Profilicity, Persuasion, and the Magic of Influence | MTS #14
Influence is a kind of magic
The latest episode of Monitoring the Situation just came out this morning, and it’s a really fun and interesting conversation. Our starting point was Kale Zelden’s post from yesterday about Candace Owens as a kind of social media “spellcaster” and con artist, who is uniquely gifted at drawing people in to her world of crazy conspiracy theories:
But that was just the warmup!
From the episode description:
In this week’s episode of Monitoring the Situation, Steve and Kale start with Candace Owens, audience capture, and the strange mechanics of online loyalty, then widen the lens into a deeper conversation about profilicity, persuasion, rhetoric, charisma, and the uncanny power of language.
What does it mean to “cast a spell” with words? Why do certain online figures seem able to create loyalty, fear, drama, and certainty almost on command? And what happens when those old human patterns of influence collide with AI, synthetic profiles, outsourced cognition, and machines that can imitate attention, memory, and care?
Along the way: one-sentence persuasion, Shakespeare, Socrates’ daemon, teaching and writing flow states, pickup artistry, Milton’s Satan, near-death stories, memory, books, AI companions, and the question Kale leaves hanging at the end: can you teach a bot to love?
Profilicity, Persuasion, and the Magic of Influence | MTS #14
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