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Larissa MacFarquhar on Getting Inside Someone’s Head

77 points by jeffreyrogers 8y ago

oskkejdjdkjd 8y ago
I thought this would be about the psychology of “getting inside” someone’s head. I think it’s a very interesting phenomenon when someone says something to you and you can’t seem to shake it, and it bothers you for days or weeks. I’m very sensitive to it. I believe it’s a very important window into how the mind works. That’s one reason why it’s interesting. The other is that understanding this phenomenon would be very powerful — to never allow anyone to “get under your skin” would make you a much more powerful and productive person. I have read that the unibomber, before he started bombing, was subjected to an experiment under the mk-ultra program. The experiment was psycological cross-examination. Ted was taken into a room and asked about certain things, things that were probably very important to him — fundamental beliefs that perhaps he didn’t even realize were fundamental to his psychology. Then, with all of that established, he was cross-examined and inconsistencies in those beliefs were brought to his attention or in some way de-stabilized. It was after this that his descent into insanity began which ultimately resulted in the bombings. This concept of “getting inside your head” is much more important than it is given credit for — completely untapped and unexplored as far as I can tell. I really wish I could understand it. But I can’t really find much when I google around for it. Nobody seems to talk or think about this online. Not in the way I do which is viewing it as an exploit in the human mind.
- bitexploder 8y ago
  He wasn’t insane in the clinical since. Destabilized is a better descriptor. I think he harbored such a deep resentment it warped his world view. But not insane. Check out the fiction novel Lexicon and or Snow Crash. They explore language in interesting ways.
- withdavidli 8y ago
  Not sure if I understand your concept correctly, sounds like Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).
- renholder 8y ago
  It isn't anywhere near as unexplored or untapped, as one might believe. Waterboarding in Guantanamo Bay[0] is a principal example of how these exploits have been explored and later implemented. The tools were "developed" somewhere, tested, "perfected", defined, and then later implemented by training people to execute the methods and then the later execution of those methods. The problem with these "psychological operations", as they're called, is that they don't take into account the ill-effects we've seen in time immemorial. Let's say, for example, you've been tortured for 'x' days. How long before you 'break' and just admit to crimes you've never committed or implicate innocent people - all just to get the torture to stop? "...but that wouldn't happen. People would never point the finger at other innocent people." Oh, yeah? See: The Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism as principal examples. (I'm assuming that you're American, at least, and - as such - you'd already be familiar with how those played-out.) In normal parlance, this has been grouped into two seperate notions: Pychological Operations[1] and Psychological Warfare[2]. MKUltra[3] was, itself, specifically about mind-control, in order to obtain information and/or confessions. So, you're definitely not the only one interested in it or in talking about it; however, it's entirely plausible that having an interest in this is something that lands us on yet another list... Yay. =[ [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp#Torture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp#... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_operations_(United_States) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_operations_(Unit... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_warfare [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    >...but that wouldn't happen. People would never point the finger at other innocent people." Oh, yeah? See: The Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism as principal examples. (I'm assuming that you're American, at least, and - as such - you'd already be familiar with how those played-out.) Nitpick: The Boston area was basically settled by the Christian Taliban (they were kicked out of England for being too fundamentalist) so when it comes to human rights and treating people with dignity they were behind the times (to put it charitably). The witch trails of the 1690s are roughly analogous to the local warlord having a few minor criminals shot in order to send the message that everyone needs to get their shit together and quit fighting among themselves. You saw that kind of stuff a lot in the middle ages where some lord might have a family cut down without due process because they had some grievance and refused to pay tax/tribute. The Salem witch trials only made it into the history books because the rest of the world had long since moved on from that sort of thing. Obviously that sort of stuff isn't compatible with modern values but that's just how society (in the Boston area at least) worked back then.
- jo909 8y ago
  There is a very large industry that specializes in exploiting the human mind: advertising/marketing. Of course the behavior/opinion changes they are after are somewhat limited and not too bad, and the effectiveness debatable, but they are trying hard. And machine learning is already in use.
Pyxl101 8y ago
I'm sorry to post off-topic but... I find this very hard to ignore: When did Medium gain these huge annoying banners that can't be dismissed at the top and bottom of the page? > Never miss a story from Conversations with Tyler, when you sign up for Medium. Learn more. Get Updates I tend to read at larger than 100% font and these banners take up a disproportionate amount of space. At 125% zoom these banners together seem to take up about a third of the total vertical reading space. If this B.S. has to be there for some reason, why not it put on the side of the page which is otherwise unused whitespace? Sigh. Or why not put it at the end of the article? If people really like Conversations with Tyler, and want to read more, then they've presumably read to the bottom of the page.
- usgroup 8y ago
  Surely just use reader mode on your browser? Then you don’t need to worry about banners...
- Brajeshwar 8y ago
  Recently, I discovered Outline[1] here on HackerNews. I just hit it when reading articles that are not focused on the article (ads, sidebars). I believe Outline is for a different purpose but this is good for me to just read the article. 1. https://outline.com https://outline.com
  - mirimir 8y ago
    That's very cool! Thanks.
- mirimir 8y ago
  Well, you can open code inspector, and delete whatever you don't like. You get to keep more design than just using reader mode. But it takes more time.
paganel 8y ago
> I think this notion that trying to help people, sacrificing yourself to help people was a sickness became very widespread, especially in the ’70s and ’80s under the better-known term codependency. It’s part of our now unconscious culture, the way we look at altruists. When we hear about them, many people think first, “Are they sick?” I personally wouldn't go that far as calling a person "sick" for being extremely altruistic but it is generally well-known that gifts/free things are never really "free". For a sociological view on gifts/altruism not being genuinely "free" there's Marcel Mauss's classic "The Gift" [1], while from personal experience I can tell that I used to be taught by both my peasant Eastern-European grand-mothers to never accept free stuff from our neighbors (like going to eat at their place or something similar), the reasoning being that those neighbors would most certainly want something in return at some point in the future. In a similar vein there's this Seinfeld season 3 episode called "The Pen" [2], where Jerry accepts a "free" pen as a gift from one of his parents' neighbors and, obviously, that turns out not to have been the best idea. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gift_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gift_(book) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pen
- moopling 8y ago
  'it is generally well-known that gifts/free things are never really "free"' Although for some definition of altruism, this could always be argued to be true, I think this misses some nuances. If you give to charity (say with motivation being a relief from guilt or a feeling of social duty), I think most people would consider that an altruistic action. In that situation, you have no real expectation of future return, so I would say the gift was "free". Or similarly, when you care for a dying relative, there is often no expectation of benefit other than from the act of giving itself.
  - paganel 8y ago
    > Or similarly, when you care for a dying relative, there is often no expectation of benefit other than from the act of giving itself. In doing so you may inadvertently "program" your children/younger relatives to also take care of you once you get older, by the power of example. There's of course nothing wrong with that, because that's how human society has worked for millennia until very recently (when we've started outsourcing elderly care outside of the close circle of relatives), I just wanted to point out that there are a lot of costs and benefits "hidden" in humans' social interactions which are not easily identifiable by the modern eye.
yboris 8y ago
I absolutely LOVED her book Strangers Drowning: Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Urge to Help https://www.amazon.com/Strangers-Drowning-Impossible-Idealism-Drastic/dp/0143109782 https://www.amazon.com/Strangers-Drowning-Impossible-Idealis...
gwern 8y ago
For a sample, see her excellent article "Last Call: A Buddhist monk confronts Japan’s suicide culture." https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/06/24/last-call-3 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/06/24/last-call-3 (Also surprisingly relevant to maintaining OSS packages, IMO.)

77 points by jeffreyrogers 8y ago

I thought this would be about the psychology of “getting inside” someone’s head. I think it’s a very interesting phenomenon when someone says something to you and you can’t seem to shake it, and it bothers you for days or weeks. I’m very sensitive to it. I believe it’s a very important window into how the mind works. That’s one reason why it’s interesting. The other is that understanding this phenomenon would be very powerful — to never allow anyone to “get under your skin” would make you a much more powerful and productive person. I have read that the unibomber, before he started bombing, was subjected to an experiment under the mk-ultra program. The experiment was psycological cross-examination. Ted was taken into a room and asked about certain things, things that were probably very important to him — fundamental beliefs that perhaps he didn’t even realize were fundamental to his psychology. Then, with all of that established, he was cross-examined and inconsistencies in those beliefs were brought to his attention or in some way de-stabilized. It was after this that his descent into insanity began which ultimately resulted in the bombings. This concept of “getting inside your head” is much more important than it is given credit for — completely untapped and unexplored as far as I can tell. I really wish I could understand it. But I can’t really find much when I google around for it. Nobody seems to talk or think about this online. Not in the way I do which is viewing it as an exploit in the human mind.

bitexploder 8y ago
He wasn’t insane in the clinical since. Destabilized is a better descriptor. I think he harbored such a deep resentment it warped his world view. But not insane. Check out the fiction novel Lexicon and or Snow Crash. They explore language in interesting ways.
withdavidli 8y ago
Not sure if I understand your concept correctly, sounds like Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).
renholder 8y ago
It isn't anywhere near as unexplored or untapped, as one might believe. Waterboarding in Guantanamo Bay[0] is a principal example of how these exploits have been explored and later implemented. The tools were "developed" somewhere, tested, "perfected", defined, and then later implemented by training people to execute the methods and then the later execution of those methods. The problem with these "psychological operations", as they're called, is that they don't take into account the ill-effects we've seen in time immemorial. Let's say, for example, you've been tortured for 'x' days. How long before you 'break' and just admit to crimes you've never committed or implicate innocent people - all just to get the torture to stop? "...but that wouldn't happen. People would never point the finger at other innocent people." Oh, yeah? See: The Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism as principal examples. (I'm assuming that you're American, at least, and - as such - you'd already be familiar with how those played-out.) In normal parlance, this has been grouped into two seperate notions: Pychological Operations[1] and Psychological Warfare[2]. MKUltra[3] was, itself, specifically about mind-control, in order to obtain information and/or confessions. So, you're definitely not the only one interested in it or in talking about it; however, it's entirely plausible that having an interest in this is something that lands us on yet another list... Yay. =[ [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp#Torture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp#... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_operations_(United_States) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_operations_(Unit... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_warfare [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  >...but that wouldn't happen. People would never point the finger at other innocent people." Oh, yeah? See: The Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism as principal examples. (I'm assuming that you're American, at least, and - as such - you'd already be familiar with how those played-out.) Nitpick: The Boston area was basically settled by the Christian Taliban (they were kicked out of England for being too fundamentalist) so when it comes to human rights and treating people with dignity they were behind the times (to put it charitably). The witch trails of the 1690s are roughly analogous to the local warlord having a few minor criminals shot in order to send the message that everyone needs to get their shit together and quit fighting among themselves. You saw that kind of stuff a lot in the middle ages where some lord might have a family cut down without due process because they had some grievance and refused to pay tax/tribute. The Salem witch trials only made it into the history books because the rest of the world had long since moved on from that sort of thing. Obviously that sort of stuff isn't compatible with modern values but that's just how society (in the Boston area at least) worked back then.
jo909 8y ago
There is a very large industry that specializes in exploiting the human mind: advertising/marketing. Of course the behavior/opinion changes they are after are somewhat limited and not too bad, and the effectiveness debatable, but they are trying hard. And machine learning is already in use.

Pyxl101 8y ago

I'm sorry to post off-topic but... I find this very hard to ignore: When did Medium gain these huge annoying banners that can't be dismissed at the top and bottom of the page? > Never miss a story from Conversations with Tyler, when you sign up for Medium. Learn more. Get Updates I tend to read at larger than 100% font and these banners take up a disproportionate amount of space. At 125% zoom these banners together seem to take up about a third of the total vertical reading space. If this B.S. has to be there for some reason, why not it put on the side of the page which is otherwise unused whitespace? Sigh. Or why not put it at the end of the article? If people really like Conversations with Tyler, and want to read more, then they've presumably read to the bottom of the page.

usgroup 8y ago
Surely just use reader mode on your browser? Then you don’t need to worry about banners...
Brajeshwar 8y ago
Recently, I discovered Outline[1] here on HackerNews. I just hit it when reading articles that are not focused on the article (ads, sidebars). I believe Outline is for a different purpose but this is good for me to just read the article. 1. https://outline.com https://outline.com
- mirimir 8y ago
  That's very cool! Thanks.
mirimir 8y ago
Well, you can open code inspector, and delete whatever you don't like. You get to keep more design than just using reader mode. But it takes more time.

paganel 8y ago

> I think this notion that trying to help people, sacrificing yourself to help people was a sickness became very widespread, especially in the ’70s and ’80s under the better-known term codependency. It’s part of our now unconscious culture, the way we look at altruists. When we hear about them, many people think first, “Are they sick?” I personally wouldn't go that far as calling a person "sick" for being extremely altruistic but it is generally well-known that gifts/free things are never really "free". For a sociological view on gifts/altruism not being genuinely "free" there's Marcel Mauss's classic "The Gift" [1], while from personal experience I can tell that I used to be taught by both my peasant Eastern-European grand-mothers to never accept free stuff from our neighbors (like going to eat at their place or something similar), the reasoning being that those neighbors would most certainly want something in return at some point in the future. In a similar vein there's this Seinfeld season 3 episode called "The Pen" [2], where Jerry accepts a "free" pen as a gift from one of his parents' neighbors and, obviously, that turns out not to have been the best idea. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gift_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gift_(book) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pen

moopling 8y ago
'it is generally well-known that gifts/free things are never really "free"' Although for some definition of altruism, this could always be argued to be true, I think this misses some nuances. If you give to charity (say with motivation being a relief from guilt or a feeling of social duty), I think most people would consider that an altruistic action. In that situation, you have no real expectation of future return, so I would say the gift was "free". Or similarly, when you care for a dying relative, there is often no expectation of benefit other than from the act of giving itself.
- paganel 8y ago
  > Or similarly, when you care for a dying relative, there is often no expectation of benefit other than from the act of giving itself. In doing so you may inadvertently "program" your children/younger relatives to also take care of you once you get older, by the power of example. There's of course nothing wrong with that, because that's how human society has worked for millennia until very recently (when we've started outsourcing elderly care outside of the close circle of relatives), I just wanted to point out that there are a lot of costs and benefits "hidden" in humans' social interactions which are not easily identifiable by the modern eye.

yboris 8y ago

I absolutely LOVED her book Strangers Drowning: Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Urge to Help https://www.amazon.com/Strangers-Drowning-Impossible-Idealism-Drastic/dp/0143109782 https://www.amazon.com/Strangers-Drowning-Impossible-Idealis...

gwern 8y ago

For a sample, see her excellent article "Last Call: A Buddhist monk confronts Japan’s suicide culture." https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/06/24/last-call-3 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/06/24/last-call-3 (Also surprisingly relevant to maintaining OSS packages, IMO.)