The Post-Partisan Emporium

When Behavioural Scientists Misbehave A not so hidden secret BY   JOHN RIDGWAY “ Psychology is no longer just about diagnosing or fixing us, it is now about socially engineering and shaping us. If you don’t control your mind, someone else will.” Dr Patrick Fagan, behavioural psychologist, University of London The relationship between psychology and your average climate sceptic is a strange one indeed. On the one hand psychologists are  reputed  to have generated a “dramatically growing body of research” that demonstrates how our inability to think critically leads to conspiracy ideation. For example, our cognitive failings are presupposed to lead us to think that the public is being unwittingly manipulated as part of some government masterplan. But, on the other hand, it is open knowledge that psychologists have been responsible for developing techniques of behavioural science that have been extensively used by governments to surreptitiously manipulate public opinion. They even have a

  Political Conflict in the Age of Psychic Warfare World War Three is being fought in your mind, and it's the best glowjob you've ever had. JOHN CARTER Chin Fong Warfare is fundamentally about breaking the enemy’s will to fight. This can be done with violence, or without it – before the fight even starts, through raw intimidation. Working from this understanding, military theorists have divided the history of warfare into five generations. First Generation Warfare, abbreviated 1GW, was war as it was waged from the dawn of civilization up through roughly the Civil War. This style of conflict involved massed line infantry, equipped with spears, pikes, swords, or line-of-sight ranged weapons such as longbows, crossbows, or muskets. The basic tactic was to draw up two large groups of armed men, bring them into close contact, and have them hack at one another until one side grew demoralized by the slaughter, at which point their line would break and the real slaughter could begin. I