The author seems not merely uninformed but a mix of unaware and unconcerned that they don’t know what they’re talking about. No discussion of hypnosis, Stockholm syndrome, and a general vibe that psychology is like not really a thing unless it coincides with cherished narratives. And then little chestnuts like, “the idea of brainwashing continues to be a powerful metaphor for the effects of systemic racism.” Say what?
Readit News2devnull commented on A brief, weird history of brainwashing technologyreview.com/2024... · Posted by u/EndXA
2devnull commented on House Votes to Extend–and Expand–A Major US Spy Program wired.com/story/house-sec... · Posted by u/okasaki
“ and disrupt international drug cartels who are looking to smuggle fentanyl into our nation,” they said.”
Just a totally absurd statement. Drug traffickers pour across the border in droves, daily. Anybody who supported this && does not support securing the border is a corrupt weasel and an enemy of Americans.
2devnull commented on Changes in conspiracy beliefs are rare, but possible bps.org.uk/research-diges... · Posted by u/wjb3
“It also implies that explanations of belief in conspiracy theories need to accommodate the observation that beliefs in such theories vary much more between people than within people.”
To me it implies that what they are operational using as “conspiracy theory” is nothing more than individual differences in personality. Those who want to study/address/remove “conspiracy theories” really just have a problem with individual differences and want to control others.
Usenet didn’t have this problem. It’s not being online and interacting with others that’s the problem. It’s the money. And we’ve known that forever.
There have always been some dimwits who do not see that good ideas come from iteration on dumb ideas, but what is different now is that the societal norm, adopted from forums like Reddit, is an expectation for you to prove that you are a dimwit, incapable of any original thought, only able to repeat ("source", as the kids like to say) what others have said in the past.
This is certainly not the only anti-intellectualism, anti-education movement we've ever experienced as humans, but we had progressed forward. This regression leaves a lot of people in bad places.
Arguably that’s the meta force behind social media. The platforms are designed to make people think in collectivist terms, which coincidentally (or not) makes things easier for more tyrannical forms of government. Indeed Facebook and old twitter are arguably quasi-federal entities.
>Like why is social media inspiring us to such hostile nit picking on behaviour and ideals?
So I'd like to point out something I've not seen mentioned yet. That is what I call 'small down behavior', that is nit picking on those that don't fall into some small group that is acceptable.
It seems that social media has not caused any new behaviors, but instead given a new and expansive venue for the behavior to spread.
I’d say a lot of that is genetic and or cultural. At the very least there are many of us who do not possess that instinct. We have much lower karma scores but we don’t care.
There are neurological studies that show that anger cycles can escalate and become amplified with practice. That's not what we want.
Acknowledge your anger, yes. Then acknowledge your control, not only over how you express it, but even over whether you feel angry or not. It is possible to develop the skill to stop being angry. This is far more important than going with the flow.
It's often a bitter pill to swallow, because it means the people that act out of anger, or are always angry, are ultimately responsible for how they feel. It is not someone else's fault you feel angry.
“the skill to stop being angry”
Often that amounts to changing the people or circumstances in one’s life. That’s the point of therapy. A good therapist wouldn’t help a sexually abused child stay in a bad situation and just learn to suppress emotion. Well maybe a cbt therapist would. But a good therapist would try to help catalyze a change in the situation causing the trauma.
Monks of various religious dispositions, or even just secular meditation adepts, seem to disprove this easily.
Monks are doing it on easy mode. They have nothing to anger them, zero triggers. It’s the whole point of hermeticism. Remove all sources of stress. Desire nothing. Of course they aren’t angry, they have nothing; nothing to feel angry about.
Anger becomes unproductive because we shame it and suppress it over and over and over. If we knew how to express anger in a healthy way, we wouldn't need to do that (with the exception of edge cases, like a physical hormonal imbalance)
The world is nothing but edge cases. Expressing anger requires cooperation. If someone doesn’t want to listen, and you express anger at them anyway, is it not abuse?
I'm not sure what you are finding so contentious about this article. We have accepted that people under torture will admit to anything for centuries.
“by spending millions of dollars on research into manipulating the human brain. But while the science never exactly panned out, residual beliefs fostered by this bizarre conflict continue to play a role”
In what sense did the science “not pan out”?
What “residual beliefs” could she mean? The text implies that it’s the idea that the human brain cannot be manipulated.
Almost every sentence has that level of inanity and incoherence. Advertising meanwhile is a billion dollar industry built on manipulating brains.