Covid and Psychology

New year, new thread.
I'm interested in anything that offer insight into the psychology that drives behaviour around 'Covid' (aka 'What the f*** is WRONG with people?'), also other historical examples of what is increasing being termed 'Mass Formation' - so here's a thread to dump it all on.
To kick off, most are probably familiar with the Belgian psychologist/statistician Mattias Desmet - he's been posted here a few times, but here's an interview he gave with Chris Martenson recently (posted as much because the audio quality is better than other interviews).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRo-ieBEw-8
(Transcript: https://www.peakprosperity.com/mattias- ... formation/ )
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Some books/writings I've found to be worth perusing:
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind by Gustave Le Bon (1895)
Discourse on Voluntary Servitude by Étienne de la Boétie (1549)
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning (1992)
Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy by Malcolm Gaskill (2005)
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Some essays / pieces from around the web:
El gato malo on "The viciousness of tribalism":
Also some of the stuff Mark Changizi puts out, e.g:
(Changizi has a site full of it here: https://www.freex.group/ and his 'Science Moments' series contains some interesting thoughts and observations).
Also of possible interest, this short promo video made by a company named 'SCL' (Strategic Communication Laboratories) about a decade ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7lkG-BaCRE
Interesting, as viewed in the context of this old 'slate' article, it perhaps offers a glimpse into the psychology of those that seek to use behavioural psychology to manipulate the rest of us.
I'm interested in anything that offer insight into the psychology that drives behaviour around 'Covid' (aka 'What the f*** is WRONG with people?'), also other historical examples of what is increasing being termed 'Mass Formation' - so here's a thread to dump it all on.
To kick off, most are probably familiar with the Belgian psychologist/statistician Mattias Desmet - he's been posted here a few times, but here's an interview he gave with Chris Martenson recently (posted as much because the audio quality is better than other interviews).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRo-ieBEw-8
(Transcript: https://www.peakprosperity.com/mattias- ... formation/ )
-
Some books/writings I've found to be worth perusing:
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind by Gustave Le Bon (1895)
Discourse on Voluntary Servitude by Étienne de la Boétie (1549)
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning (1992)
Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy by Malcolm Gaskill (2005)
-
Some essays / pieces from around the web:
El gato malo on "The viciousness of tribalism":
this is how you enroll willing, even gleeful ranks of vicious brownshirts not only ready but desperate to oppress others. that’s why half of them joined up in the first place. if it were not this cause, it would be some other. the form the pretext takes is immaterial. it is the chance to do wrong and call it righteous that attracts.
it’s easy to provide.
you simply invert this base human desire to dominate and attack (often in plentiful supply in the upper reaches of the beta groups) into “civic virtue” by othering and segregating out-groups.
you make it no only OK but actually laudable to engage in the nasty, brutal actions that would otherwise be taboo.
you need not run around conscripting assistance to totalitarian regimes. the mawkish middle will fall all over itself in its rush to sign up as long as they get to wear a hall monitor sash and push people around.
this, of course, has a flip side as well which is that all in these groups must endlessly and ostentatiously profess group membership and loyalty at all times for fear of becoming the next target of this focused aggression, because, of course, there must always be such a target. it is this unification to assail the “other” that generates group purpose and cohesion. it is the essential ethos and pathology of such assemblages.
this is why it’s such an effective and time honored tool of demagogues. it draws the right sort of amoral shock troops to you and holds them in thrall for once they have transgressed, there is no getting down off the tiger.
it does not take some orchestrated conspiracy to get them all singing from the exact same hymnal and keep them marching in lockstep. it’s just emergent behavior from the same base fear of being shunned and attacked if they falter.
once they cross the line into calling oppression honorable, they are yours...
Also some of the stuff Mark Changizi puts out, e.g:
(Changizi has a site full of it here: https://www.freex.group/ and his 'Science Moments' series contains some interesting thoughts and observations).
Also of possible interest, this short promo video made by a company named 'SCL' (Strategic Communication Laboratories) about a decade ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7lkG-BaCRE
Interesting, as viewed in the context of this old 'slate' article, it perhaps offers a glimpse into the psychology of those that seek to use behavioural psychology to manipulate the rest of us.
