Back to episode — Episode 33 - Hate versus Ideas and the Illusion Driving Hate
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mple where somebody on one side was making a legitimate effort to persuade the other side? It doesn't really—they don't really frame it that way, do they? The language people use is so directed at their own side that they end up pacing themselves. This is the biggest mistake you could make in persuasion. Yes, somebody said to Hawk Newsom. So what made Hawk Newsom rise to prominence, at least peop…
← Previous segment →ve a smartphone and I tried to sell you one and it was an iPhone and it was a good phone and it made you happy—well, I'm persuading you but you're better off with it. I got your money, you got a phone, everybody wins. If I persuade you to vote for President Trump, President Trump gets in office, he denuclearizes North Korea, everybody wins.
So manipulation is where I convince you to do something that isn't good for you. So that's where I draw the line. Persuasion is either a win-win—well, typically if you do it ethically it's a win-win. Manipulation is a win for the manipulator and a loss for the person being manipulated. That's how I define it. And keep in mind you don't want to get lost in word thinking. I'm just talking in my view of where you draw the line.
I did not see Sebastian Gorka on Dave Rubin's show. I saw some Twitter activity about it though. Apparently he was quite effective.
Ends justify the means with manipulation though. Yeah, here's what you know. I'm always talking about these mental traps. And the "ends justify the means" people use as, well, therefore you shouldn't be doing what you're doing. But there are plenty of ethical situations where the ends justify the means. So that statement, all you're saying, "We have ends justify the means," or as I like to say, "Are you saying the ends justify the means?" What are the ends justify the means? If you're doing a cost-benefit analysis, which is the only way you should make decisions—well, these are the costs, these are the benefits. The ends, if you do it right, where your benefits exceed your costs, are always going to justify the means. That's what thinking is.
The thinking you know that if you're doing it right, a normal thinking rational person is making decisions in which the ends do justify the means. You've got a good outcome and the means might be you spend some money, you spend some time, maybe you embarrassed somebody, maybe either a cost, maybe you lied. Now I wouldn't lie for a small gain. That would be a case of, okay, in that case the ends do not justify the means because if you only got a small benefit but you lied to get it, well that lie is not free. Okay, so in that case the cost did not exceed the benefits. You shouldn't have made the decision.
But let's say a lie prevented nuclear war. It could happen. And we live in a world in which nations are lying to each other. A lie could prevent a nuclear war. And just use the extreme example. In that case would the ends just
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ify the means? Yes, yes. Because the lie was just talk and nuclear war is you exploding in a giant fireball of radiation and fire. Those are not equal. So when people say, "Oh, you're saying the ends justify the means," they always do if you do it right. If the ends don't justify the means, well what the hell were you going after those means for? What were you going after those ends for? What was…
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