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by b00ty4breakfast2 hours ago |
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upvoteby delichon2 hours ago|
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The polygraph doesn't have to emit any useful data at all to be very useful in interrogations. Like a bomb doesn't have to have any explosive in it to clear a building. Interrogation is a head game and a complicated box with knobs and buttons and maybe even blinking lights makes a fine prop.

And there's enough ambiguity in it that it's easy for the operator to believe it helps. Like a dowser with their rods, a clergyman with a holy book or an astrologist with a horoscope. That gives them the power boost of sincerity.

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upvoteby XorNot2 hours ago|
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That research was oriented towards making sure it wasn't possible though.

You're saying "of course it isn't" - but how do you know that?

At the time the Soviets had the same sort of projects. So until you're sure it's not possible, the potential capability is an enormous threat if it is.

How they went about that research is where the waste creeps in.

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upvoteby rapnie24 minutes ago|
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I always wonder when I see one of those hypnosis shows, where someone from the audience makes themselves a docile fool in front of a large crowd, whether they are stooges or it is the real deal. But I wouldn't volunteer to get hypnotised to figure that out, in fear of being the next person who stands imitating a dog in heat on such a stage.
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upvoteby endominus1 hours ago|
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> General Brown: So they started doing psy-research because they thought we were doing psy-research, when in fact we weren't doing psy-research?

> Brigadier General Dean Hopgood: Yes sir. But now that they are doing psy-research, we're gonna have to do psy-research, sir. We can't afford to have the Russian's leading the field in the paranormal.

Source: The Men Who Stare at Goats

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upvoteby b00ty4breakfast1 hours ago|
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Plenty of things we could be wasting money on if the only criteria is "how do you know it's not real?", why stop at killing goats with mind bullets? We could be looking for yetis or Atlantis or lunar nazi spaceships.

It was a giant waste of time and money and, this being the CIA, it likely harmed many people.

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upvoteby Hikikomori26 minutes ago|
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Was drugging random Americans with LSD also a valid experiment? Parts of the CIA was just insane back then, maybe still is.
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