The Havana Syndrome

Why delete this banger pic.twitter.com/u6KuuMU8oG

— yoshi 🎃 (spooky arc) (@NotBanned_) October 21, 2021

The credulity of the media on the directed microwave theory has been pretty hilarious

Given their role to breathlessly reprint any press release about cops or troops, it just follows that they’d worship spooks, too.

tbf those are the only three things the richest nation the world has ever known is allowed to spend money on

Will repost what I wrote on the main politics thread:

I haven't done a deep dive into Havana Syndrome, but I've read articles in credible publications (for instance, this New Yorker article from a few months ago) that basically take the stance of "huh, this is really weird, and there still doesn't seem to be a good explanation for it." So that's basically where my head is at, and I don't really understand the jump to "this is obviously fake," regardless of how one feels about the CIA. (That said, I also don't think that individuals who work for the CIA are inherently and objectively bad or untrustworthy or undeserving of sympathy.)

― jaymc, Wednesday, October 20, 2021 11:10 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I think there is an interesting discussion to be had around this, but it clearly isn't going to happen here.

i don't know what inherently and objectively bad means (i mean i think the CIA is objectively bad and no one should choose to work there but this isn't CIA workers: C/D) but being untrustworthy is what the CIA is, for that reason i believe this differs from the fibromyalgia thing.

I already look like a total ass enough of the time that I don't need to make myself look like more of an ass by coming down hard on either side of this issue I barely know anything about. If some kind of invisible headache ray existed and enemies of America wanted to use it to destabilize domestic or foreign policy, it seems like diplomats and CIA workers would be a solid choice in terms of access if nothing else. And that people thinking they were crazy for going public with weird + inexplicable symptoms would just be a fringe benefit. But also if monkeys were able to fly, they might fly out of my butt. So I'll maintain my agnosticism.

it's reasonable to be agnostic. i don't think there's any way to get valid information on topics relating to the CIA as the events are going on. for the TRUTH you have to wait 50 years for a small press to put out a weird book on it that sells 2000 copies!

To be clear, I think there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the CIA as an institution and of any public claims that it puts forward. I don't think that people who choose to work there are irredeemably bad people.

Yeah, it's a shitty org and I'm certainly no defender but the fact that you even need to say that is more about the increasing insistence 'round these parts that everyone pass some sort of Manichaean purity test than anything else.

Sorry, what I meant to say is that that person who's working as an entry-level receptionist for the CIA is going to burn in the literal fires of hell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6UlXZxch-A

Heh, DO U SEE?

If not:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFFr2BIft-c

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71+eKpVNkxL._SY445_.jpg

I have no idea if any of this is true, but I think it's only being taken so seriously due to diplomats and CIA people being the "victims". Most other people would have just gotten a "ha ha bullshit" response, like with gang-stalking.

for me, initially, it didn’t help that it sounded concocted in a tv writers room specifically to give Morning Jocephus and Zbigniew Brzezinski’s bird-brained kid the vapors

The USA being the country that spends more on defense (i.e. offense) than any other country by orders of magnitude, if anyone has an invisible headache gun, it's us.

We overinvested in wet-the-bed rays

the increasing insistence 'round these parts that everyone pass some sort of Manichaean purity test than anything else.

How? Absolutely no one has been taken to task for being more amenable to the potential goodness of CIA spooks or caring about them.

(Whereas you are basically equivalent to racist doctors if you think the idea of a headache cannon aimed at an organization dedicated to doing evil is something to joke about.)

"the idea of a headache cannon aimed at an organization dedicated to doing evil"

Definitely approaching it with an open mind, I see.

lol literally anyone who works for the cia is a fucking piece of shit, come on, we dont need to ted lasso this one

your mom works for the cia

Definitely approaching it with an open mind, I see.

You got me, I do not have an open mind as to the merit and morality of the CIA.

cia is cool if you just ignore everything they've ever done

The last 70 years were an aberration.

it's a very hard manichaean purity test to pass: just don't work at the torture/assassination place

they're just trying to teach people how to cook, what's so evil about that?

"I am unapologetically me. I want you to be unapologetically you, whoever you are. Whether you work at #CIA, or anywhere else in the world. Command your space. Mija, you are worth it."

lol i have been thinking of that for the past 24 hours

So some CIA officers were in tears during the torture sessions. That's not weakness. It's humanity. Too bad others didn't share it.

— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) December 9, 2014

goddamn i'd almost forgotten about that

xpost

You got me, I do not have an open mind as to the merit and morality of the CIA.

― papal hotwife (milo z), Thursday, October 21, 2021 3:44 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

But we're not talking about "the merit and the morality of the CIA" as an institution. We're talking about """"""Havana Syndrome."""""

Which is being promoted by the CIA with the stated cause being foreign enemies with headache cannon, yes.

If it was black mold in the torture showers or high-VOC paint it wouldn’t be news. If it was just a “huh, that’s interesting that a bunch of spooks have headaches” it would be a single blog post on Foreign Policy and not legislation for sanctions and giving the CIA more money.

As such, the idea of “Havana Syndrome” is not worth taking seriously, no.

If you don’t think Russia has a headache cannon, then you also disagree with the existence of Havana Syndrome.

It's news because the origin is mysterious and unknown, and that does seem worth investigating, IMO.

I don't know if Russia has a "headache cannon." What makes you so sure that it doesn't, apart from the fact that "headache cannon" is a silly way to dismiss the weapon theory?

Anyway, keep up, Milo, we're calling it """""""Havana Syndrome""""""" (widely reported phenomenon under discussion ITT) to distinguish it from "Havana Syndrome" (specific set of CIA claims about the phenomenon).

lol literally anyone who works for the cia is a fucking piece of shit, come on, we dont need to ted lasso this one

― adam, Thursday, October 21, 2021 3:40 PM (forty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Can't imagine ever coming around to this position, but then again, I'm the guy who started a thread pushing back on the idea that people of high status and/or material wealth are necessarily irredeemable and deserve to burn in hell.

hat makes you so sure that it doesn't

For the same reason I don’t believe Jesus and dinosaurs existed simultaneously.

Because there’s no good reason to believe such weapons exist and can be deployed secretly.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/05/10/microwave-attacks-havana-syndrome-scientifically-implausible/

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/danvergano/havana-syndrome-jason-crickets

It’s a psychosomatic illness being used to promote the interests of the CIA and foreign policy hawks. As mass hysteria is wont to do, the more it’s promoted, the wider the phenomenon becomes. This we have 5G conspiracy nuts who are now being targeted by leave-behind GRU cells in Tucson.

widely reported phenomenon

By whom and in what context?

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It’s a psychosomatic illness

I initially thought this as well, but now having my doubts. Delusions don't show up on MRIs afaik

So a bunch of reporting on American spook claims of weapons being used by enemies? Not sure what your point was then?

Delusions don't show up on MRIs afaik

(Note, I didn't say delusions.) Yes! Psychosomatic illnesses (and schizophrenia and depression and etc.) can have effects visible on a MRI.

if I ever found myself being defensive towards people who work for the CIA and defending the honour of the rich. That's the day I'm going to fucking top myself. Anyway I think Havana Syndrome is a load of bollocks. The author who wrote the book on it is a bullshit merchant/grifter. Every person I've ever heard interviewed and talking up this up on BBC WS is either ex-CIA or some fucking variety of centrist media ghoul.

Feel like this thread is suffering from cross purposes wrt the headache cannons.

Perhaps we should leave this thread for discussion of symptoms and moral/ethical issues of punking CIA employees and have a separate thread for discussion of the existence and moral/ethical issues involved in headache cannons.

Headache Cannons: C/D, anyone?

Sounds like something I would've drunk in high school

Headache Cannons sound like the Mickey's Wide Mouth of CIA death rays.

Therefore CLASSIC

Is this the thread for the Paul Simenon solo project from 1990.

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/sung-tieu-art-basel-miami-beach-havana-syndrome-1234648478/

Evidence that Havana Syndrome exists

For many of the years I was at CIA, I included this MLK quote as part of my email header:

“Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience ask the question, is it right? (1/2)

— Gail Helt (@ghelt) January 16, 2023

maybe they were the resistance inside the company

honestly no worse than the "he was a Republican, you know" crowd

shocking news

Scoop: A long-awaited report by the US intel community concludes ‘Havana Syndrome’ was not caused by an energy weapon or foreign adversary, shattering a widespread theory that a secret device debilitated scores of spies & diplomats. By @shaneharris & me https://t.co/EkxPx8c1u1

— John Hudson (@John_Hudson) March 1, 2023

Turns out it was caused by trans people waving pieces of paper with the word fentanyl written on them out the window in the direction of US embassies.

it is caused by a car driving by going burbbhrbhbbhbburbbb

I can't believe you used that word unperson, I clicked open this thread and immediately saw four cops fall down on the sidewalk across the street.

Tell-Tale Heart Syndrome doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Havana Syndrome opens your third eye and allows you to project into the astral realm lol https://t.co/b2ZN7hnhkf pic.twitter.com/uYG1XjdQKT

— Robert Skvarla (@RobertSkvarla) April 10, 2023

god some fucking prog band is totally going to write a concept album about this

I don't even know if I'm annoyed or excited about that

I kind of liked that movie when it was released as The Men Who Stare at Goats

in lounge in dad's nursing home and History Channel is basically doing a special on Havana Syndrome which uncritically accepts it as a real thing.

Have opted not to turn it off because it's bringing lols

havana syndrome is real but it is actually caused by watching the history channel

yeah it was weird, as soon as the History channel came on, my bowels evacuated.

I tried to apologize but they just assured me they'd have the spaghetti luncheon on Thursday instead

60 Minutes is doing a report on Havana Syndrome right now. Turns out Russia did it.

Details on the 60 Minutes story.

I’m skeptical! 😂

https://assets1.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2024/03/31/11c1df63-cf41-402d-a138-7d61004dac26/thumbnail/1240x698/18fce29c6f81c421f6d18f00eb7a49c5/targeting-americans-video.jpg?v=3d62f4cc0092e6eb151a9685301ed284

Does she have to wear that wig because the Russian mystery ray made her head swell up, or something?

She has Patricia Arquette Syndrome

At the same time, she said, the battery in her phone began to swell until it broke the case.

So the cricket ray is blowing up batteries now?

A battery swelled! I’m convinced!

so if none of this is true does Russia even want to make a denial about this err no

I'm not going to read a bunch of suggestive theories. Are they explaining it through voodoo or have they discovered a cause that has some respectable physics behind it?

One guy supposedly found a Russian ledger line where they paid a guy a consulting fee for something so clearly the headache ray is real and Putin done did it.

My poke place has 60 Minutes on every Sunday I’ve been in, not sure what stories they run anymore beyond China or Russia fearmongering.

Has their reporting been off?

Well, their big story tonight being complete conspiracy-addled nonsense points to “not great” on the reporting side. Depends on how often you check under the bed for Red Chinese operatives undermining America I guess.

I've seen enough "blow things up in a microwave" youtube to know that Li-ion batteries burst into flames when bombarded with microwaves. Swollen battery syndrome is apparently rare, but can be related to not fully discharging the battery enough and overcharging it. I still think this is a load of bollox.

cockney putin: "just havana bubble mate"

hergé was a mole:

https://i.imgur.com/zK9aBu5.png

Meanwhile, a new study apparently contradicts the brain injury findings from 2018.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-with-havana-syndrome-show-no-brain-damage-or-medical-illness/

Battery swelling is increasingly rare, but it was relatively common when this occurred.

I’d also bet that most swelling comes from manufacturing defects rather than discharging.

yeesh that 60 minutes article… is George Noory on the case?

"There is, in my view, without a doubt, evidence of a cover up. Now, some of that cover up is not necessarily that, 'oh, we found a weapon,'" Zaid said. "What I've seen more so is, 'we see lines of inquiry that would take us potentially to answers we don't want to have to deal with, so we're not going to explore any of those avenues.'"

This is the most incredible motte-and-bailey.

"There's a cover-up." "By that I mean that someone somewhere isn't taking something seriously."