[jpfed]

>Studies on patients with localised brain damage are helping to answer part of this question. When people have lesions in the prefrontal cortex – the outermost layer of the front part the brain – they appear to be much more prone to following orders than the general population.

WOW, that's going to come in handy when some government decides to weaponize it.

[chrisco255]

How would a government weaponize this? By going around damaging people's brains with brute force?

[albutr]

By promoting hard-hitting contact sports to youth, and issuing equipment that doesn't do a good job at protecting the head?

Even considering the underreporting with young, high school athletes, a large number of young football players in the US have suffered concussions[1] at a very young age when their brains are developing, and that's with equipment that we can reasonably assume is designed with safety in mind. If a nefarious government were to try to promote a sport, which had rules and equipment that lead to a higher risk of brain injury, and cultivated an image/environment that elevates "toughness"(not complaining when you feel you've been injured; a significant fraction (~16%) of high school football players continue to play even after being hit hard enough to lose consciousness, so that attitude is there, just need to bump the number up), that might get you close.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concussions_in_American_footba...

[yontherubicon]

TBH, we're far better at reducing executive function and impulse control simply by widespread drug usage, pornography usage and (IMHO) highly rewarding, low-attention media, esp social meda, youtube, and video games. All of those are FAR more widespread than playing football, and in aggregate, are far more likely to render one subservient.

[maxerickson]

Wake up sheeple!

[dang]

Not here please.

[maxerickson]

Okay, but I think it probably isn't a good outcome where a serious comment saying the same thing is more welcome than the ironic one.

[ouid]

Well, they don't need to weaponize it in order for it to have been propagated en masse. Atmospheric lead in the 60s and 70s could have had a similar effect on the generation that shall not be named.

[dv_dt]

Transcranial magnetic stimulation? Those Millimeter wave body scanners at the airport?

I don't seriously think the gov't is out to do this, but there are possibly ways to do it without leaving outward physical traces.

[s-shellfish]

This can be taken as conspiracy theory territory, so before it gets there, let me phrase it in a particular way.

I have no doubt that some people in the mental health care industry have entertained thoughts about how some mental health care medications can be used to make people more docile and obedient.

I'm not saying that is the intent. But the fact that such people have that kind of power without necessarily having all the checks and balances in place needed to ensure such scenarios do not occur, is concerning. At the very least, there should be ways to provide easy and accessible ways victims of such circumstance may challenge such treatment.

There often aren't ways, because once you are labeled crazy, most people in the mental health care industry think they know what is better for you than you do.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Meaning, it's easy to exploit a power dynamic when society assumes one side is good, and one side is bad.

I'm trying to be very delicate in my phrasing, because this is not a conspiracy theory. People can and do exploit such circumstance and pad it over with good intentions. And challenging these types of situations requires extensive care, rigor, and transparency - and a willingness to look at oneself from all perspectives.

And that's often a very difficult thing to do, for anyone.

When people are forced to examine themselves from sides that only tell them everything negative about them, the individual ego fights to survive. This is the case for anyone who has experienced stigma and discrimination. The choice is always, obey or be punished. And that's not fair, because the judgements that lead to these decisions are often collected from a one sided perspective.

It's a hard problem, but it needs to be discussed. I personally hate having this problem bottled up in my head. Because I know, how easy it is, to sway it back to good intent. Intentions are garbage if people keep judging you and placing you beneath them. Actions matter. Even if those actions are as simple as, judging less.

Honestly, I think most conspiracy theories stem from people's real life experiences, but because of judgement, disbelief, and stigma - the truth mutates. The moral of the story is retained, but the person dissociates from the trauma of not being believed and being mistreated, over and over again.

People can easily become convinced that they have little recourse or options left. It's not always brain damage. Sometimes it's just getting stuck in a pattern of perpetually perceiving judgement from everyone around them. I personally don't know if having to think that way changes the structure of the brain. Furthemore, I don't know if having the brain restructured in such a way indicates anything defective. It may just be different.

[yontherubicon]

Very real problem. TBH, this is the utility of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories aren't necessarily useful because they're true. They're useful because the vulnerabilities which are brought up in conspiracy theories often exist in reality, and they need to be accounted for.

Do vaccines contain substances which might be used for social engineering? Probably not, beyond the obvious disease reduction. Might unscrupulous government forces be WILLING to do such a thing, in collaboration with the oft-demonized private corporations? Absolutely. Especially given the recent news that the biannual reports which HHS was supposed to give to congress on the reduction of adverse vaccine effects have not been done since 1987, when they were first mandated. These reports were (presumably) mandated as a condition for allowing drug companies to avoid suits for vaccines. (Solution: easily available independent testing)

Might the telecom companies and USGOV be monitering everything we do electronically, as Alex Jones was telling us? Yeah. Are they? Ofc. (Solution: Encryption)

So if mental health care practitioners wished to intentionally change the behavior of Americans to a more subservient one, might they? Have they? Have not Psychoanalysis and Public Relations been exactly this (see: Century of the Self)? (Solution: IDK)

[marci]

Brute force is not required to damage/alter the brain. Food, aclohol, drugs or stress can easily alter brain chemistry in dramatic ways. Now, whether or not any government will do something like that is another question.

[some_account]

What do you mean? American society is full of cheap bad food, life is high stress, and drugs and deserts are being promoted daily and constantly in TV shows and movies.

I've noticed how smoking seems to be on the uptake also.

Best thing people can do is to turn off the TV but they won't.

[GauntletWizard]

By forcing the enlisted (conscripted) members of their armed forces to undergo procedures or take drugs that make them more compliant.

[LinuxBender]

I thought we already did this by deploying fast food chains everywhere? (taking drugs that make people more compliant or apathetic)

[ErikAugust]

Does eating fast food cause compliance to authority?

[LinuxBender]

It might. Give people empty calories, take away the amino acids, vitamins, enzymes and other nutrients require for normal brain activity, and people get numbed and dumbed down, apathetic, weak.

I have always stood up to authority and as I have improved my health, my will power and energy to stand up to authority has increased substantially.

[ErikAugust]

Yeah - my intuition is there is a correlation, but really I’d love to see any sort of research that relates to this.

[bitwize]

Chemtrails, man.

[Theodores]

The answer is in the article, oddly enough.

The BBC is at one level all about free speech, uniquely funded and good for you. At another level it is deeply tied into the military establishment in the UK. Since the beginning job applicants have had to pass the Room 101 test and that is a real thing - any socialist types simply did not get employed. They would not be blacklisted and unable to work in the industry, however, the commercial channels (ITV) did not pay for training, you had to get that from the BBC and then you could work elsewhere thanks to that experience.

To quote Napoleon (the old enemy) "Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets." The BBC has approximately four TV channels that shape the minds of the British public. Consequently people in the UK are highly invested in a set of ideas that cannot be thrown out on a wholesale basis.

From time to time there will be high profile events that get reported by the BBC in a way that is not consistent with facts on the ground. Yet people will attend such an event, go home and, despite seeing events with their own eyes, decide that they must have understood the situation incorrectly to believe what 'Auntie BBC' said, to then take that on as the 'correct' interpretation of events.

To think otherwise, i.e. to 'believe' one's own eyes requires a subversive mindset or, as is more likely to be the case, a conspiracy minded mindset where everything from moon landings to flouride is up for reinterpretation. We have all met those types of people - 'nutters' - so those that did see something different to the reported story learn not to say what they saw with their own eyes. To do so would cast them out of the herd and in with the 'nutter herd'. We are social animals and being outcast like that is worse than death.

If someone who happens to be sane does relate 'what they saw with their own eyes' to the rest of the herd then it is unlikely that members of the wider herd are going to believe them even if they do not come along with 'moon landings/contrails/whatever' baggage. This is because they are highly invested in the BBC world view and the latitude that it allows. The spectrum will range from Hillary to Trump but not as far as Bernie. Bernie is mainstream, but you get the idea. It is a fixed stage, outside this allowed latitude there will be terrorists and the KKK. The voice of protest will be allowed in this Overton Window with people such as Russell Brand or, in times gone past, Tony Benn. These folk don't have to be 'covert CIA operatives acting as gatekeepers', they just operate within the same Overton Window as everyone else, playing their role quite naturally, the sponges for dissenting voices that don't go along with whomever is in Number 10.

The implications of going with the BBC world view are generally good. You can go on anti-Trump protests posting your pics onto Instagram so everyone knows you are solidly against racism and whatever else it is easy to object to. There is no danger of being cast outside the herd.

The BBC has a veritable 'full spectrum dominance' with radio all around the world, the web as well as their mainstay 'free to air, advert free' television. Britain might not rule the waves any more but the airwaves are doing nicely.

I have not given any incident of where reality and BBC reality differ, however, people that suffered at Hillsborough, people that lived through the miner's strike, people that were there at Bloody Sunday, people that were abused by BBC 'disc jockeys' have had this problem to live with. Due to injustice they have had to 'rebel'. Nobody could speak out about the 'disc jockey' whose name we do not speak of until he died and was buried under six foot of concrete (he knew that his grave would not lay undisturbed). Yet everyone in the BBC knew. And in the wider press. And he was only a 'disc jockey' without any nuclear weapons or henchmen.

Hence, in the UK at least, the BBC is how the government has weaponised 'mind control' and made questioning authority not something one does. People just do not have the mindset to do so as they have been encultured to be British.

[s-shellfish]

It is interesting. Believing one's own eyes grounds individuals to a reasoning system that is directly connected to truth - their own direct experience of their existence. It's terrifying to think some people intentionally try to override that system with the intent to control, without true care for the individual.