This is a new term coined by the Media. The Defense Department of the United States, is involved in information dissemination, Propaganda and Disinformation Campaigns involving the Television, News Papers and the Internet. This is one way our Government is manipulating the people of the World. Is this good or bad? Every day scores of military personal scour the Internet manipulating web sites, discussion boards and political agendas. Is the Military running our Government? Is the tail waging the Dog? BTW welcome to those in the military.
I think this thread belongs in the Politics subforum, but as someone who retired from the military, I can tell you that there is no MOS (military occupational specialty) set aside for people to "scour the Internet manipulating web sites." Nor is there any evidence that such people exist in the military. Of course there are counter-intelligence/military intelligence personnel that probably perform searches based on various keywords or phrases (I met a guy that did this for a while... ), but they don't "manipulate" websites. I was reading, however, about a study done to correlatie Obsessive Compulsive behavior to religious thought and rituals.... it strikes me that obsessing over conspiracy theories correlates as well.
That's what the loads of civilian personnel are for. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Heck, the two Naval bases in my town have practically more civilian contractors on the site than military. I'm not saying yes or no to Starman's theory, just that the military doesn't mean only military people, which of course you already know. - N
But damn is the pay good. That's what the war in Iraq is really about. It's just a cover to fund people discrediting internet theories.
Here are a couple of links about what it is that I am talking about. http://afiwcweb.lackland.af.mil/ http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/bibs/infowar/if.htm http://www.psycom.net/iwar.1.html
Persol are you blind? Information warfare is the offensive and defensive use of information and information systems to deny, exploit, corrupt, or destroy, an adversary's information, information-based processes, information systems, and computer-based networks while protecting one's own. Such actions are designed to achieve advantages over military, political or business adversaries. I think this infact supports my claim.
It's noted that the military in more than one country has always used subversion tactics where key individuals that belong to certain radical groups are either approached or manipulated because they are seen as a chain of command that is expendable. This is the main reason why certain radical Anarchist groups, Relgious cults, Hate groups usually have infiltrators that are classed as "sleepers" that can when commanded alter the politics for that group to which ever government that wills the alteration to occur (at least this was true during the cold war years) Quite simply you should keep in mind that Democratic governments come and go, the military chain of command however exists throughout all those transitions, so if anyone was to propser from manipulate more it would be the militaries over the governments.
On the surface it would seem so. I would argue the topic has to do with Mind Control, via mass communications and therefore qualifies as pseudoscience, Mind Control is not an exact science. Political parties are not the focus of this thread.
This is necessary for offensive proactive intelligence. Cases like this attempt to gather information and act with Law Enforcement when necessary. I would say that Information Warfare is Mind Control on a Global Populace. The military has a clear cut agenda that seems in most cases to be in the best interest of our Government. Mind Control allows entire populations to be moved in one direction or another. Mass media has made this ever so easy and effective in the information age. My question is: Do you feel that global populations need to be manipulated by a special interest with a central Idealism and pre-determined agenda? and Is it impossible for the Global Populace to obtain peace without a central focus?
Define what "Peace" is, since there seems to be many alteratives (along with a definition of "Democracy" and of course "Freedom".)
As I see it, there is only one way this thread relates to the Pseudoscience subforum as it pertains to "information warfare" and "mind-control." That is when you contrast and compare the effect that pseudoscience in general has upon the popular media. Pseudo-documentary shows like Unsolved/Unexplained Mysteries exist to exploit the "significance junkie," which is a growing population in Western society. These are people that see significance in otherwise mundane things simply because they lack the faculties to explain it, either through lack of education, lower than average intelligence, overriding belief systems, or a combination. Various innovative networks are keen to exploit these significance junkies by sensationalizing otherwise fictitious events or accounts by presenting them as factual. Add, on top of this, obviously fictional shows like Star Trek, X-Files, and Outer Limits, to name a few, and you create, foster and raise a generation of believers in all things supernatural and paranormal. These believers have created self-perpetuating culture that, like all cultures, is attempting to propagate itself and prevent its collapse. This has created an almost religious-like devotion to the paranormal, particularly with regard to the UFO mthos, and defenders of this new faith seek to discredit its critics in much the same way religion does. Just as creationists criticize the scientific method as being a "false-god," so too do the ETI-UFO cultists. Just as Shroud of Turin believers dismiss the methodologies of physics when its critical, but embrace them when they're complimentary, so, too, do the believers in ghosts, spirits, crop circles, astrology, etc. The propaganda of pseudoscience seeks to dissway people from science and the scientific-method, since these are the tools that deconstruct and destroy the veils of pseudoscientific thinking such as creationism, intelligent-design (which is just creationism in a new wrapper), psi-powers, ETI-UFOs, alien abductions, dowsing, channeling, ancient astronauts, etc, etc, Its information warfare and mind control alright. The final cost, if left unchecked, will be a society of ignorant, supertitious people, considered backwards by the remainder of the reasoned and educated world. That place, more and more, is becoming the United States, with our religious fundamentalists and ETI-UFO nutters... thank goodness for a new trend in media for shows like CSI and Numbers... even if they do get some of it wrong, at least science and the scientific method is being sensationalized for a change.
As humans we seek the answers to all questions, not all questions can be answered. When the answer eludes us we reach out for understanding. We attempt to gain answers from investigating the problem and our senses, our knowledge, experience and understanding. In the absences of hard fact we are left with conjecture. What we perceive is related to the media and real life experience. The human brain is a product of it's environment and in most cases not much more. How would Gene Rodenberry of Star Trek ever come up with the idea's for Laser Weapons, Matter Anti Matter reactions, just to name a few? He did this by reading about Pseudo Science, not much later fantasy became reality Sometimes a little too much information is released to the public and the government try's to undo their mistake, i.e. the crash at Roswell 1947. The release of information by physicist Robert Lazar. Pseudo Science doesn't dilute Mainstream Science, it stimulates it. One must think outside the box or forever live within it. JQ
I've not read a Roddenberry biography in a while, but I do recall that he was quoted as saying that he came up with much of the "technology" of star trek because of necessity. He needed ways to move people quickly from place to place that was easy on the camera and came up with "transporters;" he needed convenient but plausible explanations for the energy needed in moving at FTL, hence dilithium crystals, antimatter, and warp engines. His later interests included the paranormal, but early on, much of this nonsense was only fiction and pseudoscience (fake-science) hadn't caught up to this. It was because of science fiction that pseudoscience proliferated. This is clear in reading early science fiction. Indeed, Arthur C. Clarke, H.P. Lovecraft and others created the current motif of modern ufoological lore with works like 2001: A Space Oddessy. That early primates were visited by "ancient astronauts" was the invention of authors like Clarke and Lovecraft to be later exploited by idiots like von Daniken and Graham Hancock. Neither of those "sources" are tenable as legitimate for information on "alien spacecraft." The government offered very reasonable explanations for the so-called "Roswell Incident" and Lazar is a nut job with an active imagination and a need for some sort of social acceptance. None of his claims have ever been validated, and he's made some doozies. Yet ufoologists keep hanging on to these kinds of things like creationists hang on to 10,000 year old Earth and global flood. Superstitious nonsense. Pseudoscience is fake science. It offers nothing to actual science but a headache and the stupidification of a populace. Ironic, since those that cling to pseudoscientific nonsense like aliens, saucer crashes, ancient astronauts and the like, are stuck in a box they refuse to acknowledge. Whenever more prosaic or tenable explanations are produced using the scientific method, those that claim to be "free thinkers" and "open-minded" refuse to accept these explanations as even remotely probable since they threaten the very belief systems they worship. When truth becomes public, such as the case with Roswell, it is automatically considered a lie or coverup, in spite of very legitimate reasons for secrecy in the first place (it was a Cold War operation that was being covered up, not some "crashed spaceship"). No, fake science is no good for anything. It slows down any real progress, creates a nation of gullible idiots when it comes to scientific literacy, and is fast becoming a set of new religions. Fundamentalist UFOist. Bleh.
The definition of pseudoscience; a system of theories, assumptions, and methods erroneously regarded as scientific. I do not see anything in the description that uses the word fake. Pseudoscience may not be mainstream science, however I do not know if I would say it is fake science. All things have some exact science and can be measured, regardless of weather they are considered to be real or fantasy. When you have a dream is it real or is it fantasy or both? Most theories aren't considered to be scientific fact until proven. The word pseudo: being apparently rather than actually as stated, could imply an illusion with some ground in reality yet not exactly as advertised. Nothing in life is what it seems. This is a true statement because Life is only relative to the observer. If two people experience the same thing you will most likely get two different accounts of the experience. If you say something is relative I would say wait a million years and it wont be. The mind tells each individual what is relative and what is not. Every day we are bombarded by the Media and all that it stipulates. We are told Irac has weapons of mass destruction and that we should go to War. The war in Irac is in fact is a pseudowar. it is not at all what it was advertised to be. I forecast the next war to be with Iran the pseudowar Media campaign has already begun. Is it necessary for the U.S. Government to brainwash the people of the world into their specific agenda? Is this needed to obtain world peace? If all people have different views of reality can they be unified by manipulation via the Media? I would say yes, it is necessary, for if the thoughts of the public are not controlled, then individualism will lead to anarchy. People would much rather be followers than leaders. When I look at the world with my abstruse brain I have to remember that I live in a world of Human Sheep and I have separated from the flock. I do work at processing thought independent of mainstream belief. How can one invent without thinking unlike others. So when you say conform to excepted mainstream belief i.e. Science or Religion I would only go as far as to study them and I would not in all cases believe everything as the truth. What I am trying to say is there is a degree of pseudo in everything in life. Nothing on Earth will exist 15 Billion years from now, When all we know no longer exists, was it a Dream? Energy and Matter are yet to be understood, we know a little, we have allot to learn. Is there ETI? According to the Drake equation there is, and I for one would tend to agree with him. Are there UFO's? Yes I have witnessed them, are they from another world, other than the Earth? I do not know.
an activity resembling science but based on fallacious assumptions www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn Or from the Oxford English Dictionary: A pretended or spurious science; a collection of related beliefs about the world mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method or as having the status that scientific truths now have. In short: a false (hence the prefix pseudo-) science. Real. It's a cognitive event brought on by the firing of synapses in various cortical centers of the brain. Physical in every sense of the word and can be measured by EEG. There is a knowable universe even though you may never know it. The universe adheres to understandable and inmutable rules even though you may never learn them all: ignorance of the laws is no excuse. What you and I perceive of the universe doesn't change the universe one iota: it isn't one thing for you and another for me. But using objective observation and noting that "true" statements about the universe will lend themselves to repetition or prediction will allow us to "know" the universe. Nonsense about ETI-UFOs (not that all ufo research is nonsense, but the vast majority is) tells us nothing because there is no predictive repetition to any test of the UFO hypothesis. Simply settling for the awe of life and the alleged probability that life in the universe is not only common but so is advanced civilizations. These alleged civilizations would have to be so common as to be nearly every star in order for one of them to have stumbled upon our little blue dot in the universe. The Drake equation is a bit overrated and without really examining it from a statistical/mathematical perspective, you'll never really understand it. But like so many "fundamentalist UFOists," you whip out the Drake equation like it were the Ace of Spades in a game of Texas Holdem. To say that there is a degree of "pseudo" in everything in life is a statement that is truly ignorant. The origin of the prefix pseudo is Greek and means "false." What's false about the relationship of two hydrogen molecules to one molecule of oxygen?
Starman....Am really enjoying what you are saying. your insights resonate with my own...except where you seem to imply that people need a form of mind cotrol to stop anarchy'...fogive me if i read you wrong Skinwalker....a bit ironic , ie., your ongoing critique against 'pseudoscience' when it is precisely the pseudoscience forum you appear to frquent the most. i can only assume your action here is some form of 'policing'? am i right or am i right? you seem to feel a fear of being engulfed by 'silly superstitious pseudoscience people' IF there isn't some effort to pomiote the 'T R U T H' of THE SCIENTIFIC METHOd (trumpets blare). and you say you are not religious?........heh But i am not particularly anti-science with its scientific method as LONg as it doesn't preach to people who experience life DIFFERENTLY....yeah?? JeZUs people cant even DREAM now without you and your buddies jumpin in and telling them its all wirres, and circuits and that's that. you and your boys suck out all the meaning from peoples MEANING. or try to anyway. can't you see you are being totally irrational and dogmatic, just like and fundy religionist who refuses to beinve in evolution. you are that's mirror image. noone is safe from your SM interpretation. yet you know......listen closely...closer shhhhhhh....come a little bit closer.....YOU REALLY DO NOT KNOW!!!!!! haha
