Psychological Warfare

[Mole]

We are inclined to see psychology as helpful, empathic and warm but there is another side to psychology, and it is called Psych-Ops or Psychological Warfare.

Our armies train psychologists in the dark arts of psychological warfare, but also companies and government departments use the techniques of psychological warfare against competitors, customers and clients.

A favourite technique of psychological warfare is to turn the object against themselves.

So the object of the psychological warfare is provoked to behave rashly, inadvisedly, to break the rules, to put themselves in danger, and to harm themselves.

In psychological warfare this is called trolling.

 

[Mal12345]

We are inclined to see psychology as helpful, empathic and warm but there is another side to psychology, and it is called Psych-Ops or Psychological Warfare.

Our armies train psychologists in the dark arts of psychological warfare, but also companies and government departments use the techniques of psychological warfare against competitors, customers and clients.

A favourite technique of psychological warfare is to turn the object against themselves.

So the object of the psychological warfare is provoked to behave rashly, inadvisedly, to break the rules, to put themselves in danger, and to harm themselves.

In psychological warfare this is called trolling.

Now Mole, put down the knife.... there, that's better.

 

[Coriolis]

We are inclined to see psychology as helpful, empathic and warm but there is another side to psychology, and it is called Psych-Ops or Psychological Warfare.

Psychology, like many other areas of knowledge, is a tool. As with other tools, it can be used for good or for ill. The same knife can be a helpful instrument of creativity in the hands of a chef; or a threatening instrument of death in the hands of an assassin. One should be very careful using tools one does not have the training or experience to use properly and safely. We keep knives away from children, after all.

 

[zago]

Gaslighting people is a hilarious and effective pastime.

 

[Mole]

Of course enticing the enemy to harm themselves is age-old.

Sun Tzu, in his Art of War, an ancient Chinese text, recommends psychological warfare as invisible and effective.

Psychological warfare has been carried out by the military for millenia, after all, the first casualty of war is truth.

But on a day to day basis, many of us are enticed to harm ourselves. So I think it is wise to arm ourselve psychologically against psychological warfare. And forewarned is forearmed. Particularly as we are discovering that many of the institutions that we thought had our best interests at heart are waging psychological war against us and getting us to harm ourselves at no cost to themselves.

 

[Mole]

Gaslighting people is a hilarious and effective pastime.

Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making a victim doubt his or her own memory, perception and sanity.

Those who think gaslighting is funny are the same people who think bullying is funny, and the same people who think insults are funny.

 

[zago]

Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making a victim doubt his or her own memory, perception and sanity.

Those who think gaslighting is funny are the same people who think bullying is funny, and the same people who think insults are funny.

Ya I'm sarcastic. But I have seen a lot of gaslighting. I got mad at a best friend a year ago for always flaking out on plans and he tried to make me think I was just messed up for getting fussy about it. I think in the past I might have believed him, that's the scary part.

 

[Alea_iacta_est]

Gaslighting people is a hilarious and effective pastime.

You do know that gaslighting people is a main feature in people with Borderline Personality Disorder right? Might wanna get that checked.

XD

 

[zago]

You do know that gaslighting people is a main feature in people with Borderline Personality Disorder right? Might wanna get that checked.

XD

Off topic, but I love personality disorder stories. A friend of a friend had histrionic, and she met her husband by saying "if you've got a dick to go with those arms, we're in business." Then she was married to him for like 3 years, at which point she falsely accused him of beating her to get a divorce and custody of the kids. He never touched her, but he did get a felony for it and had to take like a year's worth of behavioral management classes or something.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

Gaslighting becomes a complicated concept when applied broadly. There are people who use it in the "classical" sense of deliberately falsifying information, but is all dismissal gas lighting?

Where it becomes more complex is when two subjective, likely distorted, perspectives interact and begin to dismiss each other on grounds of not being reasoned. It's very much like the issue of passive-aggression which becomes similarly complex when applied broadly into all its possible manifestations.

I doubt my own memory, assumptions, perceptions, and some of this second-guessing is a lack of confidence that has resulted from dismissal, and some is a healthy attempt to grow towards thinking more clearly with experience. In the same way that some of my own questioning is self-gaslighting and some is an attempt to apply reason, the same can be said of interactions between myself and others.

 

[Mal12345]

Of course enticing the enemy to harm themselves is age-old.

Sun Tzu, in his Art of War, an ancient Chinese text, recommends psychological warfare as invisible and effective.

Psychological warfare has been carried out by the military for millenia, after all, the first casualty of war is truth.

But your form of psychological warfare is neither effective nor invisible. Instead of trolling, let's call it Molling.

 

[prplchknz]

I've been recently gas lighted. because recently people will tell me i had these lengthy conversations with them and insist that I said something that I did not. and I have absolutley no memory of the conversation what so ever. like I doubt those conversations have even happened.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Sometimes people try to get under my skin or act passive-aggressively towards me. There is a consistent enough pattern of certain behaviors for me to believe that it is actually taking place. In person, it will manifest itself in muttered under breath comments. If I confront them about it, they will deny it. Therefore, I can either ignore it, and go ahead and do it right back. I'll admit that I get more satisfactions out of the latter. It's not saintly behavior, but I do have little patience for passive-aggression from people who consider themselves to be morally superior to me, because of, say, strong religious, political convictions (or really any thing that links them to some kind of "tribe", like for instance, a country). The very fact that they are engaging in this behavior casts doubt on their moral superiority, so it seems fair to remind them of that.

 

[Mole]

Doublethink and Psychological Warfare

Gaslighting becomes a complicated concept when applied broadly. There are people who use it in the "classical" sense of deliberately falsifying information, but is all dismissal gas lighting?

Where it becomes more complex is when two subjective, likely distorted, perspectives interact and begin to dismiss each other on grounds of not being reasoned. It's very much like the issue of passive-aggression which becomes similarly complex when applied broadly into all its possible manifestations.

I doubt my own memory, assumptions, perceptions, and some of this second-guessing is a lack of confidence that has resulted from dismissal, and some is a healthy attempt to grow towards thinking more clearly with experience. In the same way that some of my own questioning is self-gaslighting and some is an attempt to apply reason, the same can be said of interactions between myself and others.

Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making a victim doubt his or her own memory, perception and sanity.

So one would wonder why you would want to deny gaslighting is a form of mental abuse?

Is this hiding mental abuse through doublethink?

Doublethink is the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

Doublethink is the power to tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies—all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.

The emotional abuse of gaslighting can only be defended by the lies of doublethink.

And doublethink is part of Newspeak, a form of psychological warfare.

 

[Mole]

But your form of psychological warfare is neither effective nor invisible. Instead of trolling, let's call it Molling.

While I am elucidating psychological warfare from the ancient Chinese The Art of War by Sun Tzu, to the modern Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, you accuse me of waging psychologal warfare, while at the same time deliberately insulting me personally.

 

[Forever_Jung]

Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making a victim doubt his or her own memory, perception and sanity.

So one would wonder why you would want to deny gaslighting is a form of mental abuse?

Is this hiding mental abuse through doublethink?

Doublethink is the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

Doublethink is the power to tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies—all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.

The emotional abuse of gaslighting can only be defended by the lies of doublethink.

And doublethink is part of Newspeak, a form of psychological warfare.

Did you just gaslight Fia with that post?

 

[Alea_iacta_est]

While I am elucidating psychological warfare from the ancient Chinese The Art of War by Sun Tzu, to the modern Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, you accuse me of waging psychologal warfare, while at the same time deliberately insulting me personally.

Out of curiosity, would it be considered psychological warfare to make somebody believe that they are the aggressors attacking a victim? Food for thought.

 

[Mole]

Did you just gaslight Fia with that post?

It's interesting that two of you think it is funny to accuse me of gaslighting and psychlogical warfare when I have just elucidated these concepts.

It seems you think it is smart and clever and funny to accuse me of the very things I am critiquing.

You have found another way of insulting me in company.

Imagine if you made a contribution of your own - you would have no need to boost your ego by insulting anyone.

 

[Mole]

Out of curiosity, would it be considered psychological warfare to make somebody believe that they are the aggressors attacking a victim? Food for thought.

Here we have members deliberately and continually personally insulting another member.

Those who deliberately and continually insult another member are aggressors.

And it is psychological warfare to blame the victim.

But I think the real problem here is that we have people who are incapable of making a contribution of their own and so try to be smart and clever and funny and insult those who do make a contribution.

The solution is very simple: make a contribution of your own, and stop insulting others.

 

[Forever_Jung]

It's interesting that two of you think it is funny to accuse me of gaslighting and psychlogical warfare when I have just elucidated these concepts.

It seems you think it is smart and clever and funny to accuse me of the very things I am critiquing.

You have found another way of insulting me in company.

Imagine if you made a contribution of your own - you would have no need to boost your ego by insulting anyone.

I don't think it's funny. I dislike the way you framed her post. I felt you were insulting her, actually. Therefore, I pointed out the irony that you were dismissing/twisting what she said in a thread about gaslighting. I'm being perfectly honest, when I say I see YOU as the aggressor here, I'm not trying to insult you, Mole.

Maybe you're not doing it on purpose, heck, maybe you're not doing it at all, but I had to ask. Are you gaslighting ME, now?

You do make me feel very unsure of my perceptions and grasps of the facts by framing what I say in a manner I had not intended. What do you call that?

Edit: And maybe I'm not the smartest or most insightful member on the board, but I DO try to contribute in my own way. I also try my best to be respectful of others, even when I feel they are not showing me the same respect.