From: frankred@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Martin Redington)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: Tavistock Institute - Brainwashing Center
Date: 9 Sep 92 01:06:51 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <18hpu9INNsnc@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> aq817@cleveland.Freenet.Edu
(Steve Crocker) writes:

>Well, I decided to go looking for some published references to verify the
>existence of this kind of material. You will recall, that the material 
>I posted featured prominently an Ann Arbor, Michigan based organization,
>the Institute for Social Research, one branch of which was the Survey
>Research Center. I will first reppost the excerpts describing this
>organization, and then follow up with a partial publication list as
>obtained from the University of Michigan online library catalog.
>

masses of references deleted.

>  370   RESIDENTIAL ENVIRONMENT AND THE DESIRE TO MO <1974>  (UL)              
>                                                                               
><end title list>
>
>Well, are you scared yet?
>
>-Steve

Not desperately, no.

Your posts (this and the last one) demonstrate two things.

a) there is some literature on computational modelling of
social psychology.

b) there is a huge body of work on things such as popular
opinions, attitudes, relationship to behaviour etc.

I would claim that my statements re the ADEQUACY of machine
readable data still stand. Whilst the existent data might be
adequate to test some hypotheses, in the majority of cases
you are forced to roll your own, especially if you want to
be assured of its validity.

Similarly, from my knowledge of the state of the art, I 
would assume that the computational work is still a long
way from being useful in the way your previous posts
suggest.

While social psychology has come a long way in the last
50 years, it is by no means an exact science, or the 
dangerous threat you perceive it to be. 

I would agree that the powers that be ARE trying to pull
a fast one most, if not all of the time. I suspect that
they are aware of the body of social psychological research,
and draw upon it in devising whatever propaganda they
choose to distribute. I would even concede that there may be
social psychologist actively colluding with them in this.

BUT, I seriously doubt that social psychology assists their
efforts to a materially significant degree (although it's
effects might be statistically significant). `democratic' 
governments `manipulate the masses' through inertia. If 
they've cocked something up, they make it an official secret,
or they just lie. If they want to convinvce the public of
something they might manipulate the media, but in the U.K.
the subtlety of this is somewhat of a joke.

They don't RELY on subtle psychological tricks because they 
don't need to. All they need do is play on some fear (reds under
the beds, higher taxes etc.), in order to convince the
electorate that they are the best of a bad bunch. Those people
who rule in the long term (big-business I suspect) simply
get the government to implement the policies that favour
both themselves, and the party's re-election chances. 

This needn't involve corruption of any kind, its simply that
this is in the interests of both. The current British 
government has proved remarkably adept at this sort of 
thing. They are not in the slightest bit subtle. It's just
that for the most part these things just don't affect
the ordinary voter in any immediate way, so joe public
doesn't really care. In addition they have performed some
incredibly delicate surgery on the details of how elections
are run (changing voting boundaries, allowing expats to
vote, and registering them in marginal seats etc.) which
MAY have won them the last election.

If you want to see something REALLY scary, take a look at
the material in this group on the U.S. F.E.M.A. institution 
(supposedly disaster relief, 26 billion dollar investment, 
only 5% (260 people) of staff actually work on disaster relief, 
and by all accounts not very good at it). Read the thread for 
more accurate information, as this is all from memory.

All those neat quotes about `ignorance and democracy do not
mix' etc. are absolutely spot on in my book. You really don't
have to attack minor miscreants like social psychologists
(some of whom might LIKE TO THINK they can sway the wills
of millions with a single rice krispies advert). The fuckers
are doing it right under your very nose --- they don't even
bother to keep that tight a lid on it, and, judging from the
antipathy displayed by the electorate in the UK, most people
don't even care. 

                                           cheers,
                                                 Martin.

P.S. I'm finishing my dissertation this week, so I might
take some time to check out some of those references. If
I make it to London, I might even visit the infamous 
Tavistock Institute.

P.P.S. There was an obit. in yesterday's Guardian for
one of the Tavistock's founder members. Apparently he
was there when it was a military installation, and held
officer rank. During the war he worked on selection tests
for RAF officers, and went on to work in several important
psychological reearch institutions. I forget the name but
I've got the paper at home, so e-mail me if you're desperate
for details.