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Brainwashing, by Scott Adams
Mar 19, 2009

Suppose you hire a plumber to fix a leak. You pay him for his work and he leaves. A year later he
calls back and asks if you would consider giving him additional money because you continue to get
benefits from the repairs. In addition, he argues, you could help subsidize future customers that 
would otherwise not be able to pay for his services. Would that seem appropriate?

Now imagine he calls back every few months for the rest of your life, asking the same frickin' 
question every time. Would you be okay with that practice?

Private colleges do this sort of thing all the time and somehow it seems okay. It makes me wonder 
what-the-hell kind of brainwashing goes on in those institutions.

I have an internal conflict when my alma mater, Hartwick College, asks for money. On one hand I 
feel a strong, irrational impulse to give, just as they somehow programmed me to feel. On the other 
hand, my degree was in economics, so the rationally trained part of my brain says paying twice for 
a service that was rendered once is irrational. But I'm glad the school pumped out lots of 
psychology, nursing, and sociology majors to donate money and keep the college afloat. I'd hate to 
have an economics degree from a college that went out of business.

Source: http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/brainwashing/