They want to simplify each and every one of us down to a core "personality", which in conjunction with a program, could accurately predict anybody's, and everybody's actions in a given situation.

This is a very interesting statement. I've had a very similar theory to this. People, in large enough groups, are like particles. Each individual has the potential to act, or react, in an almost infinite variety of ways. But as a group, their actions can be predicted with a fair bit of statistical certainty if you have an accurate model for describing their behavior.

Once you can accurately describe something, you should be able to make successful predictions based on your model. The ability to predict usually also leads to the ability to manipulate and control.

Isaac Asimov took this concept to it's limit in the Foundation series. In those novels, it was called Psychohistory. Sounds like someone is trying to accomplish the same thing right now.

This occurred to me one day when I went to find out how Twitter makes money. Turns out they sell access to a streaming feed of all tweets, and you can do what you like with that information.

I thought that you could definitely run some linguistic analysis on the tweets to judge, somehow, the exact public sentiment to statements by the government. Like a bio-feedback sensor, it would allow the government to tweak every action so as to accomplish x% of their goal while not overexciting the population into revolution (or whatever).

I dismissed it as a possibility because it sounded too advanced for the government, but that was pre-Snowden and I believe they'd have the motivation these days.

Have your ever seen that word cloud program? I bet that you could come up with a real time version of the same thing and run it on the live Twitter stream. Then all you need is a small group of people to monitor it for certain words to become more prominent in a short period of time.

Pretty good tool for monitoring the public mood if you ask me.

You'll find this interesting then, the feed used to be accessible to EVERYONE for free. Then this came out: peer reviewed article.

Where they published that with simple algorithms they could predict movements in the stock market with 86.7% accuracy based on the twitter feed. Nice article on the paper.

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

It's much worse than you think.

Honest to fuck, this should be side-barred. I've seen this before as it relates to multi-region/agency coordinated drills (ie false flags), but the wiki just lets you know in broad daylight the world is one big fucking sit-com with red drapes, fake blood and liar tabloid 'journalists' on multi-national corporate payrolls. I gotta go for a walk after reading that shit..

Have you been at a top university in the U.S. to warrant that claim?

Examples of those surveys?

One of the amazing things about the internet is that you don't have to physically be somewhere to take a survey(or communicate) anymore. If you're asking for me to divulge specific details about specific institutions' specific intellectual property, I can't indulge your request. If you're asking for a way to see these studies for yourself, I recommend googling some of these institutions' research programs(many accept volunteers openly). Or you could try a "take survey for money" website, which will link to these surveys. I can't unfortunately give screen shots, copies, or specifics, for fear of legal repercussions(they spend a lot of money on these surveys, and they don't work if the test takers are corrupted by fore-knowledge).

Are you paranoid that someone may sue you? Thousands of people take these surveys and they can't sue all of you who disclose the information. It's a standard scare tactic.

I know the Decision Research Center at UChicago and various other survey stuff around campus. Took several tests there for money. Extremely ambiguous, and I always joked that I didn't know what they were trying to test. They are extremely smart with their testing these days. The content of the questions are sometimes not what they're trying to test. Perhaps they're only testing whether you bothered to read the disclaimer properly and the test is just a filler.

But I doubt they work for the government. A more likely theory is that the government uses the results of their surveys for their own ends. The researchers probably never intended to do so.

Do you know why colleges conduct studies and do all these surveys? Private parties pay colleges to conduct surveys/experiments/tests/trials for them. The idea that they probably don't work for the gov't(or a pseudo-gov't entity) is ludicrous. I understand the point you make about it potentially being erroneous information, and how they sometimes try to mislead you about what the study is about. This was not the case. Question after question rephrasing the same thing. "We should persecute those with views that are considered extreme for the betterment of society", written in a plethora of ways. That was just one of the concerning questions. On one of the surveys. From one university's one program. I've seen an assortment of these concerning questions posed different ways to find the most attractive way of "voicing" essentially the same conclusion(persecute dissidents, go to war, give up our privacy, institute Marshall law, etc). This is occurring at at a handful of the most prestigious institutions.

Yes I know how they get funding. Yes I know how their intentions of doing surveys like that.

However it is not as nefarious as you make it seem. I know some of the researchers who do this type of work. They don't care about the impact of their work. Call it what you will, but they never intended the government to use it for malicious means. No one even talks about working for the government. Everyone, however, talks about being funded privately.

Colleges do not only get funding from the federal state (it's only ~11%). They care more about private funding and tuition.

Government-sponsored research is usually more about determining political views than trying to see what kind of language makes people more gullible. The latter is so ridiculously easy and intuitive to see that there's no sense in wasting money to do it.

The government funds public perception research (which is not what a decision center surveys), not psychological research. PR is managed by people who have looked at the corresponding psychological research, not those who have funded them.

It is far more likely that the surveys you took are used by private companies. They are the ones that are interested in knowing how to manipulate behavior in order to market better.

You do understand the government is anonymous in conducting these surveys, and therefore the surveys are privately funded, right? This is why the researchers you know never talk about it being government funded(not that they could tell you specifically who is funding it, because they're not allowed, if they themselves even have the knowledge). Do you really believe that the government doesn't fund psychological research? I didn't even know that belief existed until right now. Never heard that one. Not even the government claims that(almost every modern country in the world conducts psychological research, pretty openly).

I believe that it is highly probable the government funds public perception research far more than psychological research. There is funding for psychological research but it is so inconsequential that no meaningful result can come out of it.

I also know researchers are not allowed to talk about it, but in reality people talk about it really freely (in close circles), unless they're severely paranoid.

I have a father who did research and was funded by private corps., who knew people who were funded by the government in the sociology/psychology departments. I have a mother who did economics work for the government.

They say that the government bureaucracy is self-defeating: it tries to fund all these really beneficial research, but because of its own inefficiency, fails to get anything really meaningful out of it, and so does not fund it so much in the end.

Furthermore, researchers sometimes cheat when they try to get government funding. Especially in the case of humanities/sociology/psychology research. They claim to do some really grand research that will help the government be more likable but in the end it really amounts to some kindergarten level work (in the eyes of academia). If you consider those research serious threat, you're gravely mistaken. (What's more pathetic is that sometimes the government gets cheated and doesn't realize it)

I think the government is greedy and does want to control us all psychologically, but the fact is that it's so inefficient and lazy that really it's unable to (in terms of psychology, not when we consider technology). Especially when psychology is subtle, proper research in that field is harder to get federal funding because of its less clear-cut outcome.

On the other hand, private companies have more leeway and freedom and less restrictions. They know that psychology research may eventually lead to something concrete.

The government doesn't fund psychological research because the researchers fail to captivate them enough. In the bureaucracy of the government, anything with slightly muddy aims (psychology is really not concrete) are going to get shot down really soon.

Other than that only remains the stupid pseudo-research that is determining what language make the voters more comfortable (a kindergarten kid can do that). It is extremely idiotic and any serious academic won't consider that kind of research research.

Don't be too scared of the government. It really is not as smart as you think. (Just look at f**ing bush)

You say "private organizations" have more leeway and freedom, and less restrictions. That's why the Council on Foreign Relations(among many other groups) exist. They are a NGO(non government organization), that determines government policies(and come up with them, based on studies like these). They exist specifically to get around the limitations of government you mentioned(and hide behind the guise of a private business).

You seem to think the government is stupid. But that's just their disguise. Is their stupidity what led to the creation of the most sophisticated surveillance network in human history, an engineering marvel that is likely the pinnacle of human technological achievement? Or is more likely that incompetence is a deception being cast on the American Public, to conceal the more sinister reason for our plights: Corruption.

A lot of people seem think they are smarter than Bush, or that he is stupid. Well, for a stupid guy he's laughing off to the bank with an awful lot of our money, while commanding the respect of a distinguished former president(instead of being in jail for the criminal actions he committed). Pretty good for a stupid guy. Maybe he's smart, and pretends to be stupid to avoid persecution. Maybe he's just a puppet who was selected for his ability to proficiently diffuse blame due to his innocent, "stupid" demeanor. Seems to make a lot more sense that we've been tricked.

Stop feeding the troll FFS.

I use them to structure the info. I use debate to prove points. It's more efficient than me just talking/posting something. He may have tried to derail me, but I feel I got my point across the same.

You did well and you did not loose your cool. I think it was excellent.

Gosh. Just because someone disagrees with you does not make them a troll.

Sign up for Amazon's Mechanical Turk. (mturk.com)

You get paid anywhere from 10 cents to 5 dollars to take a survey. Most of those surveys are conducted by a university.

You can also look up what's going on in the CATO Institute.

And the Rand Corporation.

Those blokes will tell you a thing or three.

Their plan is only going to work to a point. The point is going the collapse of the food chain in the oceans. It is happening now but hasn't hit critical mass, yet.

I believe that it is highly probable the government funds public perception research far more than psychological research. There is funding for psychological research but it is so inconsequential that no meaningful result can come out of it.

I also know researchers are not allowed to talk about it, but in reality people talk about it really freely (in close circles), unless they're severely paranoid.

I have a father who did research and was funded by private corps., who knew people who were funded by the government in the sociology/psychology departments. I have a mother who did economics work for the government.

They say that the government bureaucracy is self-defeating: it tries to fund all these really beneficial research, but because of its own inefficiency, fails to get anything really meaningful out of it, and so does not fund it so much in the end.

Furthermore, researchers sometimes cheat when they try to get government funding. Especially in the case of humanities/sociology/psychology research. They claim to do some really grand research that will help the government be more likable but in the end it really amounts to some kindergarten level work (in the eyes of academia). If you consider those research serious threat, you're gravely mistaken. (What's more pathetic is that sometimes the government gets cheated and doesn't realize it)

I think the government is greedy and does want to control us all psychologically, but the fact is that it's so inefficient and lazy that really it's unable to (in terms of psychology, not when we consider technology). Especially when psychology is subtle, proper research in that field is harder to get federal funding because of its less clear-cut outcome.

On the other hand, private companies have more leeway and freedom and less restrictions. They know that psychology research may eventually lead to something concrete.

The government doesn't fund psychological research because the researchers fail to captivate them enough. In the bureaucracy of the government, anything with slightly muddy aims (psychology is really not concrete) are going to get shot down really soon.

Other than that only remains the stupid pseudo-research that is determining what language make the voters more comfortable (a kindergarten kid can do that). It is extremely idiotic and any serious academic won't consider that kind of research research.

Don't be too scared of the government. It really is not as smart as you think. (Just look at f**ing bush)