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    21st Century Ideas: Hacking homo sapiens

    Trendspotting the ways we have exploited our own primate behaviors over the past few decades.

    Started by: infrarad Raves:17 Badge Winner! Influency

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    A few years before Bank of America went under, they started offering this deal in which, when you paid for something using your debit card (think like a regular PD but only for financial holdings data, not ALL personal data), they'd round up to the nearest dollar and deposit the difference in your savings account. This blew my mind a bit: Your own bad habits, harnessed to do something that you knew was good for you. Hacking your inner primate. I think we're enough used to m2m to allow for an extra couple of identities: the hacking brain, and the acting brain (or as Merlin Mann memorably put it, the Smarty Pants region (the intelligus trouserus) vs. the Dumbass region (the idiot butticus). What are some of the ways we have hacked our behaviors, and how can we use what we've learned about primate hacking to solve the superthreats?

    Hacking human behavior... how about iPhones, PDSa, blackberries... put a small personal computer in the hands of every adult and child, and you have their complete attention. This can be used for good and bad, we can advertise non-stop, distract, entertain, send propaganda, and we can of course, send news and information about what is happening in the world at this very instant.

    If we use the tools of persuasion (there was a book from the early part of the millennium that lists them http://is.gd/3EWX) then we can trigger those automatic inner responses to drive people towards positive behaviours.

    It is a lot easier getting to \\\"yes\\\" than folks tend to realize.In fact very often the best way to get a positive response is to simply ask for one, and assume that\\\'s what you\\\'ll get. And eventually, of course, you will be right. Another connection made. I will say this: it is easier to spark a positive response if when you ask, you present yourself as clearly optimistic, and grateful. Expressing gratitude, actual, real gratitude, is a particularly healthy way to inspire people to \\\'get on board\\\'.

    Competition and Achievement have powerful primate responses. If we put abstract systems for these in place, we can use the power of competition to encourage cooperation. Game-ify social change, if you will.

    I\\\'ve been thinking about the primate\\\'s tendency to want alpha-leaders who will protect and provide for us, and all the attendant difficulties of that. It\\\'s pretty natural to feel scared and vulnerable and want guidance; it\\\'s also natural to feel unable to trust the authorities we have.

    Hey, why not hack human behavior by helping people understand that aiding ReDS patients will make them more safe? I know it sounds corny, but could it work?

    the desire for a role with greater meaning is one of our unique primate motivators. When we see our role in society as helpers and citizens as \\\"who we are\\\" then we are free to create a bigger role than just our job definitions.

    Random observation: Remember the \\\"Final Destination\\\" film franchise from the beginning of the century? #3 stands out in my mind because of the ironic nature of the situations in which the teens were killed. In an indoor tanning salon (remember those? :-P), two young women literally fry when the UV booth controllers go haywire. At a fast-food drive-thru, a teen in a convertible is decapitated by a suddenly-careering semi. Thing is, the characters seem oblivious to the long-term dangers that attend the tanning and the junking - it\\\'s unanticipated catastrophic FAIL that makes for the danger. Upshot: just another example of how humans r far more attuned to the short-term threat. Food 4 thot as the brainstorms keep rolling in :-) P.J.

    Subliminal messages embedded in all visual communication could be used to influence everyone. Eat this, not that. Vote for this, go here. Possibilities are unlimited. Maybe it\\\'s happening already, why not use it for positive ends.

    Forming habits. This article is from 2008, but I think the approach is still relevant now. http://tinyurl.com/4mc2aj

    The biggest threat is our denial of personal responsibility. Since the turn of the century we\\\'ve steady given control of our lives to others, be they governments, advertisers or the media. One could easily blame any of those things for the reality hacks they have perpetuated, but true blame should be held on us. The control they have was ours to give, and is ours to take back. Be it your personal identity, your virtual identity, your energy dependence, food source dependence, entertainment dependence. All of these things must be individually reclaimed and responsibility for them put back in individual hands, otherwise those other forces will continue to tell us what they want us to say, and how they want us to feel.

    @ARK: I admit to a grudging respect for the skill and elegance with which the government, advertisers, etc., convinced us to hand over the keys to our lives. What can we learn from their methods? Is it possible to take their control-forms, and replace the underlying content with our own meaning, our own responsibility?

    What We can learn from their methods is, at least, to defend ourselves, but I don\\\'t know if We really should use their methods. Is it right to convince to OUR own causes other people by a cunning smile, some promises and some \\\"necessary\\\" lies? We should think about something else, something different, I guess. By the way, it could be easy for politicians, with this five superthreats, to try to take advantage of this situation. But maybe that\\\'s another topic, I should start a new discussion probably...

    Sorry my previous post wasn\\\'t added correctly: What We can learn from their methods is, at least, to defend ourselves, but I don\\\'t know if We really should use their methods. Is it right to convince to OUR own causes other people by a cunning smile, some promises and some \\\"necessary\\\" lies? We should think about something else, something different, I guess. By the way it could be easy for politicians, with this five superthreats, to take advantage of this situation. But maybe that\\\'s another topic, I should start a new discussion...

    @renzo2019: I did not properly explain myself. We all have our own ideas about how our lifestyles _should_ function, but our primate actions do not always live up to our neocortical virtues. Can we take the methods of control and use them, not to control others, but to control our own behavior?

    @infrarad I think the thing we should learn is NOT to use those methods. We always want to place responsibility on the intent, but a lot of it perhaps is inherent in the very structure. One cannot assume malicious intent is the cause for an affect we disapprove of. Rather perhaps what began as good intent became malicious by the nature of the structure itself.

    @cuthbertsteel, @weather2019: Thank you for the book link---will definitely follow up on that one. @ARK: My concern is that \\\'learning not to use those methods\\\' may in some cases be equivalent to training dogs to be independent loners and cats to form hives. We need to start recognizing that certain of our behaviors are rooted in our biology as \\\'things that highly adaptive and social primates with language capabilities do.\\\' I maintain that unless we exploit these behaviors, we will be exploited by them. Here\\\'s the scary thing: Remember when US elections became a series of coin tosses? This was early evidence that \\\'political science\\\' had truly become a science, and that the two-party government structure had reached an optimal strategy equilibrium.

    @infrarad. It appears that Renzo2019 has a very good point, one that you\\\'ve not answered fully. The techniques of sapiens hacking you refer to (advertising, government, etc) are based entirely of the role of sapiens-in-society. If you apply these techniques to yourself, what you are doing is changing your position in society, generally aiming to become more of a leader. How can you do that without changing society round you? I think maybe ARK has the better idea, how do we learn techniques to remove / destroy / smash the current biological imperative, finally allowing us to go past the \\\"hitting each other with clubs\\\" element of human society

    The amateur survival engineers of Tsunamipants Un-Ltd are looking for any medical or first-aid hacks for ReDS and other calamities. We need solutions fast. A collection of hackable medical devices can be found here: http://lib.fo.am/medical_aids

    I\\\'m interested in the way that we could use artificial game/hierarchical models to hack behavior in the short term. Someone brought up the point about humans wanting an alpha leader to take care of them. What if we put together a social structure that took that need into account, but did it in a way that made more sense. If you have a group of equally capable people, you still need someone to organize, make decisions, etc., especially in dangerous circumstances. We could come up with a \\\"leadership game,\\\" that could be played by small groups of people in crisis to determine who\\\'s most suitable to lead the group through that crisis. The game would have an in-built end-point in the rules (crisis is passed, new leadership is required, etc.,) and at that time the leadership role would pass to someone else...

    Excellent---I think we\\\'ve identified a superstruct to work with. Some of us believe that one of our most important tasks is to get away from the biology of control; others of us believe that we\\\'re stuck with that biology for the forseeable millennia, and that is the hardware we need to hack. Next question: What superstructure brings those two structures back into cooperation?

    When I hear of hacking homo sapiens, I am immediately reminded of the work done by Dr. Timothy Leary concerning I^2, or intelligence increasing intelligence. While Leary helped to popularize transhumanist ideals -- arguably relevant here -- I find intelligence increase to mean humanity utilizing one of its most critical tools, our mind, to radically redevelop how we think. While I think we are, to some extent, set with our biology, I believe that our minds will have the greatest potential for flexibility. For while biologically one may be predisposed to certain ideas, rigorous mental training can begin to influence and often sway these urges. Could we develop our mental capabilities sufficiently to begin to dramatically influence our biological evolution?

    Why not do what California utilities have been doing for years? If we can get laws in place that reverse the way electric companies get paid and taxed, we could change their customers' behaviors as well. California utilities have financial incentives in place to get their customers to use less electricity. Why not implement something like this on a national scale?

    As time has gone on, we have adapted our behaviour to basically take advantage or hack others behaviour. That is what being 'manipulative' is.




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