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Five Year Plan posted:“It’s important to remember that newspapers are a business, and there’s always a profit incentive that can and has affected what gets reported and how.” That's really not the claim being made, though. If anything, the really early profit incentives were "long distance communication is ad hoc and sucks so we can make money by being a little more organized about it, because people enjoy and appreciate hearing news from farther away than Jim's farm", which is basically the opposite of rich people wanting to control the discourse.
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Mar 31, 2024 23:48
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https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1774584385737519391?t=IxfmCn3gQRoaZCFXLcIjfw&s=19 I see two possibilities here. A. The US intelligence community got completely outdone by these journalists B. They knew and lied about it in their report because if they admitted they knew this info it would force a confrontation with Russia for outright attacking Americans overseas. Neither option is a good one.
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Apr 1, 2024 01:54
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Did nobody notice the logo on whitehouse.gov today? Shameful nobody posted it yet 
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Apr 1, 2024 02:09
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mawarannahr posted:Did nobody notice the logo on whitehouse.gov today? Shameful nobody posted it yet Please knock it off with this gimmick
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Apr 1, 2024 02:23
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Baronash posted:Please knock it off with this gimmick What the gently caress is wrong with you? https://www.whitehouse.gov
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Apr 1, 2024 02:29
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Baronash posted:Please knock it off with this gimmick what's this about???
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Apr 1, 2024 02:51
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Kith posted:what's this about??? Gotta protect the discourse
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Apr 1, 2024 03:02
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I have no idea how I missed that post, lol. wonder if there was a report filed e: there was Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Apr 1, 2024 |
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Apr 1, 2024 03:07
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D-Pad posted:https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1774584385737519391?t=IxfmCn3gQRoaZCFXLcIjfw&s=19 The article seems like it's leaning toward the second option: quote:The Insider, 60 Minutes and Der Spiegel obtained a memo distributed to employees of the Tbilisi mission on December 29, 2021 — over two months after Joy’s attack. It references a task force responsible for coordinating response to AHIs and several pages of guidance on how to talk to children about the strange events, offering distinct advice for different age groups. For young kids who “don’t have enough life experience to understand some of the elements involved in complex, difficult topics like AHI,” the memo advises parents to catch their biases and limit the amount of information their children can access: “Don’t say things like ‘the Russians are trying to hurt or intimidate us’ or ‘if you hear a loud noise, you are probably going to feel dizzy and sick so make sure you get off the X, etc.’”
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Apr 1, 2024 03:19
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D-Pad posted:https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1774584385737519391?t=IxfmCn3gQRoaZCFXLcIjfw&s=19 This report is missing an extremely critical piece: any actual evidence at all of the supposed directed-energy weapons actually being used, by Russians or anyone else. They have evidence that Russian spies were snooping around US embassies in various countries, but embassies and other diplomatic outposts are frequently involved in spying and being spied on, so that's hardly indicative of much. They have evidence that the Soviets had active research programs into acoustic weapons and electromagnetic brainwashing beams back in the 70s and 80s, but given the kinds of wild-rear end poo poo the CIA was trying to research back then, that doesn't necessarily mean Russia has any of those things now. And even if the Russians do have acoustic or microwave weapons, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're using them on US diplomatic personnel. After all, dozens of countries have acoustic weapons, and a number of countries have or at least claim to have directed-energy weapons of various sorts. What they don't have is any evidence that these Russian spies are using acoustic or directed-energy weapons to cause Havana Syndrome. Someone is clearly leaking quite a bit of info here if a bunch of journalists have managed to get their hands on the personal call logs and travel logs of multiple Russian intelligence agents. But while they have enough info here to establish "Russian spies were near the embassies" and "Russian intelligence agencies have been interested in developing directed-energy weapons", they do basically nothing to establish their actual claim of "Russian spies were using directed-energy weapons on US personnel, causing Havana Syndrome in them". James Garfield posted:The article seems like it's leaning toward the second option: Eh, that's exactly the advice one would expect authorities to give if they thought the illnesses were psychosomatic. I'm not sure how the article gets from "don't tell young kids that loud noises will make them sick and they should flee from them" to "The implication here is that not only are AHIs real, but U.S. diplomats are all too aware of how they happen and who’s behind them".
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Apr 1, 2024 03:24
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James Garfield posted:The article seems like it's leaning toward the second option: I mean I don't like the fact they did it at all but I can certainly understand the impulse. Acknowledging to the public that the Russians are directly attacking Americans serving overseas including non-military diplomatic staff and their families puts the administration in a real bind. It demands a response and more sanctions probably aren't going to cut it in the eye of most Americans. The Republicans are going to use it as a cudgel despite the hypocrisy because of their posture towards Russia and the fact the IC probably knew when Trump was still in office. I guess the only possible silver lining is if it turned enough of Washington back against the Russians that we can start getting Ukraine aid regularly passed again.
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Apr 1, 2024 03:32
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How does this square with the fact that just earlier this month NYT reported that the NIH found:quote:New studies by the National Institutes of Health failed to find evidence of brain injury in scans or blood markers of the diplomats and spies who suffered symptoms of Havana syndrome, bolstering the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies about the strange health incidents. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/us/politics/havana-syndrome-brain-studies-nih.html We've been hearing about "Havana syndrome" forever now and I don't know what to believe anymore. But I'm sick and tired of this back and forth. It's getting ridiculous.
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Apr 1, 2024 03:42
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Boris Galerkin posted:We've been hearing about "Havana syndrome" forever now and I don't know what to believe anymore. But I'm sick and tired of this back and forth. It's getting ridiculous. I suspect if they check everyone they will find sickness and brain injury in most most humans. The weird thing is this subset of well paid white people are trying to claim compensation for it. And are not getting it.
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Apr 1, 2024 03:49
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Main Paineframe posted:This report is missing an extremely critical piece: any actual evidence at all of the supposed directed-energy weapons actually being used, by Russians or anyone else. You aren't wrong, but it's a highly classified Russian intelligence operation. Direct evidence is typically not going to be available outside of a defector, mole, or Putin holding a press conference and admitting it. They lay out a pretty convincing case though in my opinion. Certainly enough to swing Occam's in this explanation's direction over almost a hundred people experiencing some sort of mass hysteria event with many of them not knowing or having contact with each other and experiencing the symptoms before this was widely reported in the news. Boris Galerkin posted:How does this square with the fact that just earlier this month NYT reported that the NIH found: So two different claims here that are worth differentiating between. The NIH is saying they didn't find evidence of a brain injury in scans or blood work but their report is careful to say that doesn't mean it didn't happen or the people are lying. There are many possible explanations for why they might not see evidence in a scan especially months or years after the original attack. The second claim is the intelligence community report that came out recently that said the symptoms were not caused by an attack from a hostile foreign adversary. I don't know about you, but I don't really trust intelligence community reports especially in a situation like this where all the incentives for them are to lie. Nobody wants to deal with the results of admitting the Russians have been attacking Americans and their families overseas often times causing permanent debilitating injuries when we are already as far up the escalation ladder anybody cares to go with sanctions and material and intelligence support for Ukraine.
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Apr 1, 2024 04:02
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D-Pad posted:https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1774584385737519391?t=IxfmCn3gQRoaZCFXLcIjfw&s=19 This seems to rely on lots of circumstantial evidence. As an example: quote:That adversary may even be boasting of the fact. Nikolai Patrushev, the Secretary of Russia’s Security Council and a former KGB officer wrote in September 2023 in the in-house magazine for the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service: “In recent years, hundreds of employees of foreign intelligence services, as well as other persons involved in organizing intelligence and subversive activities against our country and our strategic partners, have been identified and neutralized.” This is absolutely useless information that is completely disconnected from anything else in the article preceding or following it. In general, the tone of the article is rather opinionated. While it's not a US publication, its tone notably differs from what one would expect from the NYT or WaPo and sounds more like an op-ed. quote:It may be proven. But unlike Gulf War Syndrome, which resulted from a confluence of environmental factors rather than from the deliberate actions of a state actor, Havana Syndrome shows all the markings of a Russian hybrid warfare operation. If it is established that the Kremlin really is behind the attacks, then the provision of healthcare and monetary compensation for the victims will not be enough to solve the problem. Removing this many capable American spies and diplomats from active service without killing them and without your main adversary even admitting they’ve done so — such a sustained, decade-long campaign would easily count as one of Vladimir Putin’s greatest strategic victories against the United States. This is the closing paragraph, for example. To end by taking such a strong position on the cause despite the article not providing anything particularly conclusive is very sus. Also, it's worth pointing out that The Insider is defined by being a Russian news publication that is explicitly anti-Putin and most of their articles are criticizing him in one way or another. Despite Russia suffering a massive terrorist attack, most of their front page is still largely focused on this. "Kremlin bot network spreads articles claiming ISIS not responsible for Crocus City Hall terrorist attack, points fingers at Kyiv, UK, U.S." "Four men with signs of severe beating charged with terrorism by Moscow court in Crocus City Hall case" "Kremlin releases staged footage of Putin’s “response” to Crocus City Hall attack" "Children’s magazines and fighting “soullessness”: Here’s what Russia’s National Antiterrorism Committee was up to instead of fighting ISIS" These are all headlines on their front page about the terrorist attack, all critical of Putin. Even concerning a shithead like Putin, we should expect some sense of objectivity from news stories like this one that are making serious allegations that contradict tons of other information and sources. https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/hava...46-45bb50f712d5 Here's Der Spiegel's article on it, for example. It relies on a lot of the same evidence and yet does not come to as strong of an opinion on Russian involvement. koolkal fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Apr 1, 2024 |
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Apr 1, 2024 05:07
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Those articles sound negative toward Putin because Russian security forces were too busy arresting people for LGBT propaganda and doing genocide in Ukraine to respond to the warnings of the attack and Putin immediately blamed the attack on Ukraine. Reality is explicitly anti-Putin.
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Apr 1, 2024 06:00
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James Garfield posted:Those articles sound negative toward Putin because Russian security forces were too busy arresting people for LGBT propaganda and doing genocide in Ukraine to respond to the warnings of the attack and Putin immediately blamed the attack on Ukraine. Reality is explicitly anti-Putin. Sure, but it's important to understand and acknowledge bias when it comes to evaluating the credulity of a source. There's a lot of missing connections here, blanks that are likely being filled in for the purpose of producing a report that condemns Russia and seeks to reduce their international standing.
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Apr 1, 2024 06:34
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Main Paineframe posted:
Brown Note Moses
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Apr 1, 2024 08:51
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Descriptions of Havana Syndrome read like a checklist of “symptoms that someone might present with if their issue is primarily psychological”. I saw someone pointing out before that the recent brain scan study said they couldn’t rule out some kind of brain disorder. You can almost never absolutely rule out a brain disorder, because there are a few diseases that can theoretically cause almost any weird and wonderful pattern of defects (although they have some common manifestations). More commonly what happens is a neurologist says something like “I can exclude x, y and z, and find no evidence of any other organic brain disease. I suspect there may be a functional [ie psychological] cause for the patient’s symptoms”. But it’s important for people in that situation to know that doesn’t mean their issue is “fake” or “in their head”, it just means the problem isn’t amenable to biological solutions.
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Apr 1, 2024 10:07
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The Artificial Kid posted:Descriptions of Havana Syndrome read like a checklist of “symptoms that someone might present with if their issue is primarily psychological”. This is made even harder to evaluate because humans have an innate tendency to mass psychogenic illness, so even if some members of a work community are having real symptoms of something external affecting them, others may experience MPI and it's very difficult to tell them apart if there are no clear physical signs.
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Apr 1, 2024 11:47
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OTOH, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/us/politics/havana-syndrome-brain-studies-nih.html quote:New studies by the National Institutes of Health failed to find evidence of brain injury in scans or blood markers of the diplomats and spies who suffered symptoms of Havana syndrome, bolstering the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies about the strange health incidents. So essentially, results showing Havana Syndrome to be anything beyond psychogenic do not reliably replicate. That is usually a strong indication there’s not a real effect. The authors of the U Penn study say the NIH results aren’t valid, or an apples to oranges comparison, but they did not diagnose any kind of TBIs or similar. cat botherer fucked around with this message at 12:47 on Apr 1, 2024 |
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Apr 1, 2024 12:43
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There's an apartment building near the local nightlife district in my city that uses a sonic weapon as a young person deterrent, to keep them from loitering around the outside. I'd walk past in in my 20s and hear this subtle but intolerable high-pitched noise and be like "argh what the gently caress is going on", and older people would think I was just being crazy, until we went and talked to someone and figured it out one day. They've stopped using it now though. Anyway, the tech is plausible.
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Apr 1, 2024 13:06
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The "tech" you experienced was just a sound at a pitch old people can't hear so that doesn't really sound analogous
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Apr 1, 2024 13:14
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Maybe. Could imagine a similar principle being scaled up though. And it wouldn't necessarily show up on a brain scan.
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Apr 1, 2024 13:23
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I remember reading about that in high school and trying it out to see if we could annoy other classmates but not the teacher. I graduated high school circa 2005.
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Apr 1, 2024 13:24
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Bucky Fullminster posted:Maybe. Could imagine a similar principle being scaled up though. And it wouldn't necessarily show up on a brain scan. They played a pitch that you could hear but older people couldn’t. A scaled up version of that is a bigger speaker. There are some devices that more or less weaponize sound. Police departments use LRADs, which are highly directional speakers that they can point at a crowd and play loud sirens through. There’s nothing to suggest that they cause damage beyond what you would expect from exposure to extremely loud noises.
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Apr 1, 2024 13:48
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Bucky Fullminster posted:There's an apartment building near the local nightlife district in my city that uses a sonic weapon as a young person deterrent, to keep them from loitering around the outside. I'd walk past in in my 20s and hear this subtle but intolerable high-pitched noise and be like "argh what the gently caress is going on", and older people would think I was just being crazy, until we went and talked to someone and figured it out one day. The Mosquito isn't a secret weapon it's just an obnoxious tone played at a high enough frequency that people older than around 18-25 aren't likely to hear anymore. It might cause headaches and nausea, but only in people who can actually hear it. There's no evidence of anything like blindness.
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Apr 1, 2024 13:54
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Fair enough. Maybe all I'm saying is it's possible to imagine a device which manipulates the air with frequencies that are basically imperceptible but which can still have an effect. Or is the perceptibility is exactly what limits the effect? If people can't actually hear it, then by definition can it not affect them? Is that what we're saying? The victims don't report hearing anything, right? So how could this thing even actually possibly work? ah lol yep there it is
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Apr 1, 2024 14:15
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Weird for this to be back feels like this was all put to rest like years ago.
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Apr 1, 2024 14:16
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A real (and kind of funny) possibility here imo is that this Russian unit is actually hanging around the various embassies, attempting to do something with directed energy or sound. However, despite their efforts and research it doesn't actually work or produce any real health effects. The occasional sightings would only provide reinforcement to the psychosomatic syndromes people are experiencing. The few people with actual conditions in some places can be explained away by there being a large number of embassy staff, with enough people you'll always have at least a couple with mysterious health poo poo going on.
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Apr 1, 2024 14:44
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Bucky Fullminster posted:Fair enough. Maybe all I'm saying is it's possible to imagine a device which manipulates the air with frequencies that are basically imperceptible but which can still have an effect. There's undetectable frequencies that make people feel vaguely unsettled and start to suspect there's ghosts nearby, so that's not too crazy.
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Apr 1, 2024 14:45
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Tiny Timbs posted:There's undetectable frequencies that make people feel vaguely unsettled and start to suspect there's ghosts nearby, so that's not too crazy. Maybe undetectable by humans, but not by the devices that the State Department has access to and would have used when scanning for specifically those types of frequencies.
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Apr 1, 2024 14:55
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Kagrenak posted:A real (and kind of funny) possibility here imo is that this Russian unit is actually hanging around the various embassies, attempting to do something with directed energy or sound. However, despite their efforts and research it doesn't actually work or produce any real health effects. The occasional sightings would only provide reinforcement to the psychosomatic syndromes people are experiencing. The few people with actual conditions in some places can be explained away by there being a large number of embassy staff, with enough people you'll always have at least a couple with mysterious health poo poo going on. That's definitely possible. Given that there are a few apparent real injuries, though, my guess is that there’s some sort of device that can cause injury if it's used or calibrated incorrectly, but usually doesn't. A few people got blasted because the GRU guys accidentally cranked the dial to 11 once or twice, or maybe zapped people who had unusually thin skulls, or whatever, but most of the time it just causes weird vibrations or whatnot and makes people feel weird with no long term injury. That weird feeling though, coupled with a few real injuries, could easily set off a larger scale mass hysteria. That wouldn't be as funny but would be consistent with all known evidence at this point.
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Apr 1, 2024 15:05
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:That's definitely possible. What are these real injuries and where is the evidence for them being consistent with evidence for this hypothetical device?
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Apr 1, 2024 15:13
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All of this is taking place in the world of spooks and spies. Making up semi-plausible bullshit that your opposition has to chase down but can never really fully confirm is, like, 80% of the job right from the start and exactly what you want to be doing.
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Apr 1, 2024 15:25
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mawarannahr posted:What are these real injuries and where is the evidence for them being consistent with evidence for this hypothetical device? Sorry, they were quoted in this post in the Ukraine thread: quote:Contrary to the information that has been made public about Havana Syndrome — that it began in the eponymous Cuban capital in 2016 — there were likely attacks two years earlier in Frankfurt, Germany, when a U.S. government employee stationed at the consulate there was knocked unconscious by something akin to a strong energy beam. The victim was later diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury, and was also able to identify a Geneva-based Unit 29155 operative. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4028717&pagenumber=450&perpage=40&userid=0#post538684751
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Apr 1, 2024 15:26
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If Havana syndrome were real, they would have detected the directed energy weapons. It would have to be EM or sonic. Both of those things can be detected without too much trouble. Either (1) it’s real and they’re concealing slam-dunk evidence while stirring up poo poo in the media based on flimsy circumstantial evidence for unknown reasons, or (2) it’s not real and they’re stirring up poo poo based on circumstantial evidence because that’s all they have. The first possibility doesn’t really pass the smell test, imo.
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Apr 1, 2024 15:35
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I suspect in the long-term the view on Havana Syndrome is going to fall into the same bucket as our now-mostly-forgotten panic about brainwashed Korean War vets. Something that reflects our own insecurities about our own society and inability paper over the contradictions of being the center of the empire yet feeling the creepy sensation that we don’t have the market cornered on being decent people, and might not be decent at all. So we invent sci fi explanations for explicable human behaviors like “our enemies can make a solid case that does convince some of our soldiers they’re fighting for the wrong side” or “our embassy staff are alcoholics who due to the information channels we all live with can no longer tamp down feelings of moral injury and guilt just by getting drunk”
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Apr 1, 2024 15:37
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yall talking about something that doesnt exist you know what else doesnt exist? al-shifa hospital https://twitter.com/naftalibennett/status/1774663364314091870
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Apr 1, 2024 15:38
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Sorry, they were quoted in this post in the Ukraine thread: Semicircular canal dehiscence occurs in 1-3% of the general population. There are other explanations for temporal bone deterioration that are difficult to diagnose. Neither of these happening to a single person is evidence of a superweapon. It would be interesting if it happened to a whole bunch of folks though.
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Apr 1, 2024 15:40
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