The Power of Neg
November 21, 2018·6 comments·Politics
Both institutions and individuals use the same technique to manipulate behavior: they make us want to respond to them. The structure is simple, borrowed from how wild horses are trained. Ignore someone long enough and they'll surrender their autonomy just to get your attention. This dynamic happens everywhere in politics and economics, but almost nobody recognizes they have a counter-move.
• People don't realize they can simply walk away. In chess, the easiest way to defeat a gambit is to refuse it. Your opponent only has a strategy if you accept the game he's designed. The same principle applies to elections, media cycles, and the manufactured conflicts that drive engagement.
• The manipulation works because it makes people feel seen and relevant. Being negged, insulted, or challenged through aggressive negativity generates a response. Social media amplifies this dynamic: getting blocked or dunked on becomes proof of importance, creating cycles where people voluntarily return to be angered again.
• Refusal alone isn't enough to create change. Aggressive refusal is what shifts things. When enough people reject what they're being offered and demonstrate they'll accept alternatives instead, the system adapts. The candidates presented get less ridiculous, the narratives get less absurd, not because the system changed its mind but because it read the market.
• A specific election showed what aggressive refusal looks like. In Alabama's 2017 Senate race, a state roughly 70% Republican, the Republican candidate lost by 21,000 votes. There were 23,000 write-in votes for alternatives. The margin reveals something: enough voters refused both options they were given, signaling boundaries the party couldn't ignore.
• The real question becomes whether people will maintain this resolve over multiple cycles. One election isn't a signal. Repeated refusal across several contests is. The power lies in collective patience and consistency, something institutions are betting ordinary people don't have.
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Comments
Anyone who thinks Ben is exaggerating the degree to which nudging gambits are proliferating in our economy needs to peruse this report from The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/nov/20/high-score-low-pay-gamification-lyft-uber-drivers-ride-hailing-gig-economy?CMP=share_btn_link
Unsurprisingly, all 23k write-in votes were for Nick Saban. Imagine if he wanted the job…
Happy Thanksgiving Ben!
Refusing the game is easiest, but it can be very satisfying to take what’s offered as a first step along a narrative of your choice and not the adversary’s. Have your cake and eat it too… When they give you enough rope to hang yourself with, hang them with it instead…
But that’s coyote behavior (if not thought through far enough) and can get you squashed in the long run. Use with care.
Ben, do you think this simple and very effective two actor negging model works the same way in multi actor set up? What if daughter #2 is competing with Hope for the mustang’s affection? If #2 does not know how to play it wouldn’t she spoil Hope’s gig? What if she knows how to play it but driven by intense sibling jealousy she wants to outsmart her and changes the game. Should Hope adjust her game? What if mustang is partnered with google and knows exactly what is on their minds and stokes the sibling rivalry? What if there are two mustangs?
Love this note - but isn’t politics so corrupt and dysfunctional, you can tell the wise individuals steer clear of it and influence it from the exterior? Keep it simple and work in the “private sector”? Also, are the good people’s records pristine enough get into politics? You go into politics aren’t you volunteering for brutal, combing scrutiny?
pushes glasses up the bridge of his nose
As much as I hate being THAT GUY… The chess saying is “the best way to refute a Gambit is to ACCEPT it.”
https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the_best_way_to_refute_a_gambit_is_to_accept_it_chess_adage
I’m also the guy whose party trick is kicking your ass at chess while wearing a blindfold (me, not you of course). I love being that guy!
Anyway, my comment really takes nothing away from what Ben is saying here. This old saying isn’t gospel in chess and since Emmanuel Lasker every good chess player has recognized the value of what we call “psychology” in choosing your moves. Find two candidate moves that look nearly equally strong? Which one is going to shock your opponent more? Play that move.
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