Noam Chomsky and the Engineering of Consent

Thought Control in a Democratic Society

The Water Army

We initiate a systematic study to help distinguish a special group of online users, called hidden paid posters, or termed "Internet water army" in China, from the legitimate ones. On the Internet, the paid posters represent a new type of online job opportunities. They get paid for posting comments or articles on different online communities and websites for hidden purposes, e.g., to influence the opinion of other people towards certain social events or business markets. While being an interesting strategy in business marketing, paid posters may create a significant negative effect on the online communities, since the information from paid posters is usually not trustworthy. When two competitive companies hire paid posters to post fake news or negative comments about each other, normal netizens may feel overwhelmed and find it difficult to put any trust in the information they acquire from the Internet. In this paper, we thoroughly investigate the behavioral pattern of online paid posters based on real-world trace data. We design and validate a new detection mechanism, using both non-semantic analysis and semantic analysis, to identify potential online paid posters. Our test results with real-world datasets show a very promising performance.

Cheng Chen, Kui Wu, Venkatesh Srinivasan, and Xudong Zhang. 2013. Battling the internet water army: detection of hidden paid posters. In Proceedings of the 2013 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM '13). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 116-120. DOI=10.1145/2492517.2492637 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2492517.2492637


If you don't believe that Corporations in the United States are not actively using this same technique and that most of the comments you read on News articles aren't basically paid-for-ads then you seriously need to consider upgrading you're reality to the dawn of a new age.

So, like Bullshit, OK?

Paul Siegel is a man I've been learning quite a bit about and in doing so I've been distracted into far reaching areas of examination probing references from his fantastic book on the First Amendment of the Constitution and Communication in the US. These are points of interest for me right now, with everything I'm doing with the FTC, and my Law proposal, as well as my book on aggressive persuasion. 

This next bit isn't actually in the book, but he writes on his website that it probably should have been.  And this excerpt is from one of his pages on his web site on the acceptance of a policy which made it mandatory to teach Creationism in public schools. 

Aggressive Persuasion - Technical Authority technique

Today's Aggressive Persuasion Spotlight falls on the technique known as: Technical Authority

Name: Technical Authority
Type:  An Automatic Behavior
Medium: Text, Internet, News, In Person, Video, Voice Recording
Chance of Encounter: High
Typical Target: Large Groups, Mass Media
Setup, Conditions, or Environment:  This technique is best used in an environment of multi-level confliction, without overbearing conflict. For example, a problem is perceived through the latest results of a report, that the math standards of the state of California are not providing a needed element. Opinions have been given suggesting, clarity of requirements, limited or vague instruction, low level of expectation, expectations are too high, and fosters an environment which allows too many methods. However, none of these are clear enough to take a stand on at this point.

Automatic Behaviors are frequently underestimated, not recognized when engaged, and commonly attributed to some other origin.[1] The name however is descriptive and accurate. These are behaviors that are 1) triggered by an event. 2) Responsive to the event in predictable ways, 3) The response requires no forethought, planning or conscious agreement. Most people are completely unaware that this behavior is ... a behavior and not a conscious decision on their part.

This particular behaviour however is very strong especially the environment is as described above -- a problem exists, there appear to be several possible areas of exploration, many voices with opinions, and an escalating atmosphere as more people buy into the discussion.

At this point, the introduction of a Technical Authority, someone who establishes credibility in a recognizable, and easily acceptable manner, and then begins to instruct steps and goals -- will be followed and given a great deal of power without question -- such questions might have been "What are you an authority on, exactly?" would have undoubtedly been asked at any other time, but are dismissed by the momentum of the moment.

Once the Technical Authority is accepted by this group, newcomers will also fall in line and an establishment of loyalty by precedent comes in to being -- meaning, any questioning of credentials will be looked down on with derision by the existing members of the core group.

Even on discovery later that the Technical Authority is not qualified, it will take a major abuse of position and power to break the spell.

[1]Bar-Anan, Yoav, Timothy D. Wilson, and Ran R. Hassin. "Inaccurate self-knowledge formation as a result of automatic behavior." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46.6 (2010): 884-894.

A look at Aggressive Persuasion on the Internet

The Condition is well known and implicit.The Indoctrinated will fight to defend their conditioning -- Jane Robbins on Using Social Engineering on the Internet to Maintain Party Loyalty, Jan 24th 2013

She's right of course. It is a fool's errand to fight against those who have accepted a conditioning -- expecting to win. And, I want to be upfront on this -- the conditioning, it is not a sign of weakness, any more than having a bleeding hole in your chest is a sign of weakness after you've been shot.

The human brain, in evolutionary terms, is still fairly young -- with the frontal lobes and upper hemispheres being even younger than that. Language is also more powerful than we give it credit.

I was first introduced to indoctrinated minds when I was 20. I took the position as the personal security of a man named Ted Patrick.

The Open Letter to James Milgram The Inciter

Professor James Milgram has been around for some time. In 1996 he left his place at Stanford and without invitation came to California, introduced himself as a expert of Education and began making claims, which had no basis, and he didn't have any real experience with the education of K-12. He strode in on reputation as a mathematician alone. Now... that reputation was fairly solid at that time, and as he was sure would happen, the people he approached endowed reputation with more than it warranted.

The Math Wars had begun several years later, and this was his next target. On reputation he could only do so much. Very soon other tactics were introduced to the traditionalists side -- tactics no one would expect academics to use on each other.


September 20, 2002

Professor James Milgram
Department of Mathematics
Stanford University
Stanford, CA

Jim

I am replying to you with an open letter. Events of this past week or so have dismayed me and brought me to ask if my views on democracy in America are out of line with those of my peers. Though I feel that people have the legal right to express even extreme forms of dissent, I also believe that there is a slow decrease in our civility to one another, making it much more difficult to bring about consensus and accomplish common goals. In the range between civility and the extremity of legal expression is a gray area where all of us react negatively or positively. I need to ask if many people would react as I have. First I'd like to outline as objectively as I can the events to which I am reacting.

Of Men, Women, and Orange Goo

In response to Rob Port, and the “Bad Data Used to Justify Gender Pay in Legislation”

This is probably the most naive article I've ever read. I'm stunned yet again this evening and I've only read three things on this site. -- at least I'm hoping that it is naive. Otherwise we're looking at either dreadfully challenged in the "short-bus & Scooby-Do lunch box" way, or sexist denier on the "foaming mouth" level.

"Here’s another inconvenient fact for the narrative:77 percent of human resources positions are held by women. Given that HR personnel are deeply involved in the areas of hiring, pay, promotion, and investigating workplace discrimination it’s a little hard to believe that all there’s an institutional bias against women…perpetrated by other women." -- Rob Port

Yes... because your low-paid HR person, frequently seen as an "over-paid secretary" -- and who you would not have at all if you could get away with it, but your insurance won't let you -- is so very often the person who negotiates salary and benefits.

Right, yes... that's the way it works, yes... let's go with that fantasy shall we?