Let’s start with three questions that should stop you cold:

Why is it illegal to put poison in a kid’s cereal, but not illegal to use behavioral science to addict that kid to a screen, a brand, or a belief?

Why are there strict laws about how many hours a child can legally work, but no meaningful laws about how many hours that same child can be psychologically mined for profit?

Why are corporations banned from dumping chemical waste into rivers, but free to dump dopamine-scrambling content into your kid’s developing brain?

Because "It’s just feelings,” right? Wrong. But that’s the myth. And it's the loophole. Society’s legal framework is built on physical harm. Child labor. Food safety. Environmental toxins. Things you can see, weigh, regulate, and prosecute. But the mental stuff? That’s still treated like it’s squishy. Subjective. Parental. Optional. And that is exactly how the most powerful companies on earth want it.

This is the Age of Behavioral Engineering. And big tech and big commerce are not just marketing to children anymore—they’re programming them, using:

- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Neuro- and behavioral-science
- Intensified A/B testing
- Addiction psychology
- Profiling and real-time feedback loops
- And armies of PhDs trained to make sure your child stays engaged, as in hooked

This is no longer “advertising.” This is mental manipulation as a business model.

Why Isn’t This Illegal Yet?
Are we soft? Big Business is in our children's heads! Why is no one stopping them from this controlling behavior? Because our legal system hasn’t caught up with our moral instincts.

How can that be?
1. It's Hard to Measure: You can test for toxins. But how do you test for self-worth erosion?
2. Big Tech Lobbying is Relentless: The same companies engineering these behaviors are buying the silence of lawmakers.
3. Freedom Fetishism: Regulating speech-like behavior triggers constitutional nerves.
4. Blame the User Mentality: “Parents should just be more involved” is the new “bootstraps” argument.

So, What Do We Need to Do?
1. Stop Pretending This Is Harmless.
2. Treat Manipulation Like Pollution and Cigarettes.
3. Write New Laws for a New Era (A Psychological Integrity Doctrine).
4. Criminalize Intentional Exploitation.

Let’s Make This Plain for the History Books. Through 2025, companies could legally:

- Use artificial intelligence to test how many colors, sounds, or visual cues it took to provoke a reaction from a young child—because attention, even upset attention, could be measured and sold.

- Deliver sexually suggestive or explicit content to teenage boys based on mood and engagement signals, often without real age checks and far from the sight of parents.

- Feed outrage and fear to anxious pre-teens, teens, and young adults because strong emotions keeps them scrolling longer than calm or clarity ever could.

- Immerse teenage girls in a constant stream of filtered, altered, or AI-generated images tied to beauty, lifestyle, and self-worth—while calling it inspiration instead of advertising.

- Infer loneliness, stress, or social isolation in adolescents and young adults and quietly use those signals to shape what they saw next.

- Build habit loops—streaks, notifications, social validation, intermittent rewards—knowing that developing brains are easier to hook and harder to disengage.

None of this was hidden. None of it was accidental. And none of it required breaking the law.  Because “it’s just feelings,” right?

NO. This is systematized harm. And the only reason it’s still legal is because nobody with power has the guts to say that young brains are as vulnerable as young bodies.

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Suggested LERN Module for Teachers: Psychological Literacy & Power

Topic: Protecting Minds from Manipulation

Lesson Objectives:
- Understand the psychological tools used in modern consumer manipulation
- Identify differences between traditional marketing and behavioral engineering
- Explore why manipulation is not yet legally classified as harm
- Discuss actionable changes to policy, parenting, and tech use

Discussion Prompts:
1. What makes something ‘harmful’ enough to regulate?
2. Should children be given digital rights similar to child labor protections?
3. Can you name a time you were manipulated by tech or media without realizing it?

Student Assignment:
Write a letter to your future self explaining how you would advocate for ‘Psychological Integrity’ as a civil right. In it, suggest the framework for 3-5 "Laws We Need to Protect Young Minds in the Age of Manipulation".

In a world losing its grip on empathy and a country losing its grip on leadership — maybe the best Thanksgiving gift is a reminder to all that America started with refugees, risk-takers, and misfits dreaming of a new way of life and willing it into existence. 

Why? Because this moment we’re in — the shouting, the border panic, the performative tough-guy routines, the whole “shut it all down” energy — it’s all backwards. Not because we don’t need order and tighter immigration rules. We absolutely do. But because we’re pretending our entire country wasn’t seeded by people doing whatever it took to escape violence, persecution, and a government that treated them like pests.

To be clear: This isn’t a leftist “throw the borders open” kumbaya. This is a rally cry to remember who the hell we are as Americans. And what it truly means to give and receive thanks with grace.

The Story All Americans Should Know But Can Rarely Recite

A small group of families — hunted by their government, harassed, spied on, arrested — sells everything they own for pennies just to run for their lives. They try escaping once and they get caught. They try again. Get split up. Their leaders get locked up, and they still don’t quit.

They finally invest all they have left to escape aboard two floating death traps and entrust a small crew with their lives. One ship nearly sinks. The other barely holds together with a medieval house jack. Sixty-six days of horror ensue with storms, disease, famine, death. A guy gets tossed overboard and hauled back in like a cod. A baby’s born in the middle of the Atlantic. It's almost November in 1620. 

'Land ho!' is shouted. But they've landed in the wrong place. Many miles north of their intended destination,  where winter is fierce and there is no shelter. There are no refunds or return tickets. They're on their own to figure it all out. And they do. In fact, they thrive. Partially through shear will and inner spirit. But also for expressing respect and gratitude to the indigenous people there well ahead of them who would teach them how to survive.  

Fast forward: Enduring all they have and forgiving God for all they've lost, they've built a community, created a formal pact, and recognize the importance of formally expressing their thankfulness, along with their indigenous neighbors, with a multi-day feast. They eat. They drink. And they behave with gratitude toward each other, and their shared earth, for providing the care and sustenance they all needed to take care of their families and start not just a new life, but a new world. 

So, why does gratitude look so messed up today? 

There was a time when the world saw the Office of the President as a lighthouse. Now the bulb flickers like a broken streetlamp behind a Southie Dunkin’. Because somewhere along the way — in our politics, our workplaces, our families — we started turning gratitude into a test. A measurement with a scorecard on whether we are seen, valued, appreciated enough. And just this week, it spilled out onto the world stage. The President suggested that Ukraine’s President Zelensky “hadn’t shown enough thanks” toward the United States for assisting in their war against Russia. Except Zelensky has thanked the U.S. so many times that journalists had no trouble pulling up clip after clip after clip.

So, what was the moment really about? Not geopolitics. Not peace or diplomacy. It was about the leader of the free world's need to be thanked — publicly, repeatedly, and in a style he personally approved of.
And that’s the trap. Because the minute you start requiring thank yous, you’re no longer talking about gratitude. You’re talking about ego. You’re talking about insecurity. You’re talking about being the center of a story that was never supposed to revolve around you.

The Pilgrims didn’t survive for each other to get a pat on the back. They didn’t endure and will their community into existence for recognition. They didn’t sit down at that first feast with a list of who owed whom what. They were grateful beyond words and humbled to be alive among the living. And that's the point that escapes this President on every Thanksgiving of his life. 

I'm thankful you read this.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

- Dave Strand



#BostonStrong #Thanksgiving2025 #HumanFirst #NotDoneYet
Photo: "Gratitude and Grace" - DS