{"id":577,"date":"2022-03-31T09:25:33","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T16:25:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/?p=577"},"modified":"2022-03-31T09:31:46","modified_gmt":"2022-03-31T16:31:46","slug":"monetization-of-beliefs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/?p=577","title":{"rendered":"Monetization of Beliefs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Once upon a time, in a land not very far away, people&#8217;s <strong><em>beliefs<\/em><\/strong> were part of their <em>identity<\/em> but were not <em>for sale<\/em>.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s how that changed:<\/p>\n<p>A kid with a gift for engaging conversation was encouraged by his friends to give a presentation at a public meeting.\u00a0 It was a hit, largely because he read the audience well and made some outrageous remarks that they would have liked to say themselves but were too timid (or too polite).<\/p>\n<p>Soon he was invited onto a local radio talk show, where he employed the same technique.\u00a0 He was invited back regularly.\u00a0 When the aging host retired, he was recommended to take over the show, and that&#8217;s how he got his first real job.<\/p>\n<p>This radio talk show catered to listeners from one extreme of the political spectrum, so the new host constantly expressed extreme views in ways that were both amusing and gratifying to his listeners.\u00a0 After a while he had expressed certain beliefs so many times that it was easier to just <em>believe<\/em> them than to keep reminding himself to <em>pretend<\/em> to.\u00a0 Those beliefs became an integral part of his public personality.<\/p>\n<p>His fame\/notoriety grew until it wouldn&#8217;t fit into radio alone.\u00a0 He was hired onto a television &#8220;news&#8221; program to &#8220;add color&#8221; in his inimitable way.\u00a0 This inflated his ego; the salary was also impressive, so he doubled down on the technique that had brought him so far.\u00a0 Pretty soon he was an &#8220;anchor&#8221; with even higher salary and fame\/notoriety.\u00a0 You know him.<\/p>\n<p>Today this process plays out in the Internet: Facebook \u2192 blog \u2192 influencer \u2192 own website \u2192 own social media empire. But the same thing happens: when pundits construct outrageous opinions to please an audience, <em>just because<\/em> they please the audience, those opinions turn slowly into <em>indelible beliefs<\/em> that the pundit can never change, because they are part of his successful public personality.<\/p>\n<p>(I suppose I should cite B.F. Skinner&#8217;s &#8220;<em>Beyond Freedom and Dignity<\/em>&#8221; here.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Once upon a time, in a land not very far away, people&#8217;s beliefs were part of their identity but were not for sale.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s how that changed: A kid with a gift for engaging conversation was encouraged by his friends to give a presentation at a public meeting.\u00a0 It was<a href=\"https:\/\/jick.ca\/?p=577\" class=\"read-more\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=577"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":581,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions\/581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}