I had a request for more info on the book "Coercive Persuasion". written by Edgar H. Schein. "a socio-psychological analysis of the 'brainwashing' of American civilian prisoners by the Chinese Communists". c 1961 WW Norton & CO, Inc this book was written in 1961 when the word "brainwashing" had just been invented. the American prisoners came back from China saying that they believed in communism and that they knew they were "spies" when they were not, etc. considers the link between social situation and beliefs and shows that the former has tremendous effect on people's philosophies. the Chinese had pretty much perfected all the techniques of getting people to change their beliefs without necessarily the overt methods of totalitarian systems such as torture, suppression of free speech etc. in fact they tended to create systems in which speech was encouraged, but was subtly manipulated so that it was always used in their favor. again, as I wrote: thought control without the subject realizing it was thought control. this is especially dangerous in cyberspace as I mentioned because one now has all kinds of "virtual communities" that may not behave in the same ways that communities now do (such as widespread use of pseudonymity) and hence have unanticipated effects.