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CIA Star Gate Project: An Overview (1993) [pdf]

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Re: CIA Star Gate Project: An Overview (1993) [pdf]

#101

Post by squigz »

jjk166 wrote: post #93
sxp wrote: post #44

For those who want to consider the mundane explanation about remote viewing: remember that humans can still be surprised by the birthday paradox and other synchronicities that occur when sampling data at large scale. So across thousands of sessions, the weak coincidences documented by the Stargate project are expected. For those who want a skeptical & cynical view: if remote viewing works, it would be part of the sta…

> For those who want a skeptical & cynical view: if remote viewing works, it would be part of the standard strategy of every hedge fund. Please don't use the efficient capitalism argument. By that logic, if polio vaccines worked then why didn't 1940s pharma companies sell polio vaccines back when people were getting polio? Remote viewing is bunk, but not because hedge funds in their omniscience have determined it to…

> Please don't use the efficient capitalism argument. By that logic, if polio vaccines worked then why didn't 1940s pharma companies sell polio vaccines back when people were getting polio?

Because they didn't know about such a vaccine. We know that remote viewing "exists"

I think that GP's point - that, if such things exist, they would actually be utilized - is a good one. The framing might not be great but it's also not entirely relevant. You could just as easily make a non-capitalism example - like why don't fire departments use them

Re: CIA Star Gate Project: An Overview (1993) [pdf]

#102

Post by the_af »

noworld wrote: post #100
the_af wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since backdating would be one of the ways to fake this, the onus lies in those that claim the prediction was legit. That's how evidence works for extraordinary claims. Alas, scientific rigor is a harsh master.

"extraordinary claims/extraordinary evidence" isn't scientific rigor, it's adding qualifiers to make the evaluation of the claim and evidence more subjective.

It's literally how the scientific method works.

There's a reason RV is considered pseudoscience.

It speaks volumes you don't see any problem with the lack of proof that the documents weren't backdated, and get defensive when people tell you this must absolutely be ruled out if we're ever to even start considering your alleged evidence.

Re: CIA Star Gate Project: An Overview (1993) [pdf]

#103

Post by the_af »

lijok wrote: post #97
the_af wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "difficulty" with remote viewing is nonsense pseudoscience and crackpottery. It absolutely does not work. Not "unreliably", but not work at all. This reminds me of that one time on HN when someone tried to convince me that ritual witchcraft (I think they called it blood magic) on servers was a real thing, necessary to make them work, and my dismissal was typical of narrow minded people.

Dude claims “there are documents that indicated it did work”. You didn’t enquire about them, just completely dismissed it. That is indeed typical of narrow minded people.

Dudes claim all kinds of crap online. He already posted a PDF that indicated nothing of the sort.

If you will believe anything that seems true to you, because someone online said so, without any weight of evidence, and which is widely considered pseudoscience (go check)... I have a bridge to sell you.

What's with the wave of anti-intellectualism on HN of all places? Are we really trying to debate whether debunked crap like witchcraft and ESP is real? What's next, that Nigerian prince truly wants to gift you his money if only you can help him with a few dollars?

Carl Sagan must be spinning in his grave.

Re: CIA Star Gate Project: An Overview (1993) [pdf]

#104

Post by the_af »

an0malous wrote: post #35
squigz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of these 'remote viewing' sessions didn't bear any similarities to anything? If you throw a bunch of stuff at a wall, some of it is going to stick. Especially when it appears to be random words that can be applicable to millions of situations.

> Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established. The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is ex- pected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted. Effects of a magnitude similar to those found in government sponsored research at SRI and SAIC…

Ray Hyman, the other member of the review panel with Jessica Utts, disagreed with her conclusions ("the overwhelming amount of data generated by the viewers is vague, general, and way off target. The few apparent hits are just what we would expect if nothing other than reasonable guessing and subjective validation are operating."). Utts also seems to be involved in parapsychology organizations, which is pseudoscience -- I hope you won't dispute this much -- so I'd rule out her opinion as fringe, and not in any way the mainstream scientific opinion on RV.

RV is pseudoscience, you won't find scientific support for it, or anyone able to reproduce its purported results under controlled conditions.

The Amazing Randi probably had a challenge about RV that no con artist was able to win.

Edit: wait, it's even worse. Utts was completely biased and compromised:

> The psychologist David Marks noted that because Utts had published papers with [Edwin] May [a parapsychologist who took over Project Stargate in '85] "she was not independent of the research team. Her appointment to the review panel is puzzling; an evaluation is likely to be less than partial when an evaluator is not independent of the program under investigation."

So she was completely biased and wasn't independent of the leadership of Stargate! She had vested interests in it being "real", she was invested on RV and parapsychology!

Re: CIA Star Gate Project: An Overview (1993) [pdf]

#105

Post by olyjohn »

noworld wrote: post #79
the_af wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extraordinary claims (that RV is a real phenomenon) require extraordinary evidence. The null hypothesis is the default position, it requires no extraordinary evidence; the opposite does. This is scientific method 101. Let's not pretend we're not familiar with it just because some dodgy CIA document surfaced.

Ah, since the claim contradicts materialism, you get to make up a scenario, present no evidence, then put the burden on the other side. Got it. There's literally extraordinary evidence in the PDF, you just don't like it.

You call that extraordinary evidence? Looks pretty vague to me.

"Ship. Round thing. Structure. Water. Propeller."

Give me a break. Reads like the typical psychic scammers.

Re: CIA Star Gate Project: An Overview (1993) [pdf]

#106

Post by tevon »

logicchains wrote: post #38
diogenes_atx wrote: post #30

No surprise here. The geniuses at the CIA failed to anticipate the fall of the Soviet Union, ignored the warning signs about 9/11, and falsely claimed there were "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq during the American invasion in 2003. Apparently the so-called intelligence agency was busy with important research on "telepathy," "psychokinesis" and other "para-psychological phenomena."

>falsely claimed there were "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq during the American invasion in 2003 This was due to malice not ignorance/incompetence.

They did tell the admin that there was no WMDs. But Rumsfeld didn't want to hear it, and forced them to "find" it.

Almost killed the agency

Re: CIA Star Gate Project: An Overview (1993) [pdf]

#107

Post by tevon »

diogenes_atx wrote: post #62
kjkjadksj wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the story was the CIA and other intelligence said there are not wmds, but the bush whitehouse said there were anyhow and invaded all the same.

A Google search using the terms "did the CIA claim there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2003?" yields the following information: The CIA and the Bush administration claimed Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in 2003, building the case for invasion on assertions that Saddam Hussein had active WMD programs and failed to comply with UN resolutions, though these claims proved to be incorrect a…

Recommend "The Mission" by Tim Weiner for this one. Not as simple as this.

Often the intel community is dead right, but get thrown under the bus by the admin. The intel community can't really come out and say "actually what our pres is saying is false, we told him this would happen".

Re: CIA Star Gate Project: An Overview (1993) [pdf]

#108

Post by krackers »

sxp wrote: post #44

For those who want to consider the mundane explanation about remote viewing: remember that humans can still be surprised by the birthday paradox and other synchronicities that occur when sampling data at large scale. So across thousands of sessions, the weak coincidences documented by the Stargate project are expected. For those who want a skeptical & cynical view: if remote viewing works, it would be part of the sta…

That social-rv is really interesting, apparently the target is randomly assigned _after_ submission, so it's not just remote viewing but also precognition?

The popular ones on the "explore sessions" are a very close match, but if you look at other predictions by those accounts, they're less sure. It's very easy to form a connection between any two images if you allow abstracted forms of similarity, and fundamentally there are very limited themes when it comes to images (natural things, man-made things. Smooth vs sharp.).

A good control test might be to have LLMs produce output instead, and score that.

Re: CIA Star Gate Project: An Overview (1993) [pdf]

#109

Post by __patchbit__ »

akatechis wrote: post #36
noworld wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first PDF is the record of a remote viewing session from 2 days before the USS Stark incident, and it is eerily similar to the incident. The feelings and "atmosphere" (can't think of a better word for it) sound like what you might expect on a ship being attacked by a random missile. For example: 1. The drawing on p. 7 looks like the superstructure of a warship. 2. The next few pages might describe what it feels l…

> the CIA report predates the attack, which is especially strange It's only strange if you believe the CIA released notes from their super-secret psychic program rather than the more plausible explanation that this is disinformation that was backdated for a boost of prestige.

A spicily prepared `false flag' operation dead drop will do the time travel trick especially given the CIA is being outgamed on all the dimensions.

Re: CIA Star Gate Project: An Overview (1993) [pdf]

#110

Post by the_af »

lijok wrote: post #98
mberning wrote: post #27

I am amazed that people take Hal Puthoff at his word that he has worked on all these secret projects for decades even though he cannot describe in definitive terms what the actual outcomes of those programs were. But he is able to talk about them for hours in the vaguest terms possible. How is that even possible. I mean I worked for an aerospace company for 5 years and could go into great and boring detail about what…

Why is it surprising that they can’t talk about it in concrete terms given “ all these people supposedly worked on things much more exotic”?

Because talk is cheap, but when pressed, a crackpot like Puthoff cannot provide a single relevant detail. Had he been involved in actual top secret projects, he would shut up about them; instead he fantasizes.

He also has a history of quackery, belief in the paranormal, and being duped by Uri Geller.

I mean, he's the worst kind of crackpot: a sucker who believes magic tricks are real and will evangelize about it.

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