We are all Pavlov’s Dogs.
Pavlov was a Russian physiologist who in the 1890s experimented with dogs and their salivation, coming to the conclusion that dogs respond to not just an stimuli (food, ringing bells, etc.), but to the expectancy of that stimuli.
Humans are very much the same. We pretend we aren’t, but are we all just Pavlov’s dogs. It is extremely easy to condition humans to do or behave in certain ways. I trained my dog Misha with just positive reinforcement. Never hit her. Never abused her. Never used one of those dreadful spiked collars*. After all, “repetition is important“.**
Pavlov’s experiments opened the door into what is called classical conditioning. The CIA had a blast experimenting with many different variations of it, including pain and hard drugs, just to name a few. Modern hypnosis, often ignored by the media as hocus pocus, can achieve similar results. Modern hypnosis draws its knowledge from several sciences, including but not limited to psychology, psychotherapy, human behavior, neuroimaging, tomography, brainwave pattern analysis…
Hypnosis analyzes different brain wave frequencies and puts a person and/or patient into a trance, where he or she is more susceptible to conditioning. In the right hands, it can help people overcome a variety of issues: PSTD, quit smoking, repressed memories, letting go of fear/guilt/rape experiences… You name it. The possibilities are endless.
In the wrong hands…
Since Pavlov, everything the FBI, CIA, KGB and plenty other Governments out there have done has been carefully studied and analyzed, with modern scientific advancements and understanding of the brain in general put into place to condition and/or modified human behaviour. SCL, for instance, a Pentagon-Mercer project that would become part of Cambridge Analytica did an extremely good job at modifying behaviour to the point that it boasted of at least 25 transitions of powers into… whatever those controlling the machines wanted the new governments to be.
We often hear about individuals being radicalized online, but we tend to put little thought into the process behind of how that came to be. There is a reason I put these resources together. I spent years personally studying and analyzing conditioning and hypnosis. And doing experiments (with consent). And when Qanon was in full swing (2016-2020), I spent even longer trying to learn and understand how those techniques were applied to the online world.
As it turns out, predicting human behaviour is rather simple. Even more so when it comes to group behaviour. If you are in a crowd watching a concert and suddenly start running and yelling, you can bet your ass that within minutes the whole crowd is going to be yelling and running in the same direction. All panicking not knowing why.
When it comes to the online world, several things coalesce at once. You click on a rage-bait article/video, next thing you know, the algorithm is feeding you non-stop information related or semi-related to that original rage-bait, making you think that the world is truly a fucked up place. It is, though. But the information you are getting is twisted into one perspective only. Not giving you other points of views or analyzing why others might have different opinions on any particular subject. Remember, repetition is important. If the algorithm is feeding me a 100 videos daily telling me how an election was stolen, I eventually will believe that based on all the information I consume. Whether that is true or not, is irrelevant. I would come to believe it because all the information around me is telling me what I need to think with regards to the election.
On top of that, you have astroturfing. That’s when corporations, federal entities, universities, groups with special interests, etc., all carefully orchestrate acts to show support or to undermine a specific cause or campaign. We are currently seeing a lot of it from the suckers perpetuating the “Stop oil” campaigns. Not knowing that their main financial backers are oil corporations themselves trying to divide people into not going for greener solutions.
The use of Propaganda, of course, is rampant, and legal in many countries. Done by Government themselves and paid for by the taxpayer. In essence, governments can fabricate information for foreign and/or domestic consumption. Sometimes both, depending on the laws of each country.
Paid operatives (Hi Lisa Mei of Mantech Technologies, Hi General Flynn), whose main job is to keep pushing a narrative regardless of their own personal beliefs. Money matters. And some might even end up believing what they preach at some point or another.
And of course, the usage of Bots. In the original sense, a bot, from the original Czech word Robot, was defined as a machine (or software) that could perform a repetitive task. In the online world, we see bots all the time. A website that has a live chat and a series of questions with answers to common problems. A Twitter account that posts repetitive content.
Bots have evolved way beyond that. It is possible now to train bots to give a thousand different responses, or more, based on various key-words. Modern advanced bots are nearly indistinguishable from artificial intelligence. Not just for the old generation, but the new generation that grew up with tablets, yet doesn’t even know how to do a PC partition. Hell, I am pretty sure at times, in my more naïve social media days, I too have interacted with bots believing them to be real people.
All of this, and various other lesser-known factors, such as search engine manipulation (hi Google), have given rise to various so-called Social Media Contagions. That’s when you have tics and rapid-onset development of Tourette-like symptoms brought about by social media. Or a 4000% rise in just a few years of children wanting to change their birth sex. The Tavistock Gender Clinic scandal is but a memory…Money talks a lot, it seems. And yes, that is the same British Tavistock involved with MI5 and 6 during the MK Ultra days.
When push comes to shove, one of the major issues I see with all of this is algorithms. Social Media platforms are built in such a way to keep you engaged with content. Whatever that might be. As long as you liked and/or interacted with something, platforms like Youtube, Twitter, Instagram et all are going to keep showing you the same content non-stop to keep you on their platform. You are the product. You make them money.
Personally, I have been down one of those dark depressing avenues… I am sure most of us have at some point or another. It has taken me about 10 minutes to find 10 different painless way to expedite myself into the Duat, waiting for Anubis to weight my soul... As it turns out, I am at that age that I have learned (somewhat) to deal with the experiences of life…
The same cannot be said for teenagers (and some adults) whose undeveloped brains have made them to cross into the the Underworld influenced by Social Media Trends. Further, Social Media has now been listed on occasion as the cause of death of teenagers in a coroner’s report. Harmful trends that have been ignored time again from large mega-corporations in the pursuit of profit.
With all this in mind, I can’t help but wonder about events like Jan the 6, the Floyd riots, etc. When you take out the FBI and CIA agents, the paid operatives, the bots and the astroturfing, what you are left with is a bunch of people that had been radicalized on social media. People that have been conditioned to feel and act in a certain way thanks to an endless feedback loop of social media content.
I am not excusing anyone’s actions. But I am also not dumb enough not to understand that not everyone has the mental capacity to understand the many factors that coalesce in the social media sphere that affect and change their behaviour. All of these people, Right-wing and Left-wing, were used, without their knowledge, to promote a social cause, an idea, a product. One you might or might not agree with. I don’t care. That’s your beef to cook, not mine.
People are being purposefully polarized for the benefit of whatever corporation or Regime. People are made to think and behave in whatever ways said companies and regimes want them to think and/or behave. And yet, when it comes to sentencing, none of this is ever taken into account. Sure, individual X was radicalized by Social Media. And yet, it is never Social Media’s or whatever entity’s fault. The fault lies always solely and exclusively on the individual.
This really bothers me. The Pentagon, the FBI, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit or whatever other entity out there have just as much responsibility when it comes to the radicalization of people. And yet, they never pay any price. They can do whatever they like without consequences. I guess if you give enough bribes (aka lobbying), you can do whatever the fuck you want and let the peasants pay the price. Nobody cares as long as the peasants do your bidding. After all, the prison system works just as intended.
* Not a sponsorship. I just linked a website showing what I meant.
** Life of Pi. Great Book. You should read it