If you read this, shut up for a moment and don't respond. How many views do you think it'll take before somebody tells me about snapping mirror without gloves? For the sake of not revealing meaning, just post a number and leave no other response to the question. I'm betting around 800. Nothing gets a rise out of people quite like petty safety infractions. Why is this? Comfort in trusted procedure, perhaps? A natural inclination for people to defer to authority? Yes and yes, but where do these come from? I'm glad you asked, Padawan.

First, let's take a diversion to talk for a moment about how to sound smart. In conversation, if ever within the domain of American history, when you're uncertain over who might've said somethingorother, it's a safe bet to guess Benjamin Franklin. Guy was unambiguously clever. You can use this guess as a default setting. Further on the subject, if you memorize the names of the Presidents, people will be baffled by your brilliance—even though most of them will already have more than 46 "friends" on Facebook, & keep at least as many contacts on their phone. In a more worldly stretch to impress, one can easily charm others by remembering only a modicum of their world geography; if this proves too conceptually difficult, then one may easily evade revealing their limit of understanding by simply pointing out one or two obscure reference points on the map in a quick escape; perhaps tell a sensational story to throw them off your scent, for example, mention the ecological disaster that befell Easter Island, and thus spin the mark around with a dizzying verification of your forcefully shrewd mental acuity. When the subject of philosophy enters the room, only drop the big bomb of Plato as a last resort, because it's sort of a catchall for ANY argument. Referencing Plato's like calling an itchy patch eczema; you probably won't be wrong. No, start instead with a less wellknown but still brilliant thinker. As fellow mathematicals, Russell and Bronowski are my preferred weapons, and except that I'm too snobby and blithely in love with the pair to misuse them in this way I might, so John Stuart Mill might be better suited to the purpose. If the subject of organic chemistry comes up, it's always hydrogen bonds. If it's physics, it's always error and uncertainty. When in doubt about anything, ever, if totally cornered, the ultimate alphatoomega, endall beall of terminating clichés is a recourse into Relativism. Just google it, you'll see what I mean.

Now that you know how simple the recipe for sounding like an authority can be, let's return to the point at hand. Why do people so easily fall into the rut of dogma? Like everything else about humanity, it comes down to natural selection. You, fellow ape, come from a long line of progenitors who fell in line. Yes, I could go on and on about how we're patternrecognizing machines, and how we thus generate an endless supply of falsepositives, but I've spun you around with that tune before, and I'm already over 3K characters. The point I want you to take this time is that we're prewired for deferment to expertise, and this is still the case EVEN when the expertise is faking it. In fact, as sociallytrusting creatures who long lived in small familial bands, we have a problem NOT trusting others.

And so we have room for defectors. Snakeoil salesmen, evangelists, contractors, YouTubers; the list goes on and on. Defectors arise via exploitation (sorry to use that tainted word) of a system that was "designed" (or rather, implemented) for the sake of our benefit. The idea is called 'ascribed status.' Think about those two words, real hard: ascribed status.

Imagine you & I are in Far Cry Primal, IRL. We're planning to take down some behemoth that has fangs longer than either of our, um, handaxes. As we lay prostrate on the mound above, peeking down at the beast, you look back to me for guidance in a moment of anxiety & apprehension, and I give you that cheesy smile that says, 'don't worry, I do this all the time,' and your misplaced trust begets confidence. Remember what I said about it in the video? Confidence means performance. It's natural selection. In terms of game theory, a false prophet is still better than no profit at all.

Ironically, as dumb as this betterthannothin' approach is, it actually works to convince us. So well, in fact, that our default setting is STILL a preference for the extraneous whenever given the choice. Think about this simple bit of erroneous reasoning: "I'd rather have one and not need it than need one and not have it" is a trite, commonsense rationale for carrying a weapon. But one is far more likely to "need" an umbrella, and who bothers to carry one of those?

Now listen here, fellow followermonkey: since you're reading me right now, and it's not the other way around, I'm the one with the ascribed status. I'm in your head. Don't allow yourself to be victimized in this way. Fight back in the comments.