If there’s one useful outcome of the research of Pavlov and Freud and their peers, it’s the scientific discovery that humans are distressingly easy to manipulat

If there’s one useful outcome of the research of Pavlov and Freud and their peers, it’s the scientific discovery that humans are distressingly easy to manipulate into wanting things they did not want before. Ten years ago, the modern smartphone did not exist, and now I bet you don’t want to live without one. In this case, we have the big media, big industry, and big government in a huge orgy of bribery and self-interest, that all benefit from people accepting authoritarianism. There’s a relief valve, a small minority of people getting their political analysis from Comedy Central or their security analysis from Bruce Schneier, but the vast majority get their talking points from people who are funded to act like there is still a debate about climate change. It’s not technically against our will, but our will has been manipulated.