Three people and a tiger

The king of Wei was about to send his son to the state of Zhao as a hostage, and his minister Pang Cong was going with him. Pang Cong asked for a private word.

If one man told you there's a tiger loose in the marketplace, would you believe him?

The king said: no.

If two men said it?

I'd start to wonder.

If three said it?

I'd believe it.

Exactly, said Pang Cong. I'm going far away, and more than three people will speak badly of me while I'm gone. Please keep hold of your judgement.

He went. As predicted, slander arrived, and by the time he returned, the king wouldn't see him.

What's interesting isn't that crowds are persuasive. It's the mechanism: nothing was added each time. Nobody brought a tiger. The men brought repetition, and repetition is processed by the brain as evidence.

This is how a single person's bad opinion of you can become a permanent fact about yourself, if you've been around enough people who hold it. It's also how a mistake you made once becomes "who you are".

The defence isn't scepticism about everyone. It's keeping a record that isn't crowdsourced.

Keep a private account of what you actually did this month, in your own handwriting, before the market has its say. That's what MOJOWAY is: a quiet record built before the market speaks, where self-knowledge stops being something other people can vote on.