> [...]if you want to subtly influence perceptions and ultimately behaviors, you shouldn’t approach people with the goal of educating them or increasing their awareness of something, but rather, you should aim to tap into their unconscious mind to evoke emotions, and then use their emotional response to direct behavior.
It's crazy that we spend so much time on Psychology research when all you need to do is go to sales seminars and have people that may or may not have a high school education teach you exactly this.
The best education I got in human behaviour was a stint in door-to-door sales during a period of tech burn-out. Once you are aware of how people are trying to sell you, advertising and marketing is unlikely to phase you.
> If a message triggers anger or fear, your brain flags it as urgent; if it confirms your existing beliefs, your mind treats it as more likely to be true (confirmation bias); if others are sharing it, your confidence in it increases (normative bias; illusory truth effect). This pattern is observable in basically every viral disinformation event.
For shady nefarious uses, propaganda/disinformation -- being aware of what and when something triggers/activates us makes it is easier to not get swept away by where it's trying to lead (this would be the apt time to turn off and go "touch grass", literally)
My observations of people doing 180s in terms of personality happened because they are unaware of having ever been "activated". They tend to think they are "not emotional", are rational etc.
An example I found difficult to believe at first was: The easiest, most profitable sales were the people that told us up front they were absolutely not buying and won't/can't be persuaded or sold -- they are too $cognitive_identity. I didn't connect it then, but thinking about it now, they were already emotionally activated/involved and believed they weren't, more importantly didn't know/recognize it.
Personally, I believe some Stoicism (Epictetus mostly, maybe Aurelius) practices would help give people the tools to combat this assault on the mind/emotions.
trod1234 · 23h ago
TL;DR The article has several good points, but mixed into those points are as many or equal omitted portions that flavor the post in the same ways that the author draws attention to as a bad thing. This is cherry-picking towards a narrative, one that is aimed at making the US the bad guy while neglecting through omission the real environment. (i.e. the fallacy of isolation/overgeneralization).
There are objective measures which can be done and evaluated on such content and mechanisms, and its promoting through implication there being no objective truth left. That's a fallacy.
The absence of certain clear examples which make far stronger arguments beg the question of motives, and intent.
For example, the communist regime under Mao, are the originators of the modern paradigm of what we call thought reform, or mind control today. This started in the 1950s during the Korean Conflict, where PoWs were subjected to such torture and psychological manipulation. The Nazi's knew a few things, the Chinese under Mao took it to a whole different level; effectively breaking perception (and people).
The CIA began their research in response to these abuses, and also in the following continuous use of same research by a great number of communist countries.
None more infamous than the Stasi, who used these things to repress and disunify their population under Zersetzung. It unclear whether the rise of cults in the 60s and on were the result of CIA programs, or a subversive attack by foreign powers. Cults utilize closely parallel working knowledge which was not common knowledge at the time (as far as can be verified).
The CIA and other agencies engaged in the same research, including parallels to narcosynthesis/analysis (the LSD experiments), but they were late to the game. The Chinese used this as a weapon, and great injustices occur everywhere its used because the incentives allow for it to happen. Some of these incidents have still not seen the full light of day. COINTELPRO for example, and its successors; and the materials related to Martin Luther King Jr. have yet to be fully released.
There is little doubt such programs still exist in secret today, under new names, and directives, and activists understand this coercive harassment more than most. Some criminals may be telling the truth about unlawful acts committed against them by law enforcement, but were unable to prove because of the sophistication of such systems. It begs serious questions, which have been kept secret.
The direct evidence of any actual incidents of parallel construction is sufficient to merit much further examination which has never been fully disclosed.
With the growing societal dependency on technological systems that are in effect a state of "complete compromise", these things have only grown in scope, allowing systems such as "Social Credit" to be applied arbitrarily to citizens, without their knowledge, through third-party intermediaries (Big Tech), perhaps in some cases just third-party sockpuppet groups.
These things are a big problem, because fundamentally whenever you engage in such behavior as state apparatus (indirectly or directly, inaction or action), if the government fails to step in and correct it in a timely manner; its considered a formal objective breaking of the social contract.
Sufficient breakage of societal norms, lack of an effective rule of law, unchecked corruption and abuse towards any person that forces them to disadvantaged survival or indentured servitude, aka slavery; leads to revolution, or eventual socio-economic collapse, and there are many examples of this throughout history.
Even persistent monitoring can meet these objective indicators, as people have fourth amendment constitutional rights to be secure in their persons, and that right has dependencies based in privacy, even when in public ways. For example, using such surveillance to determine when the person isn't home so they can break in and vandalize the victims property, or create further threats against such person.
An entity utilizing such complete surveillance in bulk or individually treats such people as animals; violating these rights, and breaking the social contract when its sponsored in any part by government. Any government contract to said entity directly or indirectly thus makes them automatically complicit when these things are done, and an objective but indirect breaking of constitutional oaths making such people involved oath-breakers/traitors. Similar abuses and their derivatives can be found in the response to the King during the American Revolution (~1776), 27 grievances.
Even the simple act of non-enforcement, or front-of-line blocking can create complicity when they prevent corrective action. So such entities may even include foreign powers, as a scapegoat or otherwise.
One thing is certain. Dark times are ahead, because the type of people doing these things are reinforcing a runaway positive feedback system that has only one logical end, and that end is running off the rails, destructive, and its entirely preventable if stopped before a certain point which has already passed. Right now, its full steam ahead.
For anyone interested in the real mechanics of these things. I've included some references below to the foundations that are vetted experts on the subject matter.
All but the first, are dark reads, and most marketing, public relations, addictive design, and psychology more recently has obscured these origins using different terms and words. Certain hypnosis articles, papers, and programs are also somewhat based in this research (and aimed towards deprogramming such as cult deprogramming), involuntary hypnosis is the 2nd stage of torture, and inconsistent mental states and world views impose psychological stress.
Torture is simply an individual threshold where exposure imposes psychological stress that results in physiological outcomes.
It's crazy that we spend so much time on Psychology research when all you need to do is go to sales seminars and have people that may or may not have a high school education teach you exactly this.
The best education I got in human behaviour was a stint in door-to-door sales during a period of tech burn-out. Once you are aware of how people are trying to sell you, advertising and marketing is unlikely to phase you.
> If a message triggers anger or fear, your brain flags it as urgent; if it confirms your existing beliefs, your mind treats it as more likely to be true (confirmation bias); if others are sharing it, your confidence in it increases (normative bias; illusory truth effect). This pattern is observable in basically every viral disinformation event.
For shady nefarious uses, propaganda/disinformation -- being aware of what and when something triggers/activates us makes it is easier to not get swept away by where it's trying to lead (this would be the apt time to turn off and go "touch grass", literally)
My observations of people doing 180s in terms of personality happened because they are unaware of having ever been "activated". They tend to think they are "not emotional", are rational etc.
An example I found difficult to believe at first was: The easiest, most profitable sales were the people that told us up front they were absolutely not buying and won't/can't be persuaded or sold -- they are too $cognitive_identity. I didn't connect it then, but thinking about it now, they were already emotionally activated/involved and believed they weren't, more importantly didn't know/recognize it.
Personally, I believe some Stoicism (Epictetus mostly, maybe Aurelius) practices would help give people the tools to combat this assault on the mind/emotions.
There are objective measures which can be done and evaluated on such content and mechanisms, and its promoting through implication there being no objective truth left. That's a fallacy.
The absence of certain clear examples which make far stronger arguments beg the question of motives, and intent.
For example, the communist regime under Mao, are the originators of the modern paradigm of what we call thought reform, or mind control today. This started in the 1950s during the Korean Conflict, where PoWs were subjected to such torture and psychological manipulation. The Nazi's knew a few things, the Chinese under Mao took it to a whole different level; effectively breaking perception (and people).
The CIA began their research in response to these abuses, and also in the following continuous use of same research by a great number of communist countries.
None more infamous than the Stasi, who used these things to repress and disunify their population under Zersetzung. It unclear whether the rise of cults in the 60s and on were the result of CIA programs, or a subversive attack by foreign powers. Cults utilize closely parallel working knowledge which was not common knowledge at the time (as far as can be verified).
The CIA and other agencies engaged in the same research, including parallels to narcosynthesis/analysis (the LSD experiments), but they were late to the game. The Chinese used this as a weapon, and great injustices occur everywhere its used because the incentives allow for it to happen. Some of these incidents have still not seen the full light of day. COINTELPRO for example, and its successors; and the materials related to Martin Luther King Jr. have yet to be fully released.
There is little doubt such programs still exist in secret today, under new names, and directives, and activists understand this coercive harassment more than most. Some criminals may be telling the truth about unlawful acts committed against them by law enforcement, but were unable to prove because of the sophistication of such systems. It begs serious questions, which have been kept secret.
The direct evidence of any actual incidents of parallel construction is sufficient to merit much further examination which has never been fully disclosed.
With the growing societal dependency on technological systems that are in effect a state of "complete compromise", these things have only grown in scope, allowing systems such as "Social Credit" to be applied arbitrarily to citizens, without their knowledge, through third-party intermediaries (Big Tech), perhaps in some cases just third-party sockpuppet groups.
These things are a big problem, because fundamentally whenever you engage in such behavior as state apparatus (indirectly or directly, inaction or action), if the government fails to step in and correct it in a timely manner; its considered a formal objective breaking of the social contract.
Sufficient breakage of societal norms, lack of an effective rule of law, unchecked corruption and abuse towards any person that forces them to disadvantaged survival or indentured servitude, aka slavery; leads to revolution, or eventual socio-economic collapse, and there are many examples of this throughout history.
Even persistent monitoring can meet these objective indicators, as people have fourth amendment constitutional rights to be secure in their persons, and that right has dependencies based in privacy, even when in public ways. For example, using such surveillance to determine when the person isn't home so they can break in and vandalize the victims property, or create further threats against such person.
An entity utilizing such complete surveillance in bulk or individually treats such people as animals; violating these rights, and breaking the social contract when its sponsored in any part by government. Any government contract to said entity directly or indirectly thus makes them automatically complicit when these things are done, and an objective but indirect breaking of constitutional oaths making such people involved oath-breakers/traitors. Similar abuses and their derivatives can be found in the response to the King during the American Revolution (~1776), 27 grievances.
Even the simple act of non-enforcement, or front-of-line blocking can create complicity when they prevent corrective action. So such entities may even include foreign powers, as a scapegoat or otherwise.
One thing is certain. Dark times are ahead, because the type of people doing these things are reinforcing a runaway positive feedback system that has only one logical end, and that end is running off the rails, destructive, and its entirely preventable if stopped before a certain point which has already passed. Right now, its full steam ahead.
For anyone interested in the real mechanics of these things. I've included some references below to the foundations that are vetted experts on the subject matter.
All but the first, are dark reads, and most marketing, public relations, addictive design, and psychology more recently has obscured these origins using different terms and words. Certain hypnosis articles, papers, and programs are also somewhat based in this research (and aimed towards deprogramming such as cult deprogramming), involuntary hypnosis is the 2nd stage of torture, and inconsistent mental states and world views impose psychological stress.
Torture is simply an individual threshold where exposure imposes psychological stress that results in physiological outcomes.
Robert Cialdini, "Influence", - Psychological blindspots leveraged except distorted reflected appraisal (through communications).
Joost Meerloo, "Rape of the Mind" - Overview of torture for thought reform, WW2 thru Mao.
Robert Lifton, "Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism" - Case Studies of returning PoWs 1950s, Mao China - Elements, Structuring, Clustering.