Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

atroche.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 172 posts

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#161

Post by VanillaBooks »

atroche wrote: post #150
VanillaBooks wrote: post #110

I disagree with the _utility_ of the article's conclusion - "keep the facts in mind when you are asked to do things". Basically it says - be in control of what you do. Or, we are always a step or two behind (we only realize later what happened in a certain situation). So what you do when somebody applies a technique on you, which you don't know yet, in a situation in which you are caught, which you don't yet realize…

Good points. Can you elaborate on what steps you might take to guard against unknown techniques?

Of course, that - i wouldn't really know. Perhaps if we attack it from the other side - what happens when a civilized society shifts its balance point from "we don't know a lot, we know only a few things" to "we know a lot, what we don't know isn't important". How is one grown in the first society is with a bigger openness, the need to be sharp in every situaton vs. the "life through recipes" which proliferates in the second society.

(sorry for my english and somewhat vague thoughts, i hope something gets through)

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#162

Post by andyl »

pintglass wrote: post #69
andyl wrote: post #13

Brainwashed? If that is brainwashing, then it seems like there's brainwashing everywhere you look. For example: - http://www.foxnews.com/ - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBbBfrKsVqY

I'd say most news media and many T.V. shows reinforce ideas that oppose accepting that there is an alternative viewpoint. Are you sure you haven't been brainwashed to hate Fox News and anything that shows a flag and an eagle with patriotic music in the background? Let's try this on for size: Is Fox News racist, elitist, sexist, and homophobic? My guess is that you just answered yes to at least 3 of those, however if…

I guess I regard nearly all cable news as brainwashing. Maybe even all news. Fox is the worst example (IMHO), but I don't like any of it.

Turn off all news for a year or two. Then watch for a few minutes. With fresh eyes, the news looks like a clown show - all emotion and advocacy.

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#163

Post by Spooky23 »

Volpe wrote: post #107
philwelch wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

North Korea's fate was decided by the Soviets just as much as South Korea's was by the US. There were even Soviet pilots flying in the North Korean air force in the Korean War. The Soviets didn't have the ironclad control over North Korea that they had over Eastern Europe, but they certainly weren't any less involved than the US was in the South.

That's a pretty good point. They were essentially both puppets of the large powers, and the war pretty much a proxy war. But that makes the POWs change of attitude less brainwashy and more 'informed' in my opinion.

How could you even make that statement?

Say what you will about the US, but I think the results of a Stalinist / Maoist mashup speaks for itself. It is and was pretty obvious who the agressor was in Korea -- the Soviet tanks rolled into North Korea weeks before the Japanese surrender specifically to grab Korean territory. The Northern attack on the south was very clearly a land grab.

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#164

Post by philwelch »

w1ntermute wrote: post #158
philwelch wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no such thing as "its own devices" for a country with no surviving government. All the various countries conquered by the Axis during World War II were occupied by various Allied powers with the intention of reestablishing them as independent countries. Poland and Czechoslovakia, to name two, were occupied solely by the Soviets and was set up as Soviet-controlled puppet states. Japan. to name another, was occ…

> was reformed into a fairly pro-Western democratic country, complete with baseball Actually, baseball has existed in Japan since the 1870s. It was in no way a post-WW2 phenomenon. > Korea was a similar case... I don't see how dividing up a country among the victors makes any sense, either in the case of Germany or that of Korea. What exactly did they expect to occur after a couple decades had passed?

The expectation was that dividing Germany or Korea would be a temporary measure until a democratic government was formed. It was never intended to last even one decade. In Germany, three out of four occupied zones signed up for the democratic government which was formed in 1949, only 4 years after the end of the war. The agreed-upon plan was for Germany and Korea to form single, democratic governments, rendering the occupation zones a temporary measure. The fact on the ground was that the Soviets had millions of troops on the ground and surrendering all of Korea, or all of Germany to Stalin would have had grave consequences. No one likes being a divided country, but presumably the South Koreans prefer not being part of North Korea and the West Germans preferred not being part of the DDR.

In Germany's particular case, many of the allies were comfortable with the notion of dividing Germany anyway, since at least that way the Germans wouldn't start trying to conquer the rest of Europe again. But it wasn't the agreed plan, nor was it feasible to salvage the whole country as a democracy, either, nor did it seem wise to let Stalin have the whole country.

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#165

Post by gruseom »

coob wrote: post #109
asveikau wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the record The Manchurian Candidate was a book before it was a movie. I read the book once long ago but don't remember much about it. In contrast the imagery of the movie is very hard to forget.

Also if anyone is thinking of watching the 2004 remake/'re-imgainging' … don't bother.

Yes. I thought Demme would do something interesting with it and was disappointed. The only thing I remember is Robyn Hitchcock's cameo as an arms dealer, and even that was bad.

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#166

Post by lostlogin »

philwelch wrote: post #141
lostlogin wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

umm.. a few of Americas lackeys came along for the ride as it was politically expedient. Despite this governments fell. Iraq was America's mess and a few unfortunates followed them on down. I'm not sure there was any agreement on rebuilding, it was, and still is a catastrophic mess. Nothing other than embarrassment should be felt over the humanitarian disaster this adventure was.

I agree with all of that. The fact that the invasion was mostly unilateral is exactly why Iraq wasn't divided after the war, which was my entire point.

Sorry, I see that now. Thanks.

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#167

Post by helion »

DominikR wrote: post #112

I wouldn't categorize this as brainwashing. Or to be more specific: I wouldn't categorize the description in the blog post as brainwashing or torture. To me, this looks more like some kind of group therapy since the POWs were not forced and the example statement they were asked to make ("The United States is not perfect.") is obviously a fact because nothing is perfect. What I find interesting is to compare this to w…

Brainwashing it is, torture it isn't. By combining both words in your comment, you show that you see them as going together or being one and the same.

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#168

Post by saraid216 »

dspillett wrote: post #159
saraid216 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the nicer sounding word is "explanation".

I don't agree there. Explanation would be more "I do/think/believe X because" where indoctrination is more "you should do/think/believe X because". A more passive form of indoctrination would be repeated explanation (with or without query/prompt) so explanation can become indoctrination depending on context, but I'll stand by my choice of words above.

Your examples answer the wrong question.

"Where do rainbows come from" can be answered with the explanation "As a way to show God's promise to Noah never to flood the Earth again" or with the explanation "because sunlight refracts through water into all the different colors we can see" or with the explanation "invisible unicorns fly through the sky sometimes and leave rainbows where they've gone".

Many people would call one or more of these indoctrinations, despite the complete lack of "should" in any of the responses. Egocentrism does not a benignity make.

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#169

Post by DominikR »

helion wrote: post #167
DominikR wrote: post #112

I wouldn't categorize this as brainwashing. Or to be more specific: I wouldn't categorize the description in the blog post as brainwashing or torture. To me, this looks more like some kind of group therapy since the POWs were not forced and the example statement they were asked to make ("The United States is not perfect.") is obviously a fact because nothing is perfect. What I find interesting is to compare this to w…

Brainwashing it is, torture it isn't. By combining both words in your comment, you show that you see them as going together or being one and the same.

I don't understand how you could possibly come to this conclusion.

I used both words together because it depends on how brainwashing is achieved if it qualifies as torture or not. (that's why I wrote "brainwashing OR torture")

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#170

Post by pessimizer »

pyre wrote: post #42
pessimizer wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Convincing someone of something that later, under investigation, turns out not to be true, is not brainwashing.

I thought that brainwashing was a label applied to the technique used to convince someone. You can brainwash someone that holds strong convictions which are wrong to believe in the truth.

Brainwashing is a label applied to the mysterious techniques that communist foreigners and non-Christian religions use to convince someone.

Labels applied to the techniques used to convince someone are 'rhetoric,' and 'argumentation,' amongst others.

Post reply on HN