Influence or Manipulation

I believe the difference between manipulation and influence is that manipulation involves using the group or individual for personal gain while influence is more focused on unselfish globally beneficial outcomes. I hate to ever admit this but most of today’s politics feel like manipulation rather than influence. The line between good and bad is very fine. I believe the distinction lies in where it all closely balances out. What I am referring to is at the end of the day is the outcome equally beneficial or is it one sided. If the outcome is weighted on one side then I believe it to be bad. Now this is the problem because it is rarely ever totally balance. I don’t believe it had to be completely balanced for it to be fair but just not completely weighted in the favor of one side. So then what’s the limit? I can’t really say and there isn’t really a standard. I guess to me it’s up to a personal judgment of when too much is too much and the move from influence to manipulation is achieved.

I actually use the techniques for influencing others in order to achieve a task to be completed. Now for me it isn’t something I do just because I want to get it done, I use it so that we can work better as a group. I feel that it’s more o f a motivational tool rather than a system for making others follow you. Most of the time the end goal is to complete the task as a group with everyone receiving the same mutual reward at the end.

In reference to the Google question, I feel that it isn’t right of them to use filtering content like that. Most of the time Google’s top sites are listed because they were paid by the site to sponsor them. Now although as of right now most sites are “Googled” by amount of hits, I can see in the near future Google will see the large sum of revenue they can generate with “filtering” their search results. I think Google is on a path to be coming, in the eyes of the world, as “evil” and “controlling.”