IUBio

Terms Other Than "Mind Control" (Revised Jan 22, 2003)

Allen L. Barker alb at datafilter.com
Wed Jan 22 01:23:45 EST 2003



Terms Other Than Mind Control
------------------------------------------

This article is a re-edited version of an earlier mailing list
article.  The subject is whether the term "mind control" does more
harm than good, as far as activism to educate the public and expose
the many abuses in that area.  The nature of the crimes and abuses
is not at issue.  The focus here is word usage.  This version was 
last revised on Jan. 22, 2003.

Connotational Baggage

One problem with the term "mind control" is the "kook" association.
This association/stereotype is reinforced in some of the popular
culture -- as well as by certain victims (or provocateurs) who sound
"crazy."  [There are cointelpro-style provocateurs who want to keep
the real victims discredited, if possible, because they work as a
damage control unit for the victimizers.]  Many other people
encountering the term "mind control" are just citizens who are
purposely kept ignorant of the known and documented history of mind
control -- as well as the state of the technology right now.

Because of the popular culture, some people may tend to want to
ridicule the term mind control.  On the other hand, not all the
popular culture references to mind control are harmful to the victims;
there are some deeper and sharper popular culture references which
take it seriously and raise the ethical questions.  Mind control also
has a built-in "name recognition" in the population, so perhaps
someone who once ridiculed it and learned that it all exists right now
would be able to grow up and consider the matter seriously.

Other Connotations

For some people the term "mind control" evokes the connotation that
the victim is *completely* controlled, like a high-tech zombie.  In
most cases, though, it is more like a probabilistic control and
influencing.  In less subtle cases it is just plain harassment and 
aversive conditioning (punishment) for "unapproved" thoughts or 
behaviors.  In even less subtle cases it is just incessant harassment
intended to inflict psychological damage.  The intention there is often
to cause the victim to suffer "discrediting" sequelae that can be labeled 
a "psychotic break" -- or to just cause the person to commit suicide.  To 
be clear, the term "mind control" does not necessarily imply that the 
victim is completely controlled like an automaton -- though that level of 
control has surely been researched and experimented on.

A positive connotation of the term "mind control" is its similarity 
to the mathematical field of control theory.  If you were to interpret
the term "mind" to mean something like a dynamical system representing 
the mind/body of a person, then in a very abstract sense what is being 
attempted is described by control theory.  Questions like 
controllability then take on an "interesting" interpretation...  Of
course with such high-level abstractions it is important to remember 
that some of those "dynamical systems" are human beings with unalienable
human rights.  And some of those "control variables" constitute torture.

Taking Back the Term

One can either move from term to term as they are worn out, or stick
to the usual term even with its connotational baggage.  I tend to use
different terms in different situations, for example avoiding the term
"mind control" in official correspondence except with a caution to the
reader before the term is introduced.  But normally I tend to stick to
the popular term "mind control" (don't let the disinfo agents have
it).  There is a good argument for not using the term, and good people
can certainly disagree on that point.  Obviously not all people have
to use the exact same term if we all know we are talking about the
same thing.

Is There a Single Term Better Than Mind Control?

If we are looking for a single term to use, or at least for the
primary term to use, what should such a term be based on?  Should it
be based on science?  Law?  The poetry of human suffering? Or
something else?

Scientific Terms: Physical Vs. Psychophysical

If we want a scientific term we need to distinguish the physical from
the psychophysical.  A physical term suggests a weapon or a means
(such as a microwave voice-to-skull device) while a psychophysical
term relates to the victim's subjective experience of what was done to
him or her.  Let me digress a couple of paragraphs to be more
explicit.

In science and experimental psychology there are physical quantities
and there are psychophysical quantities.  (This is the objective
versus the subjective.)  The classic example is of the frequency of an
auditory signal versus its pitch.  The frequency is what you measure
with a scientific instrument, while the pitch is the subjective
sensation you perceive.  They are different things, but (due to the
long evolution of science) frequency is close enough to pitch when
measured physically versus psychophysically that people sometimes
ignore the distinction.

Many of the microwave hearing articles deal with the issues of "what
are the psychophysical correlates of the beam's physical parameters."
Knowing this one can then technologically create the *physical* event,
causing the corresponding *psychophysical* event in the person's
"mind."  That is, you can modulate a microwave beam with the right
pulsed waveform so that if you "illuminate" a person with the beam he
or she perceives as sound whatever signal has been modulated onto it
-- including voice signals.

So should a single scientific term be a physical description or a
psychophysical one?  Can you rigorously define a term that encompasses
both?  In the world of soft sciences(?) there could perhaps be a new
DSM-manual entry for mind control victims.  It would be similar to
Stasi persecution syndrome, but more general and not restricted to
East Germany.

Current Groups of Victim

What groups of victims are included under the term "mind control" right 
now?  Let me assume a "John Marks" sort of definition, such as the 
techniques he described in his book _The Search for the Manchurian 
Candidate_.  There are different sorts of mind control, yet we all 
basically know what we mean by "mind control victim" in that sense.  It 
is a specific case of torture victim -- which is a legal term in addition 
to being understood in common language.

Can we talk about mind control without talking about victims?  Not
really, because we are assuming the nonconsensual application of the
technology in the fashion of rape.  But in a larger sense we are
dealing with "mind rape" as the violent crime committed with the
nonconsensual use of brain interface technology.  Of course brain
interface technology is only one aspect, i.e., covers one class of
victims.  It might not apply to some victims of, say, PANDORA-style
nonconsensual behavior and conditioning experiments with microwaves of
all sorts.  And what about all the mind control drugging victims like
in the LSD experiments?  What about the victims of abusive and
intentionally harmful hypnosis techniques?  These techniques can also
used in combination.  For example, voice-to-skull technology is often
used as an implement for inducing trauma as a part of trauma
conditioning a victim.  Politically there are few enough direct,
witting victims who are willing to talk about it -- and few enough
people who care about domestic torture -- that all mind control
victims need to stick together.

Political Terms

In the spy business, the Inspector General of the CIA called mind
control operations "clandestine operations to control human behavior"
in a report from the early 1960s.  Another term is "technologies of
political control," as in the STOA report to the European Parliament.
Abuses of such technologies and methods are a subset of the more
general classes of crimes known as torture and human rights
violations.  In the US, at least, they are also civil rights
violations and abrogations of almost the entire Bill of Rights.  That
over and above various stalking, assault, battery, harassment, and]
intellectual property theft laws.

Poetic Terms

Finally, would Frederick Douglass have preferred a scientific term in
his powerful speeches for human dignity?  This is another area, the
real human experience of the torture victims crying out for freedom
and justice.

Decide For Yourself

I don't think we're going to find a single common term that meets our
needs.  We might be able to create or choose one and *imbue* it with
the same meaning which those on this list already know for the term
mind control.  Perhaps in the spirit of science we could do a taxonomy
of all the sorts of mind control and the descriptive term for each,
all under the common root node of an overarching term.  A cluster
analysis of victim survey reports might provide some useful info
there, for example.  But *good* experimental studies are hard to do,
cost money, are subject to co-optation by victimizers, and victims are
not exactly in the best positions carry them out or trust those
claiming to.

Remember this is not just a "scientific" problem.  The abuses have
been purposely inflicted and purposely covered up.  There are archives
of data about *known* victims in the population which are still ignored.
Rather than forcing victims and activists to have to externally piece 
together what all has been done, a legitimate government (of, by, and 
for the people) would investigate, end any abuses, bring justice to the
vicious abusers, and provide redress for the victims.

Alternative Terms

There was a thread on some mailing lists a while back about whether
the term "mind control" is the right one for activists to use.  These
are all the terms suggested by various people there, plus a few more.
Remember the target audience in letter writing, etc.


   acoustic weapons
   active physical surveillance
   aggravated assault and battery with microwave weapons
   assaults with improvised electronic and non-electronic weapons
   assaults with classified weapons
   behavior modification torture victims
   biological process control
   brain assault
   brain bugging
   brain rape
   braintapping
   clandestine operations to control human behavior
   clandestine domestic terrorization
   conspicuous surveillance
   defamation of character
   directed energy weapons
   electromagnetic harassment victim
   electromagnetic pulse weapons
   electromagnetic weapons
   electronic mind control
   electronic torture
   high-tech menticide
   high-tech surveillance and harassment
   high-tech political surveillance and harassment
   human biological process control
   mind control
   mind control torture
   mind influencing
   mind rape
   neuroinfluencing weapon
   nonconsensual behavior control operation
   nonconsensual behavior modification operation
   nonconsensual behavior modification
   nonconsensual brain interface
   nonconsensual brain-computer interface
   nonconsensual brain interrogation
   non-lethal weapons
   performance-degrading weapons
   political control technologies
   psycho-correction technology
   psycho-electronics
   psychological deception operations 
   psychological warfare
   psychotronics
   radio-frequency weapons 
   remote aversive conditioning torture
   remote monitoring of EEG
   sleep deprivation
   sleep-disrupting weapons
   targeted individual
   technological enslavement operations
   thought inference via sensor data analysis
   thought control/influencing
   thought police
   torture
   torture-level surveillance and harassment operation
   torture-level surveillance and harassment
   torture victims
   ultrasonic weapons
   voice-to-skull assault
   voice-to-skull covert operation victim
   zapping victim


--
Mind Control: TT&P ==> http://www.datafilter.com/mc
A USA Today Hot Site: http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/2002/04/29/hotsites.htm
--
Home page: http://www.datafilter.com/alb
Allen Barker



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