Hundreds of Army PSYOP Specialists to be promoted this month | Hacker News Reader

Hundreds of Army PSYOP Specialists to be promoted this month

taskandpurpose.com

59 pointsscottlocklin38 comments

PSYOPs sounds like their operations are funny, but what has been leaked is actually quite chilling and terrifying.

I highly recommend the book The Men Who Stare at Goats. Don't bother with the movie; they fictionalize a lot of it and changes the names of the very real military operatives.

One theory proposed by people interviewed in the books goes back to Abu Ghraib: the soldiers seen posing with the sexually abused Iraqis were pawns. Others reported plain clothes operatives in the facility encouraging the photos and the interrogation techniques.

The various people the book's author interview suggest that it wasn't because of a lack of procedure leading to abuse, but the opposite: intentional abuse. Photos were encouraged to be taken and intentionally leaked to the public, in an effort to scare Iraqis by showing how they could be humiliated in prisons.

This is a terrifying military division that probably does operations similar in ethics to MK Ultra. (The book I mention even suggested one of the suicides in MK Ultra may have even been a coverup for more bizzare PSYOPs operations).

That doesn't seem possible. The US are the good guys.

This is the second time that this article (from May 2019) has been on the front page of HN in the past 24 hours.

Presumably this is due to the news about the Army being on alert for Involuntary Celibates planning a mass shooting in US theaters for the screening of Joker. [1]

[1] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/army-warns-soldiers-a...

Why are domestic threats related to incels relevant to the Army whatsoever? This should be entirely within FBI/law enforcement's purview.

Are they worried they are coming from incel service members?

As a former service member I can tell you the US Military is pretty much defined by involuntary celibacy. This is especially true in the lower ranks. If you know of an incel, please encourage them to sign up for the military. The structure, discipline, and sense of purpose the military gives you is the greatest inoculation of the anger that comes from involuntary celibacy in young men.

That sounds suspiciously like making things a lot worse. How about helping them connect with the rest of society instead of codifying their existence?

Not sure how you got "codifying" from this.

> The structure, discipline, and sense of purpose the military gives you is the greatest inoculation of the anger that comes from involuntary celibacy in young men.

Incels typically feel inadequate. Structure, discipline, and sense of purpose can counter that.

Taking care of the celibacy might be a quicker solution, and a longer lasting one too. The military is not an institution put together for social work.

Encouraging people to enter the military to deal with mental issues doesn't seem like the best move.

Suicide rates among soldiers is already high enough.

If anything we should be encouraging people to leave the force and join back with the civilian population.

What?! That's the opposite. Not to be crass, but people in uniform are the least likely to go periods without reciprocation from advances. Both being in uniform plus the fitness aspects of being in the military make officers and enlisted personal incredibly attractive. It may be anecdotal, but people I know in the military talk about how they often clean up any time they're in a bar.

Right, so that would be a good thing if you're "involuntarily" celibate and that is causing you severe emotional distress. Just have to be careful not to marry the first girl you meet in a bar the first time you're on leave.

There are definitely guys that clean up when they're in a bar. After all, most soldiers are young, fit, and horny. They are, however, likely describing experiences when they aren't near the base, such as being home on leave, or on vacation. I'm sure you're aware of the propensity for some guys to exaggerate stories of conquest.

When you're on base, or deployed, it's another story. There is a severe dearth of satisfactory partners. Bases grow small, civilians tell their daughters to avoid soldiers, available females line up for the top 10% of males and completely ignore the remaining 90%. The reality is most male soldiers are not having much sex. Now think of a deployment, sailors on a boat (where consensual sex with another service member can get you in trouble), or some mountain top in the middle of nowhere (the goats start to look cute). Those periods last a year or more, and can be very tough.

Why do you think prostitution and strip clubs are so rampant around military bases? It's not because the guys are "cleaning up at the bar" I can tell you that.

If you want to experience the tension created by a room full of drunk undersexed young incels in peak fitness take a trip to any bar outside a remote military base. It's frightening. Good thing they only take that aggression out on each other in a ritual of tribal fist fights and reconciliation by the base MP (military police). Better that than at home polishing their AR-15 while they watch Hentai. On base we keep the guns under lock and key.

I don't really understand how this is news -- not because of the date of publication, but because this is basically just a gimmicky HR stunt being pulled by the Army to increase retention. They're telling PsyOps soldiers, hey you're so special that we're going to promote a big chunk of you so you can have higher status in the Army. The Marine Corps has done this a few times in recent years with the HUMINT community; it's a kind of intuitive thing to do when you have an MOS community with relatively low numbers, a selective and long training pipeline, and worse-than-expected retention. I'm sure they're giving out great reenlistment bonuses too. What totally bewilders me is why the HN community thinks this is interesting and upvoting it.

> What totally bewilders me is why the HN community thinks this is interesting and upvoting it.

Must be psyops ;-)

I wonder if the Army is currently conducting any PSYOPS on domestic targets, particularly via social media.

Influence bots seem quite rampant, I'd be surprised if they weren't working on this - but would be quite the scandal if their operations also targeted Americans, even incidentally.

Would it be less of a scandal if FB and Google participated in psychological operations on users, without any help from the US military nor IC?

All I know is Google shows me Meghan Markle news every single day. I don't click the articles, but one day they will break me.

There's what you see, and there's what you don't see.

Enjoy the bread and circus, citizen.

just a typical clutching of pearls "scandal" that follows every completely plausible but as of yet unknown .gov action

It was legalized in 2013, so the answer is "yes."

https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-...

I wonder if this has been used since then?

To be fair, social advertising accidents do happen all the time, everywhere.

But USAGM (VOA/RFERL/etc) broadcasting to America is still barred today as it was then. That cited law was a modernization to Smith-Mundt recognizing that internet works very differently than the old method of pointing a shortwave antenna toward somewhere and bouncing the signal off the atmosphere.

There was a relaxation clause for affiliates that often gets misinterpreted and intent of that relaxation was to permit any private news agencies to request and use VOA material. For example, a Minnesota radio station can use VOA Somali material, but that part is up to the free market.

Legally cannot on US citizens. We werent even allowed to use drones to help civilian search and rescue missions due to fears of being accused of spying on citizens. This was in 2015.

That’s a little misleading, if the American government wants to do some surveillance on its citizens using military resources he can do so via partnership with the CIA and the NSA or any other domestic agency that has the authority to do it.

The CIA and the NSA or whatever civilian agency will make the actual program and then “use” (let) military resources do their thing.

Yes. Of course. It's a new battlefield.

For those that don't know, Specialist is a rank in the army.

Each of the individuals being promoted are _already psychological operations soldiers_. They are just going from the rank of specialist to sergeant or corporal. This is honestly a non-story. Soldiers are being promoted all the time, this is just a single large ceremony to account for an organizational reshuffle for the PSYOPS corps, Im assuming.

But it is also a statement that the training and skills are being given more respect within the army.

Clearly you haven't read the article. They are all either E-5 or E-6 and being promoted because 'the current rank authorizations were "inadequate to account for Soldiers' extensive training and education in influence theory, human dynamics, psychology, sociology, language, culture, and politics," per the release.'

Still, the service branches are always shuffling the deck to maintain the appropriate mix of senior and junior service members, especially in the more technical fields (such as psyops). This could represent an uptick in the use of psyops capabilities and the need for additional senior NCO's, or it could reflect a crop of senior NCO's that are retiring and need to be replaced. Sometimes a field can become bottom heavy, thus they reduce the points necessary for promotion (yes they use a point system), and when a field is top heavy they will offer early retirement, re-classing, and other options.

I think it is a story. The internal reorg and promotion of a huge class of 80+ psyops into leadership is a really good indication that the US army is changing and solidifying their combat strategy.

>Involuntary Celibates planning a mass shooting in US theaters for the screening of Joker.

This sounds exactly like PSYOPs

Heck, this whole "mass shooting" wave sounds like PSYOPs

Which means those guys deserve their promotion

I am curious if they are open to some friendly competition, like an Army vs. Civilian PsyOp Hackathon.

e.g. Pick a soft target, get points for manipulating people into doing {x}. Get points for identifying the other sides psychological attempts and neutralizing / countering them. etc.. I would imagine that civilian marketing companies should be some good competition for the Army.

and how many points for encouraging depression or suicide? Facebook teams would probably score higher than anyone.

I think that would be out of bounds for a friendly competition. Those types of PsyOps occur on some of the lower echelon forums (chan sites) daily. That would not be much challenge either, as many folk there are already struggling with issues.

That would be fun to see for sure!

Further, i imagine top/professional sales, advertising, and marketing firms would look to recruit soldiers from these type of units - much like professional security firms recruit people from military and intelligence agencies. ;-)

It would certainly help encourage the military to promote and thus retain them. They struggle with retaining air force pilots and so they get promoted very fast. I've met some very young captains and majors. The same is true with their surgeons.

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