"Hidden forces shape our decisions all the time-whether that comes in the form of peer pressure, marketing strategy, or cultural norms. Manipulation is silent, pervasive, and dangerous. We need to find ways to protect ourselves from influences that guide our actions without giving us a fair shot at making deliberate choices. 1. Manipulation undermines your freedom to choose. Manipulation isn't just persuasion-it's trickery that prevents people from exercising their capacity for deliberation."
"2. Sludge is manipulation by a thousand cuts. "Sludge" refers to needless barriers-endless forms, hold times, or bureaucratic hoops-that make it hard to get what you want or to escape a bad deal. Companies often make signing up effortless, but impose exhausting obstacles when you try to cancel or change terms. This "easy in, hard out" design is manipulation on steroids."
Hidden forces such as peer pressure, marketing strategies, and cultural norms shape decisions and can operate silently and pervasively. Manipulation functions by stirring emotions, concealing crucial information, or burying key terms in fine print, which prevents genuine deliberation and strips away individual agency. Procedural "sludge" creates needless barriers—endless forms, long hold times, and bureaucratic hoops—that produce "easy in, hard out" experiences and exacerbate exploitation. Absence of legal safeguards specifically against manipulation allows wasted time, financial loss, and harm to autonomy. Rights, regulations, and design changes are necessary to protect the capacity to make deliberate choices.
Read at Fast Company
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