This deep dive will discuss some of the major studies on human behavior and how we are being manipulated by our "leaders" use them on us.
I hope you go forward to read up on these subjects and try to see them in your daily lives. Those “leaders” who exploit these aspects of societies as a whole and individuals to their private ends are nothing short of evil.
In the first two, I am using the terms, Conductor, Confederate and Subject, here’s what I mean when I use those words.
“Conductor” - The person giving instructions/conducting the test.
“Subject” – The person(s) whose behaviors and reactions are documented.
“Confederate” – These are people who appear to be fellow Subjects participating in the study along with the subject, but are really working for the Conductor and were given specific instructions on how to act during the test.
Millgram Experiment
This was a 1963 study on how much an individual will bow to the commands of a perceived authority figure. Article.
We have a Conductor, Confederate, and Subject. The Conductor is dressed in a lab coat, which gives the impression that he is a figure of authority. The Confederate is put into a different room from the Conductor and Subject, but can be heard. The Subject is sat in front of a panel with an on/off switch and a severity dial from 15 volts to 450 volts, in increments of 15.
The Conductor explains that the Confederate is to be asked questions and the Subject will be told to shock the Confederate for any wrong answers. The Confederate does not actually receive a shock. He is made aware of when and how much he is getting “shocked” so the Confederate can respond appropriately.
If the Subject balked at all to giving the shock, the Conductor told the Subject, “You have to.”
Here’s the chilling part: 65% of the subjects obeyed all the way and ultimately delivered that 450-volt shock. Now, there are claims that the 65% is skewed because some Subjects figured out the Confederate was not getting shocked, however if even half of the subjects went to 450 “because they were told to” is still a chilling number.
Asch Conformity Experiment
A 1950’s experiment to see how much an individual will conform to the opinion of the majority, when there is clear evidence to the contrary. Article.
We have a Conductor, 3-6 Confederates, and Subject. The Subject and Confederates are brought into a room and shown some vertical lines, a target line, then lines A, B or C which are of verifying lengths, then asked which of the A, B or C lines is the same length as the target line.
It’s blatantly obvious that B is the correct line, but when the Subject gives the correct response, all of the Confederates say A is the longest line and verbally berate the Subject for his “wrong” choice. In about 25% of the Subjects, they give into the peer pressure and start saying A is the longest line.
Interestingly enough, that number drops to 5% when one of the Confederates sides with the Subject.
Dunning-Krueger
This study is summed up with the phrase, “The less you know about a subject, the surer you are of your facts and opinion on it.” Psychology Today article.
This is illustrated by someone who knows nothing about a subject, yet has a firm belief of what the problem is and the necessary solution to solve said problem. If they go and acquire knowledge on the subject, along the way they discover the subject is way more complex and nuanced than what they even imagined, and as knowledge increases, the surety of the original solution drops. Their original solution may be correct, but most of the time they are way wrong. This can be summed up with a quote attributed to both Socrates and Albert Einstein, “The more I know, the more I realize I know nothing.”
Cloward-Piven
This is not a scientific study. This is being carried out right now in real time as you read this. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
This was thought up in the 60’s by two sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. Here’s the article they published outlining it.
Their idea was to get as many people as possible on Welfare programs or Universal Basic Income (UBI) to overload and collapse the government. Being radicals in the 60’s, their ultimate goal was to institute a more “fair” (read: Socialist) government.So, if you ever wonder why tens of thousands of immigrants enter the country illegally, then are given drivers’ licenses, etc., the goal is to eventually get them on (and overload) the system.
As an aside, in the Piven appeared on one of Milton Friedman’s Free To Choose episodes, in the panel at the end. Piven put her opinion out, and was subsequently dissected by Thomas Sowell, like a frog in Biology class.
Gell-Mann Amnesia
Michael Crichton came up with this one, I’ll just let him explain it.
"The Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories."
In other words, if you know nothing about the subject, you give the benefit of the doubt to the author, because why would he write about it if he didn’t know was going on? Then when you read an article on a subject you’re knowledgeable on, you realize this author is an idiot to the point where he probably needs help tying his shoelaces.
Hegelian Dialectic
Also known as “Problem-Reaction-Solution”
First, Government either introduces or exploits a problem. This is done in such a way to create great concern or panic in the populace.
Second, as a reaction, people who have been trained to turn to government to solve their problems, clamor for a fix to this problem.
Third, the government says, “I can fix this, but you must give me some of your liberties and freedom so I can do what needs to be done.”
So, it started out (Problem) “Too many Black men are getting killed by the police!” (Reaction) “We must defund the police!” (New problem) “AAHH! Too much crime because no police are arresting bad people!” (Reaction) “Protect us!” (“Solution”) “Give us your guns and let the police have more power.”
Another current example is, (Problem) There is a virus that will kill you all!" (Reaction) "I don't want to die! Oh, help us Great and All-Powerful government, you're our only hope!" (Solution) Stay home, stay apart, wear a mask (or two, or three), take these shots."
Occam’s Razor
This is simply, “the simplest answer is most likely the correct one.”
Let me illustrate with an ongoing situation.
We currently have a global virus outbreak that almost everyone is panicking over. We have two conflicting explanations on how it came to start infecting people.
Let me be clear, I make no comment either way on if it was an accidental or intentional release. I make no comment either way on who paid for the funding or why. I am merely trying to assess the probabilities of how we got it in the first place.
The first possible explanation (and the one pushed by the Chinese Communist Party and US major media) is, “it spontaneously mutated to be able to pass from bats to people” at a “wet market” (where whole dead animals are sold as food) in Wuhan, China.
The second possible explanation is, “the virus escaped from the Wuhan Virology Institute,” which is near to the wet market in question and where workers at the institute bought food.
Now, both of these are plausible. That being said, we have these points to consider:
- This Institute had active projects at the time involving a strain of coronavirus that up until then was confined only to bats.
- This Institute was performing “gain of function” (bureaucrat-speak for “weaponizing”) research on that strain of virus.
- Genetic analysis of the original strain revealed genetic markers that could never be found to occur naturally.
These points do not eliminate theory #1. That being said, theory #2 has probably a 99.5% chance of being the actual cause vs. theory #1.