Proof the Media is converging Natural Disasters with Terrorism to elicit "Conditioned Reflexes"

reply to post by IgnoranceIsntBlisss


CNN didn't even cover the Duetsche (Spelling?) Bank fire. The nework spends it's weekends running canned feeds in most cases.

However, the pattern you mentioned is consistant with the scare mongering corporate news loves to engage in.

I'd go out on a limb and say a majority of the staffers are unaware that their network is even engaging in such behavior.

Originally posted by melatonin
Aye, if you say-so, disagreeing with you is essentially dogma.

Spoken like a true Absolutist, because i don't champion your all out AGW view. You're alright tho, you usually admit at least some positional weaknesses when I squeeze hard enough. But cmon, I'm the neutral guy. I'm one of the few who steps away from each party line and points out the perpetual hype and frauds used by both sides. You should have seen Muaddib and I get into it over American Empire lol

Do you ever find yourself thinking how the other guy must be insane for not believing your sides terror-fountain? I cant say that you're a 'war on terror' 'skeptic', because i dont know, you could buy into both actually, but imagine that you were and you challenged your challengers view. Don't you think he'd be thinking you must be insane?
Brace yourself for a radical statement: Perhaps you're both mostly wrong about your conceptions of your 'anti-safe'.

If we are talking about true conditioning, then yes. Emotion can reduced to reward and punishment. Negative and positive.

There you go again...

Emotional states & feelings can be described as negative or positive, but that doesn't mean that there is only a positive or a negative state -as if there's no 'flavors' or 'colors' or 'spectrum' or 'difference' to them- and that's all they're reduced to.

Take smells for example. You can say this smells 'negative' or 'positive', but they aren't merely negative or positive in perception. These negative and positive states have an actual taste, and taste can be acquired. Plus the perceived quality of a scent is highly subjective, based largely on 'acquired' or planted seeds of the subject. Perhaps some smells like rotting or etc are rather universal, but then again there are surely people out there to like just about any odor you can conjure up. It's doubtful they started off liking whatever odd or gross scent it is they dig.

Then you have fear. Obviously a negative. Then you have horror. Then you have TERROR. And so on. All negatives, yet each one distinct in concept, state and effect. Of course fear can be distinguished as either serious or trifling, but there is more to it. You seem to decribe it as simply "o, I'm experiening x amount of fear (negative)'. I argue that there are not only degrees of fear but also states comparable to a spectrum if you will. This seems self-evident. I'd love to see a citation that says otherwise or especially that sums it in mere degrees of pragmatic negative or positive as you seem to suggest.

On 9/11 'we all' experienced terror (and other things like horror, disgust etc). Ok, ok, they're all negative states, but is that ALL they are?

How about watching the Katrina disaster? Is that merely a negative? Nothing more? Is it not possible that many learned to associate disgust, horror, anxiety, terror, etc with hurricanes after watching that week long disaster? Or did they all just associate it with "negative" and then that was it? Time to go out and find some positive to make that negative more neutral.[/sarcasm]


So lets get back to odors. Remember that smell from grandmas house (or insert example), and every rare once and a while you come across something that almost smells like it? It triggers neuronal avalanches activating potentially boundless memories. So what happens if you only get a brief notice of the odor by casual breathing, compared to a nice big sniff? This will probably determine how far the triggering effect will go and what durations, unless you consciously jump on 'the bandwagon' and follow it thru. The thoroughness of this entire effect will potentially be determined by the quality of the odor comparison, especially if we're going to talk about learning to "associate" the source item of the smell 'with grandma', but to understand this it's a matter of chaotic associations of circuits (which likely include varying positive emotional aspects).

So what's the moral of the story? All of memories, skills, thought patterns/mindsets, and so on are physical structures inside the brain bound by chaotic and varying networks than can be called associations. Our brains are full of "soundbytes" that (generally) if thought thru can each open up into deep frames of mind based on potentially endless memories and understanding and attitudes.

Earlier I spoke of a subjects "collective unconscious", and by that I meant the unconscious as the physical part of the brain not in current consciousness. Say you start flashing words down a screen. They will activate the subjects root conceptual understanding of each item. Each item can have behind it layers and layers of thoughts and attitudes etc. To say "terrorism" evokes the persons general stance of the item of interest. A sort of sum of all sums (sigma) exists in that bare concept. If you keep it on the screen long enough thoughts of things like 911 and osama etc may emerge, or if you say global warming thought of hurricanes might open which can lead down the path into recalling the entire katrina experience.

So now we have the newsclip I happened across. Hurricanes, if, IF, IF etc. Then "WTC", mutilated bodies and planes/fires knocking down skyscrapers with one burning as you watch. Then it's earthquake time involving helpless desperation from not only the initial "act of terrorism" but the after effects of a busted infastructure, and so on. Finally, it's Al Qaeda hijacking a jet, with a cherry on top. 9/11 all over again.

So when these images and memories and emotions etc are being invoked, are they each merely reduced to positive or negative, or are the emergent responses described as either negative or positive?

Each news item involved "fear", yes, fear is a negative. But what kind of fear? Do hurricanes normally invoke TERROR? There's certainly serious fear involved, but trifling terror? Are not not virtually limitless ways to associate minor concepts of the greater major concepts, like horror(buildings collapse)-horror(new orleans), helplessness(from the 'attack'/busted infastructure)-helplessness(from the 'attack'/busted infastructure), terror(attack from the sky)-terror(attack from the sky), etc, etc??? Can the brain not 'learn' to fear natural distasters more, like they already do terrorism, or vice-versa? Or are all forms of fear just blanket negatives? Or does an entire recategorization need to be prescribed by someone like Bush telling us they are one in the same, that is the brain can't learn to fear more unless there's a direct cognitive justification for recategorization?

The process of learning to fear natural distaters / global warming to a trifling terror effect could be considered conditioned responses, albeit the process itself could happen in various minor operant adjustments as our brains are far more in depth and coomplex than rats or pidgeons.

It's not unresonable to assume that there are untold affective associations taking place at the subconscious level that you or I would be able to speak rationally about. The human mind isn't that simple. We're talking about the most complex thing in the known universe.

Blah, this stuff is hard to explain. This is complex stuff, and you're basically reducing it all into yeses & noes, ons & offs, left & right, ad infinitum. But the intellectual exercise is worthwhile.

When I leaned that hurricanes cause death and destruction, I learned to associate hurricane with negative outcome and threat. That is, it is a secondary reinforcer. Same goes for terrorism. They are essentially in the same category as far as they are emotionally similar, both are threats, both can cause death and destruction.

Wow, your brain really does operate in absolutes

[edit on 21-8-2007 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

[edit on 21-8-2007 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

Originally posted by Atlantix
Very interesting, but I'm not sure I understand. The "left" uses global-warming and natural disasters, and the "right" uses terrorism, both to gain votes?

That all depends on who we're talking about and who's doing the talking. In my exclusive view it's about ushering in a military artificial intelligence de facto 'god on earth system', by 'the powers at be'. (Check out my signature links for the details). The frontmen of each binary side are the prime movers behind this plot for technological totalitarian domination. That would be the big fish concept underlying all the terrormongering, and most adherents and propagators of each surely have little to no clue about the concept. Gore and Bush however, know full well what's happening and Gore in particualr is making it happen... to "save the world".

From there it can be argued in simpler terms. The one approach I like to throw around is that for a while the ruling Establishment had Terrorism is keep us in line, but gradually more and more from the Left in particular started realizing the cynicism and absurdity that the War on Terror is, so in the fear vacuum here's comes Al Gore with his propaganda masterpiece to fill the void and potentially even gain millions sucker enough to fall for both lines of terror doomsday.

From that argument I could just leave it at it's about promoting fear in general, because when people feel scared and powerless they tend to seek a 'parental figure' to protect them and tell them how to help themselves, if possible.

You see fear is the primary form of Western social control and it has been for many many decades, we're talking overlapping generations here in the US especially. The Cold War, and so on. Fear isn't just used to 'infotain us because it sells", it's used to break us down to our primal elements, and it sells because our society has been trained over decades into a sort of fear addiction. It is no accident. Take this bit of propaganda from the Cold War, "Clean up your house or DIE!":

Google Video Link

(Note the chicken wire holding down the crumpled up newspapers so the nuclear blast cant blow them away.)

From there you can go in several direction like taxes, imperialism, and so on.

But why would they try to associate global-warming and terrorism, what's in for them?

Well, I guess it's better said as teaching us to fear global warming as much as we do other well established and wider accepted things like terrorism and nuclear war etc. In a perfect world they'd be able to overtly convince us all that each is as legitimate, however the other primary dynamic of social control in this nation is keeping everyone partisan and following the party lines, divided and conquered.

Thanks for the props!

[edit on 21-8-2007 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

Originally posted by IgnoranceIsntBlisss
Do you ever find yourself thinking how the other guy must be insane for not believing your sides terror-fountain?

If you are asking whether I think the war on terror is a joke, then yeah. We haven't learned much from the past.

But, you see I don't have sides. I've voted both what we could call left and right in the UK. Now I don't vote at all. I also don't subscribe to a 'terror-fountain', as far as climate change, all we know is that it will get warm and some people will be negatively affected due to various consequences.

I have never thought it is a world-ending scenario.

There you go again...

Why say I 'go again'. This is how behaviourists like, for instance, Ed Rolls view emotion. When we reduce it down it's about reward and punishment at the biological scale. I'm sitting here surrounded by books on emotion, and I know how behaviourists view it.

Myself, I take the position of some like Jaak Panksepp. Emotion is a tad more complex, especially when we talk of affective states. But I also don't like his emotion system. But, hey, no-ones perfect.

Take smells for example. You can say this smells 'negative' or 'positive', but they aren't merely negative or positive in perception. These negative and positive states have an actual taste

I don't question what you're saying. Some people think chocolate is disgusting, other people don't. That's idiosyncratic learned and, sometimes, innate (due to genetic differences in taste buds) preferences.

But from a behaviourist point of view, it can be reduced to reward and punishment.

Then you have fear. Obviously a negative. Then you have horror. Then you have TERROR.And so on. All negatives, yet each one distinct in concept, state and effect. Of course fear can be distinguished as either serious or trifling, but there is more to it. You seem to decribe it as simply "o, I'm experiening x amount of fear (negative)'.

You are actually talking about one single basic emotion here, fear. The difference between them (fear, horror, terror) is the degree of arousal/intensity. Ekman originally defined 6 basic emotions (i.e. universal and distinct) - fear, sadness, anger, surprise, happiness/joy, disgust. I think he has around 15 now though.

Just read a book on this stuff to see the psychological view of emotion. Paul Ekman's stuff would be a good start, if you want another view, Jaak's book 'affective neuroscience' would be good as well. Damasio's book is also good (descartes error) and LeDoux's book contains some of the best work on emotion in the last 15 years. But, if you want a pure behaviourist viewpoint, I would suggest Ed Rolls' books (his newest is 'emotion explained').

So lets get back to odors. Remember that smell from grandmas house (or insert example), and every rare once and a while you come across something that almost smells like it? It triggers neuronal avalanches activating potentially boundless memories.

Aye, smells can be great cues for autobiographical memories. The 'Proust effect'.

So what's the moral of the story? All of memories, skills, thought patterns/mindsets, and so on are physical structures inside the brain bound by chaotic and varying networks than can be called associations. Our brains are full of "soundbytes" that (generally) if thought thru can each open up into deep frames of mind based on potentially endless memories and understanding and attitudes.

You seem to be talking about mood/emotion-congruent effects here. In essence, putting someone in a negative mood is more likely to prime the recall of negative concepts. OK.

Doesn't speak to the notion of eliciting 'conditoned reflexes'.

To say "terrorism" evokes the persons general stance of the item of interest. A sort of sum of all sums (sigma) exists in that bare concept. If you keep it on the screen long enough thoughts of things like 911 and osama etc may emerge, or if you say global warming thought of hurricanes might open which can lead down the path into recalling the entire katrina experience.

OK. No issue with any of that.

So now we have the newsclip I happened across. Hurricanes, if, IF, IF etc. Then "WTC", mutilated bodies and planes/fires knocking down skyscrapers with one burning as you watch. Then it's earthquake time involving helpless desperation from not only the initial "act of terrorism" but the after effects of a busted infastructure, and so on. Finally, it's Al Qaeda hijacking a jet, with a cherry on top. 9/11 all over again.

OK. I think we can also agree here. Showing an item related to terrorism primes terrorist-related information. Showing earthquakes primes earthquake-related info.

So when these images and memories and emotions etc are being invoked, are they each merely reduced to positive or negative, or are the emergent responses described as either negative or positive?

Each news item involved "fear", yes, fear is a negative. But what kind of fear? Do hurricanes normally invoke TERROR?

I don't think it would really make much difference from a biological level. They are both fear-inducing. You can go deeper into the concepts and talk about helplessness etc, but I don't think that conditioned reflexes are so complex.

The process of learning to fear natural distaters / global warming to a trifling terror effect could be considered conditioned responses, albeit the process itself could happen in various minor operant adjustments as our brains are far more in depth and coomplex than rats or pidgeons.

I think learning to fear the concepts 'terrorism' and 'natural disaster' are a case of conditioning.

It's not unresonable to assume that there are untold affective associations taking place at the subconscious level that you or I would be able to speak rationally about. The human mind isn't that simple. We're talking about the most complex thing in the known universe.

Blah, this stuff is hard to explain. This is complex stuff, and you're basically reducing it all into yeses & noes, ons & offs, left & right, ad infinitum. But the intellectual exercise is worthwhile.

I do agree, the human brain is really, really complex. But from a behaviourist point of view, we just have a fancy neocortex placed on top of evolutionary-old systems which are no different to that in a pigeon or rat.

And, yeah, behaviourism is a very simplistic view of human behaviour. But it's theories do work, in a similarly simplistic manner.

Wow, your brain really does operate in absolutes

Not really. I can also see that natural disasters and terrorism are completely different. They are emotionally similar from the POV of basic emotions, they evoke fear. Probably a bit of sadness too, especially when it involves others, maybe anger in the case of terrorism. They also are uncontrollable events from a personal level. But they are different in other ways.

Some people can probably view hurricanes in a positive way, depending on context (i.e. a weather chaser, or Pat Robertson, heh). Even someone like Osama, can be viewed in a positive way depending who you are.

It's the old Yasser Arafat issue. Terrorist or freedom-fighter? Most have the same information, but can come to different conclusions. Usually called 'motivated reasoning'.

I try my best to be as objective as possible. Thus, to me, Arafat was a freedom-fighter who used some of the techniques labelled as 'terrorism', heh.

[edit on 21-8-2007 by melatonin]

I dont have time today to debate these complicated neuropsychologcal matters, which we could back and forth on ad infinitum (posting from work). By now I imagine everyones seen enough to make up their minds anyways. But I couldn't resist pointing out the following bit which I somehow forgot to include...

Originally posted by melatonin
I can also see that natural disasters and terrorism are completely different.

Hmm, apparently "Jack Bauer" aka Fox aka Establishment Media can't distinguish...

Jack Bauer's Next Mission: Fighting Global Warming ...










www.fox.com...

With Fox joining in on this bandwagon I think my thesis speaks for itself, and now that I've got the ball rolling time will tell how many more examples of this 'coinicidental phenomenon' are pointed out...


[edit on 21-8-2007 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

I hope this is relevant evidence to support your theory because I am certainly not trying to divert your very interesting thread.

This morning, Thursday 8/23, CNN has been running a clip in support of their midwest flood coverage detailing how to evacuate your house in 5 minutes or less. They detail how to shut off your utilities and what to include in a bug-out-bag.

The network seems to be running it every hour today so next time I am going to pay close attention to what stories they lead into it with and what stories follow the segment.

I always wonder if these type of stories are a reflection of actual public concern or a vehicle to control public mindset.

By all means please feel free to add input / examples.

I'm curious if they refered to it as a "bug out bag"? In general they try to amp everything up, but in that case I wouldn't complain aout that alone, unless they managed to mix it up with terrorism of course.

Whenever you spot something please do point it out here. If possible and such, and if it were on their website, I'd go over to try to 'record' it. But I encourage anyone else to, and for that I use this TOTALLY FREE yet high quality video-screen capture program I happened across for doing the CNN recordings called "Debut" (it records anything on the screen tho):
www.nchsoftware.com...
Anyone who's tried to find just about any video capture/converter/etc utility knows you generally have to go thru about 20 spamware infested programs that don't even function to get one that works halfway decent and allows full use for 30 days or whatever, so i recommend people in general grab that for at least future use. I wish i would have had that a year ago.


[edit on 24-8-2007 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

Here's a related example:


There ABC clearly attempt's to train the viewers to associate Global Warming with Nuclear War. This overt attempt at a sort of conditioned reflex is sought by using operant incremental techniques by stepping it up from Global Warming to drought, to crop failure, to famine, to water wars, to unstable climate to global disaster climaxing in nuclear war.

Of course they get to that point by using plenty of junk science and the mighty "IF".

Since we've all been trained to associate terrorism with military conflict ABC could perhaps be labeled guilty by association.

So now we've got ABC, CBS (Paramount is owned by Viacom, and CBS was still directly part of Viacom and probably still is de facto) NBC and Fox more or less implicated directly.
Now we just need CNN, and the BBC and I'd say that's a wrap.


[edit on 25-8-2007 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

seems like a great way to promote my new movie to me. im not buying it.

reply to post by bark40oz


I'm not sure what you mean. Could you explain in a more full context?

Google Video Link

In recent news, did anybody notice that "Osama", the CIA-media asset, with his fake self/beard, is now parroting Global Warming alarmism???



It's too bad the tape seems to be a fake:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

I'm glad I started posting about this before this new "osama" revelation. Another thing worth noting is "Terrorists" are now being likened to "Communists". I have a much longer writeup about all this coming...



[edit on 12-9-2007 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

What I agree with:
The media is controlled by rich and powerful people, some related to government and some not - all of them with some kind of agenda (sinister, political or financial but rarely humanitarian).

The majority of people will believe what they see on TV, not strictly because they are stupid or less aware than we would credit ourselves, mainly because they are unable to find alternates that do not carry the same 'message'.

Media always tends to sensationalise things... who wants to read / watch good news?

The international political agenda that exists to instil a climate of fear - terrorists, avian flu, mad cow disease (UK) etc etc - much hinted at, very little concrete proof.

What I disagree with:

That this specific example demonstrates a means of population conditioning. I watch a lot of news from various sources and despite doubting 50% of the actual news or the motives for placing the story there I do not see any 'link' between the successive stories.

Unless of course... that's their plan