Project Azriel: Simple "training" or Mind control?

The whole thing reminded me a little of Ender's Game, that classic SF novel no one wants to bring up now because of the author's recent politics.

The "stay human" bit intrigued me. As opposed to? Could "Zombie" be a euphemism for something else? If so.....?

a reply to: meridie

Honestly I had so much running through my head as I watched this and listened to it. I consider myself to have a moderate proclivity toward conspiracy in general, but this just flipped a switch with me.

i read on ATS a year ago or so I can't remember the thread, where they were basically saying that "Zombie" was a code word for regular people, and the the whole zombie apocalypse fad was nothing more than a huge psyop to desensitize people to killing hordes of unarmed "combatants", or something to that effect.

Seeing this, I just immediately cued in on that idea out of nowhere. Here you are a person being hired to do a job, that job being for "Mental training project" wherein you play a character in a game who is also a " mental training subject trainee".

The only way to effectively stay human is to essentially open your mind to their tests and focus only on their tests and nothing else. It seems like everything else is background noise. Zombies chasing you around (well dressed I might add) is all used to keep you moving but nothing more. Just Kill the zombies and do the program, nothing more, just focus on the program........

I feel like if I had done this a few months or years from now I would be minding my own business, see some strange shapes or colors and then suddenly get triggered into some weird shooting incident. Then I would be telling the Jury, "I was programmed..I was programmed I tell you by the US office of Naval research".. I would be nothing but the subject of ridiculous conspiracy theories from then on out.

That or do something just really bizarre, like the Elisa Lam incident, and turn up dead after acting creepy on camera.

The whole thing gives me the "this ain't right" Vibe.

a reply to: CallmeRaskolnikov

Andy Pero i have heard of that guy but never really looked into it. I will now though, thanks for reminding me.
I kind of feel like I should have posted this later in the day when people are getting off work. I really wanted to share this with ATS and I feel like Im going to miss out on so many cool opinions as this thread gets pushed to the side throughout the day.

Really appreciate all the responses so far guys, especially you CallmeRaskolnikov for helping to keep it bumped for just a little longer.

I really feel like this ties into so many conspiracies that we have all talked about on ATS for so many years now. It's actually kind of funny.

this kinda thing is right up my alley. i find it VERY interesting for sure. and as long as their are "recent" posts being made here the good folks at ATS will be stopping by to take a look at what this is all about. It's still pretty early in the day here on the east coast, so I wouldn't fret too much.

But, enders game... that's actually a good correlation. very interesting to think about how a situation like that might be related to this kind of research.

i mean, essentially the message here is, stay smart & vigilant or die. keep your mental acuity up or become a lifeless robot that's going to get shot in the head by the military.

thing is, who knows what kind of triggers and subliminals are in that game. unfortunately, the game play clip is very short. I'm short that clip is just the icing on the cake so to speak. The rest of the game could incorporate god knows what kind of crazy sh!t. and they are obviously very interested in the effects of playing such a game over a long period of time. encouraging the user to play as much as they like, but not less than a certain amount.

also kind of brings to mind the movie toys with robin williams. in that movie the military has a secret op inside of a toy company to use children in war simulators that will control actual robots capable of being air mobile, ground mobile etc, shooting bullets, missiles etc. the children are sat in a huge room and each setup in a way to kind of isolate them from everything but the game. encouraged to reach the highest score they can but destroying and killing as much as possible.....

hmmmmm

a reply to: snowen20

The reference to "higher mental activity" also struck me as quite ironic, for several reasons.

Decades ago when I was in my teens and went through my first Mystics etc phase and read up about Gurdjieff amongst others, I remember reading about a mental exercise which compelled you to simultaneously think about two contrary/unrelated things at the same time for as long as you can sustain it. Doing so, kind of kicks you into a higher mental gear. From your original post, I expected the colored lights/shapes to function like that, to be all over the place and appearing more randomly, to increase alertness. I was "disappointed" that they seemed so regular and semi-repetitive.

To me, they seemed more like programming, than a trigger for "higher mental activity". Obviously, one should remember that sometimes the way to read into things like this, is to switch certain key concepts to their opposites. And perhaps the "higher mental activity" they are looking for is greater single-mindedness.

But thank you for sharing (and stay safe). This is really intriguing in so many ways.

I was looking around trying to see if the USONR could be trying to utilize new forms of monitoring to facilitate future training programs.

I cam across the "Overview: The U.S. Office of Naval ResearchTraining Technology R&D" PDF which can be found here :

Link

it is not very long but does have that dry redundant government talk that I personally find hard to want to read.

What drew my attention was the chapter labeled:

Artificially Intelligent Tutoring Technology

Basically it's a method of teaching using simulation rather than physical instructors. Anyone who has been in the military within the last 15 years can probably tell you about the plethora of simulations and virtual reality that they use now. I was in the Army 06-09 and we were doing Vr training all the time.

Looking into this a little further I strongly suspect this is less about making a game commercially available for children and more along the lines of a military training system in a the very early stages of development.
I say this because their design structure is very similar to Aptima inc, which is also a company that makes software engineered for training purposes. Aptima

also linkedin

There you can find that they are hiring a wide variety of both Game artists and developers to create newer game models for training.
Aptima according to the above PDF, was awarded a contract by the Office of Naval research and DARPA to be the authoring agent for the training material described in the PDF.

some of the functions of training as of 2004 were functioning under complicated situations. that is to say, how well can a soldier learn and function in the midst of doing other tasks. The game I linked to, the video shows a method of aiming your site through various shapes on screen as well as other things, and reacting accordingly, it is a little more involved than that, but essentially that's the case. Prior to today, in order to monitor a student's progress they would need to track eye movement among other things. the way the system is working inside the game engine, your eye movement is monitored automatically by where you are placing the mouse cursor reticule in the game. This information is then sent real time over the internet to a data collection system (I believe) where individual student progress is recorded.

Someone may say..."okay thats all good and everything, but what does that have to do with zombies?"

I got nothin! lol

I honestly have no idea, assuming this is not some creepy sinister plot to brainwash the next disco bomber, or uni shooter, then perhaps they are merely using this simple zombie theme to help move along their project in a way that is generally fun to that genre of gamer. It could be that it kills two birds with one stone. On one hand handles the boring science of the project while keeping the active participant engaged for the required time.


I am in the middle of work, so I keep trying to break off and quickly type something up that may be useful to read. sorry for all the grammatical errors.

a reply to: CallmeRaskolnikov

The Name Azriel also raises a flag with me that it is a military program. I mean a legit program even if it isnt sinister in nature.

Azriel

The name Azriel in the Bible
There are three men named Azriel in the Bible, not counting the five named Azarel, which is a highly similar name, or Adriel, which is this name in Aramaic.

The Azriels of the Bible are:

Etymology of the name Azriel
The name Azriel consists of two elements. The first part of the name comes from the Hebrew verb עזר (azar), meaning to help or support:

ר
Scholars have identified two separate roots עזר ('zr), probably because the meaning of one specific word — namely עזרה ('azara) — doesn't fit the others:
עזר I
The verb עזר ('azar I), means to help, support. This verb is used in the Bible in all the expected ways, but, as HAW Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament notes, most often in military situations. During battle, human party's rush to each others aid (Ezekiel 30:8), but most often God is doing the helping (2 Chronicles 12:18).

Possible??? I mean that is the military style of naming things.

a reply to: snowen20

This sounds like the pitch for a sci-fi movie:

"Out of work video game tester get job shooting
well dressed zombies in new video game produced
by DARPA only to find himself in a real world drama
where time seems to shift and the line between
the real and the virtue become disturbingly blurry."

working title: PROJECT AZIEL
(AKA, THE MESSENGER OF GOD)

a reply to: wasaka

I really laugh out loud over that. Reminds me of an 80s movie.

originally posted by: CallmeRaskolnikov
this kinda thing is right up my alley. i find it VERY interesting for sure. and as long as their are "recent" posts being made here the good folks at ATS will be stopping by to take a look at what this is all about. It's still pretty early in the day here on the east coast, so I wouldn't fret too much.

But, enders game... that's actually a good correlation. very interesting to think about how a situation like that might be related to this kind of research.

i mean, essentially the message here is, stay smart & vigilant or die. keep your mental acuity up or become a lifeless robot that's going to get shot in the head by the military.

thing is, who knows what kind of triggers and subliminals are in that game. unfortunately, the game play clip is very short. I'm short that clip is just the icing on the cake so to speak. The rest of the game could incorporate god knows what kind of crazy sh!t. and they are obviously very interested in the effects of playing such a game over a long period of time. encouraging the user to play as much as they like, but not less than a certain amount.

also kind of brings to mind the movie toys with robin williams. in that movie the military has a secret op inside of a toy company to use children in war simulators that will control actual robots capable of being air mobile, ground mobile etc, shooting bullets, missiles etc. the children are sat in a huge room and each setup in a way to kind of isolate them from everything but the game. encouraged to reach the highest score they can but destroying and killing as much as possible.....

hmmmmm

I am also reminded of the movie "Small Soldiers" for some reason...

I'm gonna agree that the whole thing reeks of some kind of subliminal programming experiment to me...

...and I'm just a middle-aged suburban housewife - so not your typical conspiracy theorist.

a reply to: snowen20

fwiw, pretty much everything these days is "weaponized"

if you're familiar with the men who stare at goats story, there's a section in there where a guy claims to be subjected to music for hours at a time and then only asked how it made him feel?

..reminded me a little of that

happy gaming

this is friggin cool, it's a shame it didn't get more flags.

the image attached to the info sheet is a test for red/green colorblindness, probably because the puzzle layer of their game would unplayable if the subject were r/g colorblind-- except they don't ask the follow-up questions, they just ask you to recall the image. wtf even is being measured with recall testing questions when the subject has the option to simply tab back over to the info for answers?

the puzzle layer appears to interact with the fps layer-- the sequence in which targets are shot determines the color/shape patterns. maybe the puzzle is only there as a means to deep-drill tactical shooting.

i found your post after googling project azriel because i was just invited to test it also. everything about this "game" seems suspect, especially being funded by the gov't. i accepted their interview just to see who they're looking to study-- i mean, test their game...

from watching the video, it looks like when certain shapes are on screen the user needs to enter a combination of something on their keyboard in order to shoot; re-watch it and you will see that once a bullet is shot the shapes go away. the shapes appear anytime a zombie shows up.

i think that by using the zombie theme curricula works thought they could get more people to want to take part in "testing."

it could be harmless brain capacity testing conducted by curricula works for the navy, but why does the navy need this information anyway? and why test on civilians, like you and i, instead of using their own people?

a reply to: kimchi

wow, thanks for posting. im sure the OP will really appreciate you chiming in with your experience. what are the odds that someone else asked to do this kind of testing would wander into this thread. crazy.


do you have prior video game testing or QA experience? i wondering if they are only reaching out to those with that sort of background. and i think the question you raised is a good one. i.e, why would the naval research division be testing on individuals who are outside of the armed forces when they could just as easily get volunteers from within any of the military branches. there must be something about the common civilian that they are interested in leaning more about. and i don't think it's just some harmless test. sure on the outside it has that veneer but, i'm sure their motivations aren't so pure of heart...

anything else you could post perhaps about your background and experience with the interview might be enlightening.


and oh yea... welcome to ats!

oh you conspiracy ppl are funny... After learning that it was military funded and being in the military itself, I guessed right away it had something to do with enhancing the ability to gather intel. First off a video game utilizing pattern recognition essentially is intelligence or cognitive reasoning. If you really think about what sets us apart from all other species is are ability to recognize patterns.

So I did some research and this is what I came up with www.aptima.com... its for their unmanned combat systems, which they have been developing for almost two decades now

Ah, yes. Polybius Lite.

the navy Is very interested in what makes cognitive reasoning or intuition what type of pattern recognition is needed to employ artificial intelligence. The NOR stated ppl who play video games supposedly have up to 20% more fluid cognitive reasoning then "normal people". So this is clearly about finding new ways to improve AI or to make soldiers "smarter" on the battlefield.

I will go with AI since, the Navy just revealed a massive matrix video game that is much more polished for sailors. There next goal is robotics and surrogates

Here is a few links for those interested. how troops use intuition: atwar.blogs.nytimes.com...

knowledge hungry computer LEVAN www.techtimes.com...

Navy funds morality lessons for robots www.wired.co.uk...

Naval matrix style video game for cognitive reasoning for sailors avoiding missle attacks.. showcased at MIT Jan
sgschallenge.com...