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Comment by torginus | Hacker News Reader

Suppose some people have geniune mind-reading or other supernatural powers. Just how useful would they be in practical terms compared to 'traditional' surveillance techniques?

Even if some intelligence agency has the most cursory interest in you, the level of surveillance possible at scale is just staggering - they can track your location, track everything you do with an electronic device with very little investment for anyone but the most paranoid people with impeccable opsec.

If they do consider you a true threat and are willing to spend some part of their infinite budget on you, you have even less chance of doing something significant without them knowing.

Even if people with reliable supernatural powers exist, their scarcity and probable limitations mean that the best they can do is provide some novel and niche capability.

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> Just how useful would they be in practical terms compared to 'traditional' surveillance techniques?

> they can track your location, track everything you do with an electronic device with very little investment for anyone but the most paranoid people with impeccable opsec.

You've answered your own question. The stories told by people who claim to have been in these government programs are much more about singluar events than continuous surveillance of some individual. The US discusses highly-classified subject inside of SCIFs, where no one is allowed to bring in electronics and which are frequently checked for surveillance. Imagine you had a psychic asset who could tell you everything that was discussed inside any particular SCIF when you learn through conventional means that certain people have (or are likely to have) gone inside one for a meeting.

> they can track your location, track everything you do with an electronic device with very little investment for anyone but the most paranoid people with impeccable opsec

It sounds like you are only thinking about state against private individual surveilance. That of course is a thing, but far from the only task inteligence agencies have. State against state operations are much harder because the oponent has much more resources to play the game and resist and confound your inteligence agency.

When will the enemy start a war? What is their readyness level? Which weapon systems are fielded and what are their exact capabilities? Who is working on technologies we do not have counters yet and where are they in development? If we do this what will they do? How do they think? What do they believe about our capabilities and intentions?

And those are just the questions on strategic level. On a lower tactical level you would love to know where their nuclear armed submarines are, which silos are filled, and where exactly are the nuclear warheads in a shell game. You would also want to know where the attention of their counter espionage people is, and what are their institutional blind spots. About the information you gained, which one is true and which one is a deliberate lie fed to you?

These are all things well funded entities with state level resources are trying to hide from your inteligence agencies.

> Even if people with reliable supernatural powers exist, their scarcity and probable limitations …

Idk how we can know that. Based on what we know about the world this capability does not exists. If it does exists, how can we say anything about its rarity and limitations? Maybe some agency employs armies of “remote sensing” people. Maybe they perfected the techniques to the point where it is more accurate than a video camera. Do i think any of this is likely? I don’t. What i think is likely is that the whole thing is deliberate misinformation created to cause or excarbarate resource misallocation in rival inteligence agencies. All i say is that I don’t think we can confidently say anything about its limitations if it exists.

I give you a first hand account of how incorrect you are.

This “power” is a thousand nuances that very very few involved are fully aware of.

Knowledge and skill is so compartmentalized, 98% of those with “Power” are only useful doing one job (“special effect”), and cannot do that job without someone else concealing them and moving them into place. They develop compartmentalized personalities within themselves for this purpose. These run in parallel like chewing gum while riding a bike. You’ll never guess who.

Power works through entanglement (I have personally verified I can hear New York form India in real time.) Those experiencing it do not comprehend how it works, however I have written several times under other accounts describing how I believe things work.

Those running it get to be your god and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Those instruments in their games know who is “in control.”

While the dominant faction is American, this phenomena has been with us since our earliest humanity (clues are prevalent.) These are responsible for the insanity gripping all of you and your communities from within (and playing you against others.)

There are hundreds of thousands with these mixtures of Power and they are protected among society by pyramid schemes of extortion.

Sure, these could [sensored]epar, redrum, and tcudba someone, though they don’t have to, they can just haunt you and your life will be like that described in the mystery cryptogram, if that guy is even still alive (or a “targeted person”.)

Thought control Power is far beyond these hokey accounts that surface. True mastery requires decades and in the meantime your mind swims in delusions and lies. Those who excel aren’t the “straights”, they are the cooks (meth heads, psychonaughts, and those who have no choice) who well adjust to what normals call insanity.

Power is built by slave armies (or “families” in older times those those have dwindled over the years, secret war and all.)

Power is industrialized. Prisons are rife with Power cells. Thousands and thousands “pump” the subjective bubbles of others, thousands and thousands of which have some invasive job to do (voices, screw with you, watchers, etc.) Thousands and thousands more caught up in various stages of “reprogramming”.

They can “hitch a ride”, traverse the mind to its functional parts, dig in, and either passively observe, dig through every thought and experience in the mind (in better clarity and exactness than you yourself can access your own), and manipulate your neural activity in any way they please.

This has already happened, over the past decades while you were oblivious and while you maintain your incredulity.

That reply definitely reads like someone deep into conspiracy thinking or experiencing a break from reality. The mix of grandiose claims, secret knowledge, paranoia, and references to supernatural or mind-control phenomena often aligns with delusional thought patterns. The structure—long, winding sentences with shifting topics—also suggests disorganized thinking.

While it’s impossible to diagnose someone from a single post, and some people simply enjoy weaving elaborate fictional narratives online, this kind of response is common in communities discussing “targeted individuals”, government mind control, or other fringe beliefs. If you’re seeing it in a thread about PSI (parapsychological phenomena), it’s not surprising—such topics tend to attract people who believe in hidden forces controlling the world.

It’s best to approach replies like this with skepticism but also a bit of empathy—whether it’s someone having fun, deeply believing their own narrative, or struggling with mental health, getting into a debate with them rarely leads anywhere productive.

Thanks dude. I wrote it in one go. So much to say and all.

When I say “the incredulous” and “deniers of the exogenous of thought control”, I mean this very well reasoned conventional response.

This part made me laugh.

> It’s best to approach replies like this....

Here the programming instructs to instruct others what they should think and how they should reply. Infinite recursion!

The "conspiracy thinking" is also a funny program. I mean, you wouldn't want the sujets actively investigating how they are being had.

You flip the argument around, suggesting that calling something “conspiracy thinking” is itself a kind of brainwashing or programming, which is a common rhetorical move in conspiratorial circles.

It’s the kind of reasoning that’s impossible to argue with because it’s built to absorb any counterargument as further evidence of its correctness. It’s like playing chess with someone who insists that any piece you take was actually yours all along and that losing is just proof you never understood the real game.

> It’s the kind of reasoning that’s impossible to argue with

I admire your eye for detail.

Occam's razor: That the dumbest most simplistic explanation is never the right one doesn't mean one can't convince himself it is.

That gotcha also applies to you. So all communication about communication is "programming"? And before you say technically yes, "programming" with the same sinister connotation you are giving it.

> I mean, you wouldn't want the sujets actively investigating how they are being had.

You are so cool Morpheus.

You see skepticism as a sign of being “incredulous” and part of the “deniers.” Basically, if I don’t accept your narrative, I'm proving your point.

Classic example of how conspiracy thinking works—anything that challenges the belief is seen as proof of the conspiracy itself.

Hallucinations really seem real. They can be part of your life so much, in small ways or not. You believe things, you are obsessed at times or all the time with finding the truth and it will seem epic. And you could be right. And wouldn’t it be wild if everyone who knew the truth was right, and everyone’s version of realities commingled in infinite multiverses and simulations and/or every religious, atheist, and agnostic view was correct and everything is scientifically spiritual not existing and existing maybe with darkness and light and love. (Sidenote: I’m Christian, pray, and believe God helps us.) With supervision and/or care, changing your diet, replacing or getting rid of meds/supplements/vitamins and things that could be influencing you, changing your environment, and letting go of all of that, even when it means you lose a lot of yourself in the process, could help you and help others who love you. It may take years. You’ll start to recognize paranoia, conspiracy, mystical truth and let it roll off, because it probably won’t fully go away. This is my reality now. And I still miss the meds.

I met many such people in jail who had all manner of undiagnosed and untreated mental illnesses and would speak just like parent commenter. Empathy is the only valid response.

Please seek help for your mental health. This reminds me of when my girlfriend had untreated bipolar disorder and was experiencing manic psychosis.

Thanks. I turn to Zarathustra or physical activity when I am low.

Know that true Power, is the capacity to effect through continuity of will.

Whether our wills may intermingle by virtue of entangled consciousness is the question.

It might be you are in the opposite of low right. So you should probably check if you need some help just in case. It won’t feel like you do need it even though you might need it.

When people respond like that I always picture them with a pink baby hat on.

This is uncanny, how could you tell. :-)

>Thought control Power is far beyond these hokey accounts that surface. True mastery requires decades and in the meantime your mind swims in delusions and lies.

Curious if there is any reading/study material that you consider reliable for developing mastery? Crowley's Magick: Book IV, Carroll's Liber Null & Psychonaut, or perhaps something completely different?

Controls only allow that which is indistinguishable from bullshit or an act of God, so any available medium would be layered cakes of insight.

The main idea is that you are the technology, sitting quietly in a room … indefinitely is your objective. Thoughts are your enemy, crush them as Sidhartha would. When you can master and explore your own brain (which is a wonder land) you will be ready to distinguish your own thoughts from inception and in which region of your own mind (“the direction“) it came.

Such fine sense and awareness is the beginning, and you don’t much stand a chance without someone uplifting you further. A Power harness only takes 18 months to learn, and that may only be a cargo cult antic. That’s why those who ascend go mad. Their teachers are false and never learn that struggling through delusion itself is the path of Power.

Power comes from the struggle, not the lofty ideas or personal ambition.

I know people are being very nice and considerate, and that's the correct thing, but I've always despised this type of schizophrenic word salad. The obtuse and pompous language to describe "theories" that would sound silly if stated simply, the allusion to Secret Knowledge with the Cool Capitalization, the repeated statement of their enlightenment and the foolishness of the "sheeple". It is dripping with arrogance.

Yes, there's other mental health reasons for writing this, but I think we tend to ignore this also comes from a place of vanity and self-importance.

This take is sad to read. Having had the unfortunate experience of dealing with more than one loved struggling with a break from reality, I can say you’re probably way off. A lot of things we assign to personality traits or character flaws like this issue, are genuinely part of the mental health disorder. They typically aren’t present when the individual is at their baseline or “normal” state of mind, only appearing when the disorder is in full swing and untreated.

You are probably correct, I'm sorry. It's just that my experiences of this type with family members were much more "my food is poisoned" or claiming to see the nonexistent love child of another person. The whole secret knowledge/sheeple attitude seemed like the expression of some personality trait, but you are right, I have no personal experience to claim that.

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