Tag: mind games

WTF is this 💩?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

I was just recommended the following video and had to look the topic up as I had never heard of this. Sounds like playing mind games to me. Ignoring someone means that you don’t want anything to do with them. At least that’s how I take it to mean. Anyway, I have better things to attend to. I need to stop letting myself get distracted by shiny objects.

Ignoring Someone You Are Attracted To Is Common — Here’s Why

Dr. Jess O’Reilly, Toronto-based sexologist and host of the Sex With Dr. Jess podcast, says that when a guy ignores you but secretly likes you, or when a girl tries to play it cool but she actually is developing feelings, it could be because they get a kick out of leaving you hanging. “Some people ignore their crushes because they’re playing games. And that doesn’t create a good basis for any type of relationship — from the casual to the long-term,” she tells Elite Daily. “Playing games by ignoring someone you like is untoward and manipulative, and it often results in misunderstanding and hurt feelings.”

The psychology of ignoring someone to get them to like you

Massive Study Involving YouTube Finds ‘Pre-Bunking’ Inoculates People Against Misinfo

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Massive Study Involving YouTube Finds ‘Pre-Bunking’ Inoculates People Against Misinfo

One question that naturally springs to mind is: who gets to determine what counts as a false or “manipulative” narrative? Is it the government? A corporation like Google? A select panel of academic experts? In short: who gets to be the arbiter of this very important epistemological function? And how do you maintain confidence in that arbiter when so much of the misinformation crisis is driven by public distrust in official narratives?

When you look at recent examples of “pre-bunking,” you can see that it hasn’t always gone so smoothly. One of the most prominent instances of “pre-bunking” occurred during the lead up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when the State Department controversially announced that Russia was planning to distribute a professionally produced propaganda video that involved pyrotechnics and “crisis actors.” The video would be used to blame Ukraine for terroristic attacks on civilians and would help to justify the invasion, the U.S. said. Unfortunately, not everybody bought what the State Department was selling: an Associated Press reporter expressed incredulity at the claims and blatantly called out the government for spreading “Alex Jones” style bunkum.

Even more problematically, the video never materialized. Was it because America’s “pre-bunking” efforts stopped the Russians from releasing their video? Or was it because the video never existed in the first place? Under the circumstances, it’s impossible to say—and, therefore, it’s also impossible to gauge whether the U.S. was being a good-faith “pre-bunker” or was actually spreading its own disinformation.