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The CIA's Quest for Mind Control: Torture, LSD and a 'Poisoner in Chief'

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Re: The CIA's Quest for Mind Control: Torture, LSD and a 'Poisoner in Chief'

#141

Post by Symmetry »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #4

> I think it creates a much fuller and more perplexing picture of a person who lived such different sides of his life. In the long run, in the cosmic sense, I think you can say that commitment to a cause always gives you the justification for immoral acts. And patriotism is among the most seductive of those causes because it posits the nation as a value that's so transcendent that anything done in its service is virt…

Hierarchical organizations with strict information controls are terribly vulnerable to group think. Compartmentalization means that even if the US was really using biological weapons the people terrified of brainwashing at the CIA probably wouldn't know that.

And it wasn't just the existence of the US brainwashing program that was a consequence of this belief. Angleton threw every Russian who attempted to defect to the US into jail because he thought that Soviet brainwashing made true defection impossible.

Re: The CIA's Quest for Mind Control: Torture, LSD and a 'Poisoner in Chief'

#142

Post by alexilliamson »

forgingahead wrote: post #56

Gottlieb wanted to create a way to seize control of people's minds, and he realized it was a two-part process. First, you had to blast away the existing mind. Second, you had to find a way to insert a new mind into that resulting void. You don't need LSD for this, just expose yourself to media (news, social media, "influencers", etc) and they will helpfully convince you that everything you thought before you encounte…

> "just expose yourself to media (news, social media, "influencers", etc) and they will helpfully convince you that everything you thought before you encountered them was bad/racist/sexist/conservative/etc.

Or on the flip side, turn your dial to Rush Limbaugh or Tucker Carlson and be convinced that NOTHING you've ever said or done as a Patriotic American is bad/problematic.

Re: The CIA's Quest for Mind Control: Torture, LSD and a 'Poisoner in Chief'

#143

Post by TeMPOraL »

pjc50 wrote: post #127
TeMPOraL wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's complete and utter conspiracy nonsense because control implicates intentions, but the media - and especially social media - are not directed by a uniform actor with intentions. Not from the systems perspective, it doesn't. It requires a set point, an ability to measure deviation from that set point, and an ability to influence a factor that can reduce said deviation. It's not a conspiracy theory to observe t…

We could do with different words for these. You're right that from the perspective of both electronics engineers and sociologists there are all sorts of "control systems" that affect behaviour. It's the great achievement of Weberist "modern" societies to take control away from individual chains of authority (feudalism) and into impersonal systems (bureaucracy, police, capitalism). But the individual lived experience…

What categories do we want to separate using different words?

About control systems, I think it would be good for general population to be more aware of just how many various control systems they're a part of, usually as a Manipulated Variable (in process control parlance). It's not just "the police" or "the government" or "the market" - it's every advertiser, every company they deal with, various branches of government, possibly even their HOA. Basically everyone that can persuade you or has power over you, that stands to benefit from particulars of your behavior.

The key aspect here is that these systems are usually impersonal and amoral, they don't care about people who are being used as MVs. There's also very many of them. It's not a question of being influenced or not, but of limiting your exposure to the systems that harm you.

Re: The CIA's Quest for Mind Control: Torture, LSD and a 'Poisoner in Chief'

#144

Post by mistermann »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #68
rorykoehler wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My own personal experience is that opinions on topics are geographical cargo cults. Upvoted by Europeans in the morning and downvoted by Americans in the afternoon or vice versa.

And my personal experience is that some percentage of my comments are downvoted immediately and then upvoted to neutral -- as was the case here. I imagine if you interviewed all 5 million visitors you would get about 5 million different experiences. (That's not to dismiss your experience at all.)

> And my personal experience is that some percentage of my comments are downvoted immediately and then upvoted to neutral -- as was the case here.

But are you not making an assertion about how voting behaves overall?

>> Corrective upvotes are a tradition on HN. If you aren't being an asshole, some people will upvote you back to neutral if they think you are being downvoted for the wrong reasons.

>> You just have to have a little courage of conviction and patience and not start editing your post in reaction to voting or complaining about it, etc.

>> HN does a much better job than most platforms of allowing people to genuinely express a minority view -- assuming they can follow the guidelines and not bitch about the voting and not get reactive and inflammatory because of baggage, etc.

>> It's not an easy thing to do, but it can be done here, unlike most platforms.

Have you formed this conclusion based on a statistical analysis of the raw voting data on a variety of platforms?

If so, can you link to where you obtained these datasets (I'd like to have a look myself)? If not, upon what is the conclusion based?

Re: The CIA's Quest for Mind Control: Torture, LSD and a 'Poisoner in Chief'

#145

Post by StanislavPetrov »

xxpor wrote: post #41
naringas wrote: post #22

I have no reason to believe they ever stopped trying. They have probably tried other ways; mayhaps even more succesful but we are not authorized to know whether they did... because appaerently it's super important that their actions are secret "to protect democracy"? (or something like that)

One way to preserve democracy is to have an informational advantage over your adversaries, by any means necessary.

You forgot the quotes around "democracy".

Re: The CIA's Quest for Mind Control: Torture, LSD and a 'Poisoner in Chief'

#146

Post by realce »

3pt14159 wrote: post #134
AndrewBissell wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Devil's Chessboard" and "The Mighty Wurlitzer" are the two books I'm most familiar with on this topic, but I'd be curious to hear any specific recommendations you have as well.

Not the person you are responding to, but I liked Fair Game and The Billion Dollar spy. Cyberspies was also decent, but it's less exciting and more technical. I don't share arminiusreturns' view on the intelligence community. I know there are the black site psychos, but most of the people I've met in the IC care deeply about the rule of law and making the world safe for all of us. But they are right that things truly…

> but most of the people I've met in the IC care deeply about the rule of law and making the world safe for all of us.

I don't mean to twist your words, but that's what all suppliers of State power want. It doesn't make the outcomes good or moral, it doesn't mean the will of the population is actually adhered to. "Making the world safe for all of us" is a simple paradox of Asimov-level complexity and outcome.

Re: The CIA's Quest for Mind Control: Torture, LSD and a 'Poisoner in Chief'

#147

Post by artvark11 »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #89
forgingahead wrote: post #56

Gottlieb wanted to create a way to seize control of people's minds, and he realized it was a two-part process. First, you had to blast away the existing mind. Second, you had to find a way to insert a new mind into that resulting void. You don't need LSD for this, just expose yourself to media (news, social media, "influencers", etc) and they will helpfully convince you that everything you thought before you encounte…

That's complete and utter conspiracy nonsense because control implicates intentions, but the media - and especially social media - are not directed by a uniform actor with intentions. What you're insinuating to be mind control are normal social mechanisms that have always been in place and have nothing to do with the media. They are primarily exerted upon you by your peers (close friends, family, colleagues), and not…

>but the media - and especially social media - are not directed by a uniform actor with intentions.

There are 6 corporations that control the vast majority of the news media you consume. The idea that it is unfathomable that they would work together to push their narrative is utter nonsense.

https://techstartups.com/2020/09/18/6-corporations-control-9...

Re: The CIA's Quest for Mind Control: Torture, LSD and a 'Poisoner in Chief'

#148

Post by pjc50 »

mistermann wrote: post #140
pjc50 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> both sides are behaving in uniform ways exactly typical of unified, single-actor control, respective to each. If you're alleging single-actor control you need to have some idea of who that single actor allegedly is. A lot of this stuff is simply .. more chaotic. That goes for the question of Russian involvement. Reducing it to a single yes/no binary doesn't help; it's almost certainly not true that Putin has been p…

> If you're alleging single-actor control you need to have some idea of who that single actor allegedly is. Why? Do you apply this same standard when debugging software, or do you discard the realization of all observed patterns for which you lack an immediate explanation? It's interesting to observe how the manner in which logic is executed changes when the topic of conversation changes in various ways.

Are multiple phenomena the same bug or different bugs? Until you've traced the root cause this can be hard to tell.

Re: The CIA's Quest for Mind Control: Torture, LSD and a 'Poisoner in Chief'

#149

Post by AntiImperialist »

pjc50 wrote: post #130
AntiImperialist wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greater good is often used as a reason to grab power from individuals, whether it is by foreign nations, corporations or even other national government. I am not talking about that. Groups exist for a reason. The biggest reason is that other groups exist. You can either be attacked by those or join them or create your own. Your group can be a political one, which in some cases may end up having their own nation state…

A set of relatively uncontroversial statements about Westphalian nation-states ... and then a dig at the OSF. Why does this always come down to people having a go at George Soros? Is it by any chance because he backed the Western side in Ukraine?

Why does this always come down to people having a go at George Soros?

Why did I bring up an organization founded by George Soros, a person who believes that nation states should not exist, when discussing nation states? Why do you think?

Re: The CIA's Quest for Mind Control: Torture, LSD and a 'Poisoner in Chief'

#150

Post by pjc50 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #143
pjc50 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could do with different words for these. You're right that from the perspective of both electronics engineers and sociologists there are all sorts of "control systems" that affect behaviour. It's the great achievement of Weberist "modern" societies to take control away from individual chains of authority (feudalism) and into impersonal systems (bureaucracy, police, capitalism). But the individual lived experience…

What categories do we want to separate using different words? About control systems, I think it would be good for general population to be more aware of just how many various control systems they're a part of, usually as a Manipulated Variable (in process control parlance). It's not just "the police" or "the government" or "the market" - it's every advertiser, every company they deal with, various branches of governm…

Yes, I was trying to separate "impersonal control" from "personal control". A traffic cone is a control system that's impersonal both in its placement and in who it's aimed at.

> It's not a question of being influenced or not, but of limiting your exposure to the systems that harm you.

Indeed. Or changing those systems.

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