industry and it's not surprising that the research was funded by the army.

Gladwell was looking at the 20/80% split of economic models, but 10% is an enticingly lower target number.

Here's what Barrett Brown has been assembling from the HBGary (and other) hacks about the "weaponization" of "influencers":

Persona Management
From Echelon 2
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Persona management entails the use of software by which to facilitate the use of multiple fake online personas, or "sockpuppets," generally for the use of propaganda, disinformation, or as a surveillance method by which to discover details of a human target via the interactions that occur between the sockpuppets and the target.

In the wake of the HBGary investigation, it was discovered that the federal contractor had bid on a call for applications by the USAF to develop persona software for propaganda purposes. CENTCOM later admitted to using such capabilities abroad, but denies using them in the English language. Global Business Solutions and Associates LLC, Uk Plus Logistics, Ltd., NevinTelecom, Bunker Communications and Planmatrix LLC., were also among those bidding on the software, according to documents discovered by Raw Story.

On October 15th, 2010, Aaron Barr emailed Mantech CEO Robert Frisbie about considering Palantir Technologies for help "..on some of the integration for link analysis and data correlation. We will likely be able to get into some of the persona management logic.." Barr here attached the PDF titled Social Media Persona Development.

Patent 20090313274 (2007) presents persona management as a means by which to provide for conversation between people of varying cultures despite the attributes clearly being those of a system described above and the association with the military of the three men listed as inventors.

DARPA's July 2011 BAA (Broad Agency Announcement) entitled Social Media in Strategic Communications indicates that such software will increasingly be not acquired piecemeal or in shady or black-budget dealings but will form a broad programmatic area of military operations.

http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Persona_Management

[vanlose kid]

we should test this.

make one poll to see if 10% of this board believe that 10% is the tipping point.

if 10% of this board do believe it, we've reached the tipping point.

once reached, we set up another poll to see if 100% of this board believe that 10% is the tipping point.

then we'll see.

*

[alwyn]

sounds like an army study....could be a case of the proverbial quantuum observer acting upon the observed...It also has to do with the ability to transmit the idea—back in the days of camel and horse, it took longer. Personally, I think it depends upon the initial 10% with the idea...what kind of people are they? Are they radical innovators with access to media? Psyops practitioners with a vested interest in the graph of the outcome?

I think it has much more to do with the gravity of an idea which can take on a life of it's own for a limited time.

Observers of human behavior (in the Sufi cannons, which go back centuries) report that for any idea there are approx. 33% for, 33% against, and 33% undecided, or neutral. People who can actually act upon the idea are a more limited subset, maybe 10% of the 33%.

It also depends upon the field of play of the idea, as previous posters mentioned. Are we talking the political world? The social world? The entertainment field? I think that more than 50% of the people in the world believe in peace. But we are held captive by the 10% with the big guns. Hmmmm, maybe the army is right

[Plutonia]

From Dr Zimbardo of the Stanford Prison Experiment:

Resisting Influence

Prepared by Philip Zimbardo and Cindy X. Wang

The Science of Social Influence – Anthony Pratkanis

Another social psychologist who has meticulously studied social influence tactics is Anthony Pratkanis. In particular, Pratkanis has analyzed and classified the numerous methods that humans utilize to manipulate and change the attitudes and beliefs of others. While his case study of social influence methods includes too many distinct examples to discuss fully in this guide, we will list a few common examples and the types of categories that these influence tactics commonly fall under. He has also developed a guide for identifying fraudulent practices that many elderly people fall victim to.

Landscaping (Pre-persuasion tactics)

Many influence experts excel at creating a situation in which their opinion or goal seems fair or even favorable. Specifically, how objects are defined and construed, how the problem is presented, and how a request is structured are critically important in our decision process. The following methods are just some of the ways influence agents can have contexts working for them even before you know you’re being influenced.

1. Define and label an issue in a favorable manner
2. Association
3. Set expectations
4. Limit and control the number of choices and options
5. Agenda setting
6. Establish a favorable comparison point or set
7. Control the flow of information

Tactics that rely on social relationship (Social credibility and social rules)

One of the most important elements of convincing arguments is a reputable source. We are constantly bombarded by commercials that report experts such as dentists support a brand of toothpaste or professional athletes eat certain breakfast cereals. Although, no one doubts the agenda of advertisers to influence our opinion with these techniques, they are surprisingly effective at tapping essential principles of human behavior. By utilizing the following traits and characteristics, people can play on social relationships in order to persuade.

1. Authority
2. Attractiveness
3. High Status
4. Similarity – “just plain folks like you”
5. Draw on close relationships – friends, family and their well-being
6. Arguing against one’s own self-interest (no agenda)
7. Role-play
8. Social modeling
9. Social reinforcement
10. Multiple sources

Effective message tactics

Aside from the framing and social implications of situations, effective communication depends on the strength and cogency of the message. Arguments that are not very convincing may be presented or disseminated in ways that increase acceptance and compliance. Here, we cite a few of Pratkanis’ examples of how messages can induce the target to generate arguments and reasons for adopting a given course of recommended action.

1. Self-generated persuasion – give the target a chance to generate arguments in support of the position; persuade themselves
2. Vivid appeals – emotionally interesting or compelling
3. Let the message recipient draw his or her conclusion
4. Rhetorical questions
5. Pique interest in message
6. Message fit with pre-existing beliefs, experiences, knowledge
7. Placebic reasons – arguments that appear to make sense but are actually vacuous and lacking information
8. Defusing objections – acknowledging objections and refuting them before a target can raise them
9. Asking for small contributions initially
10. Message length = message strength
11. Repetition of message
12. Primacy effect – order of presentation

Emotional tactics

Emotions are often thought to infringe on our rationality and better judgment. While listening to our instincts and responding to our passions can work in favor of our interests, they are also easily exploited by for influence professionals because emotions affect us so deeply, instantaneously, and indelibly. Pratkanis presents this set of emotional tactics that take advantage of our subjective feelings, arousal, and tensions as the basis for securing influence.

1. Fear
2. Guilt
3. Embarrassment
4. Threat of insult
5. Flattery
6. Empathy
7. Reciprocity
8. Door-in-face – ask for a large favor, retreat and ask for a much smaller favor
9. That’s not all – sweetening the deal
10. Commitment trap
11. Foot-in-the-door – ask a small request than ask for a larger request
12. Low-balling
13. Bait-and-switch
14. Scarcity
15. Anticipatory regret

Offensive and Defensive Tactics for Resisting Influence

Defensive – learn how to detect propaganda

1. Play devil’s advocate
2. Generate questions to ask about a communication
3. Be prepared to debunk bogus appeals
4. Practice how to respond to propaganda attacks

Offensive – steps that will identify common propaganda forms and stop them at their source

1. Know the ways of persuasion and know that you personally may be the victim of propaganda
* Distinguish source credibility
* Weaken illusion of your personal invulnerability

2. Monitor your emotions
* If you’re having an emotional response to a communication, ask yourself why
* Look for things that induce false emotions
o Fear, guilt, reciprocity
* Redefine situation

3. Explore the motivation and credibility of the source
* What does the source have to gain?
* Is it an overly manufactured image?

4. Think rationally about any proposal or issue
* What is the issue? Labels and terms?
* Arguments in support and opposing? Cogent? Fair?

5. Attempt to understand the full range of options before making a decision
* What are the choices?
* What if I chose something other than the recommended option? What are the real consequences?

6. Actions not Words

7. If you hear something repeatedly, ask why it is being repeated

8. If the deal looks too good to be true, it probably is

9. Teach your children about propaganda
* Help them develop counterarguments
* Compare real performance with advertising

10. Support efforts to prevent vulnerable groups against exploitative persuasion

11. Avoid being dependent on a single source of information

12. Separate news from entertainment

13. Use communication style as one criteria in making decisions and judgments

14. Increase your personal involvement, knowledge, and awareness in important issues
* Do not be tuned out
* If it is important, take some time to find out more about it on your own

http://www.lucifereffect.com/guide_pratkanis.htm

[Nordic]

If the story is true, then by now, clearly, 100% of the population should believe that Obama is a Muslim.

Right?

But they don't.

So ...... the story isn't true.

[fruhmenschen]

http://social-brain.com/2009/01/26/the- ... roscience/

[Wombaticus Rex]

Interesting note to add re:the endlessly self-promoting Zimbardo.

An article came out last week that caught up with a number of the original participants:
http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/maga ... s/spe.html

I was especially struck by the fact the "whistleblower" who "raised the alarm" was a student who was already in a relationship with prof. Zimbardo, but what really blew we away was this gem from one of the security guards:

I didn't think it was ever meant to go the full two weeks. I think Zimbardo wanted to create a dramatic crescendo, and then end it as quickly as possible. I felt that throughout the experiment, he knew what he wanted and then tried to shape the experiment—by how it was constructed, and how it played out—to fit the conclusion that he had already worked out. He wanted to be able to say that college students, people from middle-class backgrounds—people will turn on each other just because they're given a role and given power.

Based on my experience, and what I saw and what I felt, I think that was a real stretch. I don't think the actual events match up with the bold headline. I never did, and I haven't changed my opinion.