How Your Mind Can Be Hijacked And Your Will Seized
Pavlovian conditioning (a.k.a. classical conditioning, Ivan Pavlov, 1890s) was discovered accidentally. While Pavlov was researching salivation in dogs in response to being fed, he noticed that his dogs would begin to salivate whenever they heard the footsteps of his assistant who was bringing them the food.
Human are Pavlovian creatures. This article addresses the experiments that draw the flaws in human psychology, how they are exploited and how as humans we can counter them. By understanding human weaknesses, we can design a series of offensive exploits or devise a campaign of influence to subvert and subdue the human willpower and cognition. As well, defensive measures to detect, react and rectify, can be designed to defuse and disarm the exploits.
History had told us that Goebbels and Bernays et al had implemented exploits to reach their political and commercial objectives. Humans, unbeknownst of their own flaws and vulnerabilities, can be led to fulfill the agendas of those who can engineered them either malicious or out of beneficence. In either case, we must be vigilantly aware and guarded.
This should also lead us to question and re-question ourselves if we really are `who` we think we are, or merely `what` the society had made us to fit in order to be.