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This is paranoid. I remember the story about Facebook doing emotional manipulation through the feed, but you go from there to hyper rich hedge funds and shadowy intelligence agencies at the reins of public life shaping the course of history through social media black magic. I don't doubt there are bad actors trying to do bad things via advertising and social media, but this is quite the claim. The rich and powerful are bad enough without adding internet/advertising mediated mind control to the mix.

It's weird that the story you picked was a black man saving a white woman to describe the shift of the Overton Window. Where is the window moving to, and from where?

I don’t know about you, but the Snowden Revelations dramatically shifted my baseline of “paranoid schizo”. Before, I thought the prospect utterly bananas that “the government” was tapping every phone call, strong-arming ISPs, and intercepting mail en route to its destination.

Then I found myself in a rabbit hole of Tuskegee experiments, Operation Northwoodses, MKULTRAs, human-animal hybrids, and so on.

Now, the question I ask is, “is this technologically possible?”

>Then I found myself in a rabbit hole of Tuskegee experiments, Operation Northwoodses, MKULTRAs, human-animal hybrids, and so on.

These things aren't interrelated, or even very similar.

Sure they are: they’re all things which normal people wouldn’t do to other people, and in which the perpetrators weren’t punished.

And by “normal people wouldn’t do to other people”, I mean “stark raving mad”.

I'm going to keep getting downvoted here, but it seems like people collect a bulleted list of spooky and bad things a government has done, and imply a meaningful connection via the act of simply listing the events together.

So, in our same list we have:

- A Cuban false flag operation with military intent.

- A CIA Mind Control experiment which is implied to be widespread, but documents don't actually support this. Torturing a few hapless individuals with LSD is certainly terrible, but it's different from "widespread government control."

- A terrible, scientific & racist medical experiment carried out against a vulnerable group of people.

- And then, "human-animal hybrids" ... I'm not sure how to respond to this? A few folks in China did some questionable things, maybe? I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

These are all disparate groups, with disparate intent, and unrelated outcome. Please, how are these related? Some people in power did some things are morally wrong? Why include conspiracy theories in this list if that's the only similarity? If you simply wanted to discuss government transgression, you could avoid something as trivial as MKULTA and instead simply mention U.S. Slavery, or the Soviet Famine, or any of the many government-run genocides in world history.

The idea is that all these things are related in their goal in to trying to control people either by using force or coercion. They were all done using the Mechanism of US gov. They also weren't prosecuted for their crimes.

The Tuskeegee experiment wasn't about control, it was about studying syphilis. It was as terrible was it was racist, but it had nothing to do with government control.

A false flag operation is only about control in the loosest sense. You can't successfully false flag your way into a military conflict with an allied country: it's only useful when tensions are high enough that there is already popular support for a military operation, but an excuse is needed. In that sense, other "excuses" for military conflicts work the same way. The spurious claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was popular only because of 9/11 and sentiment about the middle east at the time. (a similar argument, for example, could not have been made about other countries with WMDs, such as France, Israel, and South Africa) I'm not suggesting any of these actions are acceptable, simply that the salient point here must be deception, not control. Broadly speaking, any government-driven policy or program in some vague sense of the word requires control. There must be enough popular support for any initiative such that it can be successful. Anti-smoking campaigns require coercion as well, and sometimes even deception. Smoking used to be wildly popular, but the government, as well as some powerful groups, were able to use emotional appeals and scare tactics to vastly change the public perception of smoking. Should we lump this effort in with MKULTRA?

I'm not sure that "human-animal hybrids" are real in any non-pedantic way. Even so, not sure what the control aspect is meant to be here.

MKULTRA, however, clearly was about control. The correct conclusion about MKULTRA, however, should be that the CIA needed more oversight, since they were apparently willing to torture people and perform highly unethical experiments to learn how effectively an individual could be controlled. Often glossed over is the fact these these experiments largely didn't work at all at all. No progress on "mass-control" was ever made, and instead, all we're left with is government abuse and torture in pursuit of something that probably isn't possible.

a lot of psychopaths rise to the top

Are you familiar with Hannah Arendt's book, Eichmann in Jerusalem? The narrative is that the Nazi regime was comprised of completely normal people. She then examines what the implications are in a world where perfectly normal people perpetrate the Holocaust.

One addendum, it's worth keeping in mind the base rate for these awful gov't incidents you mention. If you only see the bad things, you have subconscious blinders (Kahneman's "What You See Is All There Is"). Try thinking about MKULTRA or Cuba or Tuskegee in relation to (much larger quantity and impact from) positive things the government does, like international aid, or emergency services provided by the Coast Guard. Responses to earthquakes in poor countries, our military is there. Vaccinations, food drops, all kinds of things that the gov't does that are good.

You have to consider these things holistically to get a good picture, otherwise I agree it's very easy to rabbit hole down a conspiracy path. And it's attractive -- it means "you get it" while other people dont -- but it's not an accurate representation of the whole, which makes it a bad model to allow to fester in your mind.

I’m all for good governance, and I’m glad that most people in government are trying to do the best that they can with what they have available.

But I think that it’s pretty clear that they’re not running the show, where it really matters.

I think it's pretty clear that no group of humans is running the show, where it matters. Humanity is too large, with too much complexity, too many interconnections and Nth-order side effects, for any group of people to be running it.

We are, for better or worse, cruising on a giant ship with limited steering, and all we can do is try to control how much fuel we shovel into the engine.

But the direction of the boat is controlled more like an Ouiji board; our direction is an emergent behavior.

Read Manufacturing Consent & Surveillance Valley if you haven't already.

Will do, thanks.

I have similar feelings, don't get me wrong. I too have experienced that shift. I guess I just want to know, is what technologically possible?

I see two possibilities here: one is a handful of unimaginably wealthy and powerful hedge funds and intelligence organizations (heretofore unnamed) which are somehow coordinated in their efforts to shift public opinion to... something. The example given is something about black men, white women, and white men. I'm not sure what that means.

The other, IMO far more believable scenario, is that there are many interested parties using social media and advertisement in general to change people's minds about a myriad of topics and issues, which is not remarkable except to the extent that new technology and new techniques are being used, which we may not fully understand or be aware of.

The first requires a belief in a conspiracy among the hyper rich and powerful to create some ill-defined new world, the other does not. Both are technologically possible, but I find one more convincing than the other.

Edited to add that last sentence and to correct some awkward wording.

If I had to guess, I’d say that most of these people are aligned in factions, most of which probably have roughly similar interests and so are working fully or partially independently towards roughly the same things, probably with no little amount of internicene jostling for position.

And in the process they’re probably producing technological horrors simply because it’s convenient and effective to do so. No hard feelings.

Conspiracies happen all the time, and I would imagine that few ever come to light.

It is weird that he comments on that, and not that it's become the most advertised interracial coupling even tho IRL it's the 2nd least common interracial coupling?

Or are you just trying to ad-hominem him?

It's weird that he (and you) comment on that because if someone is extremely concerned about the media promoting miscegenation, that's usually a good proxy for them being a racist cretin.

So just the good old ad hominem then?

I simply pointed out a fact: there is a significant discrepancy between the rate of black male + white female couplings IRL and in the media. I am bringing no judgement on it.

Considering how frothy at the mouth you got over this fact being mentioned, you are no better than those 'racist cretins' you try to insinuate I am part of.

Do you actually have any valid arguments to dispute the claim, or only the attempts at shaming ad-hominems to try and suppress that claim?

>Considering how frothy at the mouth you got over this fact being mentioned

Is it a fact, or just your imagination? Does this fact come from statistics or your gut?

Did I type what you're responding to, or is it your imagination?

I misread your question so my reply was unnecessary snarky.

Black male+white female is 2nd least common coupling in USA, this at least is a fact unrelated to my opinion.

Comparison to media rates is based on Hollywood blockbusters and Netflix lineup. While the numbers for Hollywood are lower than on Netflix, black male+white female is 2nd most common coupling in Netflix originals.

P.S. I am European and child of a mixed marriage myself, so this is no 'keep America white!' effort. It's just that the idea of 'forbidden truths' 1984-style rubs me the wrong way.

To be frank, I don't think you've actually conducted an empirical comparison of "black male + white female couplings IRL and in the media", nor do I think such a discrepancy would be worthy of comment even if it exists, and perhaps most importantly, I do not believe in the innocent motives of anyone who brings up the subject and then acts like they are only attempting to make an innocuous anthropological observation.

I'm not interested in a 'debate' about race-mixing with you. I just want to point out that when you tell on yourself like this, both online and IRL, people notice, and we'll treat you accordingly.

In defense of the guy that brought it up: race-mixing is a huge scissor statement. It's already working here - you're getting your socks in a tizzy over a mention of it and can't get past the object-level. The meta-level is it doesn't matter what concept they use - race, gender, sex, identity - posters can and will use it to make you fight people you would otherwise get along with.

Now that the drama is over and I won't be accused of lying, I'd like to point out that I'm European and a child of a mixed marriage myself. So the reaction of this wannabe Jihadi John SJW is even more troubling.

As for the scissor statements, here's another good one: 'Women have smaller brains than men'. It is true (on average) but it will draw out mouth-frothing SJWs without fail.

Yet you keep commenting, while actually avoiding the answer. You keep going in circle, trying to insinuate things about me based on the topic, while working hard to pretend the topic is irrelevant. Do you even see the dichotomy in your actions?

> I'm not interested in a 'debate' about race-mixing with you. I just want to point out that when you tell on yourself like this, both online and IRL, people notice, and we'll treat you accordingly.

Ah yes, upgrade from ad hominem to attempts of silencing through threats. Keep going. You think people don't notice _that_?

There is a significant discrepancy between coupling rates of black male + white female IRL (2nd least common pairing) and in media.

Where's the ad hom? I'm not implying anything about the commenter, and I clearly didn't state anything about them. I just wanted more information about why that specifically is an example of an attempt to move the Overton window. Given the premise of the comment--that immensely wealthy and powerful (but apparently nameless) organizations are shaping public opinion of the masses via social media and advertising--they would choose positive feelings about miscegenation or black men in general over, I don't know, foreign policy, consumerism, or expansive federal power. It's weird. I called it weird. I stand by it.

For crying out loud, the commenter didn't even establish with evidence that it really is a pattern, or what "their" goal could even be.

EDIT Just noticed your username. Congrats, you got people riled up.

'It is weird you chose this topic' seems like you insinuate the issue is with the poster, not the topic.

My intention wasn't to troll.

When I was a developer for a publisher, I could choose the race, gender, interests, location, and career of people to target my ads with. As long as my ads didn't explicitly break their TOSes, I was good to go. You don't have to be rich and powerful to gain influence over people. A modest budget will give you this access, because the rich and powerful will sell the access to you. They aren't even necessarily interested in using it directly, because there's more money to be made and less regulatory pressure if they're middlemen.

> this is paranoid

Please don't label a paragraph of text with a trite insult. Just address the argument.

Just because someone blasts out a wall of words screed doesn't make it credible, salient, or logical.

Your post is also an attempt to “reinforce complex concepts in our minds subconsciously” isn’t it? The entire field of marketing is an attempt to influence people to engage in a particular behavior. Why single out hedge funds and intelligence agencies?

The difference is those have the power to make dissidents vanish and make it seem like everything is perfect.

Hedge funds make dissidents vanish?

I certainly wouldn't want to be on In-Q-Tel's bad side.

I mean, how large is the divide between large corporations and government agencies and the military really? PBSUCCESS was quite some time ago, but is there reason to believe that this has fundamentally changed?

They certainly won't touch somebody for posting a negative yelp review, but if significant business interests align, does anybody doubt that people get vanished?

> strong healthy black man rescues white woman from a bumbling and pathetic white male.

just why? every damn thread on this site these days has some racist bs.Youre projecting real hard.

i think you are severely underestimating the advertising "craft". it's insidious in ways exactly like this.

"strong healthy black man rescues white woman from a bumbling and pathetic white male."

Yeah, that… really doesn't sound as common a theme as you imply

It must be common in 2Ccltvcm's feed. Maybe the algorithm knows him a little too well.

It is not common IRL, black male + white female is the 2nd least common interracial coupling.

However, without going into who's pushing it, it is significantly more common in media than IRL.

Maybe not the black male part. But the "competent woman" and "bumbling helpless male" is an extremely common TV commercial trope once you're paying attention.

It's not really a commercial trope so much as a TV sitcom trope, going back at least as far as the Honeymooners.

It's also not as common as it used to be, as far as I can tell.

Edit: I've been thinking about it, and I don't think I can recall ever actually seeing "black male rescuing a white woman from a white male" being used in an advertisement, anywhere. Typically such a motif is used to present the black male as a threat, not as somehow heroically superior to his white counterpart.

Even then I can only recall its use in political advertisements (such as the infamous "Willie Horton" ad) and maybe very old movies.

> One that comes to mind is a motif you will see in advertisements once you are more aware of it: strong healthy black man rescues white woman from a bumbling and pathetic white male.

Ads are generally tailored to the user's preferences.

Good joke but I think this applies mostly to TV advertising

I wonder why advertisers would want to pit races against each other. What possible benefit could come from making people unhappy?

I'm not buying a lot of this "motif" usage stuff, but if you want to speak entirely speculatively, I'll bite.

Marxism extensively argues that it is easiest to oppress people when you categorize them differently. An example would be how poor whites weakened the rights of free slaves in post Civil War America. Marx would argue the rich propagated racist beliefs to the poor whites who then limited the rights of other poor people. The end result is the poor limit their own democratic representation. Scientific Socialism is an essay by Engles (coauthor of the Commumist Manifesto) where he argues all oppression is based off of sexism (infantilization, dehumanization, objectification) and shows how the concepts of oppression are modified for race and class, so each group appears different but are actually the same. How this would apply to advertisers might be to preserve the status quo, or to make people feel bad to compulsively buy.

Not saying I agree with every aspect of those arguments, but it is a well documented attempt at answering your question.

No comment on the race aspect of this, but advertisers, marketers, and salespeople have always benefited from making people feel unhappy. It's one reason so many people loathe them.

It's a very simple and common tactic you will see everywhere: Make the customer feel inadequate, then present the product as a solution to their inadequacy. You don't need to directly attack them as inadequate. You can simply present a scene, or situation and let the customer's own insecurities/lizard brain desires fill in the gaps to associate the product with a solution (e.g. a liquor commercial that shows a couple having a great time partying with friends).

HN Admins: it's a bad look to leave a bit of white supremacist angst in one of the top comments of a thread on the front page.

> "strong healthy black man rescues white woman from a bumbling and pathetic white male"

I've already flagged the comment, but hopefully others will do so too; this kind of stuff really sticks out on a "hackers" forum.

If you want to bring something to the attention of the mods, it's most expedient to email them using the Contact link in the footer.

I would start taking these kind of arguments more seriously if Amazon stopped sending me washing machine ads AFTER i already bought one on Amazon. No, i am not becoming a washing mashine aficianado.

You choose to believe the advertisments of advertising companies about their own power and efficacy. That these are dystopian to you is not relevant.

I see the line of "they showed me an ad for X after I bought one on their site!" thrown around a lot as a sign of incompetence, but the fact you made the purchase recently actually makes you a good target demographic.

You wanted some good and paid money for it. There's is now a real chance that the good you bought did not meet your needs, it broke it sucks, etc. If so, you're a prime target for these ads. If it broke you're probably looking for a new brand, or maybe it just isn't that great and you're considering returning the item and making a new purchase. While you may not need one you're part of a demographic that responds well to these ads relative the rest of the population.

Did a double take when I got to the white supremacist anxiety part

lol yep! what's sad about this is that I totally believe that fb is doing pretty manipulative things - they have the biggest incentive in the world to get people to buy things - and that it is probably adjacent to the level of manipulation this person is talking about. but then instead of realizing that for-profit companies are bad, some alienated people start thinking "maybe race mixing is the problem" instead, project that onto ads, and that's how you get white nationalism.