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The growing science of memory manipulation

scientificamerican.com

81–90 of 156 posts

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#81
post #33
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats preventing the gaslighters from being gaslighted? It's not a bad thing if we can change Putin or the Saudi Head Looneys memory and behavior. These kind of Debates always get won by the Edward Teller's in the room.

> Whats preventing the gaslighters from being gaslighted? That they have the power... > It's not a bad thing if we can change Putin or the Saudi Head Looneys memory and behavior. LOL, if only the problem with gaslighters was just Putin or the Saudi Head Looneys... How about your own government, mass media, big corporations, and so on?

Ofcourse them too. They are more of less programmed as it is to chase likes/clicks/views of their respective fan clubs. Tweaking the counts of what their fan club likes automatically changes their behavior. They just don't know they are all deeply trapped.

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#82
post #81
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whats preventing the gaslighters from being gaslighted? That they have the power... > It's not a bad thing if we can change Putin or the Saudi Head Looneys memory and behavior. LOL, if only the problem with gaslighters was just Putin or the Saudi Head Looneys... How about your own government, mass media, big corporations, and so on?

Ofcourse them too. They are more of less programmed as it is to chase likes/clicks/views of their respective fan clubs. Tweaking the counts of what their fan club likes automatically changes their behavior. They just don't know they are all deeply trapped.

Well, how are we gonna gaslight them? Especially since they have all the power, and regularly gaslight us!

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#83
post #69
post #9

The mere possibility of tampering with memory is indeed the most dangerous thing that could happen to humanity. Imagine not being able to believe your own memory. In fact we don't have to imagine, I believe I've been subjected to "mass gaslighting" on multiple occasions recently on the internet : some piece of information I'm sure I saw on the internet suddenly completely disappears. Google + Facebook + "right to be…

> tampering with memory is indeed the most dangerous thing that could happen to humanity. For almost two decades now I believed that "Total Recall" was mostly science fiction, that almost none of it will happen in real life anytime soon. Looks like I was wrong. [1] Philip K. Dick was a genius, with Paul Verhoeven not too far behind. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIzFuycHn_0

Amazing. Video is blocked. The irony

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#84
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "right to be forgotten" type of policy The right to be forgotten is a right, as the name suggests. It always existed, if I want to be fogotten IRL I can, why shouldn't it be possible online? What's the difference between deleting my social timeline and burning my pictures or my diary? One of my favourite books is "The Late Mattia Pascal" (Il fu Mattia Pascal) from Luigi Pirandello, it was written in 1904 and it's t…

It’s not possible IRL. If I want my picture gone from the high school yearbook, nobody will help me track down every copy and mask the image. If I want the local grocery cashier not to greet me by name, I can’t make them forget me.

> It’s not possible IRL.

> If I want my picture gone from the high school yearbook

AFAIK right to be forgotten, at least in EU, is the right to request that search engines do not display information about an individual that is factually incorrect, obsolete.... it has nothing to do with deleting actual information.

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#85
post #45
post #44

Artificial memories in humans have already been done. In the 1980's there was an epidemic of psychologists implanting memories of sexual abuse in children who grew up believing they had actually been abused.

Interesting how much of #metoo could relate to these phenomena.

Eh? You mean, "not at all"? I assume they're talking about the 'satanic ritual abuse' collective delusion here. In this, young children were convinced, through improper questioning (largely by untrained police, not proper psychologists AIUI), that they'd been exposed to some pretty non-specific abuse, often with supernatural elements.

This is worlds apart from an adult saying, spontaneously and without any brainwashing from the police, that they were abused by a specific person.

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#86
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not possible IRL. If I want my picture gone from the high school yearbook, nobody will help me track down every copy and mask the image. If I want the local grocery cashier not to greet me by name, I can’t make them forget me.

> It’s not possible IRL. > If I want my picture gone from the high school yearbook AFAIK right to be forgotten, at least in EU, is the right to request that search engines do not display information about an individual that is factually incorrect, obsolete.... it has nothing to do with deleting actual information.

This!

The right to be forgotten (or to oblivion) is just the right to have your private informations deleted and the guarantee that what you delete online is really deleted and nobody can recover it.

It's not the right to be removed from other's people memory.

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not possible IRL. > If I want my picture gone from the high school yearbook AFAIK right to be forgotten, at least in EU, is the right to request that search engines do not display information about an individual that is factually incorrect, obsolete.... it has nothing to do with deleting actual information.

This! The right to be forgotten (or to oblivion) is just the right to have your private informations deleted and the guarantee that what you delete online is really deleted and nobody can recover it. It's not the right to be removed from other's people memory.

> This!

>The right to be forgotten (or to oblivion) is just the right to have your private informations deleted and the guarantee that what you delete online is really deleted and nobody can recover it.

You say "this" and then written something completely different to what I wrote.

As I said, AFAIK the right to be forgotten doesn't give you the right to delete any information. It just gives you the right to remove some information from appearing in search engines.

An example I remember that happened in Netherlands is of a doctor that lost her medical license. When you searched her name, the first result was an article on some news site that she lost her license.

On appeal she got it back and using the right to be forgotten she removed that news article from search results. The article is still there on that news site it just doesn't appear in search results when you search her name.

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#89
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine not being able to believe your own memory. Done. Memories are notoriously unreliable and you shouldn’t treat as ultimate source of truth.

That's true, but not being able to believe no one has tampered with your memories is on another level.

Is believing not also memory related? Can you trust your beliefs? And what is memory anyways?

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#90
post #44

Artificial memories in humans have already been done. In the 1980's there was an epidemic of psychologists implanting memories of sexual abuse in children who grew up believing they had actually been abused.

I think that there is an Adam Curtis documentary about this, I can't remember the name however.
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