CURIOSITY: Can Innocent People Be Turned Into Brainwashed Assassins?

I think the people that can be hypnotized on stage are self confident enough, that they don't care about being made to look foolish.

Although, I've seen a couple of shows where some of the people were clearly faking, and others ended up very embarrassed. Maybe the ones that were embarrassed, thought that it wouldn't work if it was something that they wouldn't normally do. It comes back to trust again, both in ones self and others.

I can't be hypnotized. I don't trust anyone, including myself, to not do something weird.

Originally posted by Hefficide
reply to post by AeonStorm

 

The problem with suggestion - even in it's most extreme forms, is that a subject will not do what they do not want to do. No amount or combination of drugs, hypnosis, or suggestion can make a person cross their own, internally dictated moral threshold.

Who is to say what all the types of consciousness a person is.. Humans have a killer within.
I have crossed my own moral threshold many times on alcohol..
Even Emotions are strong enough to push people way beyond moral thresholds.
The lower brain is only kept in check by the higher brain through social norms (programs)..
Reward/punishment taken out of original context (rational mind) can change the whole landscape of what is acceptable..

People change.. It's not hard to help them change in the right direction.. Why do you think abused people become abusers?

Just monitor the population at large and see who notices and acts on subconscious tracks better. Introduce stress, and pain aversion through outside means, not connected with you. play the friend or savior character.. Recommend a good therapist (your mind control buddy from the Army).

I know from being a devious kid that you could control people through fear, and in such a way that they follow you to protect them against an even greater outside fear.

Main point:
Morals are situation specific. Change the situation or even perceived situation and suddenly killing an unarmed man becomes saving a 16 year old girl from an ex con rapist.. shooting up innocent people becomes, I am the Joker and my job is to save people from the mind control of complacency. they must wake up and attack the government.. Mind control is in everything, even reading my words on this page has altered possible moral outcomes in those reading it.

Originally posted by AeonStorm

I thought that to Heff, and it does make sense....but if you watch this episode you may question that observation. I always believed the same, but perhaps there are certain individuals who would go above and beyond what they would do....no matter what. There could be people who just cannot stop themselves.

All this really demonstrates is where the individuals personal moral barriers really are. It's no different than men and women hooking up at a bar while drunk - then, later, one of them saying "I didn't really want to, but I was wasted..." - short of them having been unconscious the real translation is "I did something that I was capable of, but wouldn't really have chosen to do if sober" - that is a very relevant distinction.

Most people never find most of their moral barriers because societal conditioning and laws prevent them from the exploration process. In short, it's the repressed who are easily pushed. Few are familiar with the animal they house inside of their own heads.

~Heff

reply to post by Hefficide


You know, something just struck me in what you said right there. First, as noted, I agree in the premise that hypnosis cannot force one to do something that crosses their own internal limits in any true way. Part of the OP was referring to screening and finding the most susceptible to this kind of conditioning and processing..right? .....but one can't be made to cross one's OWN moral and ethical absolutes...and we agree there, correct?

So ... Maybe I've been in these topics too long and my thinking truly has some tin content to it now but if you had a group of 100 people .....and you wanted to screen for sociopath/psychopathic tendencies or potential...what might you do?

How about, you subject them all to equal regimens of hypnotic conditioning to 'shoot' their friend or stranger or whomever. As one member relates. No offense to whoever was in that example.....but the % that DO actually pull the trigger on hypnotic suggestion would, by our opening premise, be those that HAVE no actual morality as the rest of us know it. The true personality type some still call near myth. Come to think of it....in a "black shadow organization" kind of way, it would be the ultimate hiring screen, eh? Especially if packaged to appear as something else to the people participating.

reply to post by Hefficide


That's really interesting. I can see where the difference may lay when look at your own barriers you have borne witness to and perhaps even your dreams may play a big part.

And repressed individuals would be the more prone because in truth they want to be free.

Thanks for the insight, heff

Yes it can. Before I was an innocent human being, but now I have been transformed into a bacon assassin

Not every person and certainly not overnight. But it is possible.

Originally posted by Hefficide
reply to post by AeonStorm

 

The problem with suggestion - even in it's most extreme forms, is that a subject will not do what they do not want to do. No amount or combination of drugs, hypnosis, or suggestion can make a person cross their own, internally dictated moral threshold.

Having said that ( possibly to the disdain of some members ) I will add...

The game stopped being How do you make someone do something decades ago. It evolved into How do you make someone want to do the thing you want them to do.

The movie Inception is a form of disclosure. It's allegorical. Just replace "dream" with "need" or "desire" and what is left is accurate.

It is quite elegant really.

~Heff

Please read up on Stanley Milgram. Authority is quite the influence on morals and ethics. And funny thing about that experiment? Absolutely no threat was posed to the test subjects -just the imperative to respond as they'd been instructed.

You may be thinking of sleepwalking, when a person's subconscious is in control, forbidding them to commit anything against their deeply-seated beliefs. For instance, it's fruitless to tell a sleepwalker to commit a murder when they're vehemently against murder on any grounds because their subconscious is in charge and the subconscious mind doesn't reason - that's the job of the conscious mind. Speaking of...

Morals, like any belief system, are flexible and respond to pressure. However, if you apply the right pressure, "suggesting" to the conscious mind that someone adjust their moral compass to just south of hell, many will comply. It all depends on a person's identity and how pliant it is. Just like in any leadership situation, you've got your followers, and you've got the lovable folks who patiently extend their middle finger toward authority. The latter has much difficulty in understanding the former, as routinely seen here on ATS. I even saw a member here suggest to a mod that they needed to do more of their homework one time. Will the member survive? I'm open to suggestion.

reply to post by chasingbrahman


Mr Milgram and his experiments are definitely stepping stones along the path, to be sure.

For those who are unfamiliar:



This type of behavior can be seen in many societies, past and present. All repressive regimes have informers - people who effectively accomplish the same results as Milgram did in his lab - but on a larger and slightly more removed scale.

Milgram played upon not only authority but also upon curiosity in his study, I believe. The people were never positive that anyone was really being hurt. The idea that it was a test or experiment ( the participants were aware of this aspect ) opened the door for moral ambiguity. A subconscious and implied trust in those running the experiment.

Surely they wouldn't just sit there and knowingly let me kill a person, just for a study. Right???

This aspect allowed the participants of the study to vacate their own morals, and defer to morals of those conducting the study. The victim was removed, and an abstract - and the insulation of it being a lab "study" IMO skewed the results.

A much different concept than creating a "Manchurian" assassin. A person who will directly inflict violence upon others without such insulation.

The most effective method of creating real killers is to give them a cause. Something bigger than themselves. Something they can latch onto morally. This is the basis for every military in the world and for every terrorist organization extant.

A "cause" is the key to going from trying to make a person do what you want them to do - and into the realm of making them want to do it themselves.

~Heff

Originally posted by Hefficide
reply to post by chasingbrahman
Milgram played upon not only authority but also upon curiosity in his study, I believe. The people were never positive that anyone was really being hurt. The idea that it was a test or experiment ( the participants were aware of this aspect ) opened the door for moral ambiguity. A subconscious and implied trust in those running the experiment.

You're sort of close:

In the post-experiment interview, Milgram asked the participants to rate how painful they thought the shocks were, the typical answer was extremely painful. Most of the subjects obeyed the experimenter, however the subjects did show obvious signs of an internal struggle, and demonstrated reactions such as nervous laughter, trembling, and groaning. These interviews confirmed that everyday normal people can cause pain and suffering to another person, under the right set of circumstances. Milgram also found the tendency of the teacher to devalue the learner, by saying such phrases as, “he is so dumb he deserves to get shocked,” which helped to interally justify the teachers behavior of continuing to administer the shocks. This experiment by Milgram has given a tremendous amount of insight into human behavior and obedience.

source

So yes, you're right in the sense that there were mitigating contributions to the endgame, such as referring to the test subject as the "teacher", or by suggesting that the "learner" was so dumb he deserved a shock. However, when the 65% of test subjects who administered the full 450-volt shock were asked about the pain delivered by the shock, they seemed quite aware they were inflicting a great deal of pain. Despite casting a value judgement upon their own behavior, as illustrated by their discomfort, they caved to the authority.

But dude, I get that this is hard to grasp. I can't even remember the last time I could have been labelled a "follower". I'd have told the Milgram's test adminstrator to cram it. Then I would have sugared his gas tank after bubble-gumming his suicide note to the next car over, just for having the gall to insinuate a well-mannered lady such as myself could even imagine inflicting such unwarranted and humiliating pain.

We're hierarchical animals first. Sophisticated civilians abound only when all want for nothing. Until then, the rats will race.

Check on youtube, Russel Brown The Assassin. Theory proved right then and there.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

Well based on actual events we do know this for sure:

You could induce someone into mass killings by (1) isolating them from friends/peers/social group/groups, (2) giving them a political, social, ethnic or class target to focus their hatred on, (3) induce psychological issues by creating or allowing for major academic/financial/job/personal crises to occur in assassins life (4) induce or create psychological issues (schizophrenia, anxiety, depression), (5) allow them access to lethal weaponry, and (6) make sure the assassin is young and male. Also, sexual frustration seems to be key, as well--I notice a lot of gunmen seem not have intimate physical or emotional connections with anyone else.

-Ghoster

sure
just tell them killing so and so will make the bible come true...

note ww wars 1 and 2

Originally posted by snowspirit
I think the people that can be hypnotized on stage are self confident enough, that they don't care about being made to look foolish.

Although, I've seen a couple of shows where some of the people were clearly faking, and others ended up very embarrassed. Maybe the ones that were embarrassed, thought that it wouldn't work if it was something that they wouldn't normally do. It comes back to trust again, both in ones self and others.

I can't be hypnotized. I don't trust anyone, including myself, to not do something weird.

Sorry for the late reply snowspirit. I've been away.

The thing is does self confidence equate to humility... because I would believe that confidence would not matter and only someone who is capable of humility to be able to do "foolish" things .... however, I believe, there are those who may have enough self confidence that could be convinced into doing almost whatever they want if they think or know they can get away with it...

Respect,

-AS-

reply to post by theghoster


Wow that's ... amazing. Thanks for summarizing some very interesting ideas to ponder.. I believe what you say to be absolutely true.

It just makes so much sense to me. And I can see the parts in play that can make it so that many individuals could fit that criteria.

Thanks!

-AS-

Originally posted by Hefficide
reply to post by AeonStorm

 

The problem with suggestion - even in it's most extreme forms, is that a subject will not do what they do not want to do. No amount or combination of drugs, hypnosis, or suggestion can make a person cross their own, internally dictated moral threshold.


~Heff

whats up Heff..

you know, I am not so sure about that Idea anymore.

it seems NLP & Hypnosis can "make a subject do what they would normally not do"

just switch the definitions in the brain of right & wrong..

or the value system internally can be switched..

I think thats why Derren Brown is not a superstar in America as England.



as soon as you see how he uses these techniques it is clear the subjects personal moral compass can be swayed tremendously..

Originally posted by AeonStorm
reply to post by theghoster

 

Wow that's ... amazing. Thanks for summarizing some very interesting ideas to ponder.. I believe what you say to be absolutely true.

It just makes so much sense to me. And I can see the parts in play that can make it so that many individuals could fit that criteria.

Thanks!

-AS-

Thanks, whether its conspiracy or just tragedy brought about the failures of our society to get kids under control and mentally healthy--its clear to me that these patterns seem to be the most prevalent amongst shooters. At least it would helpful if all citizens were aware of this patten so they knew what to look for in their own kids and peers before tragedies occur again.

-Ghoster