5 ms·

It’s hard to believe that so recently, “serious” people would fund research of literal mumbo jumbo. By all means, the 90s was a different time epistemologically

by kubb 10mo ago

It’s hard to believe that so recently, “serious” people would fund research of literal mumbo jumbo. By all means, the 90s was a different time epistemologically. We aren’t immune to this today, far from it, though the hoaxes have become way more believable in my assessment.

exe34 10mo ago
> By all means, the 90s was a different time epistemologically We're in an age when vaccines are treated as the enemy and the us health secretary believes paracetamol causes autism.
- Mistletoe 10mo ago
  The Tylenol thing is one of the least crazy things he has believed in, at least it had some initial studies suggesting it. There’s no science at all in most of his beliefs.
AniseAbyss 10mo ago
[dead]
willis936 10mo ago
The CIA has been this way since basically its inception. It's where a bunch of lead-lined brains are given unreasonable budgets and discretion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directorate_of_Science_and_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directorate_of_Science_and_Tec...
- firesteelrain 10mo ago
  It appears this was actually authorized by Congress. “ In the FY 1991 Defense Authorization Act, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was identified as executive agent for initiating a new program to investigate parapsychological/ anomalous phenomena. A funding level of $2 million was authorized for DIA to undertake specific research and other activities relative to this activity. Objectives of this authorization were to enable a systematic and scientifically sound approach to the R&D effort, to permit wider and more systematic review of potential intelligence applications, and to assess foreign developments in this area.” It was taken serious enough to be funded for two decades starting in the 70s. Eventually it was terminated when the strategic pressure eased. AIR was commissioned to look at the research and says in this [1] “A three-component program involving basic research, operations, and foreign assessment has been in place for some time… beginning in the 1970s, it has conducted a program intended to investigate the application of one paranormal phenomenon — remote viewing, or the ability to describe locations one has not visited.” “The AIR review found that remote viewing produced occasional hits that were statistically better than chance, but it remains unclear whether the observed effects can unambiguously be attributed to paranormal phenomena, and the laboratory conditions under which effects were seen do not generalize to real intelligence problems. The information provided by remote viewing was judged vague and ambiguous, making it difficult or impossible for the technique to yield information of sufficient quality and accuracy for actionable intelligence.” 1. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00791R000200180005-5.pdf https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00791R0002001...
  - RobotToaster 10mo ago
    > A funding level of $2 million was authorized In government terms that's pretty small. I guess even if there's a low chance of working, the payoff if it did would be huge.
    - firesteelrain 10mo ago
      I agree. $2million is small. Where I work, I am regularly given budgets well over that to buy software or hardware.
      - lagniappe 10mo ago
        At the time, 2 million was an appreciable sum. Maybe not to a government, but that wasn't chump change back then the way it is now.
        firesteelrain 10mo ago
        That is true. I didn’t take into account inflation.
        lagniappe 10mo ago
        Sadly, I don't think any of us did or do.
        rendx 10mo ago
        In case anyone was wondering: > $2,000,000 in 1991 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $4,759,500.73 today https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1991?amount=2000000 https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1991?amount=20000... Second source: https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=2%2C000%2C000.00&year1=199101&year2=202511 https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=2%2C000%2C000.... > $4,816,077.27 Still not a lot.
- drpepper42 10mo ago
  Yeah pretty much this unfortunately. Imagine some person tasked and genuinely interested in helping the united states but they do it all with subterfuge which backfires more than it helps anything. Such a person must experience a lot of cognitive dissonance and would generally be susceptible to conspiracy theories such as this which only reinforces the cycle of meddling.
namanyayg 10mo ago
How do we know if something is "mumbo jumbo" until we actually check and verify it?
- kubb 10mo ago
  I see you’re interested in epistemology yourself. You should study it.
antonvs 10mo ago
I'm not sure it's changed that much. Look at the work around the em drive. Or fusion power for that matter. I'm not saying we shouldn't be researching fusion, but all the fusion "startups" are essentially jokes, or more charitably, monuments to the unwarranted hubris of investment capital.
ifh-hn 10mo ago
The benefits of hindsight. I'm sure in 30 odd years someone will be making the same comments about our current hoaxes.
- kubb 10mo ago
  And we will have new hoaxes by then. The embarrassing part is that we can identify many of them already, before the historical consensus catches on.
  - MangoToupe 10mo ago
    That's the whole thing about consensus tho, it's hardly embarrassing
  - Teever 10mo ago
    Do you have any examples of these easily identifiable contemporary hoaxes?
    - deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
    - kubb 10mo ago
      Are there any areas in which you'd feel attacked if I poined out a hoax?
      - Teever 10mo ago
        Not at all. I enjoy the subject of conspiracies and hoaxes without holding a strong personal affinity towards any particular one.
        kubb 10mo ago
        Cool, the low hanging fruit then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories_promoted_by_Donald_Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories_pr...
TheAceOfHearts 10mo ago
It's perfectly rational to allocate a bit of money towards investigating unlikely phenomenon. In this case, it started around the 70s and it was believed that the Soviet Union was also doing research into paranormal effects, so even if people were skeptical it seems prudent to allocate funds and research if there's anything there.
PaulRobinson 10mo ago
Congratulations, you're the new head of the Department of War. It's Day 1 in your new role. An admiral walks in and sits down and tells you that he'd like some money to research some unidentified aircraft that are buzzing US Navy pilots. Shaped like "tic tacs", that seem to defy physical laws - they accelerate incredibly fast and seem to be able to move between air and water without damaging their structure, even at high-speed. They've been caught on camera multiple times, and pilots don't know what to make of them. You ask what is this "mumbo jumbo", and whether he is "serious". He points out to you that if these aircraft are Russian or Chinese in origin, given there is no defence against them, they pose a major threat to national security and your refusal to take them seriously will not bode well for you in the annals of time if they do turn out to be a threat. You agree to funding a small program to research further. Then an Army General walks in. He wants $2m for a program to research "remote viewing" and "psychokinesis". You sit in awe as he explains: multiple independent laboratories have been able to conduct experiments that show Extra-Sensory Perception, Remote Viewing and Psychokinesis may be real despite not being explained by any current physical model. There is intelligence to suggest that Chinese and Russian militaries are investing in these techniques and the US military is not able to defend against them if they're real and exploited by adversaries, or for the USA to exploit them either, because they have no understanding of them. You hand wave it away as "mumbo jumbo" and state this is not the work of "serious people". You demand a physical model to explain it before you invest. You are reminded that there is no single physical model that explains the entirety of how an aircraft wing works, or how anaesthetics work, and that the only way such models are created is through scientific investigation. If after spending the $2m they're able to show such claims are baseless, that is a null result that has value in that it shows the Russians and Chinese are also not a threat to US National Security. You are reminded that such techniques may pose a major threat to national security and your refusal to take them seriously will not bode well for you in the annals of time if they do turn out to be a threat. You agree to funding a small program to research further. And on it goes. It's Occam's razor - if you commit to the scientific method, you have to commit to it. If you are concerned there is a science and technology that others have and you don't, you need to figure out if there is value in you being able to obtain that science or technology, even if it sounds like "mumbo jumbo" today. These weren't idiots, they weren't corrupt, they were asking for tiny slithers of money to figure out if Western Civilisation was about to collapse into the hands of a few people who asked more questions.
dwroberts 10mo ago
Another element that is ignored in all of this is: How much of this is really intended to be genuine research? The CIA is an intelligence agency, and misdirection is part of counter-intelligence. Putting legitimate resources into a phony cause could be an effective way of leading an enemy astray, if you know they are intercepting or replicating the same research you're doing (or if you happen to " leak " details to them).

by kubb 10mo ago

exe34 10mo ago

> By all means, the 90s was a different time epistemologically We're in an age when vaccines are treated as the enemy and the us health secretary believes paracetamol causes autism.

Mistletoe 10mo ago
The Tylenol thing is one of the least crazy things he has believed in, at least it had some initial studies suggesting it. There’s no science at all in most of his beliefs.

AniseAbyss 10mo ago

[dead]

willis936 10mo ago

The CIA has been this way since basically its inception. It's where a bunch of lead-lined brains are given unreasonable budgets and discretion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directorate_of_Science_and_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directorate_of_Science_and_Tec...

firesteelrain 10mo ago
It appears this was actually authorized by Congress. “ In the FY 1991 Defense Authorization Act, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was identified as executive agent for initiating a new program to investigate parapsychological/ anomalous phenomena. A funding level of $2 million was authorized for DIA to undertake specific research and other activities relative to this activity. Objectives of this authorization were to enable a systematic and scientifically sound approach to the R&D effort, to permit wider and more systematic review of potential intelligence applications, and to assess foreign developments in this area.” It was taken serious enough to be funded for two decades starting in the 70s. Eventually it was terminated when the strategic pressure eased. AIR was commissioned to look at the research and says in this [1] “A three-component program involving basic research, operations, and foreign assessment has been in place for some time… beginning in the 1970s, it has conducted a program intended to investigate the application of one paranormal phenomenon — remote viewing, or the ability to describe locations one has not visited.” “The AIR review found that remote viewing produced occasional hits that were statistically better than chance, but it remains unclear whether the observed effects can unambiguously be attributed to paranormal phenomena, and the laboratory conditions under which effects were seen do not generalize to real intelligence problems. The information provided by remote viewing was judged vague and ambiguous, making it difficult or impossible for the technique to yield information of sufficient quality and accuracy for actionable intelligence.” 1. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00791R000200180005-5.pdf https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00791R0002001...
- RobotToaster 10mo ago
  > A funding level of $2 million was authorized In government terms that's pretty small. I guess even if there's a low chance of working, the payoff if it did would be huge.
  - firesteelrain 10mo ago
    I agree. $2million is small. Where I work, I am regularly given budgets well over that to buy software or hardware.
    - lagniappe 10mo ago
      At the time, 2 million was an appreciable sum. Maybe not to a government, but that wasn't chump change back then the way it is now.
      - firesteelrain 10mo ago
        That is true. I didn’t take into account inflation.
        lagniappe 10mo ago
        Sadly, I don't think any of us did or do.
        rendx 10mo ago
        In case anyone was wondering: > $2,000,000 in 1991 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $4,759,500.73 today https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1991?amount=2000000 https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1991?amount=20000... Second source: https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=2%2C000%2C000.00&year1=199101&year2=202511 https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=2%2C000%2C000.... > $4,816,077.27 Still not a lot.
drpepper42 10mo ago
Yeah pretty much this unfortunately. Imagine some person tasked and genuinely interested in helping the united states but they do it all with subterfuge which backfires more than it helps anything. Such a person must experience a lot of cognitive dissonance and would generally be susceptible to conspiracy theories such as this which only reinforces the cycle of meddling.

namanyayg 10mo ago

How do we know if something is "mumbo jumbo" until we actually check and verify it?

kubb 10mo ago
I see you’re interested in epistemology yourself. You should study it.

antonvs 10mo ago

I'm not sure it's changed that much. Look at the work around the em drive. Or fusion power for that matter. I'm not saying we shouldn't be researching fusion, but all the fusion "startups" are essentially jokes, or more charitably, monuments to the unwarranted hubris of investment capital.

ifh-hn 10mo ago

The benefits of hindsight. I'm sure in 30 odd years someone will be making the same comments about our current hoaxes.

kubb 10mo ago
And we will have new hoaxes by then. The embarrassing part is that we can identify many of them already, before the historical consensus catches on.
- MangoToupe 10mo ago
  That's the whole thing about consensus tho, it's hardly embarrassing
- Teever 10mo ago
  Do you have any examples of these easily identifiable contemporary hoaxes?
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  - kubb 10mo ago
    Are there any areas in which you'd feel attacked if I poined out a hoax?
    - Teever 10mo ago
      Not at all. I enjoy the subject of conspiracies and hoaxes without holding a strong personal affinity towards any particular one.
      - kubb 10mo ago
        Cool, the low hanging fruit then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories_promoted_by_Donald_Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories_pr...

TheAceOfHearts 10mo ago

It's perfectly rational to allocate a bit of money towards investigating unlikely phenomenon. In this case, it started around the 70s and it was believed that the Soviet Union was also doing research into paranormal effects, so even if people were skeptical it seems prudent to allocate funds and research if there's anything there.

PaulRobinson 10mo ago

Congratulations, you're the new head of the Department of War. It's Day 1 in your new role. An admiral walks in and sits down and tells you that he'd like some money to research some unidentified aircraft that are buzzing US Navy pilots. Shaped like "tic tacs", that seem to defy physical laws - they accelerate incredibly fast and seem to be able to move between air and water without damaging their structure, even at high-speed. They've been caught on camera multiple times, and pilots don't know what to make of them. You ask what is this "mumbo jumbo", and whether he is "serious". He points out to you that if these aircraft are Russian or Chinese in origin, given there is no defence against them, they pose a major threat to national security and your refusal to take them seriously will not bode well for you in the annals of time if they do turn out to be a threat. You agree to funding a small program to research further. Then an Army General walks in. He wants $2m for a program to research "remote viewing" and "psychokinesis". You sit in awe as he explains: multiple independent laboratories have been able to conduct experiments that show Extra-Sensory Perception, Remote Viewing and Psychokinesis may be real despite not being explained by any current physical model. There is intelligence to suggest that Chinese and Russian militaries are investing in these techniques and the US military is not able to defend against them if they're real and exploited by adversaries, or for the USA to exploit them either, because they have no understanding of them. You hand wave it away as "mumbo jumbo" and state this is not the work of "serious people". You demand a physical model to explain it before you invest. You are reminded that there is no single physical model that explains the entirety of how an aircraft wing works, or how anaesthetics work, and that the only way such models are created is through scientific investigation. If after spending the $2m they're able to show such claims are baseless, that is a null result that has value in that it shows the Russians and Chinese are also not a threat to US National Security. You are reminded that such techniques may pose a major threat to national security and your refusal to take them seriously will not bode well for you in the annals of time if they do turn out to be a threat. You agree to funding a small program to research further. And on it goes. It's Occam's razor - if you commit to the scientific method, you have to commit to it. If you are concerned there is a science and technology that others have and you don't, you need to figure out if there is value in you being able to obtain that science or technology, even if it sounds like "mumbo jumbo" today. These weren't idiots, they weren't corrupt, they were asking for tiny slithers of money to figure out if Western Civilisation was about to collapse into the hands of a few people who asked more questions.

dwroberts 10mo ago

Another element that is ignored in all of this is: How much of this is really intended to be genuine research? The CIA is an intelligence agency, and misdirection is part of counter-intelligence. Putting legitimate resources into a phony cause could be an effective way of leading an enemy astray, if you know they are intercepting or replicating the same research you're doing (or if you happen to " leak " details to them).