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8:50am.
Morning. I have half of an hour to work on my English course.
10:23am.
Now, it’s time to get to Berneys’ book.
12:23pm.
The last four chapters, I couldn’t bear to go thoroughly through the text and skipped over. Here are some questions to think about: Was this book worth reading? Have I learned anything from it? Have I fully understood what has been written there? In the beginning, it was inspiring, but later on, I lost any interest. I wouldn’t say that the book is totally outdated, even though it was written 90 years ago, but what it talks about is well-known to any bright schoolboy. Yet, it seems I have no idea how to use propaganda to my own advantage. Of course, I may say that I don’t need it; that I’m a philosopher and for me it’s natural to care about knowledge only, waiting until the group mind finds me on its own, but it seems to be a form of self-delusion. I wouldn’t publish anything if it were true, and my subtle desires to be recognized wouldn’t have had such an impact on my behavior. So I definitely must learn how to use propaganda, and this book is a great tool to focus attention on the subject. Of course, nowadays there are plenty of better instruments to get into something than a book written almost a century ago. I’m gonna watch videos, continue to read articles about ads, and dedicate sufficient amount of time to think about all of that by myself.
14:12pm.
Watched a video “The Cult of Dan Lok – Brainwashed Student Lost 26, 000$ Testimonial.” In one of the previous videos which I watched, James Jani used clips from this video, so I was curious to see the original. There is a lot of useful information to learn about how business courses designed to make passive income work. Here is some vocabulary from the video:
Make you feel special
High income skill
Life changing stuff
Makes it sound so easy
Mentally ready for this
The most crucial mistake
Destined for greatness
What’s funny is that this Dan Lok has 2.5 million subs, looks pretty decent and talks passionately about the same shit as written in Bitch Dad, Babylonian Fool, etc. Seems I’m ready to learn something. All these principles are fascinating and propaganda works perfectly, but the question is how to use it not to get money, or fame, or even power, but teach wisdom. It actually teaches people hard truth by taking money out of their pockets, and, when it comes down to power, fame and the like—making them lose their self-importance as well as whatever amount of dignity they have. I really like this guy, Dan Lok. He says everything he knows in his free videos, so people would better blame their own greed or any other form of their foolishness for joining his cult and losing money. Sure, I’m not gonna take this “successful” moneymaker as a role model. However, as I said, there are lots of things to learn. Again, philosophy is almost the same thing. We do something that makes us wiser and make others believe that doing the same is gonna make them wiser too. Nobody tells us that to get wiser and become real philosophers we need to get rid of everything we like or dislike, and do only philosophy itself. I may become someone like Dan Lok if I’m willing to throw my wisdom in a trash bin and genuinely play the role he plays. The more he lies, the more money he has. That’s a dangerous game, though.
Having a foundation built out of tens of thousands of hours invested in philosophical studies, is like having an anchor that helps to withstand any sort of temptation. It seems I’ve grasped the subtle conditioning which stays behind various “spiritual awakenings” and contemporary gurus, teachers, coaches and the like. I’m not saying that all of these guys are dream sellers. I’ve just looked into myself. Yeah, I want other people to be like me; that’s why I share everything, including my most ashamed writings and thoughts, to show how all of it really works. Am I doing it wrong? Do I need to show only the positive side? Do I need to smile and say, “Look at me! I’m the best! Come to me and I’ll teach you everything! Pay me a thousand backs and you’ll be happy!”
Today, I also had a couple of ideas about propaganda. I thought about big data and popular queries. If I studied how search engines work, where would it lead me? Would I become a cunning manipulator or would I use this knowledge to provide benefits for society? And if the latter, which society? American society? Russian society? Maybe Chinese? Anyway, I wanna know more about money, and ads, and people who spend their lives playing these games.
15:47pm.
Instead of wasting time on business gurus, I decided to check out what academics have to say about money-related activities. The channel that attracted my attention was “Said Business School, University of Oxford.” The video which I began to watch is called: “Building a Business, Lecture 1 ‘How do I start a Business?’” by Constantin Coussios.
Here is some excerpts from the video:
“The value of an idea lies in the using of it. (T. Edison)
Is my idea
Unique?
Protectable?
Transformative?
Cost-effective?
Marketable?”
After less than 10 minutes, I turned the video off. There wasn’t anything in it I looked for. The man was talking about his own business and some trivial cliches as shown above. There are lots of other lectures on this channel, but I’m gonna watch them later, if ever.
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