Milgram Experiment For Milgram's other well-known experiment, see Small-world experiment."Obedience to Authority" redirects here. For the book, see Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. The experimenter (E) orders the teacher (T), the subject of the experiment, to give what the teacher (T) believes are painful electric shocks to a learner (L), who is actually an actor and
Richard Nixon had been president just over a year when he initiated a string of actions which ultimately brought down his presidency. The White House-ordered invasion of Cambodia, a militarily ineffective foray, unleashed a wave of domestic protests, culminating in the shootings at Kent State in May of 1970. Stung by the reaction, the president called the heads of the intelligence agencies, and on June 5 he told Richard Helms of CIA, J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI, Lieutenant General Donald Bennett of orA, and Admiral Noel Gayler of NSA that he wanted to know what steps they and their agencies could take to get a better handle on domestic radicalism.
According to journalist Theodore White, who later reconstructed the meeting: "He was dissatisfied with them all ... they were overstaffed, they weren't getting the story, they were spending too much money, there was no production, they had to get together. In sum, he wanted a thorough coordination of all American intelligence agencies; he wanted to know what the links were between foreign groups - al-Fatah; the Arab terrorists; the Algerian subsidy center - and domestic street turbulence. They would form a committee, J. Edgar Hoover would be the chairman, Tom Huston of the White House would be the staffman."
Thomas Charles Huston, the evident object of the president's displeasure, was a young right-wing lawyer who had been hired as an assistant to White House speech writer Patrick Buchanan. His only qualifications were political - he had been president of the Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative campus organization nationwide. And Huston wasn't even the key player. Hoover was named chair of the committee, in order to place him in a position in which the FBI would finally be forced to confront domestic radicalism.
The committee report confronted the issue, all right, and it laid out a number of "further steps," many of which were illegal. The report recommended increasing wiretapping and microphone surveillance of radicals - relaxing restrictions on mail covers and mail intercepts; carrying out selective break-ins against domestic radicals and organizations; lifting age restrictions on FBI campus informants; and broadening NSA's intercepts of the international communications of American citizens. But Hoover knew the score, and he attached footnotes to each of the techniques which he did not want the FBI involved in. When it went to the president, it was carefully qualified by the FBI, the one organizations that would be the most involved.
The president sent word back to Huston, through Haldeman, of his approval, but did not initiate any paperwork. So when the committee was tasked to implement the recommendations, it was tasked by Tom Charles Huston, not the president. Hoover informed John Mitchell, the attorney general, that he would not participate without a written order from Mitchell. Mitchell discussed this with Nixon, and both agreed that it would be too dangerous. Ultimately, the president voided the plan, but not before NSA had become directly involved in the seamier side of life.
Do Conspiracies Tend to Fail? Part 2: On the Viability of Grimes’s Mathematical Model
Mar 20, 2022
This is a modified portion of an article titled, “Do Conspiracies Tend to Fail? Philosophical Reflections on a Poorly Supported Academic Meme," which was published in the journal Episteme, in 2022, by Kurtis Hagen. This is Part Two of a two-part series. This part focuses on an article by David Grimes entitled, “On the Viability of Conspiratorial Beliefs.”
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ABSTRACT: Critics of conspiracy theories often charge that such theories are implausible because conspiracies of the kind they allege tend to fail. Thus, according to these critics, conspiracy theories that have been around for a while would have been, in all likelihood, already exposed if they had been real. So, they reason, they probably are not. In this article, I maintain that the arguments in support of this view are unconvincing. I do so by examining a list of four sources recently cited in support of the claim that conspiracies tend to fail. I pay special attention to two of these sources, an article by Brian Keeley, and, especially, an article by David Grimes, which is perhaps the single “best” article in support of the idea that conspiracies tend to fail. That is, it offers the most explicit and elaborate attempt to establish this view. Further, that article has garnered significant (uncritical) attention in the mainstream press. I argue that Grimes’s argument does not succeed, that the common assertion that conspiracies tend to fail remains poorly supported, and that there are good reasons to think that at least some types of conspiracies do not tend to fail.
The Infectious Myth - Conspiring to discuss conspiracy theories with Kurtis Hagen
David discusses conspiracy theories with Kurtis Hagen, a former professor, who has written papers, books, and now a pamphlet, on the subject. He believes in “particularism”, that simply states that every theory that is tarred as a “conspiracy theory” needs to be evaluated individually on its merits, it’s logically absurd to a priori assume that all conspiracy theories are false, especially since we know that some (such as Watergate and absence of WMDs in Iraq) were belittled as conspiracy theories before being shown to be true.
Karl-Heinz Schwenke, tailor Gustav Schwenke, unemployed tailor's apprentice Carl Klingelhofer, cabinetmaker Heinrich Damm, unemployed salesman Horstmar Rupprecht, high-school student Heinrich Wedekind, baker Hans Simon, bill-collector Johann Kessler, unemployed bank clerk Heinrich Hildebrandt, teacher Willy Hofmeister, policeman
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, "God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men are."
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
The Huston Plan
Richard Nixon had been president just over a year when he initiated a string of actions which ultimately brought down his presidency. The White House-ordered invasion of Cambodia, a militarily ineffective foray, unleashed a wave of domestic protests, culminating in the shootings at Kent State in May of 1970. Stung by the reaction, the president called the heads of the intelligence agencies, and on June 5 he told Richard Helms of CIA, J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI, Lieutenant General Donald Bennett of orA, and Admiral Noel Gayler of NSA that he wanted to know what steps they and their agencies could take to get a better handle on domestic radicalism.
According to journalist Theodore White, who later reconstructed the meeting: "He was dissatisfied with them all ... they were overstaffed, they weren't getting the story, they were spending too much money, there was no production, they had to get together. In sum, he wanted a thorough coordination of all American intelligence agencies; he wanted to know what the links were between foreign groups - al-Fatah; the Arab terrorists; the Algerian subsidy center - and domestic street turbulence. They would form a committee, J. Edgar Hoover would be the chairman, Tom Huston of the White House would be the staffman."
Thomas Charles Huston, the evident object of the president's displeasure, was a young right-wing lawyer who had been hired as an assistant to White House speech writer Patrick Buchanan. His only qualifications were political - he had been president of the Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative campus organization nationwide. And Huston wasn't even the key player. Hoover was named chair of the committee, in order to place him in a position in which the FBI would finally be forced to confront domestic radicalism.
The committee report confronted the issue, all right, and it laid out a number of "further steps," many of which were illegal. The report recommended increasing wiretapping and microphone surveillance of radicals - relaxing restrictions on mail covers and mail intercepts; carrying out selective break-ins against domestic radicals and organizations; lifting age restrictions on FBI campus informants; and broadening NSA's intercepts of the international communications of American citizens. But Hoover knew the score, and he attached footnotes to each of the techniques which he did not want the FBI involved in. When it went to the president, it was carefully qualified by the FBI, the one organizations that would be the most involved.
The president sent word back to Huston, through Haldeman, of his approval, but did not initiate any paperwork. So when the committee was tasked to implement the recommendations, it was tasked by Tom Charles Huston, not the president. Hoover informed John Mitchell, the attorney general, that he would not participate without a written order from Mitchell. Mitchell discussed this with Nixon, and both agreed that it would be too dangerous. Ultimately, the president voided the plan, but not before NSA had become directly involved in the seamier side of life.
https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/ops/huston-plan.htm
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https://youtu.be/VFBS5e8R6gg?t=3
Do Conspiracies Tend to Fail? Part 2: On the Viability of Grimes’s Mathematical Model
Mar 20, 2022
This is a modified portion of an article titled, “Do Conspiracies Tend to Fail? Philosophical Reflections on a Poorly Supported Academic Meme," which was published in the journal Episteme, in 2022, by Kurtis Hagen. This is Part Two of a two-part series. This part focuses on an article by David Grimes entitled, “On the Viability of Conspiratorial Beliefs.”
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ABSTRACT: Critics of conspiracy theories often charge that such theories are implausible because conspiracies of the kind they allege tend to fail. Thus, according to these critics, conspiracy theories that have been around for a while would have been, in all likelihood, already exposed if they had been real. So, they reason, they probably are not. In this article, I maintain that the arguments in support of this view are unconvincing. I do so by examining a list of four sources recently cited in support of the claim that conspiracies tend to fail. I pay special attention to two of these sources, an article by Brian Keeley, and, especially, an article by David Grimes, which is perhaps the single “best” article in support of the idea that conspiracies tend to fail. That is, it offers the most explicit and elaborate attempt to establish this view. Further, that article has garnered significant (uncritical) attention in the mainstream press. I argue that Grimes’s argument does not succeed, that the common assertion that conspiracies tend to fail remains poorly supported, and that there are good reasons to think that at least some types of conspiracies do not tend to fail.
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https://youtu.be/dRqV2KaIDZ4?t=450
The Infectious Myth - Conspiring to discuss conspiracy theories with Kurtis Hagen
David discusses conspiracy theories with Kurtis Hagen, a former professor, who has written papers, books, and now a pamphlet, on the subject. He believes in “particularism”, that simply states that every theory that is tarred as a “conspiracy theory” needs to be evaluated individually on its merits, it’s logically absurd to a priori assume that all conspiracy theories are false, especially since we know that some (such as Watergate and absence of WMDs in Iraq) were belittled as conspiracy theories before being shown to be true.
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THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MY TEN NAZI FRIENDS:
Karl-Heinz Schwenke, tailor Gustav Schwenke, unemployed tailor's apprentice Carl Klingelhofer, cabinetmaker Heinrich Damm, unemployed salesman Horstmar Rupprecht, high-school student Heinrich Wedekind, baker Hans Simon, bill-collector Johann Kessler, unemployed bank clerk Heinrich Hildebrandt, teacher Willy Hofmeister, policeman
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, "God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men are."
From Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free
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“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
― Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928)
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An excerpt from
They Thought They Were Free
The Germans, 1933-45
Milton Mayer
https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
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Laura Dodsworth: How Government Weaponized Fear and Human Psychology During the Pandemic
AMERICAN THOUGHT LEADERS
https://www.theepochtimes.com/laura-dodsworth-how-government-exploited-fear-and-human-psychology-during-the-pandemic_4347885.html
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