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Where did the idea of the tin foil hat come from?

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Re: Where did the idea of the tin foil hat come from?

#31

Post by blue_dragon »

The CIA popularized the "tinfoil hat conspiracy nut" as a reverse-psychology trick back in the '60s as part of Operation Mockingbird.

The government had seen promising results in its experiments to control human emotions via radio-wave emissions, and they wanted to deploy this technology on a national scale. However, one recurring problem was that thin films of conductive material, such as aluminum foil, had a tendency to scramble the control waves and render them useless. In response, the CIA launched a massive press campaign intended to smear and delegitimize the wearing of tinfoil hats, with the ultimate goal of preemptively convincing the public not to wear them via threat of social ostracization.

Considering the widespread mockery levied at the tinfoil community today, I'd say their efforts have worked quite well.

You can read more about Operation Mockingbird here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

Re: Where did the idea of the tin foil hat come from?

#32

Post by pessimizer »

stetrain wrote: post #29
roenxi wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is getting in to citation needed territory. The state in most countries controls between 30 and 60% of the GDP. It is a prime target for corruption and anyone who likes money or abusing power will be drawn to it like a magnet. Pretty much all of the major powers are spying on almost literally everything that happens on the internet and we know that reasonably stable societies can go full Nazi in less than 20 yea…

Corruption, as in individuals working in their own interest in a way that best provides them power and/or lines their pockets, is different than a grand conspiracy that a large percentage of that state is working together on a secret project that they have guarded from the public. The government is not "an entity", it is layers and levels of elected and unelected officials working towards their own personal goals. Th…

> a grand conspiracy that a large percentage of that state is working together on a secret project that they have guarded from the public.

But this is a straw man. Do you know any conspiracy theorists that believe that a large percentage of the state is working together on a secret project that they have guarded from the public, or is that just the easiest thing to discount? The conspiracy theories I hear about are about small groups of people that "control things from behind the scenes."

> The government is not "an entity", it is layers and levels of elected and unelected officials working towards their own personal goals.

This is a false dichotomy. The non-existence of government as an entity is a conspiracy theory so wild that very few people believe it. It's like saying Apple doesn't exist, just some people who happen to be sitting at desks near each other that conspiracy theorists decided to make a big deal about.

Re: Where did the idea of the tin foil hat come from?

#33

Post by stetrain »

pessimizer wrote: post #32
stetrain wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corruption, as in individuals working in their own interest in a way that best provides them power and/or lines their pockets, is different than a grand conspiracy that a large percentage of that state is working together on a secret project that they have guarded from the public. The government is not "an entity", it is layers and levels of elected and unelected officials working towards their own personal goals. Th…

> a grand conspiracy that a large percentage of that state is working together on a secret project that they have guarded from the public. But this is a straw man. Do you know any conspiracy theorists that believe that a large percentage of the state is working together on a secret project that they have guarded from the public, or is that just the easiest thing to discount? The conspiracy theories I hear about are a…

> But this is a straw man. Do you know any conspiracy theorists that believe that a large percentage of the state is working together on a secret project that they have guarded from the public, or is that just the easiest thing to discount?

The moon landing conspiracy theory is a good example. It would involve hundreds of thousands of people across public and private sector all keeping such a secret. It would even involve the governments of other countries (namely Russia, or Australia who received and relayed many of the lunar broadcasts on the US's behalf) who had their own tracking and radio equipment and could have at least attempted to discredit the mission, but did not.

Chemtrails is a common conspiracy theory as well that again would require cooperation and secret keeping among thousands across both public and private sectors.

Part of my point is that a small number of people keeping a secret for a short time is plausible, but as the number of people and length of time scale up it becomes less plausible due to human nature.

In countries with extreme state corruption, secret police, rigged elections, people being "disappeared", etc. those things are not secrets, and the problem is not a lack of evidence of the corruption.

The citizens know that the secret police exist and that you are at risk of being detained by the secret police for publicly stating forbidden positions. The citizens know the autocrat will always win each election. They are just powerless to change it.

Re: Where did the idea of the tin foil hat come from?

#34

Post by pessimizer »

> The tin-foil hat can be traced back to 1927, first spotted by Business Insider roughly a decade ago, in a short story titled “The Tissue-Culture King.” It’s a strange short story written by Julian Huxley, whose brother Alduous was a prolific writer and author of Brave New World. It was Julian, however, who was possibly the first to mention wrapping your cranium in foil.

I absolutely guarantee that this isn't the origin of the term "tinfoil hat" or of people accusing people that they want to discount as "wearing a tinfoil hat." What happened was a writer came across an early mention in fiction of somebody using a metal shield to fend off mind control rays that no one read and that inspired no one, and they thought they might be able to build an article around it. Using a metal shield to fend off a charge is obvious, although when it comes to a Faraday cage around your head, your neck is a problem.

"Tinfoil hat" is an accusation. Find the first person recorded accusing someone else of wearing a tinfoil hat. Find out of the reference confused people, or if it seemed familiar to people. If it confused people, try to find whether he/she was asked to explain it. If it was familiar to people, look for other contemporaneous mentions and try again.

Re: Where did the idea of the tin foil hat come from?

#35

Post by golergka »

blue_dragon wrote: post #31

The CIA popularized the "tinfoil hat conspiracy nut" as a reverse-psychology trick back in the '60s as part of Operation Mockingbird. The government had seen promising results in its experiments to control human emotions via radio-wave emissions, and they wanted to deploy this technology on a national scale. However, one recurring problem was that thin films of conductive material, such as aluminum foil, had a tenden…

> The government had seen promising results in its experiments to control human emotions via radio-wave emissions

There's no mention of this in the Wikipedia article.

Re: Where did the idea of the tin foil hat come from?

#36

Post by moralestapia »

blue_dragon wrote: post #31

The CIA popularized the "tinfoil hat conspiracy nut" as a reverse-psychology trick back in the '60s as part of Operation Mockingbird. The government had seen promising results in its experiments to control human emotions via radio-wave emissions, and they wanted to deploy this technology on a national scale. However, one recurring problem was that thin films of conductive material, such as aluminum foil, had a tenden…

???

Is this /s? ChatGPT? Both?

Re: Where did the idea of the tin foil hat come from?

#37

Post by nilamo »

blue_dragon wrote: post #31

The CIA popularized the "tinfoil hat conspiracy nut" as a reverse-psychology trick back in the '60s as part of Operation Mockingbird. The government had seen promising results in its experiments to control human emotions via radio-wave emissions, and they wanted to deploy this technology on a national scale. However, one recurring problem was that thin films of conductive material, such as aluminum foil, had a tenden…

That sounds completely made up. I simply do not believe that nobody in the CIA conceived of a layer of tinfoil inside of a normal hat, which would not be visible to anyone.

Re: Where did the idea of the tin foil hat come from?

#38

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

nilamo wrote: post #37
blue_dragon wrote: post #31

The CIA popularized the "tinfoil hat conspiracy nut" as a reverse-psychology trick back in the '60s as part of Operation Mockingbird. The government had seen promising results in its experiments to control human emotions via radio-wave emissions, and they wanted to deploy this technology on a national scale. However, one recurring problem was that thin films of conductive material, such as aluminum foil, had a tenden…

That sounds completely made up. I simply do not believe that nobody in the CIA conceived of a layer of tinfoil inside of a normal hat, which would not be visible to anyone.

It isn't necessarily true but the origin of the meme is a supposed CIA mind control defense. It was current in 80s meat space before internet conspiracy culture flourished.

Re: Where did the idea of the tin foil hat come from?

#40

Post by swader999 »

bee_rider wrote: post #9

These days, conspiracy theorists seem to be some of the most open to manipulation folks out there. > Even though “tin foil hat” is the expression, most people use aluminum foil these days. This is probably why, we’ve been duped! They replaced the tin with aluminum. Everyone knows aluminum has mind control enhancing, not reducing, powers.

Shout out to the Kozyrev mirror re the aluminum reference. Go see the why files YouTube episode on that for a fun hour.
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