Comment by renholder | Hacker News Reader

Comment by renholder | Hacker News Reader

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It isn't anywhere near as unexplored or untapped, as one might believe.

Waterboarding in Guantanamo Bay[0] is a principal example of how these exploits have been explored and later implemented. The tools were "developed" somewhere, tested, "perfected", defined, and then later implemented by training people to execute the methods and then the later execution of those methods.

The problem with these "psychological operations", as they're called, is that they don't take into account the ill-effects we've seen in time immemorial.

Let's say, for example, you've been tortured for 'x' days. How long before you 'break' and just admit to crimes you've never committed or implicate innocent people - all just to get the torture to stop?

"...but that wouldn't happen. People would never point the finger at other innocent people." Oh, yeah? See: The Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism as principal examples. (I'm assuming that you're American, at least, and - as such - you'd already be familiar with how those played-out.)

In normal parlance, this has been grouped into two seperate notions: Pychological Operations[1] and Psychological Warfare[2].

MKUltra[3] was, itself, specifically about mind-control, in order to obtain information and/or confessions.

So, you're definitely not the only one interested in it or in talking about it; however, it's entirely plausible that having an interest in this is something that lands us on yet another list... Yay. =[

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp#...

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_operations_(Unit...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_warfare

[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra

>...but that wouldn't happen. People would never point the finger at other innocent people." Oh, yeah? See: The Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism as principal examples. (I'm assuming that you're American, at least, and - as such - you'd already be familiar with how those played-out.)

Nitpick: The Boston area was basically settled by the Christian Taliban (they were kicked out of England for being too fundamentalist) so when it comes to human rights and treating people with dignity they were behind the times (to put it charitably). The witch trails of the 1690s are roughly analogous to the local warlord having a few minor criminals shot in order to send the message that everyone needs to get their shit together and quit fighting among themselves. You saw that kind of stuff a lot in the middle ages where some lord might have a family cut down without due process because they had some grievance and refused to pay tax/tribute. The Salem witch trials only made it into the history books because the rest of the world had long since moved on from that sort of thing.

Obviously that sort of stuff isn't compatible with modern values but that's just how society (in the Boston area at least) worked back then.

The Puritans were weird and deeply religious, but describing them as the "christian taliban" is not accurate.

To start, they were kicked out of England for being protestant, not "too fundamentalist". The schism between the Church of England and everybody else (e.g. Scottish Presbyterians) was a longstanding source of conflict (partially because the church considered itself the arm of the state, and tithes as taxes. Non-Anglicans didn't want to pay these). And, in fact, many Puritans came back (or sent support) when Oliver Cromwell seized control. It's certainly true that the Puritans didn't come seeking religious freedom, but the ability to combine their religion and government).

They were a strongly egalitarian and highly educated culture, featuring near-universal literacy both among men and women. They had a strong dedication to economic equality -- one town distributed equal-sized plots of land to it's settlers.

They had harsh laws about adultery, which were enforced against men and women relatively equally. They also had laws against "novelties" (i.e. anything new) and wasting time, so don't think this is a defense of their modernity. But it's only vaguely accurate to describe them and "the taliban" as alike. They are both cultures with deep religious drives, but those drives are different and expressed very differently.

>but describing them as the "christian taliban" is not accurate.

> It's certainly true that the Puritans didn't come seeking religious freedom, but the ability to combine their religion and government.

> They are both cultures with deep religious drives, but those drives are different and expressed very differently.

My comparison to the Taliban was more about the harsh way they ran their communities than their specific religious belief and social structure The puritan settled areas were highly superstitious and authoritarian communities where there is perceived (religious) justification for very harsh punishment on anyone who violates the community norms. The strictness with which the puritans ran their communities was far in excess of the norm for the time (which is why the witch trials were a big deal). In that way they're like the Taliban.

It's hard to make comparisons to the current US social/political landscape without pissing everyone off. The puritans pretty much planted the seed of authoritarianism in the US and we're still fighting off that legacy today.

>They were a strongly egalitarian and highly educated culture, featuring near-universal literacy both among men and women. They had a strong dedication to economic equality -- one town distributed equal-sized plots of land to it's settlers.

It's a shame that 400yr later those aren't the traits that stuck around in our culture.

The fact that people actually went back is amazing to me. To make that journey you stood a very good chance of dying if I’m not mistaken. Plus it must have been super unpleasant even if you survived.

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