From the 4th. They don’t just talk about MF:
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Is this a new take on mob psychology?
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I’m not sure how new it is, but the realization that Governments and media use such psychological techniques on their own population, knowingly, deliberately and with the intent to manipulate their behavior.
That’s not a conversation they want the general population to have, which is why they freaked out when Joe Rogan started talking about it, because he has a large audience.
I doubt most people posting on here are surprised to hear that’s what Governments and media do.
Back when I was in high school, 1984 and Brave New World were required reading. I hope that’s still the case.
Five minutes in, my impression is something I’ve more or less been saying for a while. This just looks like a fancy way of saying “people fear sickness and death”. Well, yeah. People are not dispassionate mini-scientists who analyze all the data and then come to entirely rational cost-benefit conclusions. Watching on.
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A few thoughts on Desmet’s “four conditions”.
- Lack of social bonds
It’s hard to know where to start with this because the relevant literature would be “all of social psychology and anthropology”. Humans are herd animals. It’s so well-established that I’m not sure that it even merits debate. Solitary confinement is acknowledged as “cruel and inhumane” treatment, and less-extreme degrees of isolation have less-extreme effects, all the way up to common-or-garden loneliness, which is a big factor in mental illness, suicide, and various other problems. The rise of the Nazi party, the Russian revolution, the Cultural revolution, and the maintenance of repressive States like East Germany were all associated with the fracturing of accepted social bonds. You might also want to read the extensive literature on the treatment of US POWs during the Korean and Vietnam wars, which offered many basic insights into the role of social factors in brainwashing techniques. Example:
https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1222&context=etd-project
If you have a high tolerance for cruelty - and I will warn you that some things cannot be unseen and unthought - you might want to read Harlow’s attachment experiments, which documents dysfunctional patterns of social bonding in primates under conditions of abuse.
- Lack of meaning
This one is exclusive to humans (as far as we know) and probably straddles the border between psychology and philosophy - as such, it’s not something I know much about. However a great book on this topic is “bullshit jobs” by David Graeber, although I disagree with his conclusions about UBI.
- free floating anxiety/discontent, high levels of frustration and aggression
This concerns some very low-level effects that can be observed in all kinds of animals. During the 20s through the 60s there were a whole series of unpleasant experiments on monkeys, dogs, rats, etc., to see how they would “react to stimuli” (i.e., the experimenters did horrible things to them). Particularly relevant would be the behaviour of animals that discover they have no control over something bad that’s happening to them - initially (of course) they react with a high level of distress, attempting to find out what, if anything, can alleviate their pain. When they discover that nothing does the trick, they lapse into complete apathy; this is “learned helplessness”. However, if in this state they are given a proxy target for their frustrations - say, another lab animal - they will dump all their rage upon that target. Read the literature on operant conditioning, which will take you down all the subsidiary rabbitholes.
Now you might say, that’s all very well, but how does this tie into a single phenomenon (mass psychosis)? At that point you’ll need to apply the usual scientific method:
First identify the phenomenon you’re trying to explain. In other words, are we in a state of mass psychosis? If we are not then obviously there’s nothing to explain. It might be better to run this thought experiment using a historical event, rather than the present COVID scenario. Bear in mind that society is not homogeneous: it is sufficient to be able to identify a subset (10%, 30%, whatever) who meet the criteria for mass psychosis - in other words, irrational behaviour that appears impervious to reason and that is causing harm to themselves and others.
Now you can go back to those four postulates and say: do these adequately explain the behaviour being observed? If they do not, then is there a better set of postulates that does?
However if Desmet’s four basic claims are true (and they absolutely are) then it’s not much of a stretch to suggest that, when those four things come together, the masses will be placed in a position where a resolution - a new set of beliefs and an enemy on which to vent their frustration - is accepted with glee.
The best evidence for the correctness of Desmet’s theory is the simple fact that the UK government wrote a how-to manual on achieving mass compliance, using the psychological levers that he is pointing out.
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I got about 23 minutes in, I think that’s enough though I hope I can find something to read about “mass formation psychosis”. Some interesting ideas, nothing new certainly, but I’m still not convinced that “mass formation psychosis” exists per se (Notably though he states that “it’s something that emerges in a society when very specific conditions are met” I have still heard no evidence to support that assertion, and it seems strongly that he won’t present it in this talk at least) or that there’s any application of the topic in the current epidemic. He seems to me to be completely missing the forest for the trees; in other words, “It’s the epidemic, stupid”. There is one happening, and even if that’s not obvious to someone for whatever reason it certainly looks that way to most people. Maybe I’ll try to plug on later. Back to work
The problem is, you seem to think that “mass formation psychosis” is some sort of technical term that you want to look up. It’s not, he’s just saying “this propaganda campaign about how scary the virus is has caused a mass psychosis to form in the population.”
You need to be looking up things like “mass delusion”, “mass psychosis”, “mob formation”, and so on and so forth.
Or you can go on shoving things into temp because you don’t want them to be discussed, which is basically what Facebook, Twitter, Google, and all the other pro-censorship platforms that are aiding and abetting the propaganda campaign are doing. Whatever.
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That can be reversed, can it not? Albeit not governmental.
I was the one to move from funny political pictures to temp, becuase I do that when funny pictures are not going up. I then moved it back to IP.
So it was me doing the temping and moving, not @tempogain
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No, that’s not true. He said, and I quote (again): “it’s something that emerges in a society when very specific conditions are met”, and outlined the specific conditions. So it’s not some kind of general condition.
No, you need to read things more carefully. If people are talking about “mass formation psychosis” in such a specific way, I want to know what they mean specifically and how they decided it was true.
Mass psychosis exists. Wikipedia has a whole bunch of examples. Whether you think it exists in current year depends on how hard you’re prepared to look at the facts. “What do they mean by that?” is a valid question of course … and we might easily drift off into a discussion regarding the “normal” ranges of human behaviour. An example that springs to mind here would be the Inca and Aztec “civilisations”, which were blighted by such an astounding level of casual violence that even the brutish Spanish conquistadors were shocked by it. The Spanish reported that the locals accepted and defended the violence on the basis of what (to them) was a perfectly rational view of the world, given their superstitious beliefs. Was that “mass psychosis”? Or was it something else?
As for your objections to the theory itself, I think you need to come up with something a bit more substantial than “I don’t see any evidence”. Desmet is a professor of psychology. He knows a lot of stuff that you haven’t studied (and which, inevitably, you “don’t see”). He might well be wrong about this; professors sometimes are. But if you think he’s wrong then it’s incumbent upon you to produce the scenario that falsifies his assertion. You might do this (for example) by producing a historical instance of mass psychosis which did not emerge from those four prerequisites.
I’d also add that he doesn’t suggest mass psychosis is an inevitable outcome of those four conditions - his point is that it is less likely (a lot less likely?) to occur if they are not present. In medical terminology, they are “necessary but not sufficient” for the disease to occur.
He also explains that the magic ingredient that triggers the psychosis is a focus of attention - something that offers people a way out of their malaise. Without it, there is nothing for the hysteria to coalesce around.
Even if one does not want to accept that we’re living through a period of mass hysteria, I think it’s helpful to step back from the navel-gazing and look at more pragmatic questions, such as: do we really want to live in world where (for example) a third of the planet’s economic output is dedicated to obsessing over one specific disease, and where a large part of our lives is dedicated to rituals built around it?
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No, the facts I can see point to this being somewhere between wrong and a highly exaggerated and anecdotal linking of several known phenomena.
Well then, he can tell me what the evidence is, can’t he? Until then he may as well be any schmuck down on the corner.
Nonsense. I reject it because of a lack of evidence. I don’t need to come up with an alternate scenario to do that. How did you ever get that idea?
No lol. Someone can tell me how one is explained. Thinking like this is how people easily accept outlandish ideas.
Is being part of mass psychosis or mass hysteria not knowing you’re part of it?
Evidence of what exactly? Are you looking for evidence that something is wrong - some psychological problem with the collective - or evidence that the theory explains the problem?
In other words are you looking for evidence of the phenomenon itself, or evidence to support the explanation? If the latter, that really isn’t how science works. The theory adequately explains the present situation (at least as I personally see the situation) and a large number of historical instances. If you think it doesn’t, then your job is to falsify it.
Doing a science degree. Well, two of 'em, if you count engineering as science.
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current year fashionable?
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A notable feature of modern mind control techniques is that the subject is utterly unaware that they’re being manipulated. The Mindspace document takes pains to point out that governments should focus on those techniques to avoid arousing suspicion and backlash.
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I’ve said it several times already. He stated clearly what he is proposing to be true and has labeled it “mass formation psychosis”. I want to know why he thinks this is true, in other words, the evidence for it being true.
Right, I’m not required to meet your standards there. As I see it, it doesn’t adequately explain anything, and I want to know why he thinks it does. Pretty simple really! No degrees needed. 
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