The Black Magic of Rumour and Reputation
By: David MastersThe Magician Plays The Telephone Game
In January 2004 Vegas magician-comedian Mac King stages the world’s largest ever game of telephone. To the first of over 600 players King whispers the words “Mac King is a comedy magic genius”. One hour and 614 whispers round the auditorium later, the final player whispers back to King the phrase he has heard: “Macaroni cantaloupe knows the future”.
On the stage, one of Mac’s security guards stood handcuffed to a locked case. Inside the case is King’s predicted result for the telephone game. A representative from Guinness World Records opens the case to find King’s prediction which is ’shockingly close to accurate’.
King is asked how he’d guessed right. “Magic,” he replies.
When rumours, ideas and even true stories pass from person to person, they gain a momentum and life force of their own. Once released into the world, ideas can take on new forms and meanings that their original creator never intended.
Most of us don’t have the magic touch to guess how this will happen or what changes will occur. Because of this, it can be difficult to tell when rumours are based on truth or falsehood.
Three true stories, one of European war reporters in WWI, one of an English pirate, and one of Canadian gold prospectors, illustrate this perfectly.
Rumour # 1: War Reporters
One morning during the First World War, people across Germany wake up to the news that the city of Antwerp in Belgium has been conquered. Readers of the Kolnische Zeitung newspaper are greeted with the headline: “Upon proclamation of the fall of the city of Antwerp, bells were rung” – explaining the celebration church bells they’d heard across Germany the day before.
French newspaper Le Matin writes their report based upon the Kolnische Zeitung headline. Le Matin’s article claims: “According to the Kolnische Zeitung, Antwerp’s clergy was forced to ring the church bells when the fortress was taken.”
The London Times repeats the report from Le Matin: “According to Le Matin, taking its information from Koln, priests in Belgium who refused to ring church bells upon the fall of Antwerp was removed from office.”
A fourth report in Italy takes its information from the London Times. Italian newspaper Corriere de la Sera claims: “According to the Times, citing information from Koln (via Paris), the unfortunate priests who refused to ring the church bells when Antwerp was taken were condemned to hard labour.”
Le Matin then follows up their initial report with an update: “According to information reported by the Corriere de la Sera, (via Koln and London), it has been confirmed that Antwerp’s barbaric conquerors punished unfortunate priests for heroically refusing to ring church bells by hanging them in the bells head down like human gongs.”
Unintentional misreading and deliberate misreporting led to stories that failed to even remotely resemble the truth.
Rumour #2 The Pirate
In the early 18th century, Captain Avery has a notorious reputation as a fearsome pirate who sails the high seas and plunders any ship that crosses his path. The renowned pirate historian Charles Johnson writes that Avery “made a great noise in the world and was looked upon to be a person of great consequence”. So famous is Avery that a playwright made a stage show so that all of England could relive his pirating adventures.
Rumours spread that Avery has married the Great Mogul’s daughter after capturing the ship she was sailing on. He is now royalty in India, master of a squadron of ships.
The truth is, Avery dies penniless in south west England without even enough money to buy himself a coffin.
It is true that Avery had once robbed a Mogul ship of diamonds and gold, although not that of the Great Mogul’s daughter. He also robs his crew of their share of the plunder, and runs away to America to spend his fortune. However, he can not sell the diamonds or gold to anyone for fear of being exposed as a pirate. He moves to England where he asks merchants to help him sell the treasure. The merchants give him a small deposit for everything he owns, saying they would send more money once they make a sale.
Avery never receives a penny more.
“The merchants were as good pirates on land as Avery was at sea”, writes Johnson.
Whilst all of England believes Avery is living the lavish life of a prince in India, he is actually dying the death of a starving pauper, homeless in his homeland.
Rumour # 3: The Gold-Diggers
In 1994 a small Canadian gold prospecting company called Bre-X announces a major discovery in the Indonesian rainforests on the Island of Borneo. Bre-X buys the land, and reports on the find get bigger and bigger, until it is the biggest area of unmined gold in the world.
North American newspapers continually report on the huge money to be made buying stock in Bre-X. Everyone wants to invest – retired people, financial gurus, even whole Canadian towns. Shares in the company, originally sold for a penny each, soars to almost $300.
As expectations crescendo to their highest point, the rainforests are exposed as barren. There is no gold there. Bre-X shares are worthless, and investors lose billions.
How To Never Be A Victim Of Rumours
What can be done to prevent our own lives following the fates of Captain Avery and Bre-X? How can we avoid being swept up in the momentum of rumour?
The answer is simple. But not easy. You need to have the discipline and the guts to follow your own path. And to swim against the current popular opinion.
“Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.” – Malcolm Muggeridge
The World’s Richest Man
It is 2008, the year of the great credit crunch. Warren Buffett, for the first time in his 77 years, is crowned the world’s richest man, now worth $62 billion.
How does Buffett reach this position? His whole life, he swims against the flow of rumours, widely accepted assumptions, and common knowledge.
At the age of 21, against the advice of his college tutor and his father, Buffett gets a job on Wall Street. Having the strength of character to know his own mind serves Buffett well for the rest of his life.
Buffet routinely buys stocks when others are selling and the market is in a pessimistic frenzy.
Buffett is one of the few people to see the risks of buying and selling derivatives during the early 21st century boom times. In 2003 he warns that derivatives are “weapons of financial mass destruction”.
Avoiding derivatives means that when the financial mass destruction finally arrives in the fall of 2008, Buffett has the money available to go against the flow yet again. Whilst the wisdom of the market is ’sell sell sell’, Buffett goes against widespread opinion and invests $5 billion of his fortune in Goldman Sachs. Buffett buys shares in the troubled bank at a rock bottom price, and negotiates a return on his investment ten times that of the ordinary shareholder.
Action Summary:
- Whenever reputations or ideas are spread as rumour, there is a danger of playing the telephone game.
- Question everything, especially if no-one else is asking questions.
- To be truly original, go against the flow.
- Build your own reputation based on your unique truth.
This above post is written by the awesome story teller and always fun play-maker – David Masters
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OK, Anke. I’m starting a rumor that David Masters is really your nom de plume. If he’s not, one of you must have copied the writing style of the other.
Well done! I’ll pass it on.
Thanks for sharing,
Rod
Hahahaha
Thanks Rod.
Actually the writing style is very simple. A bunch of stories in a logical order all centered around one topic. Followed by a helpful Action Summary.
(I myself am highly influenced by Robert Greene’s writing (for story order) and Malcolm Gladwell’s writing (for numbering the stories). And I borrowed the term Action Summary from my friend Glenn Osborn. So I have no compunction if someone else uses the same style of writing.)
Now David – he is a superb story teller and writes on some great ideas. Have you checked his website?
Yes Anke, I have popped over to David’s site, and will return again when I have some leisure time.
Thanks for the tips,
Your friend,
Rod
David Master is really our monday balloon
good job!
Hahaha – I saw what you did there!
The commenters here are so smart.
David Master is eerily our one day loon.
The vid mast is weary one day soon
David musters a dreary pantaloon.
Jimmy Buffett, fortelling thirst time in sailors beers, is renowned the world’s Beachest man. Mao cursed ObiWan.
Davids must tear a fiery harpoon
Rod,
Thanks for your kind words. Ankesh has a brilliant model for blog posts, which I followed for this article.
David
Squids bust bears wearing pantaloons
I greatly enjoyed reading your blog. Good luck to you.
Hemant,
Thank you. I’d love for you to visit my blog again sometime soon.
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