AcidicBasicGlitch

Also haven't heard anyone mentioning this, but late on the Friday before this story was published, Hegseth's chief of staff sent a late night memo threatening anyone that leaks classified information to the press by saying they're going to start doing polygraph tests at DOD, and said

“If this effort results in information identifying a party responsible for an unauthorized disclosure,” then such information “will be referred to the appropriate criminal entity for criminal prosecution,”

So threatening to turn Department of Defense employees over to the authorities for leaking classified information to reporters if they fail a polygraph (which isn't even admissible in court bc they give false positives so often).

Then it turns out, oops the guy trying to intimidate everyone texted classified information to a reporter in a group chat and now it's a story in the Atlantic

https://apnews.com/article/leaks-pentagon-polygraph-trump-investigation-685b08e14d813050a722cec89eb5c323

Not sure why the link is showing as an error message, but it seems to be working fine. Here it is again just in case: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-one-lifespan/202502/countering-authoritarian-behavior-in-democracies

https://cptsdfoundation.org/2020/04/23/dissociation-how-people-cope-with-trauma-they-want-to-forget/

Compartmentalization of thoughts and emotions: https://neurolaunch.com/fragmentation-psychology/

I actually just started part 1 today and haven't made it to part 2 yet, but it is definitely worth listening to. (The entire podcast is worth checking out actually. The J.D. Vance episode especially).

I knew Musk didn't have the best childhood, but after listening to this, I honestly cannot help feeling empathy for his childhood self.

To clarify, that is in no way an excuse for anything he's done as an adult. It's an explanation for why he's the way he is, not excuse. When you have cPTSD, you get this weird ability to recognize the effects of trauma in other people.

Experiencing trauma is in no way the fault of the victim, but the cycle of violence and trauma will repeat over and over through generations until someone decides it will end with them, and seeks help. Elon Musk instead recently bragged that his tombstone will read "Never went to therapy."

There is no way Elon Musk could have survived the childhood he did without developing cPTSD. It's also clear from the statements of his former partners and himself about having a high tolerance for pain and chaos. Those aren't quirky Elon traits. Those are signs of trauma related dissociation that emerge as coping skills following repeated traumatic experiences.

I don't say that to mock him for his trauma. I say that because those are also traits I recognize in myself and others with cPTSD. It's a sign you survived something you shouldn't have had to go through, and while it may help you thrive in chaos, it's not fair to put others through trauma because it feels comfortable and familiar to you. Repeatedly seeking out chaos and finding ways to reenact your trauma either consciously or subconsciously, is again, not a quirky Elon specific trait. It is a shared trait of many trauma survivors, and one of easiest ways the cycle of abuse gets passed on to others, especially from someone in a position of power.

Imagine waking up each morning, wondering if today’s the day you’ll be denounced by a neighbor, hauled off for “re-education,” or simply vanish without a trace. It’s a paralyzing anxiety that gnaws at the soul, leaving its victims desperate for any sense of security. And it’s in this desperation that the totalitarian regime finds its foothold.

The psychological terror inflicted by these systems is both a means and an end. It keeps the population docile and compliant, but it also serves a deeper purpose. In a world of constant threat, people crave certainty like a drowning man gasps for air. And who better to provide that certainty than the all-knowing, all-powerful state?

Totalitarian regimes offer a seductive promise: surrender your freedom, your individuality, your very thoughts to us, and we’ll keep you safe. We’ll tell you what to think, how to act, who to love and who to hate. No more difficult decisions, no more moral quandaries. Just blissful, mindless obedience.

Eventually, people internalize external repression. This becomes internalized oppression. Internalized oppression is when marginalized individuals or groups take on the view of the oppressor, or in this case, the regime, and their behavior leads to further oppression (Prilleltensky & Gonick, 1996). Internalized oppression is how a dictatorship maintains its power most effectively. The subjugation of one group over another is associated with mass trauma (Heberle, Obus, & Gray, 2020).

Internalized oppression is when individuals come to believe their own inferiority and inability to bring about change in a system. Once an individual or a collective internalizes oppression, they come to believe the message an oppressor has been predicating. For example, in the Dominican Republic's dictatorship, individuals were urged to obey idiosyncratic rules such as carrying a voting card for fixed elections, paving the roads as community service, and doing military exercises regardless of age. Defying any of these laws resulted in consequences such as jail time and other harsh or lethal punishments. Individuals who internalized the oppression not only accepted and obeyed these rules but also encouraged others to do the same. In doing so, they supported the dictator even if they did not necessarily agree with his tyranny.

I've been looking for a place to discuss political psychology for a long time.

It's a topic I've been interested in since taking a special topics course in high school that covered crimes against humanity. One of my favorite teachers taught the course, and even though it's been almost 2 decades since I took his class, as an adult, I've realized that he taught more than just historical facts and dates.He taught us how to think critically, how to spot disinformation, and how to recognize the same tactics that have been used throughout history to exert control over narratives and large populations of people.

Sadly, it's become quite a useful skill to have. It's not an intuitive skill for most people, and certainly not one I would have had if it hadn't been for him. It's usually a skill you only learn through either education or the experience of living through it. I consider myself lucky to be in the former category, but the older I get the more I find myself recognizing things that let me know society is not headed in a promising direction.

So, I hope I can share some interesting topics and maybe help more people recognize the patterns of human behavior that seem to loop endlessly throughout history.

I think it might be best to start on a note that examines the shared psychological scar that typically follows surviving repeated trauma in both survivors of authoritarian regimes and domestic abuse. For that, there's no better place to start than the work of Judith Herman.

The main post is a link to a PDF of Herman's 1992 work distinguishing between PTSD following a single traumatic event and complex PTSD following exposure to repeated traumatic events.

I do have face unlock option but it's showing in settings it's never been set up. No app permissions I wasn't aware of except android system intelligence. I tried to switch it to always ask permission but it just disappeared

Yeah I went ahead and just deleted it, but I'm very confused why it's showing any app associated with that email. It was literally just a throwaway email I used once so I wouldn't have to use my main account.

When I tried to log in to Google play using that email it said I needed to accept the terms and conditions bc I'd never logged in before.

What's weird is that's a throwaway email address I made to sign up for something but never used otherwise. Like I had never actually logged into the playstore with that address

No, I used my lock code

If you don't want to click the links to the blog post with references explaining all of this

Here is the archived SPN page from 2015 discussing the history: https://web.archive.org/web/20150626172710/http://www.spn.org/about/

Here is a 2011 article discussing the "freedom centers": https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/state-policy-network-union-bargaining/

Here are the SPN affiliate pages for the Alabama and Louisiana think tanks pushing the state level DOGE policy and the SPN affiliate page for the Heritage Foundation:

Louisiana https://spn.org/organization/pelican-institute-for-public-policy/

Alabama https://spn.org/organization/alabama-policy-institute/

Heritage Foundation https://spn.org/organization/heritage-foundation/