What Chess And Drug Dealers Can Teach You About Manipulation

Welcome to Conscious Culture, a newsletter full of interesting reads for curious, intelligent people who want to sharpen their minds

Hi everyone,

Thank you for being here.

I hope you’re having a great week.

The solidity bootcamp is over. And it was amazing! I learned a ton. I'm walking away with a whole new skill, ability, and new friends!

I think my end-of-year goal is to create a conscious culture NFT collection and launch it on the Ethereum or Polygon mainnet. We'll see what happens.

This week I’m sharing ideas on:

• Theory of mind
• Why free stuff makes us irrational
• Things being worse than you think
• Deceptive design

Feel free to hit reply and let me know what you think.

Interesting Reads

Theory of Mind: What Chess And Drug Dealers Can Teach You About Manipulation

“Theory of mind is the ability we all have to see things from another's point of view. It's essential in all our interactions. A new study from Mount Sinai School of Medicine shows just how far we use this when persuading others. Manipulating others uses a part of our brain used often in games like chess. Perhaps being better at the one makes you better at the other?”

Why Free Stuff Makes Us Irrational

“They dubbed this the zero price effect: People overvalue things that are free and make irrational decisions in many cases when something free is involved.”

It’s Worse Than You Think

“We think of certain kinds of challenges as really hard when they are, in fact, completely impossible. And then we drive ourselves crazy trying to deal with them – thereby distracting and disempowering ourselves from tackling the real really hard things that make life worth living.”

Learning

Deceptive Design

“Deceptive design patterns (also known as "dark patterns") are tricks used in websites and apps that make you do things that you didn't mean to, like buying or signing up for something.”

Tools and Resources

Roshi

“Make the web easier to read. Roshi is a Chrome extension that allows users to simplify text you find online so that it's more accessible. You can also analyze the difficulty of any text you find online, using measures like grade level.”

Wilco

“Increase your engineering expertise and advance your career by acquiring, practicing, and mastering new skills on a real-life tech stack - while keeping things interesting.”

Fun Stuff

Search Through Time

“Over the years, the web and the world have changed. Since our launch in 1997, Google Search has continued to evolve to help you find the information you're looking for.”

Quote of the Week

"Value those people who tell you the truth, not just those people who tell you what you want to hear."

— Pat Summitt

🎉End

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Also, if you come across anything interesting this week, send it my way! I love finding new things to read through members of this newsletter.

With gratitude,

Will