What does it mean to be an anti vaxxer? We can’t even seem to agree on how to spell that term, so it feels almost impossible to accurately define it. According to google, the anti vaxxer is “ a person who is opposed to vaccination, typically a parent who does not wish to vaccinate their child.” Mainstream media apparently doesn’t agree with that definition, nor do our public health agencies. They actually define anyone who questions the safety and efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines as anti vaxxers. They have been wildly effective in their PR campaign to promote vaccinations against Covid as being “safe and effective.” It’s been an accepted practice in the advertising/PR world that simple phrases work best when trying to denigrate, discriminate, or even empower a portion of the population.
Behavioral Science applied to vaccination uptake. Which ended up blowing through the ethical guardrails of applied behavioral science, despite its proclaimed adherence to.
May 29, 2022·edited May 29, 2022Liked by Michelle Rabin Ph. D.
Michelle,
I started following you when I saw a comment of yours on Steve Kirsch's Substack a few months ago. This is a very long post with a lot of information, much of it requiring lengthy review and analysis. Seeing that you are a retired shrink with extensive training and experience in studying the mind and how it works, how it is influenced I'm taking the chance you'll have time and interest to take the deep dive my comment invites you to do.
I've done a great deal of research on the field of behavioral science since the beginning of the pandemic when I read a NPR article about why the advice on masks flip-flopped. I paid enough attention in science classes to learn the scientific method and the claims made in most of the article were simply assertions, and I'm a sophisticated enough reader and experienced in the practice of political propaganda to know the meaningful part is usually buried towards the end. When masks were called, "a badge of honor."
This terminology made every hair on my neck stick up, having extensively studied the origins of the Holocaust. Adopted by Jews who were told the Star of David was a "badge of honor."
I knew then something foul was afoot. Discovering what is behind the distortions of reality becoming my intellectual pursuit for over two years now. I've come to understand the behavioral sciences are predicated on the belief that the people being governed are "too cognitively impaired and lacking perspective," to make good decisions for themselves. We are helpless in understanding what is in our own best interests, plagued by shortcomings and biases that our educated betters needs to protect us from. With respect to the pandemic they said we suffer from "optimism bias" wrongly assessing that our risk was minimal, so we have to have our fear amplified, "fixing" our perspective to match the perspective our more educated and wiser betters believed we needed to save lives. Statistical data now being released showing that we, the people actually had "better" perspectives, more accurate than our "betters" tried to fix (impose) on us.
This article in the UK Telegraph in May, 2021 is on how the UK applied behavioral sciences abusively during the pandemic, prompting the creation of an official inquiry. Called, "the science of totalitarianism," by members of the pandemic mitigation team who first believed it necessary, later realized how dangerous it had become. In the year since the inquiry was launched it unfortunately but predictably has sputtered and stalled, been whitewashed and used to justify the abuses, minimizing the actual harms. The inquiry was prompted by great book, "A State of Fear," I recommend, written and published by Laura Dodsworth in the months leading up to the announcement of the inquiry. She personally mailed a copy of the book to every member of Parliament as it was published, the impetus for the inquiry. Hint: Same exact thing happened here in the US. Just less transparency and no inquiry....yet:
My research has also led me to this important UK document that both the US and UK draw strategies and methods of governance using a Behavioral Science approach to help achieve their public policy goals.
Their governing model is based on this understanding they have created for themselves to justify their behavioral science-based "Stewardship" of the masses. Which is really an exercise in propaganda, doublespeak, self-aggrandizing and pats on their own backs for how wonderful and beneficent their adoption of these methods are for the helpless little people they govern:
This is a very insightful historical document I found in my research. A treatment of a behavioral science-based law and governing system by Walter Berns in 1963. Responding to proposals that we turn to behavioral sciences to govern humanity. The first 14 pages are a game theory exercise on how judges could make legal decisions as a scientific endeavor rather than human reason and wisdom. The final 14 pages get into the claims of proponents and dangers and hazards of the "science" as law and governing. A warning from the past lost on deaf ears:
The same constitutional scholar, Walter Berns, wrote about the application of social and behavioral sciences in US law that eugenics was (is) based in. The determinant court case, Buck v. Bell, remains a constitutional application of social science as law in the US nearly a century later, only partially limited in Oklahoma v. Skinner following WWII. Yes, the same basis of government-approved medical tyranny that Nazi Germany practiced is enshrined in US law today under "stare decisis." Inconvenient and embarrassing fact of history to most of us who want to believe the promise and virtuous nature of our nation is the reality today. Shockingly, it is not.
Cass Sunstein is in the middle of this proposal and study, he was coauthor of "Nudge" with the UK's Richard Thaler. Sunstein is an important figure in the widespread adoption of behavioral science as governance over the past 15 years. The book "Nudge" became the basis of creations of social and behavioral science teams in both nations at the same time, under Obama (SBST) and Cameron (BIT) that took on extraordinary roles since the pandemic. He has several protoges who've led behavioral science as governance across governments and Big Tech since he wrote the book. Jessica Hertz (Facebook & Biden administration) and Maya Shankar (Obama administration, Google Global Chief Behavioral Scientist, Clinton connected *and* GOP Frank Luntz, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy connected). Local state government Nudge has exploded, especially since pandemic. With bipartisan support.
Problem is, they couch it all with claims that they follow an ethical approach to "nudge" which purports to maintain transparency, honesty, building and maintaining trust, operating within established bounds of psychological manipulation. But when you read the Nuffield Bioethics Council document you see they just give lip service to those values and restraints. They've blown right through the ethical practices of behaviorism, from "Nudge" to coercive "Shove" and abusive "Slap." The "Science" has gone off the rails of ethical practice.
Ominously the same practitioners launched an international self-governing organization that seeks to be an authoritative body on the ethics of applied behavioral science. Launched in August, 2020, a proactive attempt to get ahead of their abusive and unethical application of the science from questions by authorities, like the UK inquiry, they knew would come. This organization is not to be given deference, they must be called out for what they represent: Foxes guarding the henhouse.
ttps://gaabs.org/team/
Behavioral science is a tool, or a weapon, depending on who is wielding it. Much like atomic research into the science of splitting the atom. Once discovered it can be applied as a weapon of mass destruction or for the betterment of mankind harnessing abundant energy to improve lives. The behavioral sciences in the hands of those wielding it today is a weapon of mass destruction of civil liberty and freedom across the globe. Shredding our constitution into something unrecognizable in the land of the free, home of the brave. Put into a state of perpetual fear. The science of totalitarianism. Professionals like you with ethics in psychological manipulation will be crucial to taking the science back from those who are using it as a weapon and put sufficient restraints on it so the practice cannot go off the rails ever again.
I'll leave you with these links from an invaluable resource I recently discovered about how to more effectively communicate with those who have followed the narrative, many smart, good, reasoned people who've made the colossal mistake of trusting authorities and influencers and then falling into group dynamics of conformity:
I am grateful to the Bar Association of India for calling out the WHO for crimes against humanity. We need to add the public health officials in the U.S. to that list for crimes against humanity. It has been estimated that IF early treatment with safe, effective, evidence based FDA approved drugs had been allowed and encouraged to be prescribed to the masses, we could have saved between 500,000 and 750,000 American lives. If that's not crimes against humanity I don't know what is. When I wrote my substack using a photo of myself with a yellow jewish star that said unvaccinated, I got horrible comments from many. They tried to shame me by my comparison to Natzi germany. My own niece wrote a painful comment that wasn't even true. I know a gallery owner in Portland who has been emotionally abused for making such an analogy. As a jew myself, at least I wasn't called anti-semitic as he was. There is no excuse for these outrageous behaviors. My level of disillusionment is profound. What has happened to the human race?
Behavioral Science applied to vaccination uptake. Which ended up blowing through the ethical guardrails of applied behavioral science, despite its proclaimed adherence to.
https://obssr.od.nih.gov/sites/obssr/files/inline-files/OBSSR_VaccineWhitePaper_FINAL_508.pdf
Michelle,
I started following you when I saw a comment of yours on Steve Kirsch's Substack a few months ago. This is a very long post with a lot of information, much of it requiring lengthy review and analysis. Seeing that you are a retired shrink with extensive training and experience in studying the mind and how it works, how it is influenced I'm taking the chance you'll have time and interest to take the deep dive my comment invites you to do.
I've done a great deal of research on the field of behavioral science since the beginning of the pandemic when I read a NPR article about why the advice on masks flip-flopped. I paid enough attention in science classes to learn the scientific method and the claims made in most of the article were simply assertions, and I'm a sophisticated enough reader and experienced in the practice of political propaganda to know the meaningful part is usually buried towards the end. When masks were called, "a badge of honor."
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/03/826996154/coronavirus-faqs-is-a-homemade-mask-effective-and-whats-the-best-way-to-wear-one
This terminology made every hair on my neck stick up, having extensively studied the origins of the Holocaust. Adopted by Jews who were told the Star of David was a "badge of honor."
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/wear-it-with-pride
I knew then something foul was afoot. Discovering what is behind the distortions of reality becoming my intellectual pursuit for over two years now. I've come to understand the behavioral sciences are predicated on the belief that the people being governed are "too cognitively impaired and lacking perspective," to make good decisions for themselves. We are helpless in understanding what is in our own best interests, plagued by shortcomings and biases that our educated betters needs to protect us from. With respect to the pandemic they said we suffer from "optimism bias" wrongly assessing that our risk was minimal, so we have to have our fear amplified, "fixing" our perspective to match the perspective our more educated and wiser betters believed we needed to save lives. Statistical data now being released showing that we, the people actually had "better" perspectives, more accurate than our "betters" tried to fix (impose) on us.
This article in the UK Telegraph in May, 2021 is on how the UK applied behavioral sciences abusively during the pandemic, prompting the creation of an official inquiry. Called, "the science of totalitarianism," by members of the pandemic mitigation team who first believed it necessary, later realized how dangerous it had become. In the year since the inquiry was launched it unfortunately but predictably has sputtered and stalled, been whitewashed and used to justify the abuses, minimizing the actual harms. The inquiry was prompted by great book, "A State of Fear," I recommend, written and published by Laura Dodsworth in the months leading up to the announcement of the inquiry. She personally mailed a copy of the book to every member of Parliament as it was published, the impetus for the inquiry. Hint: Same exact thing happened here in the US. Just less transparency and no inquiry....yet:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210519003131/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/14/scientists-admit-totalitarian-use-fear-control-behaviour-covid/
My research has also led me to this important UK document that both the US and UK draw strategies and methods of governance using a Behavioral Science approach to help achieve their public policy goals.
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/mindspace
Their governing model is based on this understanding they have created for themselves to justify their behavioral science-based "Stewardship" of the masses. Which is really an exercise in propaganda, doublespeak, self-aggrandizing and pats on their own backs for how wonderful and beneficent their adoption of these methods are for the helpless little people they govern:
https://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Public-health-ethical-issues.pdf
This is a very insightful historical document I found in my research. A treatment of a behavioral science-based law and governing system by Walter Berns in 1963. Responding to proposals that we turn to behavioral sciences to govern humanity. The first 14 pages are a game theory exercise on how judges could make legal decisions as a scientific endeavor rather than human reason and wisdom. The final 14 pages get into the claims of proponents and dangers and hazards of the "science" as law and governing. A warning from the past lost on deaf ears:
https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2953&context=lcp
The same constitutional scholar, Walter Berns, wrote about the application of social and behavioral sciences in US law that eugenics was (is) based in. The determinant court case, Buck v. Bell, remains a constitutional application of social science as law in the US nearly a century later, only partially limited in Oklahoma v. Skinner following WWII. Yes, the same basis of government-approved medical tyranny that Nazi Germany practiced is enshrined in US law today under "stare decisis." Inconvenient and embarrassing fact of history to most of us who want to believe the promise and virtuous nature of our nation is the reality today. Shockingly, it is not.
https://sci-hub.st/10.1177/106591295300600409
The Behavioral Science plan for the US released early in the pandemic link is below:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32355299/
Cass Sunstein is in the middle of this proposal and study, he was coauthor of "Nudge" with the UK's Richard Thaler. Sunstein is an important figure in the widespread adoption of behavioral science as governance over the past 15 years. The book "Nudge" became the basis of creations of social and behavioral science teams in both nations at the same time, under Obama (SBST) and Cameron (BIT) that took on extraordinary roles since the pandemic. He has several protoges who've led behavioral science as governance across governments and Big Tech since he wrote the book. Jessica Hertz (Facebook & Biden administration) and Maya Shankar (Obama administration, Google Global Chief Behavioral Scientist, Clinton connected *and* GOP Frank Luntz, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy connected). Local state government Nudge has exploded, especially since pandemic. With bipartisan support.
Problem is, they couch it all with claims that they follow an ethical approach to "nudge" which purports to maintain transparency, honesty, building and maintaining trust, operating within established bounds of psychological manipulation. But when you read the Nuffield Bioethics Council document you see they just give lip service to those values and restraints. They've blown right through the ethical practices of behaviorism, from "Nudge" to coercive "Shove" and abusive "Slap." The "Science" has gone off the rails of ethical practice.
Ominously the same practitioners launched an international self-governing organization that seeks to be an authoritative body on the ethics of applied behavioral science. Launched in August, 2020, a proactive attempt to get ahead of their abusive and unethical application of the science from questions by authorities, like the UK inquiry, they knew would come. This organization is not to be given deference, they must be called out for what they represent: Foxes guarding the henhouse.
ttps://gaabs.org/team/
Behavioral science is a tool, or a weapon, depending on who is wielding it. Much like atomic research into the science of splitting the atom. Once discovered it can be applied as a weapon of mass destruction or for the betterment of mankind harnessing abundant energy to improve lives. The behavioral sciences in the hands of those wielding it today is a weapon of mass destruction of civil liberty and freedom across the globe. Shredding our constitution into something unrecognizable in the land of the free, home of the brave. Put into a state of perpetual fear. The science of totalitarianism. Professionals like you with ethics in psychological manipulation will be crucial to taking the science back from those who are using it as a weapon and put sufficient restraints on it so the practice cannot go off the rails ever again.
I'll leave you with these links from an invaluable resource I recently discovered about how to more effectively communicate with those who have followed the narrative, many smart, good, reasoned people who've made the colossal mistake of trusting authorities and influencers and then falling into group dynamics of conformity:
https://reachingpeople.net/presentations/
(Next three videos are from same presenter, worth being stand alone links)
The Top 6 Methods of Manipulation Used in the Media
https://www.bitchute.com/video/LAmBFCmU2LaW/
How to Effectively Wake Up Your Friends and Family
https://www.bitchute.com/video/1GUKsUu8xTgM/
5 Rules of Propaganda
https://youtu.be/JRYpyumCaaQ
I am grateful to the Bar Association of India for calling out the WHO for crimes against humanity. We need to add the public health officials in the U.S. to that list for crimes against humanity. It has been estimated that IF early treatment with safe, effective, evidence based FDA approved drugs had been allowed and encouraged to be prescribed to the masses, we could have saved between 500,000 and 750,000 American lives. If that's not crimes against humanity I don't know what is. When I wrote my substack using a photo of myself with a yellow jewish star that said unvaccinated, I got horrible comments from many. They tried to shame me by my comparison to Natzi germany. My own niece wrote a painful comment that wasn't even true. I know a gallery owner in Portland who has been emotionally abused for making such an analogy. As a jew myself, at least I wasn't called anti-semitic as he was. There is no excuse for these outrageous behaviors. My level of disillusionment is profound. What has happened to the human race?