When I look at baro's avatar I first see two stick figures with red bodies and black limbs and heads holding each other's hands as seen through a skeleton key-hole. Secondly I see a white figure bleeding from his eyes and smiling maniacally. Interesting.
At present I don't think I could ever condense anything significant onto the span of a fortune-cookie fortune. Not without including a supplementary explanation of the fortune.
I was going to give you a whole run-down of deceptive techniques that, when combined, are pretty solid cons. I was also going to suggest ways to detect cons and even elaborate on the condition of humans that makes us ripe for deception. But I think I'll leave it as is. Unless there is high demand for such description, which presumably there isn't.
I would sit quietly and read a book. Then I would read another book. If I ran out of books, I'd buy one from the airport bookstore.
With dignity you also have indignity. I'd rather do without either. I'll do what is required and no more. If people cannot have respect for necessity and guard against excess, I can vacate. If mistreatment of the human is a requirement for air travel. I'll stay home.
Guards generally, are only to keep so-called "honest" people honest. The average person, and that means you and I, have a tendency to go off the rails when there is nothing keeping us on track. Make us the guards and we fly right off. I know of, and have practiced techniques (in my earlier years) of deception which render pretty much all security measures useless. They play right into basic human cognition and completely deceive their victims. I'll give you an example I got from a cop: An officer is patrolling late at night when he observes 3 or 4 men moving electronics into a van from a nearby retail store. He drives his cruiser into the parking lot and gets out. The men moving the electronics don't scatter and they don't stop moving product. They wait for the officer to ask them questions and they casually answer. It went something like this:
Officer: What are you doing? Thief: Moving Electronics. Officer: It's kind of late to be doing this. Thief: I know, orders came in at the last minute, I wish it were otherwise, but that's business. We are struggling to get them out the door as it is. Officer: Well, maybe I can give you a hand with them and get you home a bit earlier.
Apparently the officer was pretty humiliated when he told his precinct what happened and they turned him onto the truth of the matter. But he shouldn't have been, these techniques are pretty safe. Mind you, it takes some skill to not lose it, and once you have the skill its easy to get obsessed with the power.
If you think you own a dog. Try mistreating it. You'll probably find out very quickly that all relationships with animals are highly specified. By animal I do not intend to exclude humans.
The fact that most of us cannot do this is really a case of learned non-use. We have learned from a very young age to favor certain limbs for certain tasks. Most notably we learn to favor one hand over the other hand or the feet. Someone will tell us we are "Right Handed" and that we are strongest with that hand. We will then continue using it and neglecting our other hand. Consequently our other hand will be undeveloped and relatively useless for any precise work, as will our feet be. When we lose the use of our favored limb, we then have to learn to adapt using or disfavored limbs. As a kid with long toes I would use them frequently to manipulate objects and therefor am fairly dexterous with them, but not like Matt here, I do have other limbs I favor. However, immediately after learning that my right-handedness was a matter of favoritism I began practicing left-handedness whenever I thought of it and subsequently improved the use of my left hand as well.
People are unexpectedly morose in a way that most wouldn't have realized. Most of the good deeds are done to earn praise and repute. Take everything someone has away from them and you'll find out how morose they are when they have nothing left to cling to.
The only thing neater than optical illusions of this sort is the reasons why they occur. IMHO. But it is as Tomorrow's Bad Seeds sing in one of their songs "Mystery is magic among most men". Take away the mystery and the magic goes with it. Things aren't as pretty when they are understood. That we can be so easily fooled is both neat and horrifying when one considers how readily we judge and convict each other. Believe it or not, people will look at this, clearly see the illusion and subsequently claim that they have not seen the illusion. That is another type of illusion called self-deception for the sake of preserving confidence in ones ability to pass judgement. Experimenters have devised all manner of ways to upset our capacities to judge, in order to reveal our inner workings and shake our confidence. Mostly, it doesn't do anything but temporarily entertain us. So much of this stuff should theoretically halt all progress and cause the whole human race to collapse in a state of existential anxiety over what we are and what the right course of action is. But that sounds passe, depressing and idealistic, I'll just click next and assume my distorted perception is something I can ignore.
Cool, it has all the trappings of a Hollywood blockbuster. Simple plot that is easy to follow. A clear distinction between good and bad. Damsel in distress. Wanton destruction. Unlikely hero and Product Placements. It's won't be a critically-acclaimed world-wide masterpiece with mind-probing and thought-provoking imagery. But it will satisfy the vast majority of vicarious consumers of glorified mayhem, which is most desirable for one wanting to glorify themselves.
With dignity you also have indignity. I'd rather do without either. I'll do what is required and no more. If people cannot have respect for necessity and guard against excess, I can vacate. If mistreatment of the human is a requirement for air travel. I'll stay home.
Guards generally, are only to keep so-called "honest" people honest. The average person, and that means you and I, have a tendency to go off the rails when there is nothing keeping us on track. Make us the guards and we fly right off. I know of, and have practiced techniques (in my earlier years) of deception which render pretty much all security measures useless. They play right into basic human cognition and completely deceive their victims. I'll give you an example I got from a cop: An officer is patrolling late at night when he observes 3 or 4 men moving electronics into a van from a nearby retail store. He drives his cruiser into the parking lot and gets out. The men moving the electronics don't scatter and they don't stop moving product. They wait for the officer to ask them questions and they casually answer. It went something like this:
Officer: What are you doing?
Thief: Moving Electronics.
Officer: It's kind of late to be doing this.
Thief: I know, orders came in at the last minute, I wish it were otherwise, but that's business. We are struggling to get them out the door as it is.
Officer: Well, maybe I can give you a hand with them and get you home a bit earlier.
Apparently the officer was pretty humiliated when he told his precinct what happened and they turned him onto the truth of the matter. But he shouldn't have been, these techniques are pretty safe. Mind you, it takes some skill to not lose it, and once you have the skill its easy to get obsessed with the power.
Keep that in mind as you journey through life or as you are having one of ten interlocking puzzle pieces tattooed to your abdomen.