Is Social Influencing, Mind Manipulation?

[Yobo_Blue]

Are you asking for a example of a power in real life?

 

[Firephoenixearl]

@H13

Just cus humans are incapable of instantly doing it, doesn't mean fiction is too. Humans can produce the same effect eventually. Fiction is well..fiction. As long as they are doing the same thing, even if the resutls don't align perfectly it still counts. There are many things humans can't do that fiction can, this is just one of them.

 

[Agnaa]

I don't see how passively making people kill themselves could be considered social influencing at all, and idk the context for Reinhard's feat.

In Shinobu Oshino's case it's because anyone who looks at her is overwhelmed by how beautiful she is, and comes to the decision to kill themselves.

As this is come to by their own decision, it does vary by some people. i.e. a sculptor gouged out his eyes since they were his most valuable possession, a musician cut off his hands for the same reason, a poet a tongue for the same reason, etc. But for most people their life is their most valuable possession that they choose to give her as tribute.

The key almost entirely comes from a short (7 pages long) story, which you can read here to verify this.

 

[Hl3_or_bust]

@H13

Just cus humans are incapable of instantly doing it, doesn't mean fiction is too. Humans can produce the same effect eventually. Fiction is well..fiction. As long as they are doing the same thing, even if the resutls don't align perfectly it still counts. There are many things humans can't do that fiction can, this is just one of them.

"eventually" is all i needed. Literally every instance of social influencing is question is not only instant but makes people kill themselves or fundamentally reworks their brain like with Heavy Weather. It doesn't have to align, especially because no one in real life has ever had that level of charisma and influence over stable people who knew what was going on.

"There are many things humans can't do that fiction can, this is just one of them" this just doesn't work as an argument on so many levels. By this logic every instance of causality manipulation should be treated as it's own unique power.

 

[Yobo_Blue]

How does it not work on so many levels? Proof of that? Thats also a non sequitur since its a very causality manip is a very different power under a different branch of science even assuming real world stuff matters

 

[Antoniofer]

Character influencing others by yheir appearence was going to be a power by its own, but I guess people forget about it. It helps someone with SI, but is kinda different as it induce several other things.

 

[Hl3_or_bust]

How does it not work on so many levels? Proof of that? Thats also a non sequitur since its a very causality manip is a very different power under a different branch of science even assuming real world stuff matters

I mean it in the sense that

X uses causality manip and it links to the page A

Y uses causality manip and it links to the page B

 

[Yobo_Blue]

How does it not work on so many levels? Proof of that? Thats also a non sequitur since its a very causality manip is a very different power under a different branch of science even assuming real world stuff matters

I mean it in the sense that
X uses causality manip and it links to the page A

Y uses causality manip and it links to the page B

That means literally nothing tho?

 

[Hl3_or_bust]

that's what i was talking about, so it does mean something. Not entirely sure why this specifically needed attention tho

 

[Yobo_Blue]

If your argument is "they achieve the same effects so they must be the same", shapeshifting and transmutation can have the same effects, as can the former and transformation., as well as biological manipulation and mind manipulation, corruption and transmutation, and many other examples.

 

[Yobo_Blue]

that's what i was talking about, so it does mean something. Not entirely sure why this specifically needed attention tho

I mean in that it has no validity to the current argument due to not being closely related in any manner you have explained.

 

[Hl3_or_bust]

wait

>reads OP more thoroughly

well shit then

I don't think that mind manip resistance should work, but the issue is that most of the instances of Social Influencing that we have are just mind manip.

 

[Firephoenixearl]

I don't think that mind manip resistance should work, but the issue is that most of the instances of Social Influencing that we have are just mind manip.

That is not the issue of this. Social Influencing has other characteristics, it being thrown around doesn't make it ok to use mind manip resistance.

About the "eventually". As i said dude. "A human cannot do it" is not an argument in "fiction". A human cannot do literally 99% of what fiction does, doesn't invalidate them. A human not being able to instanly convince someone doesn't mean some outerversal god can't do it either.

 

[Agnaa]

About the "eventually". As i said dude. "A human cannot do it" is not an argument in "fiction". A human cannot do literally 99% of what fiction does, doesn't invalidate them. A human not being able to instanly convince someone doesn't mean some outerversal god can't do it either.

Just to respond to this, "A human cannot do it" is a valid counterargument to the argument of "People with mind manip resistance shouldn't resist this since humans can do it."

 

[Antoniofer]

I mean, its communication skills, there's no real difference between a conversation between a human and a god, someone can't simply makes a person behave "out of character" without the use of an empathic, mental or spiritual inducement.

 

[Firephoenixearl]

Just to respond to this, "A human cannot do it" is a valid counterargument to the argument of "People with mind manip resistance shouldn't resist this since humans can do it."

You took that out of context. The "human" is used as a form of comparison of "why it is different". Not to place literal actual limitations on it because "humans cannot do it". Humanity is just an easy to grasp example of why SI =/= Mind hax.

 

[Agnaa]

My bad, is this quote more fitting?

"Some social influencing should just be mind manipulation, it's obviously forcing people since it's making them do inhuman stuff like kill themselves."

"That's still social influencing, humans can make other humans do that stuff too."

In this discussion "A human cannot do it" is a valid line of argumentation to go down.

 

[Firephoenixearl]

That was because he implied it to be "impossible". I said "that's something even humans can do, without being special, whereas ficitional characters are far more special than regular humans".

 

[TriforcePower1]

I mostly agree with what people said here. Resistance to mindhax doesn't grant resistance to Social Influencing, being strong willed enough is sufficient to resist the Social Influencing (it obviously depends on the feats Social Influencing has. If it convinced someone who's very strong willed, then in VS threads you need to have a stronger will than the guy who was affected), and it mustn't be supernatural in nature. Only other rule is that if it's not explicitly stated that the person with Social Influencing does it via non-supernatural means, it should be treated as mindhax instead.

 

[NeoSuperior]

Speaking of which, one thing I wondered was whether or not Social Influencing could be used to beat Mami Tomoe's Abstract Existence Type 1 if the normal result of the match would be inconclusive due to mutually being unable to kill the other. Like, since the match doesn't show any result, Mami's opponent, who has Social Influencing, uses it to undo the rumour and destroy her abstraction and hence make her vulnerable again.

At first glance, under usual SBA that wouldn't be allowed, but if you think about it, there is the rule that says, and I quote:

"Outside Influence: None. No characters of either verse, aside from those participating in the battle, may influence the outcome of the battle in any way. That means they may not join the fight, grant buffs, create shields, provide information etc. Exceptions are things like blessings, calling upon some higher entities power for a spell, summoning familiars to battle for them, having another character as equipment or more generally spoken the things which are listed on the profile as part of a characters own powers and abilities. "

that in turn would be people who have the rumor in their minds, which in normal circumstances of her own verse, would be reachable by any of her opponents. Hence wouldn't it be natural to assume that any people who believe in the rumor should "exist" on the battlefield as well? Else she'd unfairly gain an upgrade to her Immortality Type 4/8 for no reason.

 

[Agnaa]

I mostly agree with what people said here. Resistance to mindhax doesn't grant resistance to Social Influencing, being strong willed enough is sufficient to resist the Social Influencing (it obviously depends on the feats Social Influencing has. If it convinced someone who's very strong willed, then in VS threads you need to have a stronger will than the guy who was affected), and it mustn't be supernatural in nature. Only other rule is that if it's not explicitly stated that the person with Social Influencing does it via non-supernatural means, it should be treated as mindhax instead.

"Supernatural means" sounds a little vague here. Is something like Weather Report considered supernatural since it's done through a stand?

 

[TriforcePower1]

If it were "this stand can manipulate the mind of others" ye. The problem is, Weather Report is peculiar because he uses his stand to only manipulate the weather, and by manipulating the angle of refraction of light he can create subliminal messages that convince people they're snails. The fact that Araki spends 4 pages explaining that Heavy Weather works by using normal subliminal messages, and that stands can only have one power supports the fact that the subliminal message itself is not supernatural in nature.

 

[The_Causality]

Social Influencing is something irrelevant in a death-battle, people don't care about kindness, popularity charism ect..
If the application of SI make people around him abnormaly influenced by him, then it's Empathic Manipulation which is covered by Mind Resistance.

 

[TacticalNuke002]

Let's take the example of old-school RPGs, especially ones with charisma stats and speech skill checks like intimidate, dissuade, reason etc. The mcs of such games can use speech to convince people to do various actions, including ones that go against their ideologies. Obviously, this isn't supernatural in the least unless you want to argue that the old Fallout protags, the Wasteland protags, the ATOM RPG protag etc. are using mindhax.

 

[Agnaa]

@Tactical imo those characters have mindhax in the same way that Composite Human has heat manip via rubbing their hands together.

 

[Promestein]

Social Influencing isn't mindhax, but there are characters who influence others with supernatural charisma, which is mindhax, even if it's also Social Influencing.

 

[TacticalNuke002]

Recently, I played Pathfinder Kingmaker. The protagonist of P:K can eventually make the main antagonist fall in love with him/her by flirting with her throughout the game. What makes this kinda incredible is that the villain had had her feelings and emotions conceptually removed and sealed into a random ass stick which was chucked into a country sized forest in a different universe. No supernatural influence was implied during the flirting moments, just pure charisma.

So would this be mindhax or SI?

 

[The_Coolest_Water_Bottle]

Bump.

 

[The_real_cal_howard]

Social Influencing

"Social Influencing is ones ability to manipulate other characters using some form of charm. This has several uses in the form of manipulation. Whether it be to manipulate how an opponent fights, thinks, or to get info from them that the user would want or need. This can be used in a number of ways via their looks, natural charm, or their way of speaking.

While it does not seem combat applicable, this skill can be used in many ways that can affect a fight indirectly, including buying time, obtaining information that could be important, or manipulating how a person might approach a situation."

This is not a supernatural power. By definition, it's something someone suave does like James Bond. It is not a form/subset of mind manipulation, transmutation (looking at you, Weather), etc. It's glorified convincing, in the actual usage of the word.

GyroNutz put it well.

"Yeah social influencing has the 'opponent' make the decision themselves, whereas mind manip forces the opponent to make a decision. Mind manip resistance doesn't stop you from listening to what a person says, your own thoughts decide that.

If the social influencing is supernatural in nature then it probably isn't just social influencing."


If it does become supernatural in nature, then it's no longer social influencing. It's something else entirely. Anything else would be semantics, like saying that well you're "convincing" me that I'm a dog so it's social influencing instead of mind manipulation. Wrong. If I talk to you and you're insane enough to believe that you're a dog after that then sure, it would be that. But you're a completely stable being and start barking and peeing on fire hydrants because I looked at you funny? No. No way you could twist that into being social influencing.

Bottom line is, if it makes you do anything in which it wasn't your choice to naturally do it, it's not social influencing.

 

[Hl3_or_bust]

Except that there is literally 0 way for you to convince someone that they are a snail so hard that they literally turn into a snail

or be so beautiful that people instantly kill themselves when they look at you

 

[Schnee_One]

Is that white queen for your second example?

 

[Antoniofer]

Why its even Heavy Weather Social Influencing? Its not using charm, persuasion or intimidation, its caused due to a subliminal message sent to the subconsciousness, if any its more Hypnotism.

 

[The_real_cal_howard]

If you're referring to me, nah. I came up with that one on the fly lol.

 

[Agnaa]

Is that white queen for your second example?

It's quite a few characters probably. I mentioned Shinobu Oshino's first key being able to do it through beauty, and Reinhard Heydrich being able to do something similar.

 

[Firephoenixearl]

Tbf i both do and do not agree with the "it can't be supernatural". This is fiction so it being a step beyond reality is nothing spectacular, as for the rest well...

• Yes It can't be supernatural

This would make sense as it really depends but under normal circumstances you can't make a normal person truly believe he's a frog or a cow or whatever. However social influencing into death is possible (blue whale), if it's somewhat possible by a computer program fictional characters would definitely be able to.

Though this comes with a problem that what will we define as "supernatural". Sometimes that line between natural and supernatural can get so blurry it's hard to tell, i can even give examples here.

• It can be supernatural

This on the other hand while it's ok to assume, it might lead to wank and everyone trying to find an explanation that would give social influencing instead of mind manip. But there is still the fact that we shouldn't apply real life logic to fiction all the time. Otherwise we would be downgrading characters based on KE because "in real life you can't do that without this much mass and this much speed". Similarly saying "normal people can't do that, that's why outerversal gods can't convince you either" seems a bit far fetched to almost sounding silly.

 

[Agnaa]

Just to correct factual errors rather than rhetorical ones.

However social influencing into death is possible (blue whale)

Blue whale is a ******* hoax. It's fear bait. No suicides have been linked to it.

Otherwise we would be downgrading characters based on KE because "in real life you can't do that without this much mass and this much speed".

That isn't how physics works. You don't require a certain amount of mass and speed to have a certain amount of energy, as there's other types of energy than KE.

 

[Firephoenixearl]

Weren't several suicides caused because of it. I know that those people were supposedly suicidal beforehand but that is still somewhat driving it. It's ok to assume fictional characters would be able to do it.

When you attack something with a punch, it's KE that comes into play. You're not destroying a wall because of heat.

 

[Agnaa]

No. None of the supposed cases are actually linked to blue whale.

Explosions create force without KE.

 

[Firephoenixearl]

Then why was it still around that it had driven people to suicide? Were those just misunderstandings? Because im pretty sure even the news said that there were actual blue whale victims.

Idk if you didn't read or didn't understand but read above. I said "when you punch someone".

 

[Agnaa]

Because it was spread around clickbait websites to spread fear.

Mb, I thought you were trying to use that as a counterexample to me saying "Not all types of energy used for AP are KE", I get your point now.