• WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Can anyone translate this into Dummy please? What is it doing, according to that patent?

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s measuring resistance, just like a multimeter can. Basically, it’s measuring how “difficult” it is for electricity to reach from A to B. High quality wire will have low resistance, while something like rubber has a very high resistance. This is basically just measuring resistance and moving a needle back and forth on a meter. It’s an Electrical Engineering 101 class project.

      • johnthedoe@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        What makes certain people have different measurements? I assume that’s what they’re after in the cult to determine who goes where

        • comrade19@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Our skin layer is about the worst conductor of our bodies but if you have wet salty skin you’ll show a higher reading. Maybe that’s all the data they need. Maybe they’re onto something

          • CosmicTurtle@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            This goes a step further though.

            Because they are questioning you while “on the cans”, your skin’s electrical conductivity will change naturally even if being completely honest. These momentary blips will cause the person conducting the interview to ask you more personal, more intimate questions, with the goal of you over sharing.

            Basically they use the flawed technology that is the lie detector and based an entire religion around it.

            Honestly not a bad idea, if I’m being completely honest and devoid of human empathy.

      • cheese_greater@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Isn’t there a name for bullshit devices that produce some ouput that has no bearing on what is being tested? Like that device Dee and Charlie use when they are in the superberry MLM on Sunny in Philadelphia. Like, its snake oil but I thought there was a word for that kind of thing.

    • ElleChaise@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      It’s like a voltmeter set to resistance mode. It can detect small changes in electrical energy and show that change on a meter that moves right for higher resistance, and left for lower resistance. In other words, it’s a bunch o’ bull crap.

      • m_r_butts@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Measuring galvanic skin resistance isn’t bullshit. But it’s certainly not telling them what they claim it does.

        Devices of that type are usually advertised to consumers as biofeedback machines and used for detecting autonomic sympathetic arousal to train the user to control anxiety.

        Because of the harsh consequences in Scientology of failing an auditing session, Scientologists also to learn to control their responses when they’re on a meter. In effect, users can train themselves to lie to it. This is how they end up with those stares that are somehow both intense and vacant.

        • Bizarroland@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Taking it as an abstract, I could see how that would be an incredible tool for building a cohesive unit of people.

          I’ve read the Dianetics book because when I was a kid I would see the ads and I was like oh that’s interesting and then I found a copy out of thrift store.

          Dianetics offers you you know your maximum human mental potential and freedom from all of your psychosomatic and psychological illnesses. No anxiety, no schizophrenia, no bipolar disorder, no lying to yourself about anything.

          And on the surface that seems good but you know obviously if it were actually capable of unlocking human potential it would now be standard course in American education.

          But you put all of that aside and think about it from a different angle, and what you have is a machine that measures anxiety and a person you’re telling all of your deepest darkest secrets and fears to, and you repeat the Dianetics process until you have told every single thing that you can think of about your entire life to another person.

          And at that point, you’re no longer anxious around that person, so the e-meter says that you have reached “clear”.

          Now you’re surrounded with people who know all of your deepest darkest secrets and fears and completely and totally accept you as long as you adhere to their society’s rules.

          It’s very fascinating, I couldn’t imagine a better way to build a cult than with a system like that.