Temptations To Troll

I've been learning things, as usual. Recently I happened upon a group of resources that are teaching me how influence happens, and why, and it's not so much like peeking behind a curtain as like someone turned a light on. You suddenly see why things happen as they do, when no normal explanation adds up or when there are many explanations that don't ring true. Or, as Scott Adams (expert in such matters) put it, it's like seeing things with an extra dimension: when everyone's playing regular chess, the one who is actually playing 3D chess will do things that look crazy but somehow work.

Naturally, I want to have a go at using this new knowledge. Once some theory is well in hand, trying things out is one of the best ways to really understand. My entire history is evidence of this.

The problem, in this case, is that trying out influence on a small scale, just as harmless amusement, is pretty much trolling, even if the motives are different. It's also hilariously fun. Using such knowledge only for good, or at least in continued harmlessness, is not as easy as I thought it'd be.

In other words, there may come a day in which I stop baiting people who think they're terribly smart; but today is not that day.

Tomorrow isn't looking likely, either.