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The somewhat overt nature of this brings a question to mind: We know that our social networks have been invaded by foreign adversaries to sow chaos and divisio

The somewhat overt nature of this brings a question to mind: We know that our social networks have been invaded by foreign adversaries to sow chaos and division. Is there any research as to whether they've also sought to undermine us via promoting the degradation of our moral values as a society? At a minimum, it would reduce our moral standing in the world, and potentially produce a numbing to or higher tolerance for other types of moral deficiency in which they might seek to engage. In general, it would be demoralizing to see this constant stream of depravity in your own culture. Seems it would be potentially very effective and consistent with other lines of attack we've seen.

jerf 8y ago
Not much need to hypothesize, it's sourced to the point Wikipedia has an article on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures Wikipedia does not explicitly call out moral warfare, but if you keep Googling on that term you can find a lot of chatter about it, of various levels of veracity. It's only a baby step beyond what is very firmly established; I don't find it hard to believe.
- unclebucknasty 8y ago
  Yeah, I'm familiar with active measures in general. What you referenced is the well-publicized piece I mentioned. I'm specifically talking about the morality line of attack, and whether there is similarly well-documented/sourced discussion of same (that is, beyond random Googling for which results might also include disinformation).
  - jerf 8y ago
    There is stuff that passes my credibility filter for "probably true", and it comes up early in the web searches, specific statements about specific policies from first-hand sources of people in the relevant positions in the cold war, or at least I've seen no challenges that they aren't who they say they are. The people/entities who would publicize this and make it "officially official" have every motive in the world not to, so you're not going to find something like a 60 Minutes report on it or anything. (I think that for all the "officially official" sources casually commit lies of commission all the time, their true power is in the lies of omission.) I have to apologize for the vagueness, but the HN gestalt would not particularly care to examine the details of this matter too closely. It would result in... nontrivial cognitive dissonance.

jerf 8y ago

Not much need to hypothesize, it's sourced to the point Wikipedia has an article on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures Wikipedia does not explicitly call out moral warfare, but if you keep Googling on that term you can find a lot of chatter about it, of various levels of veracity. It's only a baby step beyond what is very firmly established; I don't find it hard to believe.

unclebucknasty 8y ago
Yeah, I'm familiar with active measures in general. What you referenced is the well-publicized piece I mentioned. I'm specifically talking about the morality line of attack, and whether there is similarly well-documented/sourced discussion of same (that is, beyond random Googling for which results might also include disinformation).
- jerf 8y ago
  There is stuff that passes my credibility filter for "probably true", and it comes up early in the web searches, specific statements about specific policies from first-hand sources of people in the relevant positions in the cold war, or at least I've seen no challenges that they aren't who they say they are. The people/entities who would publicize this and make it "officially official" have every motive in the world not to, so you're not going to find something like a 60 Minutes report on it or anything. (I think that for all the "officially official" sources casually commit lies of commission all the time, their true power is in the lies of omission.) I have to apologize for the vagueness, but the HN gestalt would not particularly care to examine the details of this matter too closely. It would result in... nontrivial cognitive dissonance.