--- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, "Kitty Antonik Wakfer" <kitty@m...>
wrote:
> Today I completed and uploaded a new Miscellaneous page to the
> Dialogue section of the Self-Sovereign Individual Project. It
> consists of the exchange of emails between my nephew Aaron, an
> Air Force pilot, following the one I sent him that demonstrated
> my own personal implementation of my essay, "Social Preferencing -
> Evaluation and Choice of Association; A Method for Influence"
> http://selfsip.org/focus/preferencing.html and is contained at its
> conclusion.
>
> No content of the emails has been omitted except for his last name
> and email address. (Note that he was notified from the first
message
> that the emails would become part of Self-SIP.) My summary comments
> follow the exchange and begin:
> "When I sent the original email to Aaron, I did not expect initial
> agreement with my thinking, otherwise he would already have
resigned
> his Air Force commission or be in the process of doing so. I
> expected to likely receive some of the well used excuses for the US
> military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. To his credit, Aaron did
> not parrot any of these, possibly because I made it quite clear in
> that initial message that I had made a thorough examination of the
> underlying factors and evidently would not be swayed by the current
> US administration and news media line of "fighting terrorism". But
> what did surprise me was an inability and/or unwillingness to
> express his ideas, beyond stating that they are "rooted in [his]
> faith in God" - which is in essence saying that he does not use
> logical thought based on facts (except of course in regards to
> piloting a plane and possibly in other technical areas).....
> http://selfsip.org/dialogues/misc/preferencing_at.html

I suspect it was more "unwillingness" due to lack of sufficient
incentive rather than merely "inability." More below.

[I disagree. Aaron need only have not responded at all if there was "lack of
sufficient incentive". At the time that he wrote these emails, I think the most
likely reason for Aaron's logically weak replies is his failure to have really
examined the current issues and, even moreso, the underlying assumptions for
governments. **Kitty]

[I agree entirely. The problem with most current members of society is that they
have never learned to critically examine any issues, All that is left to them is
emotion and belief. It is in this sense that they have abrogated and denied the
very essence of their human nature, and have essentially sunk to the level of
lower lifeforms. --Paul]


> The type of thinking that Aaron demonstrates in his email responses
> is quite typical of what I expect many will find when they try to
> verbally (or in writing) influence others to cease involvement in
> and support of the US (and other governments') military actions in
> Iraq and Afghanistan. The reasoning I have used to point out
Aaron's
> faulty thinking and substitution with emotion will likely be
> beneficial to others, and hopefully encourage them to make use of
> the powerful non-force tool of social preferencing for this and
> other major issues.
<snipped by R.R.>

Before I go any further, I'ld like to say how much I admire
individuals like yourself who can back up their talk with action,
even when the immediate consequences are obviously not pleasant.
I also thought the email and replies were quite well reasoned (if one
accepts all of the SMN arguments and their subtle extension into the
NSC or vice versa).

[The fact that you continue to insinuate that there are fallacies in the Social
Meta-Needs theory without proving your point despite previous attempts is quite
irksome. The fact that you start off with what might be taken by some to be
complimentary does not change that reception by me. And yes, some immediate
consequences are not pleasant - Aaron's mother, my youngest sister, wants "to
talk urgently", but has not to date put her feelings and thoughts down in text.
I only want to see the written word - so that it can be reviewed and assessed -
and not to hear (on the phone) a lot of emotionally charged words. Therefore I
will not *talk* (on the phone) about these emails with Aaron to her. Hopefully
she will eventually write something down and in the course evaluate her own
reactions. **Kitty]


However, as this email exchange has shown, this particular mode of
"social preferencing" may be in need of some fine tuning.

What is the goal of social preferencing at this stage in the game
when there are so few preferencers acting in common accord against
the great evil?

[The purpose of social preferencing is the same *now* as it will be in a future
Freeman Society - to make it clear to the recipient of the negative or positive
preferencing, and to others, that disassociation or association is occurring, to
the extent it is occurring and, most importantly, *why* it is occurring. By
doing so, the recipient can in the case of any degree of disassociation (the
consequence of negative preferencing) decide to reevaluate his behavior so as to
be the recipient of desired associations.

The original essay I wrote containing the email to Aaron, and the ensuing email
dialogue, are being publicized for the purpose of demonstrating to others that
complete disassociation from those who do or actively support harm *is* the
proper action for one's self. In addition, it can be influential when the
harm-doer is aware of the disassociation and can encourage others to use the
same disassociation method - negative social preferencing, which, of course,
will make it even more influential.

Social preferencing has been used for centuries - it just was not given that
name. Through the history of most countries, there has been much urging to "do
one's duty" or otherwise be considered cowardly or otherwise undesirable (with
little if any logical justification based on the facts of reality) - so social
preferencing is not new. However, Paul and I have assigned this specific name
to an action of clearly stating one's future disassociation and reasons; in a
positive situation, the statement would be of association with specified reason.
The reasons are all important since the reason formulation act requires the
person to assess and evaluate, and then s/he communicates these to the
recipient. So as you should be able to see, thinking with reason based on
reality and communicating the results are all important. **Kitty]

[I want to point out that I and Kitty already used a form of social preferencing
when we decided not to accept posts on this group from those who would not
identify themselves. --Paul]


To achieve the maximum negative/positive feedback control on the
targeted individual and his sphere of influence while maximizing any
other possible desired collateral effects.

[I am not trying to "target" nor "control" an individual to change hir mind. I
am letting facts be known to hir; it is then up to hir what s/he does with them.
While the initial reasons given should also provide some guidelines for helping
the receiver of the preferencing understand why hir actions are wrong (and mine
did), s/he must be the one to finally reason out why for hirself. No amount of
"targeting" nor "controlling" will cause a person to be able to reason and
understand for hirself. While this is taking place, my negative social
preferencing (disassociation) is in effect until a change in the positive
direction is seen and then to the degree that it is positive. I have no interest
or time to follow your conversion recipe below. **Kitty]


How does one do that?

1. Explore the individual's thought process,

[Nonsense! This simply cannot be done! --Paul]


ideas,

[And this can only be done to the extent that the individual knows what his
"ideas" are and can and is willing to express them to you. However, if he can
then he is already half way to being able to analyze and change them. The major
problem is that most people operate on completely subliminal ideas which they
have never analyzed, usually do not even know that they have and, if even they
do know they have them, mostly cannot describe them with any coherency. --Paul]


reasoning abilities,

[About what? Reasoning abilities within the same individual can vary all over
the map depending on the information about which s/he is reasoning. --Paul]


and rationale for his choices

[Again most people do not have any true "reasons" for their choices. Most
choices are simply what others do or expect one to do. --Paul]


in a non-confrontational manner

[This is impossible when so many people find any questioning about any of their
ideas and positions to be "confrontational". If you do anything but "accept"
what many people say, they find it confrontational, The reason for this is
because they have never thought about why they have the opinions that they do
and it bothers them if you make them think about it by asking why.

I am also going to skip the rest as Kitty did. She actually read it, but I find
the whole approach so abhorent in its suggestions of essentially faking reality
that I could not even bring myself to read it. I already know that such
repugnant ilk exists in this world and have no need to continue to wallow in it.
--Paul]


that produces maximimum honesty and openness from the target.
Do not introduce anything that the individual would not likely
immediately understand and relate with at this early stage.
(This is the difficult time consuming part.)

2. Find some way of maximizing the value of your
friendship/association in his eyes. This can be accomplished via
frequent visits, discussions, taking an interest in his goals, ideas,
etc... (1) and (2) can be combined in this regard. No mention of
any negative consequences of not complying with any desired change
should be mentioned or implied at this point. Whatever you do, don't
mention the word shun yet. Also try to convey to the target the high
value you place on your association with the target (feel free to
exagerate as long as it doesn't become obvious).

3. Modify the idea you wish to convey to the individual so that it
conforms as much as possible to his particular reference as discovered
in (1). The world is full of people who have beliefs of one form or
another and sometimes one just has to figure out how to best work
around that. This conversion process may necessitate breaking the
desired message/idea down into separate parts and presenting them in a
ramped dose manner going from the least difficult to the most
difficult argument, progressing only when the prior dose has been
accepted. These and all of the other communications with the target
should be conducted in person or over the telephone as this allows for
rapid adaption of the presentation to any particular misunderstandings
or communication gaps that might occur between the two parties that
would be likely to expand rapidly if not immediately squashed.
Only with hyper-rational individuals would written correspondence be
even adequate (and I suspect that even in this case, there would still
be downsides to the medium).

4. If (3) isn't working, trying going back to 1 and 2 so that you can
build up your persuasive influence and relative value prior to heading
into step 5 from which it may be harder to back track.

5. If the simple communications outlined in step 3 have definitely
hit a dead end despite frequent mention of the positive consequences
to the target of conversion, then start to employ the threat of loss
of closeness/friendship/association etc..., but be careful and go
slowly. Do not employ any threats that would devalue your
relationship with the target as cultivated in (2). This would
recommend against using words like "shun" or others that might devalue
your worth to the target or hint at your lesser valuation of the
target. Do not employ any final ultimatums unless you are quite
certain that it will do the trick or that further progress cannot be
achieved along this path.

6. Actually start to implement the threats conveyed in (5), but
likewise, go slowly.

7. Implement the final maximum negative feedback (i.e. shun the
target and/or employ whatever other maximally negative non-violent
influence you can on the target) if and only if you have reason to
believe it is more likely to result in his conversion than continued
association and interaction as outlined in the above steps. The
possible caveat to the above being for the additional purpose and
effects resulting from showing others that you mean business or other
collateral effects.

(Substitute my use the word "conversion" with "reverse-conversion" as
desired.)

(The above has been more or less translated/extracted from the LDS
missionary handbook (i.e. "milk before meat"). Just kidding,.. sort
of.)

[I found this "recipe" for creating converts repulsive in its manner even
without considering what the user is trying to sell. It reminded me of a set of
instructions for telemarketers who are out to persuade on
emotions/feelings/belief, thereby (hopefully) keeping the "target" from *really*
thinking about or evaluating the product/service.

Robert has totally missed the purpose of social preferencing - it is not to
control or convert people. It is using the free market of interpersonal
exchanges, just as when one tells someone providing any product or service that
one is or is not buying it and why. The intended result is that people will be
moved by the result to analyze the reasons given. If they agree with them, then
they will make the necessary behavior modification. If they do not, then they
will dismiss the social preferencer as being unworthy and no loss. Because we
think that our views are valid for reality, our purpose is therefore to state
that in our reasons and hopefully, lead the receiver of our preferencing to
discover the behavior that is consistent with reality and understand *why* that
is so. Paul and I seek and try to produce (by encouraging rational analysis)
thinking/reasoning individuals, not maleable feelers/believers who want only to
belong to some group for the warm fuzzies that such camaraderie might provide.
**Kitty]

[For the reasons that Kitty has given, this LDS approach has no value whatever
for creating the kind of thinking people who are of interest to us. --Paul]


Regards,
Rob Rolen

P.S. I have no LDS background but have enjoyed studying it.

[Why anyone would "enjoy studying" ideas based on belief (acceptance as fact
without evidence) is beyond me. Such "enjoy[ment]" is in contradiction to
reality based reasoning. **Kitty]