admitting that someone influenced you can feel worse than admitting you made an ordinary mistake. it can mean questioning your judgment, explaining your decision to others, or accepting that you ignored warning signs.

sometimes people keep defending a decision even after new information appears

what tends to help someone reconsider their position without making them feel attacked or embarrassed?

I enjoyed that little interview with Mustafa from Gaza City. Make friends and you lose your fear.

I was raised my entire life by my parents to be the perfect obedient spineless person who is quick to prioritize other people's needs and feelings and completely dismissing my own.

And I really hate myself for that because i feel like every stranger who meets me already has plans to take advantage of me. Almost as if there is a "dummy" label on my forehead.

And if someone verbally offends me, I see myself short of words to reply back and put them back into their places, and freeze and shiver as teh only response, which worsens my situation even more because i'll be perceived even more as a prey.

I need someone to help me become more "unfuckwithable" and be faster to kick back.

Thank you in advance

TL;DR: Someone got into my email and asked Steam Support to remove my Mobile Authenticator. Support asked for a CD key as proof of ownership; he refused. A second agent then “re-evaluated” the case and removed my authenticator and phone number anyway. The attacker’s next request was to change my account email. I only kept my account because I happened to secure my inbox at that exact moment. I warned Support immediately and asked how this was possible – no reply in 12 days.

The image shows the full ticket in order, with personal data redacted.

Before you say “secure your email”

You’re right, and that part is on me: my email had a weak password and no 2FA. I’ve fixed that.

But a compromised email is exactly the scenario the Mobile Authenticator exists for. If Steam Guard can be removed by anyone who gets into your inbox, it isn’t really a second factor.

And Steam Support clearly didn’t consider the details the attacker provided enough either – otherwise they wouldn’t have asked for a CD key. The problem is that this requirement was dropped as soon as the attacker refused.

Timeline (times as shown in the ticket)

Sep 29, 2:43 pm – Attacker opens a ticket (“My two-factor device is lost or broken”), claiming he switched phones and has no recovery code. He provides my username, first email, phone number, PayPal account holder, a PayPal invoice ID, PayPal address and a file called paypal.jpg. (image, top)

Sep 29, 6:27 pm – Support asks for a CD key registered to the account to verify ownership. (image, top)

Sep 29, 10:00 pm – Attacker refuses: he never saved CD keys and “already provided everything”. (image, middle)

Sep 30, 6:50 am – A different agent replies that he “re-evaluated the account”, verified ownership, and removed the authenticator and the phone number from my account. (image, middle)

Sep 30, ~10:00 am – Completely by coincidence, I change my email password and lock the attacker out of my inbox.

Sep 30, 10:30 am – Now locked out, the attacker claims his email “bugged” and asks Support to change the account email to a new Outlook address. (image, middle)

Sep 30, 12:24 pm – 1:06 pm – I reply in the same ticket: this wasn’t me, do not change the email, how can a third party remove my 2FA, and what was in paypal.jpg? (image, bottom)

Since then: no reply. 12 days and counting.

Why this matters for every Steam user

• The details accepted as proof can be found in an inbox. Username, PayPal holder, invoice ID and address all show up in purchase receipts and account emails.
• The one proof that usually isn’t in your inbox – a CD key – was requested, refused, and then simply dropped.
• Authenticator removed, phone number removed, then an email change request. That’s a textbook account takeover, and nothing in the process seemed to flag it.
• When the real owner reported it, nobody responded. If I hadn’t changed my email password by pure chance, I’d have lost the account with no way back.

What I’d like to know

• Is this the intended verification process, or did one agent make a mistake?
• Has anyone experienced something similar?
• Is there any way to require stronger verification before your authenticator can be removed?

What you can do now

Learn from my mistake: protect your email with 2FA (authenticator app, not SMS) and a unique password. Right now your email seems to be the real key to your Steam account – authenticator or not.

My account is safe now. This isn’t a support request. I’m sharing it so others are aware and hopefully Valve looks into this process.

I notice people stick with the same order for weeks, then suddenly switch after seeing someone else get something different. Sometimes it's just seeing another drink sitting on the counter. Other times it's watching how long the espresso shot runs. Over time you start catching the tiniest signals that make someone copy the person ahead of them without any prompting. In a small shop that spreads fast once two or three people do it. Curious if anyone has seen this in other service spots or if it stops happening when the line moves too fast in bigger places.

Interesting breakdown and it makes sense when you see the findings.

Have you ever talked to someone, given them instructions, explained to them an idea and not really been sure if they did or did not hear you? Here is what you need to do. After you are done talking, ask the other person if they understood. If they claim that they did not understand, repeat yourself and speak slower this time. If they claim that they did, ask them to repeat the instructions back to you. Why that last part? They might have thought that they understood you, but they actually misheard you. The amount of information could be so much to process that they need to hear it multiple times before understanding it. 

Edit: I just realized that asking them to repeat the instructions back to you could sound a little negative if done with the wrong tone. Perhaps that request should be worded something like this;

That was a lot of information to process. Just to make sure I explained it clearly enough, repeat the instructions back to me.

By phrasing it like that, the blame is on you if a misunderstanding happens.

What do you think? Is the plan I drafted a good one? How would you handle it if you were worried that someone misunderstood what you said?

Being patronizing in the first place is bad enough, repeating the same hateful message again and again is even worse. 

If someone does that to you, say one of the following two things, either; 

I heard you the first time you said it.  

OR 

You already said that. 

What do you think? Do you also find it irritating when people repeat themselves just to be negative? What would you do to deal with that? Let me know.

As a 20 yo guy, throughout my life I got approached in public, more than you can think.

Whether a homeless men (mostly scammers) asking for help or money, Jehovah witnesses, usually girls asking me for gym club invitations (and getting my contacts eventually) , strangers asking for directions .... I've seen it all

At least once a week I have an event on this matter, and I want to know why...

I sometimes have rants when walking to clear my head, look in other directions and generally I treat walks like a good hobby, it cleanses my emotions , like being detached from my problems and such — so this could be a cause I guess(??I have no words to describe it)

Maybe people judge by posture to deduct the "one who would fold to their demands"? For the record I'm a very nice guy, I tend to help people with anything, to the point where friends/colleagues treat this as an ick/weakness and take me for a fool...

As for looks I look like an average Joe, 179cm (or 5'10" for my burger people) , so I see no reason why I tend to be approached at random...

Maybe the spotlight effect plays a role in this too, I sincerely don't know.

If you tend to "approach" people in public, just let me know what makes someone trusted or rather more able to listen at least with your proposal.

Any kind of help is deeply appreciated:)!

I have a degree in anthropology and want to do something that plays to strengths in the social science field. What would be some good ideas? Things more people oriented, qualitative, writing focused, etc.

Hey everyone, I'm here hoping to find advice on something that is not only annoying but also an actual issue at work.

A couple of years ago the company I work had a role to fill. I have this friend, she's great, talented, smart, creative, she can really be a powerhouse... but she also struggles with accountability. I did not foresee this (stupid of me) so I proposed her for the role and she was hired. In the beginning it was great, she was on top of everything, magical. But then things shifted.

She's given a task and she just says "no I'm not doing that because xyz", okay, I see your point, let's do it your way. Then, her way doesn't work, she doesn't check if the results are there, and when we found out that there was a malfunction that caused us to lose stuff that can never be recovered, because she didn't check whether her system was working, she just said "Oh well, why would I check something that I don't think will cause a problem?" IT'S YOUR RESPONSIBILITY??????? FOR A THING YOU DECIDED TO DO????????? BECAUSE YOU WERE COMPLAINING THAT WE WERE HOLDING YOU BACK BUT THE THING WE WERE DOING WORKED AND YOURS DOESN'T??? Nothing is ever her fault, it's always some external cause, it's the boss' fault, everybody sucks and she's the only person that understand things but it's also not her fault for making mistakes ever. And I didn't even hear a simple apology, like "I'm sorry I should have checked", or "I'm sorry I thought it would work, I'm sorry I should have looked if the results were coming in at all". Nothing. And I really want to keep her, so saying "let her go" is not really an option. I even thought of another thing to give her that is more up her alley, and technically what she studied for, but like... if that goes wrong too not only I wouldn't know what to do, but also I fear she'd crash completely feeling a failure, and I really don't want that for her, quite the opposite but I'm struggling here. I need to understand how to speak to her without making her feel attacked, because then she gets defensive and is very good at turning things around to make it sound like she's right and we are stupid/at fault.

Recently I have created an research project which is mimicking the instagram connections between private users.

1. Project Overview

The Instagram Intelligence & Network Analysis Platform is an analytical system designed to ingest Instagram follower/following data, enrich user profiles with available public information, and represent the resulting relationships as an interactive social network. I have used HikeAPI for this research purpose. This is not hacking or any restricted way to truely identify the connection. This is more prediction based approach. Again this is purly research level work.

The system moves beyond simple follower-list extraction by providing profile visualization, relationship analysis, influence scoring, clustering, temporal comparison, and network evolution analysis.

2. Core Objective

The primary objective is to build a platform that can answer questions such as:

• Who are the accounts connected to a particular Instagram profile?
• Which accounts appear to be the most influential or central?
• Which users belong to similar behavioral/network clusters?
• What changed between two Instagram exports?
• Which users were added, removed, or changed over time?
• How does the overall follower network evolve?
• How are users connected through common relationships?

Used Hiker API to get the data and then used neo4j for graph database. On top of that the GNN model help to find the correlation with embeddings for similarity search. GNN trained with certain dataset which I didnt made it public due to data privacy.

Attached the video.

There is a specific scenario where, when a person expresses a problem that they are having, a listener will engage in some performative empathy, with a suggestion for an excessive or unreasonable “solution”. This creates a bind for the person in difficulty: to reject the extreme “solution”, they must effectively minimize their problem, but this will lead onlookers to form the opinion that the problem is not particularly serious, meaning that the person in distress loses support. On the other hand, to call out the behavior will cause the person in difficulty to seem unreasonable or even paranoid, as the listener has performed empathy to the extent that they cannot be accused of dismissing the difficulties of another person.

Have others encountered this manipulation tactic? Is there a term for this behavior? In particular , I’d appreciate any recommendations of literature on the topic, particularly in terms of strategies to deal with such tactics in a calm, measured way.

In groups, my friend usually tries to make a bond with the others by trying to rally them to tease me together, tell embarassing stories about me, and basically treating me as an "outgroup". I don't know how to handle it, I can't make a scene to not be painted as dramatic but like.

Earlier today, I went to Walmart and purchased a lap desk for my laptop.

When I entered, there’s this very social, charismatic greeter at the entrance that’s usually talking to someone, and more often than not sharing a laugh with a customer.

I enter the store and told him “what’s up” while locking eyes with him while he was speaking and laughing with another customer.

Here’s what I’m curious about.

After purchasing the lap desk in the electronics department, I begin to walk directly through the self checkout area.

He’s playfully singing a song from the “Rocky” movie while his coworker is laughing beside him.

They both see me walk through self checkout without stopping at a register.

Expecting them to ask for my receipt (the lap desk is too big to fit into a bag so it looks like I’m just about to walk out of the store with an I’m purchased item), I’m approaching him with a smile, and give him a fist bump.

Afterwards I walk right past them.

Yes, I did have the receipt in my opposite hand, but I was just surprised they didn’t ask for it.

Is there any psychological reason why they didn’t ask? I know this isn’t a lot of information but I was just surprised.

I thought I’d come in and ask this community since I just finished reading “the art of engineering.”

Hoping that someone can provide insight

I've been writing an influence and persuasion techniques book for a number of years now.

Thought I'd post little bits here and there. Some of what I learnt is certainly not for public consumption though,

Getting someone to do a certain ask, you can put the thought into their mind, so they are more likely to behave that way.

For example, you’re on a sales call and want to send them some information but you know people are no good at getting back to you. You could ask a simple question to gain compliance,

“How good are you to replying to emails?”

9/10 they will respond that their good, which now means you’ve planted the seed so they now must live up to this, otherwise it will cause mental anguish.

“Do you consider yourself open minded?”

“Would you say you’re a reliable person?”

“Will you get back to me on this by tomorrow?”

The idea is to plant a command that they will need to hold themselves accountable to.

Can you really be defined by the data about you?

Someone could spend hours researching a subject because they believe it, fear it, disagree with it, or are trying to understand someone who believes it. The activity might look similar while the reasons are very different.

But I don't think “the data lacks context” settles the question. Suppose a future system had enough information to distinguish those motives. It could follow changes in your beliefs, recognize your contradictions, and predict your decisions more accurately than you could.

Would that give it a stronger claim to understanding who you are?

My instinct is that identity includes what we make of our experiences and which parts of ourselves we want to change. A profile built around past behavior could struggle with that. Still, our intentions and attempts to change are information too. I'm not sure where I would draw the boundary.

We can also misunderstand ourselves. The explanation I give for a decision isn't necessarily more accurate just because it's mine.

So if your own account of who you are conflicted with a system that consistently predicted your behavior correctly, how would you decide which account deserved more weight?

I’ve watched u/jordanpeterson since his early lecture days, long before he became a major media figure. What interests me isn’t whether he became “better” or “worse.” It’s how much his public output changed over time. That got me thinking about algorithmic pressure. If one topic gets 20,000 views and another gets 2 million, nobody has to tell you what to talk about. The reward system does it for them. Eventually, do creators stop asking, “What do I want to say?” and start asking, “What works?” I made a video about this through Self-Determination Theory, autonomy, relatedness, and what I’m calling expressive distortion. Curious what people here think.

Matt Pierce Video Commentary

I'm 18 and I consider myself an altruistic I wanna do good for others, I was wondering if social work is a good job to look into/is there opportunities, I'm planning on going to college and then university. what would you recommend and what is college/university like for social work.