Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Magical Thinking Can Kill You: 2 Dead, 19 Hospitalized After Paying $9,933 for Seminar

Posted by Brett Greene | Filed under Beliefs, Influence, Media, Movies, Politics, Psychology, Religion, Spin | Oct 13, 2009 | Tags: back end marketing, back of the room marketing, bob tzu, death, duhism, get rich quick, get rich seminars, jack canfield, james arthur ray, law of attraction, magical thinking, michael beckwith, rhonda byrne, self help, self help book, self help guru, self help seminars, seminars, shelf help, sweat lodge, t harv eker, the secret | View Comments

Magical thinking can kill you. Now it’s been proven. After James Arthur Ray, self proclaimed ‘self help expert’ and one of the stars of the book and movie The Secret charged 70 participants $9,933 each to attend a sweat lodge event, two died, 19 went to the hospital and the ‘law of attraction‘ will never ...Read more.

Twenty Page Document on Twitter Guidelines? …Really?

Posted by Brett Greene | Filed under Politics, Social Media | Sep 21, 2009 | Tags: government, government guidelines, john mccain can't use a computer, microblogging, tweet, twitter | View Comments

Leave it to the government, this time in the U.K., but they’re all buried in bureaucracy, to take 20 pages to encourage civil servants to tweet. I totally understand this because I’m still owed money by a county government for work I did with them from July through September. Six weeks after I submitted invoices ...Read more.

Social Media is Bigger Than Online Porn; the Biggest Shift Since the Industrial Revolution

Posted by Brett Greene | Filed under Advertising, Beliefs, Books, Consumerism, Influence, Marketing, Media, Politics, Social Media, Spin, Videos | Aug 17, 2009 | Tags: bebo, facebook, industrial revolution, myspace, orkut, Social Media, social networking, socialnomics, technology, twitter, youtube | View Comments

Socialnomics has put together a video driving home the reality of how social media is fundamentally shifting how we communicate, connect and consume culture in the 21st century. Share it with anyone who tells you that social media is a fad, technology is isolating people rather than facilitating face-to-face meetings, or that Twitter is stupid. ...Read more.

Google Wave: The Positive Influence of Disruptive Technology

Posted by Brett Greene | Filed under Beliefs, Books, Money, Politics, Social Media, Spin | Jun 1, 2009 | Tags: amazon, current events, disruptive technology, google, google wave, mobile, mobile phone, mobile technology, satellite, smart phone, tech, techcrunch, technology | View Comments

Technology has rocked our world repeatedly in profound ways. This will happen many more times and is about to happen again with Google Wave. It’s going to be a tidal wave! Imagine email, instant messaging, document sharing and much more integrated into a real time platform. Or don’t imagine it and just wait a few ...Read more.

There is no Law in the ‘Law’ of Attraction

Posted by Brett Greene | Filed under Beliefs, Books, Consumerism, Marketing, Money, Politics, Psychology, Religion, Spin, The Brain, Videos | Jan 30, 2009 | Tags: abraham, consciousness, fooled by randomness, geoff covin, hudson river plane crash, kluge, law of attraction, malcolm galdwell, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, NYT, NYT bestseler, oprah, outliers, personal development, rhonda byrne, secret, slef help, success, success formula, talent is overrated, the secret, us airways | View Comments

Laws are not selective, unless you’re either rich, powerful, a celebrity , politically connected, or know someone who is when you break one. Gravity is a law. It works 100% of the time with no excuses whether you like it or not. In fact, you don’t have to buy a book or movie to see ...Read more.

Barack Obama’s Inaugural Influence

Posted by Brett Greene | Filed under Politics | Jan 19, 2009 | Tags: american president, barack obama, current events, inaugural, inauguration, news, presidential inauguration | View Comments

You may have heard that tomorrow there’s some inauguration thing going on. Apparently there’s been a little bit of news coverage on this event. Actually, there’s been more media coverage on Barack Obama’s inauguration than any other previous inauguration. In fact, tickets for the inauguration are going for thousands of dollars online. It seems that ...Read more.

How the Mainstream Media Actually Works

Posted by Brett Greene | Filed under Media, Politics, Spin, Videos | Dec 2, 2008 | Tags: current events, news | View Comments

This video of The Young Turks helps to point out how political pundits lie to the public while kissing up to the most powerful politicians until they begin to lose power. Then, like magic, the truth that everyone knew all along comes out of their mouths for the first time …years after it could have ...Read more.