"How Not To Get Fooled"

"How Not To Get Fooled" was the "title" of the specific show on the CBC program, Marketplace, that I watched yesterday, Friday evening at 8 PM.  I will do a comment on that particular show shortly. 

First, however, let me thank Facebook for writing this note about me and posting the picture of Marsha and myself that I saw today online:

"Ed's posts have been liked 27,000 times"

Now that is a lot of views! I am truly grateful that this has happened. I expect that many of these "likes" are because of articles that I have written in Blogs over the last many years about events in Windsor and elsewhere. I am certainly very happy that these reactions were identified as "likes" rather than a possible other less complimentary alternative.

Let me hope, dear reader, that you also will "like" what I will be writing now.

I should let you know up-front that the reason I watched the Marketplace program is because my daughter's fiancé, Bill Nuvo, was on that show as one of the main individual participants. I thought it was important that I told you that, dear reader. You should form your own opinion on what took place last night, even after I make my comments about the show.

I would suggest, dear reader, that you go to the CBC YouTube site before reading the rest of my article in order to watch the TV program so you will get a very good impression of what happened last night.

What was very interesting to me was how the show was structured. Bill was the first independent person with his own viewpoint who was interviewed.  He gave his own opinion that was set out in the program. Subsequently, actions were taken by people from the University of Toronto in a variety of different tests so that their opinions could be made. 

The products involved on the show were those produced by a company called NeuroReset Inc.  Apparently, they were involved in about $100,000 worth of sales in their products after their original TV program. That TV program was Dragons' Den where a number of those participating on the show wanted to become their partners initially. We learned on the CBC program on Friday that these people never put money into NeuroReset after the show, and therefore never became partners as far as I know.

The program I watched took place last night on February 2. What was fascinating was that I went to the NeuroReset website early on Saturday morning, February 3, as I started writing this article, and saw on the front page of their website the following comment:

"READ MARKET PLACE REBUTTAL"

In going to this particular page to take a look at their rebuttal, the first line was:

"This is a rebuttal to the Market Place episode that accuses me of duping the Dragons and selling snake oil. I have included their questions and my responses."

Now that was something quite fascinating, especially when reading the rest of the article that was so long and detailed.  It certainly provides the point of view quite strongly that this CBC TV show was not complimentary to them.

I do not intend to go deeply into the TV show. However, I was amused that the "patient" shown on the show who was examined when he was at the office of one of the principals involved was told that the person who was attending him was one of the people who appeared on that earlier show. I assume that the person examined was connected with CBC, so that is how his relationship with the person involved was shown on the TV program. Here is what was said:

"Do you ever watch Dragons' Den…I was on with all of this stuff."

Presumably, that "comment" is seen of having some positive value in the relationship with the patient. I assume that it gives the person providing the care some kind of respectability or else it might not be mentioned. I wonder if the care person will now tell patients about the CBC show that seemed to be so negative to him. I wonder if he will also now tell patients that the people on that TV show who were supposed to put money into his business decided NOT to do it.

I was quite impressed with how Bill acted on the show. He was pretty straightforward in his opinion.  Clearly, it is my own view that the CBC people "approved" what he said and made it public. It was their intention that it would help its viewers understand easily what was going on in the Dragons' Den show and what their opinion should be at the end. Moreover, he was the one making the comments early on, not CBC members of the show. Remarkably, it turned out to be supportive of the CBC people's attitude!

His biggest role was showing a "magic trick" of his own that helped emphasize what the CBC show people believed in my opinion. It was quite impressive. In fact, it was shown right after we saw how the NeuroReset people presumably fixed up the participant on the CBC program who had some physical problems. Take a look at the 3:25 time of the program see what I mean.

His "magic trick" is certainly amazing. He shows how he makes a piece of transparent paper "strong" so that it does not fall over, then using his power of the mind makes it fall down and then finally brings it back up again to make it strong using a sleight-of-hand. 

However, its real purpose is extremely important because it shows viewers how people are fooled by a magician. He showed it as people being deceived but not knowing that. In other words, "misdirection." It was brought back to the days when snake-oiled salesmen used tricks to fool people into believing that what they were being given was giving them benefits. To be direct, isn't that the attitude that ultimately was given to NeuroReset.

It was easy to make sure that people understood after his time on the TV program what the rest of the program was about and all of the tests that were undertaken. In effect, it seems to me that CBC was telling people that they were being "fooled" as well. Only this time, they were using people from the University of Toronto to take the tests and to give an opinion on their results.

Do you really think, dear reader, that $100,000 more of this product will be sold by NeuroReset? I have my doubts. In fact, I am rather surprised about how much publicity was given by the Company about the reduced value of their own products by talking about the TV show on their website even though they tried to reverse it.