'Facebook succeeded because it built new online habits around frequent offline behaviors. TheFacebook.com, as it was originally known, offered users a digital way to feel connected to others throughout the day and from anywhere they could access the web. The power of this universal human need for social acceptance and connection helps explain how the company grew well beyond college campuses and now touches one in eight people on the planet. Ask a devoted Facebook user why they log-in to the site several times per day and they’ll describe features they love and provide examples of how they use the service. They’ll tell you it’s a great way to share photos or keep up with their friends. But below the surface is the need for emotional gratification. Though we can all shift our emotional states ourselves, it’s not easy. Instead of going through the hard work of consciously changing the way we feel, we use ready-made solutions to do it for us. Facebook, and the companies like it, are the new tools we use to quickly elevate our moods. With Facebook, it’s often loneliness that cues a visit to the site. Twitter is cued when the user fears being out of the loop about what’s happening. Pinterest users feel the urge to capture and collect visual scraps of the web, worried they’ll lose the image lest they pin it. -- The more often an emotion is experienced by the user, the larger the potential market of a product that serves that feeling. -- People don’t realize they use products to satiate feelings so emotional needs must be translated into a concrete story.'

'Thousands of US soldiers are going into battle fueled by all sorts of prescription medications, be they amphetamines, antidepressants, sedatives or others. Largely unmonitored consumption of drugs can lead to aberrant behavior and mental disorders. Over 110,000 American service personnel took prescribed medications in 2011 to battle through everyday military routine.'

'The minimalist interface all but removes the need to think. With a click, a photo is taken and all kinds of sensory and social rewards ensue. Each photo taken and shared further commits the user to the app. Subsequently, users change not only their behavior, but also their minds. Finally, a habit is formed. Users no longer require an external stimulus to use Instagram because the internal trigger happens on its own. As Yin said, “I just use it whenever I see something cool.” Having viewed the “popular” tab of the app thousands of times, she’s honed her understanding of what “cool” is. She’s also received feedback from friends who reward her with comments and likes. Now she finds herself constantly on the hunt for images that fit the Instagram style. Like a never-ending scavenger hunt, she feels compelled to capture these moments.' -- We're hungry, beware of our appetite.

'We are a behavior design consultancy. @GetDopamine' -- I've seen faggotry you people wouldn't believe.

When I see mass nostalgia, I reach for my gun.

'In an earlier dark age, authoritarian monarchies partnered with authoritarian religious institutions. When the world exited from this dark age and entered the Enlightenment, there was a burst of energy. Much of this revitalization had to do with risking skepticism about authoritarian and corrupt institutions and regaining confidence in one’s own mind. We are now in another dark age, only the institutions have changed. Americans desperately need anti-authoritarians to question, challenge, and resist new illegitimate authorities and regain confidence in their own common sense. In every generation there will be authoritarians and anti-authoritarians. While it is unusual in American history for anti-authoritarians to take the kind of effective action that inspires others to successfully revolt, every once in a while a Tom Paine, Crazy Horse, or Malcolm X come along. So authoritarians financially marginalize those who buck the system, they criminalize anti-authoritarianism, they psychopathologize anti-authoritarians, and they market drugs for their “cure.”' -- 'Does Big Brother exist?' 'Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the embodiment of the Party.' 'Does he exist in the same way as I exist?' 'You do not exist.'

'The public is disenchanted with psychotherapy. This negative attitude has been exacerbated by the predominance of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which is spuriously touted by its frequently fiscally motivated supporters as superior to other kinds of psychotherapy in both efficacy and brevity. Psychotherapists in training – psychiatric residents, clinical psychology, counseling and social work interns too are taught the same misleading party line. The sad result has been a gradual mechanization, dehumanization and reductionistic de-souling of psychotherapy. An estimated ninety percent of psychiatrists no longer practice psychotherapy much at all, relying heavily instead on pharmacotherapy. Ironically, the aforementioned mounting crisis within the psychotherapy world parallels a growing crisis in public mental health. The truth is, most psychotherapy patients need far more than what pharmaceutical intervention and/or cognitive restructuring – the two most popular "evidence-based" modalities today – can provide. As does every person seeking meaning and peace of mind. They need and deserve support and accompaniment through their painful, frightening, perilous spiritual or existential crises, their "dark night of the soul." They need a psychologically meaningful method to confront their metaphorical devils and demons, their repressed anger or rage, and the existential reality of evil. The fundamental task of a secular spiritual psychotherapy is to redeem (rather than cast out or exorcise) our emotional devils. It is inevitably both a psychological and spiritual venture. Bravely voicing our inner "demons" – symbolizing those unconscious tendencies we most fear, flee from, and hence, are obsessed or haunted by – transmutes them into helpful spiritual allies. During this alchemical process, the esoteric secret that many artists and spiritual savants share is revealed: That same demon so righteously run from and rejected paradoxically becomes the redemptive source of vitality, creativity, and authentic spirituality.'

'Articles on mental health and suicide have been especially ubiquitous in the Anglosphere's elite-controlled mainstream press, in part because overseas wars are giving rise to a generation of emotionally fragile war veterans who are committing suicide in unprecedented numbers. Millions of citizens overseas afflicted by these wars suffer as well. To begin with these bureaucracies may seem innocent and even innovative. But over time it will become apparent that the UN is setting up some sort of worldwide mental health apparatus to evaluate people's emotional and intellectual stability. Worst case – if it gets that far – the UN will try to provide itself not only with the authority to evaluate people's mental competence but also the authority to send people to mental institutions and re-education camps if they are not sufficiently docile and open to the appropriate level of mind control.' -- How many fingers, Winston?

Changeable. Alterable. Mutable. Variable. Versatile. Moldable. Movable. Fluctuate. Undulate. Flicker. Flutter. Pulsate. Vibrate. Alternate. Plastic.

"The individual is pathologized so that society can be termed healthy." - '...a way forward for society that does not require the drugging of helpless children and badly informed adults.' - "What we call mental illness is injury to the brain that results from its repetitively incorrect usage."

'Arguments, expert opinion and data against the myth of mental illness.' -- Take four red capsules. In 10 minutes, take two more. Help is on the way.

'...the point of the government's policy on psychiatry is to treat all patients as having exclusively organic diseases and not socially generated problems; and medications, regardless of cost, are absolutely necessary to maintain this narrative.' -- If you feel you are not properly sedated, call 348-844 immediately. Failure to do so may result in prosecution for criminal drug evasion.

'WASHINGTON—In a hastily called press conference broadcast live on all major television networks this morning, Food and Drug Administration commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg implored every citizen of the United States to induce vomiting immediately. "Please, everybody, there's no time to explain. Just gag yourselves, drink ipecac, do whatever is necessary to puke everything out right now—all of it," Hamburg said moments before jamming her index and middle fingers deep into her throat and violently disgorging the contents of her stomach all over the lectern. "Do it now! Now, now, now!" As of press time, the FDA released a statement saying that everyone should have vomited by now and informing those who hadn't that it was "too late."'

'#NARCISSUS TRANCE: An interpretation of the Greek myth of Narcissus as the inability to recognize technologies as extensions of the human being and the failure to detect the message, or new environment, created by new technologies. #NUMBING: See Narcissus trance, somnambulism. #AUTOAMPUTATION: The human body reacting to a source of irritation/danger by shutting down the affected area. #COUNTER-IRRITANT: When technologies produce stress and pressure through speed-up or overload, new technologies develop to offset those effects. Counter-irritants can be benign (games) or as destructive as the original irritant (a drug habit). #ANTI-ENVIRONMENT: In Mcluhan’s terms, “without an anti-environment all environments are invisible”. An artist provides us with anti-environments that enable us to see the environment. #CLOSURE: The human body’s attempt to regain equilibrium among its channels of sensory input, whenever this equilibrium is disturbed by new media.'

'...gamification advocates do not preach the beauty and power of play. Perhaps without knowing it, they're selling a pernicious worldview that doesn't give weight to literal truth. Instead, they are trafficking in fantasies that ignore the realities of day-to-day life. This isn't fun and games—it's a tactic most commonly employed by repressive, authoritarian regimes. ...there are legitimate reasons why people feel they're achieving less. These include the boring literal truths of jobs shipped overseas, stagnant wages, and a taxation system that benefits the rich and hurts the middle class and poor. You want to transform peoples' lives into games so they feel as if they're doing something worthwhile? Why not just shoot them up with drugs so they don't notice how miserable they are? There's no wonder corporations are so excited about turning the world into a game. One of the movement's central insights is that a sense of accomplishment sometimes feels more meaningful than a paycheck...'

'...the single, significant problem that the mainstream Western media is facing ... is that mainstream publications are seen increasingly as providing unreliable information tailored to the promotion of one-world dominant social themes. The main difference between the blogosphere and the mainstream media is that the blogosphere directly confronts the phenomenon of the Anglo-American power elite and its attempts to create one-world government without ever admitting that it is doing so. The emphasis on Western and even world control by a small monetary elite differentiates the alternative media from the mainstream, which is under control of money power itself. In essence, money power and the media elites are one in the same. Mainstream reporting is thus not in a position to report honestly; that's not what they are about. They are similar in nature to the Federal Reserve, which states one of their pirmary objectives to be controlling inflation when in fact THEY CREATE IT.'

'The worse things are, the more "technology" is celebrated. It has been ever thus. Western mainstream media is a kind of prestidigitation, a magic show. One is always looking under the wrong shell. Some of the information on the Internet is viable; some of it is speculative; some of it is incorrect. But unlike in the 20th century, "forbidden' information is actually available. Internet communication hasn't just informed us about alternative technologies or ancient archeology; it's also helped us understand our governments and the shadowy elites standing behind them. It is the Internet that has allowed the exploration of the world's disastrous central banking economy and exposed the elite's plans for a new world order. It is much more difficult to hide relevant information in the 21st than in the 20th century. That doesn't mean the mainstream media won't try – and try it does with ever-increasing fervor. The cult of communication technology coverage is just one example.'

"An army of zombies... We've taken the bait of the iPads and the iPhones... Humanity is being absorbed by the technocracy. We are entering the vortex. You have been warned."

'...what are these new devices costing our culture? Many people are trading real world experiences. Is this just the next step in human evolution?' -- I just bought one of these yesterday, and it doesn't fit my consumer, and the store doesn't have any of the other kind.

'Apple, not Big Brother, is watching you. At least that’s what Motorola wants you to think.' -- How shall the new environment be programmed? It all happened so slowly that most men failed to realize that anything had happened at all.

'It's one thing to say the poor/uneducated can't find work, it's another thing to say the explicitly desired outcome of this country's social and educational system can't find work. The supply is there; but there's no demand. And there's no demand because there's not enough people who create stuff creating stuff which would justify the other jobs. They never were creating new drugs, they were only creating new markets. ...markets were created to sustain both Lexapro and Zoloft; not one market with two products, but a doubling of the market. In a perfect world, Lexapro wouldn't have been invented, they would have worked on something else. But since they knew they could create a market for "another Zoloft," they took the easy route. And they hired a salesforce, accordingly. While that was good for Lexapro, it's terrible for the country. Temporarily – and ten years is temporary – hiring all these people to essentially duplicate efforts catabolizes resources from other industries.'

'Levine identifies the process of "learned helplessness" as one of the primary factors that has led to society feeling broken, demoralized, hopeless and defeated. He cites an experiment involving dogs where both groups of animals were subjected to electro-shocks, wherein one group of dogs was able to stop the electro-shocks and the other was not. The dogs not able to stop the shocks moved into passivity and depression, and even when presented with the opportunity to escape did not even try to take it because they had learned helplessness. Levine compares this to national elections, where people vote for either Democrats or Republicans but still end up with the same consequences, or don't vote whatsoever but still end up with the same consequences. "That's learned helplessness," explains Levine, "No matter what you do you're going to get that same degree of pain."'

'What will happen when food disruptions occur, the currency collapses or social chaos breaks out in U.S. cities? This video answers that question by revealing how everyday people can transform into crazed animals who trample other human beings in order to get what they want. A shocking video that reveals a part of human nature that society tries to keep caged.'

"You really can't see any deeper into other people than you've seen into yourself." -- Stefan Molyneux

'The idea of "nudging" citizens to do the right thing sounds cute. But in reality it marks the return of a powerful psycho-political theory that rose up in the mid-20th century. It was called Behaviourism. ...who decides what is "good" behaviour, and what happens when others decide it is bad[?] These are questions that the Nudge enthusiasts seem to be blithely unaware of. ...the old behaviourist ideas and techniques will be helped and reinforced by a powerful ally – the machines we have built. The computers. In our age of individualism we see computers as ways through which we can express our individuality. But the truth is that the computers are really good at spotting the very opposite. The computers can see how similar we are, and they then have the ability to agglomerate us together into groups that have the same behaviours. And from that they can predict what choices and decisions we will make. And they do it solely through our observed behaviour.'

'Dominant Social Theme: We have our differences, but please calm down. If you just stay calm a little longer we will solve your problems.'

Genes-of-Isis: '“The prime example of the relation between the serpent and the mushroom is, of course, in the Garden of Eden story of the Old Testament. The cunning reptile prevails upon Eve and her husband to eat of the tree, whose fruit ‘made them as gods, knowing good and evil’ (Gen 3:4). The whole Eden story is mushroom-based mythology, not least in the identity of the ‘tree’ as the sacred fungus....” – John Allegro, “The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross” -- The first stage of the mushroom is considered male as it looks like a penis. Then the stem pushes the ball/uterus/breast up out of the egg. As the arms of the mushroom cap open to the sides, it’s as though the female aspect opens from the male “rib.”' -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_muscaria -- Poisoned chalice

"...there have been improvements [in the techniques of terrorism.] [Pavlov] found among other things that conditioning techniques applied to animals or humans in a state either of psychological or physical stress sank ... very deeply into the mind-body of the creature, and were extremely difficult to get rid of. ...[new] methods ... are a real refinement on the older methods of terror because they combine methods of terror with methods of acceptance that the person who is subjected to a form of terroristic stress but for the purpose of inducing a kind of voluntary acceptance of the psychological state in which he has been driven and the state of affairs in which he finds himself. -- If there are 20% of the people who really can be suggested into believing almost anything, then we have to take extremely careful steps into prevent the rise of demagogues who will drive them on into extreme positions then organize them into very dangerous private armies which may overthrow the government."

Take four red capsules. In 10 minutes, take two more. Help is on the way.

'In a 2008 paper titled, “Fluoride and the Future: Population Level Cognitive Enhancement, Savulescu writes: “Fluoridation is the tip of the enhancement iceberg. Science is progressing fast to develop safe and effective cognitive enhancers, drugs which will improve our mental abilities. For years, people have used crude enhancers, usually to promote wakefulness, like nicotine, caffeine and amphetamines. A new generation of more effective enhancers is emerging modafenil, ritalin, Adderral and ampakines and the piracetam family of memory improvers.” But once highly safe and effective cognitive enhancers are developed – as they almost surely will be – the question will arise whether they should be added to the water, like fluoride, or our cereals, like folate. It seems likely that widespread population level cognitive enhancement will be irresistible. ...should we try to engineer better, happier people?”' -- What's wrong? I just feel that I need something stronger.

'16-33 Million Americans are currently taking sedatives of some kind; I guess it takes the edge away from a broken financial system. The majority of these people will wake up and wonder why things have changed around them. The financial system is just an accounting system; it is the top level of a many layered society based ultimately on the physical world. Our prospects are a function not of the monetary system but instead have basis in the physical world multiplied by our ability to apply technology. "Bad news" may cause a lot of people to wake up as they find the goods we expect may simply not be there for us. We need to help build values to see if we can effect change.' -- Soma? Has got electrolytes?

'In recent years, there's been a dramatic increase in the number of children being diagnosed with serious psychiatric disorders and prescribed medications that are just beginning to be tested in children. The drugs can cause serious side effects, and virtually nothing is known about their long-term impact. "It's really to some extent an experiment, trying medications in these children of this age," child psychiatrist Dr. Patrick Bacon tells FRONTLINE. "It's a gamble. And I tell parents there's no way to know what's going to work."' -- Pushermen.