At What Point is Manipulation Mind-Control?

[Joey McGee]

Joey McGee

Okay so Gnu atheists are the angry, bitter, intolerant atheists who go around calling anybody with an inkling of religiosity as being stupid, ignorant, mentally ill, weak-minded, delusional, brain damaged idiots and so forth?

Many religionists are all of those things, cult programming makes it impossible to think clearly and weakens your brain, it's a fact of life. People talk about this and their opponents engage in strawmandering accusing about how they think ALL religionists are like this which is ********.

It's more like there are people talking openly and rationally about real life problems and then there are concern trolls blathering and misunderstanding everything. They somehow imagine they are doing a service to the community by being concern trolls for concern trollery's sake. But anyway.

Yeah, but where does it end? Your zeal in wanting to fight cults and so forth is blinding you to the basic reason the Constitution (and in fact rule of law) exists -- freedom.

Nope. I'm simply making a point that you can't draw a line between the right to freedom and people helping you. They tried to draw this line before and too many cult deprogrammers ended up in jail for kidnapping. Now they have drawn it somewhere else. I'm just making the point that you can't do your best to help society if you arbitrarily drawing lines for administrative convenience.

It's important to have the right to speak your mind without fear of punishment from the government, the right to not be spied on routinely unless there is probable cause that you have committed, or are in the process of committing a criminal act.

No one's disputing that. Do you have a right not to be brainwashed by a cult? Do you deserve rescued by deprogrammers if that happens? Of course. Now you could call that religious discrimination and kidnapping too.

But it isn't exactly out of place -- there is a very serious danger if you start taking away crucial freedoms to deal with a threat to one's freedom. Can't you see the irony in that -- taking away one's freedom to avoid people taking away one's freedom?

You have to take a step back sometimes, look at the big picture...

... and go from black and white to color. See, "freedom" "free will" are hazy subjects when you're dealing with mind control.

To Everyone

Okay, here's a question. Does neuromarketing cross the line into mind-control?

Sometimes.

Some consumer advocate organizations have expressed worry on this as it can be quite invasive and subtle as it effectively involves using neuroscience to defeat the defense mechanisms that most people use to rationally scrutinize advertising.

Unless you teach people to be aware of this in which case it barely works.

Theoretically, neuromarketing could be used to help political candidates manipulate voters during elections.

They have been using them forever, Cialdini worked on the Obama campaign.

 

[Pup]

To Everyone

Okay, here's a question. Does neuromarketing cross the line into mind-control?

I think this quote from the link sums it up:

Joseph Turow, a communications professor at the University of Pennsylvania, dismisses neuromarketing as another reincarnation of gimmicky attempts for advertisers to find non-traditional approaches toward gathering consumer opinion. He is quoted in saying, "There has always been a holy grail in advertising to try to reach people in a hypodermic way. Major corporations and research firms, are jumping on the neuromarketing bandwagon because they are desperate for any novel technique to help them break through all the marketing clutter.

So the more important question is, do advertising executives have the right to be free of sales techniques that falsely tap into their dreams of finding a holy grail of advertising that will always convince consumers to buy their products?

Using the example at the link, if Coke has already convinced consumers that their brand is preferable, even though it tastes worse than Pepsi, anything that neuromarketing could do has already been done decades ago, through simple observation of human behavior, surveys, test-marketing of ads, and so forth. At most, the neuromarketing techniques of analyzing consumer responses will make creating better ads more efficient, but there have been great ads that sell the sizzle rather than the steak for ages.

 

[sadhatter]

Okay, this is not meant to be a far fetched discussion.

There are a lot of things that allow a person to manipulate another person. Whether it be a variety of advertising methods, persuasiveness, fear-mongering, intimidation, use of smells, sounds, sights, chemicals, medicines and so forth.

The question is at what point does manipulation cross the line into mind-control? I think we could all agree that if had a device that could take control of your brain, and make it operate in such a way to allow me to control every aspect of your behavior; make you do what I want to without you even being aware of the fact that you were being manipulated (you either had no memory of it, or simply felt it was your own decision)?

You know, i seem to be one of the few skeptics that is " Picking up" what your "putting down" ( maybe i could be wrong.), and it doesn't seem to me to be a semantics argument. Correct me if i am mistaken but...

What i feel your asking is the following.

There are practises that can be used to manipulate people, some used by everyday folk, some used by agencies. These are not 100% effective but can be used to get people to do what you want.

This would be considered manipulation.

There could be practices that resulted in the complete ability to control another person, this would be mind control?

Am i right?

( i actually find this a very interesting topic, and if we are on the same page, would like to engage in conversation, there is no " AHA, got ya there" waiting for you.)

 

[MikeSun5]

Okay, here's a question. Does neuromarketing cross the line into mind-control?

No. Joey McGee and Pup pretty much said everything that needs to be said on that. If people choose what they like based on previous experiences rather than direct stimuli from the product, that surely isn't because of some subliminal advertising tactic. Advertising specifically to utilize that phenomenon wouldn't be "mind control" anyway, it'd be more like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Theoretically, neuromarketing could be used to help political candidates manipulate voters during elections.

In this sense, I don't see the "manipulation" as being wrong. If neuromarketing tells a campaign manager that people are more likely to vote for a sharp-looking tall person with glasses rather than a short fat person with mussy hair and an overbite, so be it. I don't see neuromarketing as any type of threat to the way we live. Advertisers have been trying to figure out what makes people buy stuff for decades, so they have recently started looking at MRI scans. So what? I don't see the big deal.
Now wands that shoot magnetic charges into your brain to make you do something you didn't intend to do, that's a different story.

"In closing, I want to remind everybody that no matter how I die, it was murder"

...even if there is video of you dying peacefully in your sleep. Murder.

 

[The Man]

But once you get so good at persuasion and influence it really puts the ball more and more in your court. Suddenly you choose how well you are reframing someone by how hard you work, and how much you practice. They have to make the choice themselves, but then people are having decisions made for them a million different ways by society all of the time, their free will is an illusion in some senses, while there is that element there, it's almost incidental in certain cases. If everyone's parents could afford Rick Ross and there were thousands of him all over the place, there would be a lot less cult members out there.



Absolutely, how do you encourage their real identity while collapsing their cult identity?

Well that's the real rub of it, do they have a "real identity" outside of their "cult identity"? For some their clique, group, ‘cult’, social circle or what have you forms a critical part of their self-identity. If it works for them and isn’t hurting anybody (any more than really anything else is) then I have no problems and say let them ‘have at it’.

When I explain evo psych I always tell them to read the criticisms AND the rebuttals because honestly they will screw up your mind and waste your time. That interview with Dawkins and Buss they run through all of the groups of people that do and say stupid stuff about EP, it's kind of funny actually. They are especially unkind to Gould who tried to debunk EP in a wholly ridiculous way, "strawmandering" as Tricky Dick calls it which led to whole swaths of the population mistakenly believing it's been "disproven", the whole thing is just a joke. And don't get me started on the anti-selfish gene model people!

Well hopefully I’ll have more time for a’waste’n tomorrow and can look at all this stuff, thanks again.

 

[INRM]

MikeSun5

Advertisers have been trying to figure out what makes people buy stuff for decades, so they have recently started looking at MRI scans. So what? I don't see the big deal.

Effectively, they're using brain scans to figure out how people think in a manner more detailed than in the past -- far more detailed; then using that knowledge to figure out how to manipulate people into doing what they want.

The first way to figure out how to control a mind is to learn how to read it.

 

[MikeSun5]

Effectively, they're using brain scans to figure out how people think in a manner more detailed than in the past -- far more detailed; then using that knowledge to figure out how to manipulate people into doing what they want.

Humans are doing everything in a manner more detailed than in the past. That's called progress. We get better at things as time goes on -- that's how science works. As far as "them" getting people to do what "they" want... "they" have been working on that for centuries. I just don't see anybody getting any more or less successful at controlling anyone else with subliminal sequences of images and sounds hidden within advertisements.

The first way to figure out how to control a mind is to learn how to read it.

While I believe scientists need to keep studying the brain, and the inventions and technology being created do amazing things, I guess the only worry is the misuse of these technologies. Things like that magnetic wand treatment (TMS) that was mentioned earlier and the Japanese dream recording machine could potentially be used for the wrong reasons (even though the latter isn't really "mind control," rather than a form of "mind reading"), but I think being influenced/persuaded/manipulated by advertisements in print and on film is largely placebo effect.

If you go to a store and buy Coke over Pepsi because you remembered the cute polar bears when you saw the Coke bottle, there's no mind control there unless you believe that commercial influenced your decision. Hint: it didn't. You just remembered it when you saw the Coke bottle and the red and white logo because humans are trained to recognize patterns. Not because Coca-Cola has some sort of bead on your neurons.

 

[Pup]

I just don't see anybody getting any more or less successful at controlling anyone else with subliminal sequences of images and sounds hidden within advertisements.

That's a good point. Neuromarketing is only a testing technique. It doesn't actually cause any effects.

The ads themselves are the same ones people have been trying to think up for years, and if there was a magic advertising formula that would make the neuromarketing testing machines light up like a Christmas tree, we might not have recognized exactly why it worked before neuromarketing, but it would have shown up in a strange spike in sales, as almost everyone exposed to the ad bought what it was selling.

If such a type of advertising existed, it's hard to believe no one stumbled on it before by accident.

 

[INRM]

MikeSun5

Humans are doing everything in a manner more detailed than in the past. That's called progress. We get better at things as time goes on -- that's how science works.

Yes, however if the ability to manipulate people becomes increasingly better; eventually a state will be produced when people can be manipulated to the point that they cannot resist the manipulation (may not even be aware of it).

Not all progress is good. Progress is defined as "to advance as towards a goal". The goal has to be good and the results have to be good.


Pup

That's a good point. Neuromarketing is only a testing technique. It doesn't actually cause any effects.

However the ads that are created using neuroscience research do cause effects. How accurate is not clear, but if it is becoming easier to use vivid ads to produce false memories -- that does mean something.

 

[INRM]

This was posted in this thread: Study: Ads Creating False Memories - Page 2
by a member named Elaedith:

Subliminal 'messages' don't work, but information can certainly be processed to some level without conscious awareness, and have various effects on perceived familiarity, affective responses, and even behaviour (as evidenced by subliminal priming studies). There are also recent claims that subliminal priming can influence preference for a consumer product under certain conditions. However, that is controversial and getting off the topic somewhat, since these ads were not subliminal and I don't think there is any evidence subliminal priming effects can last a week.

Meaning that it does have some effect especially depending on what it's being primed for. Regardless, I think we could agree deliberately creating ads in this manner that are designed to bypass conscious awareness are unethical?

Do they cross the line?

 

[MikeSun5]

Yes, however if the ability to manipulate people becomes increasingly better; eventually a state will be produced when people can be manipulated to the point that they cannot resist the manipulation (may not even be aware of it).

That is a possibility... but I believe for every yin there is a yang: if the dream recording technology was availalbe, I'm sure there would be some sort of scrambler you could keep in your pocket that would keep people from seeing your thoughts, and to combat that magnetic brain-zapping technology, I'm pretty sure a tinfoil hat would work just fine.

I'm not worried.

 

[INRM]

MikeSun5

Well, why not make regulations against certain unscrupulous advertising methods?

 

[MikeSun5]

Again, I don't think any advertising can be considered "mind control." Advertisements are meant to persuade, and people already know that. I say let the advertisers be as unscrupulous as they want to. They're already scraping the bottom of the barrell, IMO. Every ad out there is either fear and/or sex. Every last one.

Fear and sex are two of humankind's most powerful triggers. I don't see advertisers getting any more of an advantage than that. What advantages people believe they have is another story.

 

[INRM]

Okay, but we can agree that

1.) Putting an electrode into a person's medial forebrain bundle which could produce extreme pleasure such as this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HbAFYiejvo

2.) Put some kind of "chip" in a person's brain that would allow a person to manipulate their thought processes without their awareness, and without any ability for them to resist

Constitute mind-control?

 

[MikeSun5]

Sure. But having something implanted into your body via surgery would probably have to be voluntary, right? Advertising budgets would be enormous if companies were snatching customers up to implant chips in their brains.

 

[INRM]

MikeSun5

Well, there have been proposals for using a computer chip to cure psychopathy. Since psychopaths would refuse, the government would be empowered to force this on a people found to be psychopaths.

Of course I think this is a bad idea as it would only be a matter of time before the scope of this would expand.

 

[The Man]

MikeSun5

Well, there have been proposals for using a computer chip to cure psychopathy. Since psychopaths would refuse, the government would be empowered to force this on a people found to be psychopaths.

Of course I think this is a bad idea as it would only be a matter of time before the scope of this would expand.

Why do you think "psychopaths would refuse"? If I lack empathy for others and it has resulted in problems for me, this might be something I want to, but simply can not, correct. Just as if I lack restraint in impulse buying, gambling or shoplifting might be something I want to, but simply can not , correct on my own. The mere presumption that "psychopaths" or even impulsive buyers, compulsive gamblers and shoplifters can't recognize their specific sociological, economical, legal or whatever problem(s) (as most everyone else might seem to) simply has no merit. Again, as I said it comes down to informed consent and in the most extreme cases, as you allude to above, a preponderance of evidence as well as the due processes of justification.

 

[callaway]

Why do you think "psychopaths would refuse"? If I lack empathy for others and it has resulted in problems for me, this might be something I want to, but simply can not, correct. Just as if I lack restraint in impulse buying, gambling or shoplifting might be something I want to, but simply can not , correct on my own. The mere presumption that "psychopaths" or even impulsive buyers, compulsive gamblers and shoplifters can't recognize their specific sociological, economical, legal or whatever problem(s) (as most everyone else might seem to) simply has no merit. Again, as I said it comes down to informed consent and in the most extreme cases, as you allude to above, a preponderance of evidence as well as the due processes of justification.

He's referring to the popular idea of sociopaths as the ultimate kind of businesspeople. They're better than everyone else at using and abusing others; that's their competitive advantage. Sociopaths (the most powerful and influential, anyway) wouldn't choose the mind control solution because that means giving up their competitive advantage. Therefore the government would need to force it on them.

 

[MikeSun5]

I just saw an article with another new technology that has "mind control" (mind "reading," really) implications. Synthetic telepathy!! WAY cool.

Of course this one would involve wearing some type of helmet, which would also have to be voluntary.

 

[The Man]

He's referring to the popular idea of sociopaths as the ultimate kind of businesspeople. They're better than everyone else at using and abusing others; that's their competitive advantage. Sociopaths (the most powerful and influential, anyway) wouldn't choose the mind control solution because that means giving up their competitive advantage. Therefore the government would need to force it on them.

Perhaps, but then why not empower the government to force everyone to give up any kind of competitive advantage? Conversely if my empathy for others is making me less of an effective 'businessperson' why not 'dial it down a bit' (if I can't do it myself) to gain such an advantage? Again for any voluntary procedure informed consent is the requirement. For some involuntary procedure there needs to be some compelling and rather extreme evidence and justification. Otherwise simply applying it to just everyone becomes equally justifiable.