RWmTMZ03

1I've posted this on the other incel sites I was on. The concepts covered are central to issues I commonly discuss. People who are familiar with me are substantially familiar with these concepts, seeing as I talk about them to great length. This is a post that I made that summarized things. Note that this is copied verbatim and is not addressing anyone in particular. Please take no offense to being called psychotic shit flinging monkeys, I am not yet certain the prevalence of the psychotic shit flinging monkeys on this forum, but there were numerous of them on the sites I posted this on originally (albeit still being stellar communities overall!).
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4In fact this message is too large to post as a single 100,000 character message. I will post the second half of it in a double post I suppose, hopefully this is acceptable. Please be slightly lenient to me as I accustom myself to the culture of this forum. I have substantial experience in incel forums, but I am brand new here so am a little uncertain of exactly what is tolerated of me here.
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11My dearest psychotic shit flinging monkeys, I've taken it upon myself to write a comprehensive post regarding what I've taken to calling 'my standard narrative'. Many people wish I hadn't such a standard narrative, often expressing their unwillingness to read it due to its length. They commonly express general annoyance at me due to my standard narrative. However, as your reputedly stellar theories of mind should allow you to empathize with, I find the situation regarding your ongoing outbreaks of mass socially convergent anosognosic psychotic decompensation to be demanding of the utmost attention. Moreover, I would like to simply collate as much of the materials I've accumulated as possible into a single thread.
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14Overview
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17How should I even go about writing such a large and comprehensive post? I suppose I will start with the general premise, which is that you are selectively afflicted by anosognosic schizophrenia in social convergence in accordance with your sociocultural conditioning, which is triggered by arbitrary socially pertinent stimuli. Very notably and most concerningly, this condition of yours has been exploited by infestations of behavior modifying parasites toward isolating your consciousnesses in what I've taken to calling pseudorealities.
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20Pseudorealities typically consist of a notably detailed, decentralized, substantially themed, set of largely related information signaling materials, that falsely signal to you regarding the state of the actual existence. Some of these materials exaggerate or attenuate things that are in the realm of actual reality, whereas others describe fully fictional make believe fantasy worlds with even elements or themes of bizarre mysticism. The materials come in all forms one would expect to find information in; books, notes, websites, blogs, academic papers, text books, pamphlets, news reporting, and so forth. They may be mixed in with honestly signaling materials as well, though they dishonestly signal in the previously mentioned manners, a subsection of what is typically a much larger themed make believe fantasy world.
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23Pseudorealities are fabricated by the behavior modifying parasite infestions, thereafter they are deployed such that they engulf you and function as a substrate of sorts for you. You come to reference the associated themed fiction materials as if they were descriptive of actual reality, rather than simply being descriptive of the themed make believe fantasy world that was fully designed by the behavior modifying parasites nearly as if they were designing a game world. You hold the themed fiction materials of the behavior modifying parasites very dearly indeed. However, this is unwise seeing as the behavior modifying parasites are human predators who desire to isolate your consciousness in pseudoreality toward parasitizing you and your society, they are nearly analogous to those who falsely signal genetic fitness and thereby mislead you into evolutionarily disadvantaging yourself for their benefit via counterfeiting their genetic value to you, but rather than doing this the behavior modifying parasites counterfeit entire alternate realities and then falsely signal them to you toward literally making it such that you reference their materials that have no correlation to the state of actual existence rather than referencing materials that are descriptive of and correlated to the state of actual reality. They isolate your consciousness in their pseudoreality and thereby have essentially induced psychosis in you seeing as your understanding of actual reality in at least one area has been replaced by an understanding of the themed fiction materials of the behavior modifying parasites and therefore you've an impaired relationship with reality, yet concomitant cognitive anosognosia that prohibits you from the insight necessary to realize this.
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26The themed fiction materials of the behavior modifying parasites are likely inducing you into one or more of numerous states, among which include mass hysteria, social mania, and moral panic.
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29https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_hysteria
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32[quote]
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34In sociology and psychology, mass hysteria (also known as collective hysteria, group hysteria, or collective obsessional behavior) is a phenomenon that transmits collective illusions of threats, whether real or imaginary, through a population in society as a result of rumors and fear (memory acknowledgement).[1][2]
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39https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mania
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42[quote]
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44Social manias are mass movements which periodically sweep through societies. They are characterized by an outpouring of enthusiasm, mass involvement and millenarian goals. Social manias are contagious social epidemics, and as such they should be differentiated from mania in individuals.
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47Social manias come in different sizes and strengths. Some social manias fail to 'catch fire', while others persist for hundreds of years (although sometimes in severely attenuated form). Common to all is a vision of salvation, a new way of life, which if realized would radically change everyday life, ushering in a new world of freedom and justice.
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52https://content.ucpress.edu/chapters/11128.ch01.pdf
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55[quote]
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57Panic
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60A Guide to the Uses of Fear
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63[W]e are only episodic conductors of meaning, essentially. We
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65form a mass, living most of the time in a state of panic or
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67haphazardly, above and beyond any meaning.
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70“Moral  panic”  can  be  defined  broadly  as  any  mass  movement  that  emerges in response to a false, exaggerated, or ill- defined moral threat to  society  and  proposes  to  address  this  threat  through  punitive  mea-sures: tougher enforcement, “zero tolerance,” new laws, communal vigi-lance, violent purges.1 Witch hunts are classic examples of moral panics in small, tribal, or agrarian communities. McCarthyism is the obvious example of a moral panic fueled by the mass media and tethered to re-pressive governance.2
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75However, I believe a more modern taxonomy of pseudorealities should be constructed.
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81An Introduction to the Neurology, Psychology, and Neuroscience of the Matter
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84Regarding my condition, I would like to inform you that I have the diametric opposite of what has been characterized as "an impaired relationship with reality".
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87https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-imprinted-brain/201304/jumping-the-right-conclusion
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90[quote]
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92The authors conclude that what they found “is the opposite pattern to autism and therefore consistent with the autism-psychosis model which proposes that these clinical disorders reside at diametrically opposing poles of a single continuum.”
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97https://www.researchgate.net/post/Anyone_want_to_discuss_Autism_and_Psychosis
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100[quote]
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102The Autism-Psychosis model proposes that an individual can only have one or the other (Psychosis or Autism).
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107http://www.healthline.com/health/psychosis
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110[quote]
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112What is psychosis?
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115Psychosis is characterized by an impaired relationship with reality. And it is a symptom of serious mental disorders. People who are psychotic may have either hallucinations or delusions.
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120This is because I have the inversion of schizophrenia:
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123https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18226-autism-and-schizophrenia-could-be-genetic-opposites/
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126[quote]
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128Autism and schizophrenia may be two sides of the same coin, suggests a review of genetic data associated with the conditions. The finding could help design complementary treatments for the two disorders.
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131Though autism was originally described as a form of schizophrenia a century ago, evidence for a link has remained equivocal. One theory puts the conditions at opposite ends of a developmental spectrum.
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136One manner in which I've the inversion of schizophrenia involves my vestigialization:
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139https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_vestigiality
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142[quote]
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144In the context of human evolution, human vestigiality involves those traits (such as organs or behaviors) occurring in humans that have lost all or most of their original function through evolution. Although structures called vestigial often appear functionless, a vestigial structure may retain lesser functions or develop minor new ones. In some cases, structures once identified as vestigial simply had an unrecognized function.
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149of the neural substrate:
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152https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism
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155[quote]
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157ASD-related patterns of low function and aberrant activation in the brain differ depending on whether the brain is doing social or nonsocial tasks.[97] In autism there is evidence for reduced functional connectivity of the default network, a large-scale brain network involved in social and emotional processing, with intact connectivity of the task-positive network, used in sustained attention and goal-directed thinking. In people with autism the two networks are not negatively correlated in time, suggesting an imbalance in toggling between the two networks, possibly reflecting a disturbance of self-referential thought.[98]
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162of ancestral cognition (with fully functional and consistently activated modern cognition):
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165https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/154f/9a7fb5f1ee00c34f2d918db9825ca5b09f17.pdf
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168[quote]
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170System 1 has been variously characterized as 'intuitive', 'emotion-driven' and 'experiential'; whereas System 2 has been characterized as, 'controlled', 'rule-based', 'rational' and 'analytic'. We know of two lines of work which link cognitive neuroscience to this classical form of dual process theory:one which looks at logical reasoning (Goel and Dolan, 2003), the other moral judgments (Greene et al., 2004). Both identify areas in the DMN and TPN associated with System 1 and System 2 reasoning respectively. Hence, the link between dual-process theories of cognition and the DMN vs.TPN dichotomy appears worthy of further investigation.
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175https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_process_theory
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178[quote]
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180System 2 in humans
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183System 2 is evolutionarily recent and specific to humans. It is also known as the explicit system, the rule-based system, the rational system,[12] or the analytic system.[16] It performs the more slow and sequential thinking. It is domain-general, performed in the central working memory system. Because of this, it has a limited capacity and is slower than System 1 which correlates it with general intelligence. It is known as the rational system because it reasons according to logical standards.[16] Some overall properties associated with System 2 are that it is rule-based, analytic, controlled, demanding of cognitive capacity, and slow.[12]
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188as you can see:
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191https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4140620/
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194[quote]
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196The DMN is involved with processes of self-reflection, social cognition, and mind-wandering. Hyperconnectivity has been noted in the DMN of individuals at high risk for developing schizophrenia.
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199Whitfield-Gabrieli et al39 studied patients with schizophrenia; young, at-risk, first-degree relatives; and unaffected controls using fMRI during alternating conditions of wakeful rest and a focused working memory task. While the unaffected controls showed predictable deactivation of DMN during active task, the patients and relatives showed diminished deactivation, as well as greater activity in right DLPFC. This finding has essentially been replicated twice by two other research groups.
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204This has had the side effect of leaving me isolated in the state of actual reality:
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207http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0149989
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210[quote]
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212Engaging social stimuli are associated with activation of the DMN and deactivation of the TPN, whereas analytic problems are associated with activation of the TPN and deactivation of the DMN.
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217https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4805169/
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220[quote]
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222Finally, we have demonstrated that attention to engaging social stimuli not only activates the DMN but also deactivates the TPN. In a subsequent study[30] it was shown that this pattern of DMN activation and TPN deactivation was present for humanizing depictions of individuals, whereas dehumanizing depictions, which are associated with decreased moral concern, either involved decreased activity in the DMN or increased activity in the TPN. Taken together, these findings suggest that we are neurologically constrained from simultaneously exercising moral concern and analytic thinking.
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227https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160323151838.htm
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232"These findings," Friedman continued, "are consistent with the philosophical view, espoused by (Immanuel) Kant, according to which there are two distinct types of truth: empirical and moral."
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237while you are busy socially convergently dissociating:
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240https://www.nature.com/articles/srep39589
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243[quote]
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245Neural correlates of maintaining one’s political beliefs in the face of counterevidence
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247...
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249Challenges to political beliefs produced increased activity in the default mode network—a set of interconnected structures associated with self-representation and disengagement from the external world.
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254into whichever pertinent themed make believe fantasy world your local pertinent infestation of behavior modifying parasites socioculturally conditioned you into:
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257https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_entrepreneur
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260[quote]
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262Social position determines one's ability to define and construct reality; therefore, the higher one's social position, the greater his or her moral value.
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267This dissociation into alternate realities thing you do, has caused my people substantial woe:
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270https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/taboo-subject-of-autism-and-paedophilia-must-be-tackled-to-improve-lives-qcxjfxs82
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273[quote]
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275Most controversially, he believes society needs to tackle the taboo subject of ASD and paedophilia. Speaking ahead of World Autism Awareness Day today, he suggested that many inmates in sex offender units, including those convicted of child pornography offences, show signs of Asperger’s or ASD.
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280https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Karen_Franklin2/publication/49638386_Hebephilia_quintessence_of_diagnostic_pretextuality/links/540738350cf2bba34c1e948e.pdf
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283[quote]
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285In a subsequent study, Freund confirmed the normalcy of sexual arousal to
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287adolescents. His subjects were 48 young Czech soldiers, all presumed to be ‘‘normal’’
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289and heterosexual in orientation. He showed the men pictures of children (ages 4–10
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291years old), adolescents (ages 12–16), and adults (ages 17–36). As expected, most of the
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293heterosexual men were sexually aroused by photos of both adult and adolescent
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295females. They were not aroused by pictures of males of any age, and were aroused at an
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297intermediate level by pictures of children (Freund & Costell, 1970).
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302https://philiaresearch.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/study-men-downplay-their-attraction-to-adolescent-girls/
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305[quote]
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307A new study of Bulgarian men has replicated a previous 2013 experiment on British men. In both studies, the same photographs of adolescent girls (Tanner stages 3-4) were shown to one group of men labelled as age 14-15, and a different set of men labelled as age 16-17. Subjects reported more sexual attraction when the photographs were labelled as 16-17. The researchers conclude:
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310[T]he consistent finding that the same photographs of younger females, but with different age labels, were assigned significantly different levels of attractiveness suggests that cognitive factors beyond biologically driven sexual attraction were involved in making these ratings. In all the three samples, apparently younger girls were rated as less attractive than older girls despite being the same photographs. We hypothesize that this difference reflects some self-censoring mechanism involved in making such judgments. This may involve a form of comparison between participants’ own sexual attraction to the individual girl and the likely social norms surrounding this judgment.
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313This finding has now been replicated across four samples, including one that is yet to be reported.
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318https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development#Conventional
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321[quote]
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323Conventional
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326The conventional level of moral reasoning is typical of adolescents and adults. To reason in a conventional way is to judge the morality of actions by comparing them to society's views and expectations. The conventional level consists of the third and fourth stages of moral development. Conventional morality is characterized by an acceptance of society's conventions concerning right and wrong. At this level an individual obeys rules and follows society's norms even when there are no consequences for obedience or disobedience. Adherence to rules and conventions is somewhat rigid, however, and a rule's appropriateness or fairness is seldom questioned.[7][8][9]
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332As well as has generally been an abomination unto mankind:
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335http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23256249.2013.812821?scroll=top&needAccess=true&
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338[quote]
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340This article discusses the rationale of Nazi ethics and the moral conditioning of Nazi perpetrators aimed at developing a kind of “ethnic conscience” which restricted moral obligations to members of their own race community. It reconstructs how the universal ethics of humanism got turned upside down and replaced with the particularistic selective racial ethics and the pragmatics of eugenics and racial exterminatory politics. Traditional values regarding human life, based on the idea of its unconditional worth, were replaced by the distinction between life worthy of being promoted and life unworthy of being lived. It shows how ordinary Germans became willing executioners of criminal and immoral deeds. Neither did they act without any moral orientation nor in the awareness that what they were doing was morally reprehensible. As perpetrators with a clear conscience they were convinced that the humiliation, persecution, deportation and, finally, killing of the Jews was the right thing to do.
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345http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4739224/Religious-people-emotional-not-think-logically.html
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348[quote]
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350The study warned that untempered empathy can be dangerous.
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353It can result in terrorists who believe they are being highly moral
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358And it's really starting to freak me out that you keep dissociating from the state of actual existence into socially convergent make believe fantasy worlds described in themed collections of fiction materials. I mean, awesome as it is being in the state of actual reality, it's also quite alarming given that you don't have the diametric opposite of psychosis despite being the overwhelming majority of the hominids.
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361https://www.ted.com/talks/donald_hoffman_do_we_see_reality_as_it_is/transcript?language=en
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364[quote]
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366Fitness is not the same thing as reality as it is, and it's fitness, and not reality as it is, that figures centrally in the equations of evolution.
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369So, in my lab, we have run hundreds of thousands of evolutionary game simulations with lots of different randomly chosen worlds and organisms that compete for resources in those worlds. Some of the organisms see all of the reality, others see just part of the reality, and some see none of the reality, only fitness. Who wins?
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372Well, I hate to break it to you, but perception of reality goes extinct. In almost every simulation, organisms that see none of reality but are just tuned to fitness drive to extinction all the organisms that perceive reality as it is. So the bottom line is, evolution does not favor veridical, or accurate perceptions. Those perceptions of reality go extinct.
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377That you have been compared to ancient people and small children is of no comfort to me whatsoever:
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380Does Poor Understanding of Physical World Predict Religious and Paranormal Beliefs?
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385Unlike the earlier studies, which have addressed
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387only few specific targets and attributes, unfounded
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389mentalizing was here apparent throughout a range of basic
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391physical objects and processes, and at a higher level
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393of abstraction, on the superordinate concept of mental.
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395This kind of mental-physical confusion has been recognized
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397mainly among ancient people and small children.
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404The ability to distinguish mental from physical seems to be impaired both among ASD individuals and supernatural believers, although its manifestation is reversed. Because findings from hyper-mentalistic and hyper-mechanistic cognition, as two opposite phenotypes, can help each other in the search for their underlying mechanisms, one promising approach for future studies might be to integrate research on this newly found matter-blindness to research on mind-blindness
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409What would be imagined as a comforting lack of hallucinosis:
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412http://www.grrec.ky.gov/CaveWeb/autism/ASD%20Webpage/Module%201/Gestalt%20thinking%20article.docx
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415[quote]
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417How much do we see? In fact, we see very little, just a few things our attention happens to focus on. Every time we look at something we just pick up a few features and 'recognize' the whole picture from our past experiences and memories. For example, when we enter a familiar room, we do not have to examine every item there to recognize it. We just know what is there and where everything is located. A quick glance is enough. So do we actually see the environment or do we just know 'what is there'? In fact, our perceptual reconstruction (or 'what we think we see') comes from two opposite directions - from outside (environmental stimuli) and inside (mental images we have stored in the brain). The more familiar the environment or situation, the less we actually perceive it. The brain does not need to process all the stimuli; it just 'fills in the gaps' and 'predicts' the final picture.
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420There is much evidence that one of the problems many autistic people experience is their inability to distinguish between foreground and background stimuli. They often are unable to discriminate between relevant and irrelevant stimuli. What is background to others may be equally foreground to them. They perceive everything without filtration or selection. As Donna Williams describes it, they seem to have no sieve in their brain to select the information that is worth being attended. This results in a paradoxical phenomenon: sensory information is received in infinite detail and holistically at the same time. It can be described as 'gestalt perception', i.e. perception of the whole scene as a single entity with all the details perceived (not processed!) simultaneously. They may be aware of the information others miss, but the processing of 'holistic situations' can be overwhelming. As there is too much information coming in, it is hard to know which stimuli to attend. It is often difficult for the autistic person to 'break' the whole picture into meaningful entities, to 'draw the boundaries' around plenty of tiny sensory pieces to make them meaningful items.
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423In contrast to our guessing 'what is there' from our experience and memory instead of actually seeing it, autistic children seem to be unable to filter the incoming information and tend to perceive all the stimuli around them. Instead of 'inventing' the world as we do, they actually perceive it. Such 'acute-perception' brings overwhelming information the brain cannot cope with.
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428Possibly aided by an abundance of neurons (I need to research this more so):
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431http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/03/brain-size-early-growth-clues-to-autisms-causes/
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434[quote]
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436Heather Hazlett, in the department of psychiatry at the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities, and her colleagues studied MRI images of 38 children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) at 2 years old and compared them with the scans from 21 unaffected youngsters of the same age. All the children were scanned again at age 4 or 5, and at all stages, the children with ASD had on average 6% more total brain volume and 9% more volume in the cerebral cortex, the region of the brain that contains the “newest” sprouting of neurons and is responsible for everything from receiving signals and input from the environment to processing memory and attention.
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441Is rendered less so due to the atypical nature of this:
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444http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/stories/are-you-hallucinating-right-now
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447[quote]
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449Recent studies by researchers at Cardiff University and University of Cambridge suggest we are all hallucinating all of the time to comprehend the world that surrounds us. This research opens new doors of perception as related to the ways we view hallucinations and their prevalence.
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452Sifting through the noise
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455One way to look at hallucinations is seeing them as a part of predictive brain processes. We constantly need to make sense of our surrounding world. In trying to grasp a spatial and visual sense of our surroundings that might appear slightly vague when we're barraged by a wide array of sensory input, we have to use our brains to predict and understand the overall structure of the environment with the use of prior knowledge. The prior knowledge we have about an environment plays a huge role in the way we visually process our world.
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458"Vision is a constructive process — in other words, our brain makes up the world that we 'see'," and "fills in the blanks, ignoring the things that don't quite fit, and presents to us an image of the world that has been edited and made to fit with what we expect," explains lead researcher Christoph Teufel of Cardiff University.
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461Our predictive brains are beneficial to us because "it makes us efficient and adept at creating a coherent picture of an ambiguous and complex world,” and that it “means that we are not very far away from perceiving things that aren’t actually there, which is the definition of a hallucination,” says Paul Fletcher, senior author of the research done at Cambridge.
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466This is most likely due to my severely impaired long term visual memory, which is associated with the DMN. I'm also not delusional with cognitive anosognosia due to my consistent use of my TPN (which is associated with verbal working memory, of which mine is exceptional):
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469https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4140620/
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472[quote]
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474The results showed a correlation between insight as measured by the BCIS self-reflectiveness index and lower gray matter volume in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC). The VLPFC is involved in working memory and decision making. The findings suggest that a reduced VLPFC volume corresponds with a diminished capacity to entertain alternative explanations about one’s misperceptions leading to impairment in awareness of illness.
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479https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactions_between_the_emotional_and_executive_brain_systems#Ventrolateral_prefrontal_cortex_.28vlPFC.29
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482[quote]
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484The ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) is a subdivision of the prefrontal cortex. Its involvement in modulating existing behavior and emotional output given contextual demands has been studied extensively using cognitive reappraisal studies and emotion-attention tasks. Cognitive reappraisal studies indicate the vlFPC’s role in reinterpreting stimuli, and reducing or augmenting responses. Studies using emotion-attention tasks demonstrate the vlFPC’s function in ignoring emotional distractions while the brain is engaged in performing other tasks.[6]
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489Alternatively, it is possible that my overabundance of neurons is impairing my social cognition (as I said I need to research more regarding the neuronal abundance):
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492http://neurosciencenews.com/autism-social-brain-psychology-2880/
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495[quote]
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497Researchers say this is consistent with structural MRI findings of enlarged brain size and an overabundance of neurons in ASD, due to the fact that the synapses of neurons have not been sufficiently “pruned” as the brain develops. Too many functioning synapses inhibit cognition while requiring extra blood flow.
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502https://health.ucsd.edu/news/2011/Pages/11-08-autism-neurons.aspx
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505[quote]
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507A study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego Autism Center of Excellence shows that brain overgrowth in boys with autism involves an abnormal, excess number of neurons in areas of the brain associated with social, communication and cognitive development.
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512Which is fine because social cognition is to all appearances a convergent form of schizophrenia:
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515http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/people-with-aspergers-less-likely-to-see-purpose-behind-the-events-in-their-lives/
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518[quote]
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520Bethany T. Heywood, a graduate student at Queens University Belfast, asked 27 people with Asperger’s syndrome, a mild type of autism that involves impaired social cognition, about significant events in their lives. Working with experimental psychologist Jesse M. Bering (author of the "Bering in Mind" blog and a frequent contributor to Scientific American MIND), she asked them to speculate about why these important events happened—for instance, why they had gone through an illness or why they met a significant other. As compared with 34 neurotypical people, those with Asperger’s syndrome were significantly less likely to invoke a teleological response—for example, saying the event was meant to unfold in a particular way or explaining that God had a hand in it. They were more likely to invoke a natural cause (such as blaming an illness on a virus they thought they were exposed to) or to give a descriptive response, explaining the event again in a different way.
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525[quote]
526
527These results support the idea that seeing purpose behind life events is a result of our mind’s focus on social thinking. People whose social cognition is impaired—those with Asperger’s, in this case—are less likely to see the events in their lives as having happened for a reason. Heywood would like to test the hypothesis further by working with people who have schizophrenia or schizoid personalities. Some experts theorize that certain schizophrenia symptoms (for instance, paranoia) arise in part from a hyperactive sense of social reasoning. “I’d guess that they’d give lots of teleological answers; more than neurotypical people, and certainly far more than people with Asperger’s,” Heywood says.
528
529[/quote]
530
531
532Like religion:
533
534
535http://www.faceofmalawi.com/2017/07/religious-people-have-mental-illness-neuroscientist-warns/
536
537
538[quote]
539
540The self-described atheist, who is also a neuroendocrinologist, argues that religion is comparable to a shared schizophrenia.
541
542[/quote]
543
544
545https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/my-life-aspergers/201409/religion-and-autism-are-they-together-or-apart
546
547
548[quote]
549
550Religion and Autism, are they together or apart?
551
552Recent studies suggest today's autistics tend to reject organized religion. Why?
553
554[/quote]
555
556
557And I don't mind being in actual reality, so please don't try to pharmacologically induce brain damage in me to repair my faulty social cognition:
558
559
560https://www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/brain-study-finds-evidence-autism-involves-too-many-synapses
561
562
563[quote]
564
565A newly published brain-tissue study suggests that children affected by autism have a surplus of synapses, or connections between brain cells. The excess is due to a slowdown in the normal pruning process that occurs during brain development, the researchers say.
566
567
568The study team also found that the medication rapamycin both restores normal synaptic pruning and reduces autism-like behaviors in a mouse model of autism. They propose that someday a similar medication might be used to treat autism after a child – or even adult – has been diagnosed.
569
570[/quote]
571
572
573However, feel free to send me ketamine so that I can pharmacologically induce acute psychosis via deactivating the neural substrate of evolutionarily recent cognition:
574
575
576https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02611921
577
578
579[quote]
580
581Study of Intranasal Ketamine for Social Impairment in Autism Spectrum Disorder
582
583[/quote]
584
585
586https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23049758
587
588
589[quote]
590
591A prominent feature of the human brain's global architecture is the anticorrelation of default-mode vs. task-positive systems. Here,we show that administration of an NMDA glutamate receptor antagonist, ketamine, disrupted the reciprocal relationship between these systems in terms of task-dependent activation and connectivity during performance of delayed working memory. Furthermore, the degree of this disruption predicted task performance and transiently evoked symptoms characteristic of schizophrenia.
592
593[/quote]
594
595
596http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022395699000291
597
598
599[quote]
600
601Several decades of research attempting to explain schizophrenia in terms of the dopamine hyperactivity hypothesis have produced disappointing results. A new hypothesis focusing on hypofunction of the NMDA glutamate transmitter system is emerging as a potentially more promising concept. In this article, we present a version of the NMDA receptor hypofunction hypothesis that has evolved from our recent studies pertaining to the neurotoxic and psychotomimetic effects of PCP and related NMDA antagonist drugs.
602
603[/quote]
604
605
606Which I may be being kept in due to atypically strong glutamatergic agonization:
607
608
609https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4938426/
610
611
612[quote]
613
614Twelve studies involving 880 participants and 446 incident cases were included in this meta-analysis. The meta-analysis provided evidence for higher blood glutamate levels in ASD
615
616[/quote]
617
618
619Philosophical underpinnings
620
621
622One thing of pertinence is the discrepancy between primacy of consciousness and primacy of existence:
623
624
625aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/primacy_of_existence_vs_primacy_of_consciousness.html
626
627
628[quote]
629
630The basic metaphysical issue that lies at the root of any system of philosophy [is] the primacy of existence or the primacy of consciousness.
631
632
633The primacy of existence (of reality) is the axiom that existence exists, i.e., that the universe exists independent of consciousness (of any consciousness), that things are what they are, that they possess a specific nature, an identity. The epistemological corollary is the axiom that consciousness is the faculty of perceiving that which exists—and that man gains knowledge of reality by looking outward. The rejection of these axioms represents a reversal: the primacy of consciousness—the notion that the universe has no independent existence, that it is the product of a consciousness (either human or divine or both). The epistemological corollary is the notion that man gains knowledge of reality by looking inward (either at his own consciousness or at the revelations it receives from another, superior consciousness).
634
635
636The source of this reversal is the inability or unwillingness fully to grasp the difference between one’s inner state and the outer world, i.e., between the perceiver and the perceived (thus blending consciousness and existence into one indeterminate package-deal). This crucial distinction is not given to man automatically; it has to be learned. It is implicit in any awareness, but it has to be grasped conceptually and held as an absolute.
637
638[/quote]
639
640
641https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4805169/
642
643
644[quote]
645
646We suggest that this structural feature of the brain underlies the long noted anecdotal tension between materialistic and spiritual worldviews. This linkage is supported by three observations. First, brain areas implicated in analytic thinking (TPN) support cognitive process essential for maintaining a naturalistic world view (e.g. thinking about objects, mechanisms and causes; [29, 49, 71, 73–77]), whereas the brain areas implicated in moral concern (DMN) are associated with thinking about phenomena which have traditionally been thought of as non-physical, namely minds and emotions [78–83]. Second, brain areas associated with materialism (TPN) tend to be suppressed when brain areas associated with moral concern (DMN) are activated [29, 71, 72]. This might explain the tendency to link mind with spirit, i.e. the view that minds and emotions are associated with the extra- or super- natural. Third, brain areas associated with analytic thinking are associated with religious disbelief [73, 74, 84], and brain areas associated with moral concern are associated with religious belief [73] and prayer [84, 85].
647
648[/quote]
649
650
651Does Poor Understanding of Physical World Predict Religious and Paranormal Beliefs?
652
653
654[quote]
655
656Unlike the earlier studies, which have addressed
657
658only few specific targets and attributes, unfounded
659
660mentalizing was here apparent throughout a range of basic
661
662physical objects and processes, and at a higher level
663
664of abstraction, on the superordinate concept of mental.
665
666This kind of mental-physical confusion has been recognized
667
668mainly among ancient people and small children.
669
670[/quote]
671
672
673[quote]
674
675The ability to distinguish mental from physical seems to be impaired both among ASD individuals and supernatural believers, although its manifestation is reversed. Because findings from hyper-mentalistic and hyper-mechanistic cognition, as two opposite phenotypes, can help each other in the search for their underlying mechanisms, one promising approach for future studies might be to integrate research on this newly found matter-blindness to research on mind-blindness
676
677[/quote]
678
679
680http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113416306/religion-world-understanding-102616/
681
682
683[quote]
684
685The scientists found that, overall, those who believe in God and the paranormal
686
687are more likely to be female and to base their actions on instinct instead of
688
689analysis or critical thinking.
690
691[/quote]
692
693
694https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01572564
695
696
697[quote]
698
699While the number of patients tested is small, it is clear that the
700
701group of schizophrenic patients showed a strikingly high
702
703degree of primitive animistic thinking. The results concur
704
705with Nunberg's observation that animistic responses
706
707are common in schizophrenia
708
709[/quote]
710
711
712[quote]
713
714Some other similarities between childhood thinking, schizophrenic thinking
715
716and the unconscious are indicated. There is a strikingly high incidence
717
718of primitive animism and syncretistic habits of thought in schizophrenia.
719
720Psychologic factors are more important than neurologic ones as a
721
722cause of primitive animism in the aged, although the latter also play
723
724a part. The question as to why all psychologically regressed
725
726patients do not show marked primitive animistic thinking remains
727
728unexplained.
729
730[/quote]
731
732
733Syncretism is commonly used by the behavior modifying parasites in the fabrication of pseudorealities, as will be covered later. For now, you should be familiar with the word and keep this in mind:
734
735
736http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/syncretism
737
738
739[quote]
740
7411: the combination of different forms of belief or practice
742
743
7442: the fusion of two or more originally different inflectional forms
745
746[/quote]
747
748
749https://www.britannica.com/topic/religious-syncretism
750
751
752[quote]
753
754Religious syncretism, the fusion of diverse religious beliefs and practices.
755
756[/quote]
757
758
759An example:
760
761
762
763Quite related as well:
764
765
766
767
768http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.8.vii.html
769
770
771[quote]
772
773And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?
774
775
776Certainly, he would.
777
778
779And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honours and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer,
780
781
782Better to be the poor servant of a poor master, and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner?
783
784
785Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner.
786
787
788Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?
789
790
791To be sure, he said.
792
793
794And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.
795
796[/quote]
797
798
799The allegory of the cave is a stellar example of an ancient philosopher covering the same general phenomenon that I discuss. Note that The Sun consists of the Task Positive Network, whereas The Cave consists of the Default Mode Network. The individuals holding objects in the cave are the behavior modifying parasites, or sophists as Socrates referred to them. The shadows on the wall of The Cave consist of pseudoreality, whereas the reality illuminated by The Sun consists of actual reality. The objects the parasites hold to cast the shadows are their true intentions for having isolated the troglodytes in the cave.
800
801
802The bold text highlights the part of the phenomenon that is both related to anosognosia as well as heresy. People in pseudoreality have sometimes even remarkable understandings of the associated themed collection of fiction materials, so when confronted with someone who has been in actual reality, it seems as if the person in actual reality is insane due to having an impaired relationship with the pseudoreality that the afflicted mistakenly thinks is actual reality. Moreover, the psychotic shit flinging monkeys:
803
804
805
806are extremely prevalent, and they cluster together into the same pseudorealities, so they substantially reinforce each others misconceptions. Also, many pseudorealities have an integrated heresy construct, with being labeled as a heretic typically necessitating some form of punishment:
807
808
809https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heresy
810
811
812[quote]
813
814Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs. A heretic is a proponent of such claims or beliefs.[1] Heresy is distinct from both apostasy, which is the explicit renunciation of one's religion, principles or cause,[2] and blasphemy, which is an impious utterance or action concerning God or sacred things.[3]
815
816[/quote]
817
818
819http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
820
821
822[quote]
823
824Heresy
825
826
827This won't get us all the answers, though. What if no one happens to have gotten in trouble for a particular idea yet? What if some idea would be so radioactively controversial that no one would dare express it in public? How can we find these too?
828
829
830Another approach is to follow that word, heresy. In every period of history, there seem to have been labels that got applied to statements to shoot them down before anyone had a chance to ask if they were true or not. "Blasphemy", "sacrilege", and "heresy" were such labels for a good part of western history, as in more recent times "indecent", "improper", and "unamerican" have been. By now these labels have lost their sting. They always do. By now they're mostly used ironically. But in their time, they had real force.
831
832
833The word "defeatist", for example, has no particular political connotations now. But in Germany in 1917 it was a weapon, used by Ludendorff in a purge of those who favored a negotiated peace. At the start of World War II it was used extensively by Churchill and his supporters to silence their opponents. In 1940, any argument against Churchill's aggressive policy was "defeatist". Was it right or wrong? Ideally, no one got far enough to ask that.
834
835
836We have such labels today, of course, quite a lot of them, from the all-purpose "inappropriate" to the dreaded "divisive." In any period, it should be easy to figure out what such labels are, simply by looking at what people call ideas they disagree with besides untrue. When a politician says his opponent is mistaken, that's a straightforward criticism, but when he attacks a statement as "divisive" or "racially insensitive" instead of arguing that it's false, we should start paying attention.
837
838
839So another way to figure out which of our taboos future generations will laugh at is to start with the labels. Take a label—"sexist", for example—and try to think of some ideas that would be called that. Then for each ask, might this be true?
840
841[/quote]
842
843
844It is the ultimate goal of the behavior modifying parasites to keep the psychotic shit flinging monkeys isolated in the cave:
845
846
847
848http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/booming/revisiting-the-crack-babies-epidemic-that-was-not.html
849
850
851[quote]
852
853This week’s Retro Report video on “crack babies” (infants born to addicted mothers)
854
855lays out how limited scientific studies in the 1980s led to predictions that a generation
856
857of children would be damaged for life. Those predictions turned out to be wrong.
858
859This supposed epidemic — one television reporter talks of a 500 percent increase in
860
861damaged babies — was kicked off by a study of just 23 infants that the lead researcher
862
863now says was blown out of proportion. And the shocking symptoms — like tremors and
864
865low birth weight — are not particular to cocaine-exposed babies, pediatric researchers
866
867say; they can be seen in many premature newborns.
868
869[/quote]
870
871
872https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4805169/
873
874
875[quote]
876
877Finally, we have demonstrated that attention to engaging social stimuli not only activates the DMN but also deactivates the TPN. In a subsequent study[30] it was shown that this pattern of DMN activation and TPN deactivation was present for humanizing depictions of individuals, whereas dehumanizing depictions, which are associated with decreased moral concern, either involved decreased activity in the DMN or increased activity in the TPN. Taken together, these findings suggest that we are neurologically constrained from simultaneously exercising moral concern and analytic thinking.
878
879[/quote]
880
881
882https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160323151838.htm
883
884
885[quote]
886
887"These findings," Friedman continued, "are consistent with the philosophical view, espoused by (Immanuel) Kant, according to which there are two distinct types of truth: empirical and moral."
888
889[/quote]
890
891
892Seeing as they control the cave:
893
894
895https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_entrepreneur
896
897
898[quote]
899
900Social position determines one's ability to define and construct reality; therefore, the higher one's social position, the greater his or her moral value.
901
902[/quote]
903
904
905https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavior-altering_parasite_or_parasitoid
906
907
908[quote]
909
910Some parasites and parasitoids cause changes in the behavior of their hosts by directly affecting the hosts' decision-making and behavior control mechanisms. The acquired or modified behaviors assist in parasite transmission, and often result in the host's demise.
911
912[/quote]
913
914
915The behavior modifying parasites want to be able to keep you toggled into your default mode network because they are the controllers of your false reality. They dislike you being in your task positive network because the TPN accesses actual reality and they have much less control over actual reality. Of course in some instances they may like you to be able to be in actual reality however, they are only particularly concerned with keeping you in your default mode network when contemplating matters related to the make believe fantasy worlds that feed their infestation with your life force.
916
917
918Case Studies of Pseudorealities - Background Information
919
920
921Before going into case studies of some of the pseudorealities fabricated by the behavior modifying parasite infestations, I would like to demonstrate some excerpt sequences that give a general impression of the framework involved, which you should be cognizant of. There is some repetition of prior excerpts, but only to draw attention to things via their ordering.
922
923
924Firstly, you should be aware that the behavior modifying parasites are aptly called such:
925
926
927https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavior-altering_parasite_or_parasitoid
928
929
930[quote]
931
932Some parasites and parasitoids cause changes in the behavior of their hosts by directly affecting the hosts' decision-making and behavior control mechanisms. The acquired or modified behaviors assist in parasite transmission, and often result in the host's demise.
933
934[/quote]
935
936
937This is exactly how the behavior modifying parasites operate. For example:
938
939
940https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_entrepreneur
941
942
943[quote]
944
945Social position determines one's ability to define and construct reality; therefore, the higher one's social position, the greater his or her moral value.
946
947[/quote]
948
949
950https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Maiden_Tribute_of_Modern_Babylon
951
952
953[quote]
954
955"The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon" was a series of highly controversial newspaper articles on child prostitution that appeared in The Pall Mall Gazette in July 1885.
956
957
958Written by crusading editor W. T. Stead, the series was a tour de force of Victorian journalism. With sensational crossheads, such as "The Violation of Virgins" and "Strapping Girls Down", the Maiden Tribute threw respectable Victorians into a state of moral panic, and achieved, as a consequence, the implementation of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, which raised the age of consent for girls from 13 to 16, and also re-criminalised homosexual acts.
959
960[/quote]
961
962
963https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Karen_Franklin2/publication/49638386_Hebephilia_quintessence_of_diagnostic_pretextuality/links/540738350cf2bba34c1e948e.pdf
964
965
966[quote]
967
968In a subsequent study, Freund confirmed the normalcy of sexual arousal to
969
970adolescents. His subjects were 48 young Czech soldiers, all presumed to be ‘‘normal’’
971
972and heterosexual in orientation. He showed the men pictures of children (ages 4–10
973
974years old), adolescents (ages 12–16), and adults (ages 17–36). As expected, most of the
975
976heterosexual men were sexually aroused by photos of both adult and adolescent
977
978females. They were not aroused by pictures of males of any age, and were aroused at an
979
980intermediate level by pictures of children (Freund & Costell, 1970).
981
982[/quote]
983
984
985https://philiaresearch.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/study-men-downplay-their-attraction-to-adolescent-girls/
986
987
988[quote]
989
990A new study of Bulgarian men has replicated a previous 2013 experiment on British men. In both studies, the same photographs of adolescent girls (Tanner stages 3-4) were shown to one group of men labelled as age 14-15, and a different set of men labelled as age 16-17. Subjects reported more sexual attraction when the photographs were labelled as 16-17. The researchers conclude:
991
992
993[T]he consistent finding that the same photographs of younger females, but with different age labels, were assigned significantly different levels of attractiveness suggests that cognitive factors beyond biologically driven sexual attraction were involved in making these ratings. In all the three samples, apparently younger girls were rated as less attractive than older girls despite being the same photographs. We hypothesize that this difference reflects some self-censoring mechanism involved in making such judgments. This may involve a form of comparison between participants’ own sexual attraction to the individual girl and the likely social norms surrounding this judgment.
994
995
996This finding has now been replicated across four samples, including one that is yet to be reported.
997
998[/quote]
999
1000
1001https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development#Conventional
1002
1003
1004[quote]
1005
1006Conventional
1007
1008
1009The conventional level of moral reasoning is typical of adolescents and adults. To reason in a conventional way is to judge the morality of actions by comparing them to society's views and expectations. The conventional level consists of the third and fourth stages of moral development. Conventional morality is characterized by an acceptance of society's conventions concerning right and wrong. At this level an individual obeys rules and follows society's norms even when there are no consequences for obedience or disobedience. Adherence to rules and conventions is somewhat rigid, however, and a rule's appropriateness or fairness is seldom questioned.[7][8][9]
1010
1011[/quote]
1012
1013
1014https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160323151838.htm
1015
1016
1017[quote]
1018
1019"These findings," Friedman continued, "are consistent with the philosophical view, espoused by (Immanuel) Kant, according to which there are two distinct types of truth: empirical and moral."
1020
1021[/quote]
1022
1023
1024http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0149989
1025
1026
1027[quote]
1028
1029Engaging social stimuli are associated with activation of the DMN and deactivation of the TPN, whereas analytic problems are associated with activation of the TPN and deactivation of the DMN.
1030
1031[/quote]
1032
1033
1034https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4805169/
1035
1036
1037[quote]
1038
1039Finally, we have demonstrated that attention to engaging social stimuli not only activates the DMN but also deactivates the TPN. In a subsequent study[30] it was shown that this pattern of DMN activation and TPN deactivation was present for humanizing depictions of individuals, whereas dehumanizing depictions, which are associated with decreased moral concern, either involved decreased activity in the DMN or increased activity in the TPN. Taken together, these findings suggest that we are neurologically constrained from simultaneously exercising moral concern and analytic thinking.
1040
1041[/quote]
1042
1043
1044
1045Secondly, you should be aware that pseudorealities have numerous potential features associated with them including heresy as I've covered before:
1046
1047
1048https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heresy
1049
1050
1051[quote]
1052
1053Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs. A heretic is a proponent of such claims or beliefs.[1] Heresy is distinct from both apostasy, which is the explicit renunciation of one's religion, principles or cause,[2] and blasphemy, which is an impious utterance or action concerning God or sacred things.[3]
1054
1055[/quote]
1056
1057
1058http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
1059
1060
1061[quote]
1062
1063Heresy
1064
1065
1066This won't get us all the answers, though. What if no one happens to have gotten in trouble for a particular idea yet? What if some idea would be so radioactively controversial that no one would dare express it in public? How can we find these too?
1067
1068
1069Another approach is to follow that word, heresy. In every period of history, there seem to have been labels that got applied to statements to shoot them down before anyone had a chance to ask if they were true or not. "Blasphemy", "sacrilege", and "heresy" were such labels for a good part of western history, as in more recent times "indecent", "improper", and "unamerican" have been. By now these labels have lost their sting. They always do. By now they're mostly used ironically. But in their time, they had real force.
1070
1071
1072The word "defeatist", for example, has no particular political connotations now. But in Germany in 1917 it was a weapon, used by Ludendorff in a purge of those who favored a negotiated peace. At the start of World War II it was used extensively by Churchill and his supporters to silence their opponents. In 1940, any argument against Churchill's aggressive policy was "defeatist". Was it right or wrong? Ideally, no one got far enough to ask that.
1073
1074
1075We have such labels today, of course, quite a lot of them, from the all-purpose "inappropriate" to the dreaded "divisive." In any period, it should be easy to figure out what such labels are, simply by looking at what people call ideas they disagree with besides untrue. When a politician says his opponent is mistaken, that's a straightforward criticism, but when he attacks a statement as "divisive" or "racially insensitive" instead of arguing that it's false, we should start paying attention.
1076
1077
1078So another way to figure out which of our taboos future generations will laugh at is to start with the labels. Take a label—"sexist", for example—and try to think of some ideas that would be called that. Then for each ask, might this be true?
1079
1080[/quote]
1081
1082
1083Common heresy words include denial and rationalization, though some people are in denial and some people rationalize so you cannot always use their presence to identify a pseudoreality. Reality frames that make heavy use of such constructs certainly arouse my suspicion, however in some cases they seem to be being used appropriately.
1084
1085
1086They also commonly have blasphemy constructs:
1087
1088
1089https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy
1090
1091
1092[quote]
1093
1094Blasphemy is the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence to a deity, to religious or holy persons or sacred things, or toward something considered sacred or inviolable.[1][2][3][4]
1095
1096[/quote]
1097
1098
1099I've already touched on the basics of them in my previous posts and I don't want to be too repetitive. In any case, it should be noted that as I said pseudorealities can either signal actual reality partially but distort it, or they can signal entirely false realities as if they were actual reality. In the first case, where actual reality is partially signaled by it is distorted, typically what is done is they either camouflaged something in their signaling of actual reality by signaling a frame of actual reality but without something in it that is actually in that frame of actual reality (which is why their signaling was actually pseudoreality despite being partially actual reality). This is akin to the polar bear signaling that it is the snow:
1100
1101
1102
1103An example of this may be:
1104
1105
1106
1107Note that typically there are numerous competing reality signalers, numerous of them may be signaling pseudoreality but only one of them can actually be signaling actual reality if they are competing because there is only one actual reality:
1108
1109
1110
1111Conversely, and more commonly to my perception (which may be biased in this manner, as I will cover shortly), the pseudoreality signaler can signal a full frame of actual reality but then augment it with things that aren't in actual reality (or they can exaggerate things that are in otherwise correct frames of actual reality). This is commonly done toward panic incitement, and is akin to a scarecrow:
1112
1113
1114
1115As I said I may be biased such that I more easily identify pseudorealities with falsely signaled threats in them, at the risk of misidentifying frames of actual reality with honestly signaled threats in them as frames of pseudoreality. I also may be more vulnerable to camouflage but more adept at detecting scarecrows. This arises from my consistent usage of the task positive network, which historically (and to all appearances in the modern age!) is actually evolutionarily disadvantageous (perceptions of actual reality go extinct), which is why I am not neurotypical: 
1116
1117
1118http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2012/02/word-of-the-day-hyperactive-agency-detection/
1119
1120
1121[quote]
1122
1123February 12 is Darwin Day, the birthday of Charles Darwin. In honor of Darwin’s 203rd birthday, let’s look into a term that’s related to both evolution and religion.
1124
1125
1126Imagine an early hominid in the grasslands of Africa. He hears a rustling in the bushes—is that a cheetah or just the wind? Should he run away or ignore it?
1127
1128
1129There are two kinds of errors. Suppose our friend thinks it’s a cheetah and runs away … but he’s wrong. This is a false positive. He’s crying wolf. There can be a cost to this—our timid hominid might have been frightened away from a water hole.
1130
1131
1132But consider the other error. The hominid might think it’s the wind in the tall grass … but he’s wrong. This is a false negative. The cost is obvious—he likely becomes a predator’s lunch.
1133
1134
1135Given the disproportionate consequences for guessing wrongly, natural selection seems to have selected for caution. As a result, early man may have developed a “hyperactive agency detection device”—an overactive tendency to see agency (that is, intelligence) in nature, even where there is none. The HADD may also be where we detect patterns in things—superstition, concluding that odd events are more than coincidence, or even conspiracy theories.
1136
1137
1138If this gave early man the ideas of spirits of the dead and gods, this may help explain where early religion came from.
1139
1140[/quote]
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145Additionally, you should be aware that pseudoreality is associated with themed fiction materials, as I've already said. These can be in numerous forms:
1146
1147
1148https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_(2012_film)
1149
1150
1151
1152[quote]
1153
1154After these accusations arose, Noah Berlatsky of Salon compared Kim to Somaly Mam and commented that the film was thickly layered with exploitation tropes and improbable scenarios. Berlatsky found it shocking that "anyone took this clearly fanciful, clearly derivative fiction for fact".[5] Journalist Elizabeth Nolan Brown criticized "the authors who repeated Kim's story, the journalists who interviewed her, the organizations that brought her on as a speaker, or any of the myriad people behind the 'based on a true story' Eden" for not checking and verifying Kim's claims.[7] Journalist Mike Ludwig argued that the narrative promoted by the film harmed consensual sex workers.[8] Seattle sex worker Mistress Matisse had been questioning the veracity of the film since 2012.[6] Matisse stated that Colin Plank and Megan Griffiths "perpetrated a fraud in their movie called Eden." [19]
1155
1156[/quote]
1157
1158
1159https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield#Vaxxed
1160
1161
1162
1163[quote]
1164
1165Dr Ian Lipkin, professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, writing in The Wall Street Journal, said: "If Vaxxed had been submitted as science fiction, it would merit attention for its story line, character development and dialogue. But as a documentary it misrepresents what science knows about autism, undermines public confidence in the safety and efficacy of vaccines, and attacks the integrity of legitimate scientists and public-health officials".[149]
1166
1167[/quote]
1168
1169
1170
1171
1172The climate change movement I have the most trouble to tell if it is in actual reality or pseudoreality. Originally I mindlessly assumed it was actual reality, however I've subsequently actually grown substantially suspicious that they are in a pseudoreality. My father believes they are a New Religious Movement and I find he is typically in actual reality. In general, you should be of the understanding that I am substantially more so in actual reality than is typical, yet I am not completely and effortlessly immune to the behavior modifying parasites, so you should substantially give weight to my thoughts on such things yet not assume that I am certainly in actual reality frames at all times.
1173
1174
1175
1176The people who imagine that the climate change movement is in actual reality certainly can make a substantially high quality case for this being so, yet the people who claim they are a New Religious Movement have a substantially stronger case than one would imagine if they listened to the signaling from the adherents to the climate change movement regarding the matter as well, which is why it is hard to tell. However I didn't mean to be side tracked by that and I will cover their movement more so later on, but I wanted to include their video pamphlet while drawing attention to the fact that I am not actually asserting that it is certainly a piece of themed fiction material though am suspicious that it may be so.
1177
1178
1179note this excerpt regarding the impaired ability of children exposed to religion to differentiate fact from fiction. I view this study as a starting point for substantially further research and disagree with the general impression of the authors of it, though as a single data point without elaboration I find it very valuable.
1180
1181
1182http://richarddawkins.net/2014/07/children-exposed-to-religion-have-difficulty-distinguishing-fact-from-fiction-study-finds/
1183
1184
1185[quote]
1186
1187Young children who are exposed to religion have a hard time differentiating between fact and fiction, according to a new study published in the July issue of Cognitive Science.
1188
1189
1190Researchers presented 5- and 6-year-old children from both public and parochial schools with three different types of stories — religious, fantastical and realistic –- in an effort to gauge how well they could identify narratives with impossible elements as fictional.
1191
1192
1193The study found that, of the 66 participants, children who went to church or were enrolled in a parochial school were significantly less able than secular children to identify supernatural elements, such as talking animals, as fictional.
1194
1195
1196By relating seemingly impossible religious events achieved through divine intervention (e.g., Jesus transforming water into wine) to fictional narratives, religious children would more heavily rely on religion to justify their false categorizations.
1197
1198[/quote]
1199
1200
1201It should be noted that all religions consist of pseudorealities.
1202
1203
1204Another thing to mention is that this is all part of signaling theory:
1205
1206
1207https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory
1208
1209
1210[quote]
1211
1212Because there are both mutual and conflicting interests in most animal signalling systems, a central problem in signalling theory is dishonesty or cheating. For example, if foraging birds are safer when they give a warning call, cheats could give false alarms at random, just in case a predator is nearby. But too much cheating could cause the signalling system to collapse. Every dishonest signal weakens the integrity of the signalling system, and so reduces the fitness of the group.[16][17]
1213
1214[/quote]
1215
1216
1217Also, although not all pseudorealities consist of moral panics, I will cover more of the details regarding moral panics. Other pseudorealities consist of social manias, mass hysterias, or whatnot. Really, a new taxonomy should be constructed, and the exact criteria for something to be one of these things or the other is kind of hard to nail down and fuzzy, some pseudorealities may be combinations of all of them and the individual frames even may have elements of all of them.
1218
1219
1220Also, it should be noted that moral panic itself has somewhat of a varying definition depending on the exact area that is looking at it. For example, arguably the anti vaccination movement is a moral panic (alternatively a mass hysteria, however I believe it is too long lasting and organized to really be considered a mass hysteria), however by the criminological construct of moral panic it is not one.
1221
1222
1223criminology.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.001.0001/acrefore-9780190264079-e-155
1224
1225
1226[quote]
1227
1228Concern
1229
1230
1231Any moral panic involves a “heightened level of concern over the behaviour of a certain group or category” (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2009, p. 37) and its consequences. Indices of concern include opinion polls, media coverage, and lobbying activity.
1232
1233
1234Hostility
1235
1236
1237Moral panics exhibit “an increased level of hostility” toward the deviants, who are “collectively designated as the enemy, or an enemy, of respectable society.” Their behavior is seen as “harmful or threatening” to the values and interests of society, “or at least a sizeable segment” of it (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2009, p. 38, emphasis in original). Constructing such folk devils is integral to moral panics.
1238
1239
1240Consensus
1241
1242
1243In a moral panic, “there must be at least a certain minimal measure of consensus” across society as a whole, or at least “designated segments” of it, that “the threat is real, serious and caused by the wrongdoing group members and their behaviour” (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2009, p. 38). Consensus can be challenged by organized opposition—“counter claimsmakers.”
1244
1245
1246Disproportionality
1247
1248
1249Fundamentally, “the concept of moral panic rests on disproportion” (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2009, p. 41, emphasis in original). It is evident where “public concern is in excess of what is appropriate if concern were directly proportional to objective harm” (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2009, p. 40). Statistics are exaggerated or fabricated. The existence of other equally or more harmful activities is denied.
1250
1251
1252Volatility
1253
1254
1255Panics are by their nature fleeting, subsiding as quickly as they erupt. The same issue may recur, but individual panics cannot be sustained for long. This has been called an “attributional model” of moral panics (Critcher, 2003, p. 25) because it identifies essential characteristics. Central to this model is claims making about the problem: who makes claims, how, and why. Such claims are frequently made by social movements, who perceive and seek remedies for problematic behavior. Movements protest and demonstrate, appeal to public opinion, and gain access to the media. They may behave irresponsibly: exaggerating the threat, polarizing opinion, and vilifying opponents. Other authoritative organizations may collude with them, such as religious groups, professional associations, and the police. More often, the media, occasionally active in moral panics, are more often conduits for others’ claims making.
1256
1257[/quote]
1258
1259
1260https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wicked-deeds/201507/moral-panic-who-benefits-public-fear
1261
1262
1263[quote]
1264
1265Moral panic is both a public and political response to an exaggeration or distortion of the threat posed to society by some allegedly harmful individual or group. More specifically, moral panic includes an exaggeration of certain events by enhancing the empirical criteria such as the number of individuals involved, the level and extent of violence, and the amount of damage caused.
1266
1267[/quote]
1268
1269
1270[quote]
1271
1272Third, the media are a particularly powerful set of actors in the creation of a moral panic. Typically, news media coverage of certain events involving alleged folk devils is distorted or exaggerated. News coverage makes the folk devils appear to be much more threatening to society than they really are. Public concern and anxiety are heightened by journalistic hyperbole concerning the folk devils. Public concern and anxiety over the folk devils lead to moral panic.
1273
1274[/quote]
1275
1276
1277[quote]
1278
1279Finally, public hysteria over a perceived problem often results in the passing of legislation that is highly punitive, unnecessary, and serves to justify the agendas of those in positions of power and authority.
1280
1281[/quote]
1282
1283
1284[quote]
1285
1286Moreover, there are two important news media practices that contribute to moral panic. These are known as framing and priming. Framing refers to the way an issue is presented to the public or angle it is given by the news media. Framing involves calling attention to certain aspects of an issue while ignoring or obscuring other elements. In other words, framing gives meaning to an issue.
1287
1288...
1289
1290In contrast, priming is a psychological process whereby the news media emphasis on a particular issue not only increases the salience of the issue on the public agenda, but also activates previously acquired information about that issue in people’s memories. The priming mechanism explains how the news frame used in a particular story can trigger an individual’s pre-existing attitudes, beliefs and prejudices regarding that issue.
1291
1292[/quote]
1293
1294
1295http://www.thesociologicalcinema.com/videos/crack-babies-a-tale-from-the-war-on-drugs
1296
1297
1298[quote]
1299
1300"When the official reaction to a person, groups of persons or series of events is out of all proportion to the actual threat offered, when 'experts', in the form of police chiefs, the judiciary, politicians and editors perceive the threat in all but identical terms, and appear to talk 'with one voice' of rates, diagnoses, prognoses and solutions, when the media representations universally stress 'sudden and dramatic' increases (in numbers involved or events) and 'novelty', above and beyond that which a sober, realistic appraisal could sustain, then we believe it is appropriate to speak of the beginnings of a moral panic."
1301
1302[/quote]
1303
1304
1305https://content.ucpress.edu/chapters/11128.ch01.pdf
1306
1307
1308[quote]
1309
1310[W]e are only episodic conductors of meaning, essentially. We
1311
1312form a mass, living most of the time in a state of panic or
1313
1314haphazardly, above and beyond any meaning.
1315
1316—Jean Baudrillard,
1317
1318
1319In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities
1320
1321
1322“Moral  panic”  can  be  defined  broadly  as  any  mass  movement  that  emerges in response to a false, exaggerated, or ill- defined moral threat to  society  and  proposes  to  address  this  threat  through  punitive  mea-sures: tougher enforcement, “zero tolerance,” new laws, communal vigi-lance, violent purges.1 Witch hunts are classic examples of moral panics in small, tribal, or agrarian communities. McCarthyism is the obvious example of a moral panic fueled by the mass media and tethered to re-pressive governance. 2
1323
1324[/quote]
1325
1326
1327[quote]
1328
1329media panic
1330
1331
1332Social theorists from Georg Simmel to Jean Baudrillard have suggested
1333
1334that panic is implicit in the structure of mass society. Writing at the turn
1335
1336of the last century, Simmel begins with the basic features of contempo-
1337
1338rary  life:  modern  metropolitan  subjects  live  among  strangers  and  are 
1339
1340constantly bombarded by stimulation. Of necessity, they adopt an in-
1341
1342different, jaded sensibility, a “blasé attitude.” These cool, aloof people
1343
1344in  turn  crave  excitement,  intense  sensation,  and  are  thus  primed  for 
1345
1346what  Todd  Gitlin  would  later  call  “the  media  torrent.”  The  mass 
1347
1348media— newspapers, movies, and dime novels of Simmel’s period—
1349
1350provided  the  requisite  sources  of  sensation.  Now,  as  then,  news  that 
1351
1352shocks, scandalizes, or evokes fear and dread brings temporary relief
1353
1354from  the  tedium  of  modern  life.  However,  these  stories  also  quickly 
1355
1356lose  their  power  to  excite,  reinforcing  the  blasé  attitude  and  stoking 
1357
1358the need for ever more extreme forms of stimulation. In the culture of
1359
1360modernity, then, periods of panic will alternate with periods of social
1361
1362rest, and journalism, especially yellow journalism, plays a key part in
1363
1364setting the rhythm. 12
1365
1366[/quote]
1367
1368
1369
1370
1371I would contrast this with the nevertheless highly related construct of mass hysteria, which I typically associate with a connotation more so like this:
1372
1373
1374https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morangos_com_A%C3%A7%C3%BAcar_Virus
1375
1376
1377[quote]
1378
1379The Morangos com Açúcar Virus (also known as the Soap Opera Virus) was initiated by an episode of the popular Portuguese teen soap opera entitled "Morangos com Açúcar" in which a terrible disease was introduced to the school attended by the characters in the series. The television show, which first premiered in March 2004, follows the stories of a group of "normal" teenage kids and the dramaticized ups and downs that they encounter in their daily lives, much like the Canadian drama series "Degrassi." Only a few days after the episode aired, a few teens began to develop symptoms similar to those depicted on the show. These symptoms included rashes, breathing troubles, and severe dizziness. Before long, the "disease" had spread to more than 300 high school students in 14 different Portuguese schools. Some schools were actually forced to temporarily close because of the severity of the outbreak. However, the Portuguese National Institute for Medical Emergency brushed the epidemic off, calling it a case of mass hysteria. Doctor Nelson Pereira, the director of the PNIME, said, "What we concretely have is a few children with allergies and apparently a phenomenon of many other children imitating." Another doctor, Mario Almeidi, pronounced his disbelief in the disease, saying "I know of no disease which is so selective that it only attacks school children."
1380
1381[/quote]
1382
1383
1384However, there are very many parallels between this event and a moral panic.
1385
1386
1387https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_opera
1388
1389
1390[quote]
1391
1392A soap opera or soap, is a serial drama on television or radio that examines the lives of many characters, usually focusing on emotional relationships to the point of melodrama.[1]
1393
1394[/quote]
1395
1396
1397http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/55/6/1245.abstract
1398
1399
1400[quote]
1401
1402Abstract
1403
1404
1405This paper argues that a narrative lens is conducive toward a renewed understanding of moral panic. It is proposed that a melodramatic narrative frame that is central to the construction of news stories about crime is significant for conceptualizing what moral panics are and how they work. The paper will propose that moral panics can be seen as enacted melodramas, where the traditional boundaries between newsmakers, interest groups and ‘the public’ are temporarily dismantled and where everyday citizens experience the role of the suffering victim. This understanding provides insight toward appreciating why only some issues develop into moral panic in particular spaces and times and offers a new framework with which to approach the study of panic.
1406
1407[/quote]
1408
1409
1410The larger number of adolescents imitating in response to a smaller number of children manifesting allergy symptoms (after being exposed to melodramatic priming of a similar sort) is also interesting, I've this excerpt on neurotypical children imitating as well:
1411
1412
1413http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/04/09/autistic-kids-tend-to-imitate-efficiently-not-socially/53604.html
1414
1415
1416[quote]
1417
1418Autistic Kids Tend to Imitate ‘Efficiently,’ Not ‘Socially’
1419
1420
1421Normally, kids copying adult behavior will go out of their way to repeat each and every element of the behavior even if they realize parts of it don’t make any sense.
1422
1423
1424But a new study shows that when a child with autism copies the actions of an adult, he or she is likely to omit anything “silly” about what they’ve just seen.
1425
1426[/quote]
1427
1428
1429This is also related I believe:
1430
1431
1432https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24126871
1433
1434
1435[quote]
1436
1437Abstract
1438
1439
1440Perhaps surprisingly, given the importance of conformity as a theoretical construct in social psychology and the profound implications autism has for social function, little research has been done on whether autism is associated with the propensity to conform to a social majority. This study is a modern, child-friendly implementation of the classic Asch conformity studies. The performance of 15 children with autism was compared to that of 15 typically developing children on a line judgement task. Children were matched for age, gender and numeracy and literacy ability. In each trial, the child had to say which of three lines a comparison line matched in length. On some trials, children were misled as to what most people thought the answer was. Children with autism were much less likely to conform in the misleading condition than typically developing children. This finding was replicated using a continuous measure of autism traits, the Autism Quotient questionnaire, which showed that autism traits negatively correlated with likelihood to conform in the typically developing group. This study demonstrates the resistance of children with autism to social pressure.
1441
1442[/quote]
1443
1444[hr]
1445
1446This may be related as well:
1447
1448
1449http://www.haraldmerckelbach.nl/artikelen_engels/2012/susceptibility_to_misleading_information_in_schizophrenia.pdf
1450
1451
1452[quote]
1453
1454Research looking at specific memory aberrations in the schizophrenia has primarily focused on their phenomenology using standardized semantic laboratory tasks. However, no study has investigated to what extent such aberrations have consequences for everyday episodic memories using more realistic false memory paradigms. Using a false memory paradigm where participants are presented with misleading suggestive information (Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale), we investigated the susceptibility of patients with schizophrenia (n = 21) and healthy controls (n = 18) to post hoc misleading information acceptance and compliance.
1455
1456
1457Patients with schizophrenia exhibited an increased susceptibility to go along with misleading suggestive items. Furthermore, they showed an increased tendency to change answers under conditions of social pressure. Underscoring previous findings on memory aberrations in schizophrenia, patients with schizophrenia had reduced levels of correct recognition (ie, true memory) relative to healthy controls. The effects remained stable when controlling for specific mediating variables such as symptom severity and intelligence in patients with schizophrenia. These findings are a first indication that social pressure and misleading information may impair source memory for everyday episodic memories in schizophrenia, and such impairment has
1458
1459clear consequences for treatment issues and forensic practice.
1460
1461[/quote]
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466Some events seem to be hybrids of mass hysteria and moral panic it is hard to precisely classify them:
1467
1468
1469https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/pizzagate-from-rumor-to-hashtag-to-gunfire-in-dc/2016/12/06/4c7def50-bbd4-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html
1470
1471
1472[quote]
1473
1474What was finally real was Edgar Welch, driving from North Carolina to Washington to rescue sexually abused children he believed were hidden in mysterious tunnels beneath a neighborhood pizza joint.
1475
1476
1477What was real was Welch — a father, former firefighter and sometime movie actor who was drawn to dark mysteries he found on the Internet — terrifying customers and workers with his assault-style rifle as he searched Comet Ping Pong, police said. He found no hidden children, no secret chambers, no evidence of a child sex ring run by the failed Democratic candidate for president of the United States, or by her campaign chief, or by the owner of the pizza place.
1478
1479
1480What was false were the rumors he had read, stories that crisscrossed the globe about a charming little pizza place that features ping-pong tables in its back room.
1481
1482
1483The story of Pizzagate is about what is fake and what is real. It’s a tale of a scandal that never was, and of a fear that has spread through channels that did not even exist until recently.
1484
1485
1486Pizzagate — the belief that code words and satanic symbols point to a sordid underground along an ordinary retail strip in the nation’s capital — is possible only because science has produced the most powerful tools ever invented to find and disseminate information.
1487
1488[/quote]
1489
1490
1491And just to be complete, examples of a social mania are the following:
1492
1493
1494https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_dance
1495
1496
1497[quote]
1498
1499The Ghost Dance (Caddo: Nanissáanah,[1] also called the Ghost Dance of 1890) was a new religious movement incorporated into numerous American Indian belief systems.
1500
1501[/quote]
1502
1503
1504https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion
1505
1506
1507[quote]
1508
1509The Taiping Rebellion or the Taiping Civil War was a large-scale rebellion or civil war in China waged from 1850 to 1864 between the established Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom under Hong Xiuquan.
1510
1511
1512The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was an oppositional state based in Tianjing (present-day Nanjing) with a Christian millenarian agenda to initiate a major transformation of society. A self-proclaimed convert to Christianity, Hong Xiuquan led an army that controlled a significant part of southern China during the middle of the 19th century, eventually expanding to command a population base of nearly 30 million people.
1513
1514
1515Devolving into total war—with any and all civilian-associated resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets—the conflict was the largest in China since the Qing conquest in 1644, and it also ranks as one of the bloodiest wars in human history, the bloodiest civil war, and the largest conflict of the 19th century, with estimates of the war dead ranging from 20–70 million to as high as 100 million, with millions more displaced.[5]
1516
1517[/quote]
1518
1519
1520I will mention as well this phenomenon, which is a recognized outbreak of mass socially convergent psychosis that has not been characterized as a moral panic, mass hysteria, or social mania, but rather appears to be a clustering of traditional full blown schizophrenics and so on:
1521
1522
1523https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/11/health/gang-stalking-targeted-individuals.html
1524
1525
1526[quote]
1527
1528A growing tribe of troubled minds
1529
1530
1531Mental health professionals say the narrative has taken hold among a group of people experiencing psychotic symptoms that have troubled the human mind since time immemorial. Except now victims are connecting on the internet, organizing and defying medical explanations for what’s happening to them.
1532
1533
1534The community, conservatively estimated to exceed 10,000 members, has proliferated since 9/11, cradled by the internet and fed by genuine concerns over government surveillance. A large number appear to have delusional disorder or schizophrenia, psychiatrists say.
1535
1536
1537Yet, the phenomenon remains virtually unresearched.
1538
1539
1540For the few specialists who have looked closely, these individuals represent an alarming development in the history of mental illness: thousands of sick people, banded together and demanding recognition on the basis of shared paranoias.
1541
1542
1543They raise money, hold awareness campaigns, host international conferences and fight for their causes in courts and legislatures
1544
1545
1546Perhaps their biggest victory came last year, when believers in Richmond, Calif., persuaded the City Council to pass a resolution banning space-based weapons that they believe could be used for mind control. A similar lobbying effort is underway in Tucson.
1547
1548[/quote]
1549
1550
1551There are other movements that may be in this style or may be other mass psychosis phenomena:
1552
1553
1554http://www.rawstory.com/2015/04/we-dont-need-science-chemtrail-truthers-badger-gop-congressman-at-rowdy-public-meeting/
1555
1556
1557[quote]
1558
1559In a contentious back and forth with constituents at a public meeting in Kingman, Arizona, a Republican congressman tried to allay fears over so-called chemtrails only to have his explanations swatted away with one man yelling, “We don’t need science!”
1560
1561
1562Arizona has become Ground Zero for conspiracy theorists who claim that the government or the “New World Order” is attempting to control the populace and the environment by spraying chemicals into the air from passing airplanes.
1563
1564
1565Rep. Paul Gosar attended the meeting on Tuesday to listen to constituents express concerns on a variety of topics, but the meeting grew heated when the topic of chemtrails came up.
1566
1567
1568“My name is Al DiCicco, and my question is related to our environment here in Arizona,” one man said while standing in the hall festooned with mounted animal heads.” For the past several years we’ve been testing people’s blood, hair follicles, rainwater, and soil…” at which point Gosar interrupted him and asked, “What group are you with?”
1569
1570
1571“I’m not in a group, you know what I mean. I’ve been involved in opposing geo-engineering projects above Arizona as well as elsewhere,” the man explained. “We have a serious situation here, where we have submitted information to the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality whose own mission statement is to protect our environment, including our air, and, you’re talking about granddkids? Yes, I have three kids and I have my own life.”
1572
1573
1574With his voice rising, the man continued, “My body is filled with barium, aluminum, and strontium, and nobody is doing anything about it. That’s why I’m here today. Because we want answers and we want something done instead of being placated and have people make fun of us about tin-foil hats. Well, go get your blood tested. You’ll throw your tin-foil hat away, as well as your jokes. This is a serious matter.”
1575
1576
1577Indicating the audience, he said, “We all are aware that geo-engineering and solar radiation management is going on worldwide. My questions is: what are you going to do about it, and when?”
1578
1579
1580Following applause from the assembled crowd, Gosar asked, “Okay, who are science guys here?”
1581
1582
1583“We don’t need science,” DiCicco yelled from the back of the room stunning the congressman who replied, “Really?”
1584
1585
1586Admitting that he too “doesn’t trust our government,” Gosar admonished the crowd about blaming the United Nations, while pointing out that barium and uranium are “ambient” chemical elements already found in high concentrations in the Grand Canyon state.
1587
1588
1589After a woman interrupts him to say, “We’re talking about what is being dispensed by aircraft,” Gosar replies, “Well, there is nothing there.”
1590
1591
1592As the woman attempts to explain, “There’s covert operations…” Gosar screws up his face and says, “Yeah, come on.”
1593
1594
1595While admitting that he has concerns, Gosar tells the crowd, “In some ways I have to start trusting the National Institute for Health,” as the woman continues to shout, saying “we’ve all been studying it” along with “millions of people all around the world.”
1596
1597[/quote]
1598
1599
1600http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/climate-engineering-weather-warfare-and-the-collapse-of-civilization/
1601
1602
1603[quote]
1604
1605CLIMATE ENGINEERING WEATHER WARFARE, AND THE COLLAPSE OF CIVILIZATION
1606
1607
1608Planet Earth is under an all out weather warfare assault. In this video, Dane Wigington gives another presentation in Northern California on the harmful effects of Geoengineering, declaring that there is virtually NO NATURAL WEATHER due to the massive global climate engineering. The very essentials needed to sustain life on earth are being recklessly destroyed by these programs. This is not a topic that will begin to affect us in several years, but is now already causing massive animal and plant die off around the world, as well as human illness. read more
1609
1610[/quote]
1611
1612
1613This is interesting and somewhat related as well:
1614
1615
1616https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jmbwp4/how-is-the-internet-changing-schizophrenia-915
1617
1618
1619[quote]
1620
1621How People with Schizophrenia Use the Internet
1622
1623Those suffering from delusions can find support groups online, but they can also come across shoddy information and scams that can trigger their conditions.
1624
1625
1626Last month, a Dutch 19-year-old identified only as "Tarik Z" stormed a TV station with what turned out to be a fake gun and demanded air time. Then he just stood there in his suit and tie, muttering for a few minutes, until a SWAT team ran in and arrested him on live TV. He later claimed to have mounted the assault on behalf of a hacker collective who were in turn working for Dutch intelligence, though the police said he acted alone.
1627
1628...
1629
1630What starts out as simple informative research can quickly become a major trip down a conspiracy rabbit hole. "I remember one [survey respondent] telling me about looking up every single word, and going deeper and deeper and deeper," Schrank said. And conspiracies are only harmless until you put your health on the line.
1631
1632[/quote]
1633
1634
1635It should be noted that schizophrenia seems to be highly related to all of these phenomena:
1636
1637
1638http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume7/j7_3_5.htm
1639
1640
1641[quote]
1642
1643Paranoid delusions typically incorporate the scapegoats of the era. In
1644
1645World War II, paranoids were persecuted by Nazi spies. From the 1950s to
1646
1647the 1980s, Communists were the typical persecutors of paranoids. Since the
1648
1649early 1980s, with the breakdown of the Communist empire, sex abusers have
1650
1651become the most common persecutors for paranoids.
1652
1653[/quote]
1654
1655
1656Case Study of a Pseudoreality - The Anti Vaccination Movement
1657
1658
1659The anti vaccination movement is an excellent case study of this phenomenon, due to the fact that they are (in most of the world) widely recognized as being a fraudulent movement. The anti vaccination movement is in fact a complex phenomenon including numerous perspectives that range from the apparently classically schizophrenic to ideologically based anti-utilitarian (which is not necessarily even involving pseudoreality, seeing as it is possible to have awareness of the situation regarding vaccines and to still be either against them or particularly against their mandated administration, which would be a much less interesting political belief as opposed to a belief in pseudoreality). In general, I refer to the anti vaccination movement components that believe in pseudoreality, either due to being classically schizophrenic or due to being socially convergent socioculturally primed schizophrenics (ie: neurotypicals).
1660
1661
1662An example of a more schizophrenic leaning piece of material associated with the anti vaccination movement:
1663
1664
1665http://themillenniumreport.com/2016/06/the-vaccine-conspiracy-u-s-government-colludes-with-big-pharma-to-poison-the-america-people-2/
1666
1667
1668[quote]
1669
1670THE VACCINE CONSPIRACY: U.S. Government Colludes With BIG Pharma To Poison The American People
1671
1672[/quote]
1673
1674
1675Although arguably this is not far removed from the rhetoric of much of the anti vaccination movement, it is still arguably skewed more so toward schizophrenic type ideation. In the United States, if memory serves (I was unable to find this citation again), no more than 9% of the population (at the highest estimate) is anti vaccination (and only a percent or two at lower estimates). Of these individuals, it is unknown how many believe in pseudoreality versus how many simply have a political stance against vaccination (for example, due to vaccination actually being a form of active utilitarianism, or due to thoughts regarding personal liberty, or what have you). Of the adherents to the anti vaccination movement who believe in pseudoreality, some of them may not believe in the pseudoreality that is most associated with the anti vaccination movement, but rather in an orthogonal pseudoreality (eg: a traditional religion) that prohibits the use of vaccines.
1676
1677
1678In France the situation is substantially different, with almost half of the population being associated with anti vaccination ideology.
1679
1680
1681https://www.theverge.com/science/2017/7/13/15964628/france-vaccination-skeptic-law-vaccine-mandate
1682
1683
1684[quote]
1685
1686But some experts question whether a vaccination mandate will sway public opinion in France, where distrust in vaccines has risen alarmingly in recent years. In a survey published last year, 41 percent of respondents in France disagreed with the statement that vaccines are safe — the highest rate of distrust among the 67 countries that were surveyed, and more than three times higher than the global average.
1687
1688[/quote]
1689
1690
1691Again, caution must be taken in interpreting this figure. 41% of French respondents indicating that they don't believe vaccines are safe is not the same thing as 41% of French individuals believing in the pseudoreality of the anti vaccination movement. Nevertheless, it seems as if there is substantial belief in the pseudoreality of the anti vaccination movement in France (though it may be at least partially a French variant of the themed fantasy world as opposed to the more English variant I've focused on primarily). It is worth keeping in mind as well that there are some risks with vaccines as with any other exogenously introduced substance, and that very rarely (approximately one in a million) there are severe adverse idiosyncratic reactions that could result in death (as is the case with acetaminophen, peanuts, and so forth).
1692
1693
1694https://impact.vice.com/en_us/article/evvnen/france-is-fighting-the-anti-vaxxer-movement-with-actual-science
1695
1696
1697[quote]
1698
1699"It feels like we're back in the '40s when vaccines were widely contested," Professor François Chast -- a leading pro-vaccine activist and head of the Hotel-Dieu clinic in Paris - told VICE Impact. "How did we get here? The idea that all information is equal."
1700
1701[/quote]
1702
1703
1704https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160323151838.htm
1705
1706
1707[quote]
1708
1709"These findings," Friedman continued, "are consistent with the philosophical view, espoused by (Immanuel) Kant, according to which there are two distinct types of truth: empirical and moral."
1710
1711[/quote]
1712
1713
1714https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_entrepreneur
1715
1716
1717[quote]
1718
1719Social position determines one's ability to define and construct reality; therefore, the higher one's social position, the greater his or her moral value.
1720
1721[/quote]
1722
1723
1724In general, the anti vaccination movement operates in the following fashion, which is very common for outbreaks of mass psychosis:
1725
1726
1727
1728
1729
1730This is to my perception a manifestation of the delusional imagination:
1731
1732
1733https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14633423
1734
1735
1736[quote]
1737
1738The author tries to differentiate intuitive imagination from delusional imagination and hypothesises that psychosis alters the system of intuitive thinking, which consequently cannot develop in a dynamic and selective way.
1739
1740...
1741
1742In the analysis of psychotic patients it is very important to analyse the delusional imagination which dominates the personality and continuously transforms the mental state, twisting emotional truth. The delusional imagination is so deeply rooted in the patient's mental functioning that, even after systematic analysis, the delusional world, which had seemed to disappear, re-emerges under new configurations. The psychotic core remains encapsulated; it produces unsteadiness and may induce further psychotic states in the patient.
1743
1744[/quote]
1745
1746
1747It should be noted that multiple preliminary studies have not detected an over reliance on intuition (which is linked to the DMN and system 1 cognition) in the adherents to the anti vaccination movement:
1748
1749
1750https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4556675/
1751
1752
1753[quote]
1754
1755Increasing attention is being paid to individual differences in the willingness to thinking analytically about problems, which is counter-indicative of susceptibility to biases in judgement and decision making [40]. The Cognitive Reflection Test [41] (CRT), in particular, has been shown to have high predictive efficacy; predicting the ability to choose options with higher expected value and resistance to the logical fallacies described above [42,43]. Such measures fall within dual-process theories of human cognition, which distinguish between “intuitive” reasoning; which is fast, automatic and does not require working memory; and “analytical” reasoning, which is slow, deliberative, and requires working memory [44]. An analytical mode of reasoning, associated with more sound empirical and causal judgements, might be expected to yield a more favourable evaluation of vaccination in line with available evidence. However, no research has specifically considered individual differences in cognitive style and reasoning as factors predicting attitudes towards vaccination.
1756
1757...
1758
1759Previous research is highly suggestive regarding the impact of psychosocial factors that may determine formation of attitudes towards vaccination. The current study is based on the supposition that negative attitudes towards vaccination may be influenced primarily by cultural and psychosocial factors, rather than by evidence-based analytic reasoning. We aimed to test this idea, and gauge the relative impact of these factors through bivariate and multivariate associations in a cross-sectional design. Specifically, the present study aimed to assess the degree to which rejection of vaccination is associated with four cognitive and social factors:
1760
1761
1762Lowered willingness to consider the empirical evidence (indicated by an intuitive rather than analytical cognitive style)
1763
1764...
1765
1766A significant effect for analytic versus intuitive cognitive style was not found; suggesting that it is a cultural and personal orientation, rather than cognitive ability, that has a direct influence on vaccination attitudes.
1767
1768[/quote]
1769
1770
1771However, as I covered in another thread more thoroughly, the test they used would only detect a generalized over reliance on the system of intuitive thinking, whereas what we would expect of neurotypicals is actually a socioculturally conditioned over reliance on intuition:
1772
1773
1774http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0149989
1775
1776
1777[quote]
1778
1779Engaging social stimuli are associated with activation of the DMN and deactivation of the TPN, whereas analytic problems are associated with activation of the TPN and deactivation of the DMN.
1780
1781[/quote]
1782
1783
1784https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4805169/
1785
1786
1787[quote]
1788
1789Finally, we have demonstrated that attention to engaging social stimuli not only activates the DMN but also deactivates the TPN. In a subsequent study[30] it was shown that this pattern of DMN activation and TPN deactivation was present for humanizing depictions of individuals, whereas dehumanizing depictions, which are associated with decreased moral concern, either involved decreased activity in the DMN or increased activity in the TPN. Taken together, these findings suggest that we are neurologically https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/vaccination-campaign-antivaccination-movement-triggers-resurgence-of-deadly-disease/news-story/40deacef6b5523a688683f9ebf023cec from simultaneously exercising moral concern and analytic thinking.
1790
1791[/quote]
1792
1793
1794Although there is substantial preliminary evidence that the adherents to the anti vaccination movement do not have a generalized over reliance on intuition / DMN / system 1 cognition, this research looking for generalized over reliance would not detect socioculturally conditioned over reliance due to the fact that they did not use socioculturally primed stimuli in their experiments.
1795
1796
1797This sequence of excerpts describes how the anti vaccination movement has indeed created an alternate reality, which is what I call a pseudoreality:
1798
1799
1800http://jhppl.dukejournals.org/content/37/1/69.short
1801
1802
1803[quote]
1804
1805The last dozen years have seen a massive transnational mobilization of the legal, political, and research communities in response to the worrisome hypothesis that vaccines could have a link to childhood autism and other developmental conditions. Vaccine critics, some already organized and some composed of newly galvanized parents, developed an alternate world of internally legitimating studies, blogs, conferences, publications, and spokespeople to affirm a connection.
1806
1807[/quote]
1808
1809
1810[quote]
1811
1812As I have noted above, there is indeed a complex community of researchers, journals, and articles to point to, facts to recite, conferences to attend, and professional groups to connect with that supply a great deal of internal legitimacy
1813
1814[/quote]
1815
1816
1817Internal legitimacy is a good term to use, because pseudorealities are commonly highly self referential. What they are not is referential to the state of the singular actual existence. It is very common for one part of pseudoreality to reference another part. Eventually you are left with an enormous collection of themed materials that oftentimes do reference each other such that you can follow out citation chains or whatnot, and this creates an internally substantially consistent system that can be learned, yet that does not correlate to the state of actual existence and is akin to learning about any other fantasy world.
1818
1819
1820https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield#Vaxxed
1821
1822
1823
1824[quote]
1825
1826Dr Ian Lipkin, professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, writing in The Wall Street Journal, said: "If Vaxxed had been submitted as science fiction, it would merit attention for its story line, character development and dialogue. But as a documentary it misrepresents what science knows about autism, undermines public confidence in the safety and efficacy of vaccines, and attacks the integrity of legitimate scientists and public-health officials".[149]
1827
1828[/quote]
1829
1830
1831In addition to such conferences, blogs, documentaries, and so forth, they also have a substantial collection of pseudoscientific papers:
1832
1833
1834http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/cdc-whistleblower-zombie-anti-vaccine-trope-still-lives/
1835
1836
1837[quote]
1838
1839Next come the statistics. Hooker uses Pearson’s chi squared test to see if there is a significant association between MMR and autism in children at different ages. DeStefano et al used conditional logistic regression. For the non-biostatisticians out there, the technique that DeStefano et al used accounts for confounders and effect modifiers, different traits in their population that could skew the results. Hooker’s technique doesn’t really do that, unless you stratify results and use very, very large datasets. Hooker’s approach is more “conservative,” meaning that it will detect small effects and amplify them, and those effects can come from anything.
1840
1841
1842So why did we not see this in the other ethnic groups or in girls? The answer here is simple, again. Hooker had a limited dataset to work with when he boiled it down to African-American baby boys. In this table, for example, he tells us that he had to modify the analysis to 31 months instead of 36 because he had less than 5 children in that group. It’s the same goddamned mistake that Andrew Jeremy Wakefield wanted to pass off as legitimate science. You cannot, and must not use small numbers to make big assertions.
1843
1844[/quote]
1845
1846
1847That have no validity and have been scientifically refuted:
1848
1849
1850http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/dailydose/12/04/autism.mercury/
1851
1852
1853[quote]
1854
1855Years ago, people made predictions -- by removing thimerosal, the number of cases of autism should decrease -- therefore showing that thimerosal is a cause of autism. This new study puts that idea in jeopardy. Similar studies have been done in Canada and Denmark with the same results: thimerosal was removed, but autism is still on the rise. This is a strong message; it very clearly shows, and reassures, that autism did not arrive through a vaccine.
1856
1857[/quote]
1858
1859[hr]
1860
1861http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20010423/autism-mmr-vaccine-link
1862
1863
1864[quote]
1865
1866Both the CDC and the National Institutes of Health asked the Immunization Review Safety Committee to evaluate the autism-MMR connection. The IOM committee then reached its conclusion about MMR and autism, which is similar to the conclusions made by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization.
1867
1868
1869After reviewing the existing literature, the panel could find no biological mechanism for the vaccine-disease relationship, nor could members justify the theory that a viral infection like measles, triggered by the vaccine, could produce bowel inflammation that may leak into a person's system and produce a kind of brain poisoning.
1870
1871[/quote]
1872
1873
1874However, evidence is meaningless to the adherents to the anti vaccination movement:
1875
1876
1877http://www.skepticalob.com/2016/09/are-anti-vaccine-parents-in-the-grip-of-mass-hysteria.html
1878
1879
1880[quote]
1881
1882Are anti-vaccine parents in the grip of mass hysteria?
1883
1884
1885Welcome to Salem road sign illustration, with distressed foreboding background
1886
1887
1888Vaccination is one the greatest public health advances of all time.
1889
1890
1891[It has saved, and continues to save, literally millions of lives each year, yet many well meaning parents have become convinced that vaccines are harmful and there is no amount of scientific evidence that can convince them otherwise.
1892
1893[/quote]
1894
1895
1896So let us talk now about the genesis of the modern anti vaccination movement (specifically the English variant that is in the modern era):
1897
1898
1899https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/wakefield-fights-back/
1900
1901
1902[quote]
1903
1904Dr. Andrew Wakefield was almost single-handedly responsible for frightening the public about a possible association between autism and the MMR vaccine. His alarmist recommendations directly led to lower vaccination rates and a resurgence of measles to endemic levels in the UK. The MMR/autism interpretation of his 1998 article in The Lancet was retracted by 10 of his 12 co-authors. The article itself was “fully retracted from the public record” by The Lancet. And now Wakefield has lost his license to practice medicine after the General Medical Council’s exhaustive 2½-year review of his ethical conduct.
1905
1906[/quote]
1907
1908
1909https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/jenny-mccarthy-jim-carrey-and-green-our-vaccines-anti-vaccine-not-pro-safe-vaccine/
1910
1911
1912[quote]
1913
1914Like Steve Novella, I have no doubt that Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey mean well, but I agree that it’s not enough to mean well. There’s a famous saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. My usually corollary to this saying is that good intentions coupled with misinformation and self-righteousness are the straightest and surest route to hell that I can think of, and among the best examples of this corollary are parents who have been misled by the pseudoscience of the cottage industry of autism quackery that depends on the belief that vaccines cause autism for its profitability.
1915
1916[/quote]
1917
1918
1919And the damage caused by the belief in this pseudoreality is substantial:
1920
1921
1922http://www.antivaccinebodycount.com/
1923
1924
1925[quote]
1926
1927Number of Preventable Deaths
1928
1929
19309028
1931
1932
1933From june 3, 2007 to Julu 18, 2015
1934
1935
1936
1937The United States Anti-Vaccination Movement is composed of a variety of individuals ranging from former doctors who should know better, to semi-celebrities who have no medical training, to anti-government conspiracy theorists who distrust anything that the government says. They all hold onto the mistaken belief that autism is caused by receiving childhood vaccines.
1938
1939
1940Most anti-vaccination believers claim that the compound Thimerosal led to an increase in autism cases. The Measles/Mumps/Rubella vaccine is their usual target. However, Thimerosal was never used as a preservative in the Measles/Mumps/Rubella vaccine. No vaccine licensed since 1999 has contained Thimerosal as a preservative, except a few multi-dose container vaccines such as some (but not all) HIB and Influenza vaccines. Autism has not declined since 1999, thereby disproving this connection. However, this has not stopped anti-vaccination believers from claiming that it was the MMR vaccine itself that caused autism or that it was vaccines in general that caused autism. All of these ideas have been disproven in multiple scientific and legal examinations of the evidence. The primary scientific reason for the increase in autism diagnoses is due to more disorders being included in the Autism Spectrum and doctors getting better at diagnosing the characteristics of autism.
1941
1942
1943In 2007 there was an increase in celebrities promoting anti-vaccination rhetoric. Because of their celebrity status they appeared on several television shows and published multiple books advising parents not to vaccinate their children. This has led to an increase in the number of vaccine preventable illnesses as well as an increase in the number of vaccine preventable deaths.
1944
1945
1946The Anti-Vaccination Movement has a body count attached to its name. This website publishes the total number of vaccine preventable illnesses and vaccine preventable deaths that have happened in the United States since this 2007 increase in speaking out against vaccines.
1947
1948
1949Is the United States Anti-Vaccination Movement directly responsible for every vaccine preventable illness and every vaccine preventable death listed here? No. However, the United States Anti-Vaccination Movement may be indirectly responsible for at least some of these illnesses and deaths and even one vaccine preventable illness or vaccine preventable death is too many.
1950
1951[/quote]
1952
1953
1954http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/one-map-sums-damage-caused-anti-vaccination-movement/
1955
1956
1957[quote]
1958
1959Vaccinations are one of the of most incredible aspects of modern medicine. They can make previously lethal diseases disappear from society and save countless lives. There is, however, a chance that the vaccines work a little too well and our collective memory is too short to remember the devastating effects some of these diseases caused just a few short decades ago. Recently, for reasons that are not based on science or logic, many parents have outspokenly rejected vaccinating their children. Unfortunately, this has caused a reemergence of easily managed diseases. The Council on Foreign Relations has released an interactive map detailing the catastrophic outcome of these poor choices.
1960
1961[/quote]
1962
1963
1964Case Study of a Pseudoreality - The Sex Cult
1965
1966
1967'The Sex Cult' is an umbrella term that refers to a dispersed loosely connected network of individuals who arguably have their origin as a social structure traced back to the late 19th century. Although there is a generally superordinate Sex Cult, there have also been numerous episodes of mass psychotic decompensation related to sexual matters that may or may not be directly linked to the superordinate Sex Cult. Note that the Sex Cult is concerned primarily with 'human trafficking' and 'child pornography', they are not to my knowledge involved with the moral panics that have been related to homosexuals.
1968
1969
1970The Sex Cult has been identified as consisting primarily of a network of feminists and evangelical Christians:
1971
1972
1973https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/oct/20/trafficking-numbers-women-exaggerated
1974
1975
1976[quote]
1977
1978There is something familiar about the tide of misinformation which has swept through the subject of sex trafficking in the UK: it flows through exactly the same channels as the now notorious torrent about Saddam Hussein's weapons.
1979
1980...
1981
1982In both cases, the cycle has been driven by political opportunists and interest groups in pursuit of an agenda. In the case of sex trafficking, the role of the neo-conservatives and Iraqi exiles has been played by an unlikely union of evangelical Christians with feminist campaigners, who pursued the trafficking tale to secure their greater goal, not of regime change, but of legal change to abolish all prostitution. The sex trafficking story is a model of misinformation. It began to take shape in the mid 1990s, when the collapse of economies in the old Warsaw Pact countries saw the working flats of London flooded with young women from eastern Europe. Soon, there were rumours and media reports that attached a new word to these women. They had been "trafficked".
1983
1984[/quote]
1985
1986
1987As an aside, note that when groups converge like this it is typically best thought of in terms of netwar:
1988
1989
1990https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1382/MR1382.ch7.pdf
1991
1992
1993[quote]
1994
1995Net-works, as opposed to institutions, are shaped by decentralized com-
1996
1997mand and control structures, are resistant to “decapitation” attacks
1998
1999targeting leaders, and are amorphous enough to weld together coali-
2000
2001tions with significantly different agendas while concentrating forces
2002
2003on a single symbolic target.
2004
2005[/quote]
2006
2007
2008This characterization is to my knowledge primarily correct, however those who are neither feminist nor evangelical Christians are believers in the pseudoreality of the Sex Cult. The earliest knowledge I have of such a network that engaged in such mannerisms is traced back to the late 19th century:
2009
2010
2011https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Maiden_Tribute_of_Modern_Babylon
2012
2013
2014[quote]
2015
2016"The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon" was a series of highly controversial newspaper articles on child prostitution that appeared in The Pall Mall Gazette in July 1885.
2017
2018
2019Written by crusading editor W. T. Stead, the series was a tour de force of Victorian journalism. With sensational crossheads, such as "The Violation of Virgins" and "Strapping Girls Down", the Maiden Tribute threw respectable Victorians into a state of moral panic, and achieved, as a consequence, the implementation of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, which raised the age of consent for girls from 13 to 16, and also re-criminalised homosexual acts.
2020
2021[/quote]
2022
2023
2024https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Karen_Franklin2/publication/49638386_Hebephilia_quintessence_of_diagnostic_pretextuality/links/540738350cf2bba34c1e948e.pdf
2025
2026
2027[quote]
2028
2029In a subsequent study, Freund confirmed the normalcy of sexual arousal to
2030
2031adolescents. His subjects were 48 young Czech soldiers, all presumed to be ‘‘normal’’
2032
2033and heterosexual in orientation. He showed the men pictures of children (ages 4–10
2034
2035years old), adolescents (ages 12–16), and adults (ages 17–36). As expected, most of the
2036
2037heterosexual men were sexually aroused by photos of both adult and adolescent
2038
2039females. They were not aroused by pictures of males of any age, and were aroused at an
2040
2041intermediate level by pictures of children (Freund & Costell, 1970).
2042
2043[/quote]
2044
2045
2046https://philiaresearch.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/study-men-downplay-their-attraction-to-adolescent-girls/
2047
2048
2049[quote]
2050
2051A new study of Bulgarian men has replicated a previous 2013 experiment on British men. In both studies, the same photographs of adolescent girls (Tanner stages 3-4) were shown to one group of men labelled as age 14-15, and a different set of men labelled as age 16-17. Subjects reported more sexual attraction when the photographs were labelled as 16-17. The researchers conclude:
2052
2053
2054[T]he consistent finding that the same photographs of younger females, but with different age labels, were assigned significantly different levels of attractiveness suggests that cognitive factors beyond biologically driven sexual attraction were involved in making these ratings. In all the three samples, apparently younger girls were rated as less attractive than older girls despite being the same photographs. We hypothesize that this difference reflects some self-censoring mechanism involved in making such judgments. This may involve a form of comparison between participants’ own sexual attraction to the individual girl and the likely social norms surrounding this judgment.
2055
2056
2057This finding has now been replicated across four samples, including one that is yet to be reported.
2058
2059[/quote]
2060
2061
2062https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160323151838.htm
2063
2064
2065[quote]
2066
2067"These findings," Friedman continued, "are consistent with the philosophical view, espoused by (Immanuel) Kant, according to which there are two distinct types of truth: empirical and moral."
2068
2069[/quote]
2070
2071
2072https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_entrepreneur
2073
2074
2075[quote]
2076
2077Social position determines one's ability to define and construct reality; therefore, the higher one's social position, the greater his or her moral value.
2078
2079[/quote]
2080
2081
2082en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomas_Stead
2083
2084
2085[quote]
2086
2087He was born in Embleton, Northumberland, the son of a Congregational minister, the Rev William Stead and Isabella (née Jobson), a cultivated daughter of a Yorkshire farmer.
2088
2089[/quote]
2090
2091
2092http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/case-studies/230
2093
2094
2095[quote]
2096
2097At the end of 19th century, moral reformers drew the age of consent into campaigns against prostitution. Revelations of child prostitution were central to those campaigns, a situation that resulted, reformers argued, from men taking advantage of the innocence of girls just over the age of consent. W. T. Stead's series of articles entitled, "The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon," published in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1885, was the most sensational and influential of these exposés.
2098
2099
2100The outcry it provoked pushed British legislators to raise the age of consent to 16 years, and stirred reformers in the U.S, such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the British Empire, and Europe to push for similar legislation. By 1920, Anglo-American legislators had responded by increasing the age of consent to 16 years, and even as high as 18 years.
2101
2102[/quote]
2103
2104
2105https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman%27s_Christian_Temperance_Union
2106
2107
2108[quote]
2109
2110The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an active temperance organization that was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program that "linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far-reaching reform strategies based on applied Christianity."[1] It was influential in the temperance movement, and supported the 18th Amendment.
2111
2112[/quote]
2113
2114
2115Personally, I think of them as being in this manner:
2116
2117
2118
2119As a slight aside, I should mention pizzagate just toward completeness, however I do not believe that pizzagate is properly considered as a part of the Sex Cult, though there may be some mixing between these pseudorealities at this point:
2120
2121
2122https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/pizzagate-from-rumor-to-hashtag-to-gunfire-in-dc/2016/12/06/4c7def50-bbd4-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html
2123
2124
2125[quote]
2126
2127An oddly disproportionate share of the tweets about Pizzagate appear to have come from, of all places, the Czech Republic, Cyprus and Vietnam, said Jonathan Albright, an assistant professor of media analytics at Elon University in North Carolina. In some cases, the most avid retweeters appeared to be bots, programs designed to amplify certain news and information.
2128
2129
2130“What bots are doing is really getting this thing trending on Twitter,” Albright said. “These bots are providing the online crowds that are providing legitimacy.”
2131
2132
2133Online, the more something is retweeted or otherwise shared, the more prominently it appears in social media and on sites that track “trending” news. As the bots joined ordinary Twitter users in pushing out Pizzagate-related rumors, the notion spread like wildfire. Who programmed the bots to focus on that topic remains unknown.
2134
2135[/quote]
2136
2137
2138As I said, there have been numerous outbreaks of pseudoreality in relation to these matters, and it is therefore hard to create a single cohesive picture of any given segment of the pseudoreality of the Sex Cult (or to even identify a discrete Sex Cult). It is similar to traditional religion however, in that although there are many variants and some of them are largely unrelated to each other, they still have belief in the same general themed make believe fantasy world. An example of one episode that I am uncertain of its integration into the broader outbreak of mass psychosis:
2139
2140
2141ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume4/j4_2_1.htm
2142
2143
2144[quote]
2145
2146Nevertheless, Mr. Wilting's claims appeared to be confirmed in May 1987, when the large child pornography scandal broke out in the village of Oude Pekela11 in the northern province of Groningen. Dozens of children were said to have been enticed away by child pornographers dressed as clowns, and then abused, filmed and drugged before being returned to parents who, it was later reported, had never noticed anything. Claims of sacrificial offerings, and drinking of blood and satanism12 were overshadowed by the stories of pornography manufacture, which touched a sensitive chord among Dutch people.
2147
2148[/quote]
2149
2150[hr]
2151
2152Note the striking similarities between this outbreak and a related outbreak that happened in the same general time period in the United States:
2153
2154
2155https://psmag.com/satan-has-no-interest-in-molesting-your-kids-97adc0fc26d8
2156
2157
2158[quote]
2159
2160Victorian-style devil outrage reached a fever pitch in the family-values 1980s. In his 2015 book We Believe the Children: A Moral Panic in the 1980s, author Richard Beck tells the story of a series of allegations of ritualized Satanic child abuse in daycare centers around the country. Through painstaking elicitation, police, prosecutors, and investigators managed to get children to testify to all sorts of unthinkable violations. Not just sexual assault: There were allegations of gamified animal torture and vast networks of child porn production and distribution. And, of course, the devil.
2161
2162
2163I asked Beck if in all his exhaustive research he had been able to track down a single instance of verified Satanic ritual child abuse. “No,” says. “My editor and I joked that the book would sell better if I could find an actual case, but as far as I could find it never happened.” Since they didn’t occur in reality, the infernal elements had to be products of adult interpretation and suggestion. Yet whole municipalities managed to convince themselves that there were hidden networks of devil worship and child abuse in their own backyards. How did they accomplish such a feat?
2164
2165[/quote]
2166
2167
2168https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/06/23/satanic-panic/
2169
2170
2171[quote]
2172
2173At trial, Dr. Noblitt testified about the existence of cults using ritual abuse and of organized satanic networks engaged in wide-ranging criminal enterprises including child abuse. The picture painted by Dr. Noblitt in his testimony at trial is one where criminal cults are common across the United States, and that these alleged cults typically engage in torture and murder of both adults and children. Furthermore, Dr. Noblitt opined that these cults are experts in a form of mind control or brainwashing in which victims are so heavily traumatized that they develop total and complete amnesia until the victim enters therapy and recovers the memory. His descriptions of these cults involved rape, murder, torture, grave robbing, and ceremonial animal and human sacrifice. Furthermore, he alleged that these activities took place at churches, involved police officers and other professional individuals. Lurid media coverage of this issue at the time additionally invoked the specter of widespread cannibalism. In order to explain the lack of physical evidence for these outrageous crimes, Dr. Noblitt explained to the jury that these cults will frequently lead their victims to believe in something preposterous, so that if they ever told of their tortures the stories would involve elements that would be so far-fetched that the victims would necessarily be disbelieved. This, according to Dr. Noblitt, was done intentionally by the cults as part of the mind control programming in order to discredit their victims.
2174
2175
2176In an interview shortly after the trial in a local newspaper, Dr. Noblitt was described as having been the prosecution expert witness in many ritual abuse cases, including the Keller case (Dickinson, 1993). He stated in that interview that Dan Keller, while in court, used a mysterious hand signal to mind-control people within the courtroom. Further, he asserted that cults use severe torture on victims and that all memory of the torture is repressed. In a direct quote from this news article, Dr. Noblitt stated: “I believe they use a technique of mind control unknown in legitimate psychology. It’s akin to hypnosis, created through abuse…the state of shock is so severe that it sends the victim into a deep trance state. Then cult members use different signals or triggers…” to control the victims.
2177
2178[/quote]
2179
2180
2181Keeping this satanic ritual abuse episode in mind:
2182
2183
2184ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume4/j4_2_1.htm
2185
2186
2187[quote]
2188
2189The Origin of the Myths
2190
2191
2192In 1976 Robin Lloyd, correspondent for NBC, published For Money or Love: Boy Prostitution in America (Out of Print)(Out of Print).18 In the book, for which a U.S. senator had written an introduction, Lloyd claimed that a huge network of prostitution involving 300,000 boys existed. The notion that child pornography trade is big business was initiated in this book. Yet, nowhere in the book is there any empirical basis for the number 300,000. Indeed, Lloyd admitted that it was a working hypothesis which he had suggested to a number of experts to test their reactions.19 This didn't prevent Judianne Densen-Gerber, director of Odyssey House, a chain of residential treatment clinics for drug addicts, from taking over the figure as if it represented a reliable statistic. She set about to mobilize public opinion against child pornography to which, she said, Lloyd had alerted her.
2193
2194
2195The media followed the stories of child exploitation in detail. In the national periodicals during 1977 nine articles appeared.20 The New York Times, a paper known to avoid sensationalism, printed 27 articles that year compared to one in the two years before. When in May, 1977 the highly popular television series Sixty Minutes devoted a program to child pornography, a tidal wave of letters to politicians resulted.21 That spring a subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives held a series of hearings on the subject which lasted until autumn, keeping child pornography in the news in the U.S.A. A platform was established by crusaders against child pornography, and in the prevailing climate of moral panic their cries for stronger measures received wide political support.
2196
2197
2198The chairman of the committee was Representative John Conyers Jr., who had organized the hearings to pass judgment on the proposal of Representatives Kildee and Murphy for a first Federal law against child pornography. It was this series of hearings that would make the question of child pornography a national issue. The first hearing was dominated by the appearance of Judianne Densen-Gerber. Equipped. with some child pornography magazines, she shocked congressional representatives with her claim that she had, together with Robin Lloyd, counted 264 comparable publications that, according to her, appeared monthly (an exaggeration by a factor of several orders of magnitude as we shall see). The figures which Robin Lloyd had mentioned as a working hypothesis were repeated by Densen-Gerber as fact:
2199
2200
2201Lloyd's book documented the involvement of 300,000 boys, aged 8 to 16, in activities revolving around sex for sale.22
2202
2203
2204She then multiplied the number by two, because her intuition told her that 300,000 girls were also involved in such activities. She then multiplied it again by two since, according to Lloyd, the real figure was "twice what he (could) statistically validate,"23 and this lead to something like a million children. The chairman Conyers multiplied this again by two since, he reasoned, America had not only one million runaways but another one million school drop outs. In this way the contours of a national disaster were drawn. According to Conyers:
2205
2206
2207"So we have somewhere possibly in the neighbourhood of 2 million kids who form a ready market for sexual exploitation from pornographers and the like."24
2208
2209
2210Densen-Gerber could not agree more. The Kildee-Murphy proposal was made law without any opposition: 401 for, 0 against.
2211
2212[/quote]
2213
2214
2215[quote]
2216
2217The Spread of Rumors
2218
2219
2220In 1986 the Senate Commission33 under the chairmanship of William V. Roth, Republican from Delaware, came to the same conclusion as the ILIC report. Nevertheless, neither the Roth report nor the ILIC report were able to dampen the spread of rumors about an enormous trade. Even in 1986, the claims of Lloyd and Densen-Gerber continued to come up as facts in official reports: the Meese Commission, initiated by the Reagan administration to prepare a drastic sharpening of the anti-pornography laws, uncritically took over these claims.34 According to the Meese Commission, Congress had discovered that child pornography and child prostitution "have become highly organized, multi-million dollar industries that operate on a nationwide scale."35 The monthly appearance of 264 magazines (Densen-Gerber) was again reported as truth, alongside the 30,000 exploited children of Los Angeles (Lloyd Martin).
2221
2222
2223The U.S. Supreme Court took over these claims in their first child pornography case, New York v Ferber (1982), saying that child pornography comprised, "highly organized multimillion dollar industries that operate on a nationwide scale."36 The otherwise dignified court was so upset by the alleged extent of the problem that the solicitor for the accused, Herald Price Fahringer, lost his composure and fled the sitting as fast as he could.37
2224
2225
2226The claims of Lloyd and Densen-Gerber also appeared outside the U.S.A. The report, Exploitation of Child Labour, which was submitted in 1981 to the Commission for Human Rights of the United Nations, claimed: "In the United States there are at least 264 pornographic magazines specializing in pornography concerning children."38 It was claimed that in 1977, 15,000 slides and 4,000 films of child pornography had been intercepted by the police, which was, according to the report, 5% of the total stock in circulation.
2227
2228
2229According to the United Nations report, the value of trade in child pornography in 1977 was estimated at $500 million. Such estimates are not based on any kind of empirical evidence, and are easy to refute. If these claims were true then the allegedly intercepted slides and films would have had a value of thousands of dollars each.39 In reality, these films were sold for much less, which can be checked with reference to the advertisement brochures of Deltaboek, publisher of homosexual pornography and literature. From here it is apparent that the Golden Boys film series, produced by COQ in Denmark, cost 85 guilders each, which is about $35.
2230
2231
2232In 1986, Defence for Children International prepared a report on child prostitution in which they claimed: "Estimates on the number of child prostitutes vary from 300,000 to several millions for the U.S. and Canada."40 A year later these figures were taken over by the Norwegian Ministry of Justice.41 This report was later submitted to the Ministers of Justice of the member countries of the Council of Europe. Within the Council of Europe a report on child exploitation was written in which it was claimed that: "A study of boy prostitutes had suggested that there were 300,000 boy prostitutes in the United States, many of whom are designated runaways."42 The claims of the United Nations report were also repeated. As late as 1988 the Dutch language world development magazine, Onze Wereld (Our World), claimed that: "The American (sic) periodical43 Child Abuse and Neglect reported that in the United States at least 264 different child pornography magazines are in circulation. The kiddieporn stars are drawn from the numerous American runaway teenagers."44 The same article made similar exaggerated claims about alleged illicit trade in donor organs obtained from children killed for the purpose. The story about donor organs had also appeared in the report of the Council of Europe, although there was never any evidence and the story was not credible from the beginning.45
2233
2234
2235The alleged size of the child pornography trade and the many children said to have been involved, are little more than myths. They are the result of the arbitrary multiplication of arbitrary numbers of alleged victims made by a journalist. The claims had taken on a life of their own. The fact that these claims had by 1980 been rejected by thorough official investigations was insufficient to prevent the claim from reappearing, not only in the media but also in other official circles, including the United States Senate, the United States Supreme Court, a Commission of the American Justice Department, the United Nations and the Council of Europe. After the number had been cited in the Hearings of the House of Representatives, it became associated with an ostensibly reliable source. The fact that the original source was anything but reliable was forgotten.
2236
2237[/quote]
2238
2239
2240
2241Note the name Judianne Densen-Gerber:
2242
2243
2244https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/14/nyregion/dr-judianne-densen-gerber-is-dead-at-68-founded-odyssey-house-group-drug-program.html
2245
2246
2247[quote]
2248
2249A 1979 profile in New York magazine quoted Mayor Edward I. Koch as saying that she was ''one of those seminal forces, original, a go-getter.'' He said there were ''few people who can claim as many accomplishments.''
2250
2251
2252Dr. Densen-Gerber's success at getting government help became her downfall when the state investigated her use of public funds in the early 1980's and found irregularities. She resigned as executive director of Odyssey House in 1983, but remained active in affiliated programs.
2253
2254
2255Her influence extended to areas like child pornography. In 1977, her testimony that there were 264 monthly publications devoted to the subject helped persuade the House of Representatives to unanimously pass a bill to regulate it.
2256
2257
2258IPT, the publication of the Institute for Psychological Therapy, reported in 1992 that later government investigations proved her estimates to be exaggerated by ''several orders of magnitude.''
2259
2260
2261Dr. Densen-Gerber also commented on many other hot issues from a psychiatric point of view.
2262
2263
2264In 1991, she went to Omaha to testify in court that her interview with a man convinced her he had witnessed four satanic ritual killings. She characterized herself as an expert at deprogramming survivors of satanic cults.
2265
2266[/quote]
2267
2268
2269This links the outbreak of psychosis regarding satanic ritual sex abuse to the modern era Sex Cult, which is in similar fashion.
2270
2271[hr]
2272
2273http://libertus.net/censor/resources/statistics-laundering.html#s3bfg
2274
2275
2276[quote]
2277
2278"child pornography is one of the fastest growing online businesses generating approximately $US3 billion ($3.43 billion) each year"
2279
2280
2281This '$US3 billion' figure has no credibility and even if it was factual as at January 2008, (when it appeared in an opinion article by Bernadette McMenamin, CEO of Child Wise/ ECPAT in Australia, with citing a source), then it could be regarded as 'good news' because it would mean (based on previously promulgated 'statistics') that there had been no increase at all in the five years to 2008, therefore 'child pornography' could not be "one of the fastest growing online businesses".
2282
2283
2284The '$US3 billion' figure has been promulgated far and wide since at least mid 2003, when Utah-based Jerry Ropelato commenced publishing it, without citing a source, on his web site InternetFilterReview.com, which has since become part of his TopTenReviews.com. According to Texas-based Red Orbit News (5 Nov 2006) Ropelato was "formerly chief operating officer of ContentWatch, a Salt Lake City-based developer of Internet filtering and virus protection software. He is also known locally as a speaker and presenter on Internet safety issues, and as a crusader against online pornography."[44]
2285
2286
2287The "fastest growing online businesses" claim originated with the U.S. NCMEC, in August 2005, which based its claim on the then two-year old US$3 billion 'statistic' promulgated by Ropelato. (The U.S. NCMEC has a long history of promulgating exaggerated/false statistics[45].)
2288
2289
2290The origins and history of '$US3 billion' and 'fastest growing' claims is outlined below.
2291
2292
2293June 2003 - March 2007: Since at least 21 June 2003[46], Ropelato had been claiming on his web site that "Child pornography generates $3 billion annually" (i.e. not necessarily via the Internet) without stating a source for that particular figure, or any of the many other 'pornography statistics' he promotes. Ropelato issued a press release making that and other uncredited statistical claims on 6 February 2004[47]. The claim remained on his 'Pornography Statistics' page until at least 6 March 2007[48], but had been deleted from the page by 15 March 2007[49] (according to the Internet Archive's WayBackMachine). His press release of 12 March 2007[50] which claimed to 'update' his previous 2003 uncredited 'statistics' about the 'worldwide pornography industry' did not mention child pornography. At least two journalists have attempted, without success, to ascertain sources of 'statistics' from Ropelato (see below).
2294
229529 November 2004: Australian Federal Police ("AFP") Commissioner Mick Keelty stated in a speech:[51]
2296
2297
2298Canadian estimates place the number of child pornography websites operating globally at over 100,000, generating around US$3 billion per annum
2299
2300
2301April 2005: The Wall Street Journal's "Numbers Guy", Carl Bialik, investigated the origin of an estimate attributed to 'Canadian Police'[52] and subsequently reported that he was directed by the officer-in-charge of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's National Child Exploitation Coordination Center to a 2002 magazine article and also:
2302
2303
2304to a Web site called Internet Filter Review... . My phone call to a number listed on the sites registration wasn't returned, and an e-mail to the sites contact address got bounced back to me.
2305
2306
230718 August 2005: The U.S. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children ("NCMEC") issued a headline grabbing press release titled "Child Porn Among Fastest Growing Internet Businesses"[53] claiming:
2308
2309
2310Within only a few years, child pornography has become a multi-billion dollar commercial enterprise, and is among the fastest growing businesses on the Internet.1
2311
2312...
2313
23141. Source: Top Ten Reviews 'Internet Filter Review' an online resource that reviews Internet Safety. (Reported that CP generates $3 billion annually)
2315
2316
2317The NCMEC's media release provided no source or grounds for their 'fastest growing' business claim other than the footnote mention of Ropelato's then two-year old uncredited US$3 billion 'statistic' (which did not mention the Internet). Hence, there was no basis for the claim (in 2005, nor its repetition in 2008) that the so-called "commercial enterprise" is growing at all, let alone is "among the fastest growing".
2318
2319September 2007: A research report published by the Australian Institute of Criminology ("AIC"), a Commonwealth statutory authority, stated[54]:
2320
2321
2322Affordable technology has greatly facilitated the production and distribution of child pornography - a multi-billion dollar industry globally. [Introduction, page xx]
2323
2324...
2325
2326TopTenREVIEWSâ„¢ has estimated that child pornography generates approximately US$3 billion annually worldwide (Ropelato 2007). [page 62]
2327
2328...
2329
2330Ropelato J 2007. Internet pornography statistics. Internet Filter Review.
2331
2332
2333Ropelato is the only source cited in the above AIC report for its "multi-billion dollar industry" claim.
2334
23358 January 2008: An opinion article by Bernadette McMenamin, CEO of Child Wise/ECPAT in Australia, published in The Australian national newspaper, stated[55]:
2336
2337
2338Child pornography is one of the fastest growing online businesses generating approximately $US3 billion ($3.43 billion) each year.
2339
2340
2341In addition to The Wall Street Journal's "Numbers Guy", Carl Bialik (as referenced earlier herein), at least one other journalist has tried, also without success, to find out the original source of particular 'statistics' Ropelato promotes, after tracing other peoples'/organisations' claims to Ropelato. In November 2005, Seth Lubove reported:
2342
2343
2344...Sen. [Blanche] Lincoln lifted the factoid from a report issued in July by Third Way, a new Washington think tank that helps Democrats grab on to red-state issues. ...
2345
2346...
2347
2348Where did Third Way get that notion? From a May 12 story in the New York Times-owned Boston Globe headlined "The Secret Life of Boys," which cites an outfit called Family Safe Media. The small firm in Provo, Utah, is in the business of scaring parents into buying software to protect their kids from Internet smut. Jared Martin, who owns Family Safe Media, says he got his porn statistics from Internet Filter Review, a Web site that recommends content-blocking software. It is run by tech entrepreneur Jerry Ropelato of Huntsville, Utah, who pens antiporn screeds, such as "Tricks Pornographers Play," and publishes curious and uncredited stats (for example, "17% of all women struggle with pornography addiction").
2349
2350
2351"Most of the statistics there have come from literally hundreds of sources, all reputable," Ropelato insists. He says he got the age-11 item from The Drug of the New Millennium, a book about the dangers of porn self-published in 2000 by Mark Kastleman, a self-professed former porn addict in Orem, Utah, who counsels other porn fiends. "I don't remember where I got that from," Kastleman says breezily. "That is a very common statistic." And there the trail goes cold.
2352
2353[/quote]
2354
2355
2356
2357
2358[quote]
2359
2360"child pornography is a $20 billion industry worldwide"
2361
2362
2363This out-of-date/discredited $20 billion 'statistic' was given new life in March 2008 when it appeared in Australian media reports as a result of a joint media release between the Australian Federal Police and Microsoft. The statistic was disowned in April 2006 by the organisations to which it had been, and still is being, attributed (i.e. the FBI and Unicef).
2364
2365
2366The history of this number is outlined below.
2367
2368
236923 December 2004: A Council of Europe report titled "Organised crime situation report 2004, Provisional"[57] stated:
2370
2371
2372Experts assume that the number of Web sites containing child pornography has grown enormously in recent years. According to estimations by UNICEF, this market has a business volume of about $20 billion annually
2373
2374
2375September 2005: ECPAT International (based in Thailand) issued a report, Violence against Children in Cyberspace[58], which claimed:
2376
2377
2378The production and distribution of abuse images of children is big business, estimated to be worth billions of dollars a year. Estimates of annual business volume range widely from $US3 billion to $US20 billion (the latter, according to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation).
2379
2380
2381(The ECPAT report provides no source for the $US3 billion figure - presumably Ropelato, as detailed earlier herein.)
2382
2383
23845 April 2006: Texas Republican Joe Barton, (as Chairman, U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce), issued a press release[59] which claimed:
2385
2386
2387Child pornography is apparently a multibillion...my staff analysis says $20 billion-a-year business. Twenty billion dollars.
2388
2389
23905 April 2006: A New York Times article[60]attributed the entire claimed amount to the Internet:
2391
2392
2393the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet is a $20 billion industry.
2394
2395
2396April 2006: The FBI and Unicef disowned the US$20 billion number.
2397
23987 March 2008: A joint media release between the Australian Federal Police and Microsoft[61] and articles in The Australian IT[62] and ComputerWorld (AU)[63] claimed:
2399
2400
2401The FBI estimates that the production and distribution of child abuse images is valued at US$20 billion ($21.6 billion) annually.
2402
2403
24045 June 2008: During an interview by Radio 2GB's Phillip Clarke about Operation Centurion, James McCormack (head of the AFP's High Tech Crime Operations)[64] claimed:
2405
2406
2407The FBI did a study a couple of years ago and they estimated the commercial child pornography industry was probably valued at anywhere between about three to twenty billion dollars of commercial activity per year, so it's a pretty signficant industry.
2408
2409
2410As a result of the April 2006 publicity, two U.S. journalists investigated the source of the $20 billion figure and reported their findings in:
2411
2412
2413"Measuring the Child-Porn Trade", Carl Bialik, The Numbers Guy, The Wall Street Journal Online, 18 April 2006[65]
2414
2415"How big is the online kiddie porn industry?", Daniel Radosh, radosh.net, freelance journalist, 5 April 2006[66]
2416
2417
2418In short, the trail to the origin of the claimed $20 billion 'statistic' went from Joe Barton's press release/staff analysis, to the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), to 'McKinsey Worldwide', to the ECPAT International 2005 publication (mentioned above) which claimed "...$US20 billion (the latter, according to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation)"[67].
2419
2420
2421WSJ Numbers Guy, Carl Bialik, reported his findings from following the above trail in April 2006:
2422
2423
2424...Mr. [Ernie] Allen [CEO, NCMEC] faxed me an NCMEC paper that cites the McKinsey study in placing the child-porn industry at $6 billion in 1999, and $20 billion in 2004.
2425
2426
2427But a McKinsey spokesman painted a different picture for me: "The number was not calculated or generated by McKinsey," he wrote in an email. Instead, for a pro bono analysis for Standard Chartered, he said, McKinsey used a number that appeared in a report last year by End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes, an international advocacy group. [i.e. ECPAT, which attributed the number to the FBI]
2428
2429
2430FBI spokesman Paul Bresson told me in an email, "The FBI has not stated the $20 billion figure... . I have asked many people who would know for sure if we have attached the $20 billion number to this problem. I have scoured our Web site, too. Nothing!"
2431
2432
2433I went back to the NCMEC Monday and shared what I found. In an email response, spokeswoman Joann Donnellan said, "If it is determined that this ends up not being a reliable statistic, NCMEC will stop citing McKinsey as the source and will also stop citing a specific number. Rather, NCMEC will revert to what it has said previously... that commercial child pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry."
2434
2435
2436This isn't the first number from the NCMEC that struck me as questionable... As I wrote last year...
2437
2438
2439Source: "Measuring the Child-Porn Trade", Carl Bialik, The Wall Street Journal Online, 18 April 2006[68]
2440
2441
2442Fifteen months later, Ernie Allen of the NCMEC was still citing McKinsey as source. On 24 July 2007 he told the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation that: "A recent report by McKinsey Worldwide estimated that today commercial child pornography is a multi-billion-dollar industry worldwide, fueled by the Internet."[69].
2443
2444
2445The $20 billion figure was also found by Carl Bialik in a Council of Europe 2004 report which attributed the number to Unicef. Bialik subsequently reported on 27 Apr 2006:
2446
2447
2448...But Allison Hickling, a spokeswoman for the United Nations child agency, told me in an email, "The number is not attributable to Unicef -- we do not collect data on this issue."
2449
2450
2451I told Alexander Seger, who worked on the Council of Europe reports, that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Unicef, both cited in Council reports, said they weren't the source for the $20 billion figure. He said the Council won't use the number in the future, and added in an email, "I think we have what I would call a case of information laundering: You state a figure on something, somebody else [says] it, and then you and others [saying] it back, and thus it becomes clean and true. ... Perhaps this discussion will help instill more rigor in the future."
2452
2453
2454Source: Carl Bialik, The Numbers Guy, The Wall Street Journal Online, 27 Apr 2006[70]
2455
2456
2457In summary, the US$20 billion figure has been invented by some unknown person/organisation and since then been commonly attributed to the FBI or Unicef, both of which said in April 2006 that the 'statistic' did not originate with them.
2458
2459
2460The writer considers the fixation among advocacy groups and the media with attaching a dollar number to the problem is curious given commercial/monetary 'estimates' (or even factual statistics if it were possible to obtain same) are of minimal relevance to understanding or determining the extent of the problem. This is because a significant amount, possibly most, of the trade in child sexual abuse images takes place at no cost via Usenet newsgroups, IRC (Internet Relay Chat), Instant Messaging, P2P technologies, email, etc. The images themselves, not money, are the trading currency. Extensive information about the nature of the non-commercial trade is available in the book: Beyond tolerance : child pornography on the Internet by Philip Jenkins. New York University Press, 2001. ISBN: 0814742629.
2461
2462
2463Non-commercial criminal activity was referred to during an AFP media briefing about 'Operation Centurion' (June 2008) which concerned a legitimate web site that had been broken into for the purpose of uploading illegal images to it:
2464
2465
2466Journalist: The people who put these images up on a site, are they getting paid, [...inaudible...], where's the economic benefit?
2467
2468
2469AFP Andrew Colvin: We're not talking about a crime that's driven by a financial motive, there's other motivations here. So, while there may be some sites that attract a financial return, that's not the motivation here. So the answer to your question is no really, that's not what's motivating people, people aren't necessarily making a lot of money.
2470
2471[/quote]
2472
2473
2474There is a complex pseudoreality in relation to the Sex Cult, however it involves the same rough make believe fantasy world:
2475
2476[hr]
2477
2478https://www.alternet.org/media/digital-pedophiles-among-us
2479
2480
2481[quote]
2482
2483Booming Cross-Border Business
2484
2485
2486According to a frequently mentioned statistic, the child pornography industry generates $50 billion every year; other sources speak of a $20 billion industry. In other words, the CAM industry is not a select club of old perverts roaming the web in the privacy of their musty apartment—it’s a multibillion-dollar business of global magnitude, with thriving demand and supply.
2487
2488[/quote]
2489
2490
2491cites
2492
2493
2494https://azpolicypages.com/marriage-family/protecting-children-from-pornography/
2495
2496
2497[quote]
2498
2499By some reports, child pornography is estimated to be as much as a $50 billion a year industry.[1]
2500
2501[/quote]
2502
2503
2504cites this paper
2505
2506
2507https://www.slideshare.net/maryconnavarro8/gender-sensitivity-about-feminism
2508
2509
2510[quote]
2511
2512Gender sensitivity about feminism
2513
2514...
2515
2516Another thing that keeps these web sites going is the amount of money that can, and is being made with this business. Some reports show that child pornography over the internet is more than a 50 billion dollar a year business.
2517
2518[/quote]
2519
2520
2521cites nothing. It is false to allege that there is a booming multi billion dollar CP industry. More realistic estimates would value the commercial CP industry at no more than a few million dollars, and it is a small and weak industry that is typically concentrated to small groups of individuals.
2522
2523
2524http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/local/cop_shop/article_2ee0f064-7888-11df-9e7a-001cc4c03286.html
2525
2526
2527[quote]
2528
2529Some law-enforcement officials contend that disrupting the companies making a profit off child pornography may only be the tip of the iceberg. Matt Dunn, of the Cyber Crimes Center at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau, said that non-commercial child pornography -- images shared without money changing hands -- is more of a concern than the for-profit industry.
2530
2531
2532Swapping child porn over file-sharing networks is ongoing -- and it's usually non-commercial, Dunn said. "It's happening every second of every day," he said.
2533
2534
2535Dunn also questions the estimate that commercial child porn is a $20 billion a year industry -- a figure cited in a 2006 congressional hearing -- and instead thinks it's substantially lower, perhaps in the tens of millions of dollars.
2536
2537[/quote]
2538
2539
2540http://www.sott.net/article/215448-Doctors-police-officers-sheriffs-deputies-school-teachers-government-agents-attorneys-and-church-preachers-the-real-terrorists-amongst-us-authorities-bust-huge-child-porn-ring
2541
2542
2543[quote]
2544
2545Since the websites -- with names like "Excited Angels" and "Boys Say Go" -- went offline in January, the number of active commercial child porn sites has nosedived from perhaps 300 to the single digits, said Matt Dunn, of the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Custom's Enforcement (ICE), which was the lead law enforcement agency.
2546
2547[/quote]
2548
2549
2550[quote]
2551
2552Indeed, the ring got paid well -- making somewhere between $5 million to $8 million from early 2006 until late 2007, according to Dunn.
2553
2554[/quote]
2555
2556
2557As you can see, the largest commercial CP operation known to ICE from 2006 to 2007 made only in the area of 5 to 8 million dollars, despite operating just shy of 100% of known commercial CP sites. Of course there may be unknown sites selling CP, and there is some commercial activity more in the style of the drug forums where people may purchase it on forums or so on (this is extremely rare), so the number will be higher than five to eight million dollars during this time period, but only by a few million dollars in all probability. Moreover,
2558
2559
2560http://www.sott.net/article/215448-Doctors-police-officers-sheriffs-deputies-school-teachers-government-agents-attorneys-and-church-preachers-the-real-terrorists-amongst-us-authorities-bust-huge-child-porn-ring
2561
2562
2563[quote]
2564
2565The ring used a variety of online and traditional payment methods, elaborate defense measures and a franchise business model one Interpol agent compared to a fast food chain to make millions of dollars providing 10,000 Americans and 20,000 others across the globe access to images and videos of sexually exploited boys and girls, some reportedly as young as 3 years old.
2566
2567[/quote]
2568
2569
2570The previously mentioned ring supplied only 30,000 customers around the world, despite operating nearly 100% of known commercial CP sites during this time period (however there have been numerous other commercial CP operations at various times, including some that raped and tortured children for money. However, this one was in all probability the most lucrative ever and lasted for a few years). This pales in comparison to the P2P situation, which doesn't even take the darknet into consideration:
2571
2572
2573http://forensics.umass.edu/pubs/hurley.www.2013.pdf
2574
2575
2576[quote]
2577
2578Over a one year period, we observed over
2579
25801.8 million distinct peers on eMule and over 700,000 peers on
2581
2582Gnutella, from over 100 countries, sharing hundreds of thou-
2583
2584sands of les verified as CP.
2585
2586[/quote]
2587
2588
2589Note that this was an analysis of only two popular P2P networks, and as far as I could tell (I am not 100% for sure) they only spidered shared folders and such things, so this number of identified individuals on these P2P networks could be much smaller than the number of people who were actually using them to look at CP. Also note that this doesn't take the darknet or any other such sites into consideration. So, although the numbers are inherently fuzzy, it is apparent that commercial CP is a drop in the bucket compared to noncommercial activity. Also it is worth noting that the previously mentioned commercial ring primarily (possibly exclusively) distributed old content that was produced in eastern Europe years prior to their operation, so the payment to them was not necessarily funding the production of child pornography.
2590
2591
2592http://www.ecpatinternational.com/EI/resource_newsclippings.asp?id=1026
2593
2594
2595[quote]
2596
2597Where the pornography came from, and who the young victims are, are unclear. Dunn, section chief in the Child Exploitation Section of the ICE Cyber Crimes Center, says many of the images were recycled from LS and BD studios, giant Ukrainian producers of child pornography that were raided in 2004.
2598
2599[/quote]
2600
2601
2602Moreover, LS and BD produced primarily softcore imagery and some videos a substantial percentage of which consisted of pubescent adolescent females.
2603
2604
2605
2606https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LS_Studio
2607
2608
2609[quote]
2610
2611The Ukrainian Angels Studio, better known as LS-Studio, (and also LS-Studios) based in Ukraine and was an online subscription service and photography studio that created hundreds of thousands of photographic images (and hundreds of videos) of young teen and prepubescent girls and sold them via the Internet from 2001 to August 2004.[1] During that time it produced approximately 80 issues or collections, such as LS-Magazine, LS-Island, LS-Land, LS-Dreams, LS-Stars, LS-Barbie, LS-Flash, LS-Girls, LS-Fantasy, etc., and had thousands of members worldwide. Subscription was done entirely online, and members paid for the service with credit cards.[1]
2612
2613While early collections often featured nude girls in natural poses, later collections also contained many images of girls in sexually suggestive poses.[1] No actual sexual acts were portrayed but there were implied sexual acts. Many later collections also featured the girls wearing custom-tailored costumes. The backgrounds appeared to be custom-built, similar to stage-play sets.[1]
2614
2615Approximately 1500 children, ages eight to 16, were recruited as models in Kiev, Kharkov and Simferopol in Ukraine. Various nude photos were taken and uploaded to servers in the United States and Canada.[1] Quality and quantity of material from that studio was unmatched, and soon it became the most popular child erotica website in the world. The site brought in several hundred thousand dollars in profit during the three years it was in service. It has since been shut down.[1]
2616
2617[/quote]
2618
2619
2620However, this reality of the matter is in stark contrast to the pseudoreality of the Sex Cult:
2621
2622
2623http://www.eagletribune.com/news/new_hampshire/derry-child-porn-seizure-leads-to-long-prison-sentence/article_2af19386-3118-5cc8-b7e6-41282819c7b5.html
2624
2625
2626[quote]
2627
2628Phinney, aided by Assistant County Attorney Sarah Warecki, also said society needs
2629
2630deterrence because "predators such as Curry provide the motivation to this multibillion-dollar
2631
2632industry," Conway said.
2633
2634[/quote]
2635
2636
2637http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/143067/justice-departments-child-porn-problem-dr-lori-handrahan
2638
2639
2640[quote]
2641
2642Half of all child porn now originates in America. The profits are massive. Estimated porn profits in 2006 exceed combined revenues of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple, Netflix and EarthLink ranging from $3-$20 billion annually.
2643
2644[/quote]
2645
2646
2647http://womensenews.org/2005/12/child-pornography-dodges-detection-web/
2648
2649
2650[quote]
2651
2652$3 Billion in Annual Sales
2653
2654
2655Allen says that global sales of illegal pornography that exploits children--including those under 4 years old--are about $3 billion a year.
2656
2657[/quote]
2658
2659
2660http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-l-pulido-phd/child-pornography-basic-f_b_4094430.html
2661
2662
2663[quote]
2664
2665Child pornography is one of the fastest growing businesses online, with estimated annual revenue of $3 billion.
2666
2667[/quote]
2668
2669
2670http://www.wtok.com/news/headlines/2470381.html
2671
2672
2673[quote]
2674
2675Child pornography is among the fastest growing businesses on the Internet, a $20 billion per year enterprise.
2676
2677[/quote]
2678
2679
2680http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3596661/House+Hears+Online+Child+Porn+Testimony.htm
2681
2682
2683[quote]
2684
2685Congressional estimates put the online child pornography business at $20 billion a year and growing. Online or offline, child pornography is illegal in the United States and most other countries.
2686
2687[/quote]
2688
2689
2690http://sd05.senate.ca.gov/news/2008-04-28-galgiani-s-child-exploitation-legislation-committee
2691
2692
2693[quote]
2694
2695“Child porn is a $3 billion dollar industry, fueled by images of sexual abuse, rape, and torture of children,”
2696
2697[/quote]
2698
2699
2700
2701http://www.nbcnews.com/id/32880508/ns/technology_and_science-security/t/un-expert-child-porn-internet-increases/
2702
2703
2704[quote]
2705
2706More than 4 million Web sites worldwide show images of children being sexually exploited, said the U.N. investigator on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, Najat M'jid Maalla.
2707
2708....
2709
2710Maalla urged international cooperation to stop the child pornography industry, which she estimated to be worth between $3 billion and $20 billion. She recommended countries share information on sites containing child pornography in order to block them faster.
2711
2712[/quote]
2713
2714
2715The United Nations is in fact a central hub of operation for the Sex Cult:
2716
2717
2718http://www.popsci.com/man-who-lit-dark-web
2719
2720
2721[quote]
2722
2723More than 1 million are children. Nearly one-quarter are bought and sold as sex
2724
2725slaves. Only 1-in-100 victims of human trafficking is ever rescued. It’s a booming
2726
2727business. High profits and low risk make human trafficking one of the fastest-growing
2728
2729and most lucrative crimes on the planet; the U.N. recently estimated that trafficking
2730
2731nets $150 billion a year.
2732
2733[/quote]
2734
2735
2736https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/06/02/the-false-claim-that-child-sex-trafficking-is-a-9-5-billion-business-in-the-united-states/
2737
2738
2739[quote]
2740
2741But there’s a bigger problem. Shared Hope’s graphic gave as its source a 2005
2742
2743International Labour Organization report on human trafficking. But that report
2744
2745contains no mention of a $9.8 billion figure for human trafficking in the United
2746
2747States.
2748
2749[/quote]
2750
2751
2752New chapters of the Sex Cult are seemingly moving away from the pseudoreality in which there is a booming multi billion dollar CP industry, however numerous chapters of the Sex Cult still believe in it:
2753
2754
2755from 2016:
2756
2757
2758https://www.icmec.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Child-Pornography-Model-Law-8th-Ed-Final-linked.pdf
2759
2760
2761[quote]
2762
2763Little more than a decade ago, child pornography was a multi-billion dollar commercial enterprise and was among the fastest growing businesses on the Internet. Today, the commercial trade of child pornography online has been significantly reduced due to a variety of successful efforts to combat its growth.
2764
2765[/quote]
2766
2767
2768Of course there is no credit due to them for the collapse of the multi billion dollar CP industry seeing as it never actually existed. However, they have successfully defeated the 8 million dollar CP industry that was operated by a dozen people in Eastern Europe and operated nearly 100% of all commercial CP sites known to ICE in its time period.
2769
2770
2771Essentially, this is the mental model of the Sex Cult:
2772
2773
2774
2775Another key tenet of the Sex Cult is their belief in the supply demand hypothesis:
2776
2777[hr]
2778
2779https://www.pathtojustice.com/blog/mashas-law-allows-civil-lawsuits-for-child-pornography-victims/
2780
2781
2782[quote]
2783
2784Therefore, as these graphic sexual images populate and spread, we can unfortunately predict there will be more child sexual abuse.
2785
2786[/quote]
2787
2788
2789A notion that has been scientifically refuted and contradicted by the scientifically supported substitution hypothesis:
2790
2791
2792
2793https://www.springer.com/about+springer/media/springer+select?SGWID=0-11001-6-1042321-0
2794
2795
2796[quote]
2797
2798Could making child pornography legal lead to lower rates of child sex abuse? It could well do, according to a new study by Milton Diamond, from the University of Hawaii, and colleagues.
2799
2800Results from the Czech Republic showed, as seen everywhere else studied (Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sweden, USA), that rape and other sex crimes have not increased following the legalization and wide availability of pornography. And most significantly, the incidence of child sex abuse has fallen considerably since 1989, when child pornography became readily accessible – a phenomenon also seen in Denmark and Japan. Their findings are published online today in Springer’s journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.
2801
2802The findings support the theory that potential sexual offenders use child pornography as a substitute for sex crimes against children
2803
2804[/quote]
2805
2806
2807http://unh.edu/ccrc/pdf/CV204%20CP%20possessors.pdf
2808
2809
2810[quote]
2811
2812One concern is that the accessibility of online CP has caused increases in child
2813
2814sexual abuse. Some research suggests that CP may trigger sexual abuse by activating
2815
2816and validating sexual urges in CP viewers that were previously suppressed or con-
2817
2818trolled (Beech et al., 2008; Quayle & Taylor, 2003; Wilson & Jones, 2008). There is no
2819
2820evidence of increasing abuse in the United States, however. In fact, rates of child sexual
2821
2822abuse have declined substantially since the mid-1990s, a time period that corresponds
2823
2824to the spread of CP online. Statistics from U.S. child protective service agencies show
2825
2826that from 1992 to 2007, child sexual abuse declined 53% (Jones & Finkelhor, 2009),
2827
2828including interfamilial abuse (Finkelhor & Jones, 2006). Evidence of this decline also
2829
2830comes from victim self-report surveys and U.S. criminal justice system data (Finkelhor
2831
2832& Jones, 2008; Finkelhor, Turner, Ormrod, & Hamby, 2010), as well as the child pro-
2833
2834tective services data collection system. The fact that this trend is revealed in multiple
2835
2836sources tends to undermine arguments that it is because of reduced reporting or changes
2837
2838in investigatory or statistical procedures.
2839
2840[/quote]
2841
2842
2843http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2016/10/26/child-porn-cases-in-maryland-are-skyrocketing-police-say/
2844
2845
2846[quote]
2847
2848BALTIMORE (WJZ)– The number of child pornography cases in Maryland is skyrocketing, doubling in the past two years–fueled by new technology, Maryland State Police say.
2849
2850[/quote]
2851
2852
2853http://www.amazon.com/Illegal-Images-Strategies-Addressing-Pornography/dp/1929657722
2854
2855
2856[quote]
2857
2858Twenty years ago, the issue of child pornography was limited to helping professionals
2859
2860who specialized in the area of sexual offenses. However, with the widespread use
2861
2862of the Internet and subsequent technologies, child pornography is more available
2863
2864and accessible than ever.
2865
2866[/quote]
2867
2868
2869http://nationalcac.org/ncac-blog/child-abuse-is-on-the-decline-now-what.html
2870
2871
2872[quote]
2873
2874An annual report recently released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
2875
2876Services showed that the rates of child abuse and child neglect have declined
2877
2878for the third year in a row. Another study confirmed a continued decline in the
2879
2880rate of child sexual abuse, which is now roughly half what it was 20 years ago.*
2881
2882[/quote]
2883
2884
2885
2886Another tenet of the Sex Cult is the concept of revictimization:
2887
2888
2889[quote]
2890
2891“These cases involve real-life abuse and assault of children. Every time an image is viewed, it’s like the assault happened again,” said Andrew M. McLees, special agent in charge of the Newark office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations.
2892
2893[/quote]
2894
2895
2896http://www.counselheal.com/articles/24956/20160529/5-gruesome-facts-child-pornography-why-people-addicted.htm
2897
2898
2899[quote]
2900
2901The children might feel like being raped time and again when someone watches it.
2902
2903[/quote]
2904
2905
2906http://www.staradvertiser.com/breaking-news/kapolei-man-pleads-no-contest-in-child-pornography-case/
2907
2908
2909[quote]
2910
2911Attorney General Doug Chin said in a news release: “Child pornography is child abuse. Victims of child pornography are abused when the images are first taken and they are abused again each and every time these horrendous images are viewed. Our department will continue to investigate and prosecute anyone who possesses or disseminates child pornography.”
2912
2913[/quote]
2914
2915
2916https://www.dailyherald.com/article/20120116/news/701169906/
2917
2918
2919[quote]
2920
2921"... every time somebody looks at that image it's like the crime is taking place all over again…"
2922
2923[/quote]
2924
2925
2926http://fox8.com/2012/05/21/former-pastor-sentenced-to-prison-on-child-porn-charges/
2927
2928
2929[quote]
2930
2931"we hear that in court that they feel like they are victimized every single time someone downloads their videos or looks at their videos they feel like they are being raped all over again,” said Canonico
2932
2933[/quote]
2934
2935
2936Which is of course a delusional superstition:
2937
2938
2939https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition
2940
2941
2942[quote]
2943
2944Evolutionary / cognitive perspective
2945
2946
2947From a simpler perspective, natural selection will tend to reinforce a tendency to generate weak associations or heuristics - rules of thumb - that are overgeneralized. If there is a strong survival advantage to making correct associations, then this will outweigh the negatives of making many incorrect, "superstitious" associations.[15] It has also been argued that there may be connections between OCD and superstition.[16] This may be connected to hygiene.
2948
2949
2950A recent theory by Jane Risen proposes that superstitions are intuitions that people acknowledge to be wrong, but acquiesce to rather than correct when they arise as the intuitive assessment of a situation. Her theory draws on dual-process models of reasoning. In this view, superstitions are the output of "System 1" reasoning that are not corrected even when caught by "System 2".[17]
2951
2952[/quote]
2953
2954
2955and a false association between the action of viewing of CP and the orthogonal symptomatology of PTSD:
2956
2957
2958http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume7/j7_3_5.htm
2959
2960
2961[quote]
2962
2963(3) Sudden acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes a sense of reliving the experience, illusions, hallucinations, and dissociative [flashback] episodes, even those that occur upon awakening or when intoxicated).
2964
2965[/quote]
2966
2967
2968Much in the manner that the possession of voodoo dolls was falsely linked to the symptomatology of ergot poisoning in Salem:
2969
2970[hr]
2971
2972http://www.neatorama.com/2012/10/15/Salem-Witch-Trials-The-Fungus-Theory/
2973
2974
2975[quote]
2976
2977Linnda Caporael, a psychology major at U.C. Santa Barbara, was told to choose a subject for a term paper in her American History course. Having just seen a production of Arthur Miller's play The Crucible (a fictional account of the Salem trials), she decided to write about the witch hunt. "As I began researching," she later recalled, "I had one of those 'a-ha!' experiences." The author of one of her sources said he remained at a loss to explain the hallucinations of the villagers of Salem. "It was the word 'hallucinations' that made everything click," said Caporael. Years before, she'd read of a case of ergot poisoning in France where the victim had suffered from hallucinations, and she thought there might be a connection.
2978
2979
2980Ergot is a fungus that infects rye, a grain more commonly used in past centuries to bake bread than it is today. One of the byproducts present in ergot-infected grain is ergotamine, which is related to LSD. Toxicologists have known for years that eating bread baked with ergot-contaminated rye can trigger convulsions, delusions, creepy-crawly sensations of the skin, vomiting, …and hallucinations. And historians were already aware that the illness caused by ergot poisoning (known as St. Anthony's Fire) was behind several incidents of mass insanity in medieval Europe. Caporael wondered if the same conditions might have been present in Salem.
2981
2982
2983They were. Ergot needs warm, damp weather to grow, and those conditions were rife in the fields around Salem in 1691. Rye was the primary grain grown, so there was plenty of it to be infected. Caporael also discovered that most of the accusers lived on the west side of the village, where the fields were chronically marshy, making them a perfect breeding ground for the fungus. The crop harvested in the fall of 1691 would have been baked and eaten during the following winter, which was when the fits of madness began. However, the next summer was unusually dry, which could explain the sudden drop in the bewitchments. No ergot, no madness.
2984
2985[/quote]
2986
2987
2988
2989https://newenglandfolklore.blogspot.com/2011/10/how-to-make-poppet.html
2990
2991
2992[quote]
2993
2994In colonial New England these dolls were known as poppets, which is an old spelling of puppet. They were often cited in witchcraft trials as evidence of malicious magic. For example, Goody Glover, and elderly Irish woman accused of bewitching several Boston children, had in her home
2995
2996
2997"several small images, or poppets, or babies, made of rags and stuffed with goat's hair and other ingredients. When these were produced the vile woman acknowledged that her way to torment the objects of her malice was by wetting of her finger with her spittle and stroking of these little images."
2998
2999[/quote]
3000
3001
3002
3003Essentially:
3004
3005
3006
3007
3008https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wicked-deeds/201507/moral-panic-who-benefits-public-fear
3009
3010
3011[quote]
3012
3013Second, there is a gap between the concern over a condition and the objective threat it poses. Typically, the objective threat is far less than popularly perceived due to how it is presented by authorities.
3014
3015[/quote]
3016
3017
3018The Sex Cult also has a substantial collection of pseudoscience that they frequently make reference to:
3019
3020
3021https://rsoresearch.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/butner_study_debunking_kit.pdf
3022
3023
3024[quote]
3025
3026Nevertheless, Dr. Hernandez privately
3027
3028distributed his study widely, without peer review or any
3029
3030other oversight, and thus bypassed normal opportunities for
3031
3032either scientific validation or refutation by experts in the field
3033
3034of sexual offender diagnosis and treatment. He distributed his
3035
3036study to a limited but very receptive audience nationally
3037
3038(and later internationally, specifically Great Britain), including
3039
3040law enforcement officials and agencies, the Federal Bureau of
3041
3042Investigation (FBI), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and state
3043
3044and federal prosecutors.
3045
3046But it was the policy makers who especially welcomed the
3047
3048study‘s implications.
3049
3050[/quote]
3051
3052
3053http://jaapl.org/content/42/4/404
3054
3055
3056[quote]
3057
3058From both a clinical and an actuarial statistical perspective, an early retrospective study conducted at a Federal Civil Commitment Facility in Butner, North Carolina, inferred an association between accessing child pornography and hands-on sexual offending.3 That study has been criticized regarding its methodology and lack of scientific rigor.4 More recent prospective data have questioned the contention that there is a correlation between accessing child pornography and hands-on offending.5 For example, one such study found that less than one percent of 231 men who had viewed child pornography (but with no evidence of a prior hands-on sexual offense) had gone on to commit a hands-on sexual offense.6 From a purely statistical standpoint (all else being equal) individuals with no history of a hands-on sexual offense against a child, but who have accessed child pornography, are at low risk as a group of committing a hands-on sexual offense in the future.5
3059
3060[/quote]
3061
3062
3063https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/08/20/how-a-dubious-statistic-convinced-u-s-courts-to-approve-of-indefinite-detention/
3064
3065
3066[quote]
3067
3068McKune provides a single citation to support its statement “that the recidivism
3069
3070rate of untreated offenders has been estimated to be as high as 80%”: the U.S.
3071
3072Dept. of Justice, Nat. Institute of Corrections, A Practitioner’s Guide to Treating
3073
3074the Incarcerated Male Sex Offender xiii (1988). Justice Kennedy likely found that
3075
3076reference in the amicus brief supporting Kansas filed by the Solicitor General,
3077
3078then Ted Olson, as the SG’s brief also cites it for the claim that sex offenders
3079
3080have this astonishingly high recidivism rate. This Practitioner’s Guide11 itself
3081
3082provides but one source for the claim, an article published in 1986 in Psychology
3083
3084Today, a mass market magazine aimed at a lay audience. That article has this
3085
3086sentence: “Most untreated sex offenders released from prison go on to commit more
3087
3088offenses– indeed, as many as 80% do.” But the sentence is a bare assertion: the
3089
3090article contains no supporting reference for it. But perhaps the author was merely
3091
3092offering an estimate based on his training and expertise. The problem there is
3093
3094that he had little of either.
3095
3096
3097He is a counselor, not a scholar of sex crimes or re-offense rates, and the cited
3098
3099article is not about recidivism statistics. It’s about a counseling program for
3100
3101sex offenders he then ran in an Oregon prison. His unsupported assertion about the
3102
3103recidivism rate for untreated sex offenders was offered to contrast with his equally
3104
3105unsupported assertion about the lower recidivism rate for those who complete his
3106
3107program.
3108
3109[/quote]
3110
3111
3112
3113Of course numerous special interest groups have exploited this pseudoreality toward their benefit:
3114
3115
3116https://web.archive.org/web/20080828193707/http://news.yahoo.com/s/cnet/20080824/tc_cnet/83011357831002416338
3117
3118
3119[quote]
3120
3121Last year, Biden sponsored an RIAA-backed bill called the Perform Act aimed at
3122
3123restricting Americans' ability to record and play back individual songs from
3124
3125satellite and Internet radio services. (The RIAA sued XM Satellite Radio over
3126
3127precisely this point.)
3128
3129
3130All of which meant that nobody in Washington was surprised when Biden was one of
3131
3132only four U.S. senators invited to a champagne reception in celebration of the
3133
3134Digital Millennium Copyright Act hosted by the MPAA's Jack Valenti, the RIAA, and
3135
3136the Business Software Alliance. (Photos are here.)
3137
3138[/quote]
3139
3140
3141http://www.cnet.com/news/senator-lets-monitor-p2p-for-illegal-files/
3142
3143
3144[quote]
3145
3146Democrat Joe Biden at Capitol Hill hearing urges more police to be trained in
3147
3148software developed by agent specializing in searching for child pornography.
3149
3150
3151WASHINGTON--A prominent Senate Democrat on Wednesday said federal and local police
3152
3153should use custom software to monitor peer-to-peer networks for illegal activity,
3154
3155and he wants to spend $1 billion in tax dollars to help make that happen.
3156
3157[/quote]
3158
3159
3160As an aside, a note regarding the hopeless nature of the CP moral panic:
3161
3162
3163[quote]
3164
3165Biden and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the committee's ranking member, said they were troubled that because of limited resources, investigators are able to take on less than 2 percent of what they called "known" cases of child-pornography trafficking via the Internet.
3166
3167[/quote]
3168
3169
3170http://forensics.umass.edu/pubs/hurley.www.2013.pdf
3171
3172
3173[quote]
3174
3175Measurement and Analysis of
3176
3177Child Pornography Trafficking on P2P Networks
3178
3179[/quote]
3180
3181
3182https://www.nsrl.nist.gov/Documents/ApproxMatchSP3-20130802.docx
3183
3184
3185[quote]
3186
3187Illicit Image Detection. Given a set of target images, approximate matching can be used to search for manipulated variants of images in the set, fragments of known images, or images secreted in other files such as music files.
3188
3189
3190Intellectual Property Enforcement. As with illicit image detection, approximate matching can be used in the detection of manipulated or hidden copies of copyrighted works including documents, images, audio files and movies.
3191
3192[/quote]
3193
3194
3195https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/04/states-introduce-dubious-legislation-ransom-internet
3196
3197
3198[quote]
3199
3200More than a dozen state legislatures are considering a bill called the “Human Trafficking Prevention Act,” which has nothing to do with human trafficking and all to do with one man’s crusade against pornography at the expense of free speech.
3201
3202
3203At its heart, the model bill would require device manufacturers to pre-install “obscenity” filters on devices like cell phones, tablets, and computers. Consumers would be forced to pony up $20 per device in order to surf the Internet without state censorship. The legislation is not only technologically unworkable, it violates the First Amendment and significantly burdens consumers and businesses.
3204
3205[/quote]
3206
3207
3208The Sex Cult has diverted substantial public resources into the maintenance and construction of their make believe fantasy world, though the majority of adherents to the Sex Cult simply believe it is actual reality:
3209
3210
3211https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/03/27/lies-damned-lies-and-sex-work-statistics/
3212
3213
3214[quote]
3215
3216Despite plenty of evidence of the harm caused by criminalization, there’s still a tremendous amount of money in representing it as the “cure” for a situation it actually exacerbates. In an interview last May, Michael Horowitz, a fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute who led efforts to pass the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, told the Las Vegas Review Journal that the anti-trafficking movement has become more about securing grants for research than protecting victims. “Now it’s just one big federal entitlement program,” he said, “and everybody is more worried about where they’re going to get their next grant.”
3217
3218[/quote]
3219
3220
3221Of course I should not neglect in covering the human trafficking component of the Sex Cult, though admittedly I am less familiar with it:
3222
3223
3224https://jezebel.com/5785245/the-trouble-with-child-sex-trafficking-statistics
3225
3226
3227[quote]
3228
3229"It's now clear [anti-trafficking groups] used fake data to deceive the media and lie to Congress," the story charges. "And it was all done to score free publicity and a wealth of public funding."
3230
3231
3232What's the meat behind those claims? The story details how the Women's Funding Network commissioned a study from a political consulting group run by Beth Schapiro, which devised a totally unscientific method for determining how many online classified ads depicted children. It entailed having a group of adults guess, by looking at a picture in an ad, how old the person depicted was, and then doing it again over time to fuel the charge of explosive growth. Experts interviewed by City Pages point out that this is ridiculous from a methodological point of view — among the many criticisms, there's no way of knowing how old someone is from a picture, there's no way of knowing when the picture was taken, and there's no way of knowing if the picture is even of someone behind the advertised service.
3233
3234
3235The study, which was funded with public money, was subsequently uncritically picked up nationwide in headlines trumpeting a massive rise in the trafficking of children.
3236
3237[/quote]
3238
3239
3240http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28763-special-report-money-and-lies-in-anti-human-trafficking-ngos
3241
3242
3243[quote]
3244
3245Hard Numbers and Malleable Data
3246
3247
3248Numbers throughout the murky world of human trafficking are notoriously hard to verify. How many traffickers? Uncountable! How many victims? So many! How old are they? Too young! How much money changes hands? Zillions upon gajillions of dollars, daily! "Scarily lucrative," Time declared it in a May 2014 headline. Sound unbelievable? It is, and aid groups will claim it's because the unvarnished truth of human slavery is incomprehensible to most living Americans today.
3249
3250[/quote]
3251
3252
3253Presenting the adherents to the Sex Cult with evidence of the false nature of the reality they believe in is very largely a fruitless endeavor (due to their anosognosia):
3254
3255
3256https://reason.com/blog/2014/06/12/eden-sex-trafficking-fable-falls-apart
3257
3258
3259[quote]
3260
3261It's a pretty good summary of the standard narrative on sex-trafficking these days: it's everywhere, all the time, and we don't even know it; the only way to combat it is to keep throwing cops and money and laws at it; and anyone who questions any of this is only aiding the evildoers. It's almost impossible to argue with people who buy this narrative, because the more evidence you present challenging sex trafficking's pervasiveness, the more they see proof that sex trafficking is so under the radar we need to throw more cops and money and laws at it.
3262
3263[/quote]
3264
3265
3266
3267Indeed, the pseudoreality of the Sex Cult is even substantially larger than this, however this is a general overview of the matter.
3268
3269
3270https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_(2012_film)
3271
3272
3273
3274[quote]After these accusations arose, Noah Berlatsky of Salon compared Kim to Somaly Mam and commented that the film was thickly layered with exploitation tropes and improbable scenarios. Berlatsky found it shocking that "anyone took this clearly fanciful, clearly derivative fiction for fact".[5] Journalist Elizabeth Nolan Brown criticized "the authors who repeated Kim's story, the journalists who interviewed her, the organizations that brought her on as a speaker, or any of the myriad people behind the 'based on a true story' Eden" for not checking and verifying Kim's claims.[7] Journalist Mike Ludwig argued that the narrative promoted by the film harmed consensual sex workers.[8] Seattle sex worker Mistress Matisse had been questioning the veracity of the film since 2012.[6] Matisse stated that Colin Plank and Megan Griffiths "perpetrated a fraud in their movie called Eden." [19][/quote]
3275
3276
3277https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/07/17/when-rhode-island-accidentally-legalized-prostitution-rape-and-stis-decreased-sharply/
3278
3279
3280[quote]
3281
3282For the next six years until legislators corrected their error, the oldest profession
3283
3284was not a crime in Rhode Island -- and public health and public safety substantially
3285
3286improved as a result, according to a new working paper from the National Bureau of
3287
3288Economic Research. The statewide incidence of gonorrhea among women declined by 39
3289
3290percent, and the number of rapes reported to police in the state declined by 31
3291
3292percent, according to the paper.
3293
3294[/quote]
3295
3296
3297https://www.vice.com/read/in-arizona-project-rose-is-arresting-sex-workers-to-save-them
3298
3299
3300[quote]
3301
3302Project ROSE is a Phoenix city program that arrests sex workers in the name of saving them. In five two-day stings, more than 100 police officers targeted alleged sex workers on the street and online. They brought them in handcuffs to the Bethany Bible Church. There, the sex workers were forced to meet with prosecutors, detectives, and representatives of Project ROSE, who offered a diversion program to those who qualified. Those who did not may face months or years in jail.
3303
3304[/quote]
3305
3306
3307Case Study of a Pseudoreality - The Drug Terrorists
3308
3309
3310The drug terrorists are in fact separate from these individuals:
3311
3312
3313
3314
3315https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/28/bottles-beer-smashed-sharia-nigeria-alcohol
3316
3317
3318[quote]
3319
3320Thousands of bottles of beer smashed in sharia crackdown in Nigeria
3321
3322[/quote]
3323
3324
3325
3326
3327Rather, I refer to these individuals:
3328
3329
3330
3331
3332http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2014/jul/31/huge-marijuana-bust-grundy-county-may-set-national/263258/
3333
3334
3335[quote]
3336
3337At least $37 million in marijuana plants seized in Grundy County
3338
3339[/quote]
3340
3341
3342
3343
3344Who happen to believe in a complex make believe fantasy world described in a collection of themed fiction materials.
3345
3346
3347https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Ask_Alice
3348
3349
3350
3351[quote]
3352
3353Go Ask Alice is a 1971 fiction book about a teenage girl who develops a drug habit at age 15 and runs away from home on a journey of self-destructive escapism. Attributed to "Anonymous", the book is in diary form, and was originally presented as being the edited "real diary" of the unnamed teenage protagonist.[1][2] Questions about the book's authenticity and true authorship began to arise in the late 1970s, and it is now generally viewed as a work of fiction written by Beatrice Sparks, a therapist and author who went on to write numerous other books purporting to be real diaries of troubled teenagers.[2][3][4][5][6] Some sources have also named Linda Glovach as a co-author of the book.[1][7]
3354
3355[/quote]
3356
3357
3358http://www.snopes.com/horrors/drugs/lsdsun.asp
3359
3360
3361[quote]
3362
3363Claim: Several students tripping on LSD stared at the sun until blinded.
3364
3365
3366Status: False.
3367
3368
3369Origins: This Sun legend, one the 1960s' most ubiquitous pieces of drug scarelore
3370
3371(along with "teenager on acid trip thinks he can fly and jumps out window") was
3372
3373nothing but pure hoax. Nonetheless, the national print media fell for it twice.
3374
3375
3376This twisted tale was born on Thursday, 18 May 1967, when California newspapers
3377
3378began reporting a horrific tale concerning some Santa Barbara college students
3379
3380who damaged their eyes by staring at the sun while they were under the influence
3381
3382of LSD. Here's how the story was written up by the Los Angeles Times
3383
3384[/quote]
3385
3386
3387https://www.snopes.com/horrors/drugs/orange.asp
3388
3389
3390[quote]
3391
3392Claim: Excessive LSD use left a young man in a psychiatric hospital, believing himself to be a glass of orange juice.
3393
3394
3395LEGEND
3396
3397
3398Origins: The “orange juice man” was one of the 1960s’ most ubiquitous pieces of LSD scarelore. As improbable and wacky as it may seem today, this tale was taken quite seriously by the anti-drug forces in the mid-1960s, when the long-term effects of LSD use were unknown. As Jay Stevens wrote a couple of decades later:
3399
3400
3401
3402Halting the spread of LSD had become part of the national agenda; thus it was necessary for the press to sensationalize the subject … the LSD psychotic … seized the public imagination and didn’t let go for the rest of the decade. Scarcely a week went by that this curious creature wasn’t in the news columns, either raping or murdering or committing suicide in stories that were usually anonymous, uncheckable, and bizarre.
3403
3404[/quote]
3405
3406
3407https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130819185302.htm
3408
3409
3410[quote]
3411
3412The use of LSD, magic mushrooms, or peyote does not increase a person’s risk of
3413
3414developing mental health problems, according to an analysis of information from
3415
3416more than 130,000 randomly chosen people, including 22,000 people who had used
3417
3418psychedelics at least once. The researchers found no link between the use of
3419
3420psychedelic drugs and a range of mental health problems. Instead they found some
3421
3422significant associations between the use of psychedelic drugs and fewer mental
3423
3424health problems.
3425
3426[/quote]
3427
3428
3429https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retracted_article_on_dopaminergic_neurotoxicity_of_MDMA
3430
3431
3432[quote]
3433
3434"Severe dopaminergic neurotoxicity in primates after a common recreational dose regimen of MDMA[nb 1] ("ecstasy")",[1] was a paper by Dr. George Ricaurte which was published in the leading journal Science, and later retracted. The reason was that instead of using MDMA, methamphetamine had been used in the test.[2]
3435
3436...
3437
3438Another remarkable aspect of this episode is the public endorsement of the study, at the time of its publication, by Alan Leshner, chief executive of the AAAS and former director of NIDA. It isn't clear why an officer of the AAAS should be involved at all in publicly promoting a particular result published in its journal, least of all one whose outcome was questioned at the outset by several experts. The AAAS issued the retraction late in the afternoon on Friday 5 September, resulting in low-key media coverage, which contrasts sharply with the hype surrounding the initial paper.
3439
3440...
3441
3442In an interview in The Scientist[13] British scientists Colin Blakemore and Leslie Iversen described how they expressed concerns about the article with editors at Science. "It's an outrageous scandal," Iversen told The Scientist. "It's another example of a certain breed of scientist who appear to do research on illegal drugs mainly to show what the governments want them to show. They extract large amounts of grant money from the government to do this sort of biased work."
3443
3444
3445Upon results of the review, Research Triangle Institute asserted it was impossible the vials had been mislabeled as all other vials in suspect lots were properly labeled by labeling machines and it was not possible some vials had been mislabeled while others had not as the machines use printed rolls of labels. Many have asserted Ricaurte switched the labels in order to insure the continuation of funding and his results were fraudulent rather than mistaken. NIDA and AAAS are also suspected of aiding in the fraud.[14]
3446
3447[/quote]
3448
3449
3450https://erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_health4.shtml
3451
3452
3453[quote]
3454
3455The Albert Hofmann collection contains nearly seventy articles on the topic of whether or not LSD-25 causes "chromosome damage". These articles are a good example of the scientific and cultural moral panic that took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
3456
3457
3458In 1967, Science published an article, based on the examination of a single patient, which proposed that LSD caused chromosome breakage.1 As Peter Stafford notes in Psychedelics Encyclopedia, "By evening, the charge that LSD could break chromosomes was in all the nation's media."
3459
3460
3461Between 1967 and 1972, article after article was published, in respected peer-reviewed journals, describing the link between LSD and chromosomal damage, both in vitro and in users and their offspring. As these reports accumulated, popular media amplified the scare, leading to sensational articles decrying the mutations that would be unleashed on future generations.
3462
3463
3464"New research finds [LSD] is causing genetic damage that poses a threat of havoc now and appalling abnormalities for generations yet unborn."2
3465
3466
3467Yet, by the mid-1970s, the tide had turned and the scientific literature generally supported the revised opinion that LSD does not cause chromosomal breakage or birth defects.
3468
3469
3470How was it possible for this issue to progress as far as it did? In an atmosphere friendly to reports of negative consequences of LSD use, a litany of elementary scientific and research errors were ignored by the journals that published the findings. It wasn't until enough research could be conducted to counteract the initial momentum that saner opinions, and better science, prevailed.
3471
3472
3473In the collection is a copy of one of the key articles that helped end the hysteria that was taking place in peer reviewed journals and the media. The authors conclude that:
3474
3475
3476"From our own work and from a review of the literature, we believe that pure LSD ingested in moderate doses does not damage chromosomes in vivo, does not cause detectable genetic damage, and is not a teratogen or a carcinogen in man. Within these bounds, therefore, we suggest that, other than during pregnancy, there is no present contraindication to the continued controlled experimental use of pure LSD."3
3477
3478
3479The progression of this issue and its related articles is a perfect example of how dozens of journal references supporting one position may still be wrong. In many cases, only time and the evolution of knowledge can sort it out.
3480
3481
3482It would be interesting to read a retrospective on this part of psychedelic research history.
3483
3484[/quote]
3485
3486
3487https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_babies
3488
3489
3490[quote]
3491
3492Prenatal cocaine exposure (PCE), theorized in the 1970s, occurs when a pregnant woman uses cocaine and thereby exposes her fetus to the drug. "Crack baby" was a term coined to describe children who were exposed to crack (freebase cocaine in smokable form) as fetuses; the concept of the crack baby emerged in the US during the 1980s and 1990s in the midst of a crack epidemic.[1] Other terms are "cocaine baby" and "crack kid". Early studies reported that people who had been exposed to crack in utero would be severely emotionally, mentally, and physically disabled; this belief became common in the scientific and lay communities.[1] Fears were widespread that a generation of crack babies were going to put severe strain on society and social services as they grew up. Later studies failed to substantiate the findings of earlier ones that PCE has severe disabling consequences; these earlier studies had been methodologically flawed (e.g. with small sample sizes and confounding factors). Scientists have come to understand that the findings of the early studies were vastly overstated and that most people who were exposed to cocaine in utero do not have disabilities.[1]
3493
3494[/quote]
3495
3496
3497http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/12/oxytots_and_meth_babies_are_the_new_crack_babies_bad_science_and_the_rush.html
3498
3499
3500[quote]
3501
3502Oxytots
3503
3504Instead of learning from the unfounded hysteria of the crack baby era, we’re repeating it.
3505
3506[/quote]
3507
3508
3509https://www.sciencealert.com/heavy-marijuana-use-does-not-cause-a-drop-in-iq
3510
3511
3512[quote]
3513
3514In a study published in the journal PNAS in 2012, scientists from Duke University in the US reported that cannabis had a neurotoxic effect on the adolescent brain, causing a loss of up to 8 IQ points in the heaviest users. They found that IQ, learning, memory, and executive functions all declined in heavy users who started smoking before the age of 18.
3515
3516
3517The research was part of a longitudinal study of 1,037 New Zealand children born between 1972 and 1973. Health, intelligence and behaviour measures were taken periodically on all participants, most recently at the age of 38.
3518
3519
3520The scientists warned that there may be other explanations for their findings and that they could not "definitively attest to whether this association [between persistent cannabis use and IQ decline] was causal". The study did rule out factors such as years of education, schizophrenia, hard-drug and alcohol dependence, but did not account for other relevant factors such as childhood trauma.
3521
3522
3523A study published in PNAS six months after the original research questioned the methodology, saying: "Although it would be too strong to say that the results have been discredited, the methodology is flawed and the causal inference drawn from the results premature."
3524
3525
3526The researchers argued that if you take into account the effects of socioeconomic status on IQ, the decline in IQ due to cannabis use is overestimated by the previous study - and could in fact be zero.
3527
3528
3529A new study by the University College London has now shed further light on the Duke University findings. This study drew on a larger sample of adolescents; 2,612 UK children born between 1991 and 1992. They found that heavy cannabis use was in no way linked to IQ decline, although alcohol use was strongly correlated with IQ loss in eight to 15 year olds.
3530
3531[/quote]
3532
3533
3534
3535https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/booming/revisiting-the-crack-babies-epidemic-that-was-not.html
3536
3537
3538[quote]
3539
3540This week’s Retro Report video on “crack babies” (infants born to addicted mothers)
3541
3542lays out how limited scientific studies in the 1980s led to predictions that a generation
3543
3544of children would be damaged for life. Those predictions turned out to be wrong.
3545
3546This supposed epidemic — one television reporter talks of a 500 percent increase in
3547
3548damaged babies — was kicked off by a study of just 23 infants that the lead researcher
3549
3550now says was blown out of proportion. And the shocking symptoms — like tremors and
3551
3552low birth weight — are not particular to cocaine-exposed babies, pediatric researchers
3553
3554say; they can be seen in many premature newborns.
3555
3556[/quote]
3557
3558[hr]
3559
3560https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4805169/
3561
3562
3563[quote]
3564
3565Finally, we have demonstrated that attention to engaging social stimuli not only activates the DMN but also deactivates the TPN. In a subsequent study[30] it was shown that this pattern of DMN activation and TPN deactivation was present for humanizing depictions of individuals, whereas dehumanizing depictions, which are associated with decreased moral concern, either involved decreased activity in the DMN or increased activity in the TPN. Taken together, these findings suggest that we are neurologically constrained from simultaneously exercising moral concern and analytic thinking.
3566
3567[/quote]
3568
3569
3570https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160323151838.htm
3571
3572
3573[quote]
3574
3575"These findings," Friedman continued, "are consistent with the philosophical view, espoused by (Immanuel) Kant, according to which there are two distinct types of truth: empirical and moral."
3576
3577[/quote]
3578
3579
3580https://content.ucpress.edu/chapters/11128.ch01.pdf
3581
3582
3583[quote]
3584
3585“Following the standardization of opinion that came with the nineteenth century, we are now witnessing the sudden synchronization of emotions. . . .  Public opinion is supposed to be built up through shared reflection, thanks to the freedom of the press but, equally, to the publishing of critical work. Public emotion, on the  contrary,  is  triggered  by  reflex  with  impunity  wherever  the  image  holds sway over the word.”15
3586
3587[/quote]
3588
3589
3590
3591
3592However, it should be noted that the drug terrorists actually come in numerous variants, some of which are associated with the traditional religions.
3593
3594
3595
3596
3597
3598https://booksinjail.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/meth-equals-sorcery-by-steve-box/
3599
3600
3601[quote]
3602
3603Anyway, thinking that surely the wise, benevolent, government rehab masters probably
3604
3605knew much more about quitting drugs than I did, I signed up for the class, and was
3606
3607appalled when such a low-caliber book was issued as curriculum. And the instructor
3608
3609of the class was a middle-aged church volunteer who had never touched drugs in his
3610
3611life! It seemed like his training was mostly religious, and he had no psychiatric
3612
3613expertise at all! The class began with a hymn, and as I listened to a dozen tone-deaf
3614
3615inmates sing ‘How Great Thou Art’, I found myself wondering: what if a Buddhist wants
3616
3617to get off drugs? Or an Atheist? But religious tolerance is not in the Texas Department
3618
3619of Criminal Justice’s lexicon, apparently. So these so-called ‘proven techniques’
3620
3621to get us all off the yam-yam were simply: ‘Jesus up your ass’.
3622
3623
3624Which was pretty much what this book is. Jesus up your ass. The first part is a
3625
3626story that describes one of the biggest druggie fuck-ups in the history of drug
3627
3628abuse. He killed his son via vehicular homicide while high on meth. He ruined a
3629
3630good marriage. He flushed his business down the toilet. He blew thousands of
3631
3632dollars on drugs, which he then hid in the desert and lost due to being high and
3633
3634paranoid. And all this is chronicled in a writing style that makes you wonder if
3635
3636he’s really clean now. The run-on sentences and spelling errors were painful to
3637
3638behold. Clearly this man was mentally impaired independently of any substance
3639
3640abuse problems. This part of the book actually made me feel better about my own
3641
3642mistakes made while high.
3643
3644
3645But the later chapters are simply these disjointed, Bible-inspired diatribes about
3646
3647the satanic nature of meth: using it, making it, and selling it. It’s within these
3648
3649pages that you will find gems like: “Those who make meth must stir many ingredients
3650
3651together in a cauldron like a witch. The Bible says that ‘Thou shalt not suffer a
3652
3653witch to live’, with a ‘witch’ being defined as an ‘administer of potions’.” So,
3654
3655according to the logic of this book, if you stir something together in a bowl, it’s
3656
3657a potion, and you are a witch who must be put to death. I wonder if that applies to
3658
3659the makers of Tylenol, or even just a cook in a kitchen? Come to think of it, my
3660
3661spaghetti is pretty fuckin’ magical.
3662
3663[/quote]
3664
3665
3666
3667
3668[quote]
3669
3670Narconon International (commonly known as Narconon) is a Scientology organization that promotes the theories of founder L. Ron Hubbard regarding substance abuse treatment and addiction. Its parent company is the Association for Better Living and Education (ABLE), which is owned and controlled by the Church of Scientology.[1][2][3][4] Headquartered in Hollywood, California, U.S.,[5] Narconon operates several dozen residential centers worldwide, chiefly in the United States and Western Europe. The organization was formed in 1966 by Scientologist William Benitez with Hubbard's help. Benitez contacted Hubbard after reading his book, Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought and Narconon was incorporated in 1970.[6]
3671
3672
3673While both the Church of Scientology and Narconon state that Narconon is a secular program, that it is independent of Scientology,[7] and that it provides legitimate drug education and rehabilitation,[8][9] Narconon has been described by many government reports and former patients as a Church of Scientology front group.[10][11][12][13][14]
3674
3675
3676The program has garnered considerable controversy as a result of its origins in Scientology[10][15][16] and its methods. Its drug rehabilitation treatment has been described as "medically unsafe",[17] "quackery"[18][19][20] and "medical fraud",[21] while academic and medical experts have dismissed its educational program as containing "factual errors in basic concepts such as physical and mental effects, addiction and even spelling".[22]
3677
3678[/quote]
3679
3680
3681As you can see, the Drug Terrorists are not completely in agreement with one another. This is entirely expected for such a large religious belief system:
3682
3683
3684http://www.mrm.org/coriantumr-and-shiz
3685
3686
3687[quote]
3688
3689Can a decapitated body lift itself up and gasp for breath? The Book of Mormon seems to say so. The story is found in the Book of Ether and recounts a sword fight between a Jaredite king named Coriantumr (Ether 12:1) and Shiz, the brother of Lib (Ether 14:17).
3690
3691
3692As the story goes, Lib was killed in a battle with Coriantumr’s army. As a result, Shiz followed Coriantumr in vengeful pursuit, burning cities and killing women and children along the way. Finally the two armies met near the seashore and gave battle for three days. After the third battle, Shiz wounded Coriantumr with “many deep wounds,” and he had to be “carried away as though he were dead.”
3693
3694
3695After recovering from his wounds, Coriantumr began to feel bad over the fact that “there had been slain two millions of mighty men, and also their wives and their children.” He attempted to make peace with Shiz, but Shiz agreed only if he would be allowed to kill Coriantumr with his own sword. Well, this only infuriated Coriantumr’s people, and so the fighting started all over again.
3696
3697
3698Eventually the armies meet. For several days men, women, and children fight relentlessly until only Coriantumr and Shiz remain. Ether 15:29 states that in the course of the battle, “Shiz had fainted with the loss of blood.” Taking advantage of the situation, Coriantumr took his sword and “smote off the head of Shiz.” But that isn’t the end. Verse 31 reports that “after he had smitten off the head of Shiz, that Shiz raised upon his hands and fell; and after that he had struggled for breath, he died.” The question is, how can a man without a head raise himself and also struggle for breath?
3699
3700[/quote]
3701
3702
3703https://www.thoughtco.com/jonah-and-the-whale-700202
3704
3705
3706[quote]
3707
3708Jonah was in the giant fish three days. God commanded the whale, and it vomited the reluctant prophet onto dry land. This time Jonah obeyed God. He walked through Nineveh proclaiming that in forty days the city would be destroyed. Surprisingly, the Ninevites believed Jonah's message and repented, wearing sackcloth and covering themselves in ashes.
3709
3710[/quote]
3711
3712
3713In both cases, we witness individuals who analyze the scripture of competing faiths with their analytical task positive networks and therefore reject their legitimacy, while toggling into their default mode networks when exposed to the socially pertinent stimuli of their own faiths and thereby accept their legitimacy.
3714
3715
3716http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0149989
3717
3718
3719[quote]
3720
3721Engaging social stimuli are associated with activation of the DMN and deactivation of the TPN, whereas analytic problems are associated with activation of the TPN and deactivation of the DMN.
3722
3723[/quote]
3724
3725
3726Although many flavors of the Drug Terrorists are associated with traditional outbreaks of mass psychotic decompensation, it should be noted that there have been numerous chapters of their establishment of religion that were largely autonomous:
3727
3728
3729https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon
3730
3731
3732[quote]
3733
3734The Synanon organization, initially a drug rehabilitation program, was founded by Charles E. "Chuck" Dederich, Sr., (1913–1997) in 1958 in Santa Monica, California. By the early 1960s, Synanon had also become an alternative community, attracting people with its emphasis on living a self-examined life, as aided by group truth-telling sessions that came to be known as the "Synanon Game." Synanon ultimately became the Church of Synanon in the 1970s, and disbanded permanently in 1991[1]
3735
3736[/quote]
3737
3738
3739https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Free_America_Foundation
3740
3741
3742[quote]
3743
3744DFAF was founded by Betty Sembler, wife of shopping center developer and Ambassador
3745
3746Mel Sembler. In 1976, Betty and Mel Sembler founded the cult[4] Straight, Incorporated,
3747
3748a "coercive rehabilitation" program in the United States that produced hundreds of
3749
3750reports of abuse of adolescents and their families during its 15 years of existence.
3751
3752Straight was adapted from the controversial therapeutic community programs Synanon
3753
3754and The Seed.
3755
3756[/quote]
3757
3758
3759http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/08/cult-spawned-tough-love-teen-industry
3760
3761
3762[quote]
3763
3764The idea that punishment can be therapeutic is not unique to the Rotenberg Center.
3765
3766In fact, this notion is widespread among the hundreds of "emotional growth boarding
3767
3768schools," wilderness camps, and "tough love" antidrug programs that make up the
3769
3770billion-dollar teen residential treatment industry.
3771
3772
3773This harsh approach to helping troubled teens has a long and disturbing history.
3774
3775No fewer than 50 programs (though not the Rotenberg Center) can trace their treatment
3776
3777philosophy, directly or indirectly, to an antidrug cult called Synanon. Founded in
3778
37791958, Synanon sold itself as a cure for hardcore heroin addicts who could help each
3780
3781other by "breaking" new initiates with isolation, humiliation, hard labor, and
3782
3783sleep deprivation.
3784
3785[/quote]
3786
3787
3788The fabricators of this pseudoreality have had numerous objectives, all of which are malicious:
3789
3790
3791http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/
3792
3793
3794[quote]
3795
3796"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies:
3797
3798the antiwar left and black people," former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman
3799
3800told Harper's writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published Tuesday.
3801
3802
3803"You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either
3804
3805against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with
3806
3807marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could
3808
3809disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid
3810
3811their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the
3812
3813evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
3814
3815[/quote]
3816
3817
3818http://www.drugtext.org/sub/marmyt1.html
3819
3820
3821[quote]
3822
38237. Marijuana "flattens" human brainwaves
3824
3825
3826This is an out-and-out lie perpetrated by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.
3827
3828A few years ago, they ran a TV ad that purported to show, first, a normal human brainwave,
3829
3830and second, a flat brainwave from a 14-year-old "on marijuana". When researchers
3831
3832called up the TV networks to complain about this commercial, the Partnership had to
3833
3834pull it from the air. It seems that the Partnership faked the flat "marijuana brainwave".
3835
3836In reality, marijuana has the effect of slightly INCREASING alpha wave activity. Alpha
3837
3838waves are associated with meditative and relaxed states which are, in turn, often
3839
3840associated with human creativity.
3841
3842[/quote]
3843
3844
3845https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_Drug-Free_Kids
3846
3847
3848[quote]
3849
3850PDFA was the subject of criticism when it was revealed by Cynthia Cotts of the Village Voice that their federal tax returns showed that they had received several million dollars worth of funding from major pharmaceutical, tobacco and alcohol corporations including American Brands (Jim Beam whiskey), Philip Morris (Marlboro and Virginia Slims cigarettes, Miller beer), Anheuser Busch (Budweiser, Michelob, Busch beer), R.J. Reynolds (Camel, Salem, Winston cigarettes), as well as pharmaceutical firms Bristol Meyers-Squibb, Merck & Company and Procter & Gamble. In 1997 it discontinued any direct fiscal association with tobacco and alcohol suppliers, although it still receives donations from pharmaceutical companies.[51] There has been criticism that some of its PSAs have had "little proven effect on drug use."[35]
3851
3852[/quote]
3853
3854
3855
3856
3857
3858
3859
3860This has been to the egregious detriment of society:
3861
3862
3863https://hub.jhu.edu/2016/03/24/war-on-drugs-undercuts-public-health/
3864
3865
3866[quote]
3867
3868Experts urge decriminalization of minor drug offenses, say war on drugs undercuts public health Johns Hopkins-Lancet commission concludes current policies increase risk of death, exacerbate ongoing health crises worldwide
3869
3870[/quote]
3871
3872
3873http://www.independent.org/newsroom/news_detail.asp?newsID=35
3874
3875
3876[quote]
3877
3878The link between the homicide rate and the amount of resources given to drug
3879
3880prohibition. A study of sample precincts in New York City, for example, found
3881
3882that three-quarters of drug-related homicides resulted from drug-trade disputes.
3883
3884Eliminating drug prohibition would probably reduce homicide in the United States
3885
3886by 25 to 75 percent.
3887
3888[/quote]
3889
3890
3891http://usuncut.com/world/portugal-war-on-drugs/
3892
3893
3894[quote]
3895
3896By systematically moving to decriminalize all drugs, from marijuana to heroin,
3897
3898Portugal has successfully reduced their addiction rate by roughly 50 percent. In
3899
3900Portugal, addiction is seen not as a crime to punish, but as a public health crisis
3901
3902that should be addressed holistically.
3903
3904[/quote]
3905
3906
3907https://mic.com/articles/120403/14-years-after-decriminalizing-drugs-one-chart-shows-why-portugal-s-experiment-has-worked
3908
3909
3910[quote]
3911
3912Data from the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction, reported
3913
3914recently by the Washington Post, does just that. According to the center's 2015
3915
3916report, Portugal has the second-lowest drug overdose rate of every European country
3917
3918measured in the report.
3919
3920[/quote]
3921
3922
3923https://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/DPA_Fact_Sheet_Portugal_Decriminalization_Feb2015.pdf
3924
3925
3926[quote]
3927
3928Reduced incidence of HIV/AIDS. The number of new HIV and AIDS diagnoses have fallen
3929
3930considerably. Between 2000 and 2013, new HIV cases among people who use drugs declined from
3931
39321,575 to 78. The number of new AIDS cases declined from 626 to 74.
3933
3934[/quote]
3935
3936
3937https://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/Colorado_Marijuana_Legalization_One_Year_Status_Report.pdf
3938
3939
3940[quote]
3941
3942According to data released by the city of Denver,
3943
3944violent crime and property crime in Denver
3945
3946decreased in 2014. Violent crime in Denver went
3947
3948down by 2.2% in the first 11 months of 2014,
3949
3950compared with the first 11 months of 2013. In the
3951
3952same period, burglaries in Denver decreased by
3953
39549.5% and overall property crime decreased by
3955
39568.9%.
3957
3958[/quote]
3959
3960
3961A potential Pseudoreality - The Climate Change Movement
3962
3963
3964As I  said this is the purported reality that I have the most trouble determining if it is real or not. Certainly there seems to be substantial scientific support for the mainstream rhetoric of the climate change movement, yet I haven't studied the phenomenon adequately to ascertain that this is not illusory. The skeptics of the climate change movement characterize it as being a pseudoreality essentially, the language they use to describe this movement accurately reflects the nature of the New Religious Movements such as the anti vaccination movement, the war on drugs, and the sex hysteria. However, just because people use this language toward a movement does not automatically make their characterization correct, and although I am most familiar with behavior modifying parasites that create false realities with threats in them, it is entirely possible and there is evidence to support the notion that some behavior modifying parasites create false realities that camouflage the threats that exist in actual reality.
3965
3966
3967Nevertheless, I will include some excerpts and so on in relation to the climate change movement. I will also include some excerpts from the climate change movement that induce suspicion in me due to their form being that which is used by the promulgators of moral panics. However, in reality it is possible for things to exist which are deserving of panic, and in such an event the language used may very well mimic that which is used in describing false realities which don't correlate to the state of actual existence.
3968
3969
3970Firstly, it should be noted that numerous professionals with notable and pertinent academic backgrounds have characterized the climate change movement as being a pseudoreality:
3971
3972
3973https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivar_Giaever#Global_warming
3974
3975
3976[quote]
3977
3978Ivar Giaever (Norwegian: Giæver, IPA: [ˈiːvɑr ˈjeːvər]; born April 5, 1929) is a Norwegian-American physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973 with Leo Esaki and Brian Josephson "for their discoveries regarding tunnelling phenomena in solids".[1]
3979
3980...
3981
3982Giaever has repeatedly professed skepticism of global warming, calling it a "new religion."[10][11][11][12]
3983
3984
3985In a featured story in Norway's largest newspaper, Aftenposten, 26 June 2011, Giaever stated, "It is amazing how stable temperature has been over the last 150 years."[13]
3986
3987
3988On 13 September 2011, Giaever resigned from the American Physical Society over its official position. The APS Fellow noted: "In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?"[14]
3989
3990
3991As part of the 62nd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, Giaever commented on the significance of the apparent rise in temperature when he stated, "What does it mean that the temperature has gone up 0.8 degrees Kelvin: probably nothing." Referring to the selection of evidence in his presentation, Giaever stated "I pick and choose when I give this talk just the way the previous speaker (Mario Molina) picked and chose when he gave his talk." Giaever concluded his presentation with a pronouncement: "Is climate change pseudoscience? If I'm going to answer the question, the answer is: absolutely."[15][16]
3992
3993....
3994
3995""I am a skeptic… Global warming has become a new religion." – Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever."
3996
3997[/quote]
3998
3999
4000It is entirely proper to characterize the belief in pseudorealities as being religious in nature, seeing as the believers make reference to themed collections of fiction materials rather than materials that correlate to the state of actual reality, and manifest many of the symptoms of schizophrenic psychotic decompensation in social convergence.
4001
4002
4003http://www.faceofmalawi.com/2017/07/religious-people-have-mental-illness-neuroscientist-warns/
4004
4005
4006[quote]
4007
4008The self-described atheist, who is also a neuroendocrinologist, argues that religion is comparable to a shared schizophrenia.
4009
4010[/quote]
4011
4012
4013https://richarddawkins.net/2014/07/children-exposed-to-religion-have-difficulty-distinguishing-fact-from-fiction-study-finds/
4014
4015
4016[quote]
4017
4018Young children who are exposed to religion have a hard time differentiating between fact and fiction, according to a new study published in the July issue of Cognitive Science.
4019
4020[/quote]
4021
4022
4023https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/climate-change-richard-lindzen-cult-global-warming-1484852
4024
4025
4026[quote]
4027
4028An MIT professor has likened believing in global warming to being in a "cult" and having "fanatical" beliefs.
4029
4030
4031Professor emeritus Richard Lindzen, a well-known climate change denier, was speaking on a radio show about how he believes there is a religious nature to the belief in global warming.
4032
4033
4034"As with any cult, once the mythology of the cult begins falling apart, instead of saying, oh, we were wrong, they get more and more fanatical. I think that's what's happening here. Think about it,"
4035
4036[/quote]
4037
4038
4039This is a proper characterization of the behavior I have noted in relation to pseudorealities. As the evidence piles up against the protected beliefs of their movements, they simply become more and more fanatical. Recall from my previous posts:
4040
4041
4042http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/dailydose/12/04/autism.mercury/
4043
4044
4045[quote]
4046
4047Years ago, people made predictions -- by removing thimerosal, the number of cases of autism should decrease -- therefore showing that thimerosal is a cause of autism. This new study puts that idea in jeopardy. Similar studies have been done in Canada and Denmark with the same results: thimerosal was removed, but autism is still on the rise. This is a strong message; it very clearly shows, and reassures, that autism did not arrive through a vaccine.
4048
4049[/quote]
4050
4051
4052http://www.antivaccinebodycount.com/
4053
4054
4055[quote]
4056
4057Most anti-vaccination believers claim that the compound Thimerosal led to an increase in autism cases. The Measles/Mumps/Rubella vaccine is their usual target. However, Thimerosal was never used as a preservative in the Measles/Mumps/Rubella vaccine. No vaccine licensed since 1999 has contained Thimerosal as a preservative, except a few multi-dose container vaccines such as some (but not all) HIB and Influenza vaccines. Autism has not declined since 1999, thereby disproving this connection. However, this has not stopped anti-vaccination believers from claiming that it was the MMR vaccine itself that caused autism or that it was vaccines in general that caused autism. All of these ideas have been disproven in multiple scientific and legal examinations of the evidence.
4058
4059[/quote]
4060
4061
4062https://www.pathtojustice.com/blog/mashas-law-allows-civil-lawsuits-for-child-pornography-victims/
4063
4064
4065[quote]
4066
4067Could making child pornography legal lead to lower rates of child sex abuse? It could well do, according to a new study by Milton Diamond, from the University of Hawaii, and colleagues.
4068
4069Results from the Czech Republic showed, as seen everywhere else studied (Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sweden, USA), that rape and other sex crimes have not increased following the legalization and wide availability of pornography. And most significantly, the incidence of child sex abuse has fallen considerably since 1989, when child pornography became readily accessible – a phenomenon also seen in Denmark and Japan. Their findings are published online today in Springer’s journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.
4070
4071The findings support the theory that potential sexual offenders use child pornography as a substitute for sex crimes against children
4072
4073[/quote]
4074
4075
4076http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/5-scientists-skeptical-climate-change
4077
4078
4079[quote]
4080
4081Dr. Happer, Professor Emeritus of physics at Princeton University, earned his Ph.D. in physics from his alma mater. He worked as a professor at Columbia University and served as the Director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science under George H. W. Bush before returning to Princeton.
4082
4083
4084Earlier this year, Dr. Happer commented to The Guardian that he thinks “There’s a whole area of climate so-called science that is really more like a cult. It’s like Hare Krishna or something like that. They’re glassy-eyed and they chant. It will potentially harm the image of all science.”
4085
4086[/quote]
4087
4088
4089https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_M._Gray
4090
4091
4092[quote]
4093
4094Following Gray's retirement from CSU's faculty, he became a controversial figure in the discussion on climate change,[11] particularly his stance against anthropogenic global warming.[16] Gray was skeptical of current theories of human-induced global warming, which he said is supported by scientists afraid of losing grant funding[17]
4095
4096[/quote]
4097
4098
4099This tie to the grant system seems very common in relation to New Religious Movements. Recall from previous posts:
4100
4101
4102https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/03/27/lies-damned-lies-and-sex-work-statistics/
4103
4104
4105[quote]
4106
4107Despite plenty of evidence of the harm caused by criminalization, there’s still a tremendous amount of money in representing it as the “cure” for a situation it actually exacerbates. In an interview last May, Michael Horowitz, a fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute who led efforts to pass the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, told the Las Vegas Review Journal that the anti-trafficking movement has become more about securing grants for research than protecting victims. “Now it’s just one big federal entitlement program,” he said, “and everybody is more worried about where they’re going to get their next grant.”
4108
4109[/quote]
4110
4111
4112https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retracted_article_on_dopaminergic_neurotoxicity_of_MDMA
4113
4114
4115[quote]
4116
4117"Severe dopaminergic neurotoxicity in primates after a common recreational dose regimen of MDMA[nb 1] ("ecstasy")",[1] was a paper by Dr. George Ricaurte which was published in the leading journal Science, and later retracted. The reason was that instead of using MDMA, methamphetamine had been used in the test.[2]
4118
4119...
4120
4121Another remarkable aspect of this episode is the public endorsement of the study, at the time of its publication, by Alan Leshner, chief executive of the AAAS and former director of NIDA. It isn't clear why an officer of the AAAS should be involved at all in publicly promoting a particular result published in its journal, least of all one whose outcome was questioned at the outset by several experts. The AAAS issued the retraction late in the afternoon on Friday 5 September, resulting in low-key media coverage, which contrasts sharply with the hype surrounding the initial paper.
4122
4123...
4124
4125In an interview in The Scientist[13] British scientists Colin Blakemore and Leslie Iversen described how they expressed concerns about the article with editors at Science. "It's an outrageous scandal," Iversen told The Scientist. "It's another example of a certain breed of scientist who appear to do research on illegal drugs mainly to show what the governments want them to show. They extract large amounts of grant money from the government to do this sort of biased work."
4126
4127
4128Upon results of the review, Research Triangle Institute asserted it was impossible the vials had been mislabeled as all other vials in suspect lots were properly labeled by labeling machines and it was not possible some vials had been mislabeled while others had not as the machines use printed rolls of labels. Many have asserted Ricaurte switched the labels in order to insure the continuation of funding and his results were fraudulent rather than mistaken. NIDA and AAAS are also suspected of aiding in the fraud.[14]
4129
4130[/quote]
4131
4132
4133I note that climate change is quite similar to the other new religious movements in the political interest that has been taken in it:
4134
4135
4136https://cruxnow.com/church/2015/07/21/world-mayors-vow-to-fight-climate-change-human-trafficking/
4137
4138
4139[quote]
4140
4141World mayors vow to fight climate change, human slavery
4142
4143
4144Responding to a call from Pope Francis, mayors from around the world gathered at a Vatican summit declared that stronger action on climate change is “a moral imperative,” and called human trafficking a “crime against humanity.”
4145
4146[/quote]
4147
4148
4149Themed materials such as this always give me a suspicious feeling, particularly when they are from politicians:
4150
4151
4152
4153Of course not all themed materials are fiction materials, however.
4154
4155
4156https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121486841811817591
4157
4158
4159[quote]
4160
4161Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the mass hysteria phenomenon known as global warming. Much of the science has since been discredited. Now it's time for political scientists, theologians and psychiatrists to weigh in.
4162
4163[/quote]
4164
4165
4166This article is arguing against it being a mass hysteria, however it is notable that it has been characterized as in the cluster of socially convergent psychotic decompensatory conditions characteristic of pseudoreality (I personally believe it has lasted too long to properly be labeled as a mass hysteria, however).
4167
4168
4169It should be noted that even the most prominent promulgators of the climate change movement's rhetoric, the IPCC which operates under the United Nations
4170
4171
4172(which has numerous new religious movements operating under it:
4173
4174
4175http://www.nbcnews.com/id/32880508/ns/technology_and_science-security/t/un-expert-child-porn-internet-increases/
4176
4177
4178[quote]
4179
4180More than 4 million Web sites worldwide show images of children being sexually exploited, said the U.N. investigator on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, Najat M'jid Maalla.
4181
4182....
4183
4184Maalla urged international cooperation to stop the child pornography industry, which she estimated to be worth between $3 billion and $20 billion. She recommended countries share information on sites containing child pornography in order to block them faster.
4185
4186[/quote]
4187
4188
4189http://www.popsci.com/man-who-lit-dark-web
4190
4191
4192[quote]
4193
4194More than 1 million are children. Nearly one-quarter are bought and sold as sex
4195
4196slaves. Only 1-in-100 victims of human trafficking is ever rescued. It’s a booming
4197
4198business. High profits and low risk make human trafficking one of the fastest-growing
4199
4200and most lucrative crimes on the planet; the U.N. recently estimated that trafficking
4201
4202nets $150 billion a year.
4203
4204[/quote]
4205
4206
4207https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/02/un-war-on-drugs-failure-prohibition-united-nations
4208
4209
4210[quote]
4211
4212The UN’s war on drugs is a failure. Is it time for a different approach?
4213
4214
4215A policy of prohibition has put the drugs trade in the hands of criminals and led to suffering for millions.
4216
4217[/quote]
4218
4219)
4220
4221
4222Estimates slightly under a 1:20 probability that human activity has not been a primary driving force of climate change:
4223
4224
4225https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/
4226
4227
4228[quote]
4229
4230The role of human activity
4231
4232
4233In its Fifth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of 1,300 independent scientific experts from countries all over the world under the auspices of the United Nations, concluded there's a more than 95 percent probability that human activities over the past 50 years have warmed our planet.
4234
4235[/quote]
4236
4237
4238Of course there is, as far as I am aware, substantial academic writing that indicates legitimacy to the anthropogenic nature of climate change. However, one must keep in mind:
4239
4240[hr]
4241
4242https://erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_health4.shtml
4243
4244
4245[quote]
4246
4247In the collection is a copy of one of the key articles that helped end the hysteria that was taking place in peer reviewed journals and the media. The authors conclude that:
4248
4249
4250"From our own work and from a review of the literature, we believe that pure LSD ingested in moderate doses does not damage chromosomes in vivo, does not cause detectable genetic damage, and is not a teratogen or a carcinogen in man. Within these bounds, therefore, we suggest that, other than during pregnancy, there is no present contraindication to the continued controlled experimental use of pure LSD."3
4251
4252
4253The progression of this issue and its related articles is a perfect example of how dozens of journal references supporting one position may still be wrong. In many cases, only time and the evolution of knowledge can sort it out.
4254
4255[/quote]
4256
4257
4258Of course the drug fraud in academic journals is usually scientifically refuted, resulting in retractions, in only a number of years. However, in the modern era it is predicted that such things will be of a larger scale and more tenacious than they were in the past, due to increased globalization and so forth. So, it would be atypical for fraud to persist in academic journals at such a large scale and for such a long period of time, however it is not impossible for this to happen.
4259
4260
4261telegram.com/news/20170122/mit-physicist-warns-against-alarmism-over-climate-change
4262
4263
4264From Lidzen again:
4265
4266
4267[quote]
4268
4269He quoted H.L. Mencken: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety from an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” The time has come to “put the brakes on” climate change alarmism, he said.
4270
4271[/quote]
4272
4273
4274This is an accurate characterization of moral panics.
4275
4276
4277https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/24/drastic-cooling-north-atlantic-beyond-worst-fears-scientists-warn
4278
4279
4280[quote]
4281
4282Drastic cooling in North Atlantic beyond worst fears, scientists warn
4283
4284[/quote]
4285
4286
4287[quote]
4288
4289Climatologists say Labrador Sea could cool within a decade before end of this century, leading to unprecedented disruption, reports Climate News Network
4290
4291[/quote]
4292
4293
4294[quote]
4295
4296For thousands of years, parts of northwest Europe have enjoyed a climate about 5C warmer than many other regions on the same latitude. But new scientific analysis suggests that that could change much sooner and much faster than thought possible.
4297
4298
4299Climatologists who have looked again at the possibility of major climate change in and around the Atlantic Ocean, a persistent puzzle to researchers, now say there is an almost 50% chance that a key area of the North Atlantic could cool suddenly and rapidly, within the space of a decade, before the end of this century.
4300
4301[/quote]
4302
4303
4304The language used here is that used in moral panics:
4305
4306
4307http://www.thesociologicalcinema.com/videos/crack-babies-a-tale-from-the-war-on-drugs
4308
4309
4310[quote]
4311
4312"When the official reaction to a person, groups of persons or series of events is out of all proportion to the actual threat offered, when 'experts', in the form of police chiefs, the judiciary, politicians and editors perceive the threat in all but identical terms, and appear to talk 'with one voice' of rates, diagnoses, prognoses and solutions, when the media representations universally stress 'sudden and dramatic' increases (in numbers involved or events) and 'novelty', above and beyond that which a sober, realistic appraisal could sustain, then we believe it is appropriate to speak of the beginnings of a moral panic."
4313
4314[/quote]
4315
4316
4317However the question is whether this is a sober characterization of the situation. Also, I always take reporting from such niche organizations with a substantial grain of salt:
4318
4319
4320womensenews.org/2005/12/child-pornography-dodges-detection-web/
4321
4322
4323[quote]
4324
4325$3 Billion in Annual Sales
4326
4327
4328Allen says that global sales of illegal pornography that exploits children--including those under 4 years old--are about $3 billion a year.
4329
4330[/quote]
4331
4332
4333Also, note that there is more disagreement regarding the legitimacy of the mainstream climate change movement's narrative than their movement leads individuals to believe:
4334
4335
4336https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveys_of_scientists'_views_on_climate_change
4337
4338
4339[quote]
4340
4341In 2007, Harris Interactive surveyed 489 randomly selected members of either the American Meteorological Society or the American Geophysical Union for the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) at George Mason University. The survey found 97% agreed that global temperatures have increased during the past 100 years; 84% say they personally believe human-induced warming is occurring, and 74% agree that "currently available scientific evidence" substantiates its occurrence. Only 5% believe that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming; 41% say they thought the effects of global warming would be near catastrophic over the next 50–100 years; 44% say said effects would be moderately dangerous; 13% saw relatively little danger; 56% say global climate change is a mature science; 39% say it is an emerging science.[30][31]
4342
4343[/quote]
4344
4345
4346[quote]
4347
4348One of the questions asked in the survey was "To what extent do you agree or disagree that climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic causes?", with a value of 1 indicating strongly agree and a value of 7 indicating strongly disagree.[34] The results showed a mean of 3.62, with 50 responses (9.4%) indicating "strongly agree" and 54 responses (9.7%) indicating "strongly disagree". The same survey indicates a 72% to 20% endorsement of the IPCC reports as accurate, and a 15% to 80% rejection of the thesis that "there is enough uncertainty about the phenomenon of global warming that there is no need for immediate policy decisions."
4349
4350[/quote]
4351
4352
4353[quote]
4354
4355In 2014, Bart Verheggen of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency surveyed 1,868 climate scientists. They found that, consistent with other research, the level of agreement on anthropogenic causation correlated with expertise - 90% of those surveyed with more than 10 peer-reviewed papers related to climate (just under half of survey respondents) explicitly agreed that human production of greenhouse gases was the main cause of global warming.[3]
4356
4357[/quote]
4358
4359
4360Note that they may be using a bandwagon effect style of propaganda:
4361
4362
4363https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_techniques
4364
4365
4366[quote]
4367
4368Bandwagon
4369
4370Bandwagon and "inevitable-victory" appeals attempt to persuade the target audience to join in and take the course of action that "everyone else is taking."
4371
4372
4373Inevitable victory: invites those not already on the bandwagon to join those already on the road to certain victory. Those already or at least partially on the bandwagon are reassured that staying aboard is their best course of action. (e.g., "The debate is over. Nearly everyone who matters agrees with me.")
4374
4375Join the crowd: This technique reinforces people's natural desire to be on the winning side. This technique is used to convince the audience that a program is an expression of an irresistible mass movement and that it is in their best interest to join.
4376
4377[/quote]
4378
4379
4380Also, I find their repetitive use of slogans to be concerning and reminiscent of Goebbelsian propaganda:
4381
4382
4383
4384
4385
4386[quote]
4387
4388"The rank and file are more primitive than we imagine. Propaganda must therefore
4389
4390always be essentially simple and repetitious. In the long run only he will achieve
4391
4392basic results in influencing public opinion who is able to reduce problems to the
4393
4394simplest terms and who has the courage to keep forever repeating them in this
4395
4396simplified form despite the objections of intellectuals."
4397
4398--Joseph Goebbels
4399
4400[/quote]
4401
4402
4403https://qz.com/822907/science-suggests-that-frequently-repeating-a-lie-creates-the-illusion-of-truth/
4404
4405
4406[quote]
4407
4408Science suggests that frequently repeating a lie creates “the illusion of truth”
4409
4410[/quote]
4411
4412
4413https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2015/05/24/A-tale-oftwo-reefers/stories/201505240065
4414
4415
4416[quote]
4417
4418This is not your grandfather’s marijuana.
4419
4420[/quote]
4421
4422
4423http://www.lifezette.com/healthzette/not-fathers-marijuana/
4424
4425
4426[quote]
4427
4428‘This Is Not Your Father’s Marijuana’
4429
4430[/quote]
4431
4432
4433http://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/pediatricians-warn-against-pot-use-not-your-dad-s-marijuana-n726081
4434
4435
4436[quote]
4437
4438Pediatricians Warn Against Pot Use: Not Your Dad’s Marijuana
4439
4440[/quote]
4441
4442
4443[quote]
4444
4445“These cases involve real-life abuse and assault of children. Every time an image is viewed, it’s like the assault happened again,” said Andrew M. McLees, special agent in charge of the Newark office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations.
4446
4447[/quote]
4448
4449
4450http://www.counselheal.com/articles/24956/20160529/5-gruesome-facts-child-pornography-why-people-addicted.htm
4451
4452
4453[quote]
4454
4455The children might feel like being raped time and again when someone watches it.
4456
4457[/quote]
4458
4459
4460https://www.dailyherald.com/article/20120116/news/701169906/
4461
4462
4463[quote]
4464
4465"... every time somebody looks at that image it's like the crime is taking place all over again…"
4466
4467[/quote]
4468
4469
4470http://fox8.com/2012/05/21/former-pastor-sentenced-to-prison-on-child-porn-charges/
4471
4472
4473[quote]
4474
4475"we hear that in court that they feel like they are victimized every single time someone downloads their videos or looks at their videos they feel like they are being raped all over again,” said Canonico
4476
4477[/quote]