'You cannot get from where you're starting to the method working for one in five people."
What? How about if I just assert one in five people.

Happiness and health:
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magaz ... t-disease/

Anger and accidents:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun05/anger.aspx

"Sometimes people can be very happy, or very angry, and you wouldn't know it looking at their faces."
You can if you know where to look.

"We ask for evidence, all we get is more bullshit special pleading?"
That's what I'm doing here? I'm pleading with you? What am pleading for? And I don't think you have been unfair. A bit tiresome perhaps. It's all subjective. Tony Robbins is a businessman who provides a product. Caveat emptor.

I don't believe for a second you don't know what special pleading is, Mr. Caveat Emptor. Heroin salesmen and televangelists are also businessmen who provide a product. It was wrong the first time you said it, and it's still wrong now.

Davey122 wrote:Tony Robbins is a businessman who provides a product. Caveat emptor.

If all Mr. Robbins promised was that you'd feel good for a little while after his seminars, I would agree with you that they work. You feel good for a while. How long? Doesn't matter. That's not specified in the claim. But that isn't all Mr. Robbins promises. The full list of things he claims he can help you obtain makes him look more like a jinn from the story of Aladdin than any mere businessman. This is why we call bullshit. Well, this and the fact that there's no evidence that his products are good for anything at all.

Buyer beware, indeed.

SafeAsMilk wrote:I don't believe for a second you don't know what special pleading is, Mr. Caveat Emptor. Heroin salesmen and televangelists are also businessmen who provide a product. It was wrong the first time you said it, and it's still wrong now.

To be fair, "caveat emptor" has spent a lot more time in popular discourse than our favorite lists of logical fallacies have. This is unfortunate as an understanding of logical fallacies is what buyers really need if they're going to beware.

Davey122 wrote:Who do you think will be happier and more successful:
- Someone full of confidence, gratitude and a can do attitude? or
- Someone with a negative, life is sh*t, and we are all doomed attitude?

Confidence, gratitude, and a can-do attitude mean fuck all without skill. I'm reminded of all the very confident, can-do types who have insisted on coming up on stage, because they can play just as well as the band. No, really, trust me, I can shred, dude! I could be playing stadiums if I wanted, but I like selling time shares to tourists.

The power of positive thinking actually does have some benefits, but only if you've the bottle to back it up.

SafeAsMilk wrote:I don't believe for a second you don't know what special pleading is, Mr. Caveat Emptor. Heroin salesmen and televangelists are also businessmen who provide a product. It was wrong the first time you said it, and it's still wrong now.

Special pleading: argument in which the speaker deliberately ignores aspects that are unfavorable to their point of view.

Happiness and health:
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magaz ... t-disease/

Anger and accidents:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun05/anger.aspx

"Confidence, gratitude, and a can-do attitude mean fuck all without skill."

Agree 100%. Someone who is realistically confident though (not arrogant or Pollyanaish) is more likely to take on new challenges, is more likely to be able to deal with stress, more likely to bounce back from adversity.

Davey122 wrote:
Special pleading: argument in which the speaker deliberately ignores aspects that are unfavorable to their point of view.

You're doing this.

Happiness and health:
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magaz ... t-disease/

Please provide a link that takes me to the article.

Anger and accidents:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun05/anger.aspx

This is more than just anger. This is rage. You said:
"An angry person is likely, in my humble opinion, going to get into more accidents than a easygoing person."
Stated this broadly, it isn't demonstrably true. I agree with you that an enraged driver is more likely to be involved in traffic accidents. But I think you can see that this claim is much, much more specific than your original claim. We've gone from anger to rage, from people to drivers, and from accidents to traffic accidents.

Anger is a whole category of emotions. We're not cartoons. We're real people. We can be coldly angry, hotly angry, homicidal, irked or annoyed, etc. Anger is a spectrum, and your claim only holds true for some parts of the spectrum under very specific circumstances. Sometimes it's BETTER or more appropriate to be angry. Sometimes anger is the final push we need to resolve an issue that we otherwise might have continued to live with.

All of our emotions are useful under the right circumstances. It's only when one is comfortable speaking in undue generalizations that we get to label some emotions as bad or hurtful and others as good or helpful. This is pop psychology, not psychology.

Mr. Robbins doesn't offer solutions, he offers platitudes.

"Mr. Robbins doesn't offer solutions, he offers platitudes."

Said by a guy who wouldn't be caught dead in one of his courses. I would take you a little more seriously if you had done one of his courses or a the very least read up on NLP. Who knows, you might be one of the 18.2 percent.

You don't have to pay the shill money, there's innumerable summaries of his courses to be found online. Here's a great one: http://www.apologeticsindex.org/s51aa.html


Another idiotic argument from you. "Hey, you've never tried heroin, how do you know it isn't the best thing that ever happened to you?"

Davey122 wrote:
Said by a guy who wouldn't be caught dead in one of his courses. I would take you a little more seriously if you had done one of his courses or a the very least read up on NLP. Who knows, you might be one of the 18.2 percent.

You know who else tells me it would be obvious that what they were saying was true if I just gave it a try? Mormon missionaries and visiting Jehovah's Witnesses. This is a common and grossly dishonest tactic, and also demonstrates that you haven't been paying attention. I'm not interested in testimonials. Not even my own.

Personal experience is not, as commonly assumed, a means of determining what is true. Whoever it was that coined the phrase "seeing is believing" was a very poor skeptic. We have much better means for testing claims now.

Which is it? Should the buyer beware, or should I buy what he's peddling before I get to beware? You can't have it both ways.

I would happily attend one of Mr. Robbins's seminars for free if I had time. But I already have a pretty good idea what I'd experience and, to be honest, it's not something that makes me happy. I don't like being a sweating, claustrophobic part of a crowd. I'm not a motivational seminar sort of person. On top of that, I understand the physics behind board-breaking, fire-walking, and all of the other little tricks he likes to use. I've tried them all myself, and in most cases improved on them. I can put my hand through four and three quarter inches of wood. It's not mind over matter and it's not even strength. It's levers and fulcrums, simple physics, and it doesn't motivate me very much at all. The same can be said for fire-walking. I much more respect people who don't rely on cheap tricks to motivate their audience.

Too bad about those fire-walking lawsuits, by the way. It's a pretty simple trick and impressive that Mr. Robbins's employees managed to screw it up.

SafeAsMilk wrote:
Another idiotic argument from you. "Hey, you've never tried heroin, how do you know it isn't the best thing that ever happened to you?"

Shut up, meanie poo-poo-head. Heroin makes people happy, so obviously it's good. I have testimonials from people who used heroin to get over their sex addictions.

SafeAsMilk wrote:You don't have to pay the shill money, there's innumerable summaries of his courses to be found online. Here's a great one: http://www.apologeticsindex.org/s51aa.html


Another idiotic argument from you. "Hey, you've never tried heroin, how do you know it isn't the best thing that ever happened to you?"

Another idiotic comment. You should try heroin. It might help.

SafeAsMilk wrote:You don't have to pay the shill money, there's innumerable summaries of his courses to be found online. Here's a great one: http://www.apologeticsindex.org/s51aa.html


Another idiotic argument from you. "Hey, you've never tried heroin, how do you know it isn't the best thing that ever happened to you?"

I just read your worldview: "It's all fucked, do what you can." Why not just give up?

ScholasticSpastic wrote:

Davey122 wrote:
Special pleading: argument in which the speaker deliberately ignores aspects that are unfavorable to their point of view.

You're doing this.

Happiness and health:
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magaz ... t-disease/

Please provide a link that takes me to the article.

Anger and accidents:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun05/anger.aspx

This is more than just anger. This is rage. You said:
"An angry person is likely, in my humble opinion, going to get into more accidents than a easygoing person."
Stated this broadly, it isn't demonstrably true. I agree with you that an enraged driver is more likely to be involved in traffic accidents. But I think you can see that this claim is much, much more specific than your original claim. We've gone from anger to rage, from people to drivers, and from accidents to traffic accidents.

Anger is a whole category of emotions. We're not cartoons. We're real people. We can be coldly angry, hotly angry, homicidal, irked or annoyed, etc. Anger is a spectrum, and your claim only holds true for some parts of the spectrum under very specific circumstances. Sometimes it's BETTER or more appropriate to be angry. Sometimes anger is the final push we need to resolve an issue that we otherwise might have continued to live with.

All of our emotions are useful under the right circumstances. It's only when one is comfortable speaking in undue generalizations that we get to label some emotions as bad or hurtful and others as good or helpful. This is pop psychology, not psychology.

Mr. Robbins doesn't offer solutions, he offers platitudes.

Google happiness and health harvard. That should take you there.

Davey122 wrote:

SafeAsMilk wrote:You don't have to pay the shill money, there's innumerable summaries of his courses to be found online. Here's a great one: http://www.apologeticsindex.org/s51aa.html


Another idiotic argument from you. "Hey, you've never tried heroin, how do you know it isn't the best thing that ever happened to you?"

Another idiotic comment. You should try heroin. It might help.

The hypocrisy and butthurt floweth freely

Davey122 wrote:

SafeAsMilk wrote:You don't have to pay the shill money, there's innumerable summaries of his courses to be found online. Here's a great one: http://www.apologeticsindex.org/s51aa.html


Another idiotic argument from you. "Hey, you've never tried heroin, how do you know it isn't the best thing that ever happened to you?"

I just read your worldview: "It's all fucked, do what you can." Why not just give up?

Yes yes, without Tony Robbins, everyone should just give up. Another wonder argument there, Davey, I'm sure he's quite proud. Paying per moronic post, or just a lump sum?

ScholasticSpastic wrote:We've had a surprising number of people stop by the forum just to argue for Tony

Yes, quite surprising! I can't imagine why they aren't off making millions from his wonderful advice.

First of all, what the fuck is NLP? How to define it?

Is it just some hypnosis technique? Or is it more than that? Most people think of it as hypnosis techniques. But, it is definitely more than that. NLP is more encompassing than just bodily gestures to anchor in (associate) certain emotions to your target and putting certain emphasis (inflection) or repetition to certain words to make it stick in your target's mind, but words that you say to reframe the conversation (not just words, but when and how you say it matter as well, eg. interrupting people when they are talking to you at key intervals). I am doubtful that the hypnosis techniques actually work on a subliminal level, but I am certain that conversational reframing techniques are very effective persuasion techniques.

Davey122 wrote:
Google happiness and health harvard. That should take you there.

Do your own homework.

SafeAsMilk wrote:

Davey122 wrote:

SafeAsMilk wrote:You don't have to pay the shill money, there's innumerable summaries of his courses to be found online. Here's a great one: http://www.apologeticsindex.org/s51aa.html


Another idiotic argument from you. "Hey, you've never tried heroin, how do you know it isn't the best thing that ever happened to you?"

Another idiotic comment. You should try heroin. It might help.

The hypocrisy and butthurt floweth freely

Davey122 wrote:

SafeAsMilk wrote:You don't have to pay the shill money, there's innumerable summaries of his courses to be found online. Here's a great one: http://www.apologeticsindex.org/s51aa.html


Another idiotic argument from you. "Hey, you've never tried heroin, how do you know it isn't the best thing that ever happened to you?"

I just read your worldview: "It's all fucked, do what you can." Why not just give up?

Yes yes, without Tony Robbins, everyone should just give up. Another wonder argument there, Davey, I'm sure he's quite proud. Paying per moronic post, or just a lump sum?

I never said without Tony Robbins everyone should just give up, did I, Mr. SafeAsMilktoast? Everyone trying to better themselves is automatically a moron and a hypocrite because you don't agree with them. If you are living in the "United States of Apathy" you are the one with the butthurt.