Since I am creating an English version of the website, I asked Chat GPT (we have a paid subscription) to translate my post “The Swarm” into English. This led to a conversation, which you can read below. We begin with Chat GPT’s opinion on the text it translated: Chat GPT: ​ ​What I think This is ​​a very […]

Some time ago, I decided to sign up for a consultation regarding a personal issue of mine. I was given an appointment about two months later. I wasn’t in a hurry, so I agreed. As the date approached, the meeting was postponed by two weeks. When the day finally came, I received a call informing […]

More than once I have warned about manipulation by IT monopolies through the personal data they collect about us. Anyone who uses the internet has left behind massive amounts of information, from which a fairly precise psychological profile can be constructed—and, based on that, even future behavior can be predicted. This is done by digital […]

We’ve all heard that words can be bullets. What is less obvious is that these bullets can be selective. This is possible because every piece of information is perceived through the prism of an individual context—the mental state or psychological setup of the person receiving it. If the information comes in the form of text, […]

We can judge Google’s ambitions and intentions by the statements of its high-ranking employees. For example, as early as 2007, Eric Schmidt, then CEO of Google, shared his vision of Google’s goals in an interview with Financial Times: “The goal is to enable people to ask questions such as ‘What should I do tomorrow?’ and […]

Identification is one of the core techniques of suggestion used in the internet and the media. As we have seen, almost anything can be the object of suggestion: a particular attitude toward ourselves, a certain interpretation of a situation, a deceptive idea about what someone thinks of us, a specific point of view, fears about […]

An important manipulative technique is the planting of hopes and expectations. Here the aim is to influence an individual’s decisions and behavior through hints and suggestions about certain positives, under specific conditions. These hints and suggestions are usually highly veiled and indirect. They may not even be verbal at all, but expressed through attitude, body […]

I’ll start with a joke. A stranger approached a beautiful woman and asked her: — Would you sleep with me for 100 dollars? — Oh, you filthy creep, get lost! What do you take me for, a prostitute?! the woman replied angrily. The man was not fazed and asked another question: — All right then, […]

Comparative Perception, Relativism In an attempt not to sound too “dry,” allow me to tell you a joke. A Jewish man had serious problems in life and everyday living. Nothing was going well for him. He lived with his wife and their three children in a single room, which also housed their dog. In the […]

Experiments that study the behavior of social animals give us valuable insight into the innate tendencies embedded in them—including in humans—that make life in a society possible at all. One such experiment is the well-known study with monkeys receiving unequal “pay” for the same task. In short, it works like this: Two capuchin monkeys are […]

Jessica Aro is a Finnish journalist who worked for the public broadcasting company Yle. In September 2014, she began investigating the activities of pro-Russian internet trolls. As a result, she herself became their target. After a visit to Saint Petersburg in 2014—where Aro interviewed people working in the so-called “troll factory” involved in spreading disinformation—she […]

All battles, all wars, all fistfights and bar brawls, all conflicts in every place and in every time (except those conflicts in which both sides answer to the same puppeteer) begin and end as battles of the mind. No struggle is determined on strength of arms alone.  In fact, the technologically advanced adversary with all his fancy firepower is often more vulnerable than his low-tech counterparts.