Yes – and you (meaning most people) are unaware that their minds have been hacked. As always – I start with describing what I mean by certain keywords.

Hacked and hacking

The concept is of course borrowed from the world of computing, where devious infiltrations of computerised systems cause chaos. These are usually ‘viruses’ of various kinds or ‘firewall’ intrusions. They are usually covert – obviously! The effects are usually discovered late, when personal data and things like credit card data are stolen and appears in places where they shouldn’t.

The human mind is a different sort of ‘computer’, so I’m not saying that somebody out there with beady eyes is tapping on a computer trying to hack some code in your brain.

The concept of hacking the mind means that the mind is manipulated in devious ways that, it may not be aware of. In like manner patterns of behaviours and responses can be etched, which the user of the brain (namely you) may take as ‘normal’ – so unaware can you be!

Works on this

Much has been written on this topic already. Highly recommended is “The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains” – by Lustig.

Sorry – as I was saying, the book exposes how the mind is hacked by manipulating our needs and wants. This is no book review. To get into it – if you don’t have a dog to bathe instantly – view all of the video below.

The following is a broad summary of Lustig’s key points. Don’t go crazy in finding exceptions, or you can if you wish and miss the big picture.

Mechanisms

Lustig has touched on many of what my experience informs me is the following incomplete list (items may overlap). In other words, we resonate.

1. Propaganda
2. Fake news.
3. Social and mainstream media influences.
4. The instant society.
5. Pleasure (confused with happiness).
6. Herdism (the seeking of what everybody is doing, wanting or believing).
7. Financial pressures.
8. Manipulations of primary needs (food, housing, water, ambient temperatures etc).

Tough – I’m not unpacking each of the above. Do some thinking, you lazy bum! The point is that a barrage of this stuff is pounding on the minds of billions of people. Their value-systems are reshaped. The insights into BigData scandals like Cambridge-Analytica informed us of how the above might be done.

You know that it is important to have your mobile phone on all the time. That’s a norm that few will argue with. But somebody is ‘tracking’ you – your movements, your purchases, your viewing of things online – without your awareness. They’re using that data to concentrate and feed back to you in your future online activities. Some say, “That’s good.. it’s helpful.” Sure, it may be in the short-term but the effect of it is to move you to where ‘they’ want, without you even knowing. That’s the hack right there!

All of the mechanisms aim for manipulations of attitudes. If someone has control of your attitudes, then they have a power over what you might believe, want or need. Most people are not aware of their deep attitudes, so that’s a great place to start a ‘mind-hack’ i.e. you’ll not be aware that they’re shaping your attitude(s).

Behaviours, responses and thought patterns (not actual thoughts) can be manipulated by the 8 listed above – and you may not know about it. You believe you are in control – and that’s the ultimate feature of a mind-hack – to let you ‘know’ you are in control. If you came to an awareness (like discovery of a computer virus) of the mind-hack, that’s not good for the hackers. That’s very similar to a firewall intrusion i.e. they don’t want the victim to know that their data is being stolen, else they’ll shut down the devious activity.

Conspiracy fact

I have put this heading in to address the dimwits who would instantly bawl “Conspiracy theorist!!” and “Scare-mongerer!” Those sorts of folk are unaware of the true conspiracies – based on hard evidence – that various systems are actually hacking minds; theirs in particular. The manipulations involve keeping that lot blind to the evidence, and getting them in their army to shut down exploration of the facts.

Defence Mechanisms

There is no ‘anti-virus’ or ‘firewall’ software for the mind that you can pick off a shelf, or some book that can tell you how to defend your mind.

My defence – which is not prescribed as advice for ‘everybody’ is as follows:

1. My sources of information are kept very wide.
2. I avoid the Semmelweis reflex when I come across strange ideas, or those which appear to be drivel at first glance.
3. I apply critical thinking to ideas I come across.
4. I consider what forms of context I may not be seeing or hearing.
5. I have decided not to be ruled by authority or herds of people.
6. I take the hard route to conclusions most of the time.
7. I don’t live on hope.
8. I embrace the harshness of reality.

Conclusions

Discovering when and how your mind has been hacked is not easy. That’s by design.

Acceptance of what is the ‘norm’ can be imperceptibly dangerous – dangers you won’t know about.

Ordinary people become ‘tools’ in the grand conspiracy (fact).

There is no one formular for defending the mind against mind-hacks