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We aren't talking about some far-out concept like brainwashing, though. We are talking about information warfare, where information asymmetry is a battlefield a

by mrex 4y ago

We aren't talking about some far-out concept like brainwashing, though. We are talking about information warfare, where information asymmetry is a battlefield advantage. That's not a theoretical or far-out concept at all, it's here and now and we are seeing this information war playing out on the world stage every day!

toolz 4y ago
When you talk about spying on people to know everything about them in order to learn how to manipulate them, you're talking about brainwashing. Not the sci-fi concept of literally taking over their mind, but knowing everything, public and private, about someone and using that information to make them behave how you want them to behave is what I mean. Some politicians also kill their political opponents in order to secure their own political positions of power. This is also a political advantage. How far exactly should we cross ethical boundaries in order to secure these perceived advantages? I don't see any evidence that spying on people is a battlefield advantage. We already spy on people and we couldn't even stop 9/11. Further these low-tech ISIS-like groups have been successful all around the world even on high alert. So again, these theoretical advantages aren't amounting to anything, but the consequences couldn't be more apparent. The lack of trust between the governing and governed classes is abysmal. It's damn near impossible to do anything consequential in politics because no one trusts each other. These consequences are astoundingly more real to me than these shadowy threats that somehow are so advanced, yet the real-world attacks are nothing more than low-tech extremists hijacking airplanes with razor blades.
- mrex 4y ago
  >When you talk about spying on people to know everything about them in order to learn how to manipulate them, you're talking about brainwashing. That's a semantic debate that's neither here nor there. If that's what you consider brainwashing, fine, but that's here today and it's happening every day. Do you have any idea what credit reporting agencies know about you, your purchasing habits, your media consumption preferences, your politics, your medical history, your sex life? >I don't see any evidence that spying on people is a battlefield advantage. You don't? Well let me give you an example. Let's say there is a movement of individuals within a nation who are discontent about some specific policy or behavior of their government. First, intelligence would allow you to discover this fact. Then it would allow you to research and profile the individuals who you've identified in this group, and refine your search parameters to identify likely candidates to recruit. It would also help you to refine messaging, giving you instant feedback about the virality of trial balloons you floated. Using these tools, you don't see how domestic unrest could be created?
  - toolz 4y ago
    That's a hypothetical, not an example. An example would be "US has been worried for years that Russia has been influencing US politics, now we see Russia invade Ukraine and US supports Russia" Instead, what do we actually see? We see people claiming for years that Russia has been influencing US politics, yes the US has contributed more than the entirety of the european union combined to aid Ukraine in war efforts. In fact, some accounting suggests the US has donated more to Ukraine than Russia has spent on the war itself. So where are these examples of successful spying/data turned into action or battlefield advantages? There's certainly no shortage of spying.
    - mrex 4y ago
      https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/NCO-Journal/Archives/2018/July/Washington-Spies/ https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/NCO-Journal/Archive...
      - toolz 4y ago
        I don't see any correlation between spies as agents and spying on your own people. If Washington would have spied on his own people he probably would've been worse off by wasting those resources and sowing discord. Further, we already spy on our own people and we can't even stop low-tech orchestrated attacks that involved men who trained to fly, but skipped landing lessons and hijacked planes with box cutters.
        mrex 4y ago
        >I don't see any correlation between spies as agents and spying on your own people. Well now that doesn't make any sense. If you spy on the other side, and they spy on you, but you don't spy on you, then how do you know what they know? Or what they want to know but don't yet? Information is the currency of warfare. If the other side is in our OODA loop, they're going to shape our decisions at a tempo we can't respond to.

by mrex 4y ago

toolz 4y ago

When you talk about spying on people to know everything about them in order to learn how to manipulate them, you're talking about brainwashing. Not the sci-fi concept of literally taking over their mind, but knowing everything, public and private, about someone and using that information to make them behave how you want them to behave is what I mean. Some politicians also kill their political opponents in order to secure their own political positions of power. This is also a political advantage. How far exactly should we cross ethical boundaries in order to secure these perceived advantages? I don't see any evidence that spying on people is a battlefield advantage. We already spy on people and we couldn't even stop 9/11. Further these low-tech ISIS-like groups have been successful all around the world even on high alert. So again, these theoretical advantages aren't amounting to anything, but the consequences couldn't be more apparent. The lack of trust between the governing and governed classes is abysmal. It's damn near impossible to do anything consequential in politics because no one trusts each other. These consequences are astoundingly more real to me than these shadowy threats that somehow are so advanced, yet the real-world attacks are nothing more than low-tech extremists hijacking airplanes with razor blades.

mrex 4y ago
>When you talk about spying on people to know everything about them in order to learn how to manipulate them, you're talking about brainwashing. That's a semantic debate that's neither here nor there. If that's what you consider brainwashing, fine, but that's here today and it's happening every day. Do you have any idea what credit reporting agencies know about you, your purchasing habits, your media consumption preferences, your politics, your medical history, your sex life? >I don't see any evidence that spying on people is a battlefield advantage. You don't? Well let me give you an example. Let's say there is a movement of individuals within a nation who are discontent about some specific policy or behavior of their government. First, intelligence would allow you to discover this fact. Then it would allow you to research and profile the individuals who you've identified in this group, and refine your search parameters to identify likely candidates to recruit. It would also help you to refine messaging, giving you instant feedback about the virality of trial balloons you floated. Using these tools, you don't see how domestic unrest could be created?
- toolz 4y ago
  That's a hypothetical, not an example. An example would be "US has been worried for years that Russia has been influencing US politics, now we see Russia invade Ukraine and US supports Russia" Instead, what do we actually see? We see people claiming for years that Russia has been influencing US politics, yes the US has contributed more than the entirety of the european union combined to aid Ukraine in war efforts. In fact, some accounting suggests the US has donated more to Ukraine than Russia has spent on the war itself. So where are these examples of successful spying/data turned into action or battlefield advantages? There's certainly no shortage of spying.
  - mrex 4y ago
    https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/NCO-Journal/Archives/2018/July/Washington-Spies/ https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/NCO-Journal/Archive...
    - toolz 4y ago
      I don't see any correlation between spies as agents and spying on your own people. If Washington would have spied on his own people he probably would've been worse off by wasting those resources and sowing discord. Further, we already spy on our own people and we can't even stop low-tech orchestrated attacks that involved men who trained to fly, but skipped landing lessons and hijacked planes with box cutters.
      - mrex 4y ago
        >I don't see any correlation between spies as agents and spying on your own people. Well now that doesn't make any sense. If you spy on the other side, and they spy on you, but you don't spy on you, then how do you know what they know? Or what they want to know but don't yet? Information is the currency of warfare. If the other side is in our OODA loop, they're going to shape our decisions at a tempo we can't respond to.