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How is this any different than a placebo effect? You could give everyone a sugar pill and then if a few people started complaining about the side effects, anoth

How is this any different than a placebo effect? You could give everyone a sugar pill and then if a few people started complaining about the side effects, another 30-40% would quickly follow. The human brain is incredibly susceptible to group think. I can't remember the exact psychological experiment, but I remember learning about how they did an experiment where they'd have a group look at pictures of things to define a color (i.e. the apple is red or green, the milk is white) and there would be person involved who was a collaborator with the study and would be loud and vocal, but every now and then make an obvious mistake (the dot would be orange, they'd say it was yellow) and other people would just agree with them since the other times they were right so the non-collaborators would actually change their answer from what they saw with their own eyes, to something they didn't but was just suggested by the defacto loudmouth in the group.

GuB-42 3y ago
That's what "psychosomatic" means. But the prospect you raise is maybe one of the scariest and lends itself well to conspiracies. It can mean someone, maybe deliberately, caused some mysterious illness among diplomats, through suggestion alone, causing international tension. Not my hypothesis of choice, but it may actually be a more plausible conspiracy theory than sonic weapons. Something happened, and something caused it. Just saying "it is a placebo effect" is dismissive. If it is a placebo effect, then where are the sugar pills? Who is the "loud and vocal collaborator"? It made more than a thousand people sick, I think it shouldn't be dismissed, so that these people can get better, and to prevent others from suffering the same problems. Knowing the cause, be it psychological or physical, would certainly help.
- adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
  the fact that it affected 1000 people doesn't really matter. all you really have to do is explain the first 2, which can be something as benign as a social hypochondriac woke up with a headache.
  - GuB-42 3y ago
    It matters to those 1000. And explaining the first 2 is indeed all we need to do, but it hasn't been done yet. If it is just a social hypochondriac with a headache, fine, it is perfectly good explanation that will help treat these 1000 people and maybe take steps to limit damage caused by social hypochondriacs in embassies.
    - diogenescynic 3y ago
      I bet it had to do with the 'Trump is a Russian agent propaganda' we were all fed for the last 8 years. Probably made people who were actually working for the government in risky positions abroad (i.e. Cuba vs Netherlands) super paranoid and vulnerable. I mean, wasn't it also Rachel Maddow who covered all this Havana Syndrome the most? I truly wonder how many people who had Havana Syndrome were watching MSNBC for hours a day.

GuB-42 3y ago

That's what "psychosomatic" means. But the prospect you raise is maybe one of the scariest and lends itself well to conspiracies. It can mean someone, maybe deliberately, caused some mysterious illness among diplomats, through suggestion alone, causing international tension. Not my hypothesis of choice, but it may actually be a more plausible conspiracy theory than sonic weapons. Something happened, and something caused it. Just saying "it is a placebo effect" is dismissive. If it is a placebo effect, then where are the sugar pills? Who is the "loud and vocal collaborator"? It made more than a thousand people sick, I think it shouldn't be dismissed, so that these people can get better, and to prevent others from suffering the same problems. Knowing the cause, be it psychological or physical, would certainly help.

adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
the fact that it affected 1000 people doesn't really matter. all you really have to do is explain the first 2, which can be something as benign as a social hypochondriac woke up with a headache.
- GuB-42 3y ago
  It matters to those 1000. And explaining the first 2 is indeed all we need to do, but it hasn't been done yet. If it is just a social hypochondriac with a headache, fine, it is perfectly good explanation that will help treat these 1000 people and maybe take steps to limit damage caused by social hypochondriacs in embassies.
  - diogenescynic 3y ago
    I bet it had to do with the 'Trump is a Russian agent propaganda' we were all fed for the last 8 years. Probably made people who were actually working for the government in risky positions abroad (i.e. Cuba vs Netherlands) super paranoid and vulnerable. I mean, wasn't it also Rachel Maddow who covered all this Havana Syndrome the most? I truly wonder how many people who had Havana Syndrome were watching MSNBC for hours a day.