I wonder if there would be any reasonable cure for color blindness

Color blindness

The technique of pretending to agree with someone (including praise), then “subtly” leading them is not too original, nor are you very good at it. (“Visualize” yourself acting like a jackass.)

If you would bother to read what I said (I know, you aren’t really interested in what I said, only in your own cleverness) you would see that my mother advised me to think for myself. Doing the opposite of what a crowd does is no more thinking for yourself than going with the crowd. This is obvious, if you would only “think about it”.

For some reason, my daughter once decided to chronicle all the times that I have been nearly killed — after several hours of cross-examination (she is now a lawyer) she came up with a total of 13 times. Whatever my “attitude” is (and it certainly doesn’t resemble your caricature), it appears to have served me well enough.

My mother helped me prepare for this when she would say (fairly often, as I was growing up) “never run with a crowd”, but to mentally step aside and ask myself if I would be doing this if I were alone. This takes you out of the subconscious loop and makes you think about your actions.

Specifically, in this video, an effective defense would be to refuse to cooperate physically (after all, the audience was presumably there to listen to Brown talk, not to take orders from him). If he asks to touch you, say no; if he tells you to stand up, ignore him, etc. Under no circumstances do something because people around you are doing it (see my Mother’s advice). If you ever go to a revival meeting (and don’t want to be converted) I strongly recommend this tactic. It will not be comfortable — ignore that and do it anyway. Many people (especially highly educated ones) vastly underestimate the connection between action and thought and assume that they can physically cooperate (to avoid embarrassment) while maintaining private mental reservations. Brown easily leads people who use this ineffective “defense” — it is important not to cooperate in any way at all, even if it makes you look like a jerk. (BTY, this is not a bad way to deal with a pushy car salesman also.)

You are justified in acting this way because Brown is being deceptive — he is pretending to just talk, while he really is trying very hard to manipulate you. He has already violated most of the (unwritten) rules of peer-to-peer dialog, and hence you owe him no respect or courtesy.

It may not be too paranoid to observe that there is a conflict of interest in government-run schools teaching defense against manipulation, when many politicians achieve power with help from such manipulations.

My mother helped me prepare for this when she would say (fairly often, as I was growing up) “never run with a crowd”, but to mentally step aside and ask myself if I would be doing this if I were alone. This takes you out of the subconscious loop and makes you think about your actions.

Specifically, in this video, an effective defense would be to refuse to cooperate physically (after all, the audience was presumably there to listen to Brown talk, not to take orders from him). If he asks to touch you, say no; if he tells you to stand up, ignore him, etc. Under no circumstances do something because people around you are doing it (see my Mother’s advice). If you ever go to a revival meeting (and don’t want to be converted) I strongly recommend this tactic. It will not be comfortable — ignore that and do it anyway. Many people (especially highly educated ones) vastly underestimate the connection between action and thought and assume that they can physically cooperate (to avoid embarrassment) while maintaining private mental reservations. Brown easily leads people who use this ineffective “defense” — it is important not to cooperate in any way at all, even if it makes you look like a jerk. (BTY, this is not a bad way to deal with a pushy car salesman also.)

You are justified in acting this way because Brown is being deceptive — he is pretending to just talk, while he really is trying very hard to manipulate you. He has already violated most of the (unwritten) rules of peer-to-peer dialog, and hence you owe him no respect or courtesy.

It may not be too paranoid to observe that there is a conflict of interest in government-run schools teaching defense against manipulation, when many politicians achieve power with help from such manipulations.