Psych Ops in a Woke World

September 5, 2022 10:35am

Today, I read an article that summarized some well-known psychological experiments that show how people can be manipulated to believe and do things they would normally resist. I have to believe that these results would be even more extreme in this woke age with its ubiquitous social media propaganda.

I’m still unapologetically resisting any “vaccines” for which product liability was and is waived. I would not buy a new car that didn’t come with a warranty and my decision to pass on the vaccine seems to be increasingly the right move. I think that many folks fell prey to the psych ops described below in the panic encouraged by the government and the media.

1. Milgram – Subject is encouraged by an authority figure (dude in white lab coat) to punish incorrect answers given by a fake subject with increasing electric shocks. 65% proceeded to give the most painful shocks even after hearing fake cries of pain.
2. Stanford Prison – College students spent a week in a mock prison. Guards became increasingly sadistic – prisoners became more compliant.
3. Asch – Testing conformity – Panel of subjects – one real, others fake, are asked multiple choice questions with OBVIOUS answers. The fake subjects answer incorrectly. 36% of the real subjects eventually began to provide incorrect answers even though they knew they were incorrect.
4. Festingers Cognitive Dissonance – Subject is given a dull physical task, then told to prepare the next subject by lying about the task to make it seem interesting. Half were paid $20 to lie, the rest were paid $1. The low-paid subjects convinced themselves the task was enjoyable to justify the lie. The $20 group admitted to themselves that they lied for the money.
5. Monkey Ladder – Monkeys are put in a room with bananas at the top of a step ladder. When they climb for the bananas, they are sprayed with cold water. Then, one by one, the monkeys are replaced. Newcomers are attacked when they try to climb. Eventually, all the monkeys are new – none have been sprayed but still they do not climb and attack newcomers who do. interestingly, this experiment never happened!!! and just shows the power of myth.
6. Monkey Ladder on Humans – A test subject in a waiting room sees that everyone else stands when a tone sounds. By the third tone, she stands. Seems ridiculous but herd mentality can be useful.

This last experiment reminds me of advice from my father, a Korean War vet. He said, “Never be first or last.”

Here’s the full article on the experiments with embedded videos: 5 Psychological Experiments That Explain The Modern World | ZeroHedge

Covid Strikes!

September 10, 2022 5:07pm

On September5, I wrote about my decision to forego vaccination because of the waiver of product liability for the pharmaceutical companies. In the subsequent days, I got hammered with covid! Spoke too soon! It was not fun but not the worst flu/sickness I’ve experienced. I took some common OTC meds and slept poorly for three nights but I’m feeling much better now….and I’m still glad I didn’t get the shots. I’ll take my newly acquired natural immunity any day – especially with the knowledge that I won’t be second guessing the long-term effects of an untested vaccination the rest of my life.

Gentle Nausea

September 11, 2022 10:07am

I sit lost in my thoughts, considering time, existence, experience and I feel gentle nausea washing over me as I realize that forces beyond my control seek to determine my destiny – to order my very life. Governments, institutions, companies assume certain powers over our lives, granting some permissions while also erecting barriers to force us into tighter and tighter restrictions. Life begins to feel like one big cattle chute with everyone being herded in the same direction. Foremost among those handling the prods are Klaus Schwab and the “young leaders” of the World Economic Forum; They all tell us we will “own nothing and be happy.”

Such a starkly dystopian vision of the future cannot bode well for the political stability of the world, especially in the face of energy shortages, the prospects for global conflicts, and unprecedented debt.

Despondence

September 14, 2022 10:23 am

I am as despondent as i have been in a long time. I have no appetite as a consequence of my battle with covid. I can’t shake the cough and just have no interest in food. I find it almost impossible to generate any enthusiasm for doing anything. We have been working on taking down the garden, but it is very slow. I see no point in any activity at all and must force myself to do the smallest tasks then find myself sitting for long periods while my mind seeks a cure for the ennui which afflicts me. God has abandoned all of us it seems and without purpose, I labor in vain.

I read again of Woolf and Nietzsche and see the inevitability of nihilism. Nothing in this existence offers any hope so it becomes almost impossible to force myself to believe or do anything. The great thinkers lose themselves in convoluted philosophies that serve only to obscure reality if such even exists.

It there were any transcendent experience that could promise escape from the short and hopeless lives that we all live, we could find our salvation, but this is only wishful thinking and the reality is, at best, the meaninglessness of eternal recurrence.

How do any of us carry on under these circumstances? Once you grasp the truth and it becomes undeniable, how do you choose to go on?

I’m 67, I have maybe 20 years. It is likely to be a time of declining health and happiness. Can I convince myself to ignore what’s coming? I think not. My faith, which I have treasured since childhood, yields to the harsh realities I can no longer deny.

Foundations of Existence

September 15, 2022 10:48am

This morning, I tried to imagine any reality that would make life worth living. What would it take? Money? So shallow. An improvement in my physical manifestation? A face-to -face meeting with God himself? None of these convince me of the value of life and so I’m truly at the end of my rope. I have no idea what keeps others engaged in this sad state of affairs we call life. I think that we must develop an inner discipline to overcome the tendency toward nihilism that must come to every thoughtful person. P. D. Ouspensky came to believe that we can overcome eternal recurrence through strict self-discipline. I don’t believe in a personal recurrence that can or should be overcome but I suggest that self-discipline in the only antidote to the ennui that stalks all who question the foundations of our existence.

A Dark Labyrinth

September 16, 2022 10:52am

I pass through a society filled with people I don’t understand. They focus time, energy, and resources on transitory illusions while ignoring the eternal all around. I can’t explain my own confusion in the face of the inscrutable mysteries of theology, philosophy, and psychology that vie for my attention. Each promises a denouement but leads only to more extreme convolutions in that dark labyrinth we call life. Others seem to grasp the subtleties of politics, economics, and finance while the complexities lead me to believe that no one really understands anything and that it will all soon collapse of its own weight. Where this will all end, I do not know.

Momentum

September 16, 2022 2:22pm

Taking my own advice to gain some momentum by forcing myself to do something…. anything, I start work on the overgrown asparagus patch. First, removing all the bent-up sections of short garden fencing and the bird netting stretched between the larger fence posts. (None of this kept the deer from biting off the tops of the asparagus). Then I waded into the nutsedge, crabgrass and assorted other weeds that took up residence after I quit salting the ground in May. The late summer sun was steady but not oppressive as I listened to some good blues while pulling weeds in the heat. It sounds improbable but true to past experience, I found solace in the mindless activity that surely needed my sedulous devotion and will to make a small improvement in the state of the universe. I know that Martin Decoud was talking to me and that philosophically, he was right; nevertheless, the asparagus doesn’t know about philosophy and will grow better in the spring, proving again that we CAN affect the fate of the universe. I realized this while resting in the cool breeze on the barn porch, the smell of a roll of baler twine taking me back to days of haying on the farm.

The beginning is the start of all that we do. Begin, and then don’t stop. The end truly is already determined, the will to strive is all that matters.

While reading about Stephen Toulmin, I found this: “Toulmin argues that truth can be a relative quality, dependent on historical and cultural contexts (What other authors have termed “conceptual schemata.”)

Now, I would suggest that anything that is subject to any “relative quality” never was and never can be considered TRUTH! Mathematical statements are truth; Things that can be empirically proven and agreed to by all reasonable intellects are truth. Anything that is questionable is opinion and should never be conflated with truth!

Something led to an investigation of the “80 Years War”, between Spain and the Dutch Republic. All the great empires were also involved. This occurred from about 1566 to 1648 and obviously lasted long enough that whole generations lived through the horrors of war. Estimates are that 600,000 to 700,000 people died in this conflict (that NO ONE knows about today). We live in a time and place where it is unthinkable that conflict could touch our lives, but the Civil War was only 160 years ago, and some of the same seeds are already sprouting.

Deep Longing and Mystery

September 17, 2022 7:48pm

I struggle daily to give some expression to the deep longing and mystery that lies like a mist or veil around my very soul. So, just now, out of curiosity, I typed this search…..”Great literary passages that explain the meaning of life.”

And what do you think came up first? A photo of Virginia Woolf and a reference to ‘A Room of One’s Own.” Beneath was an aphorism from Nietzsche: “No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you must cross the river of life.” – Friederich Nietzsche

I have given similar advice when it was clearly not what was called for. I said, “this is a journey that we take all by ourselves.” As much as we want to share it, I understand now that neither another soul nor God himself is with us in the end. Witness the words of Christ on the cross: “why have you forsaken me?” No, we take this journey alone and we end it alone.

Another passage from Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Letters to A Young Poet” alludes to the mystery, the yearning that afflicts so many of us. “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart, ” he wrote. “Almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension that we find paralyzing …. because we are alone with the alien thing that has entered into our self….” – Rainer Maria Rilke.

So, some of these great literary passages linger at the periphery of the mystery and illuminate imperfectly the veil that all great writers strive to lift from the face of life, to reveal finally the true nature of reality and our roles in it. But try as they must, none ever measure up to that perfect denouement.

Empires

September 18, 2022 10:17am

While walking this morning under a clear blue sky, I envisioned the trillions of planets out there beyond the blue and I wondered how many of them were home to whole empires that have lasted longer than humans have even existed?

Alternate Histories

September 19, 2022 11:33am

There are numerous alternate histories of major world events. Many of these have enough truth entwined to make most of us question what has really happened. Deception has plagued us throughout our existence and will be part of human consciousness until we are extinct. The confusion fostered by all the competing narratives leaves many struggling to find any solid ground upon which to make a stand. Others fall for every conspiracy that finds nurture in easily manipulated minds.

In the end, the best we can do is to be sure of our own motives and try to follow the path of truth.

A Little Physical Exertion

September 20, 2022 7:37pm

Yesterday afternoon, under a hot late summer sun, I picked up the tomahawk I bought at an estate sale and commenced to cut down all the sorghum in the garden. If you have never cut tobacco, you are probably envisioning a tomahawk that might have been wielded by Uncas or Chingachgook. Well, not so much…. think more about a 4″ x 4″ thin metal plate and a 2′ long tobacco stick with a slit in one end so you can secure the plate in the slit with rivets. This is the “tomahawk” that you use to cut tobacco. I grow the sorghum for fall decoration and for years, I’ve been cutting it with a small axe – so I was elated to run across this tomahawk at a sale in the middle of town.

Anyway, I figured that my state of mind had been so improved by a little physical exertion these last few days (as I came out of my Covid funk) that cutting and stacking the sorghum was just what the Dr. ordered. I worked up a pretty good sweat, drank lots of ice water and at the end of the day, I had two nice shocks that stand in the field behind the house and three smaller bundles that I tied to the posts on the barn porch. We sit a few pumpkins around these shocks and have a nice harvest scene to enjoy all winter.

Government and Deceit

September 23, 2022 9:03am

Every day more proof is seen of the manipulation of hearts and minds by government. Deceit is part of human nature, and it plays a central role in the arc of history. But in the last 100 years, the work of men like Edward Bernays has turned deceit in to a ubiquitous industry that we call public relations – or more to the point, propaganda. Bernays wrote “Crystallizing Public Opinion” (1923) and “Propaganda” (1928) and described how business leaders and politicians could control the irrational masses by using psychology and the herd instinct.

In the 1950’s Bernays worked for the United Fruit Company which was connected to the 1954 CIA-backed coup in Guatemala. United Fruit had a history of manipulation of foreign policy going back to the “Banana Wars” following the Spanish- American conflict. In his book, “War is a Racket,” Major General Smedley Butler (US Marine Corps) described the profit motive of much US foreign policy. He was in the military for 33 years and said that most of his activities amounted to serving “as a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism,” he wrote. Since the days of Butler and Bernays, the level of sophistication and deceit of those who would manipulate the US and her citizens has increased a thousand-fold. Today, we must always ask the age-old question – CUI BONO (to whom is it a benefit). Because, sad to say, if you’re not a member of a rich and powerful elite, NOTHING is to your benefit. You are a pawn, a resource from which they will wring all assets while using every conceivable method to make you think you are a free citizen in a free country.