If I was asked to teach a graduate seminar in the philosophy and methods of persuasion, how would I organize the content? What would my syllabus look like? In this episode I answer that question, and start working my way down the syllabus (we cover the first two items in this episode). Here are the topic categories on my syllabus: 1. people skills 2. selling and marketing skills 3. seduction skills (including "pickup artist" skills) 4. magic and mind reading skills 5. confidence games and the skills of the con artist 6. persuasion in advertising 7. persuasion in politics 8. persuasion in the internet age 9. power and propaganda Topics discussed in this episode: - Dumbledore gets it. Why Hogwarts needs a "Defense Against the Dark Arts" class. - the science and practice of persuasion is not a unified thing - Robert Cialdini's six principles of influence, and the nature of his research project - persuasion practices as guilds, and the guild mentality - "people skills": how to make people like you - Dale...