<div class="bbWrapper"><b>My Rating:</b> 3 stars out of 5 stars<br />
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<b><br />
Format:</b> kindle<br />
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<b>My thoughts/review:</b><br />
The book was chore to read. It seriously needs editing to tighten up the chapters. I had to come back to this book several times to finally whittle it down and finish it. It was with a breath of fresh air when i realized that with 50 pages left, the rest was just the bibliography.<br />
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It was basically study/story after study/story with footnotes for study references that i <b>HOPE</b> were accurately interpreted by the author.<br />
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So basically there's automatic ways in which we sometimes make decisions which are regularly being exploited by nefarious people and organizations.<br />
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Like how if a certain bird species hears "cheep cheep" sound that a baby would make, it will trigger an automatic nurturing reactions, even if the source of the sound is an inanimate object.<br />
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or how fishermen throw some feed in the water for fish to start fighting over, and then throw empty hooks into the water, and the fish bite on them anyway because they're going crazy fighting over the limited food.<br />
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Some things are obvious like how quickly we trust an image of authority, whether its someones Title or Clothing.<br />
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Some other things are a bit more hidden, like our urge to reciprocate gifts and be consistent with our past choices when deciding on future choices.<br />
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There was some interesting stories, and that's where the book was most engaging.<br />
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Regarding protecting yourself though, although the author has somewhat different suggestions for the different automatic ways we falter, it all boils down to slowing down and paying attention.<br />
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Basically if you rush through life, you're gonna start automating more and more of your decisions, and that's where you risk getting exploited without realizing it until later.<br />
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The author tries to make this whole thing feel like a dilemma, that life is inevitably getting faster and more complicated and that we have to find a balance between constant awareness and going with the flow of automatic decisions.<br />
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I personally disagree, screw this pressure to speed up more and more. In my opinion, slowing life down is the way to go, leading to good health and apparently reducing the chance to be swindled lol<br />
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<b>Favorite (or least favorite) chapter</b>:<br />
The chapter on reciprocation because it had a cool story about Hare Krishna tactics at airports.<br />
They would stop you and hand u a flower as a "gift", and not let u give it back.<br />
This causes an irresistible urge to reciprocate and so most people give a donation.<br />
Afterwards they throw the flower out into the first trash can they see.<br />
Finally after running out of flowers, a Hare Krishna member going to the garbage can and retrieves all the thrown out flowers to start the process again! LOL<br />
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There's another cool story about a cult.<br />
Basically there was a small cult that was infiltrated by researchers and documented from the inside.<br />
So this cult was super secretive and declared that on some day will be a huge flood to kill everyone and that 2 weeks before that an alien god will come take away the cult members at midnight.<br />
All this knowledge came spontaneously to the female leader who wrote it down.<br />
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When midnight came and nothing happened, people started slowly slowly freaking out. People were in panic and self denial, especially those who sold all their possessions and got fired form their jobs, etc<br />
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at about 4AM, the cult leader spontaneously started writing again, saying that the alien decided the flood wont happen because their faith was strong or something LOL<br />
immediately the cult members tried to aggressively recruit more members, a sharp 180 degree change from their previous policy. Unfortunately for them, noone drank the coolaid and so their cult collapsed fast.<br />
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There was some psycological explanation for this behavior change that i dont remember lol, but its a cool story.<br />
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I also learned about how car salesmen lowball people effectively. So they say a car costs 400 bucks under current average price, so the customer is eager and commits to the purchase.<br />
Then later the salesman "realizes" or "discovers" a "mix up" and the real price is basically 400 bucks more, but he tells the customer "well its the car u wanted anyway right".<br />
This really makes it psychologically hard for the customer to say no cause he felt commited.<br />
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Here's another cool story about a car selling hustler. This dude would buy a car for cheap, clean it up a bit, and would put up an ad. he would schedule all potential buyers to come visit at the same time.<br />
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So the first person to show up behaves as a typical buyer by checkin out the car and negotiating the price. but as soon as the second customer shows up, all of a sudden the first buyer feels a scarcity mindset and and a sense of competition!<br />
Then when the third customer shows up its even more pressure. Even if the first guy leaves, the second dude is super likely to buy the car cause it feels like he won something precious lol.<br />
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Anyways there's many more stories and anecdotes in this book. Im starting to see the formula for these mainstream books. Atomic habits had the same approach, cite some studies here and there and fill the book with stories.<br />
That shit is easy to do, i can write a book myself like that LOL<br />
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<b>Key takeaways</b>:<br />
<ol>
<li data-xf-list-type="ol"><b>if u rush through life, u gonna start behaving more automatically to triggers like an animal. </b><br />
</li>
<li data-xf-list-type="ol"><b>Paying attention is the antidote to most tricks.</b></li>
</ol><br />
Looking forward to the next first Non Mainstream book we'll read.</div>
