6 ms·

Okay I'm skeptical. On the one side some 'bad other' could be using an undefined device to attack only American people, only in foreign lands, and for uncertain

Okay I'm skeptical. On the one side some 'bad other' could be using an undefined device to attack only American people, only in foreign lands, and for uncertain reasons. That narrative conveniently fuels paranoia and makes for good reading. Alternative explanations exist, based on well established medicine, which I think need air time, link below. Now, I'm all for exciting stories but this one keeps being resurrected without evidence I'd find compelling (namely lesions on MRI, quantifiable deficits in function, or signs and symptoms that prove neural damage). Indeed all the features of this particular syndrome appear better explained by functional, rather than structural, disease. Of course the possiblility of acoustic or electromagnetic weapons being used exists until proven otherwise, but in light of what is known, it seems unlikely to me. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/14/cuban-acoustic-attack-report-on-us-diplomats-flawed-say-neurologists https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/14/cuban-acoustic... Declaration of interests: I've worked with Prof. Stone.

prolikewh0a 8y ago
Especially knowing the USA has been a thorn in Cuba's side since the 50's, repeatedly trying to kill Castro and undermine their economic system. Americans live under constant propaganda from their own government, deployed by their own mainstream newspapers and TV media. Chomsky's 'Manufacturing Consent' is an eye opening look into the continuous war/regime change drum that's beating inside the USA. This is just more the same, NY Times writing anti-Cuban articles as propaganda, with no evidence to back up their nonsense claims.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- thefounder 8y ago
  Cuba has been led by a dictatorship regime so I can see why US would like to change it. You don't need propaganda to see for yourself that Cuba has no free elections. So far US used sanctions instead of war and it seems it didn't work.
  - JetSpiegel 8y ago
    It was a dictatorship before, but the US was supportive then. Only some dictatorships are bad.
  - danharaj 8y ago
    The United States has supported dictatorships let alone allowed them to exist. Like Batista. In... Cuba.
  - stephen_g 8y ago
    The US has installed or supported more than a few dictators... Do you really think that American intervention has anything to do with democracy?
    - thefounder 8y ago
      I believe people want to promote/support their values and it's the same with the governments. U.S. always tried to install democracies (i.e after ww2, Afganistan) but I've never seen a dictatorship installing or promoting democracies.
      - kart23 8y ago
        Iran??
  - Timmah 8y ago
    > no free elections. Neither do the US. Ask Bernie Sanders.
    - notafraudster 8y ago
      A free election doesn't mean people -- even powerful or rich people -- can't campaign against you. It doesn't mean political parties can't internally organize their candidate nomination procedures. And surely it doesn't mean that the candidate who got fewer votes (as Sanders did) is obligated to win. Sanders entered the race polling at 2%, campaigned like hell, got close to winning, and had a material impact on the party's policy trajectory. And he did this despite taking deliberate steps throughout his career to make it harder for himself to take power within a political party -- for example, by not joining the party until he declared his intent to run for its leadership, by not doing much to work with anyone in the party on legislation or fundraising, and generally by keeping a low national profile before deciding to run. Debbie Whatshername emailed saying she was in the tank for Clinton? Yes, duh. Party elders and professional leadership are permitted to have an opinion about who they want to win, If you show up at a club you've been trash-talking for years and expect to take it over, you can't reasonably be mad when the people who have been running it for years have their The idea that the elections aren't free is also undermined by the scattershot way in which Sanders supporters defend institutional design choices. For example, Sanders performed better in states with caucuses than primaries. Caucuses are less democratic, because they induce low turnout because of the high barrier to participation. But Sanders' campaign and his supporters like caucuses. Sanders performed worse in states that did not allow independents to participate in the Democratic party. But Sanders' campaign and his supporters view this rule as an offensive affront to democracy. The common element is not the institutional design ex ante, it's the ex post impact of that design on Sanders' chances. None of the arguments Sanders made about getting a bum rap are evidence of institutional dysfunction. There is no country on earth that has institutions that don't have these characteristics. Many very healthy democracies have internal party leadership conventions that look much like U.S. nominations pre-1968 (only party elders vote, byzantine favor trading to get the nomination) let alone what they look like today, which are much more open and democratic. America has made more progress reforming its primary elections and generally elicits broader participation in them than almost any country. But set aside all this and it's is not even a good case study. If your position is that the system is rigged so that outsider candidates don't win, how do you explain Clinton losing to game theory in the early stages of 2008? How do you explain Trump winning in 2016? Primaries result in outsider candidates winning. This has been one of the main challenges for political scientists, who want to seriously study institutional design. Before 2016, the canonical text on primaries was "The Party Decides" -- that party elites, through endorsement, cross-fundraising, ballot access, and the "invisible primary" decide the outcome of elections. No one is reading "The Party Decides" in 2018 because, well, you see the hell we live in. Disclaimer: I live in America but can't vote here, and I would have voted for Sanders, not Clinton, in the primary. It's not because I'm a neoliberal shill, it's because your post reminded me of a first-year student I taught once who argued that the U.S. isn't a democracy because "Monsanto, maaaaan".
mrb 8y ago
Your link is the first time I hear of mass psychogenic illness. Quite an interesting phenomenon. I particularly liked the case below from 1972. It seems MPI could very well explain these incidents. «In a mid-western university town of over 50,000 population, a strange case of "gas poisoning" occurred on a Wednesday morning early in March, 1972. Approximately thirty-five female workers at the University's data processing center were exposed to a mysterious gas "from an unknown source" that caused dizziness, vomiting, nausea, and fainting among a number of the employees. So severe were the symptoms that 10 of the workers were taken to the University's Medical Center for emergency treatment; all of the employees at the Data Center were evacuated. The Center was temporarily closed allowing for a group of environmental specialists to examine the building. During the remainder of that day and into the night, samples of the air obtained from the building were tested. Extensive blood and urine tests of affected workers were conducted in order to locate traces of the noxious "gas." Although traces of the substance could not 'be found, several workers again became ill upon returning to work Thursday morning. The Data Center was closed and evacuated for the second time. Additional environmental ;and physiological tests were conducted; still no physical reason for the episode could be located. When the Center resumed operation on Friday a group of specialists from the University met with the workers to explain that they thought an "atmospheric inversion" was the cause of their symptoms. This explanation was calculated to reduce the high level of anxiety that had surrounded the activities of the two previous days; the explanation seemed to meet its objective. The incident was "closed" as far as both the workers and the scientists were concerned despite the fact that traditional biomedical explanations had failed to explain the events.» See more at https://sci-hub.tw/10.2307/2136925 https://sci-hub.tw/10.2307/2136925
- d0100 8y ago
  Mass psych illness is brought up everytime this is discussed
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - no_identd 8y ago
    Indeed: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/12/cuba-mass-hysteria-sonic-attacks-neurologists https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/12/cuba-mass-hyst... But that doesn't make it neccesarily true, see my other comment here, in context with the comment I responded to there: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17894909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17894909
_Codemonkeyism 8y ago
From the linked article: "A score in the bottom 5% would typically mean there is a problem. But Shura pointed out that the diplomats were found to be “impaired” if they scored in the bottom 40% in any one of the tests. In their letter, the doctors said it was “inappropriate” to conclude that any of the patients were impaired. "
- hmahncke 8y ago
  It’s unfortunately quite challenging to diagnose cognitive impairment based on neuropsychological assessment at a single point in time post-injury. That’s because we don’t know what the person’s level of cognitive function was before the injury. If a person had cognitive function 1 standard deviation above the mean pre-injury (equivalent to an IQ of 115, speaking loosely) and suffered a 1 standard deviation loss as a result of the injury, they would then test in the normal range - but still clearly have suffered damage. The response articles calling for a 5th percentile measure to diagnose impairment are in a sense statistically appropriate - you’d like to see very significant impairment to diagnose it from a single measure - but not sensitive - they will miss a lot of true cases of mild impairment. For example, that threshold would miss virtually all cases of concussion, chemobrain, cognitive impairment in MS, etc.
- ScottBurson 8y ago
  What these doctors are missing is the power of statistical correlation to separate signal from noise. Yes, a single individual testing below 40% means nothing, but 20 people (or however many it was) all from the same office testing below 40% is starting to be significant.
  - _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
    They've tested 6, don't know how they drew the sample.
sd8f9iu 8y ago
>On the one side some 'bad other' could be using an undefined device to attack only American people, only in foreign lands, and for uncertain reasons. If someone were trying to sour US-Cuban relations, then it would make sense that only Americans in Cuba were targeted. It seems highly unlikely that 21 diplomats with the same symptoms (plus those in China) were afflicted with an innocuous medical condition. None of the doctors who wrote letters of dissent physically examined the patients. Though the specific nature of the cause may be up for debate, I highly doubt there was no adversary here.
- williamscales 8y ago
  I agree that it seems suspicious and this sort of weapon has loomed as a likely culprit from early on. There are very good reasons why someone would carry this out. That said, I feel it would be irresponsible to deny the possibility of a collective delusion. Particularly in an environment where folks are in constant close contact and under a feeling of stress. In my opinion, it's less than highly unlikely.
  - matt4077 8y ago
    I would believe diplomats would be somewhat resistant against mass delusion, considering their selection (and possibly training). Mass delusion has also been one of the leading hypothesis from the very first story on this phenomenon. Being aware of the concept would tend to dispel it, which apparently did not happen. I'm sure those with more information have considered that possibility. The ongoing investigation leads me to believe they are not quite as sure of it as the HN crowd is. Maybe some of the cases appeared independently?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

prolikewh0a 8y ago

Especially knowing the USA has been a thorn in Cuba's side since the 50's, repeatedly trying to kill Castro and undermine their economic system. Americans live under constant propaganda from their own government, deployed by their own mainstream newspapers and TV media. Chomsky's 'Manufacturing Consent' is an eye opening look into the continuous war/regime change drum that's beating inside the USA. This is just more the same, NY Times writing anti-Cuban articles as propaganda, with no evidence to back up their nonsense claims.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
thefounder 8y ago
Cuba has been led by a dictatorship regime so I can see why US would like to change it. You don't need propaganda to see for yourself that Cuba has no free elections. So far US used sanctions instead of war and it seems it didn't work.
- JetSpiegel 8y ago
  It was a dictatorship before, but the US was supportive then. Only some dictatorships are bad.
- danharaj 8y ago
  The United States has supported dictatorships let alone allowed them to exist. Like Batista. In... Cuba.
- stephen_g 8y ago
  The US has installed or supported more than a few dictators... Do you really think that American intervention has anything to do with democracy?
  - thefounder 8y ago
    I believe people want to promote/support their values and it's the same with the governments. U.S. always tried to install democracies (i.e after ww2, Afganistan) but I've never seen a dictatorship installing or promoting democracies.
    - kart23 8y ago
      Iran??
- Timmah 8y ago
  > no free elections. Neither do the US. Ask Bernie Sanders.
  - notafraudster 8y ago
    A free election doesn't mean people -- even powerful or rich people -- can't campaign against you. It doesn't mean political parties can't internally organize their candidate nomination procedures. And surely it doesn't mean that the candidate who got fewer votes (as Sanders did) is obligated to win. Sanders entered the race polling at 2%, campaigned like hell, got close to winning, and had a material impact on the party's policy trajectory. And he did this despite taking deliberate steps throughout his career to make it harder for himself to take power within a political party -- for example, by not joining the party until he declared his intent to run for its leadership, by not doing much to work with anyone in the party on legislation or fundraising, and generally by keeping a low national profile before deciding to run. Debbie Whatshername emailed saying she was in the tank for Clinton? Yes, duh. Party elders and professional leadership are permitted to have an opinion about who they want to win, If you show up at a club you've been trash-talking for years and expect to take it over, you can't reasonably be mad when the people who have been running it for years have their The idea that the elections aren't free is also undermined by the scattershot way in which Sanders supporters defend institutional design choices. For example, Sanders performed better in states with caucuses than primaries. Caucuses are less democratic, because they induce low turnout because of the high barrier to participation. But Sanders' campaign and his supporters like caucuses. Sanders performed worse in states that did not allow independents to participate in the Democratic party. But Sanders' campaign and his supporters view this rule as an offensive affront to democracy. The common element is not the institutional design ex ante, it's the ex post impact of that design on Sanders' chances. None of the arguments Sanders made about getting a bum rap are evidence of institutional dysfunction. There is no country on earth that has institutions that don't have these characteristics. Many very healthy democracies have internal party leadership conventions that look much like U.S. nominations pre-1968 (only party elders vote, byzantine favor trading to get the nomination) let alone what they look like today, which are much more open and democratic. America has made more progress reforming its primary elections and generally elicits broader participation in them than almost any country. But set aside all this and it's is not even a good case study. If your position is that the system is rigged so that outsider candidates don't win, how do you explain Clinton losing to game theory in the early stages of 2008? How do you explain Trump winning in 2016? Primaries result in outsider candidates winning. This has been one of the main challenges for political scientists, who want to seriously study institutional design. Before 2016, the canonical text on primaries was "The Party Decides" -- that party elites, through endorsement, cross-fundraising, ballot access, and the "invisible primary" decide the outcome of elections. No one is reading "The Party Decides" in 2018 because, well, you see the hell we live in. Disclaimer: I live in America but can't vote here, and I would have voted for Sanders, not Clinton, in the primary. It's not because I'm a neoliberal shill, it's because your post reminded me of a first-year student I taught once who argued that the U.S. isn't a democracy because "Monsanto, maaaaan".

mrb 8y ago

Your link is the first time I hear of mass psychogenic illness. Quite an interesting phenomenon. I particularly liked the case below from 1972. It seems MPI could very well explain these incidents. «In a mid-western university town of over 50,000 population, a strange case of "gas poisoning" occurred on a Wednesday morning early in March, 1972. Approximately thirty-five female workers at the University's data processing center were exposed to a mysterious gas "from an unknown source" that caused dizziness, vomiting, nausea, and fainting among a number of the employees. So severe were the symptoms that 10 of the workers were taken to the University's Medical Center for emergency treatment; all of the employees at the Data Center were evacuated. The Center was temporarily closed allowing for a group of environmental specialists to examine the building. During the remainder of that day and into the night, samples of the air obtained from the building were tested. Extensive blood and urine tests of affected workers were conducted in order to locate traces of the noxious "gas." Although traces of the substance could not 'be found, several workers again became ill upon returning to work Thursday morning. The Data Center was closed and evacuated for the second time. Additional environmental ;and physiological tests were conducted; still no physical reason for the episode could be located. When the Center resumed operation on Friday a group of specialists from the University met with the workers to explain that they thought an "atmospheric inversion" was the cause of their symptoms. This explanation was calculated to reduce the high level of anxiety that had surrounded the activities of the two previous days; the explanation seemed to meet its objective. The incident was "closed" as far as both the workers and the scientists were concerned despite the fact that traditional biomedical explanations had failed to explain the events.» See more at https://sci-hub.tw/10.2307/2136925 https://sci-hub.tw/10.2307/2136925

d0100 8y ago
Mass psych illness is brought up everytime this is discussed
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- no_identd 8y ago
  Indeed: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/12/cuba-mass-hysteria-sonic-attacks-neurologists https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/12/cuba-mass-hyst... But that doesn't make it neccesarily true, see my other comment here, in context with the comment I responded to there: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17894909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17894909

_Codemonkeyism 8y ago

From the linked article: "A score in the bottom 5% would typically mean there is a problem. But Shura pointed out that the diplomats were found to be “impaired” if they scored in the bottom 40% in any one of the tests. In their letter, the doctors said it was “inappropriate” to conclude that any of the patients were impaired. "

hmahncke 8y ago
It’s unfortunately quite challenging to diagnose cognitive impairment based on neuropsychological assessment at a single point in time post-injury. That’s because we don’t know what the person’s level of cognitive function was before the injury. If a person had cognitive function 1 standard deviation above the mean pre-injury (equivalent to an IQ of 115, speaking loosely) and suffered a 1 standard deviation loss as a result of the injury, they would then test in the normal range - but still clearly have suffered damage. The response articles calling for a 5th percentile measure to diagnose impairment are in a sense statistically appropriate - you’d like to see very significant impairment to diagnose it from a single measure - but not sensitive - they will miss a lot of true cases of mild impairment. For example, that threshold would miss virtually all cases of concussion, chemobrain, cognitive impairment in MS, etc.
ScottBurson 8y ago
What these doctors are missing is the power of statistical correlation to separate signal from noise. Yes, a single individual testing below 40% means nothing, but 20 people (or however many it was) all from the same office testing below 40% is starting to be significant.
- _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
  They've tested 6, don't know how they drew the sample.

sd8f9iu 8y ago

>On the one side some 'bad other' could be using an undefined device to attack only American people, only in foreign lands, and for uncertain reasons. If someone were trying to sour US-Cuban relations, then it would make sense that only Americans in Cuba were targeted. It seems highly unlikely that 21 diplomats with the same symptoms (plus those in China) were afflicted with an innocuous medical condition. None of the doctors who wrote letters of dissent physically examined the patients. Though the specific nature of the cause may be up for debate, I highly doubt there was no adversary here.

williamscales 8y ago
I agree that it seems suspicious and this sort of weapon has loomed as a likely culprit from early on. There are very good reasons why someone would carry this out. That said, I feel it would be irresponsible to deny the possibility of a collective delusion. Particularly in an environment where folks are in constant close contact and under a feeling of stress. In my opinion, it's less than highly unlikely.
- matt4077 8y ago
  I would believe diplomats would be somewhat resistant against mass delusion, considering their selection (and possibly training). Mass delusion has also been one of the leading hypothesis from the very first story on this phenomenon. Being aware of the concept would tend to dispel it, which apparently did not happen. I'm sure those with more information have considered that possibility. The ongoing investigation leads me to believe they are not quite as sure of it as the HN crowd is. Maybe some of the cases appeared independently?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]