Hearts and Minds

[Verbal Mike]

Lying to the people is as old as government. Treating your citizens as potential enemies is relatively new. It was technologically impossible until not long ago.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

Are you kidding me?  Do you not know what "decimate" actually means?

[Verbal Mike]

Touché.

[Cain]

Are you kidding me?  Do you not know what "decimate" actually means?

Yeah, its a military punishment for cowardice in battle.  It also doesn't in any way impact on Clausewitz's troika of war*, which is was pretty much the understanding of war from the Peace of Westphalia up until the present and certainly within the liberal nation-state context.  What I am talking about destroys the conception of the troika, and thus the idea of a bounded war with identifiable sides.


*The government, military and people as seperate constituent parts.  Each major revolution in warfare since the Thirty Years War has broken down the distinction between these divisions and their role. 

[Cain]

Surely 'psyops' is just the latest version of something thats always been with us, since the dawn of communication and society? After all, slandering your rivals and attempting to break the morale of enemies isnt very new. Loved the rant, just wondering whether you meant to imply it is a modern phenomenon.

Also, what would 'winning' look like, to all you mentioning it?

Well, the difference is that the conception of "enemy" has expanded to include the ostensibly friendly civilian population that the army and government in theory are meant to protect.  That's the major difference.  It elevates the concept of a battlefield even further than the conception of terrorism does.  The battlefield becomes the individual psychology of every individual, not just those bearing arms or supporting those who bear arms against the government of the day.  Its a combination of thoughtcrime and the reversal of the social contract, all in one.

And that is a very different thing to carrying out traditional psychological operations.  They're direct inward and against people with dissenting opinions, as official policy.

I wonder how often it is, that these sorts of things are truly new... or just new in the sense that someone found a label and definition for it?

It seems to me, and I'd have to dig through my brain for some history class ... but either the Romans or the Ottoman or one of those early AD nations were using psyops on their own people... telling them everything was fine and they were winning, all the while the hordes were chewing through the empire.

I also thought that at one point in British history, there was something very similar... maybe during the Tudor reign (suspecting internal people of Catholicism and revolt etc)? I don't remember well and will have to look it up.

True, I'm not claiming that clamping down on dissent and propaganda are new things.

I'm talking about the shift to these as military issues - that the mind of the individual is now the 'battlefield' itself.  In your examples, the support was considered a necessary condition towards destroying the enemy, but the point was to garner support for an attack on such and such an enemy - it was not the end in and of itself.  The enemy wasn't a mindset that could be held by anyone, which seems to be the case now.  Usually, such thoughtcrime came under the jusridiction of political or theological repression, which are, I believe, qualatively different.  I'm sure it makes little difference to those on the recieving end of such treatment, but I think there are structural implications (which I am still working out) which make it worth noting and excepting from these previous categories.

[Verbal Mike]

[Dalek]

 
Very, very good. I really enjoyed reading this

[Brotep]

True, I'm not claiming that clamping down on dissent and propaganda are new things.

I'm talking about the shift to these as military issues - that the mind of the individual is now the 'battlefield' itself.  In your examples, the support was considered a necessary condition towards destroying the enemy, but the point was to garner support for an attack on such and such an enemy - it was not the end in and of itself.  The enemy wasn't a mindset that could be held by anyone, which seems to be the case now.  Usually, such thoughtcrime came under the jusridiction of political or theological repression, which are, I believe, qualatively different.  I'm sure it makes little difference to those on the recieving end of such treatment, but I think there are structural implications (which I am still working out) which make it worth noting and excepting from these previous categories.

Well...That's all very romantic and whatnot, but I prefer to think of this in terms of the fact we're all apes.

The leader always wants to have the support of the group--as power comes from the group.  If members of the group oppose (heh, or do not support) the leader, they are enemies.

This "battlefield of the mind" business also comes off a bit paranoid.  Sure, there are plenty out there trying to influence the way we think, but imo blind consumerism is often more dangerous to critical thinking than government propaganda.

[Captain Utopia]

How much of this do you think comes down to individual intent vs ideological ramifications? I mean, pretty much everyone I've come across considers themselves to be "one of the good guys" - sometimes abstracted in the "greater good" ideology sense, sometimes in the helping out in the soup-kitchen sense.

It seems like the greatest lesson we got from the 2003 invasion of Iraq was that we have reached a point where it is no longer practical to take a country by force - communications technology helps people to solidify their will and organise. The US seemed more interested in rebuilding Iraqs telecommunications infrastructure rather than controlling it. Conversely, I think it's no accident that the Basij targeted computers and the network - although they couldn't disable the network altogether since so much of the economy now relies upon it.

Iran is more subject to individual intent in the guise of an ideology - blame all Muslims! The US more like an ideology in the guise of individual intent - blame Bush!

It is a lot easier to enact ruthless policies when you are Iran, rather than when you are the US, because an ideology cannot think for itself. It came close with Cheney's personal death squad, but then doesn't the fact that we can talk about it openly, show it to be an aberration rather than the rule?

This piece reminded me a little of "A Clarification" (Intermittens #1, p30), where TGRR seemed to be describing pushback in a literal sense with a PsyOps department actively planning rehabilitation for thought-crime. Is there any reason or evidence to think that shouldn't be considered just in a hyperbolic sense?

As Anton just said, blind consumerism seems to me to be an ideology which is more dangerous than any individual could hope to be. It can lobby governments to help it gain more control, and cajole nations into wars they neither "need" nor have "reason" to wage. Is there any reason to expend our paranoia sights beyond that?

[Captain Utopia]

Er. That really wasn't as clear as I would have hoped, so I'll try again listing my premises, and that might make it easier to see where I'm detaching from logic.

• Ideologies thrive in various mediums of communication
• Successful ideologies used to be those which could be replicated accurately over time - e.g. holy text, repeated prayer/ritual
• One successful replication strategy is to reward accuracy
• Now ideologies can be revised and reconsidered as fast as you can twitter
• Communications technology is a cat-out-of-the-bag scenario
• It has become very cheap to create an ideology with our communications technology, and such "group action" can be quickly organised with all individuals who share a common interest. e.g. #amazonfail from a few months back
• The major weakness of a static ideology is that it can be attacked by a less ritualistic ideology which is free to redefine its methods at will
• The Spoils of War decrease as the ability of a population to communicate increases
• In this environment War inevitably turns from the physical to the ideological
• Hypocrisy and conspiracy both become a lot harder to conceal
• The ability of a Government to conspire against any section of its people (assuming a clear motivation exists) is diminished
• Ideologies are harder to subvert/control when their power is decentralised
• With the ability to collectively extinguish ideologies when they become less useful, the ideologies which give individuals motivations to uphold them will last longer
• Consumerism is one such ideology - decentralised and full of motivation - old-school and predictable
• But ideologies still think slowly - we shouldn't mistake the map for the territory - they can be defeated when they are predictable

?

[Cain]

Well...That's all very romantic and whatnot, but I prefer to think of this in terms of the fact we're all apes.

The leader always wants to have the support of the group--as power comes from the group.  If members of the group oppose (heh, or do not support) the leader, they are enemies.

This "battlefield of the mind" business also comes off a bit paranoid.  Sure, there are plenty out there trying to influence the way we think, but imo blind consumerism is often more dangerous to critical thinking than government propaganda.

You know, I had considered doing a rant recently on people who think their bien-pensant cynicism is clever, but isn't actually a replacement for knowledge on a particular subject, however I now see it would be redundant, in light of your post.

To put it more clearly: you know absolutely nothing about the history of military-civilian relations, or, if you do, then this knowledge is severely lacking from your post.

[Cain]

Er. That really wasn't as clear as I would have hoped, so I'll try again listing my premises, and that might make it easier to see where I'm detaching from logic.

• Ideologies thrive in various mediums of communication
• Successful ideologies used to be those which could be replicated accurately over time - e.g. holy text, repeated prayer/ritual
• One successful replication strategy is to reward accuracy
• Now ideologies can be revised and reconsidered as fast as you can twitter
• Communications technology is a cat-out-of-the-bag scenario
• It has become very cheap to create an ideology with our communications technology, and such "group action" can be quickly organised with all individuals who share a common interest. e.g. #amazonfail from a few months back
• The major weakness of a static ideology is that it can be attacked by a less ritualistic ideology which is free to redefine its methods at will
• The Spoils of War decrease as the ability of a population to communicate increases
• In this environment War inevitably turns from the physical to the ideological
• Hypocrisy and conspiracy both become a lot harder to conceal
• The ability of a Government to conspire against any section of its people (assuming a clear motivation exists) is diminished
• Ideologies are harder to subvert/control when their power is decentralised
• With the ability to collectively extinguish ideologies when they become less useful, the ideologies which give individuals motivations to uphold them will last longer
• Consumerism is one such ideology - decentralised and full of motivation - old-school and predictable
• But ideologies still think slowly - we shouldn't mistake the map for the territory - they can be defeated when they are predictable

?

Most of them seem dead on, but I'll pick out a few I have trouble with.

The Spoils of War decrease as the ability of a population to communicate increases

AFAIK, the spoils of war decrease as the complexity of a particular economic system increases.  Now communication does play a role in organizing and regimenting a population, but I wouldn't say it is a simple cause and effect relationship, and would consider the communication side as ancillary to the problems of actually organizing labour and interfacing with the international markets as an invading power.

The ability of a Government to conspire against any section of its people (assuming a clear motivation exists) is diminished

Again, I'm not so sure about that.  The hypocrisy and corruption you mention before may be harder to conceal, but it is easier to excuse, under the blanket of ideology.  Therefore I would see no reason why conspiracy would decrease, only that the popular definitions of what is considered a conspiracy would change to make it appear less so.

Ideologies are harder to subvert/control when their power is decentralised

#
# With the ability to collectively extinguish ideologies when they become less useful, the ideologies which give individuals motivations to uphold them will last longer

This is true.  But the phenomenon of decentralized authoritarianism, as in China, or most feudal states, suggest this runs both ways, ie that it doesn't necessarily work to the benefit of the individual.

[Captain Utopia]

The Spoils of War decrease as the ability of a population to communicate increases

AFAIK, the spoils of war decrease as the complexity of a particular economic system increases.  Now communication does play a role in organizing and regimenting a population, but I wouldn't say it is a simple cause and effect relationship, and would consider the communication side as ancillary to the problems of actually organizing labour and interfacing with the international markets as an invading power.

Cause and correlation often confuse me. From the printing press to the telephone to the networked computer - these all seem to allow for an increase in the potential complexity of an economic system, in ways which is hard to imagine occurring without those particular communication technologies.

But I was aiming more along the lines of being able to instigate a popular demonstration over twitter from just one minute with a mobile phone, is in some ways more powerful than a dictator being able to take control of the radio waves or state television stations. One-to-many, the communication strategy which dominated so much of the last century seems to be threatened by the many-to-many communication model which has only just been made feasible.

I confess to being a bit of a technophile, so please smack me down if my bias shows through too much here.

The ability of a Government to conspire against any section of its people (assuming a clear motivation exists) is diminished

Again, I'm not so sure about that.  The hypocrisy and corruption you mention before may be harder to conceal, but it is easier to excuse, under the blanket of ideology.  Therefore I would see no reason why conspiracy would decrease, only that the popular definitions of what is considered a conspiracy would change to make it appear less so.

True. I guess I am optimistic that many voices and many ears allow for the rapid amplification of ideas - good and bad - but that good ideas seem to spread more successfully as they are more resistant to direct attack. Assuming there's no artificial restriction of knowledge of course, but that does become harder to enforce.

Ideologies are harder to subvert/control when their power is decentralised

#
# With the ability to collectively extinguish ideologies when they become less useful, the ideologies which give individuals motivations to uphold them will last longer

This is true.  But the phenomenon of decentralized authoritarianism, as in China, or most feudal states, suggest this runs both ways, ie that it doesn't necessarily work to the benefit of the individual.

A lot of Chinese do seem unhappy with the way China is governed. But there are a lot of Chinese. I guess it's difficult to get accurate statistics (?) on this, but is it possible that more of the Chinese people enjoy their life, than dislike it? I know very little about geopolitics so this is a genuine, rather than smart-arse, question - I just saw a few documentaries on China and I was puzzled why most of the people in the crowds seemed genuinely happy rather than rattling the chains of authoritarian rule. They didn't seem aware of the camera for the most part, so it didn't come across as acting.

[Cain]

I'll agree there is potential....but we also have to remember than most protests do achieve very little.  An analysis by John Robb (http://www.globalguerrillas.typepad.com/) suggests most modern day protests only work when they target vital economic sites - for instance, the Iraq War mobilised a million people in the UK, who paraded up and down a few streets and then went home.  It achieved nothing.  In Thailand, pro-democracy protestors took over the airport, barricaded main roads leading to banks and corporate headquarters, and looked like they were getting ready to raid government offices when the coup conceded to some of their demands.  The threat was wiping billions off their share prices and making foreign investors nervous, they had little choice but to stop them, as quickly as possible.

Apart from France and Greece, it seems most of the western world is locked into a "procedural" mindset of protesting, that if you protest, you've done "everything you could" and are now morally absolved for what happens next, even if you failed.  Its become a ritual and routine, and so has lost its power, the power being the fear of a mass movement that could bring down a government.  There would need to be a paradigm shift as well as the technology, I feel, to help bring about the potential of the tech you mention.

For China, many people are happy because the regime offers economic and physical security.  If you are guaranteed a job, and can walk the streets without the possibility of being mugged, does it really matter that elections are a sham and that the top leadership is kinda corrupt?  In good times, people are willing to overlook a lot (to use another UK analogy - MP expenses didn't become an issue until we were in a massive recession).  Also, because China controls a lot of what its people get exposed to, there isn't a groundswell of anger about, say crushing the protests in Tianneman Square or the like, because they literally don't know it happened.  China is authoritarian...but that usually only touches a minority of the population in an overtly negative way (secret police, religious crackdowns etc), and so there is no real popular support for a change.

[Captain Utopia]

There would need to be a paradigm shift as well as the technology, I feel, to help bring about the potential of the tech you mention.

Absolutely. I think you've highlighted something I was missing before - it wasn't the invention of the printing press or telephone or computer that created a revolution, but rather the new ways of communicating which were enabled by those technologies, that came some time after.

A critical point about the protests from my perspective - and I agree with you on the absolution of responsibility angle - is that comparing the civil rights movement to say, the London Iraq War protests, seems to fit the pattern of any emergent system over time. A lot of people caring a little is now equivalent to a few people caring a lot. Because authorities and riot police are now less dumb (beat 'em all down!) and more media-aware, there's less chance of escalation and so less change for popular outrage to build which would result in a lot of people caring a lot.

Is that to suggest that if riot police in the 60's had been exposed to the modern training methods then the world would look very different today? Possibly. I guess though that this is just a less articulate echo of the "continual battle" aspect of your original post - strategies lose effectiveness once the target adapts to them - so it's imperative to devise new strategies.

A neat trick would seem to be to take the ability to engage a large audience, and give them a simple and easy option to participate (even easier than going on a protest march) which is more permanent and harder to ignore, while being able to protect any members should the target try to seek out a weak link/divide&conquer. I have a few ideas along those lines although I haven't finished developing them yet.

I find the Metagovernment project interesting, especially one of the offshoots Votorola. The idea of proxy/rolloff voting seems to hold the potential of lending weight to an issue you might not care about fully, but can spend grunt-level energy on from time to time. E.g. you might say that out of your group of friends Sally knows and cares most about environmental issues, so you may "proxy" those issues to her, and listen to her input on the issue above random sources. But it would give her a potential base to draw from if she needed some "group action", and presumably she'd in turn be proxying different sub-topics between other sources.

The broad scope is to replace some/all forms of Governance, but I think it may see some utility in less static organisations first. For example, right now Nigel may post a thread if she wants to get something done about a handcrafty troll - and that's definitely a better organisation tool than what was available before digital forums existed - but users creating networks of dynamic proxies is one way this technology could be used to filter out excess content and help focus attention in more useful/less random ways.