>I've heard of but not studied NLP, and am not familiar with the names you
>mention.
NLP is a therapeutic technique developed by Bandler. For some of it he
relied on the work of Milton Erickson, a hypnotist specialized in creating
meaningless yet highly compelling verbal patterns. One of the things NLP
supposedly teaches practitioners to do is the ability to model other
people's behavior. Some think it's bunk. Some think it works. I don't
know what to think. But...
I have SEEN a 53 year-old male NLP practitioner on a BBS, using chat and
email, pass as a young woman aged 19. No effort on his part. His
vocabulary would change, his verbal patterns would change, and this whole
female persona -- with an aunt in another state, a college student's
reality, personal problems, etc. -- would emerge. He'd been doing it for
over a year. Many young men on the BBS wanted to meet this seductive
avatar he'd created. And he was extremely convincing as this avatar:
Nobody suspected that this person didn't exist.
He actually had two avatars going in that BBS environment, whose population
was about 250. A second young woman, with different vocabulary and
different speech patterns, different spelling mistakes, etc, who was a
friend of the first avatar. This second avatar had a different
personality; she wasn't so seductive but was a deeper thinker than the first.
Why go to the trouble? To test NLP. To test the online environment. To
test whether one can launch different avatars and, through them,
disseminate memes.
So, going back to your original argument for concluding that Richard can't
be Brett, it doesn't take a mad genius to pull this off. The techniques
are well-established; how well they work is another story.
Look at Brett's latest post: how 'real' does it sound to you? How
fabricated? Would anyone you know have responded like Brett, with an email
that unemotionally repeats some of the things we said about him? There
aren't many bot-like people out there.
And finally, as to the 'I'm sure he [Brodie] has better things to do with
his time', how could you know that?
I still don't understand how can anyone conclusively assert that Brett is
NOT Brodie's avatar, based solely on Brett's online presence. Maybe I'm
missing something. If that's the case, can someone please help and clarify?
lena
-- Lena Rotenberg lrr@netkonnect.net