What is The Machine™

[Cain]

Not a problem.  I will attempt to find more stuff along these lines on my days off (ie from Sunday onwards).

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

...is that the same time period that subliminal messages were introduced, Cain?  I vaguely remember something that I learned about subversion techniques in mass media, etc.  And inciting paranoia about subjects that were barely known amongst populations that didn't heretofore suscribe to aforementioned paranoia (like proposing new home owners build bomb shelters, etc.).  The building up of Cold War hysteria, for instance, as well.

I've done some research on subliminals and they have a very weak priming effect when done properly and no effect when done badly. They were abandoned by advertisers not long after they started being used due to backlash when people found out ads had subliminal content. But moreso because they learned that overt sexual and status themes are way more effective.

The truth is really quite disappointing compared to the Svengali-like mythology surrounding it.

[LMNO]

Of course, that's exactly what they want you to think.

[Cramulus]

back when I had cable, I became very keenly aware of the subliminal ads on comedy central.

You can catch it right before they come back from a commercial break, they'll flash one frame of an ad for like 1/3rd of a second. Most people don't even notice it.

[Kai]

After reading some of the Less Wrong sequences, I'm not so sure about using "Emergence" anymore. It's starting to feel more like invoking magic, and it doesn't actually /explain/ anything, just gives a semantic stopsign.

While I like using emergence to describe the universal tendency for categorical nova to derive from smaller closely interacting units, too often I've used it as a mysterious answer to mysterious questions.

So, I revoke my use of "emergence" earlier in this thread.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

After reading some of the Less Wrong sequences, I'm not so sure about using "Emergence" anymore. It's starting to feel more like invoking magic, and it doesn't actually /explain/ anything, just gives a semantic stopsign.

While I like using emergence to describe the universal tendency for categorical nova to derive from smaller closely interacting units, too often I've used it as a mysterious answer to mysterious questions.

So, I revoke my use of "emergence" earlier in this thread.

But I liked the idea of emergence! It wasn't strictly mystery to me, and it provided a useful context in which to think of different parts of the Machine.

[Requia ☣]

I like emergence as well, though I wonder if it might be triggering different meanings for me than for others, as I've heard the idea it acts as invoking magic from other places recently, so I have to agree to drop it as well, and I'll see if I can't find a better way to explain what I mean.

[President Television]

back when I had cable, I became very keenly aware of the subliminal ads on comedy central.

You can catch it right before they come back from a commercial break, they'll flash one frame of an ad for like 1/3rd of a second. Most people don't even notice it.

I always figured that was a glitch or something.

[Jasper]

Liking a theory doesn't make it more accurate, unfortunately.

[minuspace]

Liking a theory doesn't make it more accurate, unfortunately.

True, but the fact that the word "emergence" triggers a sense of meaning in people signals me that the semaphore is not spent.  Perhaps the persistence of our vision has temporarily impressed on our ocular field a static shadow of the emergence that was before.  This would deny the nature of emergence as constantly changing, making it a dead metaphor...

To clarify, I feel the machine that is emergence has an accommodating nature that is quasi organic, together with seemingly intricate mechanisms of locks and releases reminiscent of machines that interface with us.  I'm working on understanding the surplus labour thing...

[Cain]

Both left-libertarians and Marxists have devoted some thinking to that topic, I believe.  You may want to check their writings.

[minuspace]

Not worth bothering unless interested in how Marx twisted Hegel to create paradigm shift, and how it is possibly reflected in evolutionary structure of emergence...  I keep Das Capital around but otherwise try and think for myself

I tried to fish-out essay by friend on subject but storage made the ink bleed into incomprehensibility...

(and now emergence is so passe he's gone back to the coelacanth   

[Cain]

Oh I dunno, I think as a sociologist/historian, Marx has a lot of interesting ideas...but to be honest I've read more Marxists than I've read Marx, and some of the former can be quite creative in their interpretations and methods.

Anyway, onto some more purposeful social engineering.  Most of these are taken from the excellent Skilluminati Research website, which I'm sure many of you are aware of.  This is because I'm having a lazy day, and refuse to do any original research until after lunch, at the very least.

"Unlike the analyst, who deals only with simple forms of camouflage, the spy operates in a veritable hall of mirrors, in which several levels of intrigue and dissimulation interact. And unlike the intelligence analyst, whose performance can be evaluated by his failure or success in making patterns rise to the surface, the activities of spies and counterspies take place in such deep secrecy that making a rational evaluation of their performance is often impossible. This has tended to create an aura of "mysticism" around espionage agencies, giving spies the feeling of belonging to a secret caste of initiated individuals who have exclusive access to "esoteric" knowledge. Their successes and failures can only be judged by people having access to this inner sanctum."

"For this reason the photoanalysts at the CIA and the cryptologists at the NSA have to operate in a very different environment than their colleagues in think tanks like the RAND Corporation. RAND was originally created in 1946 as a mathematicians' think tank, designed to apply the tools of Operations Research and game theory to the problems of warfare, and it has remained pretty much a technocrat's stronghold ever since. Analysts at the CIA/NSA, on the other hand, must work together with clandestine operators, in charge of sabotage, assassination and psychological warfare, and with spy managers, who put together and maintain networks of infiltrators and informers. The atmosphere of excessive secrecy created by these two characters affects in many ways the performance of the analytical component of the intelligence agency. This is not to say that the work of the analyst is unrelated to the world of secrecy and security measures. Rather, it is as if there were two kinds of secrecy, one with a valid military function and another that has a negative effect on the internal workings of the war machine."

"Almost without exception secret service organizations have thrived in times of turbulence and, conversely, have seen their power vanish as turmoil slows. For this reason they survive by inciting social turbulence, spreading rumors and inventing imaginary enemies, fifth columns, and bomber and missile gaps. They need to keep society in constant alert, in a generalized state of fear and paranoia, in order to sustain themselves. This has led to the development of a gigantic "espionage industry," whose entire existence is based on a bluff few governments dare to call:

The agencies justify their peacetime existence by promising to provide timely warning of a threat to national security.... Over the years intelligence agencies have brainwashed successive governments into accepting three propositions that ensure their survival and expansion. The first is that in the secret world it may be impossible to distinguish success from failure. A timely warning of attack allows the intended victim to prepare. This causes the aggressor to change its mind; the warning then appears to have been wrong. The second proposition is that failure can be due to incorrect analysis of the agency's accurate information.... The third proposition is that the agency could have offered timely warning had it not been starved of funds. In combination, these three propositions can be used to thwart any rational analysis of an intelligence agency's performance, and allow any failure to be turned into a justification for further funding and expansion."

[Cain]

From Tragedy and Hope by Bill Clinton's former professor, Carroll Quigley:

Behind this unfortunate situation lies another, more profound, relationship, which influences matters much broader than Far Eastern policy. It involves the organization of tax-exempt fortunes of international financiers into foundations to be used for educational, scientific, and other public purposes. Sixty or more years ago, public life in the East was dominated by the influence of Wall Street referring to international financial capitalism deeply involved in the gold standard, foreign exchange fluctuations, floating of fixed-interest securities and shares for stock-exchange markets.

This group, which in the United States, was completely dominated by J.P. Morgan and Company from the 1880s to the 1930s was cosmopolitan, Anglophile, internationalist, Ivy League, eastern seaboard, high Episcopalian and European-culture conscious. Their connection with the Ivy League colleges rested on the fact that large endowments of these institutions required constant consultation with the financiers of Wall Street and was reflected in the fact that these endowments were largely in bonds rather than in real estate or common stocks.

As a consequence of these influences, J.P. Morgan and his associates were the most significant figures in policy making at Harvard, Columbia and Yale while the Whitneys and Prudential Insurance Company dominated Princeton. The chief officials of these universities were beholden to these financial powers and usually owed their jobs to them.

The significant influence of Wall Street (meaning Morgan) both in the Ivy League and in Washington explains the constant interchange between the Ivy League and the Federal Government, and interchange which undoubtedly aroused a good deal of resentment in less-favored circles who were more than satiated with the accents, tweeds, and High Episcopal Anglophilia of these peoples. Poor Dean Acheson, in spite of (or perhaps because of) his remarkable qualities of intellect and character, took the full brunt of this resentment from McCarthy and his allies. The same feeling did no good to pseudo-Ivy League figures like Alger Hiss.

In spite of the great influence of this Wall Street alignment, an influence great enough to merit the name of the "American Establishment," this group could not control the Federal Government and, in consequence, had to adjust to a good many government actions thoroughly distasteful to the group. The chief of these were in taxation law, beginning with the graduated income tax in 1913, but culminating above all else with the inheritance tax.

And

More than fifty years ago, the Morgan firm decided to infiltrate the Left-wing political movements of the United States. This was relatively easy to do since these groups were starved for funds and eager for a voice to reach the people. Wall Street supplied both. The purpose was not to destroy, dominate or take over but was really three-fold:

1) to keep informed about the Left-wing or liberal groups;

2) to provide them with a mouthpiece so they could blow off steam;

3) to have a final "veto" on their actions if they ever went radical. There was nothing really new about this decision, since other financiers had talked about it and even attempted it earlier.

The best example of the alliance of Wall Street and Left-wing publication was "The New Republic" a magazine founded in 1914 by Willard Straight using Payne Whitney money. The original purpose for establishing the paper was to provide an outlet for the progressive Left and to guide it in an Anglophile direction.

And

The Eighty-third Congress set up in 1953 a Special Reece Committee to investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations. It soon became clear that people of immense wealth would be unhappy if the investigation went too far and that the most respected newspapers in the country, closely allied with these men of wealth, would not get excited enough about any revelations to make the publicity worthwhile.

An interesting report showing the Left-wing associations of interlocking nexus of tax-exempt foundations was issued in 1954 rather quietly.. Four years later, the Reece Committee's general counsel, Rene A Wormser, wrote a shocked, but not shocking, book on the subject called "Foundations: Their Power and Influence."

Jerome Green is a symbol of much more than the Wall Street influence in the IPR. He is also a symbol of the relationship between the financial circles of London and those of the eastern U.S. which reflects one of the most powerful influences in 20th century American and world history. The two ends of this English-speaking axis have sometimes been called, perhaps facetiously, the English and American Establishments. There is, however, a considerable degree of truth behind the joke, a truth which reflects a very real power structure.

It is this power structure which the Radical Right in the U.S. has been attacking for years in the belief they are attacking the Communists. These misdirected attacks did much to confuse the American people in 1948-1955. By 1953 most of these attacks had run their course. The American people, thoroughly bewildered at the widespread charges of twenty years of treason and subversion, had rejected the Democrats and put into the White House a war hero, Eisenhower. At the time, two events, one public and one secret, were still in process. The public one was the Korean War; the secret one was the race for the thermonuclear bomb.

Finally

The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences.

This man was a highly respected professor of history at Georgetown University, by the way.  I have copies of the book for those interested.

[Cain]

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Proactive_Preemptive_Operations_Group

One way to invigorate U.S. intelligence would be to "Develop an entirely new capability to proactively, preemptively evoke responses from adversary/terrorist groups," according to the DSB. Such an approach would "improve [intelligence] information collection by stimulating reactions" from the target [5] ... which is to say, provoke the terrorists into action.

DEFENSE "COVERT OPS" ROLE -- A 78-page briefing document recently obtained by the media titled "Summer Study on Special Operations and Joint Forces in Support of Countering Terrorism" and produced by a 10-member panel of military experts [only AFIO member Admiral William O. Studeman, former DIRNSA, former Deputy DCI and former Acting DCI was identified as a member] under the auspices of the Defense Science Board advocates a greatly expanded and more assertive role for covert military actions, intelligence collection and operations to "stimulate reactions" among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass destruction. In discussing the report, not yet forwarded to the President, the DSB chairman, William Schneider, Jr., rejected concerns that the proposal would usurp CIA's covert operations role, erode congressional oversight, or change long-standing policies such as prohibition of assassinations. Expansion of existing covert units and the addition of new covert units in all of the Services as well as the new expenditure of billions of dollars was called for. The panel recommended a number of new or morphed organizations in the design to bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, psychological warfare, intelligence, cover and deception.