Probably I need to start a new section: psychology. This is just a stub post. I noticed a specific technique which people use to manipuate others. The trick is based on the fact that if we are put under pressure once we may resist, but the second time we may give in. Children, obviously, use this when they endlessly demand sweets. The crowd technique is more sophisticated because it is a coordinated attack by two people. Because it comes from, apparently, two separate and unconnected people it gets past our ususal defences. Examples; a taxi driver running a standard scam where he claims the card terminal isn’t working and he needs cash, only it is, and he takes both. In this case – two taxi drivers work together like this: a passenger requests a ride in the app. A driver picks up, but then cancels after a few minutes. A second driver then arrives and pulls the scam. At this point, the passenger is beginning to worry that they won’t get a lift at all and is more likely to accept the scam. This works well, obviously, at night, on trips to the airport etc. when there might not be many taxis about.
Another example. A potential customer on an online platform badly wants some lessons, but she knows that the teacher is likely to refuse. She makes two separate bookings using separate accounts. The teacher rejects the first one, but either because he feels bad, or because the platform penalises multiple rejections, he accepts the second one, though had it come in by itself he would have rejected it.
This is not the same as, but is similar to the A or B choice trick – where both are desired outcomes for the maniuplating one.