Mind Control and Mass Hypnosis in T2K

[Legbreaker]

I had a feeling they were a bit dodgy. Seemed a lot like a rant / rogue telemarketer / insane evangelist / self help guru....

[kato13]

I had a feeling they were a bit dodgy. Seemed a lot like a rant / rogue telemarketer / insane evangelist / self help guru....

The poster seem to have a half dozen or so websites they wish to link to on forums to increase their Google rankings. They find tangentially related threads of forums and make posts with links. Being on Google's front page for a word like "hypnosis" is worth a lot of advertising dollars.

One of their other sites is related to Machine Shops. In my spammer research I found the following link to the best independent machine shops in the US

http://machineshopworkshop.com/page_id=29

So it is not a total loss.

[Legbreaker]

Amazing! A spammer who actually gave us something useful.
Is the sky falling yet

You just know that by mid 1997 those places will be pumping out war materials as fast as the can.

[sglancy12]

did you see the youtube video I posted

Actually no, I didn't. It seems to have been taken down.

As for mind control... via the sort of brain-washing, group-think pressure and cult-like indoctrination... well, I couldn't really come up with some rules along those lines. I figure it's going to have to be based on a resistance role against the attributes that represent Intelligence, Education and Willpower... but since I don't have the TW2K rules in front of me, I don't remember what the analogs are in the GDW rules. I write and design for Chaosium's Basic Role Playing (BRP) system where all three of those attributes are represented.

But there sure as hell is going to be a lot of "group-think" manipulation of individuals in the TW2K world... from the remnants of the pre-war governments, to the successor states, to bands of marauders... everyone is going to be trying to attract and retain talented personnel. The Soviets have their political indoctrination... most governments will resort to seriously nationalistic lines of argument about why soldiers should support their cause... new groups could be based around new or old religions... after all, look how much acreage the Muslims covered in their first years out of the gate. Being on God's side is a prime motivator for any population.

I think it would be worthwhile to read some books or see some movies that cover cults that have indoctrinated their membership to the point where they see the outside world as the enemy and are willing to kill to defend the group from that enemy.

Let's see... there's...

The People's Temple. That's Jim Jones and his Jesus-Socialist-Suicide- all stars.

David Koresh and the Branch Davidians...

The Good Ol' Manson Family...

Elizabeth Claire Profit and her underground bunkers for surviving doomsday...

(Ever notice how all these groups love isolated compounds All the better to remove all other sources of information, my dear.)

The army of cannibals from Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle's Luficer's Hammer have yet to be improved on. Army deserters + ex-Black Panthers turned professional crime gang + crazy former televangelist = religiously motivated army that uses cannibalism as a way to forcibly indoctrinate those they've shanghaied into their ranks.

I recently read a novel from a fairly weak post-apocalyptic series called "The Afterblight Chronicles." In School's Out one of the threats is a gang of religious crazies who think that they are protected from "the Cull" (the plague that kills everyone who doesn't have O Negative blood) because they have painted themselves (head to toe) with the blood of O Negative people. It was a bit like some African insurgent armies use of tribal magic to protect their troops. Check out "General Buck Naked" for a particularly crazy use of tribal magic from the Liberian Civil War. Certainly that's the sort of thing I'd like to drop into a scenario: taking some craziness that we westerners only think could happen in for far off land filled with sub-humans... only to find it can happen right here if the conditions are right.

Anyone have some other examples of brain washing of an entire group to accept violent or counter-factual world-views

Besides Patty Heast, I mean. I'm not sure the Stockholm Syndrome is a strong enough effect to describe what we're talking about here.

A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing

[boogiedowndonovan]

on a somewhat related note,

anyone seen the movie The Men Who Stare at Goats

http://www.themenwhostareatgoatsmovie.com/#home

[Cdnwolf]

If we remember, Hitler managed to brainwash a whole nation with a forceful personality... no hocus pocus involved.

[kato13]

If we remember, Hitler managed to brainwash a whole nation with a forceful personality... no hocus pocus involved.

Well not a whole nation, but your point is taken. Hitler is always one of the examples I use when I state that charisma is not directly related to appearance. Rasputin is another. Both had near hypnotic effects on people.

[kato13]

Second human assist spammer targeted this thread. I was watching them the whole way and pretty much knew what they were doing but I'm not online all the time. I think I am going to lock this thread to prevent it from happening again.