4 ms·

Just as a heads up Yuri was called out as largely being full of shit by people like Jack Barsky who was basically the IRL version of the TV the Americans. Also

by mdhb 2y ago

Just as a heads up Yuri was called out as largely being full of shit by people like Jack Barsky who was basically the IRL version of the TV the Americans. Also I’m not familiar with that second link but it gives me major red flags at first glance. There is some ok stuff out there on that topic. One of the darker ones that comes to mind came out of the 80s when Hezbollah kidnapped the CIA station chief in Lebanon and then basically used him as a real life experiment of just how badly can you psychologically torture someone and give them the slowest shittiest death possible I think it was a 15 month process in the end and it’s probably one of if not the most horrifying story I’ve ever heard. There’s lots of places to get that story but I believe one of the people who lead that torture also wrote a book about it but I’ve not read it personally.

rramadass 2y ago
There is a lot of info. on Bezmenov both pro and con and you have to listen to what he says and form a judgement yourself as to whether that is plausible. Everything about him has been muddied (even how exactly he died!) and hence all sources are questionable. The second book on "Brainwashing" is unfortunately named (not to be confused with an older book of the same name by L.Ron Hubbard of Scientology infamy) but the author's credentials are stellar - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Taylor_(biologist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Taylor_(biologist) It is not a woo-woo book but a scientific one; the last paragraph in the wikipedia page states; Peter Knight believes that Taylor sufficiently "argues that there is no need to invoke the notion of brainwashing as a mysterious and fear-inducing explanation as a last resort" – to Taylor, "brainwashing is less scary than people might think because it is in fact not some magical, secret and ultra-efficient technique of thought control" but a "mundane and ubiquitous" neurological phenomenon that can be understood scientifically. The first book on "Deception" will in a sense set the background since it focuses on deception as fundamental to everything else. This has already been called out in ancient classic texts on statecraft/warfare by Kautilya, Sun Tzu, Machiavelli etc. Example excerpt; They were a metaphor for a world in which he saw deception as a norm rather than an aberration. It was a world in which intelligence services could be provoked, seduced, lured into false trails, blinded, and turned into unwitting agents—through the same failure to discriminate between real and simulated information. The reason it is important for the "common man" to learn about these is because many of these techniques are being used against him under the guise of "harmless business" PR/Advertising/Sales/Marketing/Influence etc. and much much worse eg. Nationalism, Religious Fundamentalism etc. PS: One more book to read (difficult) is "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes" by Jacques Ellul - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda:_The_Formation_of_Men%27s_Attitudes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda:_The_Formation_of_M... Excerpts below; "Very frequently propaganda is described as a manipulation for the purpose of changing idea or opinions of making individuals 'believe' some idea or fact, and finally of making them adhere to some doctrine—all matters of the mind. It tries to convince, to bring about a decision, to create a firm adherence to some truth. This is a completely wrong line of thinking: to view propaganda as still being what it was in 1850 is to cling to an obsolete concept of man and of the means to influence him; it is to condemn oneself to understand nothing about propaganda. The aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas, but to provoke action. It is no longer to change adherence to a doctrine, but to make the individual cling irrationally to a process of action. It is no longer to transform an opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief." Education permits the dissemination of propaganda in that it enables people to consume information. Information is indistinguishable from propaganda in that information is an essential element of propaganda because for propaganda to succeed it must have reference to political or economic reality. Propaganda grafts itself onto an already existing reality through "informed opinion".
- mdhb 2y ago
  I wish I could find the source now where Barsky was very patiently trying to explain to some right wing podcast bro exactly WHY Bezmenov was full of shit because it was fairly definitive for any person with even a basic understanding of intelligence but I assure you it really wasn’t a “both sides” kind of issue.
  - rramadass 2y ago
    Jack Barsky himself is suspect, Nothing is ever definitively "True" to an outside observer in these subjects. The "Deception" book mentioned above says this; ... Rocca now switched to a more conditional and hypothetical tone. "Soviet intelligence had demonstrated with the Trust a capacity for future deceptions." He spoke almost proudly of the Soviet adversary, as if he were discussing what a magician had proven he could do in earlier tricks. "It demonstrated it could control double agents, like Yakushev, in foreign countries and over extended periods of time." Yakushev was the classic "dangle" which, in the invisible intelligence war, is someone who, while loyally taking orders from his own intelligence service, feigns disloyalty to his country to attract the attention of the other side,like the bait on a fish hook. The dangle may even pretend to defect—in which case he is called a "dispatched agent." "Soviet intelligence also showed it could orchestrate events over the better part of a decade so as to turn these controlled agents into sources on which the West relied." This "orchestration" involved simulating evidence to make a fake underground credible ...
    - mdhb 2y ago
      I’m not trying to be rude about this at all, I’m just going to point out that this particular topic is one that I’m absolutely certain I know of in much more detail than you do. I’m obviously familiar with what a dangle is and how it works both in theory and in practice but if you’re trying to imply Barsky was somehow a dangle I wouldn’t politely say you don’t know what you’re talking about at all. I’m not trying to give you a hard time about this but if you have some kind of compelling evidence beyond what you’ve read in a single book I’d ask you to share it. To suggest Barsky is somehow suspect is really at odds with not only all of the details of his story and his eventual arrest but also the entire professional community on the subject. It’s just not true.

by mdhb 2y ago

rramadass 2y ago

There is a lot of info. on Bezmenov both pro and con and you have to listen to what he says and form a judgement yourself as to whether that is plausible. Everything about him has been muddied (even how exactly he died!) and hence all sources are questionable. The second book on "Brainwashing" is unfortunately named (not to be confused with an older book of the same name by L.Ron Hubbard of Scientology infamy) but the author's credentials are stellar - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Taylor_(biologist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Taylor_(biologist) It is not a woo-woo book but a scientific one; the last paragraph in the wikipedia page states; Peter Knight believes that Taylor sufficiently "argues that there is no need to invoke the notion of brainwashing as a mysterious and fear-inducing explanation as a last resort" – to Taylor, "brainwashing is less scary than people might think because it is in fact not some magical, secret and ultra-efficient technique of thought control" but a "mundane and ubiquitous" neurological phenomenon that can be understood scientifically. The first book on "Deception" will in a sense set the background since it focuses on deception as fundamental to everything else. This has already been called out in ancient classic texts on statecraft/warfare by Kautilya, Sun Tzu, Machiavelli etc. Example excerpt; They were a metaphor for a world in which he saw deception as a norm rather than an aberration. It was a world in which intelligence services could be provoked, seduced, lured into false trails, blinded, and turned into unwitting agents—through the same failure to discriminate between real and simulated information. The reason it is important for the "common man" to learn about these is because many of these techniques are being used against him under the guise of "harmless business" PR/Advertising/Sales/Marketing/Influence etc. and much much worse eg. Nationalism, Religious Fundamentalism etc. PS: One more book to read (difficult) is "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes" by Jacques Ellul - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda:_The_Formation_of_Men%27s_Attitudes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda:_The_Formation_of_M... Excerpts below; "Very frequently propaganda is described as a manipulation for the purpose of changing idea or opinions of making individuals 'believe' some idea or fact, and finally of making them adhere to some doctrine—all matters of the mind. It tries to convince, to bring about a decision, to create a firm adherence to some truth. This is a completely wrong line of thinking: to view propaganda as still being what it was in 1850 is to cling to an obsolete concept of man and of the means to influence him; it is to condemn oneself to understand nothing about propaganda. The aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas, but to provoke action. It is no longer to change adherence to a doctrine, but to make the individual cling irrationally to a process of action. It is no longer to transform an opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief." Education permits the dissemination of propaganda in that it enables people to consume information. Information is indistinguishable from propaganda in that information is an essential element of propaganda because for propaganda to succeed it must have reference to political or economic reality. Propaganda grafts itself onto an already existing reality through "informed opinion".

mdhb 2y ago
I wish I could find the source now where Barsky was very patiently trying to explain to some right wing podcast bro exactly WHY Bezmenov was full of shit because it was fairly definitive for any person with even a basic understanding of intelligence but I assure you it really wasn’t a “both sides” kind of issue.
- rramadass 2y ago
  Jack Barsky himself is suspect, Nothing is ever definitively "True" to an outside observer in these subjects. The "Deception" book mentioned above says this; ... Rocca now switched to a more conditional and hypothetical tone. "Soviet intelligence had demonstrated with the Trust a capacity for future deceptions." He spoke almost proudly of the Soviet adversary, as if he were discussing what a magician had proven he could do in earlier tricks. "It demonstrated it could control double agents, like Yakushev, in foreign countries and over extended periods of time." Yakushev was the classic "dangle" which, in the invisible intelligence war, is someone who, while loyally taking orders from his own intelligence service, feigns disloyalty to his country to attract the attention of the other side,like the bait on a fish hook. The dangle may even pretend to defect—in which case he is called a "dispatched agent." "Soviet intelligence also showed it could orchestrate events over the better part of a decade so as to turn these controlled agents into sources on which the West relied." This "orchestration" involved simulating evidence to make a fake underground credible ...
  - mdhb 2y ago
    I’m not trying to be rude about this at all, I’m just going to point out that this particular topic is one that I’m absolutely certain I know of in much more detail than you do. I’m obviously familiar with what a dangle is and how it works both in theory and in practice but if you’re trying to imply Barsky was somehow a dangle I wouldn’t politely say you don’t know what you’re talking about at all. I’m not trying to give you a hard time about this but if you have some kind of compelling evidence beyond what you’ve read in a single book I’d ask you to share it. To suggest Barsky is somehow suspect is really at odds with not only all of the details of his story and his eventual arrest but also the entire professional community on the subject. It’s just not true.