Abdurraheem Green – Social Proof how following others can cloud our thinking E-Reminders

Abdurraheem Green
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The importance of social proof and learning how to think properly is emphasized in the context of worship. The concept of social proof is defined as the ability to imitate others and create unique behavior. The importance of open-mindedness and science is also emphasized, particularly in shaping behavior and avoiding "wearing up." The potential negative impacts of social proof on one's behavior and intentions are discussed, including the potential for suicides and the use of vaccine passports. Overall, the importance of faith in Islam and avoiding regret is emphasized.

AI: Summary ©

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			Salam Alaikum brothers and sisters, today, I'm going to be talking about social proof. How following
others can cloud our thinking.
		
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			And
		
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			just before that, it's important to understand that it's so important to learn how to think
properly.
		
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			And to understand the sorts of things that may cloud our judgments.
		
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			And make us thing make us think in ways that are wrong.
		
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			I mean, that's the worst that could be wrong with it could be outright dangerous.
		
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			Or they could be just unproductive.
		
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			Or sometimes there might really not be a problem at all. And these, these things, there are certain
there's a huge number of
		
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			ways of thinking, which are called cognitive biases. And, you know, we all love to think maybe we
don't, a lot of us do like to think that we are rational, and that we act rationally. But a lot of
the time, it's just not true.
		
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			And a lot of the time, we are susceptible to these cognitive biases.
		
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			And what are these things anyway, what is a cognitive bias, like Put very simply, it's a shortcut.
It's a shortcut that our brain uses in order to try and make decisions quickly.
		
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			And by using as little energy as possible, because basically,
		
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			you know, we're lazy.
		
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			And, you know, that's not necessarily a bad thing in the sense that
		
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			our brain is always in some way, shape, or form, trying to conserve energy. Because it takes up a
huge amount of energy. And for most of human history, for most of us getting enough calories has
been a real challenge. And our brain burns up a lot of carrot calories. And the more we use it, the
more we burn. So creating these efficiencies, creating these. I mean, you could call it a lazy way
of thinking, but they're not they're actually most cognitive biases actually are often very useful,
and they have a very, very useful function.
		
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			So I mean, technically, a cognitive bias is what you can call a systematic error in judgment and
decision making common to all human beings, which can be due to cognitive limitations. So a
limitation in the way that we can actually process information. It could be to do with motivational
factors. And it could be adaptions, to natural environments. So let's talk about let's talk about
social proof. And along with social proof, it is the whole realm of why we follow others. And social
proof is one of them. There's many, many other cognitive biases that are connected to us following
others. And that's because essentially, we are social beings. We live in groups, we live in
		
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			families, we live in societies, we live in towns and villages and cities. And human beings have been
created by Allah to live together. And indeed, there is blessings in living together. Even the
Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he said that it's better that you bear with people's
harm, and that you are patient with it, then you abandon them altogether. So generally, it's better
to stay with people, it's better to be with people, even if they are harming you. It is better for
you to be patient with it.
		
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			And the generality of the meaning of the saying of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is that
the Hand of Allah is the Hand of Allah is over the GMR which means that
		
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			you know, there is blessings in people being together. And that is why we have congregational
prayers, that is why we have Hajj.
		
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			That is why even we're encouraged to break our force together and fast at the same time and break
our fast at the same time and celebrate Eid together. When I say fun, begin the first I mean begin
the month of Ramadan and the month of Ramadan and so on and so forth. And we have God
		
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			Meagher and so many examples
		
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			which we can find in the Quran, and in what the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said and taught.
So being together, working together, worshiping together, living together, is a very important part
of what it means to be human. It's a very important part of what it means to be a good, true,
sincere worshipper of Allah. And, but being together, living together comes with its trials, it
comes with its difficulties, especially if you are a person who has taken the path of seeking
closeness to Allah. When you are seeking God consciousness, when you are seeking to awaken within
your heart, and your mind that connection with Allah, your Lord and Creator, when you are trying to
		
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			live your life in submission to Him to worship Him alone, Subhan, Allah to Allah, then, in many
ways, being with other people, being surrounded with other people living with other people, does
present a broad range of challenges. There's no doubt about that. And that is why in many religions,
there is a tradition of asceticism and monasticism that involves separating and segregating
yourself, from your fellow human beings.
		
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			We find this with the yogi's, in India who used to go into forests and practice extreme forms of
asceticism. But amongst those things, was abandoning people being away from people living a life in
isolation from people. Of course, throughout Christian history, there has been the tradition of
hermits of people who have run away from society gone to live in caves. And then what developed from
that monasticism, where people lived together, but they lived a celibate life, that amongst all of
them was dedicated, supposedly, to worshipping God. So and this tradition exists also in Judaism,
and Buddhism, of course, and many other religions throughout time and throughout history. So this
		
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			idea that in order to be able to
		
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			restrain your impulses, and live a deeply, profoundly spiritual life,
		
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			it's not a new idea, that in order to be able to do that, you need to remove yourself from people.
And so part of that is the recognition that, as human beings when we live with others, what we tend
to do as human beings is we tend to follow the crowd, we tend to do what other people do. And we
know today through neuroscience, that human beings have a particular type of brain structure. And
that particular bright type of brain structure is called mirror neurons. We have neurons, we have
particular structures in our brain, that are designed to make us imitate and emulate people's
behavior. So if someone yawns we yearn if someone smiles we smile back. And this is something that
		
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			and a whole range of activities. And so it's actually really inbuilt into us. And that is, causes
all to do with creating empathy. It is all to do with creating unity, of purpose, unity, of action,
of creating conformity, because within that realm of, of conformity and unity of action and thought
and belief and even feelings.
		
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			We feel united, we feel comfortable, in a sense. But of course, people have recognized whether they
recognized it intellectually or they recognized it spiritually. But that can obviously many times be
misleading. Because what if the people collectively have bad habits? What if the people collectively
have destructive impulses? What if the people collectively are not thinking straight, they are not
thinking logically they are not thinking rationally. And what will happen is that our tendency will
be to follow the crowd. It is very, very difficult to resist and to go against what everybody else
is doing. It is possibly one of the most difficult things that you can do as a human being. And this
		
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			without doubt is one
		
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			I have the lofty characteristics of the prophets. One of the great and lofty characteristics of the
Ambia of the prophets, is their ability to resist the impulse of believing what everyone else is
believing, and doing what everybody else is doing. And steer their course, along the straight path,
despite all the odds and protestations, and movements against them, and even attempts to kill them,
and so on. And even some of those attempts have been successful. But the prophets stayed firm upon
their path, they didn't give in to what everybody else was doing, they resisted this temptation. So,
this is a broad topic. And we will be talking about different aspects and different dimensions of
		
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			how we as human beings follow others.
		
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			And, you know, but today, I want to talk about something specific. And that is something called
social proof. Now, social proof is defined as the tendency for us to imitate others when we're
unsure of how to behave. So this is something a little bit specific. It's the way we follow people,
but in a particular specific way. And what is specific here is that when we are unsure, when we
don't really know, shall I do this? Should I do that we're trying to make up our mind, we're trying
to, we are trying to think about what we should or we shouldn't do in any particular situation. And
so one of the things that we do is that we default, to looking around us seeing what everybody else
		
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			is doing. And then concluding that, well, if everybody else is doing this, that must be the right
thing to do.
		
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			I'm sure you can understand straight away, why and how that is so dangerous. But at the same time,
		
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			it's, you know, it's a shortcut. And most of the time, it's useful, because most of the time, you
know, we're going to look around and I don't know what to do, what shall I do? Whatever, what is
everyone else doing? So you presume that pretty much everybody else has an idea what's going on. And
you can understand that when we live in herds, we live in tribes, we live in flocks. Because, in
many ways, that's what we're human beings. We're like flocks of sheep, herds of cattle. Right. And
we do, there's that this is another thing we're going to talk about in another talk, herd mentality,
group mentality gang mentality, you know, they're pretty much all the same thing. Yeah, the herd
		
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			mentality. But they have a wisdom as well. I mean, you can see that most of the time, how do birds
decide to migrate?
		
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			Birds?
		
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			Just suddenly, some birds start flying off, and then other birds follow them?
		
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			And it's because some, you know, the similarly in, I guess, in times when human beings were
essentially most of us, what if not all of us were hunter gatherers. And it seems that for most of
our biological existence, you know, we the large part of it, we were hunter gatherers.
		
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			So when is the time to migrate? When is the time to leave? When is the time to leave this campsite
and move to the next one? When is the time you know, when are the seasons going to change? When is
this going to start getting colder? We don't want to hang around in this place anymore. Of course,
there are people who have experienced these seasonal changes for years and years and years. And so
they have that knowledge. So you may be looking around and you're saying, Oh, well, you know, those
guys, they're they're packing up their tents. So I think it's time for me to do the same thing.
Like, it saves you time and energy rather than going and asking and inquiring every single
		
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			individual and you just presume that Well, these guys know what they're doing. So you just follow
it. It's just and you can understand in many situations, this is just economical for us to be able
to just see what everyone else is doing, and follow it. And it sort of makes a lot of sense. And
sometimes that behavior may be essential for our survival.
		
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			In as I said, in many ways, following the flock following the crowd following the herd is what we
need to do in order to survive it could be essential for our survival. But on the other hand, it has
dangerous it can often lead to as well or you know, most
		
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			At the time, I think following the crowd gets us to where we need to go. But sometimes it just
doesn't. And what is important is to recognize this simple fact, because everybody else is doing it,
it doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do. It doesn't mean it's the correct decision, it
doesn't mean that necessarily. And this is the very important point that we always need to remember.
		
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			And as people who are always seeking AirFloss, we are always seeking sincerity. We are always trying
to make sure. And I'm bringing this up again and again and again. Because, for me, this is one of
the most important reasons why it is worth studying these subjects, because it makes us understand
more about ourselves, it makes us understand more about our motivations, and laces, understand more
about why we do what we do and why we don't do some of the things that we don't do. Because not
doing something is also often based upon social proof. Okay, so So that's it. So basically, we
imitate others when we're unsure.
		
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			And yeah, that's the that's what it is social proof, we look at their behavior. And we take that as
a basis of what is correct, or what is appropriate. You know, it depends what we're talking about
here. Okay. And, you know, this can even apply to people who are deeply involved in intellectual and
spiritual pursuits as well, the same thing, even within the field in the realm of Islamic
scholarship.
		
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			For example, one of the things that is often talked about is the jam whore, right? What does the jam
hoarder say the jam Hall is basically, the Imams of the format hubs. If the if the, if the four
Imams agree upon something, this is the jam Hall, it's almost like, it's not exactly edgemarc
consensus, which is there. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that my Alma will never
disagree upon this guidance, but I don't want to get into a discussion about Joomla. And what is
Joomla? And what is not HMR. But Johor, for example, again, it's like a shortcut. It's like a, well,
you know, if the four Imams agreed upon something, you're going to feel pretty assured that that's
		
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			probably the right thing or the right, you know, the right ruling on that particular matter. But not
necessarily. It's not necessarily that's still a cognitive bias, it's still a shortcut, it's still
saves us the time and energy they will take to look into the details of every single argument that
Ichi man made, and then look at other scholars who may have opposed that particular opinion. It's a
lot of hard work, okay, because thinking is a lot of hard work. So we have these shortcuts, even
within the field of intellectual pursuit. And we find this again, with within science, this within
science is interesting, as well within the scientific realm, how this issue of social proof of you
		
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			know, what, what is the consensus of science at the moment, and the amount of times, you know,
scientific consensus has been turned on its head. And in a way, that's one of the, you know, one of
the great things about science is that it's open to change and that science is a, it's always, you
know, we tend to think science is about certainty, but it's not sciences, ultimately about theories
and speculation. And from that perspective, it should always be open to, to change into revision,
because that's the system of science. But again, scientists often do fall victim to this whole thing
of social proof, even though it's a rigorous intellectual pursuit.
		
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			So it is important to take note of it, and to be aware of, you know, of this whole thing of social
proof. So let's, you know, let's give some examples, right, of social proof. So, imagine you're out
for dinner. Yeah, imagine you're going and you've probably heard this, right? Imagine you're going
out for dinner, and you come across a restaurant. And you just, you come across two restaurants, in
fact, and both of them are empty. So you decide with your group, you know, with your family to go
into a particular restaurant. Now, another group of people come by and they see you sitting in that
restaurant.
		
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			And they think, oh, there are people in that restaurant, and there's no people in the other
restaurant. So you've probably heard this right? You probably you know, you think Well, if that
restaurants so full, it must be good because there's so many people
		
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			in it. So when you go in that restaurant, as well, and then guess what the next group of people come
along and they see, well, there's two big groups of people sitting in that restaurant, that must be
really good, I guess where they go.
		
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			And, you know, you can see that there's no reason logical reason this family, family a the first
one, you're whoever it was your family randomly went into that particular restaurant not having any
idea or not having any knowledge of which one was better. But people following social proof, ended
up just filling up that restaurant, while the other one was sitting there scratching their head
while thinking why were they having, you know, such a bad night that night.
		
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			So like, this is very benign, you know, whether you in this restaurant or that restaurant, you know,
it may not matter. But I'm sure it doesn't take much imagination for you to be able to figure out
that this could lead to, you know, some really, really, you know, serious consequences. Okay. So
let's talk about some more examples of social proof, for example, right? You want to go somewhere
because it has a queue, because there's a lot of people outside again, you think there's more people
there, it must be good. So it's all based upon popularity. Testimonials, when you are buying
something, when you are purchasing a particular product product. When you see something most
		
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			popular, often they put that on Amazon or shopping sites, you know, you'll see most popular trending
now. And we just think, oh, that must be good, because it's popular.
		
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			And sometimes, unfortunately, many times today, we are manipulate were manipulated. Because we live
in a world where increasingly, people who market US products, and people are not just products, by
the way, people who sell us ideology.
		
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			It's not just marketing products, it's people who sell us ideology. They understand that a lot of
the time we human beings are not rational actors. And this is very important.
		
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			And it's very easy for us to be manipulated, we can easily be manipulated. And this is often what
the mass media is doing to us. It is manipulating us. And I would just like you to
		
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			think about something that is sort of current at the moment. And that is the whole the whole issue
of what is going on with the vaccines. Now I'm not, you know, I'm not gonna state my position on
vaccines. And I'm not making a, you know, statement this way or that way. That's not my purpose
here. But however, it's very clear that there is a drive and an agenda within governments across the
world, to get as many people vaccinated as possible. And they are using all the tools of persuasion
at hand. So one of the things that I have noticed, and I noticed this, because I have trained myself
to notice these things. I trained myself to notice these things when I was a teenager, because
		
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			that's when I started reading books on anthropology, reading books, on human behavior, on
psychology, and so on and so forth. And for many different reasons, political reasons, social
reasons, spiritual reasons, I became aware of many of these things.
		
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			There is a very interesting book that I can I think I can recommend this book without worrying about
anyone getting confused. It's called Brand washing, brand washing, and it's written by a guy who is
basically a marketeer. And he explains how they use psychology to indoctrinate people and fool
people and confuse people and get people to buy products. But of course, like I said, this goes way
beyond just, you know, consumerism, consumerism, it covers political ideology. And you know, this is
whole furore going on recently about Brexit and how people were manipulated through social media and
the elections, interference in elections and the use of social media to really basically
		
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			indoctrinate people. Right. So one of the things anyway, it may seem benign, but this is just an
example. One of the things that are so sorry to go back to vaccines. So, one of the things I have
noticed is that constantly on my news feed stories are popping up about such and such person who was
a vaccine denier such and such
		
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			person who was refusing to wear masks such and such, who were complaining about how vaccines and
enforcing vaccines was like Nazi Germany died of COVID died of COVID such and such radio host died
of COVID. And his last words were make sure you get the vaccine.
		
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			Right. However, I have never, ever seen a single story in the mainstream media or on my, you know,
news feed, not one of a person dying, or a personal story of somebody who took the vaccine and died.
I have seen these on alternative media channels, including people giving extensive interviews about
what happened, how their husband died, their daughter died, their wife died, but nothing on the
mainstream media.
		
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			These things always set alarm bells ringing with me, it always makes me extremely suspicious. I am
very attuned to being manipulated by the media. And I don't like it at all. I don't like it at all.
For me, I can see the attempt at manipulation. Similarly, when you are watching comedy shows,
		
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			you know, I you know, I watched some clips, and you know that there's not even a crowd in the
background in some of these things these days, because of COVID. There has been no one in the
audience yet. You can hear laughter, clapping. It's all pre recorded. It's well known for ages, that
in comedy sketches and comedy shows they put on pre recorded laughter. They, you know, even if
there's a live audience, they boost it up to make something, you know, appear to be more funny. This
is why because that's what you do. Everyone's laughing, you start laughing.
		
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			That's social proof. If they will think it's funny, well, it must be funny. And you know, you
probably find yourself doing that you're laughing not because you found the joke. Funny, you just
laughing because everybody else is laughing. This is an exact example of what I'm talking about. But
of course, in some instances, this can be manipulation. Again, it may be very benign in a comedy
show, but using the same psychological tactics to manipulate people to get them to believe certain
things or not believe certain other things, I'm sure you can see how and why this could be extremely
dangerous. Or it could be extremely beneficial, I suppose it depends upon your viewpoint. Because
		
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			one of the benefits of social proof is that and one of the things that is encouraged in Islam, is to
keep the company of righteous people is to keep the company of pious people is to keep the company
of good people. Because that's also understanding the reality of the human condition is that you as
a human being are going to tend to do the things that other people do. Now, the thing is here, if
that is a conscious decision by yourself, and you make this conscious decision, understanding the
weakness of your own thought processes, you understand your cognitive bias, you understand, oh, you
know what, I'm gonna, you know, I have this tendency to follow people and do what they do, like most
		
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			of us, like everybody nearly has that tendency. So let me make sure I hang out with a bunch of
people who most of what they're going to do is the things that I want in my life. It's the sort of
person I want to be. And that's what it is the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Be careful
who you take as your friends because you will take your deen from your friends. So it doesn't say
don't take friends in don't have friends, there's nothing wrong. Like, and again, these shortcuts
are not necessarily bad things. They can be good things. If you use them productively, you use them
in the right way you use it in a positive way. Of course, some people may argue that manipulating
		
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			people into taking vaccines is a good thing. They're quite entitled to that argument.
		
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			And I'm not going to make it one way or the other.
		
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			I'm pretty much in the middle with this thing. Right? But but you know, I mean, that's not the
point. It's not the point that I'm making. The point that I'm making is about manipulation and about
you getting it wrong or using it to get it right, you can do that. Okay. Now, here's an example of
social proof. We can begin to see how it can be very dangerous, and it can lead to some pretty
horrific things. And to be honest, this is one of the things that when I read one of the first books
I ever read, so
		
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			have serious books on anthropology, psychology, the human condition.
		
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			I don't remember the name of the author, the book was called man watching very old book, I read it.
And in this book, I read about various psychological experiments that have been done. But one
particular thing that stuck in my mind was an account of how a woman in New York City
		
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			ran mostly naked and bleeding into the middle of a street screaming for help. And her attacker came
out of the apartment building, dragged her back into the building, was abusing her beating her, I
don't know if she was * her, and her screams could be heard from inside the apartment. And no
one did anything to help her. And this really shocked me, I really just couldn't understand how
something like that could happen. And I'm sure that most of you think that.
		
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			You're safer in crowds. You think that if something happened to you, that people would stand up
because there's just maybe one attacker and there's 20 3040 100,000 people, and there's just one of
them, and
		
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			so many one of them, and so many of the others that they would help you. Now, why is it? Why don't
people stop and help? And this has to do with social proof, because everybody is really just looking
to see what everybody else is doing. And if we see that nobody else is helping Guess what? We just
think it's not my business. If they're not helping, maybe I shouldn't be helping.
		
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			A similar incident happened where a two year old child
		
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			you know her her name was Wang Yi, she was run over by two trucks, in front of witnesses, and 18
people ignored her injured body lying in the middle of the road.
		
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			Until somebody eventually cried for help 18 people pass by did nothing.
		
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			Many, many incidents like this, you read them about about these types of things in the newspapers
almost every day.
		
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			And this is social proof now. And now I think you can see how social proof can be very dangerous.
How you can think and I want you to think about yourself. How many times have you been quiet? How
many times have you not said anything? And this is something the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasallam,
very severely condemned, and indeed, the whole duty and obligation of enjoying what is right and
forbidding what is wrong? I'm not have been our roof. We're nahi and Al monka is one of the most
important hallmarks and characteristics of the teachings of the religion of Islam. No one who reads
the Quran in a language they can understand, so that they can understand what Allah is actually
		
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			saying. No one would miss the importance of this obligation in Islam, that when you see something
evil, you must try to change it. This is what the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, if you
see an evil, change it with your hand, and if you can't change it with your hand, change it with
your mouth, and if you can't change it with your mouth, at least in your hearts, and that's the
weakest of faith. What is the smallest act of faith? The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said
that faith has 72? Or is it 74 branches? The smoke, the greatest of which is to testify that Allah
alone is worthy of worship, and the smallest of which is to remove something harmful from the path.
		
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			But you know, you may be just driving along and you see something harmful on the road and you think,
well, I shouldn't touch that because no one else has touched it. Now, when it comes to these things,
this is not how a Muslim should behave. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that a person
who is silent in the face of evil, especially by the way, a person who is able to do something and
say something,
		
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			meaning, you know, there are people who would be heard their voice would be listened to they, what
they say would be given Wait, it's true. There are some people no one listens to them.
		
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			And it's sort of understandable if someone like that might be quiet, but how about someone who has
some authority someone whose words have weight that
		
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			Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam called a person who is silent in the face of evil and oppression
are dumb shaytaan a dumb shaytaan
		
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			think about that. Because this is also social proof, being quiet because everyone else is quiet. Not
saying anything that is everyone else's saying anything, not saying anything, not doing anything
because well, no one else is that is never how in Muslim should be.
		
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			That is never how a Muslim should behave. So we can see now brothers and sisters, I'm sure you can
see how, you know, social proof can be something very benign, it can be something, you know, we
should be worried about that to something that is outright, you know, disgusting, and, and horrific.
And I'm sure that there are many, many things that have happened in human history that have, you
know, just happened because people didn't speak out. And, you know, there's that saying, you've
probably read it on the internet, you know, so many times, you know, it's, it's enough for evil to
succeed.
		
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			That good people are quiet. That's it. Like that. That's why evil spreads, because good people don't
speak out. Good. People don't say something good people don't protest.
		
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			Right? And I'm gonna say, you know, I can't avoid it now.
		
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			Whatever I think
		
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			of
		
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			vaccinations, and one of I think whatever I think of this Coronavirus, one thing I absolutely do
believe is that any attempt to introduce vaccine passports, and in any way, shape or form to
restrict people's freedoms, by using such things, is a gateway and a doorway to disaster.
		
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			Please understand, that no time ever that we know of in history, have government's been given such
powers and ability to control people's lives. And they give them up willingly. They don't.
		
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			How many of the laws and legislations that have been passed to restrict so called terrorism and so
on and so forth? How many of them have been repealed?
		
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			Almost none, if ever.
		
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			These are and then you got to think about? Do you think that's just it? Do you think it's only about
vaccine passports already in Australia, they're talking about you having to have a passport, when
you use the internet. When you go on Facebook.
		
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			When you use your email, when you go on your computer to help you know that you're not going to be
able to remain anonymous anymore. And all under the auspices of keeping us safe. Supposedly, as I
read a statement by I think it was Eisenhower or something, you know, if you want to be safe, then
just live in prison. Because you'll be safe in prison.
		
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			Right? You get fed, you get medical care, you get a bed, you get heating, it's all for free.
		
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			Right? Surely, we understand that freedom comes at a price.
		
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			And this is what we should be really, really careful about, we should be very, very, very careful
about anything that impinges or erodes on our,
		
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			you know, on real freedom. Because today, freedom in many ways, it seems it's been reduced to, you
know, what gender I want to be, or who I want to have * with. And that's just about it.
		
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			I mean, that's not freedom.
		
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			That's, that's not freedom. That's not really what freedom is at all. I mean, that's really in many
ways, the furthest thing removed from real freedom. So brothers and sisters, we should be very, very
careful, right? Another thing where social proof can be really disastrous.
		
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			And think about this, think about the implications of these things, is what they call the weather
effects. And that's, you know, it's it's a it's a belief that they have that when the media talks
about people committing suicide.
		
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			It acts as a type of social proof and actually leads to an increase in suicides, what they call
copycat. It could be copycat shootings, copycat suicides or maybe
		
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			copycat terror
		
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			wrist actions. It's, it's, you know, shocking, really. But if you if you've been observing and
looking that you see now, there are right wing people, people in the right wing who are the loudest
screaming about Muslim terrorists and complaining about them now deciding to adopt the exact same
tactics that they are complaining about
		
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			copycat
		
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			social proof.
		
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			And you can see brothers and sisters how these things can be disastrous how they can really cloud
our thinking. In fact, it's not thinking that's what it's it's not thinking by definition, it's,
it's, it's unthinking, it is a shortcut that our brain takes to save time and energy. But in some
cases, it can be a real, real disaster. So I guess the lesson of this brothers and sisters, is to be
alert, you know, to be on guard, to constantly be checking your own mind, to be constantly checking
your own behavior, which you should be as a Muslim, right? But what I hope to do is go through some
of what some of the things that you should really be aware of some of the things that can corrupt
		
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			your intention, some of the things that can distort your thinking, some of the things that can lead
you to make the wrong decisions that you may regret in this life. And you may regret when you meet
Allah subhanaw taala. We ask Allah subhanaw taala to guide us to the right path to put us on set
automatically
		
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			to forgive us for what we have done for what we have not done.
		
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			And to guide us to make the right decisions with the right intention with the correct action. Of
course, brothers and sisters, you know, you must have told your children so many times when they say
you ask them, Why did you do that? Oh, because
		
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			Fareed was doing it because Fatima was doing it because
		
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			and you say to the kids, well, look, if your brother jumped off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff
if everyone jumped off a cliff when you jump off a cliff? You know, like, we use this on our kids
the whole time to make them think like, just that's not an excuse. what everyone else is doing is
not an excuse for you to go ahead and do it.
		
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			You know, but then I wonder how many times that's exactly what we do.
		
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			That's exactly what we do ourself
		
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			it's not a reason it's not a excuse it's not a good basis to make decisions what everyone else is
doing. Get used to being thinking people brothers and sisters get used to being conscious beings get
used to checking your intentions and thinking about what you do and why you do it and inshallah
hopefully, it will help us make better decisions because I can say I hope you found this beneficial
I definitely found it beneficial. preparing this talk and talking about it because it's a good
reminder for me as well to be honest, these things are great reminders just as much for me as it is
for you maybe more for me maybe more me I probably need it more than you brothers and sisters. So,
		
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			you know just Sokoloff ever been there JazakAllah her for listening May Allah bless you for all the
feedback that you give. Don't forget to follow us on subscribe to my YouTube channel and tell
everyone about it and also to stream Islam don't forget to subscribe. Of course there's many many
other mashallah great speakers. So as it says like follow share, subscribe, share the hair, share
the stream.
		
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			And may Allah bless you and I look forward to talking about something else interesting. Along the
same lines next week in sha Allah until then a set Armonico what mortal lie he was