Jim_Smith
New
In my post I wrote about what I didn't like, which I stand by (it is an at its root an ancient practice that is being hyped and people may feel they are being misled). But that doesn't mean Webb's work is necessarily without merit. I don't like to buy things when I don't know if they are worth the money and I don't trust marketing hype because in my experience it is often used to sell inferior products or products you don't need.
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(Testimonials are not useful to a prospective purchaser if you don't anything about the person giving the testimonial.)
Part of the problem is that people are constantly under attack by attempts to influence them to buy something or do something. These attacks use the most modern, advanced, and powerful tricks the science of psychology can come up with to influence their victims. If you understand the psychology, you also know that knowledge does not make you immune. (Everyone knows the difference between $9.99 and $10.00 is trivial yet pricing things at $9.99 consistently increases sales.) When you identify attack after attack all day long coming from the internet, mass media, in retail stores, etc you begin to resent it and resist. People trying to make money know what they are doing and they do the cost benefit of using these techniques. If more people would raise the cost by calling them out and resisting we would suffer fewer attacks.
To me it seems to be the ultimate in hypocrisy to use psychological tricks to take money from people while claiming to be interested in the well-being of the public. When you do that it is because you are interested in your own well-being. I understand others may have different opinions, but that is my opinion.
I discussed some of the psychology involved in this post:
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/i-need-some-help.4125/post-123025
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