Capture – the state of being in a sub-optimal position
4 kinds of capture
- Physical
- Emotional
- Logical
- Incentive
Physical capture – a stronger physical force, such as the military or police on the macro level or a bully on the micro level, physically forces you in a captured position
This is a direct form of capture that anyone can relate to. We all have to deal with physical threats at some time or another, and a top priority of any society is how to handle physicality. If you want to go somewhere or do something, but a physical threat is stopping you from doing it, then that threat has captured you physically. Same with a physical threat forcing you to do something that you do not want to do. The physical threat has forced you into a sub-optimal position. It has captured you.
Emotional capture – propaganda or cultural conditional controls the way you feel
Without a physical threat present, various conditions can affect a person’s emotional “circuitry” and cause them to be trapped in a sub-optimal emotional state. People in weakened emotional states are easier to capture and control without interfering with them physically in any way. On a micro level, this often happens in relationships, where one partner captures another via controlling the emotions of the other partner. On a macro level, propaganda or cultural expectations affect a person’s emotional state to encourage compliance and/or conformity to something. Even with clear headed logic telling a person to do something, emotions can kick in and keep them from doing it. The person’s logical reasoning ability can be free, but the person’s emotions have captured them.
Logical capture – propaganda or cultural conditioning controls the way you reason through concepts
Even when a person is clear headed and emotionally stable, a person’s mind can be captured by logical trickery. This is where philosophy comes into play. A person can base their actions around complying with a philosophy of some kind even against their own emotions and other physical threats if the philosophy has captured their logical reasoning ability deeply enough. Even if other information comes in and challenges the philosophy, a person’s powerful belief in the philosophy can warp the way a person reasons against the new information. This is how people can calmly refute “correct” information and combat it with “wrong” information. The person is emotionally stable but the way they process information is controlled. This is what is known as being stuck in a way of thinking
Logical capture often gets combined with emotional capture for double the effect. When a person starts to reason, the logical capture guides the reasoning process to keep the person captured. If it appears that the logical capture is about to get defeated, emotional capture can kick in and cut off the logic process to preserve the logical capture.
When the process a person uses to sort through logic is captured to produce a sub-optimal outcome, that person is logically captured.
Incentive capture – the need for resources incentivizes you to do something you otherwise wouldn’t
A person can be free from physical threats, emotionally stable, and logically sound, and still be captured. This is done by controlling the person’s incentives. On the micro level, a person working a job they hate because they need the money describes this kind of capture. On the macro level, an election system encouraging people to vote for a “lesser evil” rather than another candidate they may prefer is an example of incentive capture.
With a need for resources or defense of those resources (remember, both tangible and intangible resources) controlling a person’s situation, that person can be incentivized into a sub-optimal position.
Now that we see the four ways a person can be captured (forced into a sub-optimal position), we are ready for expansions of this framework to real-life scenarios
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