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The killing themselves really gives me the spooks. No matter how I try I just can't imagine myself in that person's skull. Or at least it's a looooooooooooong reach. It feels so weird to me that my mind starts looking for alternative explanations. Could these be catspaws of some agency with off-market brainwashing tech? That has got to be the gold-standard assassin on at least some significant level, and if they're cheap enough maybe it doesn't matter so much whether they're good shots. The ones without that aptitude end up in one of these instead of going for the President.
I think we overestimate the power of 'mysterious technique' brainwashing. The gold-standard, world-class, top-tier brainwashing methods are all known: State education, media propaganda, social media to catalyze it all together. Some schmucks in the CIA are no match for that. Mass media >>>>> MKUltra.
And remember that many people are weak-willed. Think of the people who spend thousands on gacha or online gambling. There are going to be people who are extra-vulnerable to this stuff, fall into communities where this is normalized and valorized... bang bang bang!
Not to diss either of the methods you mentioned, but weren't the MKULTRA sensory depravation experiments pretty promising when it comes to brainwashing? Mass media is better in that it's more cost effective, but I don't think it can manipulate people all that far.
Their remote viewing was pretty promising too, per various documents. Nobody can fault the Cold War CIA with closedmindedness.
But if remote viewing is so great, why did they spend so much on the U2, satellites, SIGINT? If the US has unconventional propulsion, flying saucers, why would they need the F-35?
If MKUltra worked practically, there'd be more signs of its use. The CIA and associated goons wouldn't need to torture people at Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, they could just brainwash them!
Western citizens aren't volunteering to die in Ukraine because the CIA did some trickery, they're doing this because their attitudes and beliefs have been shaped by the media and those around them, they think it's the right thing to do. Some people are easily suggestible and follower-type personalities. I think this website is full of contrarians and individualists who are highly resistant to consensus and passive manipulation, we naturally struggle to model the mindsets of the other end of the spectrum.
(One exception might be the chemicals and hormones we encounter all around in the modern world, which might act as epigenetic triggers making people more cowardly and less rebellious, though it's not clear that this is anyone's plan, per se. You can see the physiognomy of our fathers and grandfathers was totally different to today, some young men are growing breasts because of some chemical, presumably.)
You mean they’re generally sedentary and eat ultra processed junk food? It’s not much of a mystery that the generation of my parents in 1960 were healthier and lacked man-boobs — they went outside and played sports in real life using their real muscles. Mom cooked at home using such exotic ingredients as chicken, beef, pork, flour, milk, eggs, and fresh vegetables. Amazing how eating real food and playing sports outside with real people made them healthy.
Definitely the spooks.
Uh, you know what fifties food was actually like? Lots of canned junk, white bread, only the most basic fruits and vegetables, no seasonings, make a jello for special occasions.
It was generally at far smaller portion sizes than today, and it did genuinely have less sugar and PUFAs. It was probably less processed than the default American diet in this day and age- soda was a rare treat, they didn’t have hungry man dinners, etc- but it wasn’t some wonderland of organic health food.
My mom was eating frozen Swanson TV dinners all the time in the 50s
The point is they were the regular size ones rather than Hungry Man.
And that most people ate them proportionally less often, you had a balogna sandwich if you couldn't cook a meal for whatever reason. That's not to say their home cooking was very good- it often wasn't- but there was a lot less of the other kind of any description. 50's purchasing power was just too low, and technology too backwards, to sustain any alternative to cooking.
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