Reddit reviews Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior

In all fairness, memory is VERY unstable. I’m reading a fantastic book right now that shows that even if you were to write down something that literally just happened, then five years later try to recall it, you can make up things that didn’t happen and even refute what you initially wrote!

I think it was in this book, where the author (through some cited studies) essentially says smiles cannot be effectively faked. That there are certain muscle groups (around eyes and cheeks I think it was) of which you do not have enough conscious control over that end up producing a sub-standard or fake looking smile when forced.

i.e. your smiles only look real when they are

> which is hard for me to agree with because I'm a pretty big believer in the "social contract" posited by Thomas Hobbs

I read a book on neuroscience recently which you should probably pick up. It's not even really political, the author in fact seems like he's going through a lot of pains to avoid bringing politics into it even if the stuff he's talking about is innately connected to the issue.

Basically, Hobbes was wrong. We aren't these isolated, purely selfish, and brutal, beings that he posited. That was his own cynicism talking more then anything. In reality human beings are very cooperative and social with one another. It's one of the reasons we survived the evolutionary maelstrom. Thing is there is a flip side, which is that we tend to view our own social groups as a kind of little island that must be defended from everybody else's ("this is my island, fuck you!). But there's even a flip side to that flip side which is that research shoes human social groupings are capable of overcoming animosity when faced with common interests. Not only that, it turns out human cultural divisions can take the form of literally fucking anything from shoes to the music we like to race. It's when we elevate them to a kind of totem or as something set in stone that they stop us from recognizing common humanity.

If that explanation seemed a little convoluted I'll sum it up by saying we're not as far gone and prone to conflict as we think we are.

The trick is creating structures that encourage cooperation and not competition and hierarchy. Which is something the anarchists (and Marx to a certain extent) have been saying for hundreds of years. If you've never read Peter Kropotkin you should absolutely look up The Conquest Of Bread, he explains that kind of society beautifully. Rudolf Rocker also wrote a book called Anarcho-Syndicalism in theory and practice which I think is probably one of the better arguments for a kind of libertarian socialism I've read.

The democrats are soft and they refuse to acknowledge the kind of people they are opposed to. The whole "they go low, we go high!" thing was the most naive shit I ever heard in my life. And the Clinton campaign kept using it in response to Trump's demagoguery.

What they failed to understand is that your average American is an emotionally driven, subservient, sheeplike, cretin. They go by the balls, not the brains. If you don't believe me just watch Fox or listen to talk radio for five minutes. They don't deal in "facts", they deal in emotional catharsis, anger, horror. That's why it's effective. More than that the GOP strategy revolves around loading liberal rhetoric with emotional/racist detritus that works on a subconscious level more than a rational one. If you want a great explanation of all this then this and this are both great books. I'd highly recommend this also.

Whenever I hear a democrat say "I'll reach across the aisle!" I cringe. Tell me, who does that inspire? Why vote for you just so you can bend over backwards for people you hate? Bernie Sanders did as good as he did not because of policy specifics but because he knew how to capitalize on people's legitimate anger. Trump capitalized on racism. Bernie Sanders capitalized on the very obvious inequality and institutional crony capitalism that defines our government. One appealed to the worst in people, the other reminded people of how much they're getting screwed.

And that's the problem with democrats: they're stuck thinking in terms of political compromise, of moderation, of political correctness.

The most intelligent thing to come out of a democratic politician's mouth recently was when Perez said in public that republicans "don't give a shit about people". That's both true and sensationalist enough to make an impact.

You don't need to tell lies. You need to tell the truth so bluntly, brutally, and without any sort of veneer of compromise or civility. You need to be willing to look the entire GOP in the face and describe it as a corrupt octopus that is a threat to fucking civilization. You need to weigh down their language with subliminal associations with nazis marching down the street and mass slaughter of minorities.

Democrats need to stop treating republicans like people with good intentions and treat them as a fucking threat to our democracy. Then their base will get out and vote, then the spotlight will be shone brightly in the faces of the fucking dickheads. They need to attack, constantly. Instead they sit around defending.

The republicans offer nothing of substance. They do not treat political campaigns as debates but as a kind of mental warzone. The democrats try to appeal to people's better nature. People don't have a better nature, people are cynical shitheads. Roger Stone gets that.

Women have the same drive, but have been socially (and perhaps other forces as well) forced to restrain it because if they get pregnant, they are physically at risk, and then have many many years of requiring additional resources to raise a child.

Reliable birth control has thrown this out of whack somewhat, but there is still tens-of-thousand of years of nature/nurture forces at work that cause a woman to not go around acting on every impulse. In general.

Edit: I've made this comment before, and I like how it always gets downvoted, but never replied to, simply because people don't think it applies to them or something? Your life, male or female, is largely controlled by subconscious behaviors that have been shaped by tens-of-thousand of years. Here's another comment that says the same thing, but was upvoted (in a different, but related post): http://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/1hinji/the_economics_of_slutshaming/cautnxo

And here are a couple of books that explain it all in more detail:

http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Time-Power-Sexuality-Evolution/dp/0142004677/

http://www.amazon.com/Subliminal-Unconscious-Rules-Behavior-Vintage/dp/0307472256/

>"it was the consciousness that gave rise to the brain and not vice versa."

I think you'd have a hard time finding any evolutionary biologists, evolutionary psychologists, neurologists, or any other scientists of a relevant field agreeing with this statement.

I have no doubt that consciousness will be fully understood in the future, but as of now there are some great books that deal with this subject. Subliminal by Leonard Mlodinow is a great example of a book that addresses our current understanding of the conscious and subconscious mind from a scientific perspective.

I would say the similarities are mostly superficial.

Numerous double-blinded studies have shown that better-looking politicians fare better than do not-so-good-looking politicians on election day. Leonard Mlodinow's new book spends most of a chapter looking at these depressing studies. And that is certainly also true for actors.

People in both careers benefit from having lots of natural charisma.

But the similarities end there. Actors tend to trend toward the narcissistic. A generality, sure, but generally true. Successful politicians OTOH, trend toward the masochistic. They thrive on pain and punishment and humiliation washes off them like water off a duck's back. Think of Bill Clinton and the Lewinsky scandal. No shame at all.

Anectdotal sure, but Washington and New York and London professional escorts also point out that S&M, and specifically S&M submissive roles are especially popular among politician clients.

In terms of skills, completely different. Actors get interviewed with softball questions about their latest project or "what's it like working with...?" This kind of mutual masturbation between Hollywood and the entertainment media leaves an actor completely unprepared for the kind of "Gotcha!" relationship they'll have with the media when their declare their candidacy for some nomination.

Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Brain Rules Your Behavior goes further into this. What we see is not direct sensory data but a construction of our brain, of which sensory data is a much smaller part than we think.

That reminds me, there's a similar video summary of the Brain Rules book over here: http://vimeo.com/10954540

(and more info here)

Totally forgot about that one. It's cool, but you can pretty much get the whole gist of it just from those links.

And if anybody's craving more psych-y books, Subliminal is also pretty cool (it's like the diet version of Thinking Fast and Slow, which is good but long), though, the Willpower Instinct one already kinda touches on a bit of material from both those anyway.

> Este tópico é sobre discriminação estética e etária. É a única coisa que interessa para o tópico.

Se não vês a ligação entre o que disse e o tópico, não vale a pena discutir mais sobre o assunto. E não chames ignorante sem saber com quem estás a falar, porque tudo o que me apresentaste aí já eu conheço. Se quiseres mais leitura sobre o assunto:

https://www.amazon.com/Subliminal-Your-Unconscious-Rules-Behavior/dp/0307472256/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-attraction-doctor/201709/how-our-body-language-can-make-us-attractive

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/subliminal/201206/how-we-are-judged-our-appearance

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126957.300-how-your-looks-betray-your-personality/

De um português que eu sigo de perto:
https://www.wook.pt/livro/primatas-culturais-paulo-finuras/16419293

https://grupolusofona.academia.edu/PauloFinuras

Mais em inglês:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1412-beautiful-people-spark-a-brain-reaction/

https://www.medicaldaily.com/seeing-pretty-faces-rewards-brain-perceiving-beauty-all-chemical-reaction-269074

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/attraction-evolved/201612/how-testosterone-affects-what-men-find-attractive

https://www.livescience.com/28812-women-prefer-smell-of-manly-guys.html

https://www.webmd.com/men/features/exercise-and-testosterone#1

Posso continuar, mas acho que não vale a pena. O meu ponto era sobre o indivíduo que faz a escolha quando está a recrutar alguém para uma posição. Quando a concorrência é muita, e há o "luxo" de escolher sem olhar para o CV, então estes fatores contam muito. Se não percebeste isso do meu primeiro comentário, nem sei como me chamas de ignorante a mim.

Ignorância não está só no que não se sabe, está também no que não se quer saber. Lê o meu primeiro comentário.

> say "that's wrong" when it's not guided and manipulated by the media.

That's not what i'm talking about. Read up on neuropsycology, it's come on in leaps and bounds. This is a great starting point.

>to attack my personal character saying it reflects my emotional state.

Then don't say shit like:

>hoose to have morals. Choose to have ethics. Choose to give a shit about the life around you.

I mean, tell me that's not emotional and also an attack. I mean, you're saying this stuff and I'm accusing you of being emotional? That was emotional. I simply reacted to it.

>we're not superior is undermining what it is to be human

Not to me it isn't. People used to say that saying the earth/sun was the center of the universe was undermining what it means to be human. "superior" is illogical, given that there is no other reference frame to judge that by!

> no other piece of matter has: the ability to observe and name itself. This makes us unique.

Whoa, hold on there. We don't know everything about everything yet. Are sooo far from it that this statement is meaningless. There are things that make every species unique. If we judge my human stuff, yeah we're the "best", but if we judge by a ostriches, perhaps we'll find that ostrich is ostrich!

> All I'm suggesting is that, in the strict instance of animals, we try and see eye to eye. Treating animals with cruelty isn't right. There's no purpose to it.

Spot on. couldnt agree more

> We're better than that. We're better because we can choose to have morality. We're better because we can choose to not treat them with cruelty.

How does that make us better. Birds can fly, we can't wouldnt that make birds better than us too?

>We're better because we can choose to not treat them with cruelty. That's not wrong, or dangerous, short sited.

yup, course not. But that wasn't what i was talking about earlier.

> Is it so wrong to act as a society? Is it so wrong to compartmentalize individuality?

Again, of course not. In fact these thigs just are. we act as societies. We almost constantly contemplate the individual self. But acting as a society doesn't mean acting according to one person's drive. Societies structures are complex and - i repeat - they guuide us, more than we guite them.

>I'm clearly wasting my breath. Gonna take my crazy radical thoughts elsewhere.

Why do you feel that? Your thoughts aren't radical. THey're quite normal and thoughts that most of us share. It's the anger at the world and the tone that i was trying to point out. "Paragon of life" is all well and good, but it doesn't mean anything. In fact, i'd say that trees are the paragon of life, which is true from another point of view.

Look, i guess i'm being unclear: We should not be cruel to living things because cruelty is fucked up. There is no other justification. Because the bible says so, or because you'll go to jail or because of some idea of speciescial (i'm sticking with the word :P) superiority just is pointless to me. So if we were "inferior" we have lesser need to be cruel? How does that make sense.

Look i'm sorry i was harsh earlier. It's a bad habit i have that when i latch on to a point i speak very bluntly. I didn't mean to attack you personally and i'm sorry you feel that way, but they really were just honest observations.

>Has it? Such as?

This is a good book that goes over a lot of aspects of how we interpret the world around us and why.

This is not the first such study. Turns out people tend to build their sense of belonging and place around concepts they develop from their cultural and political environment. And they don't change easily. We don't have the time or energy to rationally examine every in and out of a particular issue. Our subconscious (which is, for the record not even remotely theoretical but an actual physical aspect of our brains) ends up picking up a lot of that slack. Thing is our subconscious tends to run on pure survival instinct. It steers our conscious thoughts towards ideas that are comforting or that allow us to integrate ourselves more easily with the people around us.

At any rate you don't need science to figure out that ideology is a hell of a drug and that people don't always listen to evidence.

There's a book on neuroscience I've read recently that went over this, and it's pretty great

Long short, never doubt people's capacity for self delusion. We don't just make decisions based on reason. We carry a lifetime's worth of emotional and ideological baggage around with us everywhere we go and our subconscious minds like to unpack it whenever we do that "thinking" thing.

People gradually come around to different points of view. I've yet to have an argument where anybody conclusively "won". Whether on the internet or in real life. I think the reason is that most people just flat out refuse to consider that they might be wrong until the realization sneaks up on them a little while later. After they end up seriously unfulfilled or notice physical proof of their own wrongness that they can't possible ignore. And some people don't even accept that. Hell, some people still think the earth is flat.

>It's about winning the hearts and minds of people who will listen and coalescing into a larger group that influences policy.

You're not going to win over Trump voters. You just won't. We're talking about a man who has said he wants to bomb people's families. If you can bring yourself to vote for that you clearly don't live in anything resembling reality. Hell, you transcend all talk of ethics into pure sadism at that point

There's nothing rational in that mindset and we really need to start admitting this to ourselves. We can't be polite with this kind of societal cancer. And it is a cancer. The kind of paranoia, the contempt for basic facts, the love of violence and hatred of weakness, all that insane fascistic shit Trump and his supporters love, that's an actual threat to democracy. We can't let that appear legitimate or become normalized. Arguing with it is giving it more legitimacy then it deserves. There's nothing to argue about. Like any weed it needs to be plucked out of our political system before it spreads and strangles the garden.

History is full of examples as to why. And that's the real reason I can't keep being all liberal about this guy (or Cruz for that matter, fuck it). Because I know all too well what it leads to. This kind of shit is what actually lead to genocide in Rwanda.

>I think you don't realize that it's in your best interest to reach consensus rather than to incite a crisis

I really don't think you understand the basic fact that these people offer civilization absolutely jack shit. You might as well be saying we should give ISIS a seat in congress as far as I'm concerned. I might add Trump is only the beginning of it. It's only going to get worse. Hell, it's been getting worse since Obama was elected. The right wing that exists in America today is way more violent, militant, and unwilling to compromise than it was 10 years ago. Trump is only the electoral expression of that. The shit happening on a grassroots level is where it really gets fucking terrifying. What's being bred here is fascism. Let's not mince words. People keep saying that is overblown terminology but it isn't anymore, this is how fascism starts. The hypernationalism, the love of violence, the bigotry, the contempt for the rest of the world, the obsession with strongman leadership, ect ect. This is how it starts. Trump was the demagogue with the smarts to transform that tendency into a political movement for himself.

It is going to get worse. I can promise you that. We can't tolerate this.

>or do you want to end up in a civil war?

See above. I'm sorry but it's either you piss these people off through the occasional act of civil disobedience or they start killing people. There is no other option here.

Call me a pessimist all you want, but what we're dealing with...this isn't something you can vote away. This isn't something capable of reason. This is the dark heart of humanity coming out and promising to bomb people's families and torture people. This is the racism and sexism of pissed off white males turning itself into a virtue. This is pure contempt. Pure hatred of reality, of decency. These people want death and slaughter. That's all they want. They don't want any of the shit you can possibly give them. They want the people they hate to suffer and that's it.

If you don't possess the knowledge of something, it still doesn't mean it's not there. Knowing the difference between the three states of consciouness is very, very basic. It's like the first thing you learn about psychology, and any lay person like me can learn it. Moreover, I wasn't being passive aggressive at all. It is just an undeniable fact that this is pop psychology, and just because you didn't see the difference between the two anywhere you looked it doesn't mean there isn't a difference out there. Because there is.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-in-meaning-between-subconscious-and-unconscious

http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/unconscious-or-subconscious-20100801255

"Although the word “subconscious” continues to appear in literature, it is rarely defined carefully and may or may not be synonymous with “unconscious.”

The definitions are not the same. Science semantics and grammar are much more complicated and contradictory then saying "uh, it's all the same thing" as there is an unificated and agreeable universal opinion about it. The dictionaries might tell you that, because like I said, English, but they are two different terms that like the quote said, MAY or MAY NOT BE used as synonymous". And in this case, it is not.


Yeah... I'm well aware of Freud's unconscious and the new unconscious modern psychologists have "discovered". There wasn't any need of repeating information or copying/pasting about what the unconscious is, as I have already explained. While you can use the unconscious term in this case correctly, like I said many, many times the specific term is subconsciously, not unconsciously. Unconscious is a general term to simplify psychology and avoid confusion, which nonetheless doesn't exclude the subconscious definition.

Again, I already explained and talked about Freud's stance on this, so I have no idea why you are talking that quote, which by the way is the one quote you can find in Wikipedia. This is the kind of stuff I already talked about, and admitted. That's why I said Freud prefers the "pre conscious" term instead. Both however remains to define things we are more or less aware and that influences our thought and knowledge. Stimulating the unconscious is not possible, and that's not how propaganda works.

That's not true at all**. Any marketing professional or student will definitely claim the contrary. Saying supraliminal is used more often then subliminal stimuli is hilariously absurd. I would like to see where your sources to claim this. Both are used, the subliminal being much more active.

Just read Subliminal by Leonard Mlodinow, who wrote along with Stephen Hawking once. The book is highly acclaimed, including by Hawking.

https://www.amazon.com.br/Subliminal-Your-Unconscious-Rules-Behavior/dp/0307472256

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1575795

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/24/subliminal-new-unconscious-leonard-mlodinow-review

If you have not read Incognito or Subliminal, I highly recommend them. Gives some great insight into the subconscious mind. One of the books talks a bit about early work by Freud on how he was right and wrong about his research.

Can I offer some other choice reads that will make you question your rational decision based on "how it feels" we make decisions rather than how they "actually are made"? We can now do brain studies that show our unconscious brain makes our decisions before our conscious brain is even aware of the choices. We rationalize our decisions based on our emotions, not logic. The beautiful thing is we feel like we are the ones in charge, the 'I", me, you, they, she, he, whomever, but every single person is as predictable as our Earth's rotation around the sun.

Let's see, some interesting books with hundreds if not thousands of sources in them each: Subliminal, Free Will, Incognito to get you started.

Feelings are only feelings, they are an old response before our prefontal cortex made its appearance. Don't let those get in the way of learning about how we work. Sure it feels like the earth is flat, it feels bad when we get rejected, it feels like your conscious mind made that choice to get a burger over the salad, but don't let feelings get in the way of what's actually happening. It's all an illusion, man..