Executive Summary

Recognizing manipulation
Absorbing information on your own terms
Dealing with propagandized friends & family without ruining relationships
Healing the polarization the propaganda creates

If you have not yet read Part 1: We're Being Played available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

Staying In Control

Personally I do not have a TV precisely because ‘they’ are so good at what they do. I do not trust myself to resist their efforts because their methods are beyond my ability to resist 24x7x365.

I can maintain my vigilance for only so long, before I give up and give in. What I’m trying to say here is that it is not a sign of any weakness on your part if you have been taken in by their methods, only that you are human. There is no shame in being played, it’s a function of how you and I are wired.

If I did have a TV, I would absolutely not allow the sound to be on during commercials, and even better I would get a TiVo or its equivalent and skip past commercials.

But we can control how much we get played by simply not exposing ourselves to too much of the junk.

Awareness is your first key to not being played. It’s your first line of defense. Avoiding unnecessary propaganda/subliminal stimuli is your second key.

So staying in control of ‘your’ thoughts and emotions is as simple, and as hard, as being aware of the efforts to sway and/or implant ideas in your head and then avoiding those efforts as much as possible.

The benefit of doing so is a happier and more authentically connected life. After all, it is your ideas and gifts the world needs, not your regurgitation of someone else’s.

Also, advertising is largely built upon the idea of...

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