Thanks for posting this op. I hope it gets plenty of upvotes/visibility.

Even more, I hope people read this and become aware that powerful techniques for mental conditioning are built into the very structure of the show itself.

Once you are aware of this, the technique itself becomes much less effective. I just want to take an opportunity to point out the difference that awareness makes.

Unaware: attempt at mental conditioning = highly effective

Aware: attempt at mental conditioning becomes obvious and loses most/all it's effectiveness.

Another thought just occurred to me. Most people would be able to see what's going on with this type of show... if they had some decent quality programming to compare it to.

By that, I mean a TV show where both side of an issue are presented in a fair and unbiased manner... and then discussed calmly and rationally.

AFAIK, there just aren't any shows like this on TV. Even on most news shows, debates tend to degenerate into arguments, with people taking sides and raising their voices trying to interrupt their opponent at every opportunity. So there just isn't anything good to compare to.

tldr; You can't know what a good meal tastes like if you're being fed junk food every day.

More than two sides to most issues. Thinking there are only two sides is a common symptom of deep conditioning. Also, bias will accompany every discussion, especially those framed as argumentative.

Strong points, certainly no frame of reference to compare it to presently. Also to your point, the average "shot" on TV is less than 2 seconds. This is less true for single camera news shows like Oliver's, but this is a phenomenon of recent years ushered in with reality TV that has now spread to sitcoms, dramas, and commercials. Works on a similar pretense, if your brain is constantly working to digest the new images on the screen, the viewer is left with no time to process, think, or even subconsciously feel emotions associated with those images (the message). I believe shit length increases in shows like Oliver's, but it is done deliberately to allow time for their message, and only their message, to sink in (as OP described).

Summary: Quick shot lengths on TV are designed for mindless drudgery UNLESS they have an agenda (like Oliver) that needs to be deliberately and convincingly delivered.

i don't understand you time explanation; do you mean the longer the show is the more time they have to put their message in your mind?

It's like programmed for people with A.D.D. and by programming a show with short A.D.D. clips,

American television editing

ok, thanks

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You might want to read up on the thoughts of a guy named Marshall McLuhan. He's the guy who said, the medium is the message.

This was way back in the 1950's during the birth of broadcast TV. Back then, a lot of people either didn't get what he was talking about, or didn't pay attention.

What he was saying is that the medium of TV itself requires the viewer to be passive receiver.

The internet is fundamentally different. You receive information, but you can also interact. You can participate by making comments, asking questions and posting your own content.

Even if you aren't as actively engaged, you tend to find yourself surrounded by others who are. I believe this is why TV viewership is declining. Once people get a dose of internet-style activity, TV just doesn't do it for them anymore.

video games are actually a better example than the internet imho. at least when you are comparing entertainment media on tv.

we studied this a bit when i was doing game design, in our media classes. turning on the TV just turns your brain off, and in to a passive receiver, its pretty easy to tell who watches tv and who doesnt after a 5 min conversation.

Yeah I noticed that when regressives attempted to infiltrate the videogaming industry they got immediately called out. Some developers/publishers continue to support regressives but the audience in general does not. I think it's true that providing some interaction an ability for users to comment back completely kills the hypnosis effect. I suspect it's part of the reason Trump is even able to stay in the race despite the unprecedented assault against him by media on TV. The Internet is just that powerful now.

theres a lot of morons or devious types on Youtube who think the flash editing video is the norm.

or people who pad out one minute to ten.

That's pretty good! Next he should cover the mass conditioning methodology of /r/the_donald.

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Which is more acceptable since it's clearly a biased place, unlike r/politics

I agree with you, and I'm definitely not in the Trump camp.

exactly, hell im anti-clinton, and i got banned for pointing out hypocrisy in one of the threads. same mindset as worldnews just a different perspective.

You spelled r-politics wrong.

The-donald is not something i believe in, but at least the majority of people there arent being paid to post comments from scripts.

The people at the-donald dont care if u agree with them or not while the "people" who now own r-politics are literally getting paid to create a false consensus.

Please point me to any of the threads in thedonald where they call into question anything that Trump has said, done or anything. The donald is one of the most closeminded sub reddits. At least you can get away with saying you dont like hillary in r politics. You get banned for saying anything about bad trump in the donald.

Yeah, one subreddit is called donald and the other is called politics. Do you see the difference in those titles?

Listen jackass, my point was send me to a thread in the donald where they rationally call out anything Donald has said or done that was not acceptable. Not make some stupid ad hominem attack like your favorite political candidate.

"Ad hominem"

Okay, I get it. You don't understand the difference between a subreddit dedicated to openly endorsing a single person and a subreddit called politics which is a broad subject.

That's nice dude, let me know when Mr. Trump stops getting ass blasted by the Chinese's global warming hoax.

You could check out /asktrumpsupporters. Also thedonald does seem quite critical of his debate performance.

One sub has a: "trespassers will be shot on sight" Sign on their wall.

One sub has a: "visitors welcome!" Sign on their wall

Both subs shoot trespassers on sight.

The fact that they're posting there without having to be paid arguably is worse...

I too noticed this formula while watching this past weekend's episode - but might it be just a way of keeping audiences engaged despite the presentation of serious (boring) subject matter, and not a sinister ploy to brainwash us all?

If you watch a few episodes, you'll see that he doesn't use this exact 20-second formula at all times. Often he does spend several minutes talking about each episode's subject in finer detail towards the end - the frequent interjection of jokes is usually reserved for the introduction to each episode's major topic.

This is indeed a pattern which the show employs, but there's nothing to suggest it's used in a manipulative fashion. More likely it's just a way of keeping things light and entertaining - without these occasional jokes, it wouldn't be much of a comedy show.

Edit: typo

Good point. Let's not forget, this isn't supposed to be strictly a news show, there is supposed to be a certain amount of comedy per content. Every show follows a format, you dicks.

It's a show on a major cable network, of course they are using it to program the audience, don't be naive.

And that excuses the damaging side effects how? Misguided as the Salem witch hunts might've been, we need that mob mentality to reign right now. Stop being so content and kill all who oppose the will of the people. Death sends messages.

What the fuck did you just say you absolute lunatic?

Yeah, mob mentality is real effective when the people that are actually destroying civilization can fly away in helicopters and have private security.

Oh so they all have a pilot's license? The sheep who serve these fuckers need to stop doing so.

So are you officially re-branding r/conspiracy to r/The_Donaldjr yet?

Might as well. 90%+ of the front page here is Hillary "scandals". Zero coverage of any Trump scandals. Of which there are MANY. Why bother submitting them? Instant downvotes. Conspiracy-free thinking, as long as you agree with everything we say. Trump 2016!

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Seeing as he has no government experience, and his business experience is his main selling point, how does no one here care? The fake university that fraudulently squeezed money out of people? The fake charitable foundation, that's under investigation, that he used to buy shit for himself and fund lawsuits? The many bankruptcies that he used to fuck small businesses out of money? Bragging about getting favors from politicians in exchange for campaign contributions (also known as bribery), the fact that US banks won't lend him money anymore so he does business with sketchy Russians, his repeated use of undocumented workers, the many failed businesses.....none of this concerns you?

nope

But yes, the private email sever-identical to what dozens, maybe hundreds of other public officials had-WE GOTTA HANG THAT BITCH FOR THAT! Torches!!! Where are the torches??!!

FML. If they got stupider they'd implode.

It's hard to show that you take a side. Try not to get too wrapped up in this like /r/conspiracy is. Let's go get a pint, come back in a couple months and this will all be done, hopefully. Then we will be back to talking about how this whole charade called the illusion of choice is a sham.

I disagree. There's real choice this time. And all the choices are bad.

I lurk in here because i like conspiracy. I think its intresting to see what others are thinking about. But that, from the last few days of my front page, is Hillary. I was close to unsubbing there yesterday. I am tried of hearing about it.

There are at least dozens of us that aren't bots turning this into a trump subreddit downvoting all of this bullshit.

I liked it better back when these shitheads were circlejerking to farfetched, fringe stories about Reptilians running the government and 9/11 being spearheaded by Bigfoot. Now they're all fellating at the crotch of the ultimate conspiracy nutball, Donald Trump, whose unyielding foolishness just proves how even retardedness is marketable when there's a willing and gullible audience.

Can we PLEASE get a election megathread for those of us that want to buy into the biggest di$tration America has to offer every 4 years? Mods? This subreddit is not only suffering but is obviously being brigaded hard recently

This guy is about as likely to be a psychologist as my dog.

Go look at his post history.

There is zero chance this guy is for real.

What the fuck happened to critical thought in here?

I got to the part where he was talking about how 'statistically' white people are more intelligent than black people.

Lol, this subreddit is some grade A dogshit lately.

I dunno, he convinced me he was a professional worthy of my respect at 'shitlibs.' Would a person who is at BEST angrily biased against left - wing shows use such a term? I think not.

That's because he stole the quote from a user on My Posting Career

https://mpcdot.com/forums/topic/8964-john-oliver/#entry274332

This contains so much pop-Psychology it's laughable.

" a strict adherence to a roughly 20-second cycle in which a stimulus is presented"

You mean how jokes work? You mean comedy, insidiously making jokes that people find funny and conditioning them to laugh? Fucking ridiculous. Yeah, it's a sinister plot alright...

You know what I don't get? The laser like focus and disassembly into elaborate plots and plans of anything /conspiracy disagrees with, combined with the passive acceptance of the provably and hilariously false. Only accept the things that fit the narrative! Everything else is treason!

"shitlib inanity "

fucking kidding me? this sub is a trump place too?

I have a real hard time trusting anyone who uses that kind of language, if a Hillary supporter comes with some writeup on something and includes "cheeto benito" i'm ignoring the rest of their shit too

present some "argumentation" and "facts" for about 10 seconds, then quickly follow these up with a snarky quip (which themselves overwhelmingly take the form of complete non-sequitur or otherwise absurd metaphor)

yep- that nails it from what I've seen of the show. he follows every argument with some ridiculous comparison which completely confuses the point he's making, but emotionally stimulates his viewers into marginalizing the opinions of those on the other side. His random metaphors could honestly be written by a bot and really just serve to detract from the topics.

I suspect his writers are very young or are writing for a very young audience. The entire show is structured like a family guy bit, but with a political agenda. It's like when someone argues against a "conspiracy theory" by immediately referencing the insanity of alex jones or talking about lizard people. The Daily Show used to have some intelligence around it, and I MIGHT even argue that Bill Maher's show did in the 90's, but this new style of political comedy (Daily Show, Kemal Bell, Larry Wilmore, John Oliver, Marc Maron, Bill Maher) has lost any semblance of nuance and is a ridiculously unfunny advertisement for the Labor/ Democratic party, without espousing any real progressive values other than those cherry picked to fit the narrative.

I question if this guy is actually a psychologist. Putting "facts" in quotation marks doesn't mean it is false. I found myself looking up quite a bit of the stuff on John Oliver and I never come up with any actual false facts. Shows are just framed like that to keep an audiences attention, obviously. Use some critical thinking. I'd love the hear this guy's opinion on the Bill O'Reilly show.

You can't lie on the internet, though! Especially not on reddit, with its sophisticated account system!

Go look at the post history and doubt no more.

This sub has become /r/the_donald aka /r/the_dumbass 2.0.

SAD.

so go back to your safe space at r/EnoughTrumpSpam then.

You are not refuting that this sub has become /r/the_dumpster 2.0? Got it.

Keep the shilling alive, Dumpster.

Corden also.

Trump is contentless trash, he's the Oscar the Grouch of politics, I don't know how his supporters can stand the stench. At least Clinton has the sense to keep her 'dirty laundry' hidden, while Trump IS the dirty laundry taken human form, he's literally composed of only that, there''s nothing politically or socially else there. I guess Trump voters like to keep the 'shit real'--and the real shit--in front of them, where they can track it, smell it, and see it.

[deleted]

Trump can stand on his own two feet, he does not need to be faceplanted into an ambulance.

no contest, vote for a live candidate or an undead one.

various cities turned into 3rd world shitholes

no points for guessing which party controls these utopias.

Most of John Olivers segments point out egregious flaws in our society that most people have no clue about. It wasn't until this election and the Trump / Hillary propaganda started showing up and especially his final "breakdown" of Hillary's corruption vs Trumps corruption, that i became incredibly disappointed in him.

Agreed.

His segments on government surveillance, prisons, municipal violations, and civil asset forfeiture, are cogent insights into American society.

All of the segments I've ever seen from this show follow the same repetitive format: present some "argumentation" and "facts" for about 10 seconds, then quickly follow these up with a snarky quip (which themselves overwhelmingly take the form of complete non-sequitur or otherwise absurd metaphor)

I can't watch his show because of this cringe-worthy formula. It would be fine if he peppered this in around several other methods, but every time? It's too bad, because initially the program covered some important topics, like the US `s failing infrastructure.

I loved Oliver on The Daily Show, but i havent been able to enjoy his own show.

Maybe i feel an instinctive dislike for his type of repetitive derision with a few arguable facts.

Thanks for the posting OP!

Formula is more than obviously present - even with a accompanying graphics ... I first noticed it with Colbert , although it's brought to perfection with Oliver ..

But, Colberts new show is lost in time and the world , it is clear that even he feels it ... No clear concept or target , just the obvious "liberal politics" ....

A few jokes, now the obligatory "Trump bash segment" , done halfheartedly ... Really, truly sad. And he shows that. As if almost he is ashamed.

Yeah, he is probably crying himself to sleep on that mountain of cash.

I hope he goes to bed knowing he is a sell-out, but I doubt it.

"The end effect is (obviously) not to deliver information, but rather to literally entertain and amuse" because its a comedy show! Go watch some crap Fox news show and then post some ideas of the real "mastery of the methodologies of mass conditioning."

The commercials are better, full of pharmaceutical ads. I think it's not always what they say, but what they are selling you.

Upvoted because this type of conditioning is one of the last remaining powerful weapons being used. Most people have a great subconscious fear of being laughed at, and when laughter, whether it be canned or real, is associated with certain beliefs or political stances, the social part of the brain begins to make decisions that should belong to the logical part of the brain.

Not only does awareness nullify the conditioning effect, but it tends to reverse it altogether.

Another piece of evidence.

I mean for christs sake it's 2016 and were sitting here and not taking everything Jon Oliver says as absolute truth?!!? (insert laughter) By the way...have I told you lately how amazing Hilary Clinton is? (insert standing ovation)

Do you know why the establishment and it's supporters hate comedians so much? Because when comedians deftly lay out the truth for everyone to see it paints such a vivid summary that it leaves the guilty party with no possible valid comeback.

john oliver was funny on the tonight show.

his show sucks - total propaganda bullshit

But why do I need to know the psychologist is a trump supporter?

Because OP's a paid Trump propagandist.

Great post into the workings of 'programming.' Congrats to all of you reading who broke free from the 'network' and from 'coverage'

i actually really enjoyed the show for the first few months, but since is started the trump bashing and hillary praising i have lost all interest.

the lesser of two evils narrative is an insult to peoples intelligence.

its sad that a supposed great democracy has been reduced to "pick me, not because i am qualified, but because the other person is a child eating monster"

"if only it weren't so troubling a development, which moreover is in the hands of the entirely (((wrong people))).

I find it ironic that this is three posts down from another there's about John Oliver being in contact with the Clinton campaign. I don't doubt that he has been, I just find it ironic.

This covers the majority of the episodes. Once in a while I'll watch a clip where they take a break from the programmed entertainment to actually talk about an issue, but these are hard to find and generally not worth looking for.

Trump is the pornofication and prostitution of politics made literal, taken literal and corporeal form (the anti-Statue of Liberty, the Rascal of Libertinage). His ‘content,’ his creation of content, is essentially the reflection of an ‘unadulteratedly’ pornographic mind; he talks and acts like a cocaine-addled pimp and apparently he wants to make–and thinks he has the ‘cojones’ to achieve it–the whole of America his w…His logorrheic depiction of his own obsessive, licentious, and imperious manhandling of less powerful women could serve as the perfect metaphor for his designs on the American body politic, ‘Lady Liberty’ would hurl into the bay at the very thought of this political and literal Lothario boasting of having ‘conquered’ her, or rather the nation she embodies and represents.

Amazing analysis. TY

Example please.

I quit watching the show. Now I know why.

This country and its citizens are so FUBAR.

Ive lost all hope.

LOL a news show that comes on once a week and talks about all the headlines that have been covered to death during the preceding week is manipulating the stories to fit a liberal agenda LOL

Do you even know what entertainment is or what Fox News does???

You might want to read up on the thoughts of a guy named Marshall McLuhan. He's the guy who said, the medium is the message.

This was way back in the 1950's during the birth of broadcast TV. Back then, a lot of people either didn't get what he was talking about, or didn't pay attention.

What he was saying is that the medium of TV itself requires the viewer to be passive receiver.

The internet is fundamentally different. You receive information, but you can also interact. You can participate by making comments, asking questions and posting your own content.

Even if you aren't as actively engaged, you tend to find yourself surrounded by others who are. I believe this is why TV viewership is declining. Once people get a dose of internet-style activity, TV just doesn't do it for them anymore.

Yeah I noticed that when regressives attempted to infiltrate the videogaming industry they got immediately called out. Some developers/publishers continue to support regressives but the audience in general does not. I think it's true that providing some interaction an ability for users to comment back completely kills the hypnosis effect. I suspect it's part of the reason Trump is even able to stay in the race despite the unprecedented assault against him by media on TV. The Internet is just that powerful now.

theres a lot of morons or devious types on Youtube who think the flash editing video is the norm.

or people who pad out one minute to ten.