Masters of Influence

Jeff Loehr
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Politics
  • Updated Semiweekly

Most of the economic/political/social conversation focuses on personalities: do I like them, where do they come from, are they "left" or "right." Instead of name-calling and pigeonholing, we want to understand why some strategies work and others don't. How do some people consolidate power while others are left out in the cold? And what does that mean for us? If you are interested in the world's power plays and how they work - join us. mastersofinfluence.substack.com

  1. Context Collapse: How Algorithms Define You,

    Apr 9

    Context Collapse: How Algorithms Define You,

    The profile that determines your insurance rate, your job prospects, and even whether you committed a crime, was built from behavior it fundamentally cannot interpret? And what if “I have nothing to hide” is the exact wrong response to that problem? --- This week we’re talking about context collapse — the structural reason every algorithmic system in your life misreads you, and why it can’t be fixed by better engineering. The term comes from researcher danah boyd, who originally used it to describe what happens when you post on social media and your boss, your grandmother, and a stranger all read the same words with completely different context. We take that idea further: when your behavior enters an algorithmic system, the same collapse happens. The system sees what you did. It cannot see why. And the “why” is usually the entire point. A click is a click. A purchase is a purchase. A location is a coordinate. None of those things carry the reason they happened and the reason is almost always what would distinguish a dangerous conclusion from an accurate one. We walk through how this plays out in your social media feed, in hiring algorithms, in predictive policing, and in health insurance where HIPAA protects what your doctor knows about you but not what your phone knows about you. Then we get into why “I have nothing to hide” and “I’m careful about what I search” both miss the point entirely. The uncomfortable part: more data doesn’t solve this. It compounds it. The profile becomes richer while remaining structurally unable to hold what matters most about you. And the authority granted to that profile keeps expanding. --- In This Episode 0:00 — The search you’d rather not explain — and what the algorithm concluded about you 2:00 — Connecting back to the last episode: why this isn’t just an Amazon problem 3:26 — The rapid pattern: news reading, book purchases, location data, and the four-second pause that changed your feed 5:30 — Where “context collapse” comes from: danah boyd’s original research and how we’re extending it 10:00 — Why the system can’t hold context: this isn’t bad engineering, it’s structural 14:22 — The data double: the version of you that exists inside the system, makes decisions about your life, and that you’ve never met 18:52 — Same mechanism, different costs: social media feeds, hiring algorithms, predictive policing, and the feedback loop that reproduces its own conditions 24:20 —The fallacy of protected health data, HIPAA’s blind spot, and searching for your mother’s diagnosis 25:52 — Why “nothing to hide” is the wrong frame — and why “being careful” isn’t enough 30:00 — The part that doesn’t fix itself: why more data makes context collapse worse 30:14 — The skill: two questions to ask every time a system makes a decision about you 32:00 — The kicker --- Every system that processes your behavior builds a version of you. That version has no access to your reasons. And somewhere, right now, decisions are being made based on it. --- Next episode: Affective Amplification — why outrage travels faster than truth, and what happens when an algorithm’s job is to keep you emotional. Get full access to Masters of Influence at mastersofinfluence.substack.com/subscribe

    33 min
  2. You Can’t Argue Back:

    Mar 14

    You Can’t Argue Back:

    In every case, you can’t argue back. There’s no mechanism for reading your intent. No mechanism for hearing your side. The context has already been collapsed. The pattern has already been matched. The identity has already been assigned. It all started with Amazon labeling my mother a Nazi, and now algorithms are starting to rule our lives. We are creating algorithms that run our lives, determining what we see, what we do, and even what we think. We used to be in control, but can we stay that way? This is episode 1 of our Managed Minds series in which we’ll explore the power algorithms are assuming over our lives (and how we are gleefully inviting their control. In this episode, we start with the escalation and introduce the concepts of context collapse and affective amplification. We talk about how: Amazon uses algorithms to recommend products. The stakes? You see some weird suggestions you’d never buy. Annoying, sure. Harmless, mostly. This is where most people’s understanding of algorithmic decision-making begins and ends — a quirky recommendation engine that occasionally gets it wrong. But this is the shallow end of the pool. A hiring platform uses them to screen resumes. The stakes go up fast. You don’t get the interview. You don’t get the job you’re qualified for. And you never find out why — because the system rejected you before a human ever saw your application. No one called you. No one read your cover letter. A pattern decided you weren’t a fit, and that was that. A credit system uses algorithms to assign you a score. Now the stakes are financial. You pay a higher interest rate. You get rejected for a mortgage. You can’t rent an apartment. Not because of something you did, but because of a pattern the system built around people who share your data profile. You’re being judged by a composite sketch of someone who isn’t you. An immigration system uses algorithms to flag travelers for additional screening. You missed your flight. You get detained. You end up somewhere you never expected to be — and the system that sent you there can’t explain why it chose you. It just did. Pattern matched. Flag raised. A criminal court uses algorithms to determine sentences. You go to prison for longer than you otherwise would have, or at all, based on a score that no one can explain to you. Not the judge. Not your lawyer. Not the people who built the system. A number was generated, and it shaped the rest of your life. (Coming soon: in a couple of episodes, we’ll discuss predictive policing). Notice the escalation. We went from a bad product recommendation to a prison sentence in five steps. And in every single case, the same thing is true: you can’t argue back. There’s no appeals process for an algorithm’s assumptions. There’s no cross-examination of a model’s training data. There’s no moment where you get to stand up and say, wait — that’s not who I am. You’re not seeing the full picture. The context has already been collapsed. The pattern has already been matched. The identity has already been assigned. This is the conversation we need to be having — not whether AI is impressive (it is), but whether we’ve built any real mechanism for the people affected by these systems to be heard. --- 🎧 Listen to the full episode for the complete discussion, including what accountability might actually look like when machines make decisions about people. Key topics covered: * 00:00 Introduction * 01:52 Discussion about comments * 11:17 Hitler, my mother and how Amazon put them together. * 13:58 The three mechanisms for control * 16:20 Amazon as the test case: what it can measure and what it ignores. * 21:47 When algorithms take your freedom. * 22:58 Why “you can’t argue back” is the defining problem of automated systems * 27:02 Persuasion is no longer between humans. Resources and further reading: * Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil * Automating Inequality by Virginia Eubanks * God Human Animal Machine by Meghan O’Gieblyn What’s your experience? Have you ever been on the wrong end of an algorithmic decision — denied something, flagged, scored — without understanding why? I’d love to hear your story in the comments. Get full access to Masters of Influence at mastersofinfluence.substack.com/subscribe

    35 min
  3. Why Facts Backfire: The Hidden Reason Evidence Makes People Dig In Harder

    Mar 1

    Why Facts Backfire: The Hidden Reason Evidence Makes People Dig In Harder

    You've armed yourself with data, studies, and airtight logic — and it still didn't work. That's not a coincidence. Facts don't just fail to persuade; they often make people more resistant. This episode explains the psychological mechanism behind that phenomenon and what to do instead. In this episode, you'll learn… Why presenting more evidence frequently strengthens opposition — a documented phenomenon called the Backfire Effect How the brain reframes incoming facts as identity threats, triggering a defense response rather than genuine reconsideration Why the person with less data often wins the argument — and what they're doing differently The tragic story of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, whose ironclad hand-washing data got him fired while patients kept dying — and what it reveals about how identity defeats evidence How to reduce identity threat before leading with facts, so your argument actually lands When to recognize the conversation isn't about truth at all — and why engaging anyway is a losing strategy The harder question: which facts are you refusing to see, and what identity are they threatening? This episode is for you if… You're data-driven and well-prepared, yet keep losing arguments to people who are less informed but more emotionally certain. Subscribe to Masters of Influence regular insights on how power, persuasion, and identity actually work so that you can protect yourself from undue influence and claim your personal power. Get full access to Masters of Influence at mastersofinfluence.substack.com/subscribe

    27 min
  4. Here's why smart people so consistently lose arguments to dumb people.

    Feb 14

    Here's why smart people so consistently lose arguments to dumb people.

    Why do climate scientists lose debates to coal lobbyists? Why do epidemiologists lose to anti-vaxxers? Why does your uncle dismantle your PhD cousin every Thanksgiving? Because they’re playing different games. One side is trying to be right. The other side is trying to win. And winning is easier. This week we break down why being smart is actually a disadvantage in public debate. Turns out when you’re playing chess and they’re playing tic-tac-toe, the person who chose the simpler game already won. We walk through the four mechanisms that make facts backfire, why confidence beats accuracy every single time, and how the coal industry used this exact playbook against climate scientists. (Spoiler: we know because Jeff helped them do it.) By the end, you’ll recognize the status game when you see it. And you’ll realize you’ve been playing it too — probably unconsciously. You’re not going to like what that means about democracy. But you’ll see it everywhere. 0:00 — Welcome0:55 — What we mean by smart and dumb3:16 — How arguments actually work (hint: not how you think)5:38 — The 5 mechanisms that make smart people lose12:00 — What happens when you point out they are wrong. 23:00 — what to do if you want to win Get full access to Masters of Influence at mastersofinfluence.substack.com/subscribe

    28 min
  5. We've got to start thinking like the 13-year-old

    Jan 30

    We've got to start thinking like the 13-year-old

    Okay, now that we, over here at Masters of Influence, have recovered somewhat from the shootings, we can dedicate some brain matter to critical thinking. To get there, imagine this scenario: a teacher says to a 6-year-old and to a thirteen year old that when a feather hits a glass, the glass breaks. Then the teacher asks each, What happens when a feather hits a glass. A 6-year-old says, “That’s stupid, feathers are soft.” A 13-year-old says, “The glass breaks.” I saw this in a social media post. The original post demonstrated how thinking evolves as we mature. The post I saw mocked it: obviously, education makes us stupider, we should all think like 6 year olds. In fact the 13-year old in this scenario is demonstrating a higher level of thinking, more lateral thinking. Something like: sure I know that a feather, the way I understand it, won’t break glass, but if the rule is that a feather breaks glass then the answer to the question is that the glass will break. It’s an ability to step outside of what you think you know to look at something a different way. The quick, emotional, social media, response to everything is the six-year-old response. It is an emotional reaction that takes no new information into account. And it is almost always dressed up as common sense or logic. But true logic, real common sense, allows for a feather to break the glass. So in this episode we talk about when feathers can and should break glass, when you should consider the logical rules, when you should follow them and an even higher level of critical thinking: how to choose. What you’ll hear: 0:00 - Experiments in psychology. 6:30 - When improvising will get you killed. 13:00 - Sully didn’t break the rules—he executed them perfectly under impossible conditions 18:00 - When critical thinking is dangerous vs. when it’s your only defense 27:00 - Who has the obligation to break the rules 33:00 - How manufactured discourse works and why you keep falling for it 38:00 - The cult mechanics of modern political loyalty 42:00 - Coming next: Your toolkit for detecting logical fallacies in real time Join us, and let us know what you see in the world of critical thought. Next time we’ll go into structures of logic and how to think critically. Get full access to Masters of Influence at mastersofinfluence.substack.com/subscribe

    26 min
  6. So, executions are legal now?

    Jan 25 ·  Bonus

    So, executions are legal now?

    My ambition is to empower people to become more critical thinkers and recognize the importance of power, how it’s being used, where it’s being used and how to both defend against it as well as claim some for themselves. Ourselves really, especially in this time of feeling powerless, how do we claim some power. It is not to only talk about politics. I’m interested in how we apply these rules to politics and the political situation, and how we can use these rules to better master our world. However, I saw that video yesterday and could think of nothing else. An execution by the government in the US and the regime is actively justifying it. Yesterday’s shooting makes Good’s shooting seem less almost, well, mundane. At least she wasn’t shot in the back. This week was supposed to be the follow up on the context episode from last week, but we decided it was important to join the voices condemning the shooting and calling for some action. So, here are our thoughts on the Minneapolis situation. From wondering what the hell is going on to asking ourselves whether this is a state of war, we discuss what Alex Pretti’s murder means and where we go from here. Join the conversation in the chat and we’ll be back next week with arguments and logic. I hope. Until then, Jeff Get full access to Masters of Influence at mastersofinfluence.substack.com/subscribe

    31 min
  7. Forget the guns, it's a fight for context

    Jan 13

    Forget the guns, it's a fight for context

    We’re watching something disturbing unfold in Minneapolis, and it’s not what you think. The threat isn’t the guns. A woman is dead, killed at point-blank range by the cowards at ICE, and that’s not the worst of it. As bad as murder is, it’s a distraction. What everyone gets wrong is that they engage with the content, debate it, and get sucked into a world where they define the terms and create the context. It isn’t a war about what happened, that’s clear. It’s a war of context. Key Takeaways: * The Kuleshov Effect from 1920 and its relevance today. * How the government uses context to minimize killing civilians. * Similarities to Myanmar’s ethnic cleansing show where this can go. * When information gets narrower, context manipulation gets stronger Here’s your defense: Get suspicious when the frame gets narrow. One camera angle instead of five. One quote instead of the full conversation. One data point instead of the trend. Narrowness is the tell. And push back, because whoever controls the context controls not just how evidence gets interpreted, but what counts as evidence in the first place. You don’t need to lie when you can decide what people see first, last, and most often. Robert Greene never quite named this in his 48 Laws of Power, but we may need a new one: Define the frame before entering the arena. The only question that matters: What context are they trying to hide? Get full access to Masters of Influence at mastersofinfluence.substack.com/subscribe

    21 min
  8. When We Went Looking for the Quantum Threat and Found the Meaning of Life Instead

    12/20/2025

    When We Went Looking for the Quantum Threat and Found the Meaning of Life Instead

    We invited Dr. Keeper Sharkey and Reesë Tuttle onto Masters of Influence expecting a conversation about digital apocalypse. What we got instead was a meditation on consciousness, creativity, and what makes us human. The Setup I’d been marinating in the breathless quantum computing headlines touting quantum supremacy, the end of encryption, and the unmatched capacity of these machines. The narrative seemed clear—these machines would crack every password, break every security system, and shift the balance of power toward whoever controlled them. Dr. Keeper Sharkey seemed perfect to walk us through this doomsday. She’s vice chair of the Quantum Economic Development Consortium’s Use Cases Technical Advisory Committee, she is the founder and Director of ODE L3C a quantum on quantum awareness and education organization (https://odestar.com/), she chairs the IEEE’s P1947 standards for a quantum cybersecurity framework working group. Joining her was Reesë Tuttle, secretary of the IEEE P1947 standards for a quantum cybersecurity framework working group, a cybersecurity researcher tracking where quantum computing intersects with security threats, and her company AP2T Labs focuses on cyber security and cyber security training. I came prepared with questions about encryption vulnerabilities and surveillance. Then Dr. Sharkey said something that completely reframed everything. The Unexpected Turn About fifteen minutes in, Keeper dropped this: “A quantum computer is basically just a camera. You’re taking a picture of a quantum system—making a measurement of which state that system is in.” Then we took a turn into chemistry and biology. And I realized two things: 1. The smaller things get the bigger and more interesting they become. The smallest particles in the universe have some of the most outrageous qualities. 2. Humans are stuck in an attempt to recreate human thinking, but the brain does things that an algorithm can’t do and likely never will. What I expected to be a conversation about the diminishing power of humans, became a discussion about the uniqueness of the human brain and life itself. What We Actually Learned Quantum computers aren’t coming for your passwords anytime soon. We’re looking at 2050 before quantum computers might crack modern encryption at scale. The engineering challenges are massive, costs astronomical. “The threat is theoretical,” Keeper explained, “but technically there isn’t a threat right now because of scaling issues.” Quantum computers are incredibly fragile. They operate near absolute zero, require perfect isolation, and researchers run experiments late at night because footsteps can disrupt measurements. The real revolution is on making things more secure. Quantum technology is already being used for security—protecting information systems before data gets stolen. But Here’s Where It Got Really Interesting Somewhere in the middle of discussing qubits, we started talking about consciousness and what it actually means to be alive. Which led to the revelation that your brain is a quantum computer, the rest is a poor copy. The brain processes multiple probabilities simultaneously. It collapses possibilities into outcomes. It operates through quantum information science in your DNA, your neurons, the chemistry that makes you conscious. And we’re trying to build quantum computers to do what brains already do naturally. “I don’t think nature does mathematics,” Keeper said. “I don’t think AI or quantum systems will ever be able to perform mathematical thinking—the creative kind that solves novel problems.” Reesë nailed it: “There’s no life to it. It’s literally doing equations,” humans have the capacity for creativity and novel thought. “The complexity behind an algorithm that would solve deep mathematical problems would be far too complicated,” Keeper explained. “A human wouldn’t be able to create that algorithm.” The most advanced quantum computer we can imagine still can’t match the creative capacity of a human mind. Not because it lacks processing power, but because it lacks life. The Question We Should Be Asking We keep asking: “When will quantum computers take over?” The better question: “What are quantum computers teaching us about consciousness and what makes us human?” Quantum computers aren’t threatening to replace human thinking. They’re showing us just how extraordinary human thinking actually is. The power implications This conversation reframed my understanding—not just of quantum computing, but of consciousness and creativity. It feels like we may be losing control to algorithms, that they are gaining power over knowledge, but the truth is they still can’t achieve the complexity of the human brain and may never get there. Humans still hold the ultimate power: creativity. And whatever breathless headlines appear, remember that you are the most sophisticated quantum computer in existence. What are your thoughts? Did this challenge how you think about quantum computing or what makes human thinking special? Hit reply—I genuinely want to know. Get full access to Masters of Influence at mastersofinfluence.substack.com/subscribe

    51 min
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About

Most of the economic/political/social conversation focuses on personalities: do I like them, where do they come from, are they "left" or "right." Instead of name-calling and pigeonholing, we want to understand why some strategies work and others don't. How do some people consolidate power while others are left out in the cold? And what does that mean for us? If you are interested in the world's power plays and how they work - join us. mastersofinfluence.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Jeff Loehr
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    37
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Jeffrey Loehr
  • Show Website
    Masters of Influence