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Is it ethical to socially engineer a paranoid society?


Kriminal99

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As soon as you decide to kill your enemy, you are what you fight. War is always evil and we always fight our brothers in arms. But, when the cat in the room turns into a lion you’d best be ready to put it down. It (they) want your blood nutronjon.

 

Hi Modest,

 

I also don't think that it's ethical to redefine paranoia to argue this threads topic.

 

IMHO, when the power of the media becomes concentrated in a few people and has a great impact on generating fabulous wealth for those with a reluctance in dealing with the truth, promoting unethical paranoia becomes the MODUS OPERANDI. The border line between true capitalism and crony capitalism was broken at the time in the past when there were twice as many media moguls running much smaller organisations than they do today.

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Hi Modest,

 

I also don't think that it's ethical to redefine paranoia to argue this threads topic.

 

IMHO, when the power of the media becomes concentrated in a few people and has a great impact on generating fabulous wealth for those with a reluctance in dealing with the truth, promoting unethical paranoia becomes the MODUS OPERANDI. The border line between true capitalism and crony capitalism was broken at the time in the past when there were twice as many media moguls running much smaller organisations than they do today.

 

I think Buffy was right that 'paranoia' is a "heavily loaded but undefined term" and really doesn't help the discussion on these topics. Although I believe it is necessary for societies to be a bit paranoid about certain things because it can protect us - The Cuban missile crisis is a good example - both the Cubans and the US were paranoid of the other for good reason. But, it is hard to make that point in a time when the US is very overly paranoid about most everything leading to very, very bad decisions. Decisions that are, in fact, getting a lot of innocent people killed. So, I'm going to stop trying :hihi:

 

I couldn't agree more about the diversity of media right now and the consolidation trend. I hope that the internet can help reintroduce the choice that information consumers used to have. A person can probably get a better idea of what's happening in Iraq spending 20 minutes on YouTube than watching CNN all day. It seems sad that that's the case in one respect and yet hopeful in another. I hope the internet finds more serious investigation reporters since we are loosing them so quickly in the print media market. We could have used more Woodward-and-Bernstein's to put a dagger through the bush administration's heart.

 

-modest

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I think Buffy was right that 'paranoia' is a "heavily loaded but undefined term" and really doesn't help the discussion on these topics. Although I believe it is necessary for societies to be a bit paranoid about certain things because it can protect us - The Cuban missile crisis is a good example - both the Cubans and the US were paranoid of the other for good reason. But, it is hard to make that point in a time when the US is very overly paranoid about most everything leading to very, very bad decisions. Decisions that are, in fact, getting a lot of innocent people killed. So, I'm going to stop trying :D

 

I couldn't agree more about the diversity of media right now and the consolidation trend. I hope that the internet can help reintroduce the choice that information consumers used to have. A person can probably get a better idea of what's happening in Iraq spending 20 minutes on YouTube than watching CNN all day. It seems sad that that's the case in one respect and yet hopeful in another. I hope the internet finds more serious investigation reporters since we are loosing them so quickly in the print media market. We could have used more Woodward-and-Bernstein's to put a dagger through the bush administration's heart.

 

-modest

 

I don't think it is redefine the term paranoia to use a professional doctor's explantion of it, and it is vitally important we understand this excessive need to be superior and control, because what it is doing to our whole culture. Richard M Brickner, MD, defined paranoia as "excessive need to be superior and in control" in his book "Is Germany Incurable" written during the second world war. He wrote the excessive fear is the result of excessive need to be superior and in control.

 

Charles Sarolea wrote 30 years earlier, of the conditions in Germany that brought on the paranoia. This is a political organization that US has adopted. Not only is the US power structure radically different, but national values and the character of the US are changed. Of major concern to Charles Sarolea, was the destruction of German national hero's and taught negative attitude towards Germany, while praising efficiency; and he also made note of the popularity of Nietzsche . The US has experienced the same changing, done in the same way, through public education. Our young today learn of German philosophers and no longer learn of ancient Greek and Roman ones, that were the classical education essential to our democracy. We have a changed culture because we changed education. The National Defense Education Act, prepared the US to be the same New World Order, it defeated in WWII.

 

One reason people question if Bush and Cheney had a hand in making 9/11 happen, is the same thing happened in Germany, before it was successfully mobilized for war. I forget the details, but a major building was burned down, doing the equivalent of causing people to fear "an enemy", and we know Bush and Cheney had designs on making the US a strong military force in the mid east long before 9/11. We know Straus was a German Jew who fled Germany and became an influential professor in the US. We know the CIA learned from fleeing intelligent offices from Germany. We know the Eisenhower administration embedded the Military and Industrial Complex in our society, instead of demobilizing the US as we have done, following every other war. We know Bush senior was a director of the CIA, and Bush junior was influenced by Straus, and the grandfather had connections with NAZI Germany. Cheney worked for oil companies, before leading the company that supplies wars, and we know this blend of the private industry and military are the structure of the Military, Industry Complex, or New World Order, first realized by a Prussian General before WW1. .

 

During the Eisenhower administration, new connections were made between government and research, and government and media. During the Reagon administration, research on poverty completely disappears from the Abstracts and is completely replaced with research on welfare fraud. It is such a complete change in research, it is obviously biased by a predetermined purpose. The findings of the research were used to scapegoat the poor for the 1970 recession, and we cut off welfare to two parent families, slashed domestic budgets, and poured money into military spending, skyrocketing homelessness and pregnancies without marriage. Even Social Security funds were used for military spending, so the military could have more money without raising taxes. There was a huge shift of wealth and power and at this time, and we are just now talking about it, as a widening gap between have's and have not's. Part of this military spending was in the form of granting arms to the mid east. Clearly during the Reagan administration the neocon agenda of Bush and Cheney for military domination of the mid east, was already taking effect.

 

I am not saying Bush and Cheney had a hand in 9/11, but they did have the most to gain from it and the US has imitated Germany in so many other ways, things do appear suspicous. And can we back up, to the education media professionals have? It is not the same education we had before the 1958 National Defense Education Act which radically changed public education, our national values and character. The control of thoughts, destruction of national hero's and dislike of our own country, while praising effeciency, began with in 1958.

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This is not my favorite site. I especially do not like the way it treats the subject of education, because it so completely ignores the idealism and concepts of democracy and liberty that I believe are essential to education. However, it is a quick explanation of Leo Strauss and the neocon agenda, which is the subject of this thread.

 

 

Leo Strauss Menu

 

A professor at Chicago university, Leo Strauss was instrumental in influencing his "select" students and in shaping the conservative agenda we see today. An agenda based on his philosophy that the elite should use deception, religious fervor and perpetual war to control the ignorant masses. Today's Straussian conservatives are committed to a “New World Order”. They envision a new era of “Enlightenment” by imposing what is termed “moral clarity and purpose” of “American exceptionalism” upon the world through forced military democratization. A war is peace doctrine, which flouts and dismantles international laws through open-ended warfare while maintaining both foreign and domestic rule. This messianic vision of an American global empire smacks of a totalitarian Orwellian super state with apocalyptic consequences for all humanity or what I can "Neocon Imperialism or Apocalypse Now."

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The level of paranoia is directly proportional to the level of danger in an ordinary person. For example, I get a little paranoid when everybody's looking at me - I get a lot paranoid when everybody's looking at me and holding weapons. So how can your question be answered sensibly Kriminal99? Is it ethical to put an entire society in mortal danger?... my gut says no. There might be some small ethics problems associated with that.

 

-modest

 

The idea in it's simplest form is something similar to this. Once something has adapted to its environment such that it knows what to do to get what it wants, change something so that it has to re adapt. Change it in a way such that they can still adapt and achieve their goal. Ideally, change it in a way that makes sense so that they might figure it out and adapt to future changes. Then when they adapt to that system, change something else.

 

Do this several times until the person has a natural understanding of the limits of induction.

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The idea in it's simplest form is something similar to this. Once something has adapted to its environment such that it knows what to do to get what it wants, change something so that it has to re adapt. Change it in a way such that they can still adapt and achieve their goal. Ideally, change it in a way that makes sense so that they might figure it out and adapt to future changes. Then when they adapt to that system, change something else.

 

Do this several times until the person has a natural understanding of the limits of induction.

 

As you point out in the title of the thread there are some pretty obvious ethical issues that I think would make this type of experiment, if done intentionally, wholly unacceptable.

 

I guess I'm having trouble understanding the limits of what you're describing. Would this be like Stalin USSR with gulags for those who can't adapt? Or, like kindergarten where some kids get gold stars for spelling their name correctly and others don't?

 

I bring up the polar opposites here because it makes (in my opinion) all the difference in the world; Not only in how ethical this learning method would be, but also how effective it would be.

 

A person who is challenged in childhood and forced to adapt may benefit from the experience. However, a person traumatized in childhood will most often exhibit developmental immaturity and in no way benefit. I think this would be true in the scope of a society as well.

 

So... I guess my question would be - what exactly did you have in mind?

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Well the part you just quoted contains all that is necessary to the idea. The next question is just how cruel would you have to be to accomplish that?

 

It is naturally stressful when something that a person used to be able to do to get what they want suddenly changes. However this is naturally part of life. The goal is to simply increase the frequency of it early on to make the person more willing to consider that what they believe could be wrong, and then build them up once that is understood.

 

The idea would be to put the changes within not only their ability to adapt, but also within their ability to understand why the changes occurred (Perhaps a reason that makes sense other than that you designed it to be that way)

 

Thus it might be different for each person. You would have to be careful to give the person maximum chance to adapt to the hardest changes so you don't impede their development, but you also wouldn't want to risk endangering them.

 

At least thats the way I see it because I believe in not only diversity but also that maximizing the ability of any person may cause his/her progeny to have higher natural abilities.

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