[gtcode]

Do any modern day entities (governments, corporations, other) perform ostensibly mild versions of such psychological experimentation, possibly at scale, or with the intention of scaling?

This occurred decades after an ancestor of mine was PM of Canada, thankfully.

[toomanybeersies]

Facebook performs secret psychological experiments on its users by manipulating their news feed: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/02/facebook-...

I would say without their consent, but it's likely there is a clause buried in the user agreement that means that you consent to it.

[uiri]

If their users did not read that clause in the user agreement and knowingly consent to the experiments, then they are being carried out without the users' consent.

[lostgame]

Are EULA’s still legally binding? I thought there was a recent case against that.

[gruez]

hence why the question should be about informed consent.

[boomboomsubban]

Almost certainly. One of the wider goals of past projects was to influence opinion over large groups of people. It seems likely that the various state forces using social media to sway opinion come from research on influencing opinion.

Additionally, the US torture of alleged terrorist detainees was called "enhanced interrogation" as a link to such testing. As we still have black sites, and a desire for more information, I personally assume there is still testing being done.

[jhiska]

The biggest impediment to a politician who in good-will wants to implement actually crucial policies is public opinion.

The problem is so bad that politicians don't actually talk about the hard work -- hours of reunions, negotiations, high-stake talks, etc --, because being honest and open has a detrimental effect on achieving their goals. Lies or half-lies are more effective, even when they are honestly doing what's best for us, because it's easier to accept an uncomplicated lie or half-lie than a complicated truth.

The problem, I guess, is that we have a representational democracy but representational democracies have operational flaws and that the will of the people sometimes leads to a mass grave for them. Sometimes our representatives are better educated and positioned to call the shots, but are held back by misconceived public opinion -- aggravated by the fact that the truth is never actually told by any side and debates are over who can "sell" the most convincing story based on "established" lies and half-lies.

It's a delicate balance of power. In a way, it is justifiable for the government (a faceless system where the responsibility is diffused to so many people that no one is almost ever truly individually responsible) to want to manipulate public opinion (or influence public opinion, in politically correct terms). In another, it is tipping the balance of power to the already powerful and this can cause problems.

[cryoshon]

one of the MKULTRA programs sought to reduce the ambition of populations using chemicals that could be dispersed in an imperceptible quantity

if you don't believe me, jump down the rabbit hole and you will become a bit jaded

[kossTKR]

This theory has always seemed pretty outlandish to me. Do you have any sources or interesting leads?

[cryoshon]

https://web.archive.org/web/20071128230208/http://www.arts.r...

here you go; it's from the proceedings of the senate select intelligence committee; this evidence is in fact unimpeachable government record.

[xtian]

Here's what looks to be the same document from the senate intelligence subcommittee website:

https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hear...

On pages 123-124:

> A portion of the Research and Development Program of TSS/Chemical Division is devoted to the discovery of the following materials and methods:

> [...]

> 14. Substances which will lower the ambition and general working efficiency of men when administered in undetectable amounts.

[lostgame]

Goddamn. I’m no tinfoil type but that is genuinely creepy.

[cryoshon]

you see creepy

i see crimes against humanity that are ready for prosecution

[dTal]

That says nothing about "populations" or "dispersed", and in fact given the context it's pretty clearly desired as a tool for use by field agents in a targeted fashion.

[ShabbosGoy]

Probably not. After all, it’s way easier to kidnap an asset in broad daylight and shove them into a van.

Or they can target the asset’s family members to coerce cooperation. Again, very low hanging fruit compared to mind control. Coercion is the best mind control.