Social Proof at Bioperformance Pep Rallies
Several weeks ago, WESH 2 I-Team reporter Michelle Meredith did some fine under cover works and reported on one of the Bioperformance "pep rallies". The article was posted on or around May 5th, 2005 but she pointed out some some interesting aspects of Bioperformance. Several points are worth highlighting.
Point 1. "Meredith said she can honestly say that she's never seen a happier, more excited bunch of people. "Everybody say, 'I'm ready. I'm ready,'" Mims told the crowd."
I'm ready?! Boy, I do like this language. This is similar to the sense of entitlement employed in the Cambodia ponzi scheme in which the founder told the marks that "it was there turn, now." We are never ready for bad things, so if we are ready, then something good must be going to happen.
Point 2. "Testimonials flowed like manna from heaven. In fact, the whole weekend had a religious feel. To hear them talk, the little green pill is the perfect package. They said it can save you money, save the planet, keeps money out of the Saudi's hands and it's "All American."
This is awfully clever too - the little green pill is the ecological answer to America's problems and solves the war on terrorism. But what I like about this as a social compliance technique is that it would be hard to be in favour of sending the money to the Saudis, wouldn't it? (Well, I suppose if they sent it back by buying US Treasuries and allowing more individuals to purchase homes because of low interest rates, it might not be so bad.) The appeal here is the well known fallacy of disjunction: either Bioperformance works, or you just want to send money to the Saudis. But both disjuncts can be false.
Point 3. "Is this too good to be true? Are you running interference?" Meredith asked him. "We have to protect ourselves. Like Barbara Bush says, we have to watch you all like the plague," Mims said."
This is pretty good, too. I don't remember what Barbara Bush was talking about if she used this language, but I pretty sure she was not supporting a MLM fraud. But, again Mims has got a line that is hard to respond logically to. Should we not protect ourselves? Should we argue against Barbara Bush, not knowing what she was talking about?
We can see why this language might overwhelm reason and provide us with too much gas to go.
Technorati Tags: pep rallies, ponzi scheme, manna from heaven, meredith, mims, entitlement, cambodia, crowd, testimonials
