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Mind Control Delusions and the Web
biohack writes "An article in the New York Times provides interesting insight into online communities of people who believe that they are subjected to mind control. 'Type "mind control" or "gang stalking" into Google, and Web sites appear that describe cases of persecution, both psychological and physical, related with the same minute details — red and white cars following victims, vandalism of their homes, snickering by those around them.' According to Dr. Vaughan Bell, a British psychologist who has researched the effect of the Internet on mental illness, '[the] extent of the community [...] poses a paradox to the traditional way delusion is defined under the diagnostic guidelines of the American Psychiatric Association, which says that if a belief is held by a person's "culture or subculture," it is not a delusion. The exception accounts for rituals of religious faith, for example.'"
The exception accounts for rituals of religious faith, for example.
Remember, it's fashionable to be a nutcase, to claim people are out to get you, to believe you're being persecuted & suppressed--just look at Tom Cruise.
It's been pointed out before but the internet is a very real, very powerful, very double-edged communications tool.
My work here is dung.
It's not a delusion if other people also believe it?
That's not a definition of delusion. It's a political step to avoid annoying religious people. They are no less deluded for it.
Oh, now a politically-motivated definition doesn't stand up to analysis? Big surprise.
"His group of self-described "targeted individuals" met offline in
Los Angeles last month for their inaugural conference, he said, where they attended a meeting to share stories, including the humiliating experiences of being told they are insane."
Oh, that explains it all! Just kidding.
"Subsequent research generally showed that those who believed they had been abducted were not psychotic, but suffering from severe memory and sleep problems, or personal traumas, Dr. Bell said."
In other words, stay sober as much as possible, get some sleep, and deal with your trauma in a healty manner. It's no accident that certain antipsychotics are also prescribed as sleeping aids. Self-medication with alcohol and other drugs causes blackouts(memory loss) and poor quality of sleep.
Besides, foil-heads, if you believe that people are ganging up on you to get a rise out of you, just realize that you're still the star of the show! Stop caring, and they will stop buggin'. The only winning move is not to play.
The 'parodox' goes away if you are willing to call rituals and religions delusions, which is pretty easy for anyone to do when you consider that at most one of the major religions in the world could possibly be true, since they contradict each other so well. The only thing that properly defines a delusion is that it is an incorrect belief.
Except that - as a nerd - you grew up in a culture (presumably public school) where 80% of the time, the snickering _was_ about you. You're just exhibiting an old learned response, kind of like a veteran might duck when he hears a car backfire.
How about this; I'm pagan. Several of my friends are wiccan or american indian (one is both). We bless our houses, some of us see spirits, or hear things, or get feelings about a place, or sense a presence. By your definition, these things are delusions because they're part of our culture. But to most other people, their subjective realities don't include them and so (quite naturally) they think we're nuts. Which brings me to my ultimate point -- the mental health community in general has defined these kinds of things as a disorder if they cause significant impairment in a person's daily life.
So, this is part of my culture, but by the same token it's quite readily apparent that it causes a negative impact on my ability to deal with the rest of the world, who don't share my beliefs. It doesn't pass a clinical threshold in these cases, but assume they did. Would it change anything? Since just about anything can be defined as "cultural"-- afterall, schizophrenics have a cultural identity too (I'd like to know about the whole pennies thing myself)-- how can you (or anyone in the medical community) abandon the more objective metric of significant impairment for "cultural values"? Does this mean we're throwing out gender identity disorder too, because that's cultural? How about depression -- all those goths, they're not depressed anymore, they're just down with their culture. And people who drink the koolaid -- there was nothing wrong with them, they were just trying to fit in.
If you ask me, it seems like a cop-out by an establishment that's not sure enough of its foundations to take the initiative and say that some behaviors, even when culturally acceptable, lead to bad results. Because that would be a moral judgement, is that the argument? Just like pharmacists that refuse to dispense birth control and insurance companies that refuse to pay for gender reassignment surgery, etc. Here's a suggestion -- how about the medical community stop trying to pass moral judgements through the back door like this. Your job is to help people, not figure out their culture. Their culture is totally irrelevant -- what IS relevant is if they're in pain, if their life is significantly impacted, and there is a medical treatment or cure available that could help them. THAT is where the focus needs to be, and culture only plays a role insofar as how to reach out to the patient and contextualize what's happening. disclaimer: not a doctor.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
It's a mental shortcut. Not too long ago (in evolutionary terms of time) we lived in a hostile environment, where assuming everything that happened was potentially a danger and then later (after a few seconds) realizing it isn't and you can calm down again, is a much better survival strategy then thinking first and deciding that it really is a danger after careful thought, which would cost precious seconds.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
...poses a paradox to the traditional way delusion is defined under the diagnostic guidelines of the American Psychiatric Association, which says that if a belief is held by a person's "culture or subculture," it is not a delusion.
I don't see the problem. Why is it sane for people to believe in angels, but not sane for people to believe they're being followed by secret agents in red cars? People believe in a lot of silly things. That's not delusion, that just buying into a set of beliefs that don't make sense to outsiders.
The social norm definition of delusion is perfectly fine. The real problem is that the mental health community insists on treating this as a "diagnosis". This is a concept that makes no sense in describing mental conditions. The human brain is the most complicated thing in the known universe, and poorly understood. There are a few physical or chemical abnormalities that can screw up your thinking, but except for those, the idea that you can take a list of behaviors and "diagnose" an underlying condition the way an oncologist diagnoses a tumor is absurd.
Unfortunately, we seem to be stuck with this charade. People won't trust mental health professionals (who actually are useful now and then) if they don't maintain the pseudo-medical mumbo-jumbo. And of course insurance companies won't pay any bills without a "diagnosis".
Jeez, get a load of that guy with the sideburns!
I have known a lot of paranoid people, and lots of times it seems to be confirmation bias and misunderstanding what is and is not commonplace feeding an innate mental imbalance. If you think there is a conspiracy of white cars driven by Asians monitoring your movements and you live in Koreatown, prepare to have your mind blown. If you are afraid of possibly-Arab men with mirrored sunglasses you will notice every single one, reinforcing your fears even while being within normal demographics.
It really doesn't help that a lot of these people think the medical establishment is part of the conspiracy and meds are part of the problem.
Man, you really need that seminar!
The physicists have progressed beyond that. By your own admission, psychologists haven't.
What? I never said that.
Seriously, what's the difference between scientific opinion and best-guessing? This is literally how the scientific process works:
Let's not overlook the fact that "wrong" answers are still, nevertheless, extremely useful. But, no, let's throw it all out, man, because Newton was "just guessing".
I don't wonder at it all. The two most powerful mind control tools ever invented are PR/Advertising and TV, and fashion and style were two of the first things that both of these tools were applied to.
Just think how long it took the average American to stop drinking the Bush/Cheney kool-aid. If that wasn't mind control I don't know what is.
Now where is that tin-foil? Up to a couple of weeks ago when I went all digital mine was wrapped around my TV antenna. Made a world of difference.
I mean, I'm not a huge fan of psychology myself but for the New York Times to file this under Fashion & Style gives me the impression that all the cool kids are joining gang stalking support groups ... makes one wonder what will the next fad be?
Before the Internet they were being abducted by aliens, before flying saucers they were being stalked by television news readers, before that they were receiving visitations from angels .. anyone see pattern here ..
davecb5620@gmail.com
I tripped over that landmine several years ago. My wife at the time had just started climbing the business ladder and had her first dinner meeting with vendors trying to sell some VERY expensive equipment. She came back from the meeting with a very swelled head from all the compliments and praise they'd heaped on her. I figuratively shot myself in the foot by pointing out that, of course they're going to say stuff like that, they want you to buy their gear. Trying to point out the benefits of cynicism is not a good road to a healthy marriage. :)
And you just helped confirm her delusions by having /. vastly increase her view count in less than a day. Bravo.
and here's your flame:
Relativism and materialism are also indefensible philosophies as Nietzsche pointed out. What evidence do you really have that anything you percieve, or indeed your very self actually exists at all?
Also, many atheists / materialists believe that society would be better off if everyone subscribed to their beliefs. However many of these same people do not credit the rest of humanity with the enlightened self interest necessary to bootstrap and sustain what we commonly hold to be an ethical society. (My argument here is essentially that if most members of society were to drop their religious beliefs and yet not have the capacity for enlightened self interest that society would be unsustainable, essentially making broad case atheism / materialism parasitic.) And the best thing is that many atheists / materialists is that they cannot stand scrutiny of these autocontradictory beliefs they hold. "It would just all be better if no one believed in God(s)."
Well, that wasn't even much of a flame... more of a reasoned argument. I'll have to try harder next time.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Do you know anything about psychology or do you just like to run your mouth off? The scientific part is saying "there is a likely genetic link between X and Y." The science (experimental psychology) generally stops there and you get the more practical parts (psychiatry, etc.).
You don't have a genetic trait for alcoholism, you have a genetic trait for a higher chance of becoming an alcoholic if you drink too much. A gay person has the genetic trait for being gay or possibly they are just born gay (not genetic but rather an effect of his mother's womb). In your analogy it's as if they were born addicted to alcohol instead of just with a predisposition to getting addicted. Getting over alcoholism itself is a difficult process and, as I understand it, you never actually stop being an alcoholic (you just stop drinking).
The social and personal difference comes from the effects. Being gay doesn't really prevent you from being part of society if society doesn't actively hunt you down. Being an alcoholic does prevent you from being in society even if society actually actively tries to help you (a much much stronger action than just ignoring your quirks).