Item #1 Afford Since we are targeted by such a steady stream of advertising and attempts to create desire in us, we often have reason to think of how much money, savings, saleable property and other wealth we have. I was just shown today that for something like $230,000, I could buy a car with a cloak of invisibility around it. I am not sure such a car would be a good thing nor how much the cloak works but that is not my question. I want to know about it and many other things: Can I afford it? I find that I and most people I know simply don't know what they "can afford".
I can add the amount in my bank account and my wallet but should I try to get a loan for a desired item? Should I try to launch a business to earn enough? What I can or cannot afford is a slippery subject.
Item #2 - "Click here to learn more", often abbreviated to simply "Learn more". This is typical wordng to invite me to pay attention to more content, wordsmithing, text, pictures including lovely little puppies or children, all aimed at getting me to attend to further explanation as to why I should do what someone wants me to do. I am thinking about designing an app that will instantly change an link using the words "learn more" into a different link that will read "learn less". The app will create a useable summary of the notion being pedaled expressed in few words and no pictures or sounds.
Item #3 - Curing phobias without understanding them I read in Brian Christian's "The Most Human Human" that Dr. Richard Bandler, a scientist and hypnotist cures some phobias in some people without ever finding out what the person is afraid of.
Bandler is the co-founder of the controversial "Neuro-Linguistic Programming" school of psychotherapy and is himself a therapist who specializes in hypnosis. One of the fascinating and odd things about Bandler's approach—he's particularly interested in phobias—is that he never finds out what his patient is afraid of. Says Bandler, "If you believe that the important aspect of change is 'understanding the roots of the problem and the deep hidden inner meaning' and that you really have to deal with the content as an issue, then probably it will take you years to change people." He doesn't want to know, he says; it makes no difference and is just distracting. He's able to lead the patient through a particular method and, apparently, cure the phobia without ever learning anything about it. It's an odd thing, this: we often think of therapy as intimate, a place to be understood, profoundly understood, perhaps better than we ever have been. And Bandler avoids that understanding like—well, like ELIZA. "I think it's extremely useful for you to behave so that your clients come to have the illusion that you understand what they are saying verbally," he says. "I caution you against accepting the illusion for yourself."
Christian, Brian (2011-03-01). The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive (p. 78). Doubleday. Kindle Edition.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
