> Whilst thousands of healthcare workers in the US —- those who are supposed to be proponents of public health measures and rational, scientific thinking - refuse to get vaccinated [...]

These people were considered heroes last year (and overwhelmingly exposed to this virus while everyone else stayed at home). Now their judgment is in question because they won't follow the herd, with all of their medical experience/expertise being rejected or discredited. The inconsistency is a work of art.

Everyone should read this: https://www.amazon.com/Rape-Mind-Psychology-Menticide-Brainw... — you will find an alarming number of parallels to our current situation.

Originally, i heard about it here[1]. You can read about the variability here[2]. But i would recommend searching for the raw data of the experiment, which i personally have not done. I would also recommend you read [3]. It is equally fascinating and horrifying. What is more, it is eerily prescient about where society has developed since Merloo wrote his book. To summarize (criminally), people do bad shit when they are forcefully conditioned to do so, and even then they fight back against this conditioning. You can hear it for yourself in the original recordings of the Milgram experiments; the actors tasked with being the "scientists" had to prod the subjects into doing the dirty. Make no mistake, i am a conservative that is deeply committed to the concept of the "fallen nature of man," rather, people are fundamentally flawed. We need very little assistance in acting selfishly. But history, science, and life is painfully clear: if you want to get people to hurt others without a selfishly motivated decision to do so, you have to work very hard.

[1]https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/180092-the-bad-show/ (~14:00) [2]https://www.npr.org/2013/08/28/209559002/taking-a-closer-loo... [3]https://www.amazon.com/Rape-Mind-Psychology-Menticide-Brainw...

I submitted this link to HN but didn't upload the text to archive.org. I was doing some research on marketing and advertising methods used by politicians in their campaign material (just general interest, no particular party or conspiracy theories).

I don't know which article linked to this text (I had opened many tabs as I was reading) but it appeared interesting enough for a submission to HN. It didn't generate any interest initially, but I received an email from HN that it appeared to be an interesting post and that I should submit it again, so I did.

The second post has made it to the front page and generated some discussion, I was going to post a link to the downloadable formats provided by archive.org, but after checking the archive.org page I see that the text is actually a published book [0] (1956, by Joost Meerloo (1903-1976)) uploaded by someone with an Obama conspiracy theory that may not have the permission to release the text to archive.org under a Creative Commons license (there are links from Wikipedia to other online versions).

There's a Wikipedia page for Joost Meerloo[1] with links to online versions of this and one other of his books - Delusion and Mass Delusion (Meerloo 1949) [2], the Wikipedia bibliography list some other interesting titles authored by Meerloo.

The book is available on Amazon (and goodreads.com) but the publisher (Progressive Press?) appears to have many conspiracy-related releases so I don't know how reputable they are.

[0] The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing (1956, by Joost Meerloo (1903-1976)) http://www.amazon.ca/The-Rape-Mind-Psychology-Brainwashing/d... http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6736285-the-rape-of-the-m...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joost_Meerloo

[2] http://www.lermanet.com/exit/mass-delusion-meerloo.htm