Absolutely this. You cannot get a person to change an opinion, a belief, a tendency, by tackling it head on. It’s almost like we have an autonomous immune respo

Absolutely this. You cannot get a person to change an opinion, a belief, a tendency, by tackling it head on. It’s almost like we have an autonomous immune response to information which challenges our preconceptions or preferences. I have found, repeatedly, that the way to get people to change is to make them think it was their idea. So you manipulate them, but in such a fashion that they do not realise they are being manipulated. For instance, I got my kid sister to quit smoking by taking up smoking and encouraging her to smoke more and more until she smelt like an ashtray and had a wallet as light as a feather - and then she decided that this was stupid, and quit. I then claimed to take inspiration from her and followed suit. Of course, this doesn’t work en masse without essentially going into conspiratorial psyops on the population, but on an individual or small group basis, people can be given a set of precepts and ideas that lead them to an almost inevitable conclusion - and because it was their idea, it’s precious. You can then really cement it by trying to get them to drop the idea, and convince them that the thing that you wanted them to think is wrong. Contrary creatures, we.