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What they did, was a joke compared to what is going on today in many western countries. The Stasi had a unit whose job was to drive its victims mad (https
by dash2 12y ago
What they did, was a joke compared to what is going on
today in many western countries.
The Stasi had a unit whose job was to drive its victims mad (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zersetzung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zersetzung). Their collaborators numbered in the hundreds of thousands (http://www.ted.com/talks/hubertus_knabe_the_dark_secrets_of_a_surveillance_state/transcript http://www.ted.com/talks/hubertus_knabe_the_dark_secrets_of_...). Be careful with those comparisons.
- shredprez 12y agoThere may well be similar agencies operating clandestinely in regimes today. It probably wouldn't be hard to methodically push critics (or communities) just enough into the twilight zone to kill their credibility with targeted information campaigns. Pummel them with careful half-truths and convincing sources, then routinely expose their drifting worldview. Total speculation of course, but I would be surprised if our governments didn't spend at least some of their time and energy sabotaging critics and hacking the public consciousness. Order is hard to maintain in a sprawling democracy.