>>How come everyone always says it's the OTHER people who are so easy to manipulate, but not themselves?<<
This is a profound question, Mq, worthy of much serious research. Ask a group of 100 men to assess their own driving skills and you will find you are in the company of 100 "above average" drivers.
My own theory is that this largely male bias towards unrealistically optimistic self-assessment is genetically programmed because it has historically conveyed a reproductive advantage. To boil it down to its essence, our (male) Neolithic ancestors were damn sure they could take down that mammoth, no problem, bro. Some of them got stomped, of course, but some of them, due largely to a sequence of random events, brought home the bacon (or whatever mammoth meat is called). These lucky monkeys, possessed of their ten-bagger (ten bags of mammoth meat), were able to reap the reproductive benefits of high status within their Neolithic social group. Our Neolithic ancestors who had a genetic proclivity towards more realistic self-assessment, on the other hand, realized that hunting mammoth is ridiculous on its face and stayed home. Alas, no ten-baggers for them.
So, we poor males are genetically programmed to be confident, incompetent (or less competent than we think) and oblivious. What's worse, for those of us who are truly competent (me and every other male reading this, of course) our skills are unrecognizable by our incompetent brethren. What a nightmare. No wonder your wife laughs at you (mine doesn't laugh at me, btw - I know what I'm doing).
apa.org
Oh, I almost forgot. The point. Hence, it's not my fault that I lost the grocery money buying Biotelecosmictechdot.com at 400. I knew what I was doing. That guy Al screwed me. |
