This thread is for all those that took part in the thread about the beheaded child in Russia.

Had that thread been posted a few months ago I would have been appalled, but not for the reasons that you are thinking, I would have been appalled at the response of some members who took part in that thread.

We saw responses such as “she should be burnt to death using blow torches”

The anger that drives people to make such a response is the very same anger that caused that woman to behead that child!
If we don’t learn how to control it, then how are we any better?

Education!
For just a few minutes I’m asking you to please put aside your anger and take in what you are about to read.
For some (myself included) long pieces of text seem daunting, it’s supposed to, we have been programmed to react in that way, fight it and read on!

Allow me to introduce Dr. David Eagleman.


This guy is my new hero, and I very rarely have heroes!
He has just written and directed a series of documentaries (shown on the BBC) about the way our brains work.
Why is he my new hero? Because he’s showing us how we are being manipulated, although I’m not sure that was his intention.

To know how you are being manipulated you first need to know how your brain makes decisions!

Dr Eagleman carried out some experiments. He got a group of volunteers and wired them up to a computer that can detect tiny facial movements, movements that are so tiny we are unaware of them.


While they were wired up he showed them a series of photographs of people with many different facial expressions.

What the computers revealed!


The computers revealed that the volunteers were mirroring the expressions they saw on the screen - They were trying on the facial expressions of the faces they saw on the screen!
This mirroring is completely automatic, and not noticed by the participant! It’s also too tiny to see and could only be picked up by the computers.

So, what purpose does this mirroring serve?

Dr Eagleman then asked a second group of volunteers to perform the same experiment. They were similar to the first group except for one thing, the people in this group had Botox treatment to reduce facial wrinkling.

Botox paralyses the facial muscles.

Both groups, when shown the facial images, were asked to pick a word from a list that best described the emotion shown in the image.
Those with the botox treatment showed reduced output on the computer graph, that was to be expected, but they were also greatly impaired when it came to describing the emotion shown in the images!

Because they could not ‘try on’ the facial expression, they were less able to describe the emotion!
It seems the lack of feedback impairs their ability to read other people.
The frozen muscles of the botox people make it hard for us to read them, but it also makes it hard for them to read us because they are less able to ‘try on’ our facial expression.
And that tells us something!


When we are happy or sad, part of that feeling relies on the unconscious feedback from the muscles in our face, and our social brains take advantage of that, so when we’re trying to understand what someone else is feeling we try on their facial expression.

This automatic mirroring is just one way in which we understand others, but the brain also has a deeper way.
When we go to the movies and we sit and watch the movie, we may laugh or flinch or even cry, yet we know it’s just an act, so why do we fall for it? Why do we flinch or even cry?


To understand why we care about other people when they get hurt, we need to understand what is going on in our own brain when we get hurt.

Imagine someone were to stab your hand with a syringe needle! That activates a network in your brain called the Pain Matrix.
There’s no single spot in the brain where pain is processed, instead the perception of pain arises from several different areas of the brain networking together, and this pain matrix is at the heart of the areas that we use to socially connect with other people.
So, when you watch someone else get stabbed in the hand, your pain matrix gets activated, not the parts that tell you you’ve been touched, but the parts that get you involved in the emotional experience of pain, in other words, watching someone else in pain, and you being in pain, use the same neural machinery, and that’s why we react and scream or flinch when we watch a movie, we feel the emotions that would go with the pain, and its the basis of empathy.

To empathise with another person is to literally feel their emotional pain; you run a compelling simulation to see what it would be like if you were in their situation.
Our capacity to do this is why stories and movies and novels are so absorbing, we can experience the agonies and ecstasies, and we can become them and see what its like from their vantage point. You can tell yourself that the stories aren’t real, but some neurons deep in our brain can’t tell the difference!

We can’t help but connect with other people; we are hard wired to be extremely social creatures.

A simple game of catch.


A neuroscientist created a simple experiment; she created a computer program to simulate the game of catch.


The participants thought they were playing against other people, but the game was rigged, they were playing against the computer. After a little time the computer stopped throwing the ball to the participant, the participant was excluded from the game and the computer controlled characters only threw the ball to each other.
The participants had been wired up to computers and it was discovered that being left out of the game activated that same pain matrix that we read about above!
Not getting the ball might seem insignificant, but to the brain social rejection is so meaningful that it hurts!

That pain however is useful; it pushes us in the direction of bonding with others.
We all seek out alliances, we join with friends families and with colleagues, it could be which team we support, what style we go for, what our hobbies are, we do it because it gives comfort to belong to a group!

It gives comfort to belong to a group!
That gives us a critical clue as to our success as a species.
Survival of the fittest isn’t just about individuals, it’s also about groups!

As a group we are safer, more productive and we can overcome challenges.


The drive to work in groups has helped the population thrive all across the planet.

And yet, there’s a flip side to this drive that pulls us all together!
For every ‘In Group’ there are rejected outsiders! And the consequences of that can be very dark.


How are your empathy levels when you take a good look at this poor child? Put yourself in her place!

History is plagued with examples of one group turning on another that was defenceless and posed no threat.



Under normal circumstances you wouldn’t find it conscionable to go murdering your neighbour, so, what is it that allows hundreds or thousands of people, to suddenly do exactly that!

What is it about certain situations that short circuits the normal social functioning of the brain?

Bosnia
1992 – 1995
More than 100,000 Bosnians slaughtered by Serbs.



For many decades these people had happily lived together side by side. They were one community, they shared the same schools, the children played together, the adults worked together, everyone was happy.

Then, suddenly over the course of just ten days, eight thousand people were systematically killed.

How does something like this happen?

In 1995 the UN threw these people out of their safe refuge, into the hands of those waiting to get them.



Total slaughter took place; the Serbs slaughtered the very people they had lived amongst for all those years.
The women were raped, men and children were killed.


Hasan Nuhanovic was there when this happened, his family were slaughtered, and he was protected because he had a little blue UN card given to him because he worked for the UN as an interpreter.




In his own words.
The Dutch were there, the world was there as the UN, Serbs were there, babies were crying, refugees were there, everyone was there, I was there being protected by that blue ID card.
At that very moment when my family were being sent out of the compound to actually die, I looked at my mother my brother and my father…. and I was thinking, My God……..Why?

One of the most striking things about what took place was that the perpetrators weren’t strangers; they were people with whom he and his family had shared a great deal.

In his own words.
The continuation of the killings and the torture was perpetrated by our neighbours, the very people we had been living with for decades; they were capable of killing their own true friends. I remember they arrested a dentist, he was considered the best dentist in town. They tied him up to a light pole, so that he was hanging by his arms, and they beat him with metal bars, they broke his spine, and he was there hanging by his arms for days, while serb children walked past going to school. I know there are universal values, and they are very basic, Don’t kill, but on April 92 this Don’t kill, suddenly disappeared, now it was Go and Kill, it was allowed to kill.




Across the human species this is just one genocide of many.
But genocides keep happening. Why?

When we interact with someone, does our brain function differ according to which group they are in?

For every ‘in group that we belong to; there’s at least one group that we don’t; and that division can be based on anything, such as race or gender; wealth or religion.


One by one Dr Eagleman put 130 participants into a brain scanner, while they were in the scanner they were shown a picture of six hands laid out in a circle.



Then they were shown one picture at a time with a label attached to it, and that hand was stabbed with a syringe. (I’ve used a still image so as not to upset the squeamish)



He found that when a member of the participants ‘in group’ was stabbed the graph rose quite sharply, but when a member of the ‘out group was stabbed the graph remained almost flat.



So, a simple word label is enough to change your brains preconscious response to another person in pain, in other words, how much you care about them. Even atheists care more about atheists being stabbed than they do about other people being stabbed. So, it’s not really about religion, its more about which team you’re on!

Understanding this labelling issue is the first step in understanding how we get to this…


A simple label, given to them by someone else, got them killed by their friends!
And please note, I’ve left out the horror pictures, it was MUCH worse than this! And all because of a word, a label.

Genocide is only possible when dehumanisation happens on a massive scale. We’re talking about a large group of people committing atrocities.
When they work as a group, it’s as if they’ve experienced a reduction in brain activity when thinking about an ‘out group.
This can be understood and studied like a disease outbreak, a kind of group contagion, one that’s most often spread deliberately!

The perfect tool for this job is propaganda. It plugs right into neural networks, and it dials down the degree to which we care about other people.
In Bosnia the people who went on to commit the genocide of their friends were bombarded with propaganda. State controlled media demonised the Bosnian Muslims with distorted news stories; they even went so far as to claim that the Bosnians were feeding children to the lions at the zoo.

Across place and time the language of propaganda changes very little, it always plays the familiar tune of dehumanisation. Make your enemy less than human. Make them like an animal.
Propaganda is a weapon, and over the course of human history it has become an art and a science, and it’s become ever more dangerous, and in our connected age propaganda can reach millions of people with a simple keystroke!

The political agendas around us actually manipulate the brain activity inside of us, so is there anyway to stop what’s happened in the past from continuing in the future?

We have to wake up!
We have to wake up to the fact that what we see on television really was put there to make us react.
Take a look in the thread I mentioned about the beheaded child, you’ll find people reacting in just the same way as the Bosnians reacted, and that woman who beheaded that child? Well she reacted in the same way too, she’s had a lifetime of propaganda shoved into her head and when she got the chance she mutilated what she had been told was the nasty evil enemy, and in that thread I mentioned we see the likes of -
“Shoot her on the spot”
“Burn her with blow lamps”
“Burn her with blow lamps and do it slowly”
“Throw her to the people”
And probably much worse, I don’t know because I just had to get out of that thread before I lost all hope.

If you’ve paid attention you should by now realise how EASILY we can be manipulated. Our brain is wired to react to the input it receives from the world around it, a simple facial expression can manipulate our thoughts, and a simple word label can cause us to butcher our friends.

When you scream “Burn her with blow lamps and do it slowly”, how is that different from “Cut their heads off?
No free thinking human would ever think such a thing, you are being manipulated.


All sources were taken from the documentary by Dr David Eagleman, shown on the BBC 4 channel. I believe the entire series is available via the bbc’s Iplayer on the bbc website. Look for – The Brain with David Eagleman.

a reply to: VoidHawk

Really, this guy is your hero and considering you have so few heros, this is an interesting pick...I think alot of ATS members were well aware of propaganda and how it effects..

a reply to: VoidHawk
Very interesting thread, however I think it is less group think and more a "need" for revenge so it is much less what group the person belonged in (the Muslim group for yesterday's occurrence) and more the action of the individual. Hopefully that makes sense. It was a very interesting read and yesterday's occurrence will support the group think of the future. S&F

S&F for the psychology/neuroscience lesson!
Though I'm sure much of the information in your posts will be ignored unfortunately.

but some neurons deep in our brain can’t tell the difference!

I believe your referring to mirror neurons here,no?

Sadly some folks are just psychopaths, meaning they're incapable of feeling empathy and in fact feed off the compassion they receive from others, as a means of control and manipulation.

I'm a bleeding heart empath myself, but it's vary foolish and dangerous to propose an end all be all through that philosophy. The end-road of empathy is altruism, the nullification of the self... enter the martyr.

It's just another cycle, in the catch 22 psychedelic mindjob reality ultimately is.

You can allude to group think and propaganda...
And it's an amazing thread...

But the bottom line is a lot of people want it (Bosnia) to happen again.

They're itching for confrontation with the "Muslim hordes".



If it's apparent on ATS, a bastion for intelligence online, just imagine what you're missing among the, ahem, far right websites/allegiances and "group thinkers".

I've seen it, and I've been prepared for a while.

Excellent thread and eye opening.
I was amazed by the social behavior part. Since I remember myself I'm reluctant to apply myself to one specific group, be it religious, politic or even "the single parent" group. Lonely wolf in every aspect. I always felt is much better to be independent thinker; now I understand why.
S&F

a reply to: VoidHawk

I'd say it's normal as the sky is blue to want to do horrible things to someone who decapitates a child. Calling for the death of a child murderer is different than doing horrible thins to a child.

originally posted by: WhiteHat
Excellent thread and eye opening.
I was amazed by social behavior part. Since I remember myself I'm reluctant to apply myself to one specific group, be it religious, politic or even "the single parent" group. Lonely wolf in every aspect. I always felt is much better to be independent thinker; now I understand why.
S&F

I'm the same, but always feel the need to stick up for the underdog.

originally posted by: DrakeINFERNO
a reply to: VoidHawk

I'd say it's normal as the sky is blue to want to do horrible things to someone who decapitates a child. Calling for the death of a child murderer is different than doing horrible thins to a child.

You missed the point!
That women did that horrible thing because she'd been fed a lifetime of propaganda, and she thinks we are as evil as we think she is.
Look in that thread I mentioned and you will see people with the exact same hate as she has.

a reply to: VoidHawk

I think everything that was stated was right on. it all begins with Labels we are all people we are all built with the same needs and desires for ourselves and our loved ones. we are being increasingly separated and manipulated. People don't want to see it.

a reply to: VoidHawk

He is certainly a smart cookie.
Preaching to the converted here. Its tragic how easy some people are to lead.
I know it wasn't your intention but all the expressions and facial movements mentioned above are disguised when you wear a full burka and only show a pair of eyes.
THAT is a reason people cannot seem to empathise with or even trust someone in those clothes. If you cannot even see a person AS a person, its easy to let your baser feelings override normal human interaction.
Good thread.

How do you know what propaganda she has seen? I can't even think straight that you equivalize child decapitaton and angry comments.She is just evil and stupid. Add Islam to that and you get a kids head cut off.

originally posted by: DrakeINFERNO


How do you know what propaganda she has seen? I can't even think straight that you equivalize child decapitaton and angry comments.She is just evil and stupid. Add Islam to that and you get a kids head cut off.

May I direct you to the small blue text in my sigy.

a reply to: VoidHawk

OP this makes so much sense on ,my practical experience .I see a kid fall hard ., I get a pain shoot through my body .Its instantaneous . I seldom like to imagine others pain because it really causes me physical or emotional pain . I think somehow we have a sub set of alarms that tell us that others may not share in empathy . Thanks for the post and now I have data to process for awhile :>)

a reply to: VoidHawk

I'm the same, but always feel the need to stick up for the underdog.

Default mode .And why not .Saves on the area of the band wagon ....

Excellent thread..

Star and flag..

I have actually seen this behaviour first hand.. my cousin years ago was heavily involved in football holliganism in the uk.
These guys would beat the hell out of each other after a game between their respected teams.. and they would fight side by side with people they disliked against guys that were a actually very good friends. The only cause of this behaviour were the teams they followed..
Once that game and fight were finished they actually reverted back to ther original allegiance and we're friends again.. sharing a drink and being friends again.. but for that short period they would have a real hatred for each other..
That's when I really understood this concept of grouping together if they had something in common, it's very primitive when seen first hand..

a reply to: VoidHawk

In my eyes that applies to you.

it´s dark times but this thread shines a light.