Trump to win?

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Trump to win?

Book Review

Chris Hedges on Thomas Frank

During Barack Obama’s administration there has been near-total continuity with the administration of George W. Bush, especially regarding mass surveillance, endless war and the failure to regulate Wall Street. This is because the mechanisms of corporate power embodied in the deep state do not change with election cycles. The election of Donald Trump, however distasteful, would not radically alter corporate control over our lives. The corporate state is impervious to political personalities. If Trump continues to rise in the public opinion polls, the corporate backers of Hillary Clinton will start funding him instead. They know Trump will prostitute himself to money as assiduously as Clinton will.

Our political elites, Republican and Democrat, were shaped, funded and largely selected by corporate power in what John Ralston Saul correctly calls a coup d’état in slow motion. Nothing will change until corporate power itself is dismantled...

But Frank fails to grasp that the Democratic elites, along with our financial and corporate elites, are one entity. They are formed in the same institutions, run in the same social circles and cross-pollinate like bees. This has been true since the country’s formation. Harvard and Yale were designed, like Oxford and Cambridge in Britain, to perpetuate the plutocracy. They do an admirable job.

Hillary Clinton sat in the front row for Donald Trump’s third wedding. And Chelsea Clinton, living in a multimillion-dollar penthouse in New York City, was until the current presidential campaign a close friend of Ivanka Trump. George W. Bush, although doltish and inept, graduated from Andover, Yale and Harvard Business School. His appointees were no less steeped in elitist Ivy League credentials than those around Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. Paul Wolfowitz attended Cornell and the University of Chicago. Donald Rumsfeld went to Princeton. Henry “Hank” Paulson graduated from Dartmouth and Harvard Business School before working for Goldman Sachs. Lewis “Scooter” Libby went to Yale and Columbia Law School (as well as the pre-prep school that I attended). Joshua Bolten, a chief of staff for President George W. Bush, went to Princeton and Stanford Law School.

[shiny!]

Re: Trump to win?

http://www.americanthinker.com/artic...n_bargain.html

Interesting article, but the picture showing the supposed finger-squeeze neurological test given to HRC during the 9/11 memorial is not what it appears to be. It's a trick of perspective. I've seen the video. The young woman was simply handing Clinton a ribbon to pin to her blouse. When you see them in motion, it was over in an instant. Their hands never even touched.

EDIT: I found the video. The supposed "nurse" was a PR volunteer who worked with Clinton in the past:

[Woodsman]

Re: Trump to win?

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-d...most-important

http://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...hwriter-214270

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Trump to win?

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-d...most-important

[vt]

Re: Trump to win?

http://www.americanthinker.com/artic...n_bargain.html

[jk]

Re: Trump to win?

I have also used the Milgrim Experiment as part of the same training package. While it's a highly unethical experiment(due to psychological risk to people participating under experimental observation) unlikely to be conducted again in the west, the results are quite troubling.

when i was in medical school i took a course on hypnosis with dr martin orne. [here's the wikipedia page on orne] he was very skeptical of the milgram experiments, analyzing them in terms of "demand characteristics." basically, everyone knows that researchers don't get their grants renewed if they kill their human subjects. otoh, the true subjects were being asked to "play along," which they did.

a hypnotic induction: your hand is getting lighter, your hand is getting lighter. [the hand goes up] did you raise your hand? yes? you're doing it wrong.
your hand is getting lighter, your hand is getting lighter. [the hand goes up] did you raise your hand? no? good, you're hypnotized.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Trump to win?

This is cosmic. Can you believe the coincidence? Feeling a bit like the Cheshire Cat right now.

I'm hoping that when my last favourite Presidential candidate Ross Perot(except his social policies) dies his will includes a really big middle finger F U to "The Man".

That would be awesome.

Unlikely, but I'm hopeful he donates a billion or so to bringing the corrupt machine down using it's own lobbying rules to eat itself from within.

He would have to know he is responsible for Clinton 92 and lesser so 96 and indirectly responsible for the rise of Wall Street power consolidation as well as mass concentration of mass media ownership. Two key factors in why we are where we are today.

Fingers crossed.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Trump to win?

I might be wrong, but I thought the conformity results varied only slightly when a person's decisions were anonymous. They did vary greatly when some variation in other's choices
was seen. Cultural differences were also seen, Americans being the most likely to differ from the group.

Conformity results collapse dramatically when the participant has the opportunity to make anonymous, non-public decisions.

When your choices/decisions are public and you are overwhelmingly(particularly unanimously) opposed then conformity is consistently much, much higher.

Conformity degrades when the experiment participant has a decision "partner". If the "partner" is removed, conformity again increases.

I have also used the Milgrim Experiment as part of the same training package. While it's a highly unethical experiment(due to psychological risk to people participating under experimental observation) unlikely to be conducted again in the west, the results are quite troubling.

I would agree with Woodsman that the experiments are not designed to accurately determine independent/outlier/persistant "devil's advocate" type non conformity.

We know such behaviour exists(both good and bad) and I'd like to see more(I'm sure some already exists) data sets on it.

Another tool I used for my training package were clips from original film "12 Angry Men", mainly for strategies influencing from a position of weakness.

Henry Fonda was brilliantly perfect in that role, and the perfectly executed ambush the character conducted shifting from minority "fence sitting" subtle influencer to switchblade armed pre-planned ambushed is a great experiential learning tool.

The only other actor I could imagine in that role is Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda's personal friend and personal ideological opposition(Ford was a "raging dirty communist" and Stewart was a USAF hero pilot right winger).

Power Distance Index, which relates to low level conformity to authoritarian power structures I was told directly by Baba Shiv, Stanford GSB Professor that it is actually New Zealand closely followed by Australia that possess the least conformity to authoritarianism although it sounds like some other western countries(US included) that follow behind them.

I take him at his word(great guy) but haven't found any national/cultural rankings for PWI.

Make note: I'm no psychologist.

So like a "barracks room lawyer" everything I write, take it with a kilogram of salt.

I've just been taught some interesting concepts and have been following up with my own off the shelf open source R&D of a prototype innovation/problem solving framework training package that includes a fair bit on bias/recognition/mitigation and influencing from a position of weakness.

I'm a big fan of the book "Steal Like an Artist"(former NYT bestseller) as well as Stanford Professor Tina Sellig's books(all of them easily digestible and are all brilliant).

Application of a existing concept from one country/culture/company/climate to another is 90%+ of what it's all really about.

Anecdotally, I just witnessed what I believed to be a lot of public conformity to Hillary Clinton and a lot of quiet/conflicted body language.

So so to reiterate, as per Woodsman I'd also like to see more psychological experiment data on outliers/freaks/non conformity.

As well as conformity bias with advent of social media(and narrowly owned mass media).

Conformity risk still exists with anonymity(albeit much lower %).

Let's say it's only 10%(for argument's sake).

Now look at the recent issues raised briefly about Facebook's allegedly biased process for injecting news stories and op-eds into people's newsfeeds.

Facebook is a private company and nothing is really "free". Maybe we are paying with increased risk of being influenced not just to buy stuff, but to vote a certain way.

What impact could highly biased news feed injections, and worse...an algorithm that hammers users with friend's opinions that support Facebook's preferred narrative, have on user conformity?

Maybe that 10% drops to only 5%, or 3%, or 2%.

But what's 2% of mass user votes worth(which could be 0.5-1% of total US voters)?

The numbers and percentages could be way off, but the concept may be valid.

If valid, is that appropriate?

Should that be legal or regulated?

[DSpencer]

Re: Trump to win?

None of these races have the murder rate that is seen in the black community.

Where are the studies, the media looking into this issue, calls for congressional action?

What kind of congressional action are you hoping for? What kind of studies do you want commissioned? Do we want to know?

[Woodsman]

Re: Trump to win?

This is cosmic. Can you believe the coincidence? Feeling a bit like the Cheshire Cat right now.

Palmer Luckey: The Facebook Near-Billionaire Secretly Funding Trump’s Meme Machine

Palmer Luckey—founder of Oculus—is funding a Trump group that circulates dirty memes about Hillary Clinton.

GIDEON RESNICK


BEN COLLINS


09.22.16 9:00 PM ET

A Silicon Valley titan is putting money behind an unofficial Donald Trump group dedicated to “shitposting” and circulating internet memes maligning Hillary Clinton.

Oculus founder Palmer Luckey financially backed a pro-Trump political organization called Nimble America, a self-described “social welfare 501(c)4 non-profit” in support of the Republican nominee.

Luckey sold his virtual reality company Oculus to Facebook for $2 billion in 2014, and Forbes estimates his current net worth to be $700 million. The 24-year-old told The Daily Beast that he had used the pseudonym “NimbleRichMan” on Reddit with a password given to him by the organization’s founders.

[Woodsman]

Re: What is the plan ?

...i think it's worth being as explicit as possible in these contentious times.

And how!

[jk]

Re: What is the plan ?

Do I need to state that explicitly or am I to be denied the a priori assumption that I don't support the arbitrary killing of anyone, animal, vegetable or mineral?

your original statement was about priorities. saying something is not the first priority is not to deny it.
i think it's worth being as explicit as possible in these contentious times.

[Woodsman]

Re: What is the plan ?

it is tied for first with stopping the police from arbitrarily killing people.

Do I need to state that explicitly or am I to be denied the a priori assumption that I don't support the arbitrary killing of anyone, animal, vegetable or mineral?

[vt]

Re: Trump to win?

What is ignored in the narrative we see in these police shootings is the out of control black on black crime. And it's not just criminals that are affected by the shootings. Innocent citizens, and even children are killed or wounded by the senseless violence.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/13/us...soar.html?_r=0

The police are there to because black lives do matter, and citizens want the police to protect them.

There are tens of millions of guns but you don't see the gun violence in Asian, Hispanic, or White communities. None of these races have the murder rate that is seen in the black community.

Where are the studies, the media looking into this issue, calls for congressional action?
.
Until these key issues are addressed the deaths will continue to haunt us.

[vt]

Re: What is the plan ?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-0...-out-state-ids