/32/ - Psychopolitics

>>67
A group of people or a person in a position of power who seemingly represents a group of people.

>>70
This helps a lot. I guess I need to read up. Now to come up with simple, real-world examples of each of those.

>>74
Also, not only examples, but common methods.

>>70
>Distraction from important issues
This is a fairly simple explanation. A news show might spend more time talking about celebrities and sports than about real issues, and the show usually ends with a positive story, so the viewers feel less threatened pessimistic and outraged. Greater emphasis is given to entertainment than to actual information.

>Creating problems then offering solutions
A problem might be created or allowed to worsen, so that when one takes action against it that individual or organization is painted as competent or even heroic. The security department of a city administration might postpone the implementation of policies that would curb urban violence, so that when they do implement them the sudden change is dramatic and paints them in a positive light.

>Gradual steps towards something that would be unacceptable at a single dose
This is the false idea of compromise. The best way to explain this is with an example, I'm afraid. Two landowners, who live side by side. One wants the other's land, so he asks for a piece. The other says no, so he claim that they should reach a compromise, and that he can give him half of what he requested. This is repeated over and over again, always with the false sense of compromise and agreement, when in fact one is getting what he wants, and the other is being pushed around. See the current gun rights discussion.

>>78
>Deferring
Human beings are naturally poor at dealing with the uncertainty of the future: if you leave children with a marshmallow and tell them that if they don't eat it immediately they will get another one in half an hour, most of them will eat it. If you claim that privacy violations are necessary for the security of the people against terrorism, most of the people will accept that, because they understand the immediate benefit (sense of security), but not the cost eventual cost(increased state control). This is also an example of the second and third points.

>Infantilizing the public
If you treat a person respectfully and with maturity they will be respectful and mature towards you. If you treat them like a child, they will behave like a child, and their understanding will regress into that of a child, which is highly suggestible.

>Appeal to emotion
Use strong emotions (such as fear of terrorists, or the disgust against pedophiles) to hide actions that a person thinking rationally would oppose (loss of privacy, transference of the burden of proof).

>Keeping the public Ignorant and mediocre
without getting too much into it, ignorance is the choice to not know things. By drowning useful information into a sea of gibberish it makes it hard for the average person, with their limited attention span, to seek to educate themselves.

>>79
>Encourage complacency towards mediocrity
Complacency is being satisfied with the current situation and not seeing the need for improvement. By mocking those who make mistakes, you discourage people to take risks, which is the only way they will learn and evolve. The glorification of ignorant and mediocre characters on tv shows also contributes to this.

>Reinforce self-blame
Convince the people that the system is perfect, and that if they aren't rich/famous/happy, it's not the system that is broken, it is them, who aren't trying hard enough. The banking system is the best example, as people think they get in debt because they are bad with money. Yes, there is a parcel of individual responsibility, but the banking systems runs on the creation of debt.

>Understand individuals better than they understand themselves
Thanks to advancements in fields like psychology and sociology, trained experts can predict a person's behaviour on all kinds of scenarios, and by fabricating these scenarios they can indirectly control their actions. By ignoring how their minds develop and work, both individually and as a group, people give away the power to controlling themselves and detecting a leash around their necks.

I'll add all this information to the MEGA file after we gather enough data. Please post links to relevant texts and such.

>>78
>>79
>>80
Nice list.

>>70
Fox News does this All.The.Time. especially III. They are gradually pushing the Right toward the Left.

>>83
I have been noticing this (yes, I watch Fox sometimes just to see what's "happening").

I'm not sure whether they're pushing it or simply trying to "stay with the times". I wouldn't be surprised if it was the former. We must remember that an organization like that doesn't exist to profess an ideal, but to serve a specific section of the market.

It would be a brilliant maneuver on the dominant force's part, to corner off a section, gain their trust, and slowly convert them.

They could very well a controlled opposition.

Disclaimer: I do believe that modern leftism is highly beneficial for the powers that be, while modern rightism hinders them, though slightly. Yes, it's all a puppet act - of course.

commodification?

take the signs/memes of a culture and turn them into mass produced products.

divide and assimilate

split a culture into two parts, the good (harmless) and the bad (dangerous). Daemonize the bad group and assimilate the good one.

Mutilation?

Take an idea and cut parts off of it until it means nothing while it retains the initial appeal.

Example: Everyone should be equal before the law > Everyone should be equal

I have a couple documents of NLP techniques, would they be of use?

Behind Enemy Lines

Is used to confuse ideological opponents, taking a subset or a notable figure on their side of the political spectrum, and turning it around by placing it in a context favourable to your side of the debate.

Goal is the stealthy breakdown of in-group out-group perceptions.

For best results, in-depth knowledge of terminological genealogy or historic details is required.

examples:

stealth nationalist to internationalist liberal:
"Odd how Stalin, right after his victory against the axis powers, proceeded to implement exactly those policies that Hitler wrought for Germany: an autonomous homeland for jews, ethnic nationalism for the Russians, the notion of ideology stopping at the border…"
"Yes, Stalin really did away with the core of communism."
"True. Interestingly, the true communist ideals like globalism, anti-racism and consumerism survived in the West."

stealth racist against environmentalist:
"I'm depressed about the future of environmentalism"
"why is that?"
"these open borders we have externalise the ecological impact of the third world's overpopulation. As long as their overflow ends up here, their population can't stabilise, and agricultural expansion into the rain forests will have to continue. It means concrete slabs on our meadows and less lions and elephants for them."

>>174
There's a whole torrent out there. Maybe just make a list of the ones you find most relevant and well-written and have that posted alongside the link.

I'm going to start compiling the ones listed so far. Any more?

>>67

Not true, on an anonymous imageboard without ids, it can be pulled off by just simple samefagging. It's the reason why the shills on /pol/ were so vocal about removing the ids (despite being in the vast minority on every poll taken - they were consistently about 8 people on every poll, I suspect it was the same 8 every time)

>>232

Loaded Terms

Using words like "conspiracy", "racist", "tinfoil", "autism", or "fedora" to effortlessly discount any questioning of the overarching narrative. They count on the involuntary reaction programmed into people by these terms, and use it to discredit and disarm without having to research the points they're arguing.

>>79
>without getting too much into it, ignorance is the choice to not know things. By drowning useful information into a sea of gibberish it makes it hard for the average person, with their limited attention span, to seek to educate themselves.

I've had this happen to me so many times. I can't count the number of issues I've simply said "I don't have time to educate myself on this topic, so I'll just be ambivalent," because of how difficult it is to sift through all the pages of google search results. It also brings the infamous MGS2 quote to mind.

Fracture a Collective
Social groups that become large and influential can be made to dissolve themselves given the right pressures.

Identify Cracks
Groups are ofter coexisting disparate subgroups. Discover and highlight strong sub-group differences. Encourage pride in the differences, esp. those that are points of contention. There will often be more than two sub-groups.

Draw a Line in the Sand
Do not focus on the whole into each individual sub-group initially. Instead, determine a categorization of subgroups that splits collections of sub-groups roughly in half. Push the groups on either side of the split closer together by minimizing their differences and amplifying understanding and support, preferably against those on the other side of the primary division.

Pressure Differences
Discover controversial things about each side of the divide that anger and annoy the others. Present arguments from both sides that seek no compromise, only talk past each other and dismiss criticism; Do not allow criticism to be engaged or resolved. Resort to name calling and mud slinging instead.

Drive the Wedge
Keep track of successfully polarizing arguments and repeat them often. Especially use "I'm a newcommer so correct me if I'm wrong..." and other such excuses to repeat the arguments. Reinforce a new identity or label to distinguish the sides from the other.

Create the Break
Create or discover alternative venues for one or both sides of the group to escape from the constant divisive bickering. Here use a one sided "FAQ" to deflect the other side's arguments.

Heal Improperly
Cement the break by suggesting that resolution of the prior are impossible. Prevent infighting by deflecting residual anger to the common enemy: "At least you're not [undesirable] like [those across the divide]."

Encourage Infection
After the break in communities is formed, reduce but do not stop trolling the both sides to remind them of why the split is "best for everyone".

Continue to Divide until Conquered
Repeat the above on each newly created group until the group is too small to meet the feedback threshold required to maintain interest. The group has been disbanded.

/pol/ has some stickies up.


>>>/pol/1125500 1. COINTELPRO Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum
>>>/pol/1125509 2. Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformation
>>>/pol/1125516 3. Eight Traits of the Disinformationalist
>>>/pol/1125523 4. How to Spot a Spy (Cointelpro Agent)
>>>/pol/1125527 5. Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

>>291
>autism
That's been a popular and powerful one recently.
It can be applied to any statement or effort of non-trivial complexity, it carries a charge of insanity or other mental defect and makes people actively avoid doing or expressing anything complex out of fear of the stigma that now comes with it.

By overdiagnosing various forms of autism to sometimes comical extremes, and making sure that it enters day-to-day conversations as a pejorative, authorities have effectively criminalized effort and focus on any matter, cementing everything shallow and trivial as the new normal.

By modern definition, this very post which contains more than one paragraph and slightly complex language is a display of said "autism". In fact this entire boards is, and there are likely people who dismiss it or are afraid to post here because of that. That's how powerful and dangerous this meme has become.

Though certainly explained in more serious terms, I enjoy the way the following concept is explored in a bit of fiction:

Wizard's First Rule

The Wizard's First Rule is that people are stupid; They will believe what they fear to be true.

The social engineer can make messages far more believable by capitalizing on a target's fear that the message might be true, their doubt over what they might know, what is unknown or (now) uncertain.

This is a cornerstone of modern scaremongering, 'as seen on TV'. However, the technique works best on a more intimate level wherein the psychopolitician knows the target's fears, what (or who) is valued, and to what degree the target knows the subject material. The use of doubt allows one to include more truths (shrouded in uncertainty) into a lie to make it more believable.

These messages exploit the risk assessment of the target causing them to believe and act upon it based on the premise that it's "better to be safe than sorry". Presenting misinformation as being from a more knowledgeable/authoritative source is a common technique to cause doubt.

"What's under your sink that's killing your child? Find out what experts say is 'shockingly dangerous' after a word from our spongers."

"Jane, I don't want to believe it either, but John could be a murderer; It's not safe here. The police warned me to stay away from him. They won't have the evidence to make an arrest until tomorrow, and he'll be here any minute! Please, just for tonight, you've got to get out of here. Don't tell him where you're going. You said yourself he's been acting weird and you didn't know where he was that day. If I'm wrong, fine, everything will work out; He'll understand. It's one night, no big deal. But if I'm right -- please, let's get out of here right now!"

A skilled manipulator can also use such misdirection to probe for what the target fears, knows or doubts. A selection of misinformation is applied, then which topics the target attempts to verify are considered those they have the least knowledge about, and/or most fear to be true. Requiring the target to go to a location to verify a topic allows you to intercept the target and continue the deception prior to verification while having more information about what they fear and/or doubt.

This all seems most obvious after the fact, but specifically qualifying the technique's components allows one to begin precisely honing their craft.

Freudian Lip

Freudian Lip is a method of suggestion aimed at the subconscious whereby words or phrases are purposefully replaced by similar sounding messages of suggestion.

Begin with a sentence that the target will be able to complete themselves. Select a common phrase or question, or build up a pattern of structure first. The goal is to prey on the target's expectation of what the sentence should be in order to mask the suggestion thereby.

For instance, to cause an OCD target to focus on their compulsion to clean:
> Your medicine is scheduled every four hours: Five thirty, nine thirty, and one dirty.

If the suggestion is noticed, repeat the non suggestive base phrase. When pressured, insist that you didn't say the suggestive message and that they misunderstood what was said. You have plausible deniability even if recorded: It was a slip of the tongue; Not what you meant to say.

If one wanted to cause a paranoid target to suspect a military conspiracy:
> Have you ever been incarcerated in Nevada before?
[answer]
> Ever been in jail at this facility before?
[answer]
> Ever been in the police force?
[answer]
> Everybody in the military?
What?
> Ever been in the military?
[answer]

Note that the pattern of "ever been in" is reinforced each prior sentence to build expectation, even the first where the "in" is part of another word. Here the expectation is gradually focused via reduction in sentence structure which is allowed by the context repetition gives.

Expectation is typically strongest near the end of a sentence. Once the beginning of a phrase has been heard the target will complete the expected sentence it in their own mind. However, sequential memory plays a role as well, so the masking effect can benefit from the distraction of subsequent words.

When using the technique primarily in written form remember that it is primarily the middle part of a word which matters least since the brain primurdily identifies written words by their starting and ending letters. Partial words of suggestion are easier to embed, but less effective.

In speech, masking the suggestion depends more on auditory similarity to the expectation.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've a PSYOP to attend to. Good die.

Ready, Aim, Fire
A form of subconscious suggestion applied to conscious targets.

Ready:
The target is prepared by way of stressed state such as interrogation, torture, sleep deprivation, nonlethal weapons as mentioned in replies to >>682 , etc.

Aim:
The target is exposed to suggestive messages that direct their opinion, decision, or action towards a goal.

Fire:
A single auditory, visual or physical-contact shock is applied to the target's senses to reinforce the prior suggestion's neurological retention. E.g., Someone slaps their knee, claps, cuts the lights on/off momentarily, shouts, produces a loud whistle, slams a door, drops a shoe on the floor, etc.

The RAF method of suggestion is much more effective when repeatedly applied to the target. Planted agents often apply this type of suggestion by providing a false ambient atmosphere and cooperate to provide the aiming and firing during the rest periods between sessions of readying the target. Many such suggestions can occur during down-time between "readying" the target via stress.

For example: To nudge a target toward taking action against a female they're suspicious of fake prisoners may create the following exchange in a seemingly natural negative atmosphere by stating and/or muttering aloud variations of the following:
"I should slap that hoe." [punches table]
"This is so fucked up." [lights cut off then on]
"She set me up." [coughs once loudly]
"I can't believe this shit is happening." [accidentally steps on target's foot]
"I'm gonna get that bitch." [bumps into the target while walking past]
"She's gonna pay for this." [drops shoe on floor]

The target is compelled to think these thoughts themselves though at the surface they appear to be statements the plants are making about their own situation. Agents may co-opt statements of non-plants by delivering the "firing" shock after the unwitting helper says something that matches the suggestive goal.

The "firing" shocks should come immediately after the "aiming" messages, but that it's important to give a cool down time between each suggestion so as not to raise the target's suspicion.

>>801
see http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/05/vladimir-putin-aspergers-syndrome-pentagon-studies

This is a somewhat vague and rambling post; hopefully somebody here can seize the point and condense it.

People tend not to see the big picture. For example, the average person knows we have troops in "the Middle East", which is sandy and has lots of Muslims. They vaguely know the government says this is about fighting terrorism, while some people claim it's about oil. These are insubstantial, disconnected thoughts flickering in the backs of their minds. They are never placed together in a cohesive model of foreign policy. The person could never object to an aggressive interventionist stance which is implemented for a variety of political and economic factors and does not serve the best interests of the people, because this is an analysis of the situation, and the person never thinks or knows enough to analyse. They simply have factoids, half-remembered news broadcasts saved on decaying synapse pathways.

It's the same with Ukraine, and Georgia before that; the average person knew there was "something" happening in these countries, but couldn't frame these conflicts as elements of a political tug-of-war between the East and West that started with the post-1945 carving up of Europe into two emerging superpower blocs. Heck, most people have already forgotten Georgia. Again, governments can act against the best interests of the people, because the people are so apathetic and clueless they don't realize what's going on. It's not like any of the events have been hidden; rather, people simply don't seem capable of holding interest long enough to put two and two together.

>>1053
We could call that "fractioning" of a situation, in which the individual is aware of some (if not most) of the elements of said situation, but is unable to piece them together into a coherent image. Worse yet, the individual may be able but unwilling to do so, either because he is conditioned to believe that such an action is a waste of time (e.g. "let the politicians worry about why we're fighting this war, your job is to go out there and kill some hajis"), or because the realization is too frightening/uncomfortable to conceive, like some sort of Lovecraftian thing man-was-not-meant-to-know (e.g. "and international cabal of elite executives that control our media, education, economy, politics, culture and military? That's absurd, you're just paranoid").

Hey anon, I think you just invented a word. Kudos.

>>1057
I personally don't follow them because they *are* a waste of time in my world, but not for that reason. I am not able to do anything about the things in the news, even if I know everything about them. So you see, I use that time to focus on internal development instead. Another thing is that I carry an archetypical image of human conflict which makes any news item seem like it's the same story repeating itself with slightly different details. I know all the reasons and motivations as well, because I'm human too.

>>291
My personal favorite: "Edgy"
>I think you're immoral, so everyone should

>>796
>I'm a newcommer so correct me if I'm wrong...
That's shit tier. It gives the other side the ability to look more educated than you.

Nobody cares about logical arguments, they care about looking cool.

>>1074
>I am not able to do anything
top kek faggot
You don't want to do anything, and you don't want to feel guilty.

You're a lazy fuck. Every time an injustice was stopped in history, it was stopped by someone with just as much power as you. Every time an injustice was committed, it was committed by someone with just as much power as you.

Adolf Hitler grew up poor, didn't go to college, and even got sent to prison. He annihilated two continents and kicked the shit out of six million people. It can't be that hard.

Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili had a drunk shoemaker for a father. His father abandoned him when he was a child. He changed his name to Joseph Stalin and made a country an industrious world power with the most nuclear weapons known to man.

>>877
This reminds me of attached. I think there's another name for this? Disorientation? Like you go to shake someones hand but then interrupt the motion, which can be highly disorienting, opening people to suggestion.

>>1053
Most people seem averse to serious thinking. So they like simple explanations that fit their natural world view (for example: people are greedy; they're all just looking for oil bucks).

>>1080
Admitting to fallibility makes the individual more trustworthy and human, while someone who claims to be the sole source of truth is obnoxious and asking for a confrontation. Not only that, but if an individual who admits the possibility of being wrong is indeed proven wrong, there is no big deal, while the same is not true for someone who subscribes to an absolute position. No one would reply with "BTFO" or "Told!" to the former, but towards the latter that is acceptable.

>>1081
If you wanted to criticize his comment you could have done it more tactfully.
You could have brought actual content to the discussion, instead you just made this board a little bit more like /pol/.

>>1081
>You don't want to do anything, and you don't want to feel guilty.
You're right, good catch. Facing inner hypocrisy is probably the hardest thing a human being can do. It's a mess. I'm not sure whether society's version is more disgusting or not.

But in all honesty, I don't feel powerless. I am good at carrying out what I focus on, and I don't subscribe to victimization. Or at least, this is the ideal I am working up to. Lack of vision is the problem. No vision -> stagnation -> burning precious time on distractions.

>Sensationalism Seeding

Type 1: Encouraging sensational explanations to drown out more nuanced and reasonable alternatives.
Used: Within groups inclined to believe in conspiracies.
Example: "Area 51 is being used to interrogate aliens and reverse-engineer their spacecraft" covers for "Area 51 is the site of testing new aeroplanes". Genuine issues - the development of advanced surveillance aircraft to erode civil liberties, or new drones to expand an already-aggressive foreign policy - are whited out. Anybody who attempts to talk about the truth seems boring by comparison, and can be easily painted as having been taken in by the bigger conspiracy.

Type 2: Drawing a false equivalence between a mundane and a sensational conspiracy.
Used: Within "normal" social circles who scorn conspiracies.
Example: You write a post regarding the Five Eyes programme, and the first reply is "sure, the Illuminati are reading your e-mails. Keep that tinfoil hat on, kiddo". Rather than two competing narratives, the sensationalism is seeded within the main narrative. People will see the whole concept as ridiculous due to buzzwords like "Illuminati" and "tinfoil", even though your post was entirely reasonable.

>>1079
>I think you're immoral, so everyone should
It's even worse than that. Calling someone that is implying that they only believe in the "edgy" opinion because they want to seem edgy and cool. You're saying that their opinion isn't something that people really believe.

Integration?
I'm not sure where this would fit or how to describe it as an overarching concept (or if it's already been explained), but a gr8 example would be how globalized society is commonly advertised as being "diversified" whereas in actuality it is the exact opposite- it is homogenized. You have black men, white women, etc. all acting as de facto "white men" but being offered small concessions that create the illusion of diversity- such as normalizing how islamic women wear hijabs and the like, but at the end of the day outside of these small concessions they are all expected to behave as everyone else does.

Pigeonholing, too. Take one characteristic and advertise it as being strongly related to another, and those who have that one characteristic will begin to falsely assume that they also have the other, or that they should have the other, or whatever.

Another form for those who are socially "lost", create an obvious opportunity for them to be absorbed into the greater culture under the guise of being included in some underground "subculture", creating the false notion of individual identity and "rebelliousness". Eventually such persons personalities become absorbed by the template laid out to them because they -think- they're expressing themselves. A big one for this is gay culture. This, then has to be linked back to the main, greater culture through stereotyping and etc, which is how you end up with lisping homosexuals on TV who are all carbon copies of one another, or who all have the same repetitive struggles (coming out, etc.) or are entirely DEFINED by the pseudo-subculture that they belong to in order to emphasis and underline to the public that people who are like this are mainstream and a-okay. And, then because people who are a part of that subculture actually DO end up all acting the same as a result of the homogenization I mentioned, they can be easily integrated into the public conscious of sheeple type because they are given the false notion of "understanding" these personas because TV and etc told them how to. This is how you end up with fag hags who all want gay friends and shit. I might be ragging too much on that specific example but it's personally relevant to me topkek.

>>70
>IX- Reinforce self-blame, convince the individual that he is solely responsible for his condition.

And to add onto this, not only is the aim to convince an individual that he is solely responsible for his condition, but also for the condition of others. Look at the whole "privilege" phenomenon, which relies on asserting that for some reason one person is responsible for an entirely different, unrelated person treating another third person (or group or what have you) more unfairly than the original first person.

>>1355
>Pigeonholing, too
Ooh and a great example of this is the "school shooter" phenomenon. Associate being quiet and awkward with being a fucking MASS MURDERER often enough, and people will begin to assume that people who are quiet and awkward are mass murderers. Even worse, people who are quiet and awkward will begin to form that association themselves and therefore they themselves become more likely of adopting the mass murderer role that they are given purely by association, or at least they begin to doubt whether or not they have the potential to be one, or whatever.

>>1355
>Another form for those who are socially "lost", create an obvious opportunity for them to be absorbed into the greater culture under the guise of being included in some underground "subculture", creating the false notion of individual identity and "rebelliousness"

And obviously the purpose behind this would be to dismantle any resistance that might be caused by a group that's been forced into the "outside" and therefore might pose some kind of social threat, as they're more likely to be disillusioned or not subjected to control mechanisms or what have you. So you create a false outlet for them to just b themselves and "be against the machine" that is actually entirely media-controlled.

Decoy shit.

Sorry for the triple posting ahhh
Some of this might be based on assumption but it is a pattern that I see.

>>78
>Gradual steps towards something that would be unacceptable at a single dose

Alternatively, attitude inoculation.