rigorousintuition.ca

Jeff wrote:

Hugh Manatee Wins wrote:

Fresno_Layshaft wrote: Hugh is just a joker. He enjoys playing games with "conspiracy theorists" on the internet-- seeing who he can get to go along with his non-sense, crackpot theories. And he's been quite successful at it here for years, which is a little frightening.

There's nothing funny about psyops conditioning kids to be ignorant or confused, morally disengaged, self-centered, jingoistic, and violent.

There's nothing funny about inoculation theory and interference theory used to jam cultural transmission of 'subversive' (true) information about the CIA and Pentagon.

Though there's nothing particularly serious about free associations masquerading as unassailable "theory" and an impoverished sense of proportion.

I don't "free associate."
But you prefer the "associative Universe," right? Devoid of causality.

Didn't you once write 'The Coincidence Theorist's Guide to 9/11?'
Well, I've found far more scandal keyword correlation with movies and television than mere coincidence can account for.

Jeff, please debunk McGuire's Inoculation Theory and please debunk interference theory.
Show us where Charles E. Osgood was all wrong, too.

Tell us what the CIA really does in the US media and for psyops if I'm wrong.

How does counterpropaganda really work?

This should be interesting.

...I don't really expect Jeff to answer questions that I've actually researched...the answers probably don't jibe with his book...

What about addressing my concerns, which are threefold:

(1) Being known as "Hamlet" has a fairly well established meaning in the context of political campaign coverage, and it doesn't connote wishy-washy indecision, but rather thinking-about-it-too-seriously indecision, which is not nearly as damaging, (In fact, as I read it, that's how and why the writer of the 1999 article was using it. Because there are several points at which he alleges that McCain had serious reservations about his actions wrt Keating, was misled by lying Democrats, put his foot down when serious impropriety was suggested, and so forth. It's a little bit of a theme in that series that McCain is a kind of like a man with a conscience, trapped in a corrupt world, destined to make tragic errors from time to time. Which is highly compatible with both the character and the plot of Hamlet).

(2) In a generalized, apolitical mass-cultural context, Hamlet is known to be a sexy deep thinker, not a wimp or flip-flooper, insofar as the character is known at all.

(3) The article with the quote in it isn't at all threatening, or at least not any more threatening than the re-hash of the Keating Five scandal that ends with McCain having learned his lesson and become a man of honor that's already being served. As are all the oppo protestations that in fact he was and is totally owned by his big donors on policy issues. Both parts of which have already had the usual non-impact.

Owing to those things, I believe your premise is flawed. Which happens to everyone. What's your response?

Jeff, please debunk McGuire's Inoculation Theory and please debunk interference theory.
Show us where Charles E. Osgood was all wrong, too.

Tell us what the CIA really does in the US media and for psyops if I'm wrong.

How does counterpropaganda really work?

Has no board member ever really made a good faith effort to do this?

At least we're assuming that the CIA has something to do with psyops in the US media and at least we're assuming that counterpropaganda really does exist.

Is there any board member that wants to contend that USG intel agencies are completely unconcerned with the control and manipulative potential of the US MSM or that counterpropaganda does not exist?

Pan? Jeff?

Until you take this on, until you demonstrate an understanding of interference theory and inocculation theory sufficient to credibly cast doubt on their explanatory power why should an interested observer of good conscience do anything other than continue to entertain that Hugh may be right and USG intel agencies may also be aware of the efficacy of interference and inoculation techniques of control and manipulation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inoculation_theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interference_theory

If interference and inoculation theories are correct then KWH is a natural extension of those theories.

Pan, Jeff,

Is it your contention that Hugh has not even once produced an example of KWH which seems to you credible?

Keep in mind Hugh has never retracted an assertion of KWH, to my knowledge. Also keep in mind that in my opinion the example in the OP is on a par with -

C2W wrote:...I believe your premise is flawed. Which happens to everyone. What's your response?

Hugh,

I'll bump this thread to the top for the next month until you respond thoughtfully to C2W's well reasoned critique.

Don't even think you're gonna pull one of your vanishing acts.

If you want credibility then you need to man up, do a little research on Hamlet if you need to and maybe, just maybe, consider that you're wrong in this case.

It happens to everyone.

Hamlet is no Dirty Harry itching to pull the trigger on the bad guys, but I hardly think whatever cultural resonances there are with Hamlet act as such a counterpoise to the vigilante justice meme as to excite thoughts of flip flopper or wishy washy.

I've always been partial to the freudian analysis of Hamlet. It just fits so well. Hamlet's indecisiveness derives from his repressed desire to do just what Claudius has done, namely, kill his father and screw his mother.

bump

Hugh pulled the same exact vanishing act on the "Psyops and Meme Management" board, when FourthBase posted the topic "Why don't keywords enhance memorability?

Again, I would really really like to see a response to that and the other valid points raised in this thread. By avoiding the question altogether, isn't Hugh sort of tacitly acknowledging the gaping holes in his own theory?

Also, it's easy to get caught up in picking on people online without necessarily realizing that you're doing it, especially if the consensus among your particular online community is that the person is worthy of ridicule. After a couple months of making sarcastic remarks in Hugh's threads, I realized I was being an asshole and I stopped.

We are either Hamlets or Quixotes. We think without acting, or act without thinking.

I learn from (and experience and inhabit daily) the personalities of both.

So, Hugh, shine on you crazy windmill.

thegovernmentflu wrote:Hugh pulled the same exact vanishing act on the "Psyops and Meme Management" board, when FourthBase posted the topic "Why don't keywords enhance memorability?

Again, I would really really like to see a response to that and the other valid points raised in this thread. By avoiding the question altogether, isn't Hugh sort of tacitly acknowledging the gaping holes in his own theory?

Also, it's easy to get caught up in picking on people online without necessarily realizing that you're doing it, especially if the consensus among your particular online community is that the person is worthy of ridicule. After a couple months of making sarcastic remarks in Hugh's threads, I realized I was being an asshole and I stopped.

tgf, the point you raise in your last paragraph is one you already answered in the rest of your post. It's the blithe intellectual dishonesty that riles people up. When gaping holes in Hugh's arguments are pointed out to him (whether rudely or politely), he never admits to them, but instead claims that such apparent weaknesses are in fact strengths, or else (when this simply won't work) he does his nifty "vanishing act ".

You're not "being an asshole" when you point out that pernicious nonsense is pernicious nonsense, because pernicious nonsense wastes people's time and energy, not least the time and energy of the person posting it. So it should be opposed. And there's as much reason to oppose such nonsense when Hugh produces it as there is when the NYT or the Guardian or the CIA is the culprit.

Even more reason, maybe; because he's taking an important point (that the media are manipulated and manipulative) and making it look ridiculous by arguing it so badly. In persisting even when he must know he's wrong, he is cheerfully inconsiderate of other's people's time and patience. And finally (not least): he's damaging himself.

MacCruiskeen wrote:

thegovernmentflu wrote:Hugh pulled the same exact vanishing act on the "Psyops and Meme Management" board, when FourthBase posted the topic "Why don't keywords enhance memorability?

Again, I would really really like to see a response to that and the other valid points raised in this thread. By avoiding the question altogether, isn't Hugh sort of tacitly acknowledging the gaping holes in his own theory?

Also, it's easy to get caught up in picking on people online without necessarily realizing that you're doing it, especially if the consensus among your particular online community is that the person is worthy of ridicule. After a couple months of making sarcastic remarks in Hugh's threads, I realized I was being an asshole and I stopped.

tgf, the point you raise in your last paragraph is one you already answered in the rest of your post. It's the blithe intellectual dishonesty that riles people up. When gaping holes in Hugh's arguments are pointed out to him (whether rudely or politely), he never admits to them, but instead claims that such apparent weaknesses are in fact strengths, or else (when this simply won't work) he does his nifty "vanishing act ".

You're not "being an asshole" when you point out that pernicious nonsense is pernicious nonsense, because pernicious nonsense wastes people's time and energy, not least the time and energy of the person posting it. So it should be opposed. And there's as much reason to oppose such nonsense when Hugh produces it as there is when the NYT or the Guardian or the CIA is the culprit.

Even more reason, maybe; because he's taking an important point (that the media are manipulated and manipulative) and making it look ridiculous by arguing it so badly. In persisting even when he must know he's wrong, he is cheerfully inconsiderate of other's people's time and patience. And finally (not least): he's damaging himself.

Yeah, I definitely understand where you're coming from.

It could be that I'm being too considerate, but when everyone piles on Hugh at once and he inevitably ducks out shortly after being challenged, I get the mental image of some dejected guy weeping at his computer.

I think it's easy for a discussion to devolve into an illogical emotional argument when one of the participants feels as if he has something personally invested in it. The quickest route to transform a rational discussion into an emotional one is by introducing personal attacks and ridicule.

When someone disagrees with Hugh's theories, the best approach would be to engage Hugh in legitimate debate. This means no ad hominem attacks, but it also means that Hugh will be forced to respond to certain points rather than ignore them.

He's already unconsciously aware of the flaws in his theory; if he wasn't, he would have been able to respond to that question on the Psyop board. When people viciously attack Hugh, they're providing him with further psychological incentive to cling to his pet theories against all logic, and they're also giving him an excuse to duck out of the discussion at the most convenient moment.

When someone disagrees with Hugh's theories, the best approach would be to engage Hugh in legitimate debate. This means no ad hominem attacks, but it also means that Hugh will be forced to respond to certain points rather than ignore them.

And yet......

When people viciously attack Hugh... they're .. giving him an excuse to duck out of the discussion at the most convenient moment.

Egggsactly.

When someone disagrees with Hugh's theories, the best approach would be to engage Hugh in legitimate debate.

We tried that already.

I think everyone who thinks Hugh is prone to severe lapses of logic should agree to completely ignore him for at least a month. If you truly want to find out whether or not he's a troll, ignoring him will probably reveal the true nature of the beast.

Am I being too presumptuous when I assume that most of the people here are skeptical of Hugh's theories? I hope not, for the sake of humanity and Hugh Manatee alike. If he's serious, getting positive feedback is probably chiseling this theory permanently into his mind.

Like I said, the fact that he can't respond to a basic criticism of his theory shows that he has a lot psychologically invested in this now. It's ironic that he actually describes his own mental state in his message signature. If that's intentional, he might be a comic genius on par with Andy Kaufman.

I should also point out that I'm NOT trying to subtly imply that Hugh is "mentally ill" as a passive-aggressive swipe at him. Someone else pointed that out in another thread, and I agree that people on this board shouldn't do that. It's a demeaning and stigmatizing attitude to take with a person.

On edit, I want to also remind everyone that we're completely safe to concoct an "ignore Hugh" plan in this public thread. Hugh seems to permanently bail on any discussion wherein people apply basic logic to his theories, so there's no way in hell that he'll ever return to this thread.

The sad thing is that I'm only half-joking.

aaaaand... bump.

If McCain is Hamlet, and Obama is also Hamlet (and that makes them both
unfit to lead in some way) then the real question should be... who's Fortinbras?

Which scene-stealing non-entity "crown prince" could turn up right at the end to resume control if all the interesting characters were suddenly taken out of commission in some way?

I can think of someone who fits that role.