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Is Social Influencing, Mind Manipulation?

Sir_Ovens

Sir_Ovens

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This was a topic that was brought up off-wiki between Agnaa, Hotsauce, and me back when I reassigned Weather Report's passive Mind Manipulation into passive Social Influencing. I argued that Mind Manipulation Resistance won't stop Social Influencing from working. Agnaa and Hotsauce disagreed. We had a debate for a while and I conceded at the end.

Since then the issue has just been left alone, but there are still people that believe the contrary and it irks me that we still don't have a solid understanding of what social influencing actually is. So today, I've brought up some arguments going for and against social influencing being mind manip. The goal of this thread would be to put this topic to rest and maybe see if we do in fact need a social influencing page in the first place.

Arguments Against Mind Manip Resistance Working
1) Social influencing isn't a direct manipulation of the mind and resistance against mind manip does nothing against it.

2) Social influencing is a suggestion, and suggestions are not by definition something that forces another person to do something. For example, if I convince you to buy a cheeseburger even though you're full, the choice is entirely up to you to buy said cheeseburger. But if I have enough skill I can convince you to buy the cheeseburger and you will through your own volition.

3) Mind manip by definition is "you forcing your way into someone's mind and messing with it as you please", whereas "Social Influencing is not you messing with his mind. It's his own mind that is doing all the changes. So it is him affecting his own mind. You're not affecting his mind like mind manip would".

Arguments For Mind Manip Resistance Working
1) Social influencing is mind manip because it's simply another mechanic to achieve the same goal.

2) Social influencing in fiction is inherently supernatural and we should treat all extreme forms of it as such. Some examples would include the aforementioned Weather Report, as well as Eurus Holmes, James Bond (Composite), and many others. As such the only other hax it would fall under would be mind manip.

There are more arguments, but I can't list them off the top of my head. As the thread goes on, I'll list any more arguments in the OP, but for now, we shall go on with what we have.
 
Oven, u dum dum. You messed up.

>Is social influencing, Mind Manip?

>Arguments for: It's not

>Arguments: Against, it is

You might wanna reverse those 2. Cus it's "against it being mind manip" and "for it being mind manip".

But add on the arguments that it is not mind manip. That mind manip by definition is "you forcing your way into someone's mind and messing with it as you please", whereas "Social Influencing is not you messing with his mind. It's his own mind that is doing all the changes. So it is him affecting his own mind. You're not affecting his mind like mind manip would".
 
It's arguments for and against his stance. Idk about you but the OP makes sense for me.

To resist social influencing, you'd need something like strong willpower.
 
Yeah but the "for" and "against" should be regarding the question.

In this case the question in the OP is "Is it Mind manip?"

So the argument for, would mean "argument for it being mind manip".

Anyway everyone gets the point, i just wanted to point that out.
 
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.
 
GyroNutz said:
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.
Click to expand...
More like it's not social influencing if it's "supernaturally making you believe something". If the ability itself is supernatural, but it works the same then it still applies. Example me convincing you im strong, and me using reality warping to make 3 planets collide to convince you im strong. Are the same, both are me trying to convince you, even though 1 is supernatural and the other not, the effect is still natural.
 
First off, no, Mind Manipulation resistance doesn't cover social influencing. Both have completely different places.

Secondly the argument that "Both achieve the same goal therefore they're the same" is silly. It's the same as saying Clairvoyance and Precognition are the same, or Soul Destruction and Death Manipulation are the same. Both have different degrees of affecting, different sources (One isn't even supernatural), and even different methods as to what context it works in. If there are interlapping in between them like Weather Report and Eurus Holmes, then those powers are weakly defined for them.

In clarity, if a character can be convinced to do something, and there isn't a supernatural compulsion for said character to do so, then it is Social Influencing, but if the character is being unwillingly compelled to do something by an extraordinary power, then it is Mind Manipulation
 
Firephoenixearl said:
More like it's not social influencing if it's "supernaturally making you believe something". If the ability itself is supernatural, but it works the same then it still applies. Example me convincing you im strong, and me using reality warping to make 3 planets collide to convince you im strong. Are the same, both are me trying to convince you, even though 1 is supernatural and the other not, the effect is still natural.
Click to expand...
The latter isn't social influencing, but I get your point. It's not just social influencing if it's supernatural in means, not nature.
 
Resistance to Mind Manipulation is kinda in the name. Resistance to your mind being directly tampered with. Social Influencing doesn't do this and the victim is still aware of themselves but are just captivated. Fiction obviously pushes this like Reinhard being able to make people kill themselves with a speech or something like that. This would be classed as "supernatural".
 
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.
 
Yeah, Social Influencing can be "resisted' by simply being intelligent enough (or perhaps, stupid enough), depending of how good its the social skills of the character.
 
The Causality said:
If the application of SI make people around him abnormaly influenced by him, then it's Empathic Manipulation which is covered by Mind Resistance.
Click to expand...
Not if it's done through suggestion and influencing rather than some sort of supernatural power.
 
GyroNutz said:
Not if it's done through suggestion and influencing rather than some sort of supernatural power.
Click to expand...
Then you just need to be intelligent enough to "resist" to be influenced since, SBA is willing to kill.
 
If resistance to mind manipulation gave you resistance against social influencing, then all people with mind manipulation resistance would be emotionally cirppled, as they would be incapable of growing to like or love anyone, finding anyone charming or have any sense of beauty.

So no, mind resistance gives no resistance to social influencing.

Though supernatural social infuencing is mind manipulation and not social influencing.

Weather Reports ability sounds like classical hypnosis, which IMO is mind manip not social influencing.
 
Yeah, all it takes is enough intelligence or willpower to resist being influenced.
 
Antoniofer said:
Yeah, Social Influencing can be "resisted' by simply being intelligent enough (or perhaps, stupid enough), depending of how good its the social skills of the character.
Click to expand...
Not intelligent as much as character if im gonna be honnest.

If the character is a non believer, then no form of social influencing will work on it.

If he is usually skeptical about stuff, similarly you would need rather convincing social influence to convince him.

If he has none of these qualities social influencing works.

Cus intelligence doesn't have much to do with it. Most of the time it's easier to convince a mature and smart person rather than a complete idiot who doesn't even listen to you.
 
Welp, it remind me of this guy, although it do not manipulate the mind of others, it induce suggestions into the subconsciousness; so it kill people by makes then believe they died.
 
DontTalkDT said:
Weather Reports ability sounds like classical hypnosis, which IMO is mind manip not social influencing.
Click to expand...
The didicated thread I made of the ability outlines that it is in fact social influencing as it utilises subliminal messaging, which works the same in verse as it does in real life. I can link you the thread on your wall if you disagree so as to not derail the thread.
 
Welp, change intelligence by wisdom or experienced (intellectual regardless), and that's why a commented about being stupid, is difficult to reasoning with a guy that do not understand, and its impossible to do it with an animal.
 
Case in point of Resistance to Mind Manipulation not being the same as resistance to Social Influencing: Juggernaut (Marvel Comics).

If both were the same, this guy would've been more emotionally sound than literally 90% the superheroes in the verse, which of course isn't true as the guy is an absolute idiot who only has this power because of that stupid helmet, otherwise being a trigger happy idiot who can be goaded by anyone.
 
Also, as discussed with Agnaa, resistance to social influencing would work the same way as any other resistance.

If you resist causality based EE, it does not mean you resist destruction based EE.

Likewise, if you resist being talked into doing something, you won't resist having the message subliminally delivered to you.
 
Every form of Social Influencing that does shit like make people kill themselves, which is pretty clearly forced because no normal person is just going to off themselves because you tell them to, is literally just mind hax through a different mechanism than just thinking at the target.
 
Hl3 or bust said:
Every form of Social Influencing that does shit like make people kill themselves, which is pretty clearly forced because no normal person is just going to off themselves because you tell them to, is literally just mind hax through a different mechanism than just thinking at the target.
Click to expand...
That is absolutely wrong. Blue Whale. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's a psychological game, that is responsible for a lot of suicide cases. It literally talks people into commiting suicide.
 
I mean, stuff like that has happened before. People have convinced otherwise sane, stable people to mass-suicide. Obviously not to the extent of those examples, but in fiction the power of charisma and stuff like that is very exaggerated.

Slightly off-topic, but how does Reinhard not have social influencing?
 
So you're telling me with a straight face that some random guy can come to you while you're taking a walk and convince you to kill yourself with no trickery, deception, or forced manipulation?
 
Do you think that because it seems unbelievable, that it must be impossible to do?
 
That is not what I am saying. What most people believe coercion to be is working off the the strengths and flaws of both yourself and your conversation partner to convince them of something either more easily or of something hard to believe. Coercion is not passively making people kill themselves or having hundreds of thousands of people kill themselves at your command, that is outright mind manipulation.
 
@HI3 Um, yes. There are multiple cases of that happening. Of course, there are instances of the victims suffering past trauma that affects them to make brash decisions like this, but still, it is somewhat possible to do so. You'll have to be ungodly levels of charismatic for that though.

Also, that is an extremely poor criteria to define limits of Social Influencing. So according to that, we'd have to rationalize whether something is sensible or not to add a power over it? That's the same as saying "Oh, that doesn't look Hypersonic, I saw it, so it's Peak Human at best"
 
Show me that happening to a totally psychologically stable person with no past trauma or prior reason to want to do so.

Nice straw man. That's not what i am saying at all.
 
Hl3 or bust said:
So you're telling me with a straight face that some random guy can come to you while you're taking a walk and convince you to kill yourself with no trickery, deception, or forced manipulation?
Click to expand...
It is actually possible. It depend on how strong of a feeling you have against suicide. Example someone like me who is heavily against suicide won't be convinced, but someone who is more normal, more innocent will surely do so. And again fiction has this very thing but exagerated, the mechanism is still the same.

And no that wasn't because the people were suicidal, it used psychology to bring out suicidal thoughts in people. It doesn't force thougts into you, it brings out the negative side of you. Know how sometimes people can remember sad thoughts and start crying or being pessimistic? It uses the same concept but a lot better to "eventually" drive them to suicide. It also uses the "game mentality" which consists of the gamer's curiosity for what happens next (to know the next level). But all this combined and no, some people were perfectly fine, yet very few could come out unscathed and from what they're saying, not ONE of them stopped right before the suicide. They stop at earlier levels, or at the start of the game, literally no one could reach the "commit suicide" and not do it.
 
Hl3 or bust said:
So you're telling me with a straight face that some random guy can come to you while you're taking a walk and convince you to kill yourself with no trickery, deception, or forced manipulation?
Click to expand...
Considering terrorist groups can do that over a length of time, it isn't too off the possibility mark.

But I agree that most cases of the above aren't social influencing.
 
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.
 
@Earl

No. You can't use someone innately vulnerable to this as the standard for it. Literally anyone could go up to a person on the ledge of a building and yell "Jump", but that's not actually convincing them of anything and is just reinforcing their own beliefs.

I'd say that bringing out thoughts that barely exist is pretty forcible, especially since we can't use people innately vulnerable to this as the standard because that's dumb for obvious reasons. "Eventually" is a hell of a lot slower than basically everyone with notable social influencing does it, and i highly doubt that suicide would cause such a high level of curiosity.

@Tact

Again "over a length of time" and terrorist cells tend to pray on the mentally weak anyways.
 
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