8 ms·

This is unreal. It feels like something out of the Marvel universe.

giancarlostoro 7y ago
Freight train! But yeah, I usually tell people, MK Ultra is legit just cause tinfoil people talk about it doesnt make it made up. The question to the person interested is how much was proven?
- dijit 7y ago
  It always interests me how we discount the ideas of “tinfoil” people because they are “tinfoil” people. If we take some radical examples, Snowden proved what we all assumed was possible- if you had said what he proved then people would have assumed you were a tinfoil hatter. And how many times was Stallman proved correct? Even I considered him too much, but he’s also often right.
  - krapp 7y ago
    On the other hand, just because MKUltra existed, it doesn't follow that it was successful and that the CIA can control your mind through your television and through chemicals in the food and water supply. Yet "tinfoil" people assume the latter from the former almost universally. Let's not abandon the premise that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof in favor of assuming that any conspiracy theory, however outlandish, should be assumed correct simply because some conspiracies have been proven to exist in the past. People don't doubt "tinfoil hat people" because of who they are, but because they don't care to present evidence to back up their claims, or accept evidence to the contrary.
    - dijit 7y ago
      But let’s take the original premise: the US government wanted a means of controlling how people thought. Do you believe they abandoned that pursuit after a failed experiment 50 years ago? Do you believe they abandoned it forever?
      - krapp 7y ago
        >Do you believe they abandoned that pursuit after a failed experiment 50 years ago? I believe direct mind control of that sort is infeasible, certainly likely impossible at the scale of entire populations, so I do believe they abandoned that specific pursuit after discovering that the human brain and LSD didn't work the way they hoped. The government also looked into remote viewing and psychic assassinations, but I don't believe they just kept on trying that either. >Do you believe they abandoned it forever? The goal? Probably not. The means? Probably. I believe it's more effective in modern society to influence people through disinformation campaigns and popular culture, particularly though social media, than attempt to control them like puppets by secretly dosing them with LSD and barbiturates.
        mistermann 7y ago
        > I believe it's more effective in modern society to influence people through disinformation campaigns and popular culture, particularly though social media, than attempt to control them like puppets by secretly dosing them with LSD and barbiturates. I agree. What's interesting about LSD though is that it can provide extremely useful insight into the underlying nature of beliefs, or how an individual came to believe certain things, or why they feel a certain way. Knowing more of these details seems like it would be extremely useful in the development of propaganda campaigns.
        ncmncm 7y ago
        Indeed, Guantanamo victims do not report drug use. But the widespread, in some cases (Ted Koppel, Tom Friedman) rabid support for the Iraq debacle is prima facie evidence for its continued use.
      - PavlovsCat 7y ago
        Whenever I see stuff like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21164686 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21164686 I think of > If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then? -- George Orwell Similar for "brain/machine interface to help paralyzed people", to be perfectly blunt. I don't mean it's all just a cute narrative to get the tech going, but the thought that the same centers of power and wealth, that have no problem bombing people so they're dead or paralyzed or whatever_we_dont_actually_care_besides_PR_fallout, might truly care about helping the paralyzed... I can't buy that, or anything like it. Most individual researchers, all but very few, have benign intentions and awesome aspirations, I'm sure, but overall, reading and writing the mind is just too temping to not override all the nice words and hopes when it gets within reach and push comes to shove. I'd say it's a very old desire, which simply hasn't let up. It's not restricted to the US governments or governments in general either, any small cult does it, every abuser in a relationship does, in a low-tech way.
  - jgrowl 7y ago
    Maybe someone can help me because the exact details seem to escape me... but I remember hearing a story about a man that stumbled upon a secret government signal and he reported it thinking that it might be Russian spies. Well the government basically misled him into thinking it was an alien signal for years. The guy never could believe the truth even after his handlers told him that it was all lies. Sometimes crazy is just crazy; other times it is nurtured along. Intelligence ops use this as a tool for sure.
    - cerealbad 7y ago
      Mirage Men.
  - beerandt 7y ago
    This is identity politics and tribalism in it's most basic form. Rationality and individual thinking being pushed to the margins, lest you be labeled a "tinfoil" person and become a social outcast as well.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    we generally discount the ideas of "tinfoil" people because their ideas have a very low signal-to-noise ratio. if you say all kinds of crazy stuff, some of it will eventually be true. this doesn't make it a good idea to conduct your life as if these claims were true. you'll be prepared for the small number of conspiracy theories that turn out to be true, but you'll likely incur a far larger cost by avoiding all sorts of threats that aren't actually real. maybe there's a guy outside waiting to kill me when I go out to lunch. it's possible, but it's much more likely that I'll die of starvation if I avoid him by never going outside. when it comes to the government in particular, if it's possible to do X and it's possible to keep X secret, they're probably already doing it. if X is relevant to you, you should certainly take it into account regarding your threat model, but you should probably mitigate known risks first.
    - mistermann 7y ago
      > you'll be prepared for the small number of conspiracy theories that turn out to be true, but you'll likely incur a far larger cost by avoiding all sorts of threats that aren't actually real. This seems like a false dichotomy....it is possible (well, for some people at least, or at least in theory) to consider conspiracy theories using disciplined reasoning, perhaps assigning a "likelihood score" to each one. I believe that by society avoiding them altogether, and their oddly visceral (natural, or conditioned?) reaction of disgust to them when they do encounter them, it allows those who are conducting covert operations of any kind a very great degree of latitude. I mean, look at how long a subset of society knew about Epstein, and even once it does accidentally burst into the mainstream, poof it's forgotten, even though it involves the sexual abuse of children, one of societies most emotional traumatizing topics. There's a lot of very interesting human psychology involved here.
      - leetcrew 7y ago
        > This seems like a false dichotomy....it is possible (well, for some people at least, or at least in theory) to consider conspiracy theories using disciplined reasoning, perhaps assigning a "likelihood score" to each one. the problem is that most conspiracy theories are internally consistent; they tie up a lot of loose ends if you're willing to assume a couple wild premises. the flat earth conspiracy is plausible if you're willing to believe that every astronaut, airline pilot, and everyone else in a position to verify the curvature of the earth is in on it. to me the unreasonable premises are what make a theory have the "tinfoil" quality. the idea that there's an international ring of powerful child sex traffickers is plausible; the idea that a specific person is involved is not as plausible until you have more evidence than a bunch of emails about pizza.
- chvid 7y ago
  The Church committee hearing documented a lot of this stuff so it is proven in that sense. Another question is whether these techniques actually work in the sense that you can hypnotise someone to commit a murder using lsd or something. Probably not is my guess.
  - ncmncm 7y ago
    Very evidently you can hypnotise the public to support mass murder, using the techniques they finally evolved. It has worked again and again, most prominently in driving support for invading Iraq. As it was taught in other places in the world, we may guess that ISIS, FARC, and other movements learned to apply the methods for their own purposes. Anywhere you find ordinary people committing extreme atrocities, there are its (or its Soviet or Chinese counterparts') fingerprints.
    - detaro 7y ago
      So people were more opposed to mass-murder before the 1950s?
      - ncmncm 7y ago
        Before the 90s. Yes.
    - chvid 7y ago
      I believe that is done using old-fashioned lies and bullshit ... not LSD.
      - ncmncm 7y ago
        LSD was a method tried, under the program, that failed. The program moved on to more effective methods.
afandian 7y ago
This is why nationalism / patriotism is so destructive (edit: in blinding us to the possibility). We are all humans no matter where we live. Humans, in aggregate, have repeatedly over the years committed atrocities. And we will again, unless actively prevented. Being 'the best country in the world' (which ever one) is irrelevant. Then again tribal exceptionalism is in our nature too. I'm still troubled by the memory of a well educated intelligent American refuse to believe that the US uses torture when the Guantanamo revelations came to light.
- ravenstine 7y ago
  What does this have to do specifically with nationalism? A globalist government could conceivably do the same things.
  - afandian 7y ago
    Specifically the belief that "my country would never do that". It's crucial to be able to believe that it can happen.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - read_if_gay_ 7y ago
      That seems like a very minor connection to nationalism. Also, lots of other political ideologies put a similar amount of faith in their government. I don't see a reason to single out nationalism at all beyond maybe pushing your agenda. The real lesson to be learned from this is not that nationalism is bad but that people should not trust their governments.
      - afandian 7y ago
        Who cares what the precise political ideology is? It's the same human characteristic.
codr7 7y ago
Which is why we're taking our sweet time accepting it. This is pretty much our world in a nutshell. Wherever you start digging you run into the same level of insanity, abuse and lies to gain more power using whatever means possible.

Freight train! But yeah, I usually tell people, MK Ultra is legit just cause tinfoil people talk about it doesnt make it made up. The question to the person interested is how much was proven?

dijit 7y ago
It always interests me how we discount the ideas of “tinfoil” people because they are “tinfoil” people. If we take some radical examples, Snowden proved what we all assumed was possible- if you had said what he proved then people would have assumed you were a tinfoil hatter. And how many times was Stallman proved correct? Even I considered him too much, but he’s also often right.
- krapp 7y ago
  On the other hand, just because MKUltra existed, it doesn't follow that it was successful and that the CIA can control your mind through your television and through chemicals in the food and water supply. Yet "tinfoil" people assume the latter from the former almost universally. Let's not abandon the premise that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof in favor of assuming that any conspiracy theory, however outlandish, should be assumed correct simply because some conspiracies have been proven to exist in the past. People don't doubt "tinfoil hat people" because of who they are, but because they don't care to present evidence to back up their claims, or accept evidence to the contrary.
  - dijit 7y ago
    But let’s take the original premise: the US government wanted a means of controlling how people thought. Do you believe they abandoned that pursuit after a failed experiment 50 years ago? Do you believe they abandoned it forever?
    - krapp 7y ago
      >Do you believe they abandoned that pursuit after a failed experiment 50 years ago? I believe direct mind control of that sort is infeasible, certainly likely impossible at the scale of entire populations, so I do believe they abandoned that specific pursuit after discovering that the human brain and LSD didn't work the way they hoped. The government also looked into remote viewing and psychic assassinations, but I don't believe they just kept on trying that either. >Do you believe they abandoned it forever? The goal? Probably not. The means? Probably. I believe it's more effective in modern society to influence people through disinformation campaigns and popular culture, particularly though social media, than attempt to control them like puppets by secretly dosing them with LSD and barbiturates.
      - mistermann 7y ago
        > I believe it's more effective in modern society to influence people through disinformation campaigns and popular culture, particularly though social media, than attempt to control them like puppets by secretly dosing them with LSD and barbiturates. I agree. What's interesting about LSD though is that it can provide extremely useful insight into the underlying nature of beliefs, or how an individual came to believe certain things, or why they feel a certain way. Knowing more of these details seems like it would be extremely useful in the development of propaganda campaigns.
      - ncmncm 7y ago
        Indeed, Guantanamo victims do not report drug use. But the widespread, in some cases (Ted Koppel, Tom Friedman) rabid support for the Iraq debacle is prima facie evidence for its continued use.
    - PavlovsCat 7y ago
      Whenever I see stuff like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21164686 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21164686 I think of > If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then? -- George Orwell Similar for "brain/machine interface to help paralyzed people", to be perfectly blunt. I don't mean it's all just a cute narrative to get the tech going, but the thought that the same centers of power and wealth, that have no problem bombing people so they're dead or paralyzed or whatever_we_dont_actually_care_besides_PR_fallout, might truly care about helping the paralyzed... I can't buy that, or anything like it. Most individual researchers, all but very few, have benign intentions and awesome aspirations, I'm sure, but overall, reading and writing the mind is just too temping to not override all the nice words and hopes when it gets within reach and push comes to shove. I'd say it's a very old desire, which simply hasn't let up. It's not restricted to the US governments or governments in general either, any small cult does it, every abuser in a relationship does, in a low-tech way.
- jgrowl 7y ago
  Maybe someone can help me because the exact details seem to escape me... but I remember hearing a story about a man that stumbled upon a secret government signal and he reported it thinking that it might be Russian spies. Well the government basically misled him into thinking it was an alien signal for years. The guy never could believe the truth even after his handlers told him that it was all lies. Sometimes crazy is just crazy; other times it is nurtured along. Intelligence ops use this as a tool for sure.
  - cerealbad 7y ago
    Mirage Men.
- beerandt 7y ago
  This is identity politics and tribalism in it's most basic form. Rationality and individual thinking being pushed to the margins, lest you be labeled a "tinfoil" person and become a social outcast as well.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  we generally discount the ideas of "tinfoil" people because their ideas have a very low signal-to-noise ratio. if you say all kinds of crazy stuff, some of it will eventually be true. this doesn't make it a good idea to conduct your life as if these claims were true. you'll be prepared for the small number of conspiracy theories that turn out to be true, but you'll likely incur a far larger cost by avoiding all sorts of threats that aren't actually real. maybe there's a guy outside waiting to kill me when I go out to lunch. it's possible, but it's much more likely that I'll die of starvation if I avoid him by never going outside. when it comes to the government in particular, if it's possible to do X and it's possible to keep X secret, they're probably already doing it. if X is relevant to you, you should certainly take it into account regarding your threat model, but you should probably mitigate known risks first.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    > you'll be prepared for the small number of conspiracy theories that turn out to be true, but you'll likely incur a far larger cost by avoiding all sorts of threats that aren't actually real. This seems like a false dichotomy....it is possible (well, for some people at least, or at least in theory) to consider conspiracy theories using disciplined reasoning, perhaps assigning a "likelihood score" to each one. I believe that by society avoiding them altogether, and their oddly visceral (natural, or conditioned?) reaction of disgust to them when they do encounter them, it allows those who are conducting covert operations of any kind a very great degree of latitude. I mean, look at how long a subset of society knew about Epstein, and even once it does accidentally burst into the mainstream, poof it's forgotten, even though it involves the sexual abuse of children, one of societies most emotional traumatizing topics. There's a lot of very interesting human psychology involved here.
    - leetcrew 7y ago
      > This seems like a false dichotomy....it is possible (well, for some people at least, or at least in theory) to consider conspiracy theories using disciplined reasoning, perhaps assigning a "likelihood score" to each one. the problem is that most conspiracy theories are internally consistent; they tie up a lot of loose ends if you're willing to assume a couple wild premises. the flat earth conspiracy is plausible if you're willing to believe that every astronaut, airline pilot, and everyone else in a position to verify the curvature of the earth is in on it. to me the unreasonable premises are what make a theory have the "tinfoil" quality. the idea that there's an international ring of powerful child sex traffickers is plausible; the idea that a specific person is involved is not as plausible until you have more evidence than a bunch of emails about pizza.
chvid 7y ago
The Church committee hearing documented a lot of this stuff so it is proven in that sense. Another question is whether these techniques actually work in the sense that you can hypnotise someone to commit a murder using lsd or something. Probably not is my guess.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  Very evidently you can hypnotise the public to support mass murder, using the techniques they finally evolved. It has worked again and again, most prominently in driving support for invading Iraq. As it was taught in other places in the world, we may guess that ISIS, FARC, and other movements learned to apply the methods for their own purposes. Anywhere you find ordinary people committing extreme atrocities, there are its (or its Soviet or Chinese counterparts') fingerprints.
  - detaro 7y ago
    So people were more opposed to mass-murder before the 1950s?
    - ncmncm 7y ago
      Before the 90s. Yes.
  - chvid 7y ago
    I believe that is done using old-fashioned lies and bullshit ... not LSD.
    - ncmncm 7y ago
      LSD was a method tried, under the program, that failed. The program moved on to more effective methods.

afandian 7y ago

This is why nationalism / patriotism is so destructive (edit: in blinding us to the possibility). We are all humans no matter where we live. Humans, in aggregate, have repeatedly over the years committed atrocities. And we will again, unless actively prevented. Being 'the best country in the world' (which ever one) is irrelevant. Then again tribal exceptionalism is in our nature too. I'm still troubled by the memory of a well educated intelligent American refuse to believe that the US uses torture when the Guantanamo revelations came to light.

ravenstine 7y ago
What does this have to do specifically with nationalism? A globalist government could conceivably do the same things.
- afandian 7y ago
  Specifically the belief that "my country would never do that". It's crucial to be able to believe that it can happen.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - read_if_gay_ 7y ago
    That seems like a very minor connection to nationalism. Also, lots of other political ideologies put a similar amount of faith in their government. I don't see a reason to single out nationalism at all beyond maybe pushing your agenda. The real lesson to be learned from this is not that nationalism is bad but that people should not trust their governments.
    - afandian 7y ago
      Who cares what the precise political ideology is? It's the same human characteristic.

codr7 7y ago

Which is why we're taking our sweet time accepting it. This is pretty much our world in a nutshell. Wherever you start digging you run into the same level of insanity, abuse and lies to gain more power using whatever means possible.