“José Luis Espert’s alarming forecast on the dollar before the November elections” (La Nación, October 24, 2021).
“For Carlos Melconían, an exchange outcome is coming” (Cronista, 11/18/2021)
“With a dollarization, as Javier Milei proposes, the exchange rate would go to $620” (Perfil June 28, 2022)
Aorna $238, those who were enticed to buy blue dollars at $195 or $185 in October 2020, wasted their purchasing power.
“Prophecy is often the main cause of the prophesied event” (Thomas Hobbes, Behemoth). The “Behemoth” is the last work of political philosophy written by Hobbes, banned by the king.
“Pygmalion Effect”
It is the process that causes the expectation regarding certain future events to increase the probability that the events will occur. The self-fulfilling prophecy is, at first, a false definition of the situation, which awakens new behavior that makes the original illusory conception of the situation come true.
For example, if someone supposes that they relegate him, he will behave suspicious, insufferable, hypersensitive and will produce in others the contempt of which he was already convinced, this will be verified in his hypothesis.
In 1979, California newspapers began publishing news about the imminent reduction in the supply of gasoline. Motorists rushed to the pumps and filled 12 million fuel tanks. It so happened that these enormous reserves were exhausted and in the morning the predicted shortage occurred. When things calmed down, it was found that the provision and distribution had never diminished. There would have been no shortage, if it had not been forecast. The future-not the past-determined the present. What happened is not surprising or unknown to those of us who are aware of it.
Economic theory, finance and medicine
It is true that we have technical predictability tools, based on previous experiences, to estimate the effects with a view to obtaining the closest possible result, from the simple use of “regression and correlation”, to the most sophisticated financial modeling of future events. All this tries to deduce, then it will be revealed in “true or false”, however, it does not have to exert an influence on the course of events.
Examples: if someone begins to feel a headache, cold and sneezes, based on previous experiences, they can self-diagnose a cold and take aspirin, hot drinks and rest. So far, someone has anticipated a causal path and reacted to a phenomenon that is developing in the present and, in this way, influences the present course.
In the case of gasoline, everything was triggered by the actions that were taken as a precaution. The presumed future solution is the one that created the problem. Self-fulfilling prophecies can be used deliberately and for a purpose, sometimes unspeakable.
But for self-prophecies to come true, you have to believe them. “For a long time he believed that the existence of the Oedipus effect distinguished the social sciences from nature. But even in molecular biology, expectations play a role: they help the expected to happen” (Karl Popper). We could add that factors as unscientific as the expectations and assumptions of economic science embarrass us, as well as the questions of journalists: “what we observe is not nature itself, but the nature imposed by our way of posing the questions” (Heinsberg).
The self-fulfilling prediction was introduced in the educational world with students subjected to intelligence tests. According to the case (Oak School), the educators were informed that a test had shown that 20% of the students during the year would make rapid progress. Names chosen “entirely at random” were given to the teachers who could safely be expected to perform extraordinarily according to the tests. The professors already knew who they were the best a priori. When they took the same test, the result was effectively repeated in above-average IQs. They were coincident, in addition the report indicated good behavior, intellectual curiosity, and even the sympathy of geniuses… (Robert Rosenthal, Harvard: Pygmalion in the classroom)
Twelve participants in experimental psychology were shown a bogus study showing that selective breeding of well-inherited rats could lead to learning outcomes of maze exit. Supposedly, six students received the 30 smartest rats and another six received the 30 least smart rats. In reality, all the rats were equal in intelligence or “unintelligence.” At the end of the event, the reports of both groups coincided with the definitions that had previously been imposed on them. Some said they were smart and others dumb. Those of the supposedly intelligent rats even added that they were playful and were petted.
The fact that science ignores these strange narrated results and moves on, warns us about the stubborn belief in the supposed seriousness of forecasters who miss one. The presumed scientific objectivity of these imaginary scholars can put investors on the defensive when their capital is threatened, also frightening society as a whole. These examples shed light on the dire reality of dozens of market disturbances. Constructions of spokespersons and operators to help create realities.
blessings and curses
It is said in the Bible, “A thousand will fall dead at your left hand and ten thousand at your right hand; else nothing will happen to you.” But this is for the one who believes in the power and protection of God. In a classic work, “Voodoo Death”, Walter Cannon describes sudden deaths that are mysterious and difficult to explain scientifically, because they are deaths due to “curses”. A curandero curses an Indian and he is unable to defend himself against his emotional reactions to this death sentence, so he dies a few hours later.
A young African hunter shoots down and eats a taboo-related wild fowl for lunch. When he realizes his transgression he falls into despair and dies within twenty-four hours. Cannon came to the conviction that in the case of voodoo death, it is a phenomenon of primitive men, superstitious, and ignorant strangers in a hostile world. In “the place of knowledge”, they have fantasies that animate their environment with all kinds of evil spirits, capable of irremediably influencing the existence of these men. And, studies and research continue to multiply on the possibility of influencing the human immune system by causing moods, suggestions, etc. Remember a television host who warned himself fearful about the possibility of contracting COVID, he took great care of himself, but the curse of the pandemic reached him, and took him away.
They call them “city gurus”. A new job exploits the need to be happy.
The term guru is of Sanskrit origin and means teacher, therefore, the guru is a “spiritual guide”. They are in difficult moments, when there is a need to make a difficult decision and they do not know what to do. They will be available to offer their wealth and wisdom. I mean, they don’t exist. They are simulation experts. But in the eyes of the viewer or the reader of a portal, the star economist or journalist, so to speak, is a mediator between wealth and bankruptcy, his statements matter. “The work” of forecasting the dollar, which mostly has negative connotations, has been going on for many decades, and although less than the inevitable consequences of the curses, they are no less ruthless.
Snake charmers. psychics
– To what extent can the representations that something bad is going to happen with the dollar and the economy go? – We do not know. But we do not ignore that the dimensions of the bust of women can already be enlarged by applying hypnotism and the breasts can grow from four to five centimeters in diameter. Curiosity, considering the great importance of breasts in North American eroticism (Watzlawick).
We are aware that the body produces endorphins, similar to morphine, which are analgesics and whose production is stimulated by certain psychic processes related to actions: having sex, playing sports, laughing. Placebos are nothing new. Drugs that have no pharmacological effect. Today the interest in placebos is growing. Patients given placebos often show unexplained improvements. The patient’s willingness to believe in curative efficacy generates a reality in which the assumption is realized.
The dangers
The operations related to “create illusion” produced indisputable results. Promise “zero poverty”, “workers will not pay income tax”, “investment rain”, “Belgrano Plan, with 16 billion dollars investment for the North of the country”, “the second semester”, “lower inflation to single digits “build three thousand kindergartens”, “end corruption”, “start up one million 30-year mortgage loans”; they shook the foundations of the personal conception of reality and called into question the image of the world of economics and political science. There, the creators of realities were not faced with the possibility of assuming full responsibility for marketing actions, but for inventing and elaborating tragedies for the citizens, more similar to the curse of the Indian, than to the placebos that cure the sick. And here again is the danger of the economy and the dollar being abused.
Thanks to the fear of the titles of portals in the first paragraph, with their forecasts of the dollar, small investors lost 50%-60% of purchasing power by keeping their savings in safe deposit boxes. Remember the “blue dollar” was updated 22% since October 2020 (20 months), when it could be sold at $190. In contrast, inflation grew 80% in the same period. They were able to buy cars, appliances and non-perishable goods and they would have won.
Indeed, thanks to the reform of thought, indoctrination or re-education of the market gurus and the media that promote them, the dollar is seen, as in the first paragraph of this article. In Orwell’s 1984 novel, the language of reality-creating communication is called “Newspeak,” and Orwell explains that this language makes all other ways of thinking impossible. Postgraduate professors can see the almost irreversible damage of their undergraduate careers, in many students who have become fanatics, without discerning anything. They do not record meaningless and automated adjectives, nor journalistic synchronized swimming. Although the spoken word is no longer a carrier of information, they continue to read and hear the same thing.
This is the secret of propaganda: the person to whom it is addressed must be saturated with ideas without realizing that they are penetrating them. Communication has a purpose, but this must be concealed so intelligently and virtuously that the one to whom this intent refers does not notice it at all (Goebbels). In this need to hide the intention, the invented reality becomes reality, only when the invention is believed. When the element of blind conviction belief is missing, that reality is ineffective.
With a greater understanding of the “Pygmalion Effect” our ability to ignore artifice increases. There is always time to learn, to choose something else. Wittgenstein said that in certain games you can win, with a simple trick. As soon as we realize that ruse, we don’t need to keep playing naively and losing. game theorist howard formulates his existentialist axiom according to which he who becomes aware of a theory relative to his behavior is no longer subject to it, but is free to override it.
Professor of Postgraduate UBA and Masters in private universities. Master in International Economic Policy, Doctor in Political Science, author of 6 books.
Source: Ambito
