Intervention? Tie them up, throw them into the trunk of a car and spirit them away to an underground compound where they will undergo weeks of indoctrination toward your way of thinking?
Where do you see any of that in my question O? Tie them up. Toss them into a car trunk. Abduct them to an underground compound.(Kidnapping is illegal you know). Engage in brainwashing them for weeks until they give me the answers I want? What exactly are those answers that I want O? I think your imagination carried you away from the point of my question. Did you see "The Manchurian Candidate"? Was what was depicted there possible or im? Would you like to see your country run by a puppet of another government? Say for instance PET being controlled by Putin/Russia? Now PET may willingly comply/conspire in which case he is merely a traitor doing treasonous things willingly. Or he may have been brainwashed over the years via compliments which he is very much in need of to survive. He is so needy. Either way how does being a satellite of Russia appeal to you? Thank you for your reply and Happy Sunday.
Thank you for your reply Durdle and Happy Saturday! :) I don't see the different between the two. Put them side by side and see where the similarities/dissimilarities are. Whether you compare or contrast don't you end up in the same place? Perhaps the spectre of semantics is invading our space.
This post was edited by RosieG at December 10, 2016 12:23 PM MST
Compare suggests at least some similarity, but a computer (or robot) is nothing like a human.
A sufficiently skilled programmer can re-set what a computer does relatively easily, since it boils down to re-writing a series of formal instruction-sets that controls an inanimate, non-thinking, non-emotional electronic circuit whose operations are based on a narrow range of rigid binary choices (yes/no, and/or, and so on).
This rigidity contrasts with the human mind totally, because we are subject to a vast, ill-defined and extremely variable range of emotions, responses, abilities and experiences.
A computer might perform, say, 100 000 000 individual binary choices a second, and will always mark time at that rate even when not actually transferring and operating data bits, but it can only operate in that way at that rate to those choices. The human brain works at nothing like that rate, but in a far less binary way, and at highly variable rates.
So over-riding brainwashing is nothing like re-programming a computer, hence I said contrast not compare.
You can take 10 identical PCs and re-programme them all identically, knowing they will give identical results, such as when changing from one operating-system to another.
You cannot take 10 people and reverse whatever they have been brain-washed into believing, with the same reliability. Some will throw off the brain-washed beliefs very rapidly, especially if sufficiently strong-willed to have played along with the tyrants while secretly nurturing their original beliefs, or ones they have discovered illicitly. Others may have succumbed so deeply that they cannot reject the tyranny properly, and may even find the certainty of indoctrination less alarming than the uncertainty of free thinking.
We see this with residents of the former Soviet bloc who recognise life under the Communist regime was deeply flawed and unpleasant, but find it hard to cope with the flaws and uncertainties in what has replaced it. Similarly, many people whose parents had authoritarian religious beliefs, react in one of two ways. Some can never cast off the parental brain-washing, however unhappy it makes them - they use statements like "I was brought up a strict...." to excuse finding subservience to authoritarianism less difficult and less uncomfortable than thinking for themselves. The other reaction is to admit the same but see through and reject the indoctrination as personally plain wrong and unwanted.
People free of tyranny and brain-washing have those choices even if they can't always recognise they do, or they do but don't have the courage to act on it. Computers never have the choice, are always under the programmer and user; but have neither such recognition abilities, nor the courage.
Thank you once again for a very thoughtful and thorough reply to a question. Here is something you might already know. If so apologies. If not please tell me what you think about it.
Per "Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language" here is the definition of CONTRAST. 1. "To COMPARE in order to show unlikeness or differences. 2. To exhibit unlikeness in COMPARISON with something else" You will note that the word "compare" is used twice in the definition of Contrast. Yet when I looked up the definition of Contrast the word "compare" was nowhere to be found. Isn't that odd? How can that be?
How does one insure against being branwashed? I think I shall ask that question. Better yet I know some folks can be hypnotized. Some cannot. I am among the latter. Does that mean some folks are susceptible to brainwashing and others resist it? It's a very interesting topic isn't it Durdle?.
I must admit I'd not seen the dictionary definition, but I recall exams asking the question "Contrast and compare..." two or more aspects of the subject, such as two characters in a novel or the treatment of various sections of a society in particular situation.
I am sure you are right about the susceptibility to brain-washing, but it's most often used by tyrants, at any level, so it's very hard to know to what extent their subjects are indoctrinated. At least, not until after being freed.
O-uknow 